[NZ] Child killer: Jury finds Howse guilty
Anne Warfield
From The Dominion Post--
Child killer: Jury finds Howse guilty
05 December 2002
Bruce Thomas Howse last night joined the ranks of convicted murderers
alongside his older brother Peter – one of New Zealand's most
notorious criminals.
Peter Robert Howse, 14 years older than Bruce, 40, is serving a
sentence of preventive detention in Auckland's maximum security
prison, Paremoremo, for a series of sex attacks, and was convicted in
1982 of murdering his de facto partner.
Late last night Bruce became the second convicted murderer in the
family. A jury at the High Court in Wellington found him guilty of
murdering his stepdaughters Saliel Aplin, 12, and Olympia Jetson, 11.
Howse stood quietly as the verdicts were read. They came exactly a
year after the sisters were stabbed to death in their beds, in the
sleepout of their Masterton home.
As the jury returned, Howse's former partner Charlene Aplin clutched a
picture of her dead daughters – as she had throughout the time she
gave evidence. Family members whispered "Yes" as each guilty verdict
was read out and several were in tears.
Justice Goddard told the jury she thought it had made the correct
decision, after its nearly six hours of deliberation.
Outside the court, Howse's brother Kevin said he was not disappointed
by the verdicts. "He deserves everything he f. . . gets."
He then hugged Ms Aplin, who then read from a prepared statement. She
thanked the police and others who had helped the family.
"I wish to leave here today, to be left alone and try and get on with
as normal a life as possible."
The man in charge of the case, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Oxnam,
said it had been a particularly sad and cruel case in which two young
girls were killed in their bed by someone who should have been caring
for them. "The saddest thing is that the potential they had has just
been snuffed out."
The cruellest aspect was that not only had Ms Aplin lost her two
daughters, Howse had also accused her of killing them, Mr Oxnam said.
Throughout the investigation police had come to know a great deal
about the two girls and described them as vibrant and pleasant, he
said.
"It's terribly, terribly sad."
During the past year Ms Aplin had shown great strength which was
admired by the police involved, he said.
Howse will be sentenced in the High Court at Wellington on December
18.
In her summing up to the jury yesterday, Justice Goddard said they had
to decide which of the two parents killed the girls. She said the
incident arose out of the domestic family dynamics of the household.
She said the Crown maintained Howse killed the girls and the defence
claimed that it was their mother Charlene Aplin. The judge said that
if there was a reasonable possibility that Ms Aplin had done it, the
jury had to acquit. She said because the jury could not get into the
minds of Charlene or Howse to see their intentions they had to look at
the surrounding evidence.
Crown prosecutor Grant Burston said Howse was trying to avoid moral
responsibility for the girls' deaths.
He said that during the confession Howse had made to police he had
described exact detail that no one else could have known unless they
had killed the girls. "His description of the killings has details no
one but the killer could have known."
He warned the jury that they were not setting out to prove that Howse
sexually abused the girls but it was something to consider as part of
the background leading up to the killings; that Howse had known about
allegations Olympia had made.
Mr Burston said a note written by Olympia in her diary said it all:
"My dad is going to kill me."
The allegation that Ms Aplin had done it was rubbish, "a pack of lies
constructed to avoid the moral responsibility of these killings".
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2130686a10,00.html
--
Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
Anne Warfield
CYF probe into dead girls' care
05 December 2002
Two investigations into the care of slain Masterton sisters Saliel
Aplin and Olympia Jetson have begun.
Child Youth and Family – involved with the pair's family for the past
10 years – will resume a case review it first started in April, but
which was suspended at the request of the crown solicitor while court
action proceeded.
And Children's Commissioner Roger McClay yesterday revealed plans of
his own inquiry into the girls' care, including a close look at CYF.
CYF social work and community services general manager Verna Smith
said the agency needed to look very carefully at how it managed its
relationship with the family, particularly issues surrounding
allegations of sexual abuse by Olympia before her death.
Olympia had written of being sexually abused by Howse in her diary.
CYF sent a letter to her mother Charlene Aplin saying the matter had
to be discussed, but it was opened by Howse just weeks before the
murders.
Wellington barrister John Morrison will review the case with CYF's
Wanganui service delivery manager, Tuakeu Pilato. It is expected to be
completed early next year.
Meanwhile, Mr McClay said his office had sought information about CYF
care of the sisters since the day after they were killed. He renewed
his call yesterday for "all and every file".
He had grave concerns about some CYF practices and the attitudes of
some officials.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2130685a11,00.html
Anne Warfield
Women who lived in fear
05 December 2002
By HANNAH LAWRENCE and FRAN TYLER
Bruce Howse will always be part of the lives of Gillian Holdem and
Charlene Aplin. Between them, they have had seven of his children.
