Chapter 31

A Terrifying Death

After the wedding, Stephen and Cindy were ready to begin a new chapter in their lives, but with Rob expected to be sentenced in the coming week, their plans for a honeymoon had been placed on hold. They’d decided to take a big a family holiday after Christmas, when everything was over.

Cindy hadn’t attended Rob’s last sentencing, but this time she was determined she’d be there. On 15 October 2010, five days after their wedding, the newlyweds returned to the Supreme Court, which was packed with people jostling to catch the conclusion to this high-profile trial.

At exactly 11.30, Cindy, Stephen and their family filed into court behind a stream of lawyers and media, as well as Rob’s family and supporters.

Justice Lasry began by telling Farquharson that sentencing him for these crimes was straightforward in some respects, but in other ways it was difficult.

‘I have been involved in the practice of the law for 38 years and yet the tragedy of this case defies imagination,’ he said. ‘These were crimes committed against three vulnerable, helpless and wholly innocent children.’

The judge went on: ‘Your crimes have devastated a significant number of people. Primary among them is your ex-wife, Cindy Gambino, the mother of these three children. Also her now husband, Stephen Moules, her family, your family and to a broader extent many people in the township of Winchelsea, who knew you and your family, and in particular, who knew your children.’

Justice Lasry acknowledged that Farquharson had been upset and angry at the relationship breakdown. But he said, such things happened to many people without ending in the kind of tragedy that befell this family.

About the testimony of Greg King, the judge said he wasn’t satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the fish-and-chip shop conversation had taken place in the terms King had described to the court. Even King’s wife had no memory of being told about it. King had failed to put this extreme version to Farquharson and had given different versions of the conversation to police.

He didn’t believe King to be dishonest, but he didn’t find him ‘particularly reliable’ given the trauma he’d suffered. ‘I am sure he now honestly believes the conversation occurred as he described it, but I am not satisfied to the requisite standard,’ said Justice Lasry. He wouldn’t be sentencing Farquharson on the basis that he proposed to kill his children because he hated them, or that he’d necessarily chosen Father’s Day to activate his plan.

The judge said that whenever the defendant had developed his murderous intention, it was evident that some ‘appreciable thought’ had gone into the crimes. ‘You chose the location at which to drown your children and I am satisfied there must have been a degree of contemplation or planning, but the extent of it, when and over what period, I am unable to say.’

The jury’s verdict made it clear that they were satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Farquharson had left the vehicle with the intention that his children would drown. ‘It must have been a terrifying death,’ the judge observed. He referred to Cindy Gambino’s trauma as the defendant delivered the news of her children’s deaths and the ‘most horrible odyssey’ of her life began.

‘You may well have been traumatised,’ he said, referring to Farquharson’s behaviour at the dam, ‘but only by a realisation of the magni­tude of these appalling criminal acts which you had just committed. You were devoid of any interest or concern for your children or even for the recovery of their bodies.’

Until 4 September 2005, Farquharson was ‘a person of good character, a law-abiding citizen and a committed family man. The incongruity between that and what occurred that day is almost inexplicable.’

Nothing less than a life sentence for each murder would be sufficient. ‘Whenever you made the decision to commit these crimes, the stark reality is that you have murdered your three children who were young and vulnerable and in respect of whom you had an overwhelmingly strong obligation to protect them. You have shown no remorse for what you have done, implicit in the fact that you have maintained your innocence.’

Justice Lasry sentenced Farquharson to life imprisonment on each count with a minimum term of 33 years, deducting the 958 days he had already spent in prison. The judge said his decision was influenced by the defendant’s previously good character, the fact that he was not a threat to the community, and the likelihood that he would serve his sentence ‘under onerous conditions’ given the nature of his crimes.

Farquharson shook his head throughout the speech and screwed up his face when the sentence was finally pronounced. Cindy, trembling in the public gallery, burst into tears as he was led away. Outside the court, she told reporters, ‘It’s never going to be enough…It’s a life sentence for me – it should be a life sentence for him.’

