Resilience, fortitude marks of township Shooting survivor shares her story
It has been 30 years, but for some the horror of November 13, 1990 will never fade. Daisy Hudson spoke to Aramoana survivor JulieAnne Tamati about fear, grief, and learning to forgive.
IN her darkest moments, JulieAnne Tamati would wake up and write herself a list.
‘‘Get up. Have a shower. Eat food. Go to the garden.’’
Breaking her day into simple, bitesized tasks helped her cope with the grief and guilt that has been her shadow since the murder of her adopted daughter and partner .
Rewa Bryson (11) and Garry Holden were among the 13 people killed at Aramoana on November 13, 1990 in a mass shooting that, three decades on, seems utterly incomprehensible.
JulieAnne, whose last name was then Bryson, is now 67. She still vividly remembers the day her family was cruelly taken away.
It was hot. Families were fishing, riding bikes, and enjoying a sunny afternoon in the sleepy Otago village.
Rewa, and Garry's daughters Jasmine (11) and Chiquita (9), hopped off the school bus and went around to JulieAnne’s Moana St house.
Garry called round and the family had dinner together, before he, Jasmine and Rewa returned to his house in Muri St. They had all planned to go for a bike ride, but Rewa’s handlebars needed fixing.
Chiquita stayed behind, helping JulieAnne with the dishes before asking if she could stay the night.
She sent her to her father’s to ask permission.
When Chiquita returned, the nightmare started.
She ran inside, bleeding from shotgun wounds to her arm and stomach.
David Gray had shot at them, she said.
‘‘I was just shocked . . . I got a towel, and rang an ambulance, and put her in the van.’’
As they left Moana St, they saw two young boys out on the road on their bikes.
She told them to go to their grandad’s, her nextdoor neighbour.
She never saw the boys again. They would later be found among the dead.
As she drove her van to Garry’s house, which had been set on fire with Jasmine and Rewa inside, Gray started firing at her from a grass verge.
Bullets pierced the side of the van, somehow failing to hit either of them.
‘‘I think I had some angels looking after us.’’
Luckily, she says, she never saw Garry’s body, which was lying nearby.
She remembers Chiquita, wounded and screaming, begging her to get them out of there.
‘‘My instinct was just to go and get the girls.
‘‘Children believe that a house is a safe place to be. I think they hid under a table when David came in.’’
She had to make the heartbreaking decision to keep driving, to get herself and Chiquita to safety, and to leave the rest of her family behind.
‘‘It’s not something you can logically think, it was just survival mode.’’
It’s something she still feels guilty about.
She sped back to Moana St, where she told a neighbour to call the police.
As they waited, she spoke to people who were hearing the shots and seeing smoke from the burning house.
‘‘In a small community; it was like ‘you go and help’, and that’s when a lot of people got killed.’’
Later, Sergeant Stu Guthrie drove past in his police car. She tried to get him to stop, but he did not.
He would later be shot and killed as he tried to take Gray into custody.
‘‘I blame myself, in that illogical kind of way. You know, if only I’d been able to stop him and tell what had been happening.’’
Eventually someone drove JulieAnne and Chiquita to a roadblock that had been set up, and they were both taken to hospital.
It was not until the next day that her worst fears were confirmed. Rewa, Jasmine and Garry were dead.
In the weeks following, every time she woke up in the morning the reality would hit her.
‘‘I can remember going to town and buying a teddy bear for Chiquita, who was in hospital . . . and walking out to the main street and there were just people and cars going by, and it was like ‘Stop! My world’s stopped’, but people were going on with their lives.
‘‘But for me it was like everything had just come to a standstill.’’
In the years since, she has tried to move on.
She forgave Gray, going so far as to plant daffodils at the section where his house once stood.
It was difficult for people to understand that, she says.
‘‘I’ve always felt that forgiveness is something that stops you from carrying it through the rest of your life.
‘‘I’ve always felt that he was a troubled soul . . . he was mentally unwell.’’
She even contacted his family in the aftermath of the shootings.
‘‘They were in a terrible situation where they couldn’t openly grieve because the community and people were just really angry at them and angry at David.’’
As the 30th anniversary of the tragedy approaches, she wonders what Rewa would be like now.
Would the shy tomboy with a great sense of humour be just like her older sister and brothers?
She would have been 41 years old.
Instead, if you wander down a little path beside where Garry’s house once was, you will see her name among 13 etched on a memorial created for the victims.
