INSANELY HOMESICK

Winning a promotion and getting the chance to see the other side of the world did not prompt the sort of reaction Gerry Skura thought he would get from his wife. There was no: ‘Oh, wow, honey. That’s great. Congratulations. That’ll be exciting. I have never thought about living in Australia. We’ll miss our friends and family, but it’ll be an adventure and it won’t be for ever.’ None of that. Instead, Marie Skura struggled to hold back the tears when her husband broke the news in July 2001. Gerry, however, did not let his wife’s teary response stop him accepting the transfer. He thought she would get over it.

He could not have been more wrong.

The Skuras’ move down-under would turn out to be a bizarre journey into darkness; it would shake the seemingly ordinary family to its core; it would show them what they were capable of – the good and the very, very bad.

Gerry (early 40s, successful businessman, married for almost 20 years to an equally successful businesswoman, no children) and Marie (early 20s, single mother of a young daughter, living from pay cheque to pay cheque) met at a work cocktail party in the early ’90s while working for different importing/exporting companies. After a couple of years, they started seeing each other more than just at cocktail parties. Gerry would drop around on Saturdays after golf, and on Fridays – when his wife was out of town working. In January 1996, Gerry ended his 22-year marriage and moved in with Marie and five-year-old Alexa. At the end of that year, Marie persuaded a reluctant Gerry to try marriage again.

Things were going well for the Skuras. Marie was quickly rising through the ranks in her company and they had a nice house in Vancouver. Gerry saw only two problems: his wife was drinking a little too much on the cocktail ‘circuit’, and the grain-shipping industry was going through tough times. So in July 2001, when he was offered the position of general manager of the Australian arm of the company, he grabbed it. It was a slight promotion and a chance for Marie get off the cocktail party merry-go-round before alcohol became a real problem.

In April 2002, Marie and Alexa joined Gerry in Melbourne. It was a big move for a woman who had not lived outside a small part of Vancouver. That’s where she had endured a troubled childhood – she said her father was a ‘raving alcoholic’ she never saw sober, and her stepfather sexually and physically abused her for 12 years until she was 18. She said he even beat her if he saw her with other boys. (A few years after they left home, Marie and her sister told police they had been abused. Their stepfather was charged but a judge ruled that after such a long time there was not enough evidence to be able to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.) Vancouver was also where Marie had battled through as a young single mother, and, finally, where she had found her way to a happy family life and a satisfying career. Still, at first, Gerry thought things would be OK in Australia.

Gerry: Marie seemed happy enough when we first arrived; however, I know she wasn’t completely happy.

It wasn’t long before Marie made her feelings clear to her husband.

Gerry: About three weeks after we arrived, Marie collected me from work. She was to the point of tears and told me she couldn’t take it any more and she wanted to go home.

Gerry gently refused and suggested his wife join some clubs to make new friends; that she give Australia, as the locals put it, ‘a go’. Over the next few months, Gerry slowly realised that Marie had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

A few days after Marie’s tearful plea to go home, Gerry Skura got food poisoning – something that had not happened to him before. He had to go to hospital and spent two hours being fed intravenously. A few weeks later, Marie gave her husband what she called a ‘natural remedy’. Gerry complained that it tasted awful but she urged him to finish it, saying it was a mixture of vitamins and would help relieve his stress. The next day Gerry kept falling asleep and his fingers and toes tingled. He lost that day; he could not remember it at all. His wife later told him that he had had a nosebleed and that he had fallen in the shower. Various tests in hospital, such as a CAT scan, didn’t pick up anything, but a few hours later, back at home, Gerry started stuttering and Marie called an ambulance. A blood test found sleeping tablets in his system.

Gerry: I was shocked because I have never taken sleeping pills. Marie did take them and there were some in the house, but I had never had them.

Marie told her husband that he had got up in the middle of the night with a headache and must have mistaken her sleeping pills for headache tablets. Gerry didn’t buy this: the sleeping pills were much smaller than the headache tablets and were in a bottle about half the size.

Gerry: The conclusion I came to was the sleeping pills were in the mixture Marie gave me.

Gerry’s suspicion that his wife was trying to poison him mounted over the weeks. An open bottle of Powerade in his office smelt so bad he threw it out and he found an open box of rat poison next to the stove – they did not have a problem with rats or mice.

Gerry: I blew my cork on the week of June 17 when I found prescription drugs and all sorts of drugs around the house … and when I was looking through a drawer I found a syringe with blood in it … Marie made the excuse that it was used on her cat in Canada and it inadvertently was shipped in the move. I didn’t believe her but I didn’t know where it was from.

