By KATH GANNAWAY
THE one wish of Marea Yann’s family – justice for their murdered mother, sister, grandmother, aunt – still eludes them.
As the family came together in Healesville 10 years on from the horrible day the 69-year-old Healesville community worker was brutally killed, the grief of it all overwhelms any hope that they might be able to celebrate the wonderful life they had stolen from them.
News of Marea’s murder in her secluded Juliet Avenue home in September 2003 shocked Healesville. Marea was well-known and well-loved in the community.
It was two years before evidence given at an inquest into her death gave some hope of a resolution, with police identifying her estranged son-in-law as the sole suspect in the case.
On the evidence presented in court in February 2008 the man the family, and police, still say is the only person in the picture for the murder, was acquitted.
On Tuesday last week family members including Marea’s sisters Carmen Sullivan, Deanne Green and Antoniette Tancredi, daughter Ronda Chagoury, son Jeff Yann and their partners, and granddaughter Renee, shared a meal and memories together.
Inevitably, they relived the surreal events of the past 10 years from the aching loss of Marea and the brutal way she was bludgeoned to death, to the slow process of the law.
It was a rollercoaster of hope and despair from an inquest which seemed to provide all the answers, to the devastation of the Supreme Court trial in Geelong where much of that evidence was disallowed.
Changes to the Evidence Act around hearsay evidence and double jeopardy have given the family hope, but they know it is slim.
Carmen said she hoped the lunch would be a day of closure, but it hadn’t been.
“Talking about it, there is no closure, and probably there never will be in my lifetime,” she says.
“I thought today I could lay Marea to rest; perhaps tomorrow I will let her go,” she says tearfully.
Ronda is holding onto reassurances from police that all the evidence – “that great big box with everything in it” – will be kept for 50 years.
“That makes me feel good,” she said.
“I have hope based on changing laws. Mum’s case is in the Year 12 text books in respect of hearsay evidence, and I believe that with these laws changed, if it ever gets back into court, all that evidence will be admissible,” she says.
For the women who planned to live out their lives as sisters growing old together, they feel every day the loss of what could have been, and are at an age that they feel justice for Marea may come too late for them.
“We know that these things don’t happen quickly,” said Deanne.
“Even if the law changes, I feel every day that the man who killed my sister is walking free; that he was acquitted.”
“We take Marea with us wherever we go; in the car, in our thoughts, in the garden, and we look at ourselves, frumpy, getting older, and say ‘Marea would be like this too’, but she has not grown old.”
Asked whether he believes his mother will ever get justice, Jeff says he now looks back to the day Marea was buried when he said “Hopefully the good people will win in the end”.
“I think now, how naive was I, or perhaps it’s just that it’s 10 years on and while I feel so personally sad, we know the justice system is flawed, but we have survived this thing together.”
Renee was just 15 and she is happy to be with her family, particularly Carmen who she says reminds her so much of her Nonna.
“Nonna was our only grandparent, and it’s been really hard for my brother, Milan, and me.
“She brought everyone together,” she says. “I hope for now that my mum can heal a bit more, and my brother.”
It’s too early to say ‘time heals’, but around the table there is a sense, and some words that say Marea’s family are in a better place right now.
“We still believe there are very good people out there, but unfortunately some … .”. The words are too hard to speak, but she moves on, saying they find strength in Marea’s legacy.
“We still have the good moral compass that mum instilled in us,” she says.
