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heraldsun.com.au Herald Sun, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 17

THE MAN BEHIND

THE MONSTER

Why? How could he? Arthur Freeman threw his own esh and blood fromthe top of the West Gate Bridge. PATRICK CARLYON and PAUL ANDERSON

try to explain the inexplicable – why a dad would kill his daughter

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

Mad or bad? The appearance ofArthur Freeman at his murdertrial supported either theory.

His locks, streaked blond, tumbledover the collar of the black suit hewore each day. Strands of hair, asthough reaching for the sun, on hisotherwise bare crown suggested a closerelationship with a power plug.

His forehead looked to be carvedwith a hammer and chisel. As Freemanshu ed in each morning, shackles

clanking, shoulders hunched, his bodyresembled a block of concrete, wide andthick. He would be likened to cartooncharacters, mad monks and sci- aliens.

Sometimes, Freeman bared his teeth inexpressions of pain. He whimpered andwept and guzzled water during evidenceabout the autopsy of his daughter, DarceyFreeman, the four-year-old he threw o the West Gate Bridge.

Mostly, he stared with wide eyes, likea zoo exhibit who could not grasp how

he’d arrived where he was.For 35 years, until January 29, 2009,

“Ardie” was considered “harmless”. Hewas an IT geek who had shone as adatabase administrator in London. Heplayed tennis weekly. He kept busy,with bike rides and tinkering, as healways had as a boy. There were beersand skiing trips in a life led, from schoolonwards, under the radar. Ordinarinesswas his thing.CONTINUED PAGE 18






A RT H U R F R E E M A N T R I A L

The

face wecan’tforget

We remember herevery time we

drive across theWest Gate Bridge.

She’s the littlegirl who – on theday she was tostart school –

was thrown 58mto her death by

her father.

But what waslittle Darcey like?

She was twoweeks shy of her

fth birthday.

Darcey likedballet and wouldoften break intosong and dance.

Her older brothercalled her “little

Darce’’.

She sought outher dad Arthur

Freeman forhugs.

Her dad said“please” whenhe asked her tomove into the

front seat as hestopped the carthat day on the

bridge.

Then she wasgone. And none

of us couldhelp asking thequestion “why”whenever wethought of her.

Freeman’s UK-based friend Elizabeth Lam

“During the mediation he found that the women whowere dealing with the family were not supportive. Hesaid there were a lot of angry women in the courts …

who weren’t very supportive of fathers.”

Arthur Freeman’s father, Peter Freeman

“It was a very strange thing that was happening …He was starting to collect hard rubbish and he wouldcollect every receipt. He had a box full of them in the

kitchen. Every receipt relating to the children.”

such terror uponand so trusting?Fresh-faced:Freeman at afamily gatheringin 1996.

tary’’ act? — was almost be-side the point.

Throughout, at least forthose witnesses who hadspoken with Freeman be-fore the event, the processfelt spooked with unspoken‘‘what-ifs’’ that may havespa red a l i t tl e g i r l w h olookeda lotlikethedad whokilled her.

What if Freeman’s fatherhad driven the three child-ren the day before, as orig-inally planned?

What if he had convincedFreeman, as he tried, to al-low him to accompanythemthat hot morning?

What i f any of the f iveadults Freeman spoke to inthe hours before Darcey’sdeathhad saidsomething toavert such a tragic course?

None of these people wereto blame, of course. Thiswas not their fault. No one,except perhaps Freeman,had any inkling of the doomahead.

Even now, two years later,few of those acquaintedwith Freeman — especiallyhis own family — appear tohave shed the shock.

The numbness may alsoapply to the wider commun-ity. Media junkies can ac-quire a thirst for unthink-able a t roci t ies , such asgangland executions. A lawof the jungle frameworkcushions such fascination.Suchthingsdon’t happen to us —they happen to them .

Yetthetaleof DarceyFree-man’s doom slipped throughthe usual filters of distance.Many people say they don’t

want to understand. Yet theface of the girl — two weeksshy of five, on her way to herfirst day of school and one of life’s first big adventures —pops up in the thoughts of thousands of bridge com-muters each day.

EvenJustice PaulCoghlan,a man known to keep his re-serve, extended touchingkindnesses to trial witnesses.‘‘Don’t blame yourself,’’ hetold one female witness.

Freeman’s own father,after finishing his evidence,looked to the judge.