In June, Gerry’s run of foul-tasting drinks and food troubles stopped when he went on a business trip to Bangkok and Singapore. A few weeks after his return, however, his Aussie bad luck continued when a poisonous white-tailed spider bit his foot and he found himself back in hospital.

On 21 November 2002, things got really heated.

Gerry: Once again I was tired and kept falling asleep … The only other time in my life I felt like that was when I believe Marie gave me an overdose of sleeping pills in the ‘natural remedy’. I was asleep in the master bedroom when the fire broke out there. Marie had told me that she was going to Southland [shopping centre] to get some Christmas presents. She received a call on her cell phone from the fire brigade telling her that the house was on fire and that I was being rushed to hospital by ambulance with smoke inhalation. I was suspicious … but couldn’t prove anything.

The fire destroyed the bedroom. Soon after that mysterious blaze, Marie and 12-year-old Alexa returned to Canada for a holiday.

Alexa: When we were in Canada, my mom told me that we were going to stay and we were not going back to Australia. She told me not to tell anyone. She said that because we missed all our friends and family and stuff in Canada.

I wanted to come back to Australia a little bit, but I missed friends and stuff over there. We did end up coming back though, because Uncle Jim really wanted to come.

Gerry not only feared his wife was trying to kill him, he also suspected she was secretly spending thousands of dollars. After months of denials and obfuscation, she admitted she had done exactly that. She said she had lost it on gambling and promised to go to Gamblers Anonymous and to Alcoholics Anonymous. What Gerry did not know was that his wife and her daughter had long been plotting their escape from Oz.

Alexa: Mom started telling me about moving back to Canada again. She said she would try to get a flight home and stuff like that. I was happy that she was trying and I told her that I wanted to go home really badly.

Mom told me that there was a flight on Singapore Airlines every night, so I would ask her every night. She would always say that they had been cancelled. When she told me this I didn’t feel good because I wanted to go home.

Mom told me a while ago that she put $40,000 into another bank account. Mom told me that this money came from Dad’s account. She told me not to tell anyone that. She told me that she didn’t want Dad to know about it. Mom told me that this money was to get our life started in Canada.

Mom told me that there was a ticket organised for her and I to go together to Canada. Mom told me that her and I were going over to Canada first, and that, hopefully, Dad would follow us a little later on.

I didn’t think there was anything strange happening. I just thought that Mom was trying to get organised to go back to Canada because we were both homesick.

I know Mom didn’t like it over here. She said she hated it here.

In the 10 days before he went on a business trip to Canberra on 4 March, Gerry once again felt uncharacteristically ill – his food tasted ‘a little off’. In Canberra he felt better.

Upon returning to Melbourne on 6 March, he rushed home and changed his clothes because he had been offered a ticket to the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. Marie dropped him off at the big race.

A few hours later, the Skuras’ lives crashed.

Gerry: At approximately 2pm, I was informed by police that my wife had been arrested for incitement to murder. The target of this murder was to be me.

Gerry broke the news to Alexa.

Alexa: Dad told me that Mom had been arrested for trying to kill Dad and was in jail. I was pretty mad at her for trying to kill my dad.

Alexa was soon to learn that for months – while she was at school and her dad was at work – her mother had been living a very strange, secret life.

• • •

Around Christmas 2002, at a pub in the nearby well-to-do suburb of Brighton, Marie was having a smoko while playing pokies when she was noticed by a group of unemployed men. On a day out from their modest lodgings in Noble Park, they were looking for some ‘uptown’ bayside fun. The smoothest talker among them – Darren – decided to have a go at chatting up this good-looking ‘sheila’. One of his mates – Christopher Brett Duke – remembered.

Mr Duke: We were just having a good time looking at the girls on the beach and having a few drinks. We went to the hotel but we weren’t dressed proper and they wouldn’t let us in. Outside the pokies area we saw an attractive blonde woman, sitting having a smoke. She was on her own and Darren went up to her and sort of struck up a conversation.

The next evening Darren came back to the boarding house with Marie in her white BMW. She brought a slab of beer and a cask of wine. She stayed a good two or three hours and left on her own.

Darren said that he had sex with her the evening before. Marie would come around to the boarding house just about every day. Each time she came around she’d bring alcohol – normally a slab of beer, and wine for herself.

Marie had found some local ‘friends’. They were not, however, the sort her husband had urged her to find, and she had certainly not found them to cure her homesickness. In her desperation, she also badly misjudged her new ‘Aussie mates’.

