Who Killed Scott Guy? (2 page)

It’s almost certain he would have died instantly, the wound to his neck being so grave he could never have survived it. Police speculate that after firing the shots, the killer walked forward and stood over Scott, beside his head, to see if he was dead. Satisfied, the killer then turned and fled, while Scott’s blood slowly flowed into the footprints they left behind.

For more than two hours Scott’s body lay there unnoticed, the Hilux still idling, the lights still illuminating the macrocarpa windbreak across the road like a movie projector after the film has run out.

Just before 7 am, truck driver David Berry walked out of his house on Aorangi Road on his way to work, carting stock to the freezing works. It was still dark and, as Berry headed to his truck, he noticed the headlights of Scott’s ute shining down his driveway 300 metres away and wondered what his neighbour was up to. Berry kicked the truck’s tyres, filled in his logbook, then started up the 44-tonne Volvo and headed slowly up the road, letting the engine warm up. As he passed Scott’s drive at 293 Aorangi Road, he was momentarily blinded by the headlights but then suddenly picked out Scott’s boots on the driveway and the outline of a body. Berry slammed on his brakes so hard that tyre marks were left on the road as he skidded to a stop. Backing up as fast as he could, Berry saw Scott lying there and immediately thought he must have been knocked over when shifting stock. But as he leapt out of his truck and ran over to Scott, he saw the blood and realised it was something much more serious. Kneeling down, Berry felt for a pulse on Scott’s neck, but though his eyes were open, his skin was cold and it was clear he was dead.

At 7.08 am Berry punched 111 into his cellphone and told the operator what had happened. ‘I need the police here, too—my neighbour has had his bloody throat cut,’ he blurted. ‘He’s just lying there cold . . . he’s dead I think . . . probably a knife by the look of it.’ The emergency operator asked if it was possible to perform CPR on Scott, but Berry replied, ‘No, he’s past that by the look of it.’

When the operator warned him the killer could still be around, Berry leapt back into the cab of his truck and locked the door. He then rang his landlord, Bruce Johnstone, who lived 500 metres away at the end of Aorangi Road and was settled over a bowl of porridge at the time. Within minutes Johnstone had arrived on his quad bike with his partner’s son, Ashley Hislop.

Johnstone, a deer farmer, walked to within 2 metres of Scott but could tell he was dead, with a gaping hole in his throat, his head lolling to one side, blood flowing from it. After checking with David Berry, Johnstone quickly phoned Ewen Macdonald, Scott’s brother-in-law and co-manager on the farm, who lived just down the road. Macdonald had worked on the Guy farm, Byreburn, since he left school and married Scott’s sister Anna in 2001. He and Scott ran the farm with Scott’s father, Bryan, who retained overall control. Johnstone figured Macdonald was closest and would know what to do and who to call.

That morning, Ewen Macdonald had arrived at the farm workshop expecting to find Scott already there because it was Scott’s turn to do the early start. When he didn’t arrive, Macdonald assumed he’d slept in, something that had often happened in the past, and made a joke to farm workers Matthew Ireland and Simon Asplin: ‘Sleeping Beauty strikes again.’ At 5.03 am he sent Scott a text, ‘R u up’, and headed off to start milking with Ireland and Asplin, knowing they could cope until Scott showed up. When Scott still hadn’t arrived by 5.40 am, Macdonald rang him but there was no reply and the call went to voicemail.

It was winter and, with only 300 cows to deal with, they’d managed without Scott. Macdonald had just washed down the shed when Johnstone rang at 7.16 am.

‘Ewen, is that you? Something has happened to Scotty. There’s been an accident—he’s dead, he’s dead, mate.’

‘What? You’re joking,’ stammered Macdonald.

‘You’ve got to come up here, mate,’ Johnstone replied.

Around this time, the first two police cars arrived, driven by Senior Constable Neil Martin and Constable Leanna Smith from Feilding station, and parked on the roadside just before the driveway. Martin approached Scott and could see his eyes were open but glazed over. Bending down, he put on rubber gloves and also felt for a pulse, but there was nothing and Scott’s skin held no warmth. Smith followed him but stopped a few metres from the body. It was close enough to see his skin was white and blotchy and that he was clearly dead.