‘‘You know, I’ve lost mygrand-daughter,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m a grandfather, too,’’Justice Coghlan replied. ‘‘Iunderstand.’’

S uch g l impses o f hu -manity, as well as tears andgulps, leavened evidencet h a t w o u l d r e p e a te d l ybathe SupremeCourtroom11 in despair.

As Freeman s tared atnothing in particular, his ex-f a t h e r - i n - l a w, Wa y n eBarnes, an old-school ex-cop, glared and grimacedandglowered at him.Barnesoften looked set to vault therail that separated them.

F r e e ma n h i m s el f , a tt i m e s , a p p e a r e d o v e r -whelmed. He pulled facesthat contrasted with thecomposure of his ex-wife inthe witness box, giving evi-dence about an ex-husbandwho doomed her daughterto a life unled.

Freeman’s mouth gaped,asthough hewasunawareof the movement, when hisolder son’s video testimony

of the event was aired.The son’s legs kicked back

and forth during the inter-view. He plainly could notgrasp, at the time aged six,thegravityof ‘‘LittleDarce’s’’loss. The poor kid has therest of his life for that.

Freeman’s eyes wouldtake on red rims. During aninventory of Darcey’s injur-i e s t o t he b r a in , hea r t,spleen, to the blood in herears and nose, he scrubbedat his face with a hanky.

‘‘He’s about to start howl-ing at the ceiling,’’ one ob-server whispered. It’s saidFreemanwas at timesreluc-tant to appear in court. Ap-parently, he stripped in theprison van en route onemorning. One night, he wasthought to refuse to leavehis holding cell.

Yet the jury would neverhear the words that mayhave softened Freeman’s defacto standing as a monster.They would not hear himsay he was sorry.

The jury members filed ineach morning to present asa panorama in grimness.Theyhad beeninstructed todo the impossible, to get in-s i d e t h e h e a d o f a n‘‘excessively caring’’ fatherwho fretted, in his absence,that no one would read hischildren bed-time stories.

A fatherwhowanted tobea ‘‘huge part’’ of his child-ren’s lives.

A father who killed hisdaughter for reasons thatwill never make sense and,in doing so, threatened tocondemn all three of the

fragile souls he helped bringinto the world.

Freeman’s murder trialcould never double as ane x a m i n a t i o n o f l o g i c .There’s something in par-ticular, too, it did not re-solve. Was one death sup-posed to be three?

F reeman used plurals inphone threats to his ex-wife minutes before

D a r c e y ’ s d e a t h . ‘ ‘ S a ygoodbye to your children,’’he said. ‘‘You will never seethem again.’’

Darcey’s older brother of-fered the only testimony of events in Freeman’s ToyotaLandcruiser, driving fromAirey’s Inlet to Melbournethat morning.

The two older childrenplayed games in the backseats. There werebooks andcrayons. The two-year-oldson drank from a bottle.

When the4WDhitthe WestGate Bridge, ‘‘we stopped’’.Freeman asked ‘‘Darce’’ toclimb into the front seat.Freeman, according to hisson, said ‘‘please’’. Then,‘‘everything happened’’.

Freeman had been on thephone to his sister duringthe trip. He made no refer-ence to ghastly thoughts.Heinsteadfrettedabout thekids’ lunches.

Healso spoketo ElizabethLam, noted in court docu-m e n t s a s a r o m a nt i cinterest living in London,but named as a ‘‘friend’’ inthe court room.

He told her, she said inteary evidence in the wit-

ness box, that he felt hischildren had been takenaway from him.

Freeman cried during thecall. He felt ‘‘helpless’’. Hewas preoccupied, it seems,with a custody settlementfrom the day before.

It seems reasonable tosuggest the custody issueshadconsumedhim for manymonths beforehand.

In November, 2008, ac-cording to a close relative,Freeman said his ex-wifewould ‘‘regret it’’ if he lostcustody. ‘‘That commenthas gone through my headover and over,’’ the relativetold the Herald Sun thisweek. ‘‘I am not sure then if he intended to do what hehas done, butit did suggestthat he would make her lifehell.’’

This ta l l ies with com-ments, again offered on con-dition of anonymity, fromthemother’ssideof thefam-ily. Freeman was describedas ‘‘calculating’’ and easy tounderestimate. Further, hewas a ‘‘control freak’’ wholost control after the mar-riage breakdown.

