Life Uncut - The night my sister was killed. Talking domestic violence with Bianca Unwin

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

Lifers, today we have one of the toughest but most moving interviews that we have ever aired. Meet Bianca, the sister of a beautiful woman named Katie who was murdered by her partner 3 years ago. This type of harrowing story seems to be all too common in Australia at the moment, and we feel as though the only way to change the domestic violence landscape is to speak about it. What started as “the happiest” Katie’s family had ever seen her, led to what they described as ‘childish jealousy’ and eventually her brutal murder. In this episode we learn about the warning signs that Katie’s partner displayed of troubling behaviour, coercive control and stalking. Bianca also speaks about how domestic violence has affected her entire family. In this ep is some great information about how to actively help someone experiencing family violence and organisations that can help.If you haven't already join us on insta and our facebook discussion group @lifeuncutpodcastPlease, hit 5 stars, leave a review and share the love, because, well, we love love xIf this conversation brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). This 24-hour national sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling line for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.If you are in immediate danger call 000.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany and we are doing a very unusual record today. Currently, Brittany is in Perth. I am in Byron. Brittany is hiding under a dressing gown. And we really hope that this episode, well, the start of this episode comes together. I wish, I honestly wish you guys could see me right now. I'm sitting, I'm in Margaret River in Perth.

I'm in a beautiful chalet that's overlooking, if there's a sun setting, it is absolutely divine. And I'm sitting curled up in the lounge room with a, it's like a doona slash dressing gown slash bit of A, bit of B over the top of me. I can't see any of the view. I look like an idiot. So Britt is doing this because like when you're recording you need to be in a soft padded room and unfortunately her chalet is very echoey and I am also doing the same but that is because there is two children trying to go to sleep next door and I'm trying to block them out as we speak. Matt is doing a perfect job of baby wrangling but guys we actually we're going to get into the episode today. It's a really it's a really heavy episode that we have

for you today and we're going to be talking about something that we have to put a huge trigger warning at the very start of this for you all and that is because we're talking about domestic violence and family violence on this episode and this is something that Britt and I have been really wanting to do an episode on for such a long time it's something that's really really important to both of us and May is actually domestic and family violence awareness month so we thought that this was really the perfect opportunity to start having these conversations and we know this episode is not going to be for everybody. But first, Britt, tell me about your week. Okay, so Laura and I have both gone on different holidays for the week. We decided

Laura had to go away for a week. So I was like, cool, I'm going to make the most of this and go away as well. I had just like a disaster moment. You could not write it when I was on my way to the airport. I'm always running late actually. I always wait till the very last minute before I call my Uber. I don't know why I do it because I'm ready in my house, but I'm like, I want to stay in my house as long as possible in case I remember something last minute. So I call my Uber at the last second possible. He says he's going to be 20 minutes away. Now that is unheard of in Bondi. There is an Uber two minutes away at all times. So he says 20 minutes and I'm like, oh, Okay. I have a look around. There wasn't much around. So I was like, I'm better off to wait

for this than cancel and rebook an Uber. So I'm waiting, waiting a couple of minutes go by. And I'm looking at the little map, like the car on the map and he hasn't moved. This car has not moved. So five minutes goes past and I messaged him. I'm getting a bit anxious and I'm like, Hey, are you actually coming? Because I've noticed your car hasn't moved in five minutes. He doesn't write back. Another two minutes goes past. And I'm in that awkward, like, do you cancel it or not? Another two minutes goes past and I slowly see his car start to move. So I'm like, fantastic. The man's on his way. So I wait until I see that he is only two minutes away. This is after two messages. I've messaged him twice saying, yo, where you at? Like some of us

need to get a flight, but in a nice way. I wait till he's two minutes away until I go down two flights of stairs on my apartment block. I go down my first flight of stairs and my bag my huge my 23 kilo bag with one minute to spare after i have shown my impatience bursts open on the stairs and my clothes go everywhere the bag just split my clothes are all down i was like you're fucking kidding me like is this a podcast equipment i was like am i on candid camera i'm on candid camera i those and i was like you're i don't you're you are kidding me the zipper the whole zipper split and I said to this man I know I've just pushed you to get here but can you just give me five minutes anyway could you imagine if that

had happened though when you got to the freaking airport like could you imagine that in a different scenario better that it happened and the poor uber guy had to wait then for you to get to domestic terminal and your bag explode do you know what's happened to me before I have gotten to a place where I didn't see it I was waiting for my bag on the carousel and it came out and it was cut open like split open and it was taped up with tape everywhere and I had so many undies and things missing I was like did this burst open or was there some pervert that went and took my undies out of my bag I don't know and only took your undies I feel like that seems like a lot of effort to go to just for a pair of knickers but anyway I um I had a similar luggage debacle which oh sorry

