NZ family pity their son's murderer
Cortlan Bennett, NZ Newswire
June 21, 2012, 9:38 pm
The family of slain New Zealander Andrew Marshall say they pity the bouncer who pushed him to his death through a second-storey pub window.
As lawyers for Stefan Pahia Schmidt, 26, told the West Australian Supreme Court on Thursday they planned to appeal his murder conviction, Mr Marshall's family spoke of their tight bond and love for the "caring and gentle" 29-year-old "who wouldn't hurt a fly".
With the trial over, it can now be revealed that Schmidt - a 152kg former bouncer with fight training - had links to Perth's outlaw Rock Machine motorcycle gang.
Schmidt killed Mr Marshall by pushing him to his death through a second-storey window at the Ocean Beach Hotel in the upmarket suburb of Cottesloe on the night of May 8, 2011.
It was Mother's Day - a day his New Zealand-based family will now never forget.
"He phoned in the afternoon before he went out," Alan Marshall said in Perth, flanked by his wife Wendy and eldest daughter Katie, before they flew back to Napier in New Zealand on Thursday.
"He was planning to come home to live," Wendy sobbed.
In court over the past two weeks, Mr Marshall's family kept their composure as they heard Schmidt describe how their son meant "nothing" to him, and simply got in the way while he was talking to two girls at the pub he knew.
Schmidt showed almost no emotion during the trial, his voice cracking just once while testifying that he never intended to kill Mr Marshall and was "shocked" when he crashed through the window to the pavement below.
But he broke down and sobbed with his face in his hands when the jury had left after its guilty verdict.
Security video of the incident showed Schmidt walking away and punching another man, before pushing him to the ground, just seconds after he had pushed Mr Marshall through the window.
The video also showed him walking calmly away from Mr Marshall as he lay dying on the footpath outside the pub, glancing only briefly over his shoulder as he left the scene.
"I pity him. I really do. I pity him," Wendy said softly as she held her husband's hand on the couch of the rented Perth apartment that was their home during the trial.
"We loved Andy with all our hearts - as we do our other children - but does he (Schmidt) really know that same love that our family has had?
"I just pity him for not even being able to have any sort of feeling of `What have I done? I've killed, I've hurt someone, I've hurt someone's family.'
"To us, we can't even comprehend that."
Alan Marshall said: "He made a terribly bad decision.
"An angry man - and he lashed out - and he killed our son.
"(But) we felt sorry. His mother wasn't there, his aunty was - he had no (real) family there - so he was struggling with that."
The family says their faith has helped them through the past year and they never questioned it, even after the death of their son and brother.
Yet the tragedy could so easily have ripped them apart.
Wendy said, "We made the decision not to be bitter and let it ruin the rest of our lives.
"It's taken our son away. Nothing will change that. Nothing.
"But we've got our lives. We've got children and grandchildren on the way."
While the trial of his killer is over for now - Schmidt will be sentenced in September - the family is still dealing with another tragedy: the alleged murder of Mr Marshall's first cousin in New Zealand, Scott Guy, the son of Wendy's sister.
Mr Guy's brother-in-law, Ewen Macdonald, is being tried for murder in the Wellington High Court.
