Who Killed Scott Guy? (38 page)

Then, in May 2011, Scott’s cousin—the son of Jo’s sister—was killed after being pushed out of a second-floor window at a Perth pub. Andy Marshall had grown up with the Guy family and worked on the farm at one stage. In a cruel coincidence, the trial for Marshall’s killer, Stefan Schmidt, was held at the same time as Macdonald’s. Schmidt was found guilty and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Bryan Guy never commented publicly on whether he believed Macdonald was guilty. Like many, he probably remains conflicted, but for him there is added difficulty when considering if his son-in-law killed his son. Because if the police version of events is correct, Bryan would forever have to live with the thought that if the shotgun used to kill Scott had been locked away as it should have been, then maybe, just maybe, his son wouldn’t have died.

The kind of tragedy and turmoil the Guys had suffered would be licence for most people to become bitter and despise life’s cruelty. When Macdonald was arrested for murder and his other crimes became apparent, Bryan Guy described it as a tsunami washing over him. But consciously, day by day, they fought against getting dragged down into a gyre of rancour and resentment.

During an interview with TV current affairs journalist John Campbell, Bryan Guy used an American Indian tale to illustrate their philosophy. ‘The grandfather’s telling the kids there’s two wolves fighting inside him. One’s full of hate and bitterness and sorrow and sadness and the other one’s got kindness and love and hope and faith and goodness. And the grandfather said, “There’s each of those two wolves in all of us.” And the kids say, “Well, which one wins?” And he says, “It’s the one I feed.”

‘And so, if we feed that one of bitterness and revenge and hate that’s what’s going to come out—so we don’t feed that wolf.’

For Anna Macdonald the upheaval and loss was perhaps even greater. As well as Scott’s death, she had to cope with her husband being accused of his murder—and then the acknowledgement that he had carried out a series of hateful crimes, some directed at Scott.

She said many times in the aftermath that she had to wonder if she really knew the man she’d been with for more than 15 years, the person she’d relied on for all that time in so many ways, the person who’d shared her life and secrets. It was impossible to reconcile that person with the one who’d committed the hideous crimes and harboured a world of his own secrets. Suddenly, the life she’d had with Ewen seemed a falsehood.

When Macdonald was arrested, their normal life of the farm and the kids was immediately broken. The only certain thing was that regardless of what happened at his murder trial, he would be gone for a long time. Nobody commits a trail of crimes as serious as those of Macdonald and Boe and expects sympathy or lenience.

So it was perhaps inevitable that others provided the support and solace she needed. Her initial relationship, which started about six months after Macdonald’s arrest, ended after four months, the man returning to his wife to try to resurrect his marriage. There was another brief relationship with a man from Wellington and then another that saw her shift to Auckland in January 2013 to be with her new partner Brent Jameson.

The shift was also part of a new start for Anna. Few could have failed to be impressed by how she coped in court, her natural brightness evident alongside equally natural grief. The public was captivated by her in many ways—her blonde bob, blue eyes and designer wardrobe—and, as sometimes happens in such cases, she became something of a celebrity. In September 2012 she appeared on New Zealand’s
60 Minutes
and in an eight-page
Woman’s Day
spread, telling her story and outlining her hopes for the future.

Her taste of the media world over the past two years had also presented new ideas and opportunities, and she began pursuing a career in broadcasting. In November 2012 she spent a week working as an intern at Manawatu’s More FM breakfast show, reading the weather and entertainment news and getting a feel for life on air. She appeared in another
Woman’s Day
story in March 2013, presented a story about herself on TV3’s current affairs programme,
3rd Degree
, and began writing a blog on her life as a mother for major new website Stuff.

A natural performer, something clear from her many appearances in shows before she had children, Anna said she was determined not to let her life become defined by what had happened and being the wife of Ewen Macdonald. Indeed, immediately after the trial she changed her name back to Anna Guy and had already shifted from their home to a new house in Feilding. In one interview she said she essentially had to choose between Macdonald and her family, which was incredibly important to her.

While she still had a reasonable relationship with Macdonald, largely for the sake of their four children, at 31 she felt she now had an opportunity to move on. The shift to Auckland and the break from the farm she’d lived on most of her life were all part of that. But while she and anyone with an ounce of empathy will hope the future is happy and fulfilling, it’s impossible to forget the past. And perhaps Anna, of all those swept up in the tragedy of Scott Guy’s murder, has the hardest task in trying to rationalise what’s happened.

Kylee and so many others, while distraught and dissatisfied, at least have the security of certainty—the fervent belief that Macdonald was the killer. But for Anna there remains confusion and uncomfortable uncertainty. Publicly, she has evaded definitive answers on whether she believes her former husband is guilty of Scott’s murder—part of her still questioning him, part of her adamant she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t have been that extreme.

And there is an added burden. To publicly pronounce Ewen as guilty of murder would be to damn him forever in her children’s eyes, while to say he was innocent would risk alienating her from those in her family who are adamant he killed Scott.