I'm like guys you can't see this but we're on um we're like facetiming each other in order to do this record and I didn't really realize that I was just giving Brittany a full crotch shot anyway I um I packed we packed all our bags we went and saw we went and stayed with Matt's mom in Brisbane for a couple of days before coming down to Byron and we pretty much got to Byron and then realized we had left one of our pieces of luggage in Brisbane with all of like Marley's and Lola's clothes in it like all of the baby stuff that we absolutely critically needed and could not leave there for another week we had to drive back to Brisbane with the kids in the car a toddler and a newborn baby don't really do well in the car past like three or four hours so

it was interesting we made it I'm having wine it's a wind down there's been a lot going on but I have a question for you Brit yeah hit me how do you feel about sharing a toothbrush with your partner okay okay that's an interesting thing I actually have done that before I don't think it's the end of the world if you I don't like don't do it by choice but I don't think if you have to i mean like you guys go down on each other you make out all the time like you but no but like you you do a lot worse things than share a toothbrush so i personally if it's my partner and they were like oh my god i forgot my toothbrush i would rather them use my toothbrush than have stinky breath like personally that's what i would do matt is so against sharing a

tooth i forgot to bring a toothbrush guys i ended up having to go buy one but matt does not want to share a toothbrush he he hates sharing a toothbrush it totally weeds him out i'm like did you fertilized my eggs like we've been there it's happened but he will not share a toothbrush which i kind of understand maybe i will put a poll up and see who else is you know in the same camp i'm sure there's plenty of other people but look i i don't think you should do it by choice like i don't think you'd be like yo like let's get freaky with our toothbrush in bed but i think if it's a last resort and one of you no but you know like if one of you if one of you forgets your toothbrush i would wouldn't you rather your partner have fresh breath and share a toothbrush for one night

than not I think it's just one of those things that for some people that really it's it's just like you know some people are afraid of spiders and some people are afraid of sharing toothbrushes it's just one of those things in life that um guys get over it guys with this episode I know that we always do an accidentally unfiltered story for you and that's like such a core part of our episodes but we Britt and I we made the decision that because this episode is such a serious and important chat it just really didn't feel right for us to share your most embarrassing stories it didn't feel right for us to have this huge laugh at the beginning of the episode and then get into such a serious topic so we are going to miss our accidentally unfiltered section of the

pod today in order to give you this episode but we will and I know we've been teasing it for a while but we will bring you guys a bonus accidentally unfiltered episode it is coming it is brewing and it will be in your libraries very soon. We are releasing this episode in conjunction with SBS. SBS are releasing a documentary tomorrow night called See What You Made Me Do and this is presented by investigative journalist Jess Hill. Now Jess Hill is someone that we are getting on the podcast.

We're very excited to speak to her in the future but Jess is really fighting the fight for coercive control. She is trying to make coercive control illegal because it is a very, very big problem throughout Australia and throughout the world. Statistics show that one woman a week is killed in Australia as a result of violence from a current or previous partner. And the fact of the matter is this is actually underreported. So they think it's even more than one woman a week. One in four women have experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner since the age of

15. One in five women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. Almost 40% of women continued to experience violence from their partner while temporarily separated. One in six women have experienced stalking since the age of 15. One in 19 Australian men have experienced physical abuse at the hand of a current or former intimate partner. These statistics guys there are more but these just really really blew us away they're so alarming and we just really felt like in light of it being May and domestic violence month in light of this documentary airing and in light of some things that have happened very recently in australia that it was time for us to really talk about it statistics are so petrifying and exactly what you said britain something that

i think is so important to reiterate is that they are hugely underreported because domestic violence is something that happens behind closed doors it's something that happens in secret and there is a lot of guilt and there is a lot of shame that is attached to it and if we think about those statistics the reality is is that if it hasn't happened to you in your life there is a very good chance that somebody that you know somebody that you love or even somebody in your family has or will experience domestic violence in their lifetime and just in the last couple of weeks we have seen how prevalent it is in Australia and I just want to take a moment to say the names of three people who have been the victims and who have died as a result of domestic violence who have been murdered

as a result of domestic violence in the last couple of weeks and that is Kelly Wilkinson, Lordy Ramadan and nine-month-old Kobe Shepardson. Now, this is a really hard interview to listen to. It was a hard interview to conduct. I cannot even begin to imagine how difficult it is for Bianca Unwin to share this story but it is such an important conversation for us to keep having

because the more that we talk about things like domestic violence, the more that we talk about things like coercive control, then the easier it's going to be for somebody to identify those red flags in a relationship and to be able to get the courage to leave and that is something that we will always advocate for. I just want to remind you all again for the trigger warning on this episode if you do need to reach out and speak to anyone you can call 1-800-RESPECT and we will put all of the details for other helplines in the show notes on this episode. The SBS documentary See What You made me do will be airing on our screens from Wednesday the 5th of May so whenever that is for

you maybe that is tomorrow or maybe you're listening to this you know when it's weeks in the past whatever time there is always access for you guys to watch this documentary and Laura and I did get to see this before it was released and we can't stress enough how powerful and how important this documentary is. The first episode of the documentary introduces us to an incredible woman. Her name is Bianca Unwin and that is who we're interviewing today. Now Bianca's sister Katie Haley was the victim of domestic violence and she was brutally beaten to death in 2018 by her controlling partner. Looking back Bianca and her family could see the red flags but at the time they didn't understand the severity of the situation and like many people who have experienced

or who have witnessed domestic violence they didn't think that this could ever possibly happen to them, or that it could ever possibly happen to someone that they love. This is Bianca and Katie's story. Bianca, welcome to Life Uncut, and from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story. Thanks for having me. We both watched the documentary, and I was just blown away at the statistics. your story, the other people that were brave enough to come and share their story and

