Alison Kirkness says she knew something wasn't right about her daughter Kirra McLoughlin's death
/For seven years, Alison Kirkness has battled for justice for her only child.
At times it seemed hopeless, as if everyone was against her, as if she was mad, totally consumed. It seemed her daughter, Kirra McLoughlin, lay forgotten in police files.
Alison begged the justice system to look further, to open an inquest. Because she knew with the certainty of a mother's instinct that Kirra had not died from a drug overdose. That Kirra had died in her own home at the hands of a man she had loved, Paul McDonald.
But nobody wanted to listen. Friends and family told Alison to stop dragging up the past and move on.
"There is nothing worse than knowing exactly what's gone on and not having people believe you," Alison says.
"It just destroys your very core.
"You start to think, am I crazy?" she says. "Did I imagine this?"
Alison says unless you've had or lost children of your own it's difficult to understand the grief.
"It doesn't just rip your heart out, it destroys your brain," she says.
WARNING: This article contains graphic images
In June this year, six years after a police investigation into Kirra's death first concluded, Alison was vindicated. In a report, the Queensland Deputy State Coroner Jane Bentley said: "I find that Ms McLoughlin's death was caused by Mr McDonald."
The deputy state coroner's words were "redemption" for Alison after years of lies, half-truths and obfuscations by McDonald, who still has not been charged in relation to Kirra's death.
Julie Sarkozi a solicitor for the Women's Legal Service Queensland, says the hidden nature of intimate partner violence can make related homicides difficult to solve.
"These kinds of deaths … usually occur behind closed doors," Ms Sarkozi says.
"The perpetrator often actually has the overwhelming balance of power in the relationship, so controls the narrative."
It's one of the many hurdles to getting a conviction in domestic violence-related homicides, which currently occur at a rate of around one a week in Australia.
Loading...'She's got black eyes': triple-0 call revealed
Kirra, a doting mother of four young children, died in July 2014 from a lack of oxygen to the brain.
There had been a boozy family gathering at her property near Gympie, Queensland, on the afternoon of July 16 and as day turned to night, a physical fight broke out between her and McDonald's sister, Tamiqua.
Tamiqua punched Kirra around the temple about four times. Kirra fell down each time but sprang back up.
Kirra kicked McDonald and his family members off her property just before 8:30pm.
She then called her estranged husband, Roger McLoughlin, to say goodnight to their children who were with him. She spoke wistfully of reuniting with him and living as a family again.
Kirra had been with McDonald for about 10 months, but in that time, he had assaulted her on several occasions.
Sometime later that night, McDonald returned. He and Kirra were then alone at the house and what transpired from that moment until he called triple-0 about 2:15pm the following day was one of the driving questions of the coronial inquest into Kirra’s death.
"My partner has a suspected overdose on Allegron," McDonald told the 000 operator.
"Do you think it was accidental or intentional?" the operator asked.
"Intentional," McDonald said.
McDonald also told the operator that Kirra was heavily bruised from the fight she had had with Tamiqua.
"My sister just hit her and hit her," he told the operator.
"She's got black eyes and stuff.
"I would've took her straight to the hospital but my hand is so sore."
McDonald later told police that he had injured his hand earlier that night when he punched a cupboard.
Kirra arrived in hospital around 3:00pm on July 17, 2014, covered in bruises – 105 in total.
Alison felt the truth of what had happened to her daughter the moment she saw her.
"She'd been used as a punching bag," she says.
McDonald was arrested that night but later released.
Alison spent almost two days with her fatally injured daughter before Kirra's life support was turned off.
"I promised her that I would make sure her children were taken care of and that I would get the bastard who did this," Alison says.
During the autopsy, the forensic expert examining Kirra's brain couldn't identify the injury that cut the air or oxygen flow and caused her brain to swell irreversibly.
With the inconclusive autopsy report and Tamiqua's admission that she had punched Kirra, police concluded their investigation.
They then passed Kirra's case to the coroner's court to investigate. Police subsequently continued the investigation, but it took the justice system another six years to say that McDonald killed Kirra.
It had been a brutal death.
"It is probable that he hit her head into the back of the toilet wall, struck her to the forehead [very possibly with a baseball bat] and hit the back of her head on the floor," deputy state coroner Bentley wrote in her report.
"It is likely that he struck her with a broomstick. It is highly probable that he choked her."
In these seven years, scraps of paper and notebooks filled with legal definitions have littered Alison's home office.
"You can often be branded as a nutter," says Peter Boyce, Alison's lawyer.
"She wasn't prepared to cop that.
"What person has so many bruises on them? What person ends up not ringing for help until it's too late? Why would you do that if this is all innocent and above board?" he asks, referring to the many hours Kirra lay barely conscious before McDonald called triple-0.
Alison knew McDonald was violent and controlling. Neighbours had called her with concerns about the situation that Kirra was living in with him. Alison once called authorities herself after receiving an email from her daughter that simply said: "Call the police."
A long history of domestic violence
But Alison didn't know the extent of McDonald's violent history until former cops-turned-podcasters Jamie Pultz and Tom Daunt began investigating Kirra's death as part of their popular true crime podcast Beenham Valley Road.
Women came forward to tell Jamie and Tom what they knew about McDonald and Kirra. One of those women was Katy Cox, McDonald's former partner.
She told Jamie about her 13 harrowing years with McDonald. Katy alleged multiple rapes, beatings, starvation, extreme gaslighting and a horrific level of psychological control.
She took Jamie to the shed where she had lived with McDonald and their three children and described their life.
"On the outside, he's all lovey dovey and being nice and kind," Katy says.
"Back in here, it's getting threatened you're gonna get killed, getting choked out, getting smashed around the place, having to protect the children, walking on eggshells."
Katy had kept meticulous diaries throughout her years with McDonald to help her hang onto her sanity. They formed the basis of a report she wrote for the coroner during Kirra's inquest. Deputy state coroner Bentley described them as "a harrowing account of constant abuse".
'Life will never be the same'
As soon as the coroner delivered her findings, lawyer Peter Boyce wrote to the Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll to request a review of the investigation by experienced investigators and the homicide squad.
He believes the police work in Kirra's case was poor.
The coroner in her findings did not fault the police investigation and said: "It was appropriate in all circumstances". Queensland police are continuing investigations as well as reviewing the case with the state's homicide squad.
Assistant Commissioner Kevin Guteridge conceded police sometimes struggle with the limited evidence before them. He emphasised it must reach the threshold required for a criminal proceeding and that is beyond reasonable doubt.
"Based on the coroner exercising those additional powers that we don't have, we're now in a position where we can further pursue some of these allegations," Assistant Commissioner Guteridge says.
"We have not given up on this and our investigation and it will continue until we get the answers that we need."
Alison feels like a different person since the coroner handed down her findings. She says the outcome has given her more energy and a better outlook on life.
"It will never be the same. But, the new life, which is life without Kirra," she says.
"[It] puts us closer on the path to justice, but we're nowhere near it yet."
The last time Katy spoke to Kirra, in the months before she died, Kirra had locked herself in the bathroom at her home. Katy could hear McDonald beating on the door outside.
"He's hitting you again, isn't he?" Katy asked her friend down the phone line. "Yes", Kirra said.
Katy urged Kirra to call the police to report McDonald and have him removed from her property. But Kirra couldn't. "I love him. I can change him," she told Katy, as McDonald raged in the background.
Katy's last words to Kirra were, "I love you and you know what you need to do." Seconds later, McDonald burst through the door and the phone went dead.
— Additional writing Susan Chenery
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