Tracy Johnston holding a photo of her partner Mark Hutton who was allegedly murdered in 2010.
- There were 510 homicides between 2008 and 2010.
- For each homicide more than a dozen people need support.
- Homicide deeply effects communities.
ALMOST every day someone in Australia is murdered - shattering families, fracturing friendships, ripping apart communities and ruining livelihoods.
Almost every day someone in Australia is murdered - their lives snuffed out by violent, vicious and senseless acts.
There has been a steady decrease over the past three decades of homicides within Australia but nevertheless, there were 510 homicide incidents in 2008-09 to 2009-10 according to statistics released last week by the National Homicide Monitoring Program.
For each life stolen, more than a dozen people need immediate and ongoing support.
Homicide's tentacles stretch into every area of its victims' lives and beyond into the wider community.
This was witnessed last year as residents rallied to find Brisbane mum Allison Baden-Clay after the mother-of-three was reported missing.
It became a focal point for the tight-knit community and was talked about outside schools, at sporting grounds and in shopping centres.
Allison's mysterious disappearance baffled and worried locals who joined the SES to look for her, left tributes at her home and closed in around her three young daughters.
The devastating discovery of her body and subsequent murder charge against her husband Gerard sent shockwaves through the semi-rural suburb.
Flowers at the home of Allison Baden-Clay in Brookfield in the wake of her disappearance. Source: The Courier-Mail
Just as the alleged rape and murder of ABC employee Jill Meagher, who disappeared while attempting to walk 450m home from a Melbourne bar in September, stunned the city and horrified the nation.
So affected was the community by the 29-year-old's death that 30,000 strangers united to march in her memory while more than 300,000 joined her Facebook tribute page.
A similarly demonstrative outpouring was seen in Sydney's west following Kiesha Weippeart's death in July 2010.
When the six-year-old disappeared the community conducted a vigil and covered the front fence of her Mount Druitt home with cards, gifts and stuffed toys.
When Kiesha's mother and stepfather were eventually charged over her murder the community, which had rallied around them, viciously turned on the accused.
An autopsy found Kiesha suffered a major head injury shortly before she died.
A court heard her body was then kept inside a suitcase for five days before being set alight and buried in a shallow grave.
Not only did the community struggle to deal with their loss and betrayal, but the painstaking investigation took a toll on many of the police officers involved.
Friends, family & members of the public hold a candle light vigil at the shrine honouring murdered Mount Druitt 6-year-old Kiesha Weippeart. Source: The Daily Telegraph
While the circumstances were poles apart, the grief of losing a child felt familiar to the sleepy Sunshine Coast suburb of Woombye, which lost a son in December 2003 when Daniel Morcombe went missing from a local bus stop.
His parent's resolve to find him and spare other families their pain galvanised a community and a nation.
The 13-year-old's parents Bruce and Denise said their personal loss had impacted "a whole range of people" outside their immediate family.
"There are neighbours who the boys used to pick fruit with," Mr Morcombe said.
"They were close to the last people to see Daniel and the other boys on that morning (Daniel disappeared) and they were all questioned. Perhaps some of them felt the heat of the investigation even more so than us before they too were eliminated from the investigation. Neighbours with dams and machinery and that sort of stuff would have felt uncomfortable knowing they were perhaps the last people to see Daniel.
"The worker at the petrol pump at Woombye was one of the last witnesses to see Daniel on his walk to the bus stop. They vividly remember that."
Their memories haunt them.
Daniel Morcombe was abducted on December 7, 2003, while waiting for a bus at the Kiel Mountain overpass bridge at Woombye on the Sunshine Coast. Source: Supplied
Helping those left behind has become Ross Thompson's life since his own son, Michael, was slain in one of Queensland's most heinous killing sprees.
The 30-year-old community education worker was murdered, along with 17-year-olds Ty Wilson and David Lyons, in May 2005.
The victims were brutally bashed to death in Thompson's Toowoomba home.
The three perpetrators were jailed but the youngest - a teenager at the time who was not named - is already free.
Scott Geoffrey Maygar is serving a 30-year sentence while John Brian Woodman was jailed for 15 years for their roles in the unprovoked killings.
Michael's death led Ross to the Queensland Homicide Victims' Support Group (QHVSG) for help.
A couple of years later he became a volunteer and is now the group's manager.
The 60-year-old and his wife Margi moved from Toowoomba to Brisbane in 2011 to escape the memories.
"Margi is hospitalised up to four times a year. She's heavily medicated," the father of three said.
"You have bad thoughts all of the time.
"In our case we know what happened so we imagine it and have nightmares over it.
"That's why Margi has a lot of trouble. That's what most of her nightmares are about."
The couple lost their second son John, 21, in a car crash three months after Michael's murder.
"I can accept Johnny's death but I can't accept what happened to Michael," Ross said.
"These animals stole Michael from us and it's always going to be there until I die, and everybody effected by it, till the day they die."
Every time a homicide in that state is reported QVHSG - which provides peer support, help, love and understanding to victims - reaches out to an average of 13.7 people.