I guess with the crisis in Australia right now it's more prevalent than ever and in the last few weeks you know we have seen a lot of horrific horrific domestic violence situations so we honestly can't thank you enough but I guess we want to just start by you telling us about your sister Katie. Tell us who she was and what she was like. My sister and I growing up there was nine years difference so we just bickered a lot I was the annoying little sister there was just not much like that we had in common but as we got older it really got better for us we bonded a lot we bonded over like clothes just like your trivial teenage kind of stuff and then in the later years Katie and I unfortunately bonded over bad relationships so that's kind of what cemented

our closeness which is really sad to say in hindsight but yeah she was just the most protective and bravest woman I've ever met. She injured her back in a car accident so she had a broken back and managed to give birth naturally twice. I admire her so much and I really miss her so much because she was such a beautiful person. Tell me a little bit about these toxic relationships that you guys bonded over. Talk to me about what it was that you were experiencing in your life and also what Katie was experiencing in hers. So for me I was experiencing my first relationship so a high school kind of romance never dated anyone so it was kind of going to her for advice and she had had a string of relationships and they weren't all bad some had you know little

signs and others just didn't work out but in her last relationship and in my last relationship we bonded over the name calling so there was a lot of name calling in our relationships and we used to text each other and compare how bad the names were so a lot of verbal abuse a lot of verbal abuse I know that there was I'm not sure if I can say what was actually I was called but things along the line of like bitch slut all those sorts of things um and we used to compare and then say oh you win this round or okay I think I won this one and looking back on those text messages and actually showing my parents the toxicity of our relationships made me realize like how bad it was but we were making jokes about it so at that point in time when you were comparing this with

Katie was it more just like you didn't really realize the severity and you were like oh my god can you believe he called me this today I win today and then you went back to these relationships not realizing that this is actually super unhealthy yeah it was literally we worked together so we'd just be on our break you know cleaning up and stuff and we'd just be like oh well I got called this and she'd be like oh well at least it's not as bad as this and with this what she'd been called so it was just that sort of banter and then we'd both say that we saw the bad side of each other's relationship but not our own so we'd be saying to each other you need to leave but not for ourselves but I guess also when you see that that behavior is something that is

implicit in your older sister's relationship and then it's also happening in your relationship there must be some part of you that goes oh it's a bit normal you know like yes it's not really acceptable yes it's not something that I want to put up with but seeing it happen to other people who you love kind of normalizes that a little bit for you and then you know if you don't have those really strong foundations for people to show you or role model what a good relationship looks like especially in your early years when you haven't had a boyfriend before you can put up with a lot of shit that as you get older and as you become more aware of how you should be treated and what you deserve that that's not normal and that's not okay yeah a hundred percent and I just took it as

that's what a relationship is and I've had this conversation with my parents now since everything happened with Katie and they're like but you see our relationship you see that we don't call each other those names that we don't fight and I kept saying to them but I don't see you guys behind closed doors I see you as my mom and dad and they were like but that's how we are behind closed doors and I was like but I didn't know that I just assumed every relationship had this toxic side I think that it's quite often a really slow burn like maybe it does just start with some name calling here and there but it is a really slow coercive control and I mean the term coercive control I love that we as a population and a generation are speaking more openly about that

because a few years ago there'd be people that did not even know what that is but I think what happens is a name here and there doesn't really register to be that bad at the time and it's this slow snowball on top of that what I think in my personal relationships when I look back I can dish out advice like there's no tomorrow like if my friend was in a toxic relationship with my sister I'm like girl get the hell out of there like are you an idiot what are you doing you deserve better and then I would be in the same situation but you make excuses for it and I think that's very normal in women in relationships now of all ages I don't think it's something that we really ever get used to. On top of that as well, Bianca, I think you touched on it so perfectly

when you said, I didn't see what my parents were like behind closed doors. And that's the reality of domestic violence. It doesn't happen in the public. It doesn't happen where we see it. It's insidious and it happens behind closed doors. So you may think that someone has a great relationship or maybe, you know, yeah, he's not great or there's something going on there, but you don't know the depths of that or how toxic somebody's home life can be because of the privacy and the secrecy and the shame that's attached to it as well yeah 100% and that's the whole argument is I don't know what someone else's relationship is like and they couldn't speak for my relationship either and that's what makes it so hard to understand especially coercive control because

it is a gradual onset and it starts off so small that people will just dismiss it in the public if it's something like name calling oh they didn't mean it it didn't mean they were just angry and it's like okay but are we dismissing something that behind closed doors is a common occurrence and you've just witnessed it for the first time and that's where trying to like educate people and have that conversation even with my parents it's like I'm aware that your relationship is great and that is something to admire but I didn't know that growing up because I'm listening to my sister's stories I'm listening to my friends stories and I'm seeing how kids in high school especially the males were behaving and calling girls these names or bullying them or you know