Whatever she truly thinks, it would take a remarkable person to completely move on without in some way, at some time, being dogged by doubt.

As for Anna, for Kylee Guy her children became her focus, her family her immediate support. Kylee had quickly left the house she and Scott shared, moving back to Hawke’s Bay where both her parents lived, too traumatised to return to 293 Aorangi Road. The house was eventually sold in June 2011 for $520,000.

At Kylee’s request, Bryan and Jo Guy bought out her 10 per cent share in Byreburn. A trust was set up for Hunter and Drover.

Following the trial she largely kept her silence apart from her exhortations to MPs that Macdonald should receive a long prison term. Immediately after his sentencing, though, she opened up in an eight-page
Woman’s Day
New Zealand interview, complete with many photos of her, Hunter and Drover. One of the ground rules for the interview, insisted on by Kylee, was that the writer should not mention Macdonald’s name at any time. Publishing industry sources suggested her story could be worth as much as $60,000 for an exclusive interview.

She wears Scott’s wedding band, which she grabbed from the house the morning he was murdered, on a chain around her neck.

Scott Guy is buried in a cemetery near Feilding, a rural setting surrounded by cabbage trees and calm. On his headstone it reads:

Scott Grahame Guy
21.12.78—8.7.2010
Adored husband and best friend of
Kylee
Devoted and loving father to
Hunter and Drover
You will always be my beautiful husband
and the love of my life
You will always be our hero and the best
Daddy in the world
We love you so much

In the top left corner of the polished black stone is a photo of Scott with his cowboy hat, taken on his wedding day. Underneath the headstone in large gold letters is the simple inscription ‘Our Cowboy’. There are plants and poems and paintings from the children around his grave, along with a small toy tractor.

Unpredictably and still inexplicably, Scott Guy became known to all New Zealanders. His face, often staring out from beneath the white cowboy hat, had become familiar, flashing up endlessly on our TV screens, his name writ large across newspaper pages. Sometimes, though, the media clamour that followed the case risked drowning out the human cost of his death—the years of enjoyment he and his family were robbed of, his contribution to society that could never be realised.

And the effect of his death and the loss suffered by so many naturally extended far beyond Kylee and the kids, and the Guy family. He had countless strong and staunch friends from Feilding, from his time at Taratahi college, from Queensland’s outback and Hawke’s Bay. Farm workers like Matthew Ireland who thought the world of Scott and ‘just wanted to be exactly like him’.

And then you take a step further and consider Ewen Macdonald. While few would have any understanding for him and what he did to so many others, you must have sympathy for his victims. There were huge financial losses to many, such as Brittons House Movers in Bulls, who had to suffer a shortfall of $190,000 after their insurers only paid part of the cost of their trailers destroyed in the arson and thus weren’t able to replace their equipment.

The effects weren’t just monetary, either. Craig Hocken still feels extraordinary discomfort that someone could have come onto his property at night and shot two deer just beside his house. The Sextons had more than a century of history and family memories bound up in their duck-shooting whare, which was a gently smoking ruin by the time they discovered it. Kylee Guy will never feel completely safe, the shiver of vulnerability never far away.

And consider the conflicting emotions of so many whose trust in Macdonald was destroyed when his crimes became apparent—from the Guys, who’d taken Macdonald so deeply into their family, to farmhands BJ Worthington, who said he looked up to Macdonald as a father figure, and Jackson Gilbert, who described him as the best boss he’d ever had.

And it’s this enormously varied and widely spread loss that is the ultimate legacy of this story. While some have learnt much about themselves and perhaps become wiser, nobody has emerged with a life that’s better, fuller or happier, and most would be much more cynical.

Though many wouldn’t care, it must be remembered that among those who’ve lost most is Ewen Macdonald himself. He is due for his next parole hearing at the end of 2013. Whether he is released and, if so, under what restrictions, remains to be seen. It’s unlikely he will be allowed to return to Manawatu, but whatever happens, his life will never be private and possibly never peaceful. No matter that the jury acquitted him of Scott Guy’s murder, his punishment for the crimes he did commit will continue well after his release, his life forever framed by the accusation he was a murderer.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel any animosity towards the police who pursued him and caricatured him as a killer. ‘No, because if I hadn’t done all that other stupid stuff then it wouldn’t have pointed the finger at me. That’s why I denied it at the start, because I knew it would point the finger at me. If the verdict had gone the other way, I probably would be upset, but I’m just grateful we were able to prove my innocence.’

At his sentencing and his first parole hearing, Macdonald’s remorse was called into question. And some of this perception may have arisen because of his insistence on looking ahead rather than dwelling on the past. ‘I know I’ve done wrong and been sentenced, and I’m paying that debt back and looking to the future. That’s just how we are, the Macdonalds. And it was a huge milestone to get over, going through a murder trial.’