Mr Duke: Darren told me that Marie wanted someone to kill her husband. He told me that he had no intention of killing anyone but that he’d string her along to try to get some money out of her.

Darren’s scam worked a treat: after a couple of months Marie gave him $10,000 – and her wedding ring – to kill her husband, but instead of doing that, instead of keeping his promise, Darren and his girlfriend promptly disappeared. Despite this treachery, Marie kept visiting the boarding house nearly every day. She continued her quest for a husband-killer.

Mr Duke: Marie told me one night that she wanted her husband out of the picture. She told me that she had embezzled money from him and that he’d found out about it. Each time I spoke to her she kept saying she wanted her husband out of the way. She became more and more specific about it and went on to say that she wanted her husband dead. I then commenced having a sexual relationship with her…

She didn’t say how she wanted her husband killed, just that she wanted it done. I had no intention of killing her husband, or anyone else for that matter. I was happy to get free grog from her and the occasional $50 and $100 from her, but I was never going to kill anyone.

I had no doubt that she was serious about having her husband killed. She definitely wasn’t joking.

In February 2003, Mr Duke finally stopped stringing Marie along.

Mr Duke: Marie asked me to get her … heroin. She told me she wanted to put it into her husband’s food.

By this stage, I was getting a bit worried about how serious things were becoming. I didn’t want to get into any trouble. I eventually told her that I wouldn’t kill her husband. This didn’t seem to upset her at all. She just went to speak to Alan … [another of the Noble Park group] and asked him the same thing.

Alan wasn’t interested in killing anyone but told her he knew someone who could.

• • •

So on 4 March 2003, Marie continued her bumbling ‘Double Indemnity meets the Three Stooges meets Eyes Wide Shut’ trip into what she must have imagined was Australian’s psychopathic underworld.

At the Elsternwick Hotel in Elwood, on Brighton’s northern border, Alan introduced ‘Jason’ as her hitman. Anyone eavesdropping on the start of this meeting would never have guessed the pretty blonde in the brown floral summer dress and the fit young ‘baby-faced’ man were meeting to discuss the contract killing of her blameless husband.

Alan: Jason.

Marie: Pleased to meet you.

Jason: How are you? What’s your name?

Marie: Marie.

Jason: Marie. Pleased to meet you.

Alan: Want a beer, mate?

Jason: Yeah. Get me … Have they got a Stella on tap or, oh, whatever…

Jason [to Marie]: Didn’t hold you up too long, did I?

Marie: No. Did you have a hard time finding it?…

Jason: I’m from the other side of town.

Marie: Where?

Jason: West.

Marie: You have to forgive me. I’m not from Melbourne. So when I hear west it…

Jason: Over the West Gate is out west.

Marie: OK, the West Gate Bridge is towards the airport?

Jason: Yes. You go over it … Where are you from?

Marie: Vancouver.

Jason: Oh. OK.

Marie: And we actually live in Brighton now.

Jason: You haven’t been here long, have you?

Marie: Actually, almost a year … but it’s been really up and down. My husband got bit by one of your spiders. He got bit by a white-tailed spider … It was a hole about that big and it went past his tendon … We’re not familiar with your spiders.

Jason: Oh. OK.

Marie tells the men the spider’s toxicity depends on what sort of other spiders it has eaten recently. She doesn’t mention that she wants to kill one of her own. When Alan goes to get beer, Jason asks Marie where her husband is. She tells him he’s in Canberra but still doesn’t mention wanting him killed. They talk about anything but Gerry’s murder: Marie reckons the Australian shipping industry is ‘male-dominated’; she doesn’t agree with the war in Iraq (‘I don’t believe in war, period. I don’t believe it serves any purpose other than population control’); and she believes China is the world’s biggest threat. Finally, Alan cuts through the chitchat and political debate.

Alan: Talk to him seriously.

Marie: I don’t know what to say to him.

Jason: I’ve got a few questions for you to start with.

Marie: Oh.

Jason stresses that after this meeting it will be just him and Marie. Marie tells Alan: ‘OK, that’s fine because I like him.’

Jason: You gotta understand. What I’m doing here, there’s a lot of risk … So the least amount of people that know anything the better.

Marie: That’s fine. No problem. I understand.

Jason: Well, tell me, tell me the situation. I have got to know…

Marie: I don’t know you from Adam…

Jason: Yeah, well we have got a mutual contact in Alan … All right, I won’t bullshit you. I don’t know him that well.

Alan tries to reassure Marie.

Alan: This man is a hitman. A professional hitman. He will do the job for you … This man does not muck around or fuck around.

They get down to business.

Marie: What happens now?

