What does Macsyna King expect to achieve through telling her side of the story and naming who she thinks killed her children?
She has no moral compass afterall. So what is motivating her? She obviously liked sex, especially with younger men but didn't like the result. There seems not to be a mothering bone in her body. Does she understand that most people find her indifference to all of the children she has given birth to utterly abhorrent? Or has she changed her ways, perhaps become a Christian and needs forgiveness? That isn't an uncommon transformation and might explain Ian Wishart's involvement.
Don't look here for it.
She may be able to convince readers she is innocent of murder, but she will never convince me she was innocent of ongoing gross neglect and inhumanity. These I consider worse crimes than a murder committed by a child too young to know what he was doing.
If I seem harsh, here is a taste of what the book might read like:
A look of shock passed over the doctor's face as he examined the fatally injured Kahui twins, says their mother.
"His eyebrows raised, his eyes widened," said Macsyna King.
Macsyna King 31, was giving evidence in the High Court in Auckland where her former partner Chris Kahui is on trial for the murder of their three month-old twin boys Chris and Cru.
"I remember thinking that if he's looking like that and he's a doctor, then what else is wrong."
Ms King she decided after talking to Kahui to take the babies to their GP. Cru was due for a follow up visit and she was concerned about what had happened the night before, she said.
She collected the car seats and strapped the boys in, not stopping to change their nappies or clothes.
On the way to the doctors, they stopped at MacDonald's for breakfast but could not remember if she took the twins in with her, or left them strapped in their car seats in the car.
They arrived at the doctor's surgery about 1pm and told the reception they needed to see their GP, that it was "about the boys".
They waited about 20 minutes then were shown into the doctor's room where the twins were examined one at a time while they remained strapped in their car seats.
After examining the babies, Dr Nayar said he was concerned about the boys and would write a referral.
"He needed me to take the boys to Middlemore Hospital."
Asked by Crown lawyer Richard Marchant who was the dominant person in the relationship, Ms King replied "I thought I was".
"I would yell the loudest, I would swear at him and I just wouldn't stop till I got my way," she said.
"I've kicked him in the shin, I've slapped his face before."
Kahui, eight years her junior, was a quiet, softly spoken person who would bottle things up.
"That would come out when he'd get really angry – he'd lose it."
Ms King told the court she had three children to two different fathers prior to meeting Kahui in 2004. All three children were now cared for by their respective fathers and she did not have contact with them.
She started living with Kahui shortly after meeting him and quickly fell pregnant, giving birth to a boy, Shayne, in 2005.
In September that year, she split with Kahui for several months and went to live with her sister Emily.
During that time she got into a relationship with another man but then returned to Kahui.
She fell pregnant with the twins soon after her return.
Kahui's sister, Mona, later questioned her about the paternity of the twins.
"She asked me if Chris was the father of the twins" Ms King said.
"I said 'Yes'."
Ms King said she then went to Kahui and repeated the conversation to him and reassured him he was the father.
The next day, after a second argument with Kahui about taking time out, she left again for Emily's place.
About 6pm they went to visit a friend of Emily's where they drank and talked.
As she had only had one or two glasses of wine, Ms King said she drove them home about 1am, and she slept on the couch.
Although she could not recall anyone trying to wake her in the night, her sister told her in the morning that had attempted to, to tell her that Cru had "held his breath overnight", she said.
"That was the very first time I knew about that."
She got home about 10am, to find her brother Stuart King looking after the twins.
As he was telling me what happened the night before, Ms King said she was walking towards the nursery. She dropped the side of the cot, bent down and felt their breath on her cheek.
At the same time, she noticed a fresh bruise on baby Chris's face.
"I stood up and started on my brother about where the hell was he when all this was going on."
Then Kahui arrived and she started yelling at him.
Kahui told her Cru had held his breath the night before and had to be given CPR and that the bruise on baby Chris' face was from Shayne.
He told her he had left the babies on the couch in the nursery after feeding them, while he returned the bottles to the kitchen.
The door to the nursery had been left partially opened and Shayne had pushed it opened, climbed up on to the couch and "got at the boys".
She accepted his explanation but then Kahui started blaming her.
"He said "well you should have been home taking care of the kids," she said.
"He was blaming me. If I had stayed home and looked after the kids this would not have happened, I would know what happened."
KING ADMITTED VIOLENCE, SOCIAL WORKERS SAY
Earlier today, social workers told the court they had discussed referring Ms King to Child, Youth and Family in the weeks before their deaths.
Social worker Nadine Ingham said she first met Macsyna King after the twins were born and were being cared for in Middlemore Hospital’s neonatal unit.
Hospital staff were concerned about the lack of visits to the unit by Ms King and her partner Chris Kahui.
Ms King said she did not like being told what to do by hospital staff and had a problem with their "expectations".
She said she had not been up to the hospital because the house she was living in was unsuitable for the babies and she had to find somewhere else for them to live. She also had to train a new person to take over her job.
During her conversation with Ms Ingham, Ms King said she sometimes hit Kahui – but not around the head or face – and occasionally smacked their one-year-old son Shayne with an open hand. She also said she was attending an anger management course.
She also said she like to go out with her friends and get drunk but would get the babies "out of her hair" first.