Before becoming involved with Ms Aplin, he was with Ms Holdem for 10
years. They met when she was 15, a "naive young girl" enamoured of the
18-year-old's tough image.
Had she known of the terrifying and brutal things he would do to her,
she would have steered well clear, she admits. "I think part of the
attraction was that everyone said not to go near him, but I was a
rebellious teenager."
It was 1980, just three months before Bruce's older brother Peter
murdered his former girlfriend Susan Keenan. Her relationship with
Bruce lasted 10 years, but when she finally threw him out, he stalked
her for a further three.
By the time she was 18, she had moved in with Howse and had given
birth to the first of their five children. It was during her first
pregnancy that the physical abuse began.
"I should have got out then . . . but while it was violent right from
the start, there were good times too. Bruce was okay when he was
working, but that wasn't very often."
It was while they were living in Palmerston North, in 1985, that she
says Howse first tried to kill her in a jealous rage after he saw her
talking to an old school friend. Driving home, drunk and stoned, he
lined up the car with a lamppost and jumped out. The car ploughed into
the pole.
The couple's son Andrew, then three, was thrown through the windscreen
on to the road and suffered a deep cut on his scalp. Ms Holdem was in
hospital for three days.
Howse suffered only grazes. He later denied jumping out of the car
and, when police interviewed Ms Holdem with Howse present, she says
she was too scared to say anything different, so claimed she could not
remember anything. He was convicted of causing injury through
drink-driving.
His violence ran in cycles, she says. About every two weeks, he would
pick a fight that would end in a beating. "When Bruce hits you, it's
above the neck, so people can see."
Despite the beatings, she stayed with him. "I felt my kids had the
right to a father. I look back now and realise I made the wrong
decision."
The couple split in 1990. What finally pushed her over the edge was
Howse's attack on their three-year-old daughter that left her with a
black eye.
Ms Aplin, too, stayed despite years of violence. The fathers of her
older children never took any interest in them, she says. Howse was
the first and only one to do that. It was important to her that her
children have a positive relationship with a father figure.
ON DECEMBER 3 last year, the day before Howse killed Saliel Aplin and
Olympia Jetson, Ms Aplin, 33, decided the relationship was over, and
told Howse to leave.
For years she had dismissed his death threats. "He said that he was
going to kill me and the kids," she told the jury at his trial. "But I
never believed him."
The couple met in 1993, soon after she had split with her husband
Robert Jetson, the father of Olympia and of another two of her
children. Then 24, she already had five children, the first of whom
was born a month after her 16th birthday.
The couple split several times, and at one point the children went to
live with Ms Aplin's parents. Her mother, Maymourn, remembers an
injury to Olympia, who was then three. Child, Youth and Family became
involved and Olympia was sent to counselling. During one session, she
beat a doll against a chair repeatedly and told a counsellor it was
what Howse had done.
In the months leading up to the killings, things came to a head. "We
were fighting constantly because he was always picking on the kids,"
Ms Aplin says. "The kids were saying he was hitting them and I'd
confront him and he'd deny it. He'd call them names. He was quite
abusive."
In July, she gave birth to Howse's second child. He denied he was the
baby's father, because it was a girl, and is not named on her birth
certificate.
In August, sexual abuse complaints made by Olympia came to light and
CYF became involved. Olympia withdrew the allegation when she talked
to a social worker. A note was later found in her diary saying she did
that because Howse had bribed her.
On the day of the killings, Ms Aplin again told him to pack his stuff
and go, but he threatened to take the older of their two girls if he
did, and had done so before.
"I'm not the best mother in the world, I've made a lot of mistakes I'm
not proud of," she says. "But I love my children, and they loved me. I
would give my life in a second to have my babies back. Because not a
day goes by that I don't wish he'd done it to me instead of them."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2130674a1861,00.html
Anne Warfield
[Sins of the Brothers]?
Brothers in murder
05 December 2002
By HANNAH LAWRENCE and FRAN TYLER
Eleven years ago, two brothers from Dannevirke snatched a young woman
off the street and drove her to a secluded rural area, describing to
her the sex acts they were going to make her perform.
For the older brother, Peter Robert Howse, now 54, already a convicted
murderer, it was just one more black mark in a ledger of atrocious
crimes, but for the younger, Bruce Thomas Howse, now 40, it was a step
into the world of serious offending.
Bruce Howse was no stranger to the police, but his record was little
more than a series of petty crimes. But that night, with the help of
his brother, he started down the path of violence that ultimately led
to the murders of his two stepdaughters in Masterton last December.