that old saying of oh they're just being mean because they like you and that is literally the mentality going into your first relationship it's like treat them mean keep them keen that's not how it works but it does seem to carry out into your first relationship I think that's why it's so important because Jess Hill who is hosting this documentary she's really really on the fight to criminalize coercive control. There is a podcast that I can recommend to everyone listening. It's called True Crime Profile. And there is a woman that hosts that. She's English and her name is Laura Richards. And I know that Jess and Laura have done podcasts together and they are both the forefront leading the way to criminalize coercive control. And I think that is absolutely

brilliant. But Bianca, let's talk about what was it like when Katie met Shane? Was it bad from the get-go or was it ever a really loving happy relationship? At the beginning it was the happiest I've ever seen my sister and that's the sad part about all this is because she was genuinely happy they would giggle they would laugh they would act like children just like mucking around we'd go on family holidays so like all of our memories he's in them we would do park dates where we'd get fish and chips and just let the kids play on the park everything involved all of us together and we were all the happiest we had been and that's a comment that we always threw around this was the happiest that we had all been as a family and so no it wasn't

from our perception always bad I can't speak to what Katie experienced in the beginning of her relationship and whether or not it was there but from our perception it wasn't there and whether that was just an act a facade that Shane had put on to literally hide away these kind of insecurities and this behavior that he may have exhibited in past relationships you'll never know because we weren't in that relationship but from our eyes it was a really happy relationship to begin with when did you start seeing red flags for your sister or when did she start to communicate with you that something wasn't right in their relationship it basically occurred once she had her child so basically once she'd given birth and had her child it meant that she had to seek

other employment because she was a hairdresser prior to having her child after that I offered to get her a job at my work which we worked at a family pub so that's how we ended up working together and mainly that was because she just wanted to support her children in the best way she wanted to give them the best life and make sure that they had money as well as being able to spend time with them that obviously created a sense of jealousy because as most people would know with a newborn it takes a lot of your time it takes a lot of your attention and I could really see the shift in his behavior he in my eyes was jealous of his own child and that was a comment I would make and say that seems really bizarre to me like why are you jealous of your own child

he would comment on the fact that there was no photos of him or like you're so obsessed with the child like you never put up anything to do with me and it was just all obsessive but not interested in his own child so that's when that shift really occurred and when she started working at the pub with me. There was the accusations of cheating. There was this jealousy. There was the stalking, monitoring her at her work, sitting in a car park opposite it and watching her work and saying that she was flirting with the customers or the staff. So that's really when the onset of the behavior became so publicly apparent. Talk me through some of the things that he was doing. I know you just touched on it then, but like, I feel like this behavior,

it starts slowly and then it becomes more and more toxic and it becomes more and more vicious the sort of surveillance especially that your sister was experiencing can you talk me through some of what that surveillance was and how he was able to know where she was or what she was doing how he was keeping tabs on her so initially it just started off with black harassment so basically constantly texting her constantly calling her me working with her I would see her come into her shift and she'd be on the phone to him from the moment she walked in she'd sign on and quickly hang up then the moment she'd finish her shift she'd sign off and then she would have to call him straight away and the way he would know that she'd finished work is he would check her active

status on Facebook so he would instantly be on the text message going I know you finished work why haven't you called me and it got to the point where sometimes after work we'd stay back have lunch together she wasn't even allowed to do that with me because it would be a bombardment of text messages a bombardment of calls wanting her to get home asking her what she's doing so that's how it initially started and we could all see that because her phone would constantly go off she'd have that flashing of an um a message or so we could see that he was being obsessive in that regard it then would increase and he would then drive past her work so it kind of got to that surveillance where he would know she was working and he would come after he'd finished work and just sit in the

car park and watch her or he would come in sometimes and give her a flower and kind of have this alibi of why he was there but then he'd go back and watch her some more and then come in and confront her about flirting with staff flirting with customers this was a family pub I can tell you right now she was not flirting with anyone it's not the kind of place that anything like that would happen and that's also not the type of person my sister is so it started off with just him feeling like maybe she was trying to portray this single life by not posting photos of him the jealousy with the children of giving the children too much attention which mind you children take 100 of your attention so this is warranted and then obviously there's this slow

escalation from making her call him at work to actually going and physically seeing she's there did katie ever like was she aware that he was out in the car park watching she wasn't aware that he was watching so she was only made aware that he was there when he would come in so then she'd know oh he's around she wasn't aware the full extent of his surveillance but there were times where she'd be at the shopping centers with my nana and he would suddenly just appear there and it wasn't a location that he could just suddenly be there he's meant to be at work but she wasn't aware of how he was following her sort of thing in regards to the jealousy and that and watching how she interacted with people that then took a further step of him creating fake social media under the

persona of a female so he pretended to be a girl on Facebook and Instagram he would message his own personal account from that fake account flirting with himself to try and make my sister jealous which my sister just thought this is ridiculous like I have nothing to be jealous about and just kind of like laughed it off because it was just so insane is the word I would use and then he went one step further and started messaging people from our work as the fake female trying to get information on whether these male co-workers liked my sister whether she was a flirt and just kind of coaxing them going oh it's okay you can tell me there must be some hot girls at your work and then questioning about their friends on Facebook saying like I can see that