Jason: Well, I ask for a deposit.

Marie: OK.

Jason: … We will negotiate the price. We negotiate first of all what you want done.

Marie still has doubts.

Marie: You don’t have a wire on, do you?

Jason: No.

Marie: I’m sorry. I have to ask.

Jason: That, that’s insulting me…

Marie: I’m sorry, you know, but you have to be careful, as well I have to be careful.

Jason: Why do you think I did two laps around here before I walked in? This is safe … All I need to know is how you want it done.

Marie: I prefer an accident like a car accident, or something. If that’s not possible you have to tell me, otherwise that would be my preference.

Jason: I need to have a photo, I need to know his movements and I don’t need to know this now. OK? I want you to go away and then I will give you a few things I need from you, and the next time we meet…

Marie: How long is this going to take?

Jason: Well, it depends. Is there a time limit?

Marie: I’d prefer that it be done sooner rather than later. I want to go home.

Jason: Well, from my point of view, I’ll tell you, I don’t just go in cold. I need to know who it is. I do a bit of watching myself first … What do you want to prove that it’s done?

Marie: You don’t have to prove to me that it’s done. I mean, Gerry not coming home is going to be proof enough.

Jason: Normally, people would ask for a finger, people have asked for his balls, or they want something.

Marie: No, no, no, no I don’t want…

Jason: ’Cause generally I get a deposit, then I do the job, and then I’d show you that the job’s done, and then I want the money within 24 hours. OK?

Marie: Well, that can be a problem.

Jason: Why’s that?

Marie: Because I don’t have … How much money do you want?

Jason: What do you want to pay? What do you think’s fair?

Marie: I’d like to pay $25,000.

Alan: Nah.

Marie: No?

Alan: It should be nearer 50.

Marie: I’ll try.

Jason proves more reasonable than Alan.

Jason: Marie … I don’t want to agree on a price that you can’t deliver … You’ve just said 25 then…

Marie: That’s my preference…

Jason: … I want cash. No cheques.

Marie: It can’t be in cash because, personally, I don’t have that much.

Alan: Darl, this man is a good man, don’t fuck him around.

Marie: I understand. I’m not fucking him around … I want to be very honest…

Understand my point of view. I don’t want to pull out $25,000 and have my husband die and then have the cops looking for me … They are going to come looking for me because I am the only one that has any advantage with him dying. I am the one that is getting all the insurance policies. I am the one that gets the house.

Jason: So that’s the reason, yeah?

Marie: I am the one that gets everything…

Marie: If I fuck you over, what would you do to me?…

Jason: Let’s not talk about what’s gonna happen if you don’t pay because…

Marie: I would assume you would kill me if you don’t get paid.

Jason: What I am saying, though, is that I don’t just go and kill someone unless I know I am going to get paid…

Marie: You’re going to get paid and what I am doing is trying to mitigate any of us getting caught.

Jason: Exactly.

Marie: Exactly. So it will have to be done over a certain period of time … I have already determined how to do it. What you have to do is set up a business here in Australia and I will transfer that money to your account at the business. And it will be done.

Jason: And what if you get asked…?

Marie: I am investing in your business. You’re somebody I met here that had a viable business opportunity, and I am investing in it.

Jason: What sort of business do you think?

Marie: Pools. A new way of cleaning pools, an ecologically friendly way of cleaning pools.

Jason: Yeah, no, that might work.

Marie: Without the chemicals.

Jason: Might work, too.

Marie: All right. And I will transfer that money into that account…

Jason: How long is that gonna take?

Marie: I suspect it’s gonna be about six months before I get paid out on the insurance, possibly less…

Jason: So, are you gonna stay in Australia until you get…

Marie: I’m not. I’m going back to Canada.

Jason: When?

Marie: As soon as this is done, I’m going back to Canada…

Jason: So you are asking…

Marie: I am asking you to trust me, yes.

Jason: … me to do the job and then you go away to Canada…

Marie: Yes, yes.

Jason: … and then transfer the money?

Marie: Yeah, yes.

Alan: That’s a big ask.

Jason: It is.

Marie: It’s a big ask, but I am being very honest with you and I am telling you what I am doing…

Jason: I’ll probably need a couple of days to think about it … I just need his movements. Where he’s going to be … Just rough, you know.

Marie tells Jason what Gerry will be doing when he returns from Canberra. Her mobile phone rings: it’s Alexa.

Marie: Hi Lexi. What you doing? … Oh, not too much. I’m going to be home in about half an hour … OK, hon. All right, baby … All right. Sit and watch TV and enjoy yourself … All right, I’ll talk to you real soon. Love you. Bye sweety…

Jason: So, I just want to be clear. So, you want it done straightaway.