For his older brother – who masterminded the kidnap plot – it was a
different story. Peter has a string of almost 80 convictions going
back to the early 1960s, many for assaults against women. He has spent
32 of the past 36 years behind bars.
He had served just nine years of a life sentence for murdering his
partner, Susan Keenan, when he was granted weekend leave by the Parole
Board in 1991. It was on one of these weekends that he met up with
Bruce in Palmerston North. In the early hours of August 18, the pair
grabbed the 17-year-old woman, bundled her into the back of Peter's
car and drove to Pohangina Valley, near Ashhurst.
"Pull over and we'll get down to business," Peter said, but the car
got stuck in mud and the terrified woman managed to escape.
Peter was handed a two-year prison sentence for the crime and Bruce,
who "helped police with their inquiries", received seven months'
periodic detention, two years' supervision and alcohol treatment.
Peter was also recalled to complete the life sentence for Ms Keenan's
murder.
According to Bruce's former partner Gillian Holdem, he and Peter did
not spend a lot of time together as kids, mainly because of the age
difference. Despite this, he was awestruck by his elder brother and
his crimes.
"Bruce idolises Peter. He always has, always," she says. "He puts him
on a pedestal – Peter's cool. He used to use Peter as a threat. He'd
tell people, `I'll get Peter on to you.' "
The Howse boys had a violent upbringing. Their father, Owen, drank,
and he and their mother, Betty, were always fighting. "I used to hear
stories about Mum and the kids having to sit in the car while Dad was
in the pub," Ms Holdem says.
"She used to tell me to get out of the relationship with Bruce – I
guess she wanted to save me from what she'd been through. But when I
did, I was the biggest bitch in town and it was all my fault,
according to her." Betty was very defensive of her eight children.
"She would go to the end of the world for her children. Making up
alibis for them and blaming everybody else for what they did was her
way of defending them."
After Peter's conviction for his three last sex attacks, Betty, then
71, leapt to his defence, saying young women wearing short dresses
were inviting trouble. "It's even the schoolkids going to school – no
wonder they get raped or murdered. It's disgusting the way some
mothers let their daughters go to school or walk the streets," she
told one radio show.
Betty died last year, before seeing a second of her eight children
arrested for murder.
It seems almost everyone in Dannevirke knows a story about the Howse
family, though none is willing to be named. "While I never had any
trouble with them, they were all hoons – the lot of them," says an
acquaintance of Bruce. "They used to rip around town in their heaps of
junk. The cops were always at their place.
"Being the youngest, Bruce was different. I think he lived in the
shadows of his older brothers. He tried to mould himself like them, be
a tough guy, but he never was."
But Mervyn Howse, Peter and Bruce's eldest brother, offers a different
view of the family. "It was a good happy family," he says.
He has fond memories of Betty, evidenced by a tattoo on his forearm –
the word "Mum" in a love heart. "She was good – an excellent mum. The
cupboard was always full of food." Dad's name was Owen, "but he used
to say, `Don't call me Owen, I don't owe you bastards nothing,' "
Mervyn laughs.
When asked about the tough times, he says: "Dad used to go to town on
the booze – for three or four days sometimes."
Mervyn, as the eldest, would sometimes go with him. "He'd buy me a big
bag of lollies, then I'd have to drive him home. I was about six or
eight, I think."
And was Betty okay with that? "Yeah, good as gold."
Bruce was just a baby when Mervyn lived at home, but he remembers him
as "a good kid. He was a worker, he always wanted to work when he was
at school – it was work, work, work".
Mervyn hasn't seen Bruce since his arrest last December. "I haven't
heard from him – I wrote him a letter, but haven't heard nothing
back."
The same applies to Peter since his imprisonment. "I wrote him a
couple of letters, but haven't heard from him. I'm going to go up and
see him. We're still a close family."
Another brother, Kevin, was at the High Court in Wellington to support
Bruce. He sat through day one of the trial and visited Bruce in the
cells.
In 1998, Kevin was flown to hospital by helicopter at 4am with
multiple head, chest and arm injuries after a hit-and-run incident.
He was struck outside the family home by a red Mini owned by his
brother Danny.
Danny said his car had been stolen just before the crash, but later
admitted driving it and was convicted of drink-driving causing injury,
and hit-and-run charges.
It was not Danny's first brush with the law; he has a criminal record
spanning 30 years.
With Peter and Bruce behind bars, what next for the family of two of
New Zealand's most reviled killers? Mervyn and Kevin live their own
lives and focus on their own families. "The family has had lots of
tough times, lots of tragedy, yeah. Now we just get on with it,"
Mervyn says.
