‘MY DAD IS A MURDERER’
AS A CHILD, RENEE CARRIED A DARK FAMILY SECRET. NOW SHE’S HELPING OTHERS HEAL
Renee Mcbryde was just 6 years old when a phone call from her father changed her life. “I spoke to him on the phone every Saturday evening before watching Young Talent Time,” Renee tells New Idea.
“Mum said he worked away at Cottee’s Cordial but I’d often ask him why I never saw him. I think it was this question that eventually prompted him to tell me the truth.”
That truth was that Renee’s dad, Michael Caldwell, was in jail for murder.
“I was six, so the overwhelming feeling of sadness I had wasn’t because he was in jail. I didn’t even know what that was. I was upset he didn’t actually work for Cottee’s Cordial because I loved their adverts,” Renee, now 39 and living in Alice Springs, remembers.
As she got older, the reality set in. Renee’s mother only gave her snippets of the story when she was drinking and the phone calls from her dad tapered off. What she was left with was a huge secret she was forbidden from sharing with anyone.
“Mum always said people wouldn’t like us or think I was a good person if I told them. Some of that filtered in and I began to think it might be true, so I spent my childhood toeing the line, always doing my best,” Renee says.
It was only as a teenager that Renee discovered the full extent of her father’s crime when a school project led her to the State Library. Here she found newspaper articles which laid out the chilling story.
In 1981, when Caldwell was 19, homeless and working as a male prostitute, he robbed and stabbed to death two gay men. His victims were Constantine Giannaris, Greek Consul General to Australia, and Peter Parkes, a gay activist and school teacher.
“In a way, it was a relief to know everything at last,” Renee says. “I realised it was a way bigger deal than I’d been led to believe, and it cemented the fact I needed to keep it hidden.”
Still, Renee underestimated the difficulty of her burden.
“I became obsessed with the fact I’d have to carry this until I died, and I didn’t want to follow the pattern of my mother and grandmother who held secrets that destroyed them.
“I came up with the idea of becoming a lawyer because if I was atoning for what my