you've got a friend but they're blocked like this name is blocked can you send me the list of who's liking your stuff. So it was just this manipulation to try and find out whether my sister was liking their stuff because he'd gone onto that fake account and blocked her, but also trying to get them to admit to something that wasn't happening. And at this point, it's very obvious that it's him doing this. It's very obvious it's a fake account. And the person that he was messaging was my best friend. So my best friends come to me and go on, Hey, I'm getting these messages and showed me them and so I gave them to my sister and she confronted him about it there and then and he admitted to the whole thing was your sister scared at this point like did she feel frightened of him

at all or was she just a bit confused by his behavior like how did she feel around this time I personally don't believe she was scared she never said she was she often referred to it as childlike behavior and that she was tired of the drama so that was always her go-to word was I'm just tired of the drama and she would deactivate her social media for that reason and basically it always just came down to her saying I feel like I have three children so she never saw it as something to be scared of she was just so astounded by the lengths he was going to that she just kind of found it amusing to an extent I think that she was just like this is so beyond a joke that it's funny an example of this exact thing that happened to me I was with a partner

for two years and I never realized at the time that that's what this was because coercive control wasn't a thing then we didn't know what it was but he did exactly that he would turn up wherever I was without any way of knowing he created fake accounts fake emails to email himself like everything you were just saying then was exactly the same thing and I remember my reaction when I started to find out my sister and some friends were like this is not right and I remember saying it just shows you how much he loves me I was convinced that that's what it was and it was exactly what you were saying I was like yeah he's turning up because he wants to make sure I'm okay and he loves me he's creating these accounts because he wants to protect me he wants me to

delete my social media because he wants me just for him and there's no part of you that ever looks at that as as something scary and something that I so I can see why Katie probably was more exasperated by it rather than scared yeah and society has a lot to answer for because we have that in built in us we've grown up with it you know jealousy just means that they love you they're doing this because they're so worried to lose you no if someone loves you they're going to treat you with respect they're going to take your word for things and they're going to give you your space they're going to respect boundaries but that's not the mentality that we're brought up with and I think it really does start in schools because you start off with just little harmless comments

you know and that's the thing you put it down to that when there's actually this severity behind it and I didn't know about coercive control and I definitely didn't know that coercive control was going to lead to Katie's murder I still to this day can't believe it's happened I just don't know how it got to that point and even though we were aware of all these things and we were calling him out Katie was addressing the issues she knew about them she wasn't afraid to confront him and tell him like what what are you doing like that's ridiculous so to me I was like how did it go from just this ridiculous kind of behavior on social media on the phone and just harassment to a physical like I'm going to take your life when you say society has a lot to answer for I completely

agree on so many levels one of them is this like media perception that often is reported on when we see domestic violence articles and we see people reporting on cases that have happened and it's like he just snapped no no people don't just snap people show very consistent alarming behavior that increases to a point where they do something that is actually fucking crazy people don't just wake up one day and snap and I think that this mentality that someone's been pushed to snap that wording has to go it needs to end now and the conversation around coercive control like Britt said this is really something that we have been trying to hear on this podcast these conversations which are very hard to have and they're very hard to listen to but it's a

conversation that I never heard when I was in my 20s I didn't even know it existed and I had no understanding of what it meant and the importance around talking about it is twofold it's one to protect women so that they can be aware of it when it's happening but it's also important to have these conversations so if you're someone who is starting to do these things if you're starting to set up fake profiles to look in on your partner's behavior if you're showing up at their work really understanding how insane that is and that you can't justify that behavior I think the more we talk about it it helps the entire spectrum yeah and to put it in perspective the unknownness about coercive control and non-physical forms of domestic violence I'm a criminology and

psychological science graduate I didn't know about coercive control until it happened to my sister it is not spoken about in an educational setting and even when it is I was halfway through my degree when Katie was murdered I went back and I finished it but those final two years I was led to have to write about things and say, well, this doesn't happen. Coercive control isn't really a thing. Domestic violence is largely because of, you know, you have to be in the wrong situation at the right time, like all those sorts of things. And I would disagree with them. I'd be told I'm wrong based on a personal experience. I'm so sorry. So you're, so you're saying that studying criminology they were saying that coercive control doesn't exist yes so at one point this is the

education system yeah so this is where this big passion of mine comes from to educate people because I'm sitting in a cohort of people who are studying to be the next you know whatever they want to do to tackle crime and they're being told that you know you're only warranted a victim if you do this this and this you're only you know you bring it on yourself in a sense is what they kind of say and then with the coercive control they don't really recognise it as a form of domestic violence. It's not a conversation that comes up and I was really astounded by that and I struggled in the last two years to actually finish that degree because everything to do with the criminal system was completely different to my experiences with it and also just the signs

and warnings that they tell people to look out for aren't actually what you need to be looking out for all the time well it's almost like it's a favoring the perpetrator and victim blaming like this doesn't exist this is not him this is the fact that you stayed in a situation that wasn't good for you that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time i'm so perplexed that we're still teaching these things to people that are going to go on and you know become the people that are in charge of justice 100 something i want to i guess i want to ask is did your parents and your family was everyone aware that this was a really toxic relationship and that this was happening and was there ever a time that Katie did actually try to leave before she was murdered so our whole family