Since Bruce's arrest, Kevin says he has had death threats and has been
warned he should change his young daughters' names from Howse. "But I
said no way. They are Howses, and we've got nothing to be ashamed of."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2130677a1861,00.html
Anne Warfield
Review to decide if CYF might have done more for girls
05.12.2002 6.06 pm
Child, Youth and Family (CYF) needs to know whether it should have, or
could have done more to save the lives of two Masterton girls, an
agency manager says.
Bruce Howse, 40, was last night found guilty by a High Court jury in
Wellington of murdering Saliel Aplin, 12, and Olympia Jetson, 11, in
the early hours of December 4 last year in the sleepout of their
Masterton home.
CYF had started a case review in April, but that work was suspended at
the request of the crown solicitor while the case against Howse was
heard.
With yesterday's verdict, CYF announced the review would resume.
"It is always easy with hindsight to say that things might have been
done differently," CYF social work and community services general
manager Verna Smith told National Radio tonight.
"It is very possible things should have been done differently, but I
can't (say) that is right until we have the full facts of the matter
in front of us."
The review was expected to be completed early next year.
When CYF first knew of abuse allegations involving Olympia, it had
acted within 24 hours, Ms Smith said.
"I know that investigations were carried out at that time, and they
went beyond a simple discussion with Olympia over whether this had
happened to her or not," Ms Smith said.
"However, it is still very, very important to assess exactly how that
was done, with whom, and what circumstances, to know whether that was
able to get to the truth of the matter."
Social Services Minister Steve Maharey said he was pleased CYF could
now restart the review of its involvement with the famil y.
"The minister is pleased it can be resumed, now that the legal
impediment to it has been removed," a spokesman for the minister said
tonight.
"It's important for the public and also for the department that they
get a clear idea about their social work practice in this area, and
they use the information gained to make any improvements it may
suggest for the future."
The review, commissioned by chief social worker Shannon Pakura in
consultation with Commissioner for Children Roger McClay, was being
done by Wellington barrister John Morrison and CYF Wanganui area
service delivery manager Tuakeu Pilato .
Mr McClay has said he planned his own inquiry into the girls' care.
Today, Peter Debney, the principal of the school attended by Saliel
Aplin, said the fatal stabbings of the two girls happened despite a
number of agencies being informed the girls were suffering abuse.
"I know (from) the various schools that the girls attended prior to
Saliel coming (here) two years ago there had been numerous agencies at
various times who were informed, who did take action and there was
obviously other instances where agencies were following through."
National MP Katherine Rich said CYF had "failed miserably" in
protecting the sisters from abuse.
"CYF has been involved with this family for almost a decade. It
beggars belief that a serious warning about child abuse was treated so
lightly," Ms Rich said in a statement.
She said evidence of abuse was downplayed by a CYF social worker
dealing with the family.
"We now have every right to expect a full explanation from CYF telling
us how they allowed such an obvious family time-bomb to explode," Ms
Rich said.
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3007943&thesection=news&thesubsection=general
Anne Warfield
Hope for closure after Howse verdict
05 December 2002
The principals of the Masterton schools attended by murdered sisters
Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson are hoping last night's murder
conviction of their stepfather, Bruce Howse, will bring closure for
students at their schools and others throughout the district.
Hiona Intermediate School principal Peter Debney and Lansdowne School
principal Richard Williams have spent the past three weeks reliving
the events of a year ago, and trying to help children at their schools
deal with renewed emotions.
Mr Williams, who gave evidence during the three-week trial, said
Lansdowne School is still grieving for 11-year-old Olympia. He said
Howse's conviction was timely, on the anniversary of the girls'
deaths.
Mr Williams, along with current and past pupils of Lansdowne School,
held a memorial service for Olympia yesterday. The children planted a
weeping elm beside the school's swimming pool, a tree they chose
especially because of its long sheltering branches. Mr Williams said
the children sang the Irish blessing, Olympia's favourite song as a
member of the school's choir.
Children tried to bring back the happy memories, Mr Williams said. "We
remembered how she (Olympia), used to dip her chips in yoghurt."
Mr Williams said his message to the school was for everyone to try to
ensure a similar tragedy never happened again.
Mr Debney, who also gave evidence at Howse's trial, said the tragedy
was still very raw for 12-year-old Saliel's classmates and their
teachers. He said it was immensely traumatic for the young children
who had to travel to Wellington and stand in the witness box to talk
of things they knew about.
Mr Debney accompanied each child called as a witness to Wellington and
into the courtroom. He said it was a matter of just being there to
offer the children and their families support. He said Justice Goddard
made the experience unthreatening for the children. He said she
explained their time in court as sharing a story. Mr Debney said for
those who were called to give evidence, it was part of the healing
process.