As the family left, supporting one another, Greg King addressed the media, his voice shaking as he read from a written statement. ‘I value family and I value friends,’ he said. ‘Robbie was a lifelong friend, his family and children we knew and loved. I am very loyal to my friends. However, when I heard the news of this tragic crime, I could not sleep, I could not eat, I could not function…For the sake of three precious little boys we knew and loved, I had no choice but to speak out.’ He said he was happy with the sentence and hoped the truth would now bring this tragic crime to a close.

But Farquharson’s solicitor, Simon Northeast, told journalists his client intended to lodge another appeal, and his supporters left the court maintaining his innocence.

‘Rob is a broken man, a traumatised and deeply grieving parent who loves his children,’ said his friend Anne Irwin, reading from a statement. ‘He finds it difficult to accept the deaths of his boys and will carry this grief with him forever. His grieving process has been complicated by the added trauma from accusations, trials and imprisonment and because of this he has been labelled emotionless.’

Back at home that night, it was Cindy who felt emotionless and empty. The wedding preparations that had occupied her thoughts throughout the last days of the trial were over, and with them the adrenalin rush that had buoyed her. Without it, she felt flatter and bleaker than ever.

She sank to a level of despair worse than anything her family had seen. She sat in her pyjamas day after day, rocking to and fro and crying softly to herself. Her depression was getting worse, not better.

‘You need to be in hospital,’ Stephen told her. ‘There’s no choice any more.’ He phoned the doctor.

Dr Singh surveyed his patient. ‘Do you feel you need to be in hospital?’ he asked. Cindy nodded. She felt like someone from another planet.

She was admitted the same day to the Geelong Psychiatric Clinic, where she was given transcranial magnetic stimulation, a treatment in which electrical impulses are transmitted to various parts of the brain to stimulate them into action.

‘The aim is to awaken parts of the brain that simply go to sleep and stop working in long-term severe depression,’ the doctor told Stephen.

Stephen was worried, but he knew something had to be done about the impact of Cindy’s depressive behaviour, especially on the younger children. Her refusal to get out of bed, her uncontrolled sobbing and her incoherent speech were frightening for everyone.

Over the coming days, Stephen juggled a baby, a toddler and his older children’s school runs with visits to the hospital. Life was more out of control than ever.

After eighteen rounds of treatment, Cindy slowly began feeling clearer. The doctors were pleased with her progress and agreed to discharge her on 1 November. But new problems were waiting when she returned to the outside world.

In late November 2010, Robert Farquharson was back in the news. As his lawyer had foreshadowed, he was appealing his convictions and sentence again. Cindy didn’t want to comment. Instead, her father spoke for the family.

Bob said solemnly that he hoped the fresh appeal would come to nothing. ‘Everyone has been through enough,’ he said. ‘It has taken its toll on us all and we can’t do with another appeal…We are all trying to move on, and things like this just deny the process.’

He’d discussed the situation with Cindy, who had simply asked when it would all end. ‘No-one wants to go through this again,’ her father said sadly. Accompanying the story was an old photo of Cindy wearing a badge in support of her ex-husband reading ‘Fact Before Theory’.

Ironically, while Cindy was struggling to get out of her pyjamas each day, her name was included in the New Year edition of Melbourne’s Herald Sun as one of the most inspirational people of 2010. While she felt emotionally and physically drained after a second torturous trial, her courage in acknowledging the truth about her ex-husband had put her name on top of the list. But Cindy was in such a bad place that she completely missed the accolade. Far from feeling inspirational, she felt more despondent than ever.

By the new year, there were more angry outbursts and spells of depression. Cindy was screeching at everyone and constantly flying off the handle. Her erratic behaviour was frightening Hezekiah. ‘Will Mummy get better soon?’ he kept asking. ‘Sure she will, mate,’ Stephen said uncertainly.

Stephen was close to breaking point himself. He’d been told he might need surgery to correct a painful problem with one of the vertebrae in his neck. His doctor had explained that spurs hanging off the degenerating vertebra were putting pressure on the sciatic nerve. Only surgery would fix it. ‘I haven’t time for surgery,’ Stephen said, contemplating the demands of his family.

The doctor had already told him he had the body of a far older man. He was presenting with the kinds of health problems you’d expect in someone 30 years older. Stephen sighed. He felt like an old man under all this pressure. He’d had enough stress to last a lifetime.