Hospital staff had discussed referring her to Child, Youth and Family, but the referral was never made, she said.
'DELIBERATE KILLING'
The Crown alleges the babies were killed deliberately, with the fatal injuries being delivered shortly before an episode in which baby Cru’s eye rolled back, his lips turned blue and he stopped breathing.
Kahui was alone with the babies in the nursery for up to 10 minutes before the episode and was the only one who had the opportunity to harm them.
The babies' mother, Macsyna King, was not home at the time so could not have been the killer, the Crown alleged.
But in her opening address yesterday, Kahui’s lawyer Lorraine Smith said the mother was the most likely killer and had confessed that she "did it".
Medical experts would testify the babies’ injuries could have been caused earlier than the Crown alleged, at a time when Ms King was at home with the babies, she said.
This morning Counties Manukau District Health Board homecare nurse Jane Eyres said the twins showed no sign of being injured in the weeks before their deaths.
They slept in a "beautiful", clean, warm nursery, were feeding well and were putting on weight, she said.
Despite stripping each of the twins to examine them, she never saw bruises or any other sign that the babies were injured.
It was only after they were killed that she became aware one of the babies had an old brain injury and the other an old wrist fracture.
Middlemore Hospital play specialist Kathryn Greenwood said Macsyna King told her the babies had been hurt by their toddler brother.
Greenwood told the court she first met Kahui and Ms King when their twins were in the neo-natal unit in April 2006 at Middlemore Hospital.
She looked after their eldest child Shane, who was 10 months-old.
Miss Greenwood was working on June 13 when Ms King brought the twins into hospital and went to see her in the resuscitation room where the twins were being treated.
Ms King told Ms Greenwood that Shane had climbed onto a couch at home and into the twins cot and "got them".
Ms King talked about how busy she had been and how life was a balancing act, she said.
Initially Ms King was angry but became more in control over the course of the day, Ms Greenwood said.
Her observations of Shane before June 13 was that he was not an "active child" and was not able to hold himself up but could crawl, Miss Greenwood said.
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10 comments:
Great post Lindsay. Everyone should be free to write or publish a book, and I'd never advocate this book be banned. By the same token, people are also free to boycott it, and the person who publishes it. I so look forward to the findings of the coroner.
Deborah Coddington
Excellent post Lindsay. I support the boycott of the book; it's the ultimate way for customers to show their distaste. I have read many of Ian Wishart's publications and found them to be well-founded, but believe that he has misjudged this one. It's way too soon, and the wounds are still too raw.
The extract you post is damning towards Macsyna King; it is clear that things such as stopping at Maccas for breakfast were more important to her that the welfare of her children.
Like Deborah, I look forward to the response of the Coroner, and wonder if Ian Wishart will be receiving a summons to attend and give the evidence which he claims to have. This could get VERY interesting.
Great stuff to read. If only we mere mortals could discern the truth from lies and the bullshit inbetweeen.(is that a word?)
Justice aint served when the system provides multible conclusions.
Dirk
Isn't it awful how little innocent toddler Shane was blamed by his parents.
Yep, you did that post well, Lindsay.
Saddest part, apart from the appalling, deliberate killings, is the fact that no one will ever answer for them.
Wow now that's interesting thank you for posting it
Macsyna is nothing less than an animal and savage of the worst kind.
The discussion should be free and open. If one wishes to then boycott the book, but don't insist on the banning of it.
The fact that book shops have joined in the boycott is purely to avoid fall out from customers. It's an economic decision not a moral one.
They are not all that righteous are they? After all they sell pornography don't they? (Oh, that's right, adults have the choice to read this in a free society don't they!) I would argue that this is much more damaging than this book.
Just as one is free to refuse to read Macsyna King's book another ought to be free to read it if they so choose.
Each one of us ought to have the opportunity to tell our story if we wish. Who am I, or for that matter who are you, to deny this for someone else? That's not what an open and free country, one that espouses democracy is all about.
Seini
Thank you Lindsay
for
Reminding what Ms King was reported as doing and saying at the time, rather than getting into yet another "freedoms" debate. Should we be free to write, publish,dress, go naked blah blah.... etc. etc. Asking such questions implies that the asker thinks freedom is related to or conditional upon not accepting the consequences of one's actions inaction.(Of being "allowed" to.) Freedom in my view is about being responsible. Ms King cannot be said to have been fully responsible for her children. I noted the comment that Cris and Cru's parents did not spend a lot of time with them in the neonate ward.
Caroline
Thanks or a clear concise summary of events in this terrible case. I wonder about Macsyna, on one hand the children are clean and well cared for by her (as described by the health nurse) Her family regarded her as a fanatical housekeeper. Than the 'flipside', away for hours at a time, leaving the twins without her. Is the problem here, that Macsyna at this time in her life, taken over by addictions to drugs and alcohol and those addictions controlled everything, and came before the lives of the children.
That's what we need...another "expert" condemning this book before its been published or read. I wonder what sort of "commenting" Mitchell has been making on welfare "issues" since 2001 (not that I've ever heard her name)? If this sad, judgmental, presumptuous blog post is an example of how she feels and comments about welfare and abuse and its victims in this country, and god forbid she has any influence on policy, I'd be very afraid for the future.
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