was made aware of kind of the toxic nature of this relationship and the full extent of kind of how far he would go towards the end of their relationship because he was dragging us into it he would call my mum and tried to convince her that her daughter was cheating he would call my dad and say all these things and by the end of it like he was calling me and I just said I don't want to hear it like you can't convince me that my sister is doing any of these things especially when I work with her and I said to him point blank I was like just focus on your relationship I said she loves you and I did say this in these words I said she loves you for god knows what reason I said why you risking that? I said, just be the best person for her, for your children. I said, and then the

rest of the family will come back around, but it just fell on deaf ears with him. And it got to the point where we all knew it was bad, but there's only so much you can do to help someone. And if they're not, and this is the biggest thing, if someone is not ready to acknowledge that they are in a relationship that is toxic or has domestic violence or is controlling, they're never going to be ready to leave and no amount of you pushing them to do it they won't do it the thing is that you have to still stand by them you can't shut them out you can't isolate them because that's what that person wants and then you've given them the control that they're after so in a sense we did shut off to it we didn't want to hear about it because there was nothing we could do to change it

and it was really hard to kind of go now we can't deal with this anymore and in my opinion that was the wrong way to handle it because he isolated her further maybe she withheld information because he was coming to us and harassing us and she probably thought I don't want to be a burden on them he's already doing it I don't want to annoy them so we did know the extent of it my dad did have words to him six days before she was murdered they met at a park and he said I don't get involved like you're adults Katie doesn't want me to get involved but if you ever lay a hand on my daughter I will and he said I haven't and this is what the perpetrator said I have never laid a hand on her and I never will and that was six days before he bludgeoned her to death in the most brutal way

possible worse than just laying a hand on her he beat her beyond recognition and my dad had to get that call from the coroner saying they needed dental records and so six days prior it did there was nothing we could do. It was kind of already in motion at this point. And even if we had got her out, even if we could have got her to stay with us that night, which my mum so desperately wishes she could have, he was going to come after her. Because if he couldn't have her, no one could. So no, she didn't try and leave until that night. Because had she, she would have died earlier on. That's the harsh reality of it. Had she tried to leave any earlier, this would have just been a more amplified timeline. Bianca I'm so sorry like I um we're both sitting here crying

yeah we are so sorry that that happened and hearing that I guess there's always a part of you that's going to think I could have done more why didn't I do more and what you I can't only imagine what your dad would think having had that conversation six days before and taking the perpetrator's word for it I can't imagine what your family has been through which is why we're so grateful you guys are talking about it now do you think that there ever was a time that he laid a hand on her that you didn't know about do you think there ever was the violence physically before the night that he murdered her I don't know definitively obviously but a person doesn't go from zero to a hundred people don't just go full max in one go and I don't care what anybody says

whether they say it was just out of anger because I've been angry before I've had fights before I've had obviously in the past three years the worst time of my life have I gone out and killed anyone no have I gone out and laid a hand on anyone no so for me it's not something that just happens and I think that kind of oh he didn't have any you know written up warnings there was no record no police reports just because it wasn't documented didn't mean it wasn't happening and there's times where I do question the bruises that we saw Katie with maybe she didn't fall over but then I know that at the time I'm so clumsy that I did like I fall over all the time she said she fell in the shower but did she and so now you start questioning and I have no doubt that that

was not his first go at it I just think that she kept it from us Bianca you're so incredibly brave to share your story and I'm my heart is broken for your family that you had to go through this and also for Katie it's it's just the it's just such a devastating and preventable loss that it's like it's unbelievable that we have to sit here and have these conversations and I think that the thing that's so important to remember and also the thing for us to reiterate on this is even if you did know everything that was going on there is no way of knowing that anything could have ended differently because the most dangerous time for somebody who is in a relationship where there is domestic violence is when they try to leave and from what we know of Katie's story

the night that she was murdered was the night that she had decided I am leaving and that is the fucking scary thing it's when somebody takes ownership and takes power back in these coercive and in these very controlled relationships where the perpetrator now has no control and they're losing control rapidly that's when that they're more inclined to react in a very very severe way and a very final way which is what's happened here look the term where people say like oh you're living you know you get through life and everything we're not living we're not surviving we are just existing life is very empty now and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it or say that it's gonna get easier because I truly don't believe it is I have suffered immensely mentally

physically emotionally in the last three years to last a lifetime and there were times where my whole family as a whole have had our lowest moments where sometimes you think it would just be easier to just give up because it does just get to the point where you don't want to keep reliving it every day and raising children who are constant reminders that also makes it really hard but on the flip side they are our reason for living because these children are the most beautiful kids you will ever meet they have Katie's heart and soul in them and despite the hardships that they're going to face they are so excited for life and so our way forward is to make sure that that life for them is going to be a safe one and the best way we can do that is to try and