In the midst of this turmoil, a policeman turned up at their door. A neighbour, hearing Cindy yelling in the front yard, had reported the incident. The police left after speaking to her, and Cindy spent a couple of days calming down at Jason’s house.

Two weeks later, neighbours called the police again after another disturbance. Cindy had been out in the yard, shouting and throwing things around.

She grabbed her handbag and raced outside to her car. Stephen panicked at the thought of what might happen if she drove in this irrational frame of mind. He envisaged a terrible accident. Cindy was a danger to herself and others.

‘No, you don’t,’ he warned, and tried to snatch the keys. But she’d kept going, and the argument had spilt into the front yard.

The police soon arrived with an ambulance. By then, Cindy was holding a knife to her wrists. ‘Is this what you want? Is it?’ she raged at a frantic Stephen.

The paramedics took her to Geelong Hospital, where the doctors assessed her immediately. After asking her a number of questions, they became convinced this wasn’t a serious attempt at self-harm and agreed to allow her to return home.

Instead she retreated again to Jason’s, unable to cope with the pressures of family life. After a few days, she told him, ‘I think I’ll spend a few days with mum and dad. I’m not ready to face home just yet.’ But the tensions continued at Birregurra. Cindy’s falling mood saw her sitting around in her pyjamas, smoking and crying all day.

After a while, Bob lost his temper with his daughter. ‘Get your arse into gear!’ he yelled in frustration.

‘I can’t!’ she snapped.

‘Well, if you hadn’t made the decision to separate from Rob, none of this would be happening,’ he spluttered.

His words cut like a knife. ‘What?’ she screamed hysterically. ‘You think this is my fault?’

A heated exchange followed, and Cindy stormed out. She returned to Stephen in tears, still unwell but subdued. Hezekiah cried with relief as she walked in.

‘I want Mummy to get well,’ said the little boy again, confused by his mum’s erratic behaviour and recent disappearance.

‘She’ll be fine mate,’ Stephen said. But watching Cindy puffing restlessly on a cigarette, distracted and edgy, he really wasn’t sure.

In February, nine weeks after being discharged from the clinic, Cindy began to wonder if there might be some other explanation for her bouts of moodiness and erratic behaviour. She’d missed a period, which she’d initially put down to stress. But now she felt an uneasy inkling that something else was going on, so she went out to buy a pregnancy testing kit. She sat in the bathroom, her fingers crossed, hoping her suspicions were wrong. When the solid blue line emerged, her worst fears were confirmed.

‘Oh God no…I can’t, I can’t, I can’t deal with this,’ she sobbed. She wasn’t coping with the babies she already had. Being pregnant again and dealing with yet another baby would finish her off.

During the blur of those weeks in the clinic, she vaguely recalled forgetting her contraceptive pill on a couple of occasions, taking double the next day just in case. The prospect of yet another baby was terrifying.

Though it went against her Christian beliefs, there was only one option. ‘I want a termination,’ she told Stephen. ‘I can’t have this baby.’

Already overwhelmed by the demands of caring for Cindy and four sons, Stephen sadly agreed.

Cindy telephoned a clinic in Geelong, but they couldn’t fit her in before the twelfth week of the pregnancy. ‘I can’t wait that long…I can’t,’ she sobbed. She made a few more calls.

The following week she went to the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, hating herself and feeling more hopeless than ever. Nothing Stephen said could console her. In Cindy’s mind, she was as much a killer as Rob. If it was the right thing to do, it certainly didn’t feel like it.

‘It’s the only thing,’ said Stephen.

After the termination, Cindy felt relieved and guilty, ashamed and miserable all at once. ‘Don’t tell anyone about the termination,’ she instructed Stephen. Instead, they told their families that Cindy had suffered an ectopic pregnancy and had lost the baby.

Three weeks later, she was back at Geelong Hospital with a blood clot. Suspecting septicaemia, the doctor took blood tests, which showed nothing abnormal. But he had bigger concerns.

‘I want to talk to you about the amount of painkilling medication you are on,’ the doctor told Cindy.

Cindy admitted that she’d been surviving on Panadeine Forte to combat the pain from her calcified shoulder.

‘She’s on so much medication it will kill her,’ the doctor told Stephen. Cindy was booked in for an operation to rectify the problem, which had been aggravated by prolonged stress.

