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Beyond All Evil: Two monsters, two mothers, a love that will last forever
June Thomson
Jim McBeth
Giselle Ross
Marion Scott
June Thomson and Giselle Ross are inextricably linked by two unspeakable acts of evil. On the same day, a few miles apart, their estranged husbands slaughtered their children. The murders were not driven by rage, or committed in moments of madness. They were planned, and carried out with chilling precision, to inflict the worst pain imaginable.June and Giselle did not know each other. Tragedy is all that binds them; they were destined to come together as ‘sisters’, united by pain, grief and a sense of loss so immense that it would drive both to the brink of madness.June’s life with Rab Thomson had been a dark and turbulent existence, characterised by mental torture, physical violence and rape. Giselle’s relationship with Ashok Kalyanjee had been a strange and distant affair, of lives spent apart before, during and after marriage.But both relationships had produced two beautiful children, and the women believed that their misery was in the past. Both mothers believed it was important to allow the fathers’ access to their children. On that fateful Saturday in May 2008, neither could have conceived that the men they had once loved would do anything to harm their children. But they were wrong, so terribly wrong.Nothing can bring their children back. But June and Giselle have one solitary comfort: they are no longer alone. Their lives may have been torn apart, but they have each other. Together, they are stronger.This is the story of their parallel journeys: of the dreadful days before, during, and after the murders of their children. Told in their own words, with searing honesty of their pain, and guilt, it is a story of endurance, friendship, and survival against the odds. It is not a story for the faint hearted, but it is a story that must be told, for in the end, it is a testament to the human spirit.
BEYOND
ALL EVIL
June Thomson & Giselle Ross
with Marion Scott and Jim McBeth
Copyright
Harper Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperElement 2011
© June Thomson, Giselle Ross, Marion Scott and Jim McBeth 2011
The authors assert the moral right to be
identified as the authors of this work.
A catalogue record of this book is
available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN 9780007438518
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007438525
Version: 2018-07-13
Dedication
To little Jay-Jay, Paul, Ryan and Michelle –
forever innocent, forever loved
Contents
Cover (#uc3e1b794-3f55-5f52-93a2-f14882d5e78b)
Title Page (#u396d6f51-3d12-533c-8e4d-151e50967401)
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Prologue: Fairy Shoes and Toy Soldiers
Chapter 1 - Beginnings
Chapter 2 - Love of Our Lives
Chapter 3 - Moths to a Flame
Chapter 4 - Rings on Our Fingers
Chapter 5 - Closer to the Flame
Chapter 6 - I Take This Man
Chapter 7 - The Honeymoon Is Over
Chapter 8 - The Way It Is
Chapter 9 - Even in Darkness
Chapter 10 - Nothing Ever Changes
Chapter 11 - Behind Painted Smiles
Chapter 12 - A Deeper, Darker Place
Chapter 13 - If Only ... (June)
Chapter 14 - This Child of Mine
Chapter 15 - So Alone
Chapter 16 - Why Didn’t We Walk Away?
Chapter 17 - These Special Gifts
Chapter 18 - The Joy They Brought
Chapter 19 - Beginning of the End
Chapter 20 - The Final Straw
Chapter 21 - If Only ... (Giselle)
Chapter 22 - Saturday 3 May
Chapter 23 - Mummy Can’t Fix It Now
Chapter 24 - Tranquillisers and Sympathy
Chapter 25 - In the Arms of an Angel
Chapter 26 - Tell Me Why
Chapter 27 - Revenge
Chapter 28 - Brutal and Merciless
Chapter 29 - Cold and Evil
Chapter 30 - Reaching for the Light
Chapter 31 - The Kindness of Strangers
Chapter 32 - The Love They Left Behind
Chapter 33 - This Sisterhood of Ours
Afterword by Ian Stephen
Moved by Giselle and June's story? (#ub03beb7f-378d-5155-b0bb-04856b66e289)
Help and Support for Victims
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
About the Publisher (#u4bc4fd43-c856-5326-9cce-5f516fff91f1)
Foreword
What follows is a conversation between two mothers who are leading each other from the darkness to the light.
Before they were united by two unspeakable acts of evil, June Thomson and Giselle Ross did not know each other. Today they are the closest of friends. In their hearts they wish they had not been brought together by incomparable loss, but now that they have found each other they are able to walk together towards a future neither of them believed was possible.