Freeman feared, rightly,that the shared care ar-rangements between thedivorced parents — threedays’ custody alternatedwith exchanges at KewMcDonald’s — would beal tered. Freeman wouldn o w h a v e c u s t o d y o n eweekend a fortnight, with af ew hou r s on a l t e rna t eThursday nights.

Continued Page 20



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SPECIAL IN VESTIGATION

Clinical psychologist Dr Jennifer Neoh

“I consider that it is likely he has chronic personalityand interpersonal problems that are caused by a

tendency to irrationality, contradiction and denialof responsibility. ”

Forensic medical o cer Dr Justin Du Plessis

“He was hunched over in the chair. He was crying.He wasn’t replying, responding to any of my

questions. Not even once. There wasn’t a singleverbal response. And he was shaking or trembling.”

Now we’ve onlygot “what ifs”:

I What ifFreeman’s father

had driven thethree childrenthe day before,

as originallyplanned?

I What ifFreeman’s fatherhad persuaded

Freeman to allowhim to accompany

them thatmorning?

I What if any ofthe ve adults

Freeman spoke toin the hours beforeDarcey’s death had

said somethingthat stopped him?

But – of course –“what ifs”can’t help.

“I can’t recall him saying,

THE FINAL MOMENTS…

“Say goodbye to your children,’’Arthur Freeman said to his

wife on the phone.“You will never see them again.’’

Onlyquestions

left ...

When he left the FamilyCourt, he ‘‘appeared happy’’,according to his ex-wife. It’sworth noting the decisionwas a negotiated settlement.

Yet the next morning, onthe phone, Freeman toldLam there had been ‘‘lots of angry women in the courtswho weren’t very supportiveof fathers’’.

Even then, perhaps 45minutes before Darcey’splunge, he offered no warn-ing of the horror ahead.Freeman spoke about pur-s u i n g g r e a t e r c u s t o d ythrough the courts.

Her phone battery wentdead, but Lam didn’t phoneback. She assumed Free-man’s cryingwouldhelp himreconcile his feelings to thereality of his situation.

‘‘It didn’t even enter myhead that he would harmanybody,’’ she said.

Freeman’s distress at thecustody outcome was alsodescribed by his father,Peter, in court.

Freeman had returned tohis parents’ home, wherethe kids had stayed, aboutmidnight the night before.Hewas ‘‘in a bitof a trance’’.Communication was diffi-cult, but Freeman did ex-press great dissatisfactionwitha psychologist’sassess-mentthat figuredin thecus-tody resolution.

Peter Freeman said hisson believed he had been‘‘sort of ambushed in the re-port andthatthereportwasnot unbiased’’.

He was cut short severaltimes giving evidence, evenby hisson’sdefencecounsel.Mr Freeman wanted to readfrom notes. At one point, itappeared he wanted toquery the approach of thepsychologist in question, ashe, his wife and Freeman’ssister had done in theirpolice statements.

Her name i s J enn i fe rNeoh. Her assessment of Arthur Freeman, based oninterviews held three weeksbefore Darcey’s death, wassummarised in the trial.Freeman ‘‘tended to be ir-rational and contradictoryand demonstrated . . . pass-ive/aggressive traits andseemed to cause chaosaround him’’.

His behaviour on the in-terview day, firstly turningup latethen reappearingbe-fore the scheduled appoint-ment itself, distressed thechildren, Ms Neoh said inc o u r t . H e h u g g e d a n dsoothed one of his upsetchildren, she said. Yet heseemed oblivious to thechaos he created.

Freeman disagreed withthe report. He thought theassessment unfair. Yet untila few minutes before hethrew his daughter off abridge, he indicated onlythat he would pursue legit-imate channels of review.

The day before Darcey’sdeath, af ter the FamilyCourt resolution, Freemantold a friend he planned toundertake a ‘‘personal de-

velopment course’’ to coun-ter the psychologist’s con-clusions and fight for moretime with his children.

Yet it seems apparenttha t F reeman’s men ta lhealth, from a layman’s per-spective anyway, had beenpatchy since his marriagebreak-up to Peta Barnes in2007, perhaps even before.

Barnes, in court, said herthen husband had had moodswings and anger manage-ment issues. The moodswings were also describedby another family member,who alluded to Freeman’stendency to drive ‘‘errati-cally’’ when upset.