[{"asset_id":"7384372","version":"15428552","thread_id":"7384372","title":"ugc-comments-acl","sort_title":"ugc-comments-acl","type_code":"3","status_code":0,"created":"2010-06-11 13:46:54","published":"2010-06-11 13:46:54","activates":null,"expires":null,"priority":"5","rating":"0","source":"Yahoo!7","copyright":"Yahoo!7 Pty Ltd","change_user":"bede","change_comment":"","category_id":"1","story_url":null,"url_target":null,"keywords":"news-stopwords-more","notes":null,"url_map":null,"headline":"ugc-comments-acl","abstract":null,"body":"abuse
abusing
abused
accused
accident
alleged
allegedly
aos
arrested
arrests
arrest
asian
assault
assaulted
assaults
asylum seeker
asylum seekers
atm
attack
attacked
attacker
attackers
attempted
bail
bali
barrister
bash
bashed
bashing
beaten
body
bodies
boat people
bomb
brawl
brawls
busted
bust
burning
burglaries
burglar
burgled
case
charge
charged
charges
child abuse
child abuser
child abusers
chris carter
coma
court
courts
crafar
crash
crashes
crashing
critical
cyf
cyfs
david jones
dead
death
defence
defending
defend
defends
die
dies
dotcom
driver
dropped
drugs
electrocuted
euthanased
extradition
fatality
fatal
fined
fire
fraser-kirk
fraud
gay
guilty
gun
Harawira
hit
Hone
Hone Harawira
harawira
hostage
incest
incident
indecent
indecently
inquest
injury
injured
injuries
iwi
jacker
jackers
jail
jailed
judge
judges
juries
jury
kidnap
kidnapped
kidnapping
kill
killed
killer
killing
kim dotcom
kristy anne fraser-kirk
lawyer
lawyers
litigant
lovett
mana
mana party
manslaughter
magistrate
magistrates
maori
MAORI
Maori
mcinnes
mark mcinnes
missing
missing teen
molest
molested
molesting
moran
morcombe
mugger
murder
murdered
murderer
muslim
NZ Newswire
nz newswire
NZN
nudist
offender
offenders
paedophile
parramatta
pedophile
pedophila
parole
patel
pleads
pleads
police
prosecution
prosecutor
pulver
racists
racist
refugee
refugees
raided
raid
raids
rampage
rape
rapist
release
released
robber
robbed
robbing
robbery
search
seized
self-defence
sentence
sentenced
sex
sfo
shot
shoot
sickos
smash
spared
stabbed
stabbing
stealing
suicide
tnuc
torture
tortured
trial
verdict
victim
victims
whanau
Whanau
Thomson","contact":null,"by_line":null,"date_line":null,"sms_text":null,"aunews-comment":"yes","aunews_tt-comment":"yes","aupfinance-comment":"yes","nznews-comment":"yes","nznews_elections-comment":"no","nzpromotions-comment":"yes","type_name":"article","item_id":"15428552","link":null,"link_target":null,"classifications":"4:12037:","tags":"","entity-categories":"","category_name":"None"},{"asset_id":"14008960","version":"14010170","thread_id":"14008960","title":"NZ family pity their son's murderer","sort_title":"NZ family pity their sons murderer","type_code":"3","status_code":0,"created":"2012-06-21 21:44:57","published":"2012-06-21 21:38:52","activates":null,"expires":null,"priority":"5","rating":"0","source":"NZ Newswire","copyright":"Yahoo!7 Pty Ltd","change_user":"mosurllog","change_comment":"","category_id":"3","story_url":"http:\/\/nz.news.yahoo.com\/120621\/34\/y9le.html","url_target":null,"keywords":"39;s,39;s murderer,family,family pity,murderer,nz,nz family,pity,pity their,son&,son& 39;s,their,their son&,aapnzn,legal,legal schmidt,news_top,news_top legal,nf,nf aapnzn,schmidt,schmidt nf","notes":null,"url_map":null,"headline":"NZ family pity their son's murderer","abstract":"The family of slain NZ man Andrew Marshall - pushed to his death through a Perth pub window - say they feel sorry for his killer.","body":"
The family of slain New Zealander Andrew Marshall say they pity the bouncer who pushed him to his death through a second-storey pub window.<\/p>
As lawyers for Stefan Pahia Schmidt, 26, told the West Australian Supreme Court on Thursday they planned to appeal his murder conviction, Mr Marshall's family spoke of their tight bond and love for the "caring and gentle" 29-year-old "who wouldn't hurt a fly".<\/p>
With the trial over, it can now be revealed that Schmidt - a 152kg former bouncer with fight training - had links to Perth's outlaw Rock Machine motorcycle gang.<\/p>