stop this violence that's happening at an incredible rate from continuing down this really destructive path because I fear for the day that these children and the future generations get into relationships so the only way forward is to provide this safety for them and this is the one thing that gets me up every day is advocating is educating my dad and I especially we created a domestic violence support page on Facebook it's called keep trying for the initials KT just to kind of include her into it but we get messages every day telling us their stories I have people reaching out to me on TikTok asking how do I leave and we just spend every day making sure that if someone wants to leave if they can't go to their family and they can't go to their friends

we will come like we will come and help them we will put things in place and that's the only way we can go forward is to try and stop another family from you know going through what we've been through Bianca I know that this is really confronting obviously and it's really hard to talk about but we are shown in the documentary you and your dad talking about the night that it happened we are showing the perpetrator fleeing the scene we're shown some things that he has said when he called his mother and whilst I know this is a tough conversation I feel like we owe it to Katie to not scoot over things and not not talk about them because it was a really hard and disturbing night and moment so I feel like we want to give her justice but can you talk to us about

how that night went down you guys receiving the calls at home so basically the night the day of the day that it happened uh my sister went to work she covered a shift for me so I could go to uni I actually ditched uni to hang out with the children and go to the pool and a comment like it was honestly the best day ever and that was a comment that we made this was the best day ever we had the most fun I spent the afternoon with my sister after she'd finished work had a little bit of a joke and then I actually left the house to go meet up with the person that I liked that she was trying to get me to date which funnily enough we are now three years into a relationship so she got her wish oh yeah so she got she got me with a good person so I always felt this guilt

that I left the house and didn't spend that time with her to go hang out with him but evidently she knew something better for me I didn't speak to her much that night and I don't recall if my parents did or not they just said the comment my mum said a comment to her as she left was that this is the worst boyfriend you've ever had and Katie turned around and said no he's not mum and that was probably the last conversation my mum had with my sister and that's why she wishes that she kept her there that day to keep her safe it was about I'd say 11 o'clock at night 11 or 12 o'clock at night when we went on Facebook and saw on a community page so just for the local area someone had wrote oh I wonder what all these helicopters are doing like anyone know why these helicopters

are hovering around this area and so we're curious my mum and I texted each other and we're like we wonder what's going on we texted my sister because you know she lived down that area we just wanted to see that she was all right we didn't get through to her which wasn't surprising because he did disable her phone that many times trying to get into it that some nights you couldn't get in touch with her and we kept going back and forward and we just had a gut feeling I can't describe it there's no rational reasoning for it but that whole night my parents didn't feel well and we just had a gut feeling that something was going on and it wasn't until I think it was one or two in the morning I'm rough on the times now but we saw that the I just dozed off and we saw

that the Victoria police had put up a post saying this is the street a 29 year old woman's body has been found deceased in a house and a 28 year old male's in custody that's when my mum came into my room opened the door and screamed he's murdered her got my brother up and I'm like no no I'm sure like I was very much in disbelief and I was like nah it's not going to be her horribly wishing that it was someone else which is horrible to think but I just did not want that to be what happened we didn't get answers the police wouldn't tell us anything even though we gave them all the information and at this point they knew they would have known it was her they would have known that they had him in custody they could have given us something they gave us nothing so we all hopped

into the one car and drove to the crime scene I remember pulling up to the crime scene and there was just tape halfway down the street and her house was just lights everywhere crime scene vans sorry oh this is so hard to listen to like it really is this is definitely the hardest interview we've ever done I know that you say that there's nothing left and you feel like it's life is empty now but what you give to people by telling this story and being able to make other people aware of something that they're in is so important and we're really really grateful for that thank you yeah so I remember arriving on the crime scene and the car hadn't even stopped at this point and I flung the door open and I started running I tried to get under the tape

which the police obviously don't let you so they forcefully grabbed me away but when I asked the police officer point like is that my sister and he said uh we believe so we believe so she suffered a terrible assault and I just couldn't I just remember looking up at the stars because I knew like she'd gone so I remember looking up at the stars and then I just heard this almighty scream and it was my mum and she was being put into the back of a police car because they didn't want to obviously wake up all the neighbours but it was just this ear-piercing scream and I will never forget it. Like it was just, it's a haunting and that's the scream I hear at night.

And I just remember turning around and just seeing the chaos behind me. My little brother who had to grow up way beyond his years in the space of two seconds was dealing with the police officers, trying to get the answers trying to find out where the children were just trying to make sure that they were safe I just remember looking back and seeing my dad on his knees he'd fell to his knees in the middle of the road and I've never like this man is the strongest person I know he is the pillar of our family and he's the one that's got us through this so much and I just remember seeing that and you just knew nothing was ever going to be the same again he was broken my mother was

broken and my brother had to take charge and it's just it's not how it's meant to be but then as soon as they brought up the children my parents like the grief didn't go away but they instantly went into are they okay all right we need to go get them and so it was they couldn't do anything for Katie we can't focus on that right now like we need to get these kids this is the reality of domestic violence this is the face of domestic violence it doesn't just happen between two people it's not just something that one person does to another you know it's domestic violence it affects every single person who loves that person it affects the whole family it affects children and you know we have seen so much of it this is why we really wanted to do this interview