‘I’m falling apart,’ she said hopelessly.

Just when she was convinced she’d sunk as low as she could, the ground fell away from under her yet again.

Cindy had heard that the ABC’s Australian Story was poised to air a segment on her children’s murders. She hadn’t been approached for an interview and suspected the story had been driven by Rob’s supporters. Cindy guessed Rob wouldn’t be getting legal aid to fund his new appeal and wondered if this was a stunt to generate support for his case.

On 28 March 2011, Cindy turned the TV on to watch the program, which was promoted under the flowery title, ‘Across the Night Sky’. She was sad to see that the line-up of interviewees protesting Rob’s innocence included Wendy Kennedy.

Rob’s sisters spoke about how as youngsters they’d been protective of their younger brother, who’d been small for his age, and had poor co-ordination and eyesight. But he was ‘a very tough, tough little guy’, said Carmen. ‘He did all the normal things that kids do and he went to play football because he loved sport.’

His friend Michael Hart said Robbie was a great father and would never harm his kids. He’d invited Hart along that day. Why would a guy who was planning to murder his kids invite a mate to join him on an afternoon jaunt? Robbie had appeared so unwell that Hart tried to persuade him to stay and have dinner. But Rob hadn’t wanted to disappoint his children, who were looking forward to their chicken meal.

Stephen was unimpressed. How on earth could Mick Hart have known what was in Rob’s mind?

None of this stuff is new, Cindy thought. She’d heard it all in court, and two juries hadn’t believed a word of it. Why was the ABC doing this? She was already upset when she saw Wendy’s face appear on her TV screen.

‘Cindy wore the pants and Rob was happy,’ said Wendy. ‘That worked really well for them for twelve years. That’s just how it was.’

Cindy burst into tears. ‘How the hell could Wendy possibly know what worked well for me?’ she fumed. ‘My marriage wasn’t working well for me at all!’

Wendy proceeded to speak of Cindy’s relationship with Stephen, implying that it was the cause of the marriage breakup. At this, Cindy exploded. She’d always suspected Wendy had resented Stephen, but this was outrageous.

Dr Danielle Tyson, a criminologist from Monash University, added a voice of professional authority to the show. She observed that within hours of the tragedy, police had decided it was a homicide case. Stephen snorted. ‘Well, she wasn’t bloody well there, or she would have understood why it quickly became a homicide investigation!’

The show then ran an interview with court reporter Jessica Craven, who gave Robert’s explanation for the ‘accident’. But the ABC aired none of the damning details about his story, his failure to contact emergency services or his refusal to search for his submerged car and kids. And where was Dawn Waite’s testimony?

Cindy watched through tears as the ABC ran old footage of her protesting Rob’s innocence in her pain and denial.

Then Wendy’s face reappeared. ‘I don’t know what happened to Cindy,’ she said. ‘How she came to think that Rob was guilty, or if that’s really what she believes. You know, like…she’s living with Stephen; Stephen’s been on television, he’s said clearly that he smelt a rat and words to that effect, and Cindy and I aren’t talking now because I won’t accept Stephen. So that’s where the barriers come in there. That’s why I can’t explain where her head space is at the moment.’

Cindy sat, blinking back tears at the injustice of it all.

‘This whole thing has just impacted us so much, you know,’ Wendy complained.

The program was all about how the case had affected everyone else. How on earth did Wendy think it must be for Cindy? She had been victimised by the initial crime, and now she felt victimised again.

Next day, popular radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch slammed the program as ‘a sympathetic rerun of the vengeful father’s sob story…full of empathetic music and tinkling pianos and interviews with his sisters and friends’. He wondered why the show’s producers hadn’t bothered to point out to viewers that Farquharson had been found guilty, not once but twice.

Cindy hadn’t slept a wink the night after the program aired, and by morning, Stephen had decided to take action.

He phoned the ABC’s Sydney switchboard and asked for the Media Watch journalist who’d rung him once before. In a breathy voice, he related their dismay at the coverage of the case on Australian Story, though he doubted that the media watchdog show would tackle one of their own.

He was wrong. On 11 April, Media Watch devoted a whole program to Australian Story’s coverage of the case. Presenter Jonathan Holmes recalled Justice Lex Lasry’s sentencing remarks: ‘The jury clearly rejected your defence and were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that you intentionally murdered your children.’