Not long afterwards, St John paramedic Robert Hiscox arrived at the scene. A quick look at Scott, the wound to his throat and the amount of blood on the driveway confirmed nothing could be done.

Ewen Macdonald had followed the police cars up Aorangi Road. David Berry later remembered how he’d never heard a farm bike going so fast, tyres tearing at the road. Still dressed in his milking gear of green overalls, a fleece jacket and brown gumboots, Macdonald braked to a halt beside Berry’s truck and joined the other men. Berry noticed he was distressed and shaking, his eyes streaming from speeding in the cold morning air.

‘I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry,’ Johnstone repeated to him.

Macdonald could see Scott lying on the drive and began walking towards him, but was stopped 6–10 metres away by Constable Smith, who stressed it was a crime scene, so he retreated to the road. But Macdonald and Johnstone then realised that Kylee and Hunter were probably still in the house so asked the police to check on them. Aware the killer could still be in the area, Smith went to the boot of her patrol car, took out her Bushmaster M4 rifle and loaded it.

Senior Constable Martin headed up the driveway, Smith following with the rifle, but they had only got halfway when Kylee appeared on the front doorstep holding Hunter. Martin called out to stay where she was and when he reached her said there’d been an accident and it was serious. Kylee slumped to the ground, instinctively knowing Scott was dead. Martin helped her up and then returned to the road as Kylee and Hunter went inside.

At 7.21 am Macdonald phoned Scott’s father, Bryan Guy, who lived in Feilding, about 6 kilometres or a five- to seven-minute drive away. Bryan was home alone at the time, on the internet; his wife Jo was taking an early swim at the local pool. The call only lasted 22 seconds, and Bryan recalled Macdonald was very distressed, almost incoherent. But the message got through—something had happened to Scott, there was something about his face, and Macdonald told him to get out there quickly. As he got close to Aorangi Road, an ambulance passed him heading in the opposite direction and Bryan thought, ‘You’re going the wrong way. We might need you.’

In the confusion and shock that followed Macdonald’s call to him, Bryan didn’t understand where to go, so, guessing there’d been a farm accident, he raced to the milking shed in his Hilux ute with its BOSGUY number plates. Nobody was there so he went to the silage pits but again couldn’t find anyone, so eventually he headed towards Scott and Kylee’s house. About 400 metres before he got there, Bryan saw Ewen Macdonald sitting on his quad bike at the edge of Aorangi Road, waiting for him. Bryan wound down the passenger window and asked what had happened.

‘Someone’s killed Scott,’ Macdonald told him.

Bryan carried on to where police tape had now been strung across the road near the driveway to keep people away from Scott’s body and the scene. Bruce Johnstone walked to meet him, said sorry, gave him a hug and told him not to go and see Scott, whose body was still lying across the driveway. Bryan could only see his son’s legs, the fence that ran alongside the road obscuring the rest of his body. Everything in him wanted to go up to Scott but police repeated it was a crime scene and he couldn’t enter. Instead, Bryan turned his attention to Kylee and got permission from police to jump the fence and cross the adjacent paddock to the house.

It all seemed surreal. Just the previous afternoon he’d seen Scott at the house and had afternoon tea with him. ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he’d shouted as he left and drove away, never imagining it would be the last thing he’d ever say to his son.

When Bryan got to Scott’s house, Kylee was in their bedroom with Hunter, hoping against hope all this wasn’t real. It was left to Bryan to confirm that Scott was dead. He comforted them as best he could and then, at 7.47 am, picked up the phone and rang his wife Jo, telling her their son had been murdered.

Jo Guy had left their home at 6.30 that morning to go swimming at the nearby Makino pool, which she did twice a week. A lifetime’s habit of early rising on the farm had been hard to break when they’d shifted into Feilding two years before.