I know it's hard for you to sit here and have this conversation and it's probably very hard for the listeners to listen to this conversation but in the last couple of weeks alone we have had three separate murders in Australia around domestic violence and it is a problem that is not going away and it's not probably ever going to entirely go away but the more that we talk about it the more that we explain to people what the signs are because like you said Katie just saw this as childish behavior she didn't see this as fucking scary scary behavior and I think that that's what we need to really be cognizant of like it's not a reflection that someone loves you if they're trying to control your life that's not what love is and we should never make that excuse

for that behavior 100 and that's the thing like it was scary behavior but someone who loves you shouldn't be doing that so of course she felt completely safe in thinking that he wasn't going to take her life and now trust issues is a big thing like how do you ever trust someone ever again we welcomed a murderer into our house I lie awake at night going I had so many opportunities to just get rid of him just to push him away from our family like we stood close to him and it's just you feel disgusting because how did we miss it like we're telling all these people look out for this look out for this and it's like but we couldn't see it people miss it every day Bianca I just don't want you to ever sit there and blame yourself or wish that you could have done something

different because we miss this every single day and we are all we all do what I was most impressed about the documentary in your episode in episode one we obviously got to watch it before the public and I went to my sister and I started to tell her about it I'm very close with my sister and your story really affected me and so I can think about but what I said to my sister was my takeaway the in the episode they also focused on the fact that the most dangerous time for a woman or a man but we see domestic violence more common in women the most dangerous time is when the woman tries to leave and what I was really impressed about in episode one was the fact that there are things in place to help facilitate people to leave because it's one thing to say see the signs and

leave but we all know that that's when the bad stuff happens and I was blown away because I didn't know this existed that you could go and meet people that can help you in a shopping center no one can see you it's so low-key they walk up they say follow me and you're all of a sudden you're in a safe room in the middle of a shopping center now I was blown away by this because I had no idea that this was a thing and I don't think a lot of women do know so I really want to reiterate that there are things and procedures and people in place that can help you anyone that's listening in any situation there are people that can help you facilitate you with leaving a relationship like this they put the steps in place and you don't have to put yourself in that danger until

you are ready and there is a plan to leave that's the biggest takeaway from all of this is the fact that you can't do it on your own as much as people say just leave you can't do it on your own so you need to have a plan in place you need to do it when they're not home that is the biggest thing do not have a fight do not do it in person it's not about you know respecting them in that sense it is literally have the plan tell your parents tell your friends wait till they're gone have all your stuff and get out don't go somewhere they know you're gonna go to and don't get back in touch with them until you have something in place because had katie told my dad that night or my mom they would have been down there helping her pack and things would not have happened because that's

the whole point of domestic violence is they are cowards who will only do it when no one's around so the more people you have around when you make a decision the less chance you have of being attacked and it's a horrible way to live your life but there is literally safety in numbers in this case and that's why we say we're trying to be katie's army we're trying to be this voice that kind of echoes around that it's okay to ask for help don't do it on your own and don't feel weak for needing to leave and a relationship that's not working is just exactly that it's just not working it doesn't reflect on who you are it doesn't mean you're giving up and it doesn't mean that you're unlovable it's so hard because people just settle we are going to do another

episode in a couple of weeks where we're going to be interviewing jess hill who is the investigative journalist behind this sbs series and that interview is going to be more around what is coercive control and what are the signs of it and also you know what you can do if you find yourself in these situations but Bianca from your perspective and the work that you're doing where can people go for help? There's a lot of places to go for help but the first one before actually accessing resources is to talk to your family and talk to your friends because they are the ones who can get you to these resources safely. There's the Orange Door, there's Berry Street, there's Domestic Violence Hotlines, there are so many places around you but it's better to do it

once you've got the support of family and friends so the first thing to do is to open up have the conversation and let people help you we will put all of those places for help in the show notes too guys so we'll put that at the end if you do need to or if you know someone that needs help please direct them to this episode and direct them to the show notes for help Bianca thank you so much for taking your time today for sharing your story it is so harrowing and such a huge story to share with everyone and I know that this is going to be a really important episode for people listening and we appreciate you and we appreciate you sharing it so very very much thank you thank you for being Katie's voice and just trying to help the next generation it means a lot and I

thank you for being Katie's voice she I can only imagine she's so proud of you and you are changing whether you know it or not you are changing a lot of people's lives so you should be really proud of what you're going to guys as you know we normally finish every episode with our suck and our sweet our highlight and our low light of each and every week but considering how heavy this episode has been and what we've been talking about it just didn't seem right to finish off this episode doing suck and sweet and you know we did miss accidentally unfiltered it is a definitely a different episode for us but like we said it is such an important conversation to have and we really hope that each and every one of you got something out of this episode and it's a

conversation that you can take to your own friendship groups it's a conversation that you can have with your family with the people that you love and really bring this conversation around coercive control out from the secrecy and out into the daylight so that more people are aware of it it's something that we feel really passionate about and it is a conversation we will keep having on this podcast but just to let you all know as well we will not be doing our Ask Uncut this week which is Thursday's episode and next week we'll be back to our absolute normal scheduling

so until then, tell your mum tell your dad and tell all your friends and share the love because we love love We'll be right back.