Marie: Mmm.

Jason: And why? Why haven’t you got time?

Marie: Because – I mean, I’m being completely honest with you – I took some money from my husband. I have already tried to have this done. I paid $10,000 to a person that took the money and ran…

Jason: So you’ve been fucked around by someone.

Marie: By over $10,000 and Gerry knows that money is gone and he’s questioning me every day as to where the money’s gone.

Jason: What did you tell him?

Marie: I am playing dumb and crying and going: ‘I don’t remember’ – and it’s not going to work…

Marie: That’s why I want it done sooner rather than later.

Jason: ’Cause he’s giving you grief over the ten grand.

Marie: ’Cause he’s giving me grief over the ten thousand.

Marie tells Jason that her husband is insured for $250,000.

Marie: And if it’s a car accident – you know what? – I also collect on car insurance.

Jason: OK.

Marie: And that means more money. If you can actually make it like a car accident, $50,000 … and we’ll look at a bonus on top of that … I’m not out to screw you. I want this done…

Alan: Hold your end up girl.

Marie: OK. Is this the point that I am supposed to get pissed? … I’ve told you time and time again.

Alan: I want you to be serious about what you are talking about.

Marie: I’m absolutely fucking serious about it. Dead serious about it.

Alan: Well, get serious about it.

Jason: No Alan, mate – it’s all right. Just, I just have a few more questions.

Marie: I apologise.

Jason: No, that’s fine and like I said, Alan: after this, mate, you’re out of the picture … All right, I need a couple of details. If you write it down now. The car: I need the rego, make, model ra ra … An accident: well, the problem there … I don’t want him having an accident and killing a carload of people and then it gets looked at.

Marie: And I don’t want my daughter involved in any way, shape or form…

Jason: Well you’ve gotta write down for me where she’s going to be … You may have to have her with you … at the time.

Marie: Fine. I will make sure she’s with me.

Jason: When it happens, you have to be with someone else, you know.

Marie: To cover my butt…

Jason: Once I get a deposit…

Marie: What deposit?

Jason: Just something to show you’re fair dinkum. All right, that’s up to you.

Marie: But … Gerry knows $10,000 is gone … He told me to tell him what I did with that money.

Alan: You’re gonna have to come up with a story.

Marie: I know. I’ve been working on that. I’ve come up with gambling but I’m not a gambler … But if it’s done in a very quick period of time, I do not have to come up with any more stories: that’s what I’m saying. That’s why I am asking for it to be done quickly, as opposed to not quickly.

Jason: Well, when do you have in mind?

Marie: My preference is tomorrow.

Jason: You are asking me to kill your husband tomorrow without … That’s a big ask, you know. How about I meet you on Thursday in a couple of days, you give me all the details I need and I’ll try, I’ll try and do it by the weekend? I just gotta cover my arse.

Marie: I know, but…

Jason: Big, big ask. I’m leaving myself wide open … Give me till Thursday…

Marie: OK. This is a very rude question but are you capable of doing this? The baby-face that you have, are you actually capable?

Jason: Who is capable, Marie? Who’s capable?

Marie: I’m not. That’s why I’m hiring you.

Jason: I am. There are certain things that I do, that I do not want to tell you about. So don’t ask too many questions. I really don’t know too much about you.

Marie: Even.

Jason asks some more about Darren duping Marie.

Jason: How did you pay him? Cash?

Marie: Cash. Cash! Fool! Fool! Fool!…

Jason: Oh well, you live and learn…

Alan: You’re playing a different league now. Play this game.

Marie: Do you believe I am playing?

Jason: I don’t think so. I think if you paid someone, you are obviously pretty keen, pretty keen to get it done.

Marie: I am very keen … I will tell you one thing. He [Darren] has my wedding ring and that’s totally exclusive to me…

Jason: Hang on. You gave him ten cash and the ring?

Marie: Yeah, and the ring was made for me totally – totally. That’s completely and utterly irreplaceable.

Jason repeats that he’s concerned that a car accident may risk other lives.

Marie: I’m a cold-hearted bitch, that doesn’t concern me … I want it to look like an accident so that nobody comes looking afterwards. Nobody comes looking for anybody.

Jason: All right.

Marie: We all walk away scot-free. That’s what I want: we all walk away scot-free.

Jason: And so you can go back to Canada.

Marie: I want to go back to Canada, and have my life.

Jason: And you won’t come back to Australia?

