Who Killed Scott Guy? (6 page)

Boe had left the farm in 2007 to take up a building apprenticeship with Crutchley, but he and Macdonald remained in touch and continued hunting. They also worked at a tourist attraction, a maze near Marton, where they were employed to scare visitors. In March 2010 Boe shifted to Queenstown to be closer to his brother, Reon, and take up a building job.

Armed with Crutchley’s information, police began investigating Boe’s movements around the time of the arson and vandalism, and especially how they fitted in with those of Macdonald. While both Macdonald and Boe had admitted poaching deer on a farm near Himatangi owned by Graham Sexton and on one occasion near Taihape, they denied having anything to do with the crimes against Scott and Kylee—and their alibi for the time of the vandalism seemed particularly convincing: they were driving up the North Island to deliver a load of furniture for a former farm worker.

But when police went back and checked Macdonald’s and Boe’s bank and phone records, it raised doubts about their story. At the time they claimed to have been heading to Ruakaka in Northland, EFTPOS transactions actually showed they were still in Feilding—around the time the vandalism was believed to have occurred. Moreover, phone records showed a call between the two just before the arson of the old house was noticed—a time when Macdonald had insisted he was at home in bed.

But even if suspicion fell on the two for the arson and vandalism, it provided police with no clear connection to Scott’s death. Being firebugs and hooligans didn’t mean they were murderers. The fact that Boe was in Queenstown at the time of Scott’s death ruled out his involvement and just left them with 30-year-old Macdonald. But why would Macdonald—who’d flatted with Scott, chosen him to be his best man and managed the farm with him—have murdered him?

On the surface it seemed unlikely, but as things clearly began to point in this direction, police delved back into Macdonald’s past, into the pair’s relationship, and began discovering disturbing undercurrents at the farm.

Born on 5 June 1980, Macdonald was a typical Manawatu kid, loving the country and all the activities that took place there. ‘Looking back on my life now,’ Macdonald wrote later, ‘I couldn’t have asked for a better upbringing from my parents. Mum and Dad both worked and worked hard. I’d say that’s where my work ethics have come from.’

Macdonald said the outdoors was in his blood because his father had such a passion for it. ‘As a child I don’t remember watching a lot of TV. I would rather be outside helping Dad. I think I would have been his shadow. We would dig the vege garden together or I would do the edges while he mowed the lawns. In the weekends we would often be found chasing pheasants around the countryside, walking up and down rivers or across farmland. Wherever Dad thought they might be hiding we were there to check it out. “Secret spot X” was the reply when Mum would ask where we were heading.’

Due to his father’s patient teaching, Macdonald also learnt how to turn his hands to most jobs that needed to be done, in the way that seems to come naturally to rural guys. He got used to working from an early age, with jobs in a supermarket butchery and as a milk boy.

Despite having asthma and suffering several broken bones along the way, Macdonald was good at sport—running, learning karate and making Feilding rugby teams through the age groups as a tough number 8. Later, a dislocated shoulder and other injuries would force him to give up the game, but he coached his children’s team.

His parents were always strong sideline supporters and did anything to help their kids’ activities. ‘I recall being at high school and the running team was fundraising to head down south,’ Macdonald wrote. ‘We decided we would make pizzas and sell them. At the time, Dad was working at the local freezing works, so off he went with my pizza order form and after a week, I think he had sold 103 of the damn things. Then came the evening to make them all . . .’

Macdonald started going out with Anna at the end of the fifth form, when he was 16. He passed four subjects in School Certificate—English, maths, science and woodwork—but by this stage he wasn’t terribly motivated, being more practical than academic. ‘I was only there to spend time with Anna and eat my lunch,’ he recalled.

In 1996 he decided to go back to school for sixth form because the first XV rugby team was going to Argentina, but within a fortnight he came home and told his parents school sucked and he wanted to quit. His father told him he could leave if he found a job.

Before he met Anna, Macdonald had a girlfriend who also lived on a dairy farm, and he had enjoyed lending a hand. And when he started spending time with Anna, he’d often pester Bryan Guy to see if he could help out. ‘Much to Anna’s disgust, we would find ourselves following cows to the shed or locking other herds away. Not really what she had in mind for a date with her new boyfriend, but I was having a blast.’

So when school paled and Anna mentioned that one of their farm workers was leaving, Macdonald went home and told his parents he’d found a job. He quickly took to his new position, his meagre $17,000 salary no doubt augmented by the attraction of being around Anna. Bryan Guy described him as keen, diligent and observant, good with stock and farm management. ‘He became part of the family and we got on very well.’ Macdonald worked hard and spent much of his money on a series of increasingly flash utes, virtually obligatory toys for country boys.

Apart from a brief stint driving tractors on another farm in 1999, it was the only full-time job Macdonald had ever had. Very early he had seen that other workers were there just to pick up their pay cheque, and he realised that if he put his head down and learnt from Bryan, there was a future on Byreburn for him. ‘Honestly, I could see myself staying there for the rest of my life. I just loved it,’ he wrote.

Kerry Macdonald described his son as ‘a natural-born farmer. Very, very good with animals—he found his niche and excelled at it.’

For his part, Ewen Macdonald loved being part of the Guys’ big family, with lots of cousins and grandparents and family gettogethers. ‘It was very infectious and they welcomed me with open arms, which I really enjoyed, plus I was dating the most beautiful girl in the world.’