Ms Barnes’ police state-ment, taken two days afterD a r c e y ’s d e a t h , w e n tfurther. She thought, inretrospect, Freeman mayhave been suffering someform of depression.

T he pair had married onm i l l e n n i u m e v e , i nPerth, and then lived in

Maida Vale, a nicer part of London, for more than six years.

This pairing, at first any-way, had seemed l ike ahealthy match. He was anintrovert. She was an extro-vert said to drive him to dothings he may not otherwisehave done.

Yet on coming to Mel-bourne to live, Freeman, MsBarnes said, showed he wasr i g i d , i n f l e x i b l e , a n dstruggled with change.

W h e n s h e l e f t h i m i n

March, 2007, she spoke to aHawthorn GP about herfears he wThere followed anugly incident. The pair hadtalked. As Barnes stood toleave, according to her, Free-man grabbed their baby son.She feared he would throwthe baby into a fireplace. Sheb i t h i m . H e r m o t h e rslammed a metal stroller onhis back. The police werecalled.

The pair divorced in June,2008, but Freeman keptwearing his wedding ring. Afewmonthslater, hewenttoEnglandfor three months toso r t ou t UK res idencyi s sues. He s t ayed wi thfriends who said in a policestatement that he appeared‘‘clearly depressed’’, ‘‘para-noid’’ and ‘‘obsessive’’.

I t seems, from severalunnamed sources , t ha tFreeman feared his ex-wifewould return to live in Perth— with the children. He be-l ieved renovations wereunderway to allow that tohappen.

He was also unhappy withthe financial split. He fret-t e d h e w o u l d n o t h a v eenough money to house thechildren. Freeman was saidto have been frustratedwhen his then wife, soonafter the separation, wassaid to have suddenly trans-ferred more than $300,000out of a joint account.

There i s l i t t le doubt ,rationally or not, that Free-m a n f e l t b u l l i e d a n dthreatened.

‘‘I’d say she was the domi-nant figure,’’ a family mem-ber says.

‘‘Money didn’t mean thatmuch to him. It wasn’t a bigagenda at all.’’

In London, contact callsw i t h h i s c h i l d r e n g o tmuddled. Freeman felt hisex-wife was sabotaging thecontact. He was thrown bysuggestionsthat being over-seas while custody issueswerein disputecould hinderhis access claims.

When the friends’ three- year-old daughter played upduring a museum outing,Freeman restrained the girl,prompting his friend to de-scribe it as ‘‘over-reaction’’.The friend noted that Free-man was shaking.

Freeman also spent timein London with ElizabethLam. He helped care for herchildren. The pair discussedhis marriage breakdown.Freeman was ‘‘very bitter’’about his wife’s ‘‘behaviourtowards him’’.

Was Freeman unravelingat this time, a few monthsbefore Darcey’s death?O t h e r a c c o u n t s a d dstrength to the theory.

His father, Peter Freeman,in agreeing in court that hisson’s mental health had suf-fered ‘‘severe deterioration’’since 2007, felt Freeman hadbecome paranoid. At times,he appea red confused ,anxious and teary althoughPeter Freeman described animprovement that quashedanynotionof advisinghis son




F I R S T

RM

Consultant psychiatrist Prof Graham Burrows

“I believe at the time of the tragedy,the event, he was in a dissociative state …

It’s a severe depression I am reallytalking about.”

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Yvonne Skinner

“I asked Mr Freeman about his relationship with his daughterDarcey. He said Darcey was headstrong and needed rm

handling … He said that she craved attention but he thoughtthat was understandable as she was a second child.”

Mad orbad?

The jury in ArthurFreeman’s murdertrial was given a

simple choice: Washe mad or bad?

Freeman pleadednot guilty to

murder on theground of mental

impairment.

According to theprosecution, hi sact of throwing

his daughtero the West

Gate Bridge wasa conscious,

voluntary anddeliberate actafter a failed

custody disputewith his ex-wife.

According to thedefence, Freeman

was su ering amajor depressivedisorder and wasin a “dissociativestate’’ – like that

of a sleep walker –and was unaware

of his actions.

‘I understand how you feel”

A RT H U R F R E E M A N T R I A L

Darcey Iris

Freeman wasonly a coupleof days fromturning ve andon the way toher rst day ofschool whenher father,Arthur, stoppedhis car, removedhis daughterand threw hero the WestGate Bridge toher death.

to seek professional help. Yet a strange disconnect

had em erge d . F r e em anwould be obsessive aboutcollecting receipts concern-ing the children. He had de-veloped systems for feedingand dishes. Yet his Haw-thorn f la t was a mess of clothes and toys.