Marie: Nope. I will never come back to Australia…

Jason: You realise it’s a big thing you’re asking.

Marie: And it’s a big thing you’re asking that I trust you. I’ve already been screwed for $10,000.

Jason: Yeah.

Marie: I think you are actually the real thing … I have never wanted anything more than I want this. So, you’re going to have to trust me.

Jason: So, you’ve thought it through.

Marie: I’ve thought it through, and want it done.

Jason: And when it’s done, how are you going to feel afterward?

Marie: I’m gonna feel like shit, you know.

Jason: So, all right. So, you know that.

Marie: Yeah, I know that I’m going to feel like shit, but, you know, I’ll get over it.

Jason: OK, just so long as you know that and there’s no turning back. Once it’s done, it’s done.

Marie: I’ll get over it. Once it’s done, it’s done.

Jason: It’s done. It’s final. That’s it.

Marie: Final. Absolutely.

Jason: All right … So, what sort of deposit can you give me?

Marie: I have no assets.

Jason: None?

Marie: None … Actually that’s not true. Al, go get $900 out. Here’s my card.

While sitting in the car in the hotel car park waiting for Al, Jason has to contend with another surprise proposition.

Marie: Would you, would you take exception to the fact that I would like to feel your body?

Jason: Yeah, I would because there’s someone sitting right there.

Marie: I wouldn’t take exception for you to feel my body.

Jason: Someone’s sitting right there. Do you know that man?

Marie: Nah…

Jason: You’ve got me a bit spooked, I tell ya now. The reason being … Can you see it from my point of view?

Marie: Can you see it from my point of view?

Jason: I can, I can.

Marie: You could be a cop, for all I know.

Jason: … I’m not a cop. I wouldn’t be doing this shit if I was.

Marie: No. I have to tell you: if you’re a cop, this is entrapment.

Jason: Exactly. Oh well, you know the law. I don’t know about entrapment but I just know what I know … I’m in it for the cash, OK. It’s the cash that I want and I don’t want to get caught and I don’t want any trouble down the track. That’s why I will give you instructions as we go as to what you should do.

Marie: You are actually capable of this, baby-faced as you are?

Jason: What?! Yeah. It interests me that you keep saying that. Who, what were you expecting?

Marie: You know, it’s funny … but I find you attractive and I find you completely out of the realm as to what I expected … There’s nothing rough or hard about you.

Jason: And there shouldn’t be…

Marie: But, you’re a, you’re a … baby.

Jason: But I’m here, aren’t I … So, we move on to the next stage. OK?…

Alan: Marie, are you comfortable with Jason now?

Marie: Do you trust him?

Alan: I trust him with all my heart.

After the hour and a half ‘meeting’, Marie is dropped off at her car about 9.30. Alan then tells Jason why he refused Marie’s request for him to kill her husband.

Alan: Oh, I could do it – that’s not a problem – but I’ve done enough time, mate. You know what I mean. I’ve done 10 years’ jail. I don’t need another fuckin’ 25 … How did you get stuck in this game, is it something you joined up with or…?’

Jason: No, no, no. I’ve done a couple of fuckin’ bad things.

Alan: Yeah?

Jason: And the last thing I did, I got given up.

Alan: Yeah?

Jason: And it was either go back inside, or give ’em a favour and as far as I know this should be the last and that’s it, I’m out.

Alan gives his assessment of the situation.

Alan: There’s this spastic fuckin’ sheila … She’s got a decent husband – doesn’t slap her, doesn’t slap her daughter – and she wants him knocked. All I worry about – because I’ve got kids, mate – is the 12-year-old daughter. If she knocks him and then she gets busted, where’s the 12-year-old left?

The next day – Wednesday 5 March 2003 – Jason and Marie meet at a coffee shop about 1pm. Jason checks whether, now sober, Marie is still keen to go ahead with the killing of her husband.

Jason: There’s no going back…

Marie: Yep.

He demands a $2000 deposit, another $1400 the next day to top up the $600 Alan got out with her card at the pub, and $23,000 after the ‘job’.

Marie: I can get you the 23 within 48 hours…

Jason: I just don’t understand why you can’t just leave him and go back.

Marie: ’Cause I won’t get my life back … The only way to get my life back as I had it … and that’s the way I want it. Call it greed if you want, but I want my life back the way I had it … What I actually would like to do is buy a pub back home.

Jason: So the thought of just taking off and just leaving him here in Australia?

