Killing in a bathtub: The tragic death of a ‘soulmate’
A little bone broth company has gone from selling out its market stall to filling supermarket shelves next to food brand heavyweights. By Carly Gooch.
Carol Coade never knew what a soulmate was until she met Mark Willis. Six years later she stabbed him 22 times in the torso, and slashed him six times – in a bathtub.
“This was a brutal frenzied attack,” Justice Lisa Preston said when sentencing the 61-year-old in the High Court at Dunedin on Thursday morning.
Coade was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday, with a minimum period of 11 years behind bars.
The court heard that Willis was a loving partner to Coade, with the pair meeting via an online dating app Find Someone.
Their burgeoning relationship featured in a story on a recently deleted blog post under the heading: Dating Online: Hook Ups or True Love?
In that post, Coade said of using the app: “I was looking for love, and as an older person how do you meet people?”
It was on that app where the Auckland-based teacher met the Wellington-based Mark, who was working on his first feature film: Blind Panic.
That movie’s title was referenced by Mark’s brother, Eion Willis, who said in his Victim Impact Statement that those two words described his brother’s greatest achievement, and his last moments.
In their interview, the pair said they had called and messaged, before Willis travelled to Auckland to meet Carol.
“There is a risk in it, but there are risks in anything. It’s about being safe and not putting yourself in a vulnerable position,” he said in the interview.
A year on from that encounter, the couple were deeply in love.
“I never knew what a soulmate was, but I know now, I understand what it means,” Coade said.
But at around 5pm on May 18, 2023, Coade took a kitchen knife with the 10cm-long blade and stabbed Willis again, and again, and again.
The court heard that in the days before that violent killing she had taken a knife and approached her partner on two separate occasions, once while he was doing house work and the other while he was on his computer.
The court heard that Coade was on leave from her teaching job, which had its name permanently suppressed, and was becoming increasingly anxious about returning to work, as she was running out of leave and worried about her financial security.
Her plan was to kill Willis, and then she could have the comfort and stability of prison, where money would not be an issue and she would be looked after and cared for.
While Willis had confided in a supervisor that Coade was depressed and struggled to get out of bed, he had no idea of what was abut to happen.
On the day of his murder he returned to their modest brick home on Tainui Rd at about 4.30pm, where he was offered a coffee before going to have his bath.
That coffee tasted strange, so he didn’t drink anymore. Little did he know that Coade had crushed sleeping pills in that drink, hoping he would drown in the tub.
But he died in that bath after the frenzied attack by Coade, with Willis saying: “No, Carole. I love you”.
But she kept stabbing him until his body fell under his lifeless body fell under the water.
Coade messaged her children at 5.15pm: “I love you guys – I’m sorry for what I’ve done”.
Two minutes later she transferred $45,000 from her bank account to one of her children, and then rang 111 saying she had stabbed her partner to death. She advised the call taker that the weapon was a knife and it was in the bathroom, with the bloodstained Coade meeting police at thescene.
Crown prosecutor Richard Smith said it was a brutal killing of the vulnerable Willis with Caode continuing to stab at him despite his pleas for her to stop.
He noted that Coade had the lucidity to contact her own family and transfer a large sum of money immediately after the killing.
Coade’s counsel Sarah Saunderson-Warner noted Willis was a loving and kind-hearted partner who was never abusive towards Coade.
Coade, a mother of three adult children, suffered from a major depressive episode with psychotic and delusional beliefs.
She believed that there was no help available and that “the homicide became the tragic solution”.
The killing of Willis deprived him, his family and friends of seeing the finished product of his movie: Blind Panic, which he had co-written and directed with his friend Matthew Mawkes, of Wellington.
Mawkes told Stuff that the movie, which was shot in just over 21 days, was still in post production.
The film, which was about “slaughter and mayhem”, was expected to be released later this year, with dates yet to be confirmed.
Mawkes last saw Willis, who had no children, and Coade a month before the murder and they appeared to have an “amazing relationship, lots of laughs, really close tight-knit couple”.
Justice Preston noted that Coade’s mental health had deteriorated since moving to Dunedin, where Willis was originally from. In the southern city she found her job was challenging, she missed her children, and faced increasing financial difficulties.
But she was supported by Willis, a loving and caring partner who would become her victim. “He was entirely blameless.”
Alex Watson figured he was on to a good thing when he was selling out 70 jars of his bone broth at a Christchurch farmers’ market. But six years on from its humble beginnings, the Little Bone Broth Co product is now sharing supermarket shelves with some of the world’s biggest food producers – and it is all down to packaging.
The protein-rich liquid was initially available only in glass jars sold in the chiller section. Then, two-and-a-half years ago, Watson discovered a way to continue producing the preservative and additive-free broth while making it stable for a shelf: putting it in foil pouches.
The pouches were lighter, which reduced shipping freight charges, and cheaper to buy, allowing him to pass the savings on to customers.
“We ended up having the same product on the shelf but for a lot less for customers.
It flipped things on its head. “We found ourselves on the shelf beside the likes of Campbell’s and Continental, which are great products, but they’re Australian made and full of additives.”
Suddenly people were putting the pouched bone broth in their weekly shop, he said.
The bone broth is made by slowly cooking chicken bones - sourced from Bostock Brothers Organic Free Range Chicken in Hawke’s Bay – and beef bones from Harris Farms in North Canterbury. They are simmered for three days to draw out the colour, nutrition and flavour.
And when it comes to bone broth, apart from being a great base for a meal, the nutritional benefits of drinking it are far-reaching,
Watson said. Not only is it full of collagen – good for skin, hair and teeth – it is also “extremely good for gut health” drunk on an empty stomach first thing in the morning to line the gut.
Watson said keto diets could give your body a “hammering”, so bone broth “helps set you up for the day”.
Late last year, he released a bone broth especially for pets, created with the same recipe but without the added salt and onion. There are now four varieties available for cats and dogs: chicken, beef, green thai curry and bone broth meal toppers.
“The pet food industry is so huge, there’s massive possibilities for us.”
The journey from markets to being stocked nationwide, including at Pak’nSave and New World supermarkets, hasn’t been without some sleepless nights for Watson though. “It’s been super challenging, especially starting out as a side project and morphing into something bigger.”
When Foodstuffs gave him the opportunity to stock his broth he was “constantly living in fear of getting too big too quick” and not being able to keep up with production.
He said launching the product without any business experience was a “massive learning experience” that saw him gain knowledge along the way and realise it’s OK not to know everything.
“It’s OK to not know. I used to think I needed to know stuff I didn’t, but I’m totally comfortable asking the silliest question in the room now.”
The glass jars were still available too, despite the pouches selling eight times more. When Watson introduced the pouches to Foodstuffs, he was told by the food giant to “be aware” that sales of the glass jars would decline – but the company was proven wrong, he said.
“They’ve stayed exactly where they were. Two-and-half years on they’re still in distribution centres. That’s been a real buzz.”
Do you have an innovative business? Email carly.gooch@stuff.co.nz