Freeman, according to aclose source, had fashionedthe chi ldren’s beds anddrawers, apparently to savemoney for the custody case.He had gathered washingmachines to scavenge parts.Hetinkeredoften,as thoughembracing a distractionfrom reality. His parentswere always trying to tidythe flat’s spills of clutter.

Such disorder was whatpolice and journalists dis-covered in the hours afterDarcey’s death. A hand-written note was stuck toFreeman’s television. It’snot plain who wrote it. If itwas Freeman, he referred tohimself in the third person.

The note spoke of ‘‘keep-ing a clear head’’ and havinga ‘‘big fight on your hands’’.

P opular opinion dic-tates that any parentwho kills their child is

insane. Such definitions aremore technical in courts of law. Actions that qualify foreveryday labels, such as‘ ‘ b r a i n s n a p s ’ ’ o r‘‘meltdowns’’, must meets p e c i f i c p s y c h i a t r i cguidelines to legally classifyas ‘‘mental impairment’’.

Freeman’s murder trialheard references to theM’Naghten trial, which in1843 codified a presumptionof sanity unless the defencecould prove otherwise, and‘‘Falconer’’, a 1990 casewhen a woman’s convictionfor killing her husband wasput aside after some psychi-atric evidence was disal-lowed in her original case.

Freeman’s lawyer, DavidBrustman, SC, argued hisclient could not distinguishbetween right and wrongwhen he killed Darcey. Hewas mentally ill at the time.

Freeman had no psychi-atric history (or criminal re-cord) before Darcey’sdeath.Only one of six psychiatristst o i n t e r v ie w F r e e m anagreed with Mr Brustman’sassertions.

Professor Graham Bur-rows l ikened Freeman’ss t at e t o t hat o f a s l eepwalker on the morning of Darcey’s death.

He was at the severe endof dissociation — ‘‘He reallydidn’t know what was go-ing on’’.

Consultant psychiatrist Yvonne Skinner’s findingwas more sinister. She hashandled more than 80 casesof parents who kill theirchildren. She concludedthat Freeman’s actions fit-t e d w h a t i s k n o w n a s‘‘spousal revenge’’.

This theory dictates thatthe child itself is not thecause of violent rage, butinstead a weapon of retri-

bution. Such conclusionsserve to reduce the reasonsf o r D a r c e y ’s k i l l i n g t osome th ing ak in t o co l -lateral damage.

They also reflect the re-cent conviction of RobertF a r q uh a r s o n , f o r t h esecond time, whose threesons d rowned when hed r o v e i n t o a d a m o nFather’s Day in 2005.

Yet i t doesn’t explainw h y F r e e m a n c h o s eDarcey, as the first or onlyvictim, instead of one of histwo sons. The older son re-ported no acrimony duringthe car trip.

One hint, which may ormay not be important, maylie in Dr Neoh’s report.

She specifically mentionedthat Darcey was close to hermother in Freeman’s ab-sence, and that her ‘‘edu-cational and social needs’’wereimportantfactors in thecustody resolution.

Five of the six expertsagreed that Freeman wasp r o b a bl y a n x i ou s a n dstressed during the drive,but not to degrees that con-stitute a ‘‘disease of themind’’.

He was running late forDarcey’s school drop-off.Lunches hadn’t been made,her school shoes were toobig, and some of her schooluniform was back at Free-man’s flat.

The build upof tension in-vites comparisons with themental unwiring of MichaelDouglas’ character in 1993’s

Falling Down . Freeman toldone doctor he recalled feel-ing trapped on the bridge.He felt enormous failurethat he would not get to StJoseph’s Primary School, inHawthorn, on time.

He told another doctor heh a d n o r e c o l l e c t i o n o f speaking with his ex-wife,but felt it plausible that shemay have called and ‘‘be-rated me for not being there(at school)’’.

Professor Burrows saidFreeman had been ‘‘tipped’’by the psychologist’s reportprepared for the custodyhearing.

Professor Skinner saidFreeman told her he hadbeen ‘‘stunned’’ by the re-port, which he described as‘‘scathing’’.