Holmes wondered why Australian Story hadn’t bothered to ask Cindy herself for a comment. To make the point, they issued Cindy’s statement to them: ‘I was so distraught as I saw what Wendy was saying about me and the situation between me and Rob, I was screaming and crying.’

The producers of Australian Story replied that they had made ‘repeated efforts to communicate with Cindy Gambino. All up we sent two letters and two emails directly to Cindy. We sent one letter to her parents.’

But Media Watch said that Cindy had received no letters or emails from the show in the past year. Neither had her parents. ‘And, after all, they are on the telephone,’ Holmes said. ‘That’s how we reached her.’

The bereaved mother had been happy to tell them why she had changed her mind. ‘Definitely the biggest clincher for me was Dawn Waite’s evidence,’ said Cindy. ‘Because she has no reason to lie – she was just a stranger on the road. Why wouldn’t I believe her?’

‘Dawn Waite?’ Holmes asked. ‘Australian Story never mentioned her.’ Media Watch asked their sister show why they hadn’t bothered to mention Waite’s evidence. Australian Story replied that the evidence was ‘controversial and contested’.

But Holmes gave some key passages from Dawn Waite’s evidence and ran what Justice Lasry had told the triple killer: the jury had been satisfied that when Dawn Waite saw him, he was preparing to drive his car into the dam.

Media Watch concluded by saying: ‘“Oh, well,” says Australian Story, “we weren’t trying to give a balanced account of the evidence anyway!”’ Neither were they trying to offer new evidence, snapped the watchdog. The program didn’t offer ‘a skerrick’.

A few days later, Cindy received an apologetic letter from Australian Story. The producer assured her that every attempt had been made to contact her for comment.

‘Too late,’ she simmered, still upset. ‘The damage is done.’

In May, Cindy was admitted to hospital for the operation on her shoulder. Doctors scraped her collarbone, removing the calcified build-up. She returned home a few days later, her arm in a sling, feeling more useless than ever.

‘I can’t change or feed Isaiah. I can’t even dress myself,’ she told her mother on the phone.

Stephen was frazzled. He already felt as though he’d stretched himself thinly around the family chores, and there wasn’t much left of him to spread around.

Cindy had been prescribed Endone, a synthetic form of morphine, to help with the pain in her shoulder. It was only a short-term measure, the doctor explained. When things settled down, she’d no longer require it, and she’d be able to go without the painkillers she’d been living on before her surgery.

But over the next two months she became hooked on Endone, much to her surgeon’s alarm. ‘I’m going to wean you off it slowly,’ he said. He warned that the side-effects of a rapid withdrawal could be horrific. But Cindy had made her mind up.

‘I’m going to go cold turkey,’ she told Stephen. Never one to do anything by halves, she tossed all her tablets down the toilet.

By the following day, her body was shaking and she felt utterly terrified. She was sick to the stomach, her head thumped and her throat felt dry and constricted. By evening she was losing track of time. Confused thoughts raced around her mind. She was babbling deliriously, words tumbling from her mouth as jumbled nonsense.

She rang me late at night. ‘I just want this all to end. I hate my life,’ she said over and over. ‘I’m going to check out of this world for good.’ She told me she’d filled the sink in the bathroom, thinking she’d sink her head beneath the water and keep it there.

I reminded her that she didn’t believe in suicide, but she babbled that she’d stopped believing that suicide was morally wrong. I kept her on the phone until she’d calmed down, and she hung up promising not to do anything silly. Later, she didn’t even remember the call.

For weeks, Cindy had begun worrying over Rob’s new appeal. What if he won again? What were the chances of a third trial?

She wasn’t the only one with questions. ‘Where are Jai, Tyler and Bailey?’ Hezekiah asked his mother, studying the photograph Cindy had taken in her lounge at Austin Street a lifetime ago.

‘They’re in heaven,’ she said. Cindy wanted to answer Hezekiah’s questions as truthfully as she could, in a way a 4-year-old might understand.

‘Why are they in heaven?’ he asked.

‘Their daddy did a very bad thing,’ she said. ‘He hurt them in his car. They died and now they’re in heaven.’