Mr Debney spent this morning going from classroom to classroom,
offering reassurance and explaining to the children exactly what the
outcome of the trial meant.
He said the important message he wanted to relay to his pupils was
that 99 per cent of adults can be trusted and if they have troubles or
fears, they will be listened to and believed, and that people will
follow through to help them.
Mr Debney said the Rise Above It campaign, an initiative by the three
Wairarapa councils, had helped bring agencies together to make a
greater impact in helping children. He said some agencies were
ignorant of each other's existence until the campaign's launch.
Mr Debney said the killing of Saliel and Olympia and the circumstances
leading up to their deaths was the type of tragedy which made school
principals, teachers and other support staff more determined to ensure
there was no hesitation making referrals to appropriate agencies and
that those referrals were followed through.
Mr Debney said communities, and not just Wairarapa people, needed to
provide a safe place for their young people to live. He said the rest
of the country should sit up and take notice of the Wairarapa
initiative to ensure another tragedy did not happen.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2131491a11,00.html
Anne Warfield
Killer's ex tells of fight to keep children safe
07.12.2002
By JAMES GARDINER
A woman who fought to keep her daughter away from convicted child
killer Bruce Howse says she was forced to flout a court order and hide
the girl for two weeks while being hounded by police and threatened
with kidnapping charges.
No one knew better than Gillian Holdem what Howse was capable of.
She fell in love with him at age 15, had five children to him and lost
as many teeth from his beatings.
His jealousy knew no bounds. After he saw her talking to a man they
both knew, he deliberately drove the family car into a power pole,
jumping clear himself before the impact, which sent Miss Holdem and
their 3-year-old son to hospital.
Their relationship ended 13 years ago when he bashed their only
daughter, a toddler, giving her a black eye. It was not the first time
he had hurt the child - and it would not be the last.
Though Howse left, Miss Holdem's battles with him over custody of the
children continued until late last year when he was locked up.
Although he had found a new partner, he threatened to kill Miss Holdem
if she dared to go out with anyone else. She took the threat
seriously.
Howse, 40, was this week found guilty of murdering his stepdaughters
Saliel Aplin, 12, and Olympia Jetson, 11, by stabbing them as they
slept in their Masterton home last December.
He tried to blame their mother, his partner Charlene Aplin, but a High
Court jury decided he had killed the girls in an attempt to prevent
them accusing him of sex abuse.
The case has sparked inquiries by the Child, Youth and Family Services
Department and the Commissioner for Children into how social workers
and other agencies dealt with the two families Howse brutalised and
preyed on.
Miss Aplin, who had two children to Howse as well as five others,
blamed department social workers but Miss Holdem, 37, said the Family
Court and its child psychologists should come under scrutiny.
Her efforts to keep her children, particularly their daughter, from
Howse were in vain. At various times he gained custody of all but the
youngest son as judges and psychologists changed their minds, based on
what the children said they wanted and claims by Howse that he was
able to provide a stable home life.
Those claims, as Miss Holdem knew from bitter experience, were lies,
as were the promises he made the children.
"He's a manipulator," she said. "He's such a convincing liar. People
have believed him, that's the problem. I started church when we split
up and the minister sided with him. Our minister did a letter that got
him out of prison for that kidnapping."
That kidnapping was in 1991, when Howse and his brother Peter, also a
convicted murderer, snatched a 17-year-old with the intention of
raping her, until she got away.
Bruce Howse co-operated with police and received a non-custodial
sentence; Peter Howse was jailed for two years but is now serving a
preventive detention sentence for a series of rapes and sex attacks.
Miss Holdem kept Howse away from their daughter until 1998 when a
Family Court judge decided to try what he called "an experiment" with
the girl, then 12, who had expressed a desire to live with her father
and older brothers.
He granted custody to Howse against Miss Holdem's objections. Twelve
weeks later the girl was home for Christmas, saying Howse had hit her
and she did not want to go back.
"I rang CYFS, I rang the kids' lawyer; the courts were closed and they
all told me not to let her go back."
For two weeks she hid her daughter with family in Auckland. Police
threatened to charge her with kidnapping and searched her friends'
homes in the middle of the night.
"When I got a court date I got her back and won custody. That was his
last contact with her."
When she first learned of the girls' murders, she was told it was her
own sons who had been stabbed to death.
Having found out that wasn't the case, she went to Masterton to see
her boys, already convinced that Howse was the killer.
"I spoke to a senior sergeant. I told him, 'Don't let him get away
with it'."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3008307&thesection=news&thesubsection=general