Life in prison is not intended to be pleasant. I’ve met many who have been through it: none recommend it, but a surprising number of them return. For some it has a familiarity; for others, like Henry Keogh, it is an alien world. Amid the sense of utter powerlessness he must have clung to the fragile strands that still connected him to the possibility his nightmare would end. One by one those fibres snapped as his appeal was dismissed, the plan of reopening it was dashed and the High Court turned its back on him. Beyond that, all hope was gone.
It was three years after his conviction that a faint glimmer of colour appeared beyond the grey fog that had engulfed his life. Valerie Armfield must have seemed like an angel. Her letters, full of action and optimism, were a torment and a salvation. She wrote of her entreaties to every intractable corner of government, the quixotic obsessions of Robert Sheehan, the evangelical Bob Moles and the sardonic Kevin Borick. The letters alerted Henry to the fact that someone cared but they also reinforced his own helplessness. He, in turn, wrote of his appreciation and despair: ‘There’s an element of cynical defeatism born of so many setbacks and disappointments, and lack of confidence in the criminal justice system.’55
Henry’s situation oscillated between possible redemption and desolation; adrift, one day he would see land and the next nothing but the unsmiling horizon. This state of limbo continued for years. After one of my programs in 2003, he wrote to Valerie, ‘Do you think that all this means that things are underway at last? Methinks it might. It’s been a bloody eternity coming, that’s for sure.’56 There was still an eternity to go.
In July 2004 Henry’s mother Eileen passed away, aged 70. For any mother to die while her son is absent is tough. Despite their difficult relationship Henry loved his mum. Months before her death she had given an interview to the ABC Stateline program and spoke of the impact the conviction had on her life. She had suffered a nervous breakdown, spent time in hospital and like her other two sons she felt alienated by many of those around her:
I had to change my shopping centre, and another church I used to go to, I had to change that, because they used to point at me and they knew I was within earshot, and they’d say, ‘There’s the murderer’s mother!’ And I would just politely turn round and smile at them, and say nothing.57
Eileen believed the death of Anna-Jane was a terrible accident and when asked what kept her going, her final words in the interview were, ‘I know very soon that my son is going to be out, he’s going to be home. He’s going to be able to get on with his life. I can feel it. God never lets me down.’58 Eileen’s funeral was held at Saint Ignatius’ College, Henry’s old school, where she’d worked as the tuckshop manager for many years. Despite some controversy Henry was permitted to attend, transported from Port Augusta Prison. He delivered his mother’s eulogy in handcuffs.
In 2009, Henry met Faye Hambour. Faye was definitely not a woman looking for love. If she was, the very last place she would conduct her search was in a prison. Faye was the mother of three adult children and had worked with her husband and a partner in a successful property development business. She and her husband had since separated, but when she met Henry Keogh she was hoping they might still reconcile.
Faye’s unlikely, and unwilling, introduction to the Keogh case came when she was urged by a friend to attend a talk by Bob Moles on miscarriages of justice. Bob gave these lectures to various church and community groups on a regular basis. The centrepiece of Bob’s presentation was usually the Keogh case. Faye had an instant sense of revulsion; she, like most of the state, wasn’t about to give up her belief in Keogh’s guilt or modify her view about his evil crime because of some bleeding heart. At the end of the evening, however, she was taken by the notion that things in the justice system were not as she’d believed them to be. Any retelling of the baby deaths cases left every audience unsettled. How could such a thing happen and largely be swept under the carpet? Faye alone from the group approached Bob afterwards to ask what a concerned person could do. Bob suggested she could help him get his files in order.
Faye visited Bob and began the enormous task of organising boxes and boxes of transcripts, exhibits and newspaper clippings that had been sent his way by dissenting defendants and their families. While doing so she began reading, and what she read intrigued and concerned her. From time to time the phone in Bob’s shelf-lined home office would ring. Sometimes it would be Henry Keogh. Having listened to one side of these conversations a number of times, and having read much of the evidence, she asked Bob if anyone ever visited Keogh in jail. The next time a call came from Henry, Bob said to Faye, ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’ She did, and was put on his visitors list. It was one of the shortest but most important conversations of their lives.
Following Faye’s initial visits, the two began corresponding. Henry was an excellent writer: articulate, well read and informative. He must have missed the bright and newsy mail from Valerie, who, by this time, was deeply affected by dementia. Despite all the setbacks he managed to keep his letters for the most part positive, but morale was wearing thin. In late 2009 the heartbreaking decision of the Medical Tribunal hit him very hard. He wrote to Faye:
Shrugging off setbacks and disappointments used to be a quick and easy task. But the way we keep snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is wearing me down. More to the point it has me wondering exactly how many people are working against us and how much of the incoming fire is ‘friendly’ (or supposed to be)? When I start down that path the sense of impotence and futility is crushing.59
In a later letter to Faye from prison, Henry reminisced about his children and his regrets over missing much of their lives:
I remember still most details from Dani’s birth. The wake, broken waters, the drive, the labour, some poor woman in the adjacent suite howling her heart out when her baby died before delivery … then I remember cradling her in my hands, besotted with awe and wonder at this little creature, a tiny bundle of humanity. It was at the point the world stopped and proved love is blind.
Elise is the most compassionate of the three. She was always loving and wise for her years. She gave herself to the Lord while in high school, taking almost a year off to study and go to the Philippines on a youth outreach ministry to work with orphan children and teenage prostitutes. She finished year 12 and did nursing. Despite her huge heart Elise is feisty, eloquent and determined when required …
That brings me to Lexi, who received more than a dollop of my genetic contribution – poor thing. She, too, is feisty, loyal and a force to be reckoned with. She truly has been my anchor and touchstone throughout all this mess.60
Each child wrestled with their own turmoil, suffering their father’s personal betrayal, then having him labelled a murderer and taken from them when he was most needed. Theirs was an emotional fusion of blame, guilt and longing. Keogh wrote that Dani wasn’t helped by ‘a stupid father who was unfaithful to her mother and subsequently left the family’.61
Those of us on the outside had disappointments of our own but none could truly share the torment Henry must have felt. In an unintentional way it was a blessing I had no contact with him throughout all those years, as I was spared from confronting his circumstances on a personal level. Increasingly, Faye took care of that, and I could see the growing strain it placed on her. In the latter years he’d made his peace with the mindlessness of the life he endured, but there would always be some unpredictable hostility lurking in the dank shadows of prison.