‘But where’s their daddy now?’

‘He’s in prison. It’s where bad people who do bad things get locked up and can’t come home.’

‘Can he hurt me?’ Hezekiah asked.

‘No,’ said Cindy. ‘He can’t hurt anyone else ever again.’

But Hezekiah climbed onto his dad’s lap for comfort. He didn’t like the sound of the bad dad who hurt Jai, Tyler and Bailey.

Cindy cried herself to sleep that night. Right now, Rob was in a place where he couldn’t hurt anyone – but for how long?

She felt hopeless even with this beautiful new family – a loving husband and these two blond tots who looked like angels. They needed her so much, but she had nothing left to give.

Hezekiah would be in school soon; his early years, which should have been overflowing with fun, had so far been full of chaos, trauma and fear. His mummy was always upset or shouting at everyone or crying in the chair. Or just sleeping the days away.

At the end of yet another argument one evening, Cindy sobbed, ‘You don’t know what it’s like being me…nobody else has lost three kids.’ Suddenly, Zach spoke up.

‘Actually, you’re wrong,’ said the teenager evenly. ‘We lost someone too…we all lost three children. It didn’t just happen to you.’

A heavy silence followed. ‘I agree,’ Luke chipped in. ‘This has affected everyone in this family. We all lost things.’

Cindy nodded. ‘We did,’ she said softly.

Tears flowed as she sat and talked with the boys. She cried for them, for herself and Stephen, for her new babies. She cried for the childhoods that had been damaged, and the torment that prevented her from experiencing joy. This truly was a lifelong punishment Rob had inflicted. Hezekiah and Isaiah were victims of a crime before they’d taken their first breath.

At the end of May, Cindy finally received a compensation payout from the Victims of Crime Tribunal. The payment had been on hold until the outcome of the second trial. Cindy received $150,000. Just $50,000 for each of her boys. But how do you put a price on a life?

No amount of money could put her life back together again or bring her children back. All the dreams she had for them died with them. She’d never know what they might have been. Rob had seen to that.

One day Cindy would join them. She’d already chosen her final resting place alongside her boys. In the days before she buried them, she’d booked her own burial site on one side, and Rob had booked his on the other.

Remembering this, Cindy felt a ripple of anger. ‘Over my dead body,’ she said, the irony not lost on her. There was no way she’d allow it.

On 14 July, she received a letter from Rob’s lawyers, acting on behalf of his sister, Carmen Ross, who had been granted power of attorney over her brother’s affairs.

The letter was about the damage to the children’s headstone, and it informed her that it could be repaired at no cost. There was an insurance program allowing a claim to be made for property damage to the gravesite.

The letter went on: ‘As the gravesite for the boys is jointly owned by you and Robert, processing the claim to have the gravesite restored to its original condition will require authority from both of you and we ask you to sign the enclosed claim form where indicated.’

The letter also mentioned that the two plots either side of the boys remained unallocated. There was no record of Cindy’s previous wish to be buried on the right-hand side of her children. ‘We would like to provide you with an opportunity to choose which of the two plots you would like to have specifically allocated to you,’ said the letter.

Cindy was livid. She wrote back informing the lawyers that she’d already been allocated Plot Three and had documents to confirm it.

But it was the insurance claim that really fuelled her rage. She told Carmen’s lawyers that nobody was to touch her children’s headstone without her permission. This headstone was her property, not Rob’s, because he hadn’t contributed a cent to it. His name deserved to remain erased forever. He’d forfeited any right to be remembered on his children’s headstone, where his claim to be their loving father was sickening.

And he’d forfeited his right to be buried ‘anywhere near the children’, she wrote. The thought of him resting there was positively obscene.

She’d just posted her letter when another arrived from her own lawyers, who had applied to obtain Rob’s assets, which were still frozen. Now that he’d been found guilty again, Cindy wanted them – in particular, the plot Rob had chosen beside his children. Cindy would soon own that plot along with his other property. She was convinced that this new development was karma.

It was a sick joke – Rob wanting to be buried beside the children whose lives he’d snuffed out and near the wife he’d punished. No, Rob would be laid to rest as far away from her family as possible. She instructed her lawyer to stake her claim on that burial plot.