By 2000 he’d progressed from ‘shit-kicker’ to second-in-charge at Byreburn and was living on the farm in a cottage at 213 Aorangi Road with Scott, who had been two years ahead of him at high school. The pair played rugby together for Feilding Yellow’s under-21 team, would go spotlighting for possums and rabbits and often go to Himatangi Beach, where Scott would surf and Macdonald bodyboard. When Ewen was contemplating asking Anna to marry him, he talked to Scott, who encouraged him, saying he’d been hanging around long enough and the couple were made for each other.

In February 2001, Macdonald took Anna to Nero Restaurant in Palmerston North and got staff to play her favourite song, the
Dirty Dancing
theme song ‘(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life’. He then stooped to one knee to ask her to be his wife. They were married in November that year when Macdonald was 21 and Anna 20. Scott was Macdonald’s best man and organised the stag party. Macdonald got so drunk, he swore he would never drink alcohol again—a promise he always kept.

As well as Scott, Macdonald had his brother, Blair, as his groomsman. Anna’s friend Fiona Hill and her sister Nikki were bridesmaids. There was a huge marquee beautifully decorated with flowers; Macdonald’s mother, Marlene, made the wedding cake; and an ice sculpture of a cow sat centre stage.

Many considered Anna and Ewen very different. Anna was sparkling company, extroverted, the star of school and repertory shows. Ewen was quiet, bottling up his emotions in the fashion of the stereotypical Kiwi male, not one to express his feelings or burden others with them. As his father, Kerry, described it to police, ‘Ewen is not the type to be effusive about frivolous chitchat, meaning that he didn’t just talk for the sake of it. None of my family are like that.’

Even with his father, there were limits on how much they showed and shared, as is typical with rural men, for whom communication is often prosaic. ‘He was there when you needed him,’ said Kerry Macdonald. ‘We don’t have a modern movie-style relationship where he tells me his goals or anything. We would just get on and do it. He doesn’t ask me how many guns I’ve sold at the shop and I don’t ask him about how the farm went. You would ask about how the chooks were laying.’

Ewen and Anna settled down on the farm in the cottage he’d shared with Scott and started to have a family. Their first child, Finn, was born in 2003, followed by Jack in 2005, Lucy in 2006 and Wade in 2008. Their names were gradually tattooed on Macdonald’s back in Celtic script, along with Anna’s, each using a letter of his surname, which ran down his spine. Macdonald called this his ‘backbone’, beneath which was the family’s crest with the Macdonald clan’s motto, ‘Per mare, per terras’—by sea, by land.

In the meantime, Scott had gone overseas to work in the Queensland outback and then to Hawke’s Bay. By the time he returned in late 2003, Macdonald was pretty much managing the farm’s daily operations as Bryan Guy became more involved in dairying politics, and naturally felt he had a strong stake in the farm. Scott’s role on arriving back was to take care of the crops the farm grew as supplementary feed for its 730 cows, and rearing their calves for the two years before they joined the milking herd.

Anna Macdonald admitted she was nervous about going into business with her brother, alongside her father and husband. ‘Because I don’t think three’s a great number,’ she later said. ‘Two’s company and three’s a crowd.’ She felt Scott had ‘sifted’ in and out of the farm as it suited him and questioned whether he was truly committed to it. ‘I thought it was quite convenient for him in between things he was doing . . . but, you know, the farm paid well and I think probably that might have been a pull, rather than him loving and being passionate about the job.’

Scott’s job on Byreburn meant he spent much of his time working on his own, on the tractor, away at the back of the farm. Gradually, a sense grew among the other workers that Scott had the easier role and wasn’t pulling his weight. While Scott would work long hours at cropping time, Macdonald calculated he was working 1000 hours more a year than Scott. ‘Here I was,’ Macdonald later wrote, ‘with two young children, still doing long hours on the farm, 4.30 am—6 pm, plus checking cows calving during the season at all hours of the night. And then there was Scott, starting at 7.30 am and finishing at 4 pm and having a lot less of a workload and in my opinion, a cruisier job.’

Farm consultant Simon Redmond noticed the difference between the two. ‘Ewen was streets ahead and more technically competent than Scott. He could have held down a job anywhere. He was a seriously good operator.’ Redmond felt the farm’s success owed more to Macdonald. ‘My view was that [Scott] was a good operator—but not startling.’ However, Redmond was aware Scott had a different view. One of Redmond’s clients reported having dinner with Scott and Kylee and Scott describing Ewen as the useless one. Whoever was responsible, the farm was very successful, often being used as an example of a good business for Fonterra’s visitors. As Redmond put it, ‘Byreburn is a farm that is operating at the top level. Byreburn is running at three times the industry average for the Manawatu in terms of output, which is why they can have three families on the farm.’

By 2006 Bryan Guy was looking at giving his children a shareholding in the farm and thought it would be a good idea to get everyone together to discuss it. So in May that year he hired a Feilding motel unit and brought in professional facilitator David Beca, with the idea that all three couples on the farm—Bryan and Jo, Ewen and Anna, and Scott and Kylee—could outline their hopes and plans for the future.

Everyone was taken aback, however, when Scott said he expected to inherit the farm. Bryan was completely surprised and wondered if his son had perhaps been watching too much TV. ‘It certainly wasn’t the expectation that Joanne and I had.’

Bryan explained how he and his father Grahame had a 50:50 partnership for 25 years and that when Grahame retired, Bryan had purchased his share of the farm. By the end of the meeting he felt the idea had been put to bed and Scott understood the farm wasn’t going to become his by right. Everyone agreed to talk more, have more meetings and formalise the partnership.