Marie: It doesn’t work. I mean first of all, it means we’d have to sell our house back in Canada … I’d only get – if I’m lucky – 15 per cent of that, maybe less…

The other thing is that one of the things I had to do when I came over here, in order to get a visa, was to give him joint custody of Lexi, which makes for a real hassle because he can actually, when I choose to go, fight me and try and keep Alexa here … I can’t have any more children, she is the one and only, and I am not prepared to take that risk to go into a legal battle … So, I mean, the idea of just leaving him, I mean it does have its merits, but I could lose so bad … If there was an alternative I would take it.

Jason: So, he has actually done nothing directly to make you do this apart from moving to Australia?…

Marie: Exactly.

Jason: What are you going to say to the police, if they do speak to you down the track?

Marie: Nothing. I don’t know anything.

Jason: How’s she [Alexa] going to react?

Marie: She’s going to be very upset and I am going to have to put her through counselling to deal with it – which is fine … but my daughter last night was in tears, hysterical, wanting to go home. She wanted me to put her on a plane last night by herself because she wanted to go home so desperately.

Jason: So, what do you reckon would happen had you told him that she really wanted to go and you wanted to go?

Marie: It wouldn’t make any difference. He’d sit there and think he would talk her out of it … I understand the finality of it. Unfortunately, I do not feel that I have an option. If I had an option I would do it.

The next day – while her husband is at the Grand Prix – Jason and Marie meet at another coffee shop just after 12.30pm.

Jason: So if I do it tonight, still happy?

Marie: Yeah.

They talk about her alibi and Marie tells Jason of her husband’s movements.

Jason: Do you want me to shoot him?

Marie: Can’t you push him in front of a train?

Jason: They got cameras at train stations … Do you want it brutal? Do you want him to feel pain?

Marie: Yeah, some way [inaudible].

Jason: You want him dead tonight?

Marie: Yes [inaudible]…

Jason: You’re clear on how much money you owe me after tonight?

Marie: Yeah, $23,000.

Jason: Twenty-three cash but it’s got to be within 48 hours.

Marie: I know that.

Jason: All right. Give me the $1400…

Marie: I’m OK. Just like I said, I’m nervous. I’m committed to having it done … but don’t like the idea of making Gerry hurt … I just don’t want to get caught.

Marie hands $1400 cash to Jason. He counts it out in hundreds.

Marie: OK, I mean my preference is really [inaudible] without hurting him. Like I said, if there is some way that you can get into the [Grand Prix] function tonight and slip something in his drink that will just drop him.

Jason: What if someone else gets his drink?

Marie: They’re not going to. I mean, quite frankly, Gerry doesn’t put his drink down. He likes his drink too much.

Jason: You’re paying me to kill him, not to kill anyone else, though. Remember that.

Marie: Yep, I know.

Jason: What about the robbery idea: I shoot him.

Marie: That’s fine as long as it looks like a robbery gone bad, you know.

Jason: All right.

Marie: As soon as this is done, I will go – first thing in the morning – right across the street, to sell my car and I’m sure they can arrange payment for me that day.

• • •

As she was leaving the coffee shop, Marie was arrested. She had been right to suspect the ‘baby-faced’ Jason was no contract killer – he was a wired-for-sound undercover policeman. In her interview with police about an hour and a half after her arrest, Marie said she just had ‘general chitchat’ with Jason.

Police: And you didn’t ask Jason to kill your husband and make it look like a … robbery gone wrong?

Marie: No.

She agreed she had given Jason $1400, but only to get Alan food.

Police: Are you in the habit of giving people large sums of money?

Marie: I try to help them, yes…

Police: To be fair and really frank with you, I’ll inform you that the person you know as Jason is a policeman, an undercover operative. As I said, all the conversations you had with him have been recorded with audio and video. So that doesn’t change any of your replies?

Marie: No.

Police: So, you deny trying to incite Jason to murder your husband?

Marie: Yes.

After being told she would be charged with incitement to murder, Marie was asked it she had anything to say.

Marie: No. I mean, this is ridiculous. This is so far out of the realm of reality for me that I am floored.

• • •

Marie eventually confessed to trying to hire men to kill her husband.

Then came another astonishing twist in the Skura family’s down-under odyssey, a twist that would surprise and test the judicial system: Gerry Skura forgave the woman who he had suspected of trying to poison him, and burn him alive, and who had admitted to trying to hire a hitman to murder him. Three months after his wife’s arrest, he told a bail application that he still loved the self-described ‘cold-hearted bitch’; the woman who hadn’t cared if others had died in the car crash that killed him. His main message to his imprisoned wife was: ‘Come home, we miss you.’ He wept as he told the court: ‘My wife has said she loves me and I know she loves my daughter. We’d like her to come home … She knows she has done some wrong things and needs help to change.’ Despite this tearful plea, Justice Bernard Teague refused the bail application, saying there was too great a risk that Marie Skura would flee the country.