Only Giselle can appreciate how June has suffered; only June can understand the monumental effort it takes for her friend to rise and face each new day. This bond has already saved their lives, dragging them back from the edge of madness and giving them the courage to endure unimaginable pain.
On the same day, a few miles apart, June and Giselle’s estranged husbands, Rab Thomson and Ashok Kalyanjee, murdered their children. The men were not driven by rage. The killings were planned and carried out with precision, and designed to crush the women they had once dominated.
The names of the lost innocents are Ryan and Michelle Thomson, and Paul and Jay Ross, whom you will come to know and love as little ‘Jay-Jay’. Ryan was seven. His sister, Michelle, was 25, a wonderfully innocent woman-child, who had an intellectual age equivalent to that of her brother. Paul was six and lived for Spiderman. Jay-Jay was two, he loved Bob the Builder, and was still wrestling with the mysterious joys of a world in which he would not grow up.
Their fathers were the worst of all predators, perfect examples of what has become known as the ‘family annihilator’ – parents who kill their own children in an unfathomable act of revenge.
It is a psychological syndrome that is becoming disturbingly prevalent, but which no mother’s intuition or father’s sixth sense can predict.
According to the eminent clinical and forensic psychologist Ian Stephen, such killers are now responsible for more than one-third of all child murders. Throughout the pages of this book – and after the mothers’ story has been told – Stephen will offer his professional insight into the minds of the murderers and the women who once loved them.
It may seem a bitter irony that, while their crimes have united their wives, Thomson and Kalyanjee have also been brought together. They languish in the same jail, where they have yet to offer any explanation or display remorse. Their silence continues to devastate both June and Giselle, for no power on earth can erase the misguided guilt they have assumed – the belief that somehow they should have known.
The mothers have lived with that erroneous belief since their children were killed. At least they are now insulated by sisterhood and the memories of the happy times with their children.
They have been empowered, each giving the other the strength to tell their unique story – the first true account of family annihilators by women who lived with them and survived.
It is a warning and a cautionary tale, but above all it is a story of love and a testament to the human spirit.
Both women endured dreadfully unhappy marriages. June’s life with Thomson was a dark, turbulent and miserable existence, characterised by mental torture, physical violence and even rape. Giselle’s relationship with Kalyanjee had been a strange and remote affair, of lives spent apart before, during and after their marriage.
In spite of this, their relationships produced treasured children. But on one terrible Saturday in May, the last normal day of their lives, the misery of their marriages swiftly receded into the past.
Both women were on the threshold of a new future. They no longer wanted or needed the men who had ruled their lives but they believed it was important for their children to maintain a relationship with their fathers.
If only they hadn’t. The consequences of their trust were unutterably appalling.
This is the story of the parallel journeys that took them to that terrible day when they and their children became the prey of two monsters in our midst.
Marion Scott and Jim McBeth
Prologue: Fairy Shoes and Toy Soldiers
June: Shoes for Michelle. I had to have them.
Fairy shoes. They glistened with a life of their own, as if they could dance from the shelf. The shop lights, bright and harsh, caused their red, glittering surface to shimmer. Shoes for a princess. Shoes for my Michelle. I could picture my daughter, laughing with delight, her dark-blonde curls streaming behind her as she flew to the wardrobe to pick a party dress to match these beautiful Wizard of Oz shoes.
Christmas music flowed from hidden speakers. Garlands and decorations hung from every wall. I was in a crowded place but, until a few moments ago, I had never felt so alone. Excited voices overwhelmed me, the sounds of mothers, fathers, grandparents and children making plans for the big day. So much excitement to contain, so much to look forward to. I could almost smell cinnamon and spiced apple, the memories of Christmases past.
The room was alive but I had felt dead for so long now. Yet somehow these shoes had brought me to life. I had to have them. They were in my hand. In my bag. Michelle would be so pleased. So pleased.
The part of my brain that knew my Michelle was gone had shut down. A voice spoke to me from very far away. A woman’s voice.
‘Who are the shoes for, June?’
The use of my name suggests familiarity, but I don’t think I know her. It’s become a common occurrence. Since it happened, everyone knows me.
‘Michelle,’ I answer, still under the spell of the shoes.