At its base are shells, coloured stones, flowers, and a pair of teddy bears.
JulieAnne lives in Blackball on the West Coast now. She has a quiet, happy life with her dogs.
She still keeps in touch with Chiquita, the little girl she once treated like her own.
‘‘I love her dearly, and I’ve watched her grow into a wonderful adult.’’
Like Chiquita, she has spent much of her life working with victims, including more than a decade at Rape Crisis.
‘‘I’ve always said, rather than be a victim, I’m a survivor.’’
I RECENTLY watched my two granddaughters run along the Aramoana mole, squealing as gulls swooped low over them.
Then climbing sandhills and running freely into the gentle surf.
What a beautiful, tranquil spot.
But 30 years ago that tranquillity was shattered when David Gray unleashed unimaginable terror. How could those two girls ever comprehend the true horror of such an event?
My memories of the night are easy to recall and remain fresh in my mind. For many of my police colleagues, and residents of the seaside township, their memories will be even more seared into the consciousness such was the magnitude of Gray’s rampage.
Like most police staff I was called back to work in the early evening of November 13. Initially, my role was to help set up the operation until commanders could take over. From then on, I was to respond to the intense media avalanche over the night and all the next day. It was unceasing.
But my job was easy and safe, and the memories I have remain profound, including being in the senior sergeant’s office and hearing the call come in that Sergeant Stu Guthrie had been shot dead. I’d been talking to Stu in my office only a couple of days earlier when he called in to seek advice on a matter. Having to contact staff to return to duty and relaying news of Stu’s death, knowing some were his closest mates — that was hard.
Harder still was taking phone calls from distraught residents desperately wanting information about missing loved ones who were caught up in the mayhem.
Perhaps I became attached to this historic event through writing the book, Aramoana: Twentytwo Hours of Terror. Some people had misgivings about there being a book. I understand that. What happened was raw and probably still is. But as the police media liaison officer I could see that some facts were being badly distorted or exaggerated. Even dark chapters in our history need to be accurately recorded.
Action by locals and police should be preserved so we never forget. And, more importantly, we need to learn the lessons of an Aramoana.
Most mass shootings end relatively quickly but at Aramoana, with plenty of cover for the gunman to hide, the search went on for 22 hours and, in this respect, sets it apart from similar atrocities. When researching for my book, I spoke to more than 70 people, many residents and many frontline police officers. And from that frontline comes what is essentially the legacy of Aramoana bravery and resilience on a grand scale. Like Constables Terry Van Turnhout and Dave Weir, who risked their lives trying to save resident Chris Cole, only to be shattered to hear he didn’t survive; or Detective Paul Knox and Constable Nick Harvey who rescued 3yearold Stacey Percy from the back of a ute where people lay dead around her. Before carrying out the rescue, those two police officers, lightly armed, entered Gray’s crib knowing full well he may be inside. They had to be certain he wasn’t as they, and Stacey, would have been easy targets. These actions take extraordinary courage and exemplify what being a cop is really about.
Then there is a community which showed amazing resilience, compassion and bravery, such as Helen Dickson going to comfort a dying man while in the back of her mind she worried about her own son who had run to the fire in the Holden house, only to come face to face with Gray. Or residents, stoically accepting that amid the chaos, their township had to be closed down for days as police carried out a complex set of scene examinations. I don’t have room in this article to acknowledge all of the acts of bravery and compassion displayed throughout this ordeal and in the weeks and months following, but there were many.
I was privileged to meet many of these locals; some of whom I could say became friends and I vividly remember this awful event; but my involvement was meagre compared to them and the many police who went into that front line.
So how should Aramoana be remembered? As the place where a lone man was able to exact terror and mayhem on a community, or that same community coming together with resilience and fortitude to heal the hurt and maintain Aramoana as a place of beauty? As I watched my granddaughters run along the beach I sensed that those who love this part of New Zealand have triumphed over evil. We don’t forget the night of November 13, 1990 and we certainly don’t forget those who died. And neither should we. And we should do what we can to avoid Aramoana being defined by tragedy. Two young girls laughing as they leapt down sandhills is testament to that.
Writer and former police officer Bill O’Brien wrote the book Aramoana: Twentytwo Hours of Terror , which was later filmed as Out of the Blue .He was responsible for handling media inquiries from throughout the world as the tragedy of Aramoana unfolded.