On Thursday 24 July 2003 – nearly five months after her arrest – Dorothy Marie Skura pleaded guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court to incitement to murder.

Prosecutor Bill Morgan-Payler QC called for a ‘substantial sentence of imprisonment … regardless of the attitude of the victim’.

Marie Skura’s barrister Lex Lasry QC made the extraordinary plea that his client not only be set free but that she be set free in less than six days – in time to join her husband and daughter on a plane to Canada. Mr Lasry said that because of work commitments, Gerry Skura could not delay his flight home and hoped his wife could join him. He said the 140 days Marie Skura had served in jail was enough; that the rest of her sentence should be suspended.

Mr Lasry said Marie Skura had been suffering a significant mental disorder when she tried to have her husband murdered. He said the mental disorder that had been caused by the sexual, mental and physical abuse of her as a child had triggered her obsessive homesickness.

Mr Lasry: I’m sure she means no offence to our country, but she simply felt totally isolated.

He said Marie Skura’s psychological fragility had also helped cause – and been exacerbated by – her alcoholism. She now realised that she could never have another alcoholic drink, Mr Lasry said.

The barrister said his client had lied when she told Jason and Alan that she was not a gambler, that she had just made that up to fool her husband. She had, Mr Lasry said, put $60,000 through Australian poker machines.

He said that being in an Australian jail – away from her loving, forgiving family in Canada and away from much-needed intensive psychological counselling – would not only delay her treatment but be much harsher punishment for her than for other prisoners.

Mr Lasry: It is the worst result – from her point of view – the worst possible result that could be imagined. For her, it is a nightmare.

• • •

Justice Bernard Bongiorno handed down his sentence the day before the Skuras were due to fly out, but their hopes that she would be on that long-dreamed-of flight to Canada looked doubtful when the judge said her attempts to hire someone to kill her husband were ‘voluntary acts directed towards a logical and rational if wickedly criminal end’.

The Skuras’ hopes were raised, however, when the judge said he accepted Marie Skura was remorseful, had suffered an appalling childhood, had a 12-year-old daughter to care for; would suffer more than other inmates because she would be isolated from her family, and had been forgiven by her victim.

But it all ended in tears. Justice Bongiorno said the victim’s forgiveness was of doubtful relevance to sentencing her for trying to kill ‘another human being’ for the basest of all motives: greed.

Justice Bongiorno: You wanted to rid yourself of your husband and Australia, and contemporaneously acquire substantial assets as a consequence.

As he sentenced Marie Skura to seven years’ jail, her victim gasped, dropped his head and wiped away tears. Marie looked over at him and silently mouthed: ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ and broke down sobbing. Through the bars of the dock, her weeping daughter tried to wipe away her mother’s tears and whispered to her.

Through all the crying, Justice Bongiorno ploughed on: setting a minimum term of four and a half years and making other technical orders. Finally, he ordered the weeping prisoner be removed.

• • •

Eight months after Marie Skura’s tearful sentencing, she had some joy when the Victorian Court of Appeal cut her minimum sentence from four and a half years to three, and her maximum term from seven to six years. That meant Skura would be able to apply for parole 18 months earlier.

The reason for the sentence cut? Mr Skura’s forgiveness of the woman who had tried to have him killed. The judges ruled that although Justice Bongiorno was right that it was not up to victims to decide how to punish perpetrators, he should have taken more notice of Mr Skura’s continuing support of his wife.

About seven months later, Marie Skura was still trying to get back to Canada. She wrote a letter from prison to the Herald Sun begging to be transferred to a Canadian jail. She said Australians were needlessly paying for her imprisonment.

Marie Skura: You house me, feed me, clothe me, provide me an income, medical attention and medication, you educate me, provide me with counselling, psychiatric care, dentistry and optometrist – even massages when necessary.

• • •

After flying home to Canada without his wife, Gerry Skura told New Idea magazine they would reunite after she was released from jail.

Gerry Skura: The future is a clean slate for us. We want to renew our vows. We want to re-pledge our love and start our lives all over again. I still don’t believe that she ever really set out to hurt me. I believe these actions were an extraordinary cry for help and Marie thought this was the only means to an end for her.

He said they had even managed to laugh through the trauma.

Gerry Skura: I have used a lot of humour to get me through this. In fact, I’ve often joked that when Marie is released from prison, we’ll have a ‘How to Host a Murder’ dinner party.