Anne Cousins of Berwick shares with Gazette readers her thoughts and feelings around the murder of her sister-in-law Kylie Blackwood in 1 August last year and the nightmare her brother Peter has had to endure in the 12 months since.
IT WAS around 5.30 in the afternoon on 1 August last year.
Two of my brothers, Greg and Mark Blackwood, arrived at Mum and Dad’s within minutes of each other.
When I got there they were standing talking to Amy and (Kylie’s brother) Justin Whitta in their four-wheel-drive, on the kerb.
I thought they must be looking for Kylie and that she was inside helping Mum.
Mum had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and couldn’t walk or do much else (the following day we were told the cancer was in her kidney, shoulder and had eaten away her pelvis, which is why she couldn’t walk).
I went over to speak to the four of them but they were all quiet.
I asked something like “what’s going on” and Greg looked at me and said: “Kylie’s been murdered.”
What?
Why?
I just fell down in the gutter … dry retching, sobbing.
I had just lost my sister-in-law and was about to lose my Mum.
It was too much!
Later, close to midnight, my sister Mary brought Peter and Kylie’s three kids back from being interviewed by Dandenong police.
To see their faces was so painful, yet they were being so brave and strong, but when Peter arrived separately (police orders), he had to be assisted by my brother Mark and my husband Dick. He couldn’t walk by himself.
That sight is etched in my memory forever – pure, sickening grief.
Peter fell into Mum’s lap and just bawled – a picture of human despair. Mum’s baby boy, the youngest of six.
Mum was admitted to hospital the following day. She asked me how Peter was going to cope.
He had a beautiful wife, three great kids, ran a successful business and had a nice group of friends.
I said to her “he has no choice, he has to be strong, but you are the one he needs to hear it from”.
I remember two days later the boys helping to hold him up to walk to visit Mum. We all left the hospital room and they had their time together.
Peter left her room unaided for the first time since that terrible day. Mum had given him the strength to go on.
Mum died six days after Kylie. I felt she wanted to stay to help rescue him but she couldn’t bear the grief either.
Peter’s nightmare begins every morning when he wakes up and Kylie is not there.
He has self-imposed a ban on alcohol and coffee. He has lost 18 kilograms.
He told me a week or two after it happened that he wouldn’t drink again until they caught the killer.
I did make the comment to Dad that if Peter did have a drink, he may never stop, given what has happened.
Peter lives for his three magnificent children. He refers to Chase as his ‘wingman’. He is ahead of his years in wisdom and in strength.
Mia is like her Mum and loves all things girly. Holly wants to be the next (pro surfer) Layne Beachley.
I am so proud of my little brother, as Mum would have been.
His children are his greatest achievements. They are now a very tight unit who are all so easy to love.
My sister Mary has been there for Peter as a kid, day and night.
She gave up two part-time jobs to do so; her love and devotion is to be admired.
Regarding the killer, I feel there is a woman out there – whether she is a lover, mother or sister – who knows who this person is.
I say to them, please stop him from committing another atrocity to another loving family.
If you have a heart and soul, please allow him to be brought to justice.
Anne Cousins,
Berwick.