Schmidt killed Mr Marshall by pushing him to his death through a second-storey window at the Ocean Beach Hotel in the upmarket suburb of Cottesloe on the night of May 8, 2011.<\/p>
It was Mother's Day - a day his New Zealand-based family will now never forget.<\/p>
"He phoned in the afternoon before he went out," Alan Marshall said in Perth, flanked by his wife Wendy and eldest daughter Katie, before they flew back to Napier in New Zealand on Thursday.<\/p>
"He was planning to come home to live," Wendy sobbed.<\/p>
In court over the past two weeks, Mr Marshall's family kept their composure as they heard Schmidt describe how their son meant "nothing" to him, and simply got in the way while he was talking to two girls at the pub he knew.<\/p>
Schmidt showed almost no emotion during the trial, his voice cracking just once while testifying that he never intended to kill Mr Marshall and was "shocked" when he crashed through the window to the pavement below.<\/p>
But he broke down and sobbed with his face in his hands when the jury had left after its guilty verdict.<\/p>
Security video of the incident showed Schmidt walking away and punching another man, before pushing him to the ground, just seconds after he had pushed Mr Marshall through the window.<\/p>
The video also showed him walking calmly away from Mr Marshall as he lay dying on the footpath outside the pub, glancing only briefly over his shoulder as he left the scene.<\/p>
"I pity him. I really do. I pity him," Wendy said softly as she held her husband's hand on the couch of the rented Perth apartment that was their home during the trial.<\/p>
"We loved Andy with all our hearts - as we do our other children - but does he (Schmidt) really know that same love that our family has had?<\/p>
"I just pity him for not even being able to have any sort of feeling of `What have I done? I've killed, I've hurt someone, I've hurt someone's family.'<\/p>
"To us, we can't even comprehend that."<\/p>
Alan Marshall said: "He made a terribly bad decision.<\/p>
"An angry man - and he lashed out - and he killed our son.<\/p>
"(But) we felt sorry. His mother wasn't there, his aunty was - he had no (real) family there - so he was struggling with that."<\/p>
The family says their faith has helped them through the past year and they never questioned it, even after the death of their son and brother.<\/p>
Yet the tragedy could so easily have ripped them apart.<\/p>
Wendy said, "We made the decision not to be bitter and let it ruin the rest of our lives.<\/p>
"It's taken our son away. Nothing will change that. Nothing.<\/p>
"But we've got our lives. We've got children and grandchildren on the way."<\/p>
While the trial of his killer is over for now - Schmidt will be sentenced in September - the family is still dealing with another tragedy: the alleged murder of Mr Marshall's first cousin in New Zealand, Scott Guy, the son of Wendy's sister.<\/p>Mr Guy's brother-in-law, Ewen Macdonald, is being tried for murder in the Wellington High Court.","contact":null,"by_line":"Cortlan Bennett","date_line":"PERTH","sms_text":null,"fast-category":"topstories","process-entities":"1","type_name":"article","item_id":"14010170","link":"http:\/\/nz.news.yahoo.com\/120621\/34\/y9le.html","link_target":null,"classifications":"1:331:,1:331:333:,2:101:,4:245:248:","tags":"","entity-category-details":[],"entity-categories":"","entity-details":[{"id":"13085605","item_id":"14010170","entity_id":"1c26148301650e894a290a1494fc5af1","count":"0","status":"1","name":"Stefan Pahia Schmidt"},{"id":"13085606","item_id":"14010170","entity_id":"62a2036c31f0444ef07f58aae6396053","count":"0","status":"1","name":"Alan Marshall"},{"id":"13085607","item_id":"14010170","entity_id":"74e90f99f8b608064670c2a74d88bbf3","count":"0","status":"1","name":"Mr Marshall"},{"id":"13085608","item_id":"14010170","entity_id":"8cac0bcaf34eda718cb4847115de435b","count":"0","status":"1","name":"Andrew Marshall"}],"subject_codes":"00004000","category_name":"World news","files":[],"links":[]}]