When she got home the lights were on but Bryan was gone, the garage door left open, and she got the impression he’d just suddenly taken off somewhere. As she stepped out of the shower, the phone rang and Bryan told her there’d been a tragedy. Jo immediately thought he was talking about her father-in-law. Instead, Bryan said, ‘Something terrible has happened. Scott’s been killed. You’d better get out here.’

Jo could hardly breathe as she hung up the phone and raced out to her car, crying all the time. Heading up Aorangi Road, she was stopped at the cordon near David Berry’s house around 8 am. ‘I’m Scott’s mother, I’ve got to see my husband and daughter-in-law,’ Jo told police, but she was told she couldn’t go any further. ‘Not my baby, not Scotty,’ she cried, desperate to go and see him and find out what had happened.

David Berry came over but wouldn’t tell her what he’d seen. Then her son-in-law, Ewen Macdonald, arrived crying and hugged her, saying, ‘It’s wrong, it shouldn’t have happened.’ Jo had known Ewen since he had started going out with their youngest daughter, Anna, 15 years earlier. The pair had been in the fifth form at the time, and the following year Ewen left school to work on the Guys’ farm. Now Ewen and Anna, with four kids, were living just down the road in the family farmhouse where Jo and Bryan had brought up their own four children.

Jo called one of them, her eldest daughter Nikki, who was the next to arrive, at 8.15 am, in tears and swearing. She was living near Ewen and Anna, in the farm cottage at 213 Aorangi Road, and had been getting ready for work when the phone rang just after 8 am. For the past six years she’d run Reve, a women’s fashion shop in Palmerston North, with her mother. And now it was her mother calling, telling her that just up the road Scott lay dead.

‘What are you talking about? What do you mean he’s dead?’ Nikki asked, unable to grasp what she was hearing. Nikki, 32, and Scott, 31, had always been close, Scott often confiding in her about his dreams and problems. The thought of him having been killed on the road they’d grown up on stunned her.

When she got to the cordon just back from Scott’s body she immediately comforted her mother. Ewen Macdonald was still crying, pinching the bridge of his nose as he gave her a hug and repeated, ‘It’s not fair. We had so many plans.’

Because Bryan and Kylee were still inside Scott’s house, unable to leave until police said they could, the family members waiting at the cordon eventually decided to drive back to the old farmhouse where Ewen and Anna lived, at 147 Aorangi Road.

Anna Macdonald had just got out of the shower and was dressing the kids when Nikki burst in yelling, ‘Anna, Anna, Anna—it’s Scott, he’s dead, he’s been shot.’

‘You’re joking, you’ve got to be joking,’ Anna repeated in disbelief, her children clutching at her in the confusion.

Seventeen-year-old farm worker Matthew Ireland, the son of a local police officer, also arrived, looking white and not speaking, followed by Ewen Macdonald, who ran in through the laundry and asked Anna if she was okay. He was pale and shaking, his words broken and uncontrolled. Ireland described him as being in shock and looking like he’d seen a ghost.

Soon afterwards, Scott’s brother, Callum, pulled up with his girlfriend, Brooke. At 24, Callum was the youngest of the Guy children and hadn’t been terribly interested in farming but had worked at Byreburn at various times to save money. Since February that year he’d had a job at the Salvation Army in Feilding, running a youth employment scheme, and was there when Ewen rang to say there’d been an accident and to come out to the house. As he drove there, he wondered why he wasn’t going to the hospital if it was an accident—and figured it must have been really serious or quite minor. Only when he arrived at Anna and Ewen’s house did his mother tell him Scott was dead.

Everyone gathered in the kitchen in a chaotic huddle of hugs, tears and heartbreak.

CHAPTER 2
The investigation begins

Meanwhile, Bryan Guy, Kylee and Hunter were still holed up in the house at 293 Aorangi Road, police telling them to stay where they were until initial scene examinations were carried out.

It was a busy morning on the farm—a busload of visitors was coming as well as the vet, an artificial insemination technician, a load of feed and the milk tanker—so Bryan rang Ewen Macdonald and told him to just carry on with the farm work.

Macdonald was still at his home with everyone else and told Anna he had to go back on the farm to feed out silage.

‘Are you sure? Do you have to go?’ Anna asked.