"We're only just scratching the surface. We don't get to every person affected," Ross said.
"We have an 1800-number that is manned every second of the day.
"The early hours of the morning are when you're at your lowest and that's when we get the most calls.
"We have a strategy for responding to threats of suicide. When it happens it's just 'drop everything and go'."
Queensland Homicide Victims' Support Group (QHVSG) general manager Ross Thompson Source: The Courier-Mail
Tracy Johnston has been there.
Her partner of almost 13 years was allegedly murdered outside the couple's home in September 2010.
The matter is still before the courts.
Tracy says not only did she lose her best friend and soul mate, but she also witnessed the incident, which was even more devastating.
"I was incredibly suicidal and like that up until the start of this year," she said.
"Some people can be incredibly cruel when things like this happen, but you get a sense of who the genuine people in your life are and those who aren't.
"My business partner Beth has been such a brick for me, whereas for one friend it was just too much to comprehend and too scandalous to be associated with."
Her partner, Mark Hutton, 51, was a senior project manager for a coal seam gas company and "an absolutely beautiful, kind, giving person".
"For the first 12 months the only time I would really leave the house was when I had medical appointments or when I had to deal with the police side of things,” she said.
"A lot of people said to me early on they felt it would be better for me not to be in the home that we shared for so long.
"But I felt Mark everywhere in there and I still do. He kept me safe when this happened. He told me to stay inside.
Queensland's head of homicide Detective Superintendent Brian Wilkins said communities don't feel safe if "people are getting murdered in the street".
"I think every homicide has a major impact on any community no matter whether it happens in (high or low socio-economic areas)," he said.
"We treat all homicides the same and all homicides, regardless of the location or the individual, has a significant impact on their family and the community in general."
It also has an impact on his officers, whose welfare is monitored by police chaplains, human services officers and peer support officers.
"We don't force anybody to come to homicide or remain in homicide," Supt Wilkins said.
"If you've been here for three years and wish to remain, so long as you're travelling alright and there are no personal issues, there's no issue with you remaining.
"But there are things that you've got to give up such as anniversaries, your kids' birthdays, your partner's birthday and school holidays. There are personal sacrifices and my people willingly make those.
"I'm very privileged because I've got a group of extremely dedicated, committed detectives."
Queenslands head of homicide Detective Superintendent Brian Wilkins Source: The Courier-Mail
Regaining even a small degree of emotional equilibrium in the wake of a homicide is hard.
Tracy said the most critical need for those left behind was help to function and deal with daily tasks that we normally take for granted.
"You can't prepare for something like this," she said.
"You need a lot of support to handle the administrative side of what happens after homicide, because you're just numb to it all and you're simply not capable of dealing with complex legal and financial papers or even processing simple things like your day to day bills. Mentally you are in a place where nothing matters anymore and so instead of dealing with things you just let them go.
"When you lose somebody so suddenly and tragically there aren't systems in place to deal with the situation and you find yourself having to explain why you're in this situation repeatedly to service providers, to everybody, and every time you have to relive that experience you just break down."
Tracy Johnston holding a photo of her partner Mark Hutton who was allegedly murdered in 2010. Source:
It is also an isolating experience.
"A lot of people just don't know what to say to you or what to do for you. Sometimes you don't need people to say or do anything - you just need them to be there and give you a hug and that's enough," she said.
"Homicide is not a pretty word but it is real and it doesn't just touch low socioeconomic areas within the community.
"I want people to understand this can happen to anyone including people from close-knit families and positive environments."
"So many people have said to me they can't believe this has happened to someone they know."
Supt Wilkins, like Tracy, knows homicide doesn't discriminate.
The cop of 34 years, who has investigated hundreds of murders, has been robbed of a loved one.
"A very close friend of mine," he said.
"That's since I've been in charge of homicide.
"I don't want to go there."
Supt Wilkins said he was proud of his "resilient" team who investigate the state's most horrific crimes.
"You can't personalise these investigations and that's unfortunate but it's true," he said.
"If you start personalising it's going to have a major impact on your head, particularly when you've got infant victims and that sort of thing.
"We monitor that and you can pick up the signals that people aren't travelling real well and we make sure we give them proper support."
His homicide squad, based in Brisbane, consists of about 30 experienced investigators whose job is to find those responsible and bring them to justice.
"You've got to think of the family first," Supt Wilkins said.
"There's no greater crime that you can commit than murdering another human.
"At the end of the day there's no one else. If we don't find the perpetrator, there's no one else out there who will."
Tracy said she is finally starting to function after the trauma of Mark's death but that she and Mark's family are unable to truly move forward until the matter is finalised in court.
"This is my life now. I'm consumed by this 24/7 and I will be until the perpetrator goes to jail," she said.
"The process for a conviction takes so long. You really can't start moving on with your life in a positive way until that's behind you.
"The real tragedy is those who are left behind because it's not like on the TV shows where it's all suddenly over once someone's life has been taken. That is really just the beginning of what will be years of heartache, financial devastation, legal complexities and having to deal with the judiciary system."
kristin.shorten@news.com.au
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