Supreme Court of Western Australia
PERTH
October 15th
When Jodie gets up to cross-examine, she returns to what Eric Symonds said about you not being in the car the second time he saw me.
‘But is this proof that something happened to Tyler MacFarlane?’ She glances towards the jury before turning back to the witness.
Mr Symonds shakes his head. ‘No.’ He shifts in his seat as Jodie stares at him. He looks over at Mr Lowe.
‘Think carefully, Mr Symonds.’ Jodie lowers her voice. ‘The items the defendant bought from you do not suggest she had just killed a man. Do they? A twelve-pack of water bottles, a phone charger, petrol. No cleaning products here, no bleach. Would you agree with that?’
Eric Symonds frowns, then he glances at me. ‘Yes,’ he finally admits. ‘She didn’t buy anything that proved she’d killed him.’
I watch the prosecution team sit up straighter and I feel a small sense of satisfaction.
‘Exactly,’ Jodie says. ‘So let me present an alternative situation. You could also say that Kate Stone left your petrol station that day and returned to Tyler MacFarlane. You could say there was nothing untoward going on when you first saw Tyler MacFarlane in the back seat of the hirecar on February seventeenth. You could say they were just driving together on a trip, having fun. And why was Tyler MacFarlane in the back seat, and not the front, as Mr Lowe pointed out? There could be any number of reasons. He was tired, sleeping. Maybe he was even hiding. Neither of them wanted Tyler to be seen by the authorities, after all.’
‘Objection!’ says Mr Lowe.
Eric Symonds looks thoroughly confused. Jodie reminds him and the jury of the arguments she set out in her opening speech. That you and I were on a road-trip, returning to a place important to us both, reconnecting with each other after years apart.
In her account, we are more like Romeo and Juliet than Bonnie and Clyde. Both you and I, misguided and damaged, but not dangerous. Her opening speech, when she laid everything out for the jury, was a thing of beauty. Her voice was heavy with emotion when she told the court, with care and sensitivity, about how I’d been diagnosed with Stockholm syndrome after your trial for my kidnap, how confused I’d become in the following years. With utmost respect, she asked the jury if anyone could blame me for getting confused afterwards, for believing the lies you fed me. She didn’t say you were on drugs when I saw you in that park; she told the jury that you came with me willingly. She explained that a part of you even wanted to atone for all the hurt you had done.
‘They both had a naive dream that, together, they could be something more,’ she said.
Expertly, she spun our story as if she was creating a beautiful Chagall painting, full of longing and sweeping emotions.
‘Though it may be hard for us to understand,’ she said, ‘they did, and do, love each other. Like ill-fated lovers, they are never able to be together, because of what society might think of their relationship, because of how they’d be treated for it. They had to love each other in private, and then try to escape to the place they thought no one would find them.Theirplace.’
Two weeks ago, Jodie and Mikael, my defence team, sat with me for hours in the remand centre and discussed this part of my case. ‘We can show the jury how your relationship was different from what they might think,’ Jodie said. ‘Is that how you want your story shown?’
I never did ask Jodie if she believed all the things I told her.
Now, in this cold, cavernous courtroom, I stare at the photograph of you still up on the screen above Eric Symonds. The image of you as a younger, tanned, fitter man might help my case. This time, the jury might believe I ran away with you, that I wanted to. Who wouldn’t want to run away with you when you look like that? You’re so damn beautiful. Too beautiful. But will they believe that you wanted to run away with me?