Yet she argued his abilityto dr ive a car and makephone calls showed he act-i n g c o n s c i o u s l y a n dvoluntarily.

The prosecution empha-sised that he turned on the4WD’s hazard l ights , asevidence for presence of mind, when he pulled overon the bridge.

‘‘The s equence o f h i sbehaviourdemonstrates anawareness of hisimmediateenvironment and of a pur-poseful execution of behav-iour . . .’’ said Dr DouglasBell.

Freeman wouldn’t be thefirst father to be devastatedby a Family Court decision.

Some men feel stripped of their wallets and dignity.

Some grow depressed andoutraged. Some have beendriven by vengeance to un-speakable acts.

A Family Court judge wasonce shot dead in NSW.O t h e r s h a v e b e e nthreatened. Fathers havetaken their own lives.

Only one upset father hastossed his daughter from abridge soon after a FamilyCourt hearing.

The least content iousmedical point of view, per-haps, was contained in a re-port by Dr Lester Walton.‘‘Precisely what Mr Free-man may have been think-ing or feeling at the materialtime remains unknown,’’ hesaid.

The expert arguments leftlittle scope for popular per-ceptions. Freeman’s mo-tives were either hopelesslyderanged — or entirely evil.Thejury wentwiththe latter

F reeman was considereddifferent from his firstday at Newcomb High

School in Geelong. No otherboy in his year was calledArthur. Tormentors, alwaysalert to a point of difference,exploited the weakness.

PaulHoganhad createdatelevision character whosported zinc cream, a potbelly and an Esky. Free-man’s label may have beeninspired by Hogan’s ArthurDonger. Another theorygoes that Freeman used tosmell.

Continued, Page 22



22 Herald Sun, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 heraldsun.com.au+

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CookinglegendMargaretFulton willbethe starattheBeechworthHarvestCelebration.

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

“One part wants justice for Darcey…and another part feels for Ardy…’

Throughout school, hewas called Ardie Dunger. OrArdie Monster.

The mockery was not here

or there. It was every day.Freeman spent six years athighschoolbeingterrorised.Bar the odd exception, hedid not fight back.

When he did, people no-t i c e d , p r o m p t i n g t h ethought — and this from aclose friend — that therewas a ‘‘ticking time bomb’’inside the kid who wouldn’t,or couldn’t, express himself.

‘‘ P ar t o f m e w o n d e r sw h e t h e r h e h a d m i l dAsperger’s (Syndrome) orsomething. He had a deeplack of any emotional intelli-gence . . . I never can recallhim saying, ‘I understandhow you feel’ or anythingthat would suggest or inti-mate that he did.

‘‘Maybe if he had seensomeone at that age maybethey could have diagnosed

him with it.’’

S ome kids were thrownin bins a t NewcombHigh School. Some had

their jumpers pulled overtheir heads and got slappedaround. Even Ben Graham,the year’s closest thing to afuture rock star, was helddown in about year 8 andzapped with stove ignitorswitches.

Freeman was bullied inother ways. He was told tostand on a rock in the play-ground. Hewouldbe orderedto stand there indefinitely.When he went to move away,hewouldbe remindedto staywhere he was. And he wouldobey, sometimes for 20 min-utes or more.

Peter Freeman, a father of four, was a teacher at an-other school.

There were many trouble-makers at school, the sortwho fashion ninja stars inmetalwork to throw at fel-low students. As one stud-ent observes, such bulliescould scent weakness.

‘‘You know what kids arelike,’’he says.‘‘Theyfind theodd thing about anyone andthey run with it. He coppedit for his name, his look, andthe way he acted.’’

School year books portraya Newcomb High fraternitythat celebrated sportingand science successes, withsatire and without pretence.Of 88 students in Freeman’s year, 22 went to university.

Biology did not presentBen Graham, the buddingGeelong footballer, with thegift of height until year 9.Graham and Freeman wouldgo to the same university,connected by a mutuallyclose friend, yet their diverg-ing paths speak to life’sunknowable squiggles. Lessthan a week after Freemanthrew his daughter from abridge, Graham played in anNFL Superbowl.

There’s something morethat may place Freeman’schildhood in the equation.It’s only rumour, butit drawsa faint arc in grasping the in-comprehensible.

I t ’s bel ieved Freemanhimself, since he killed hisdaughter, has traced adultissues to a childhood thatincluded a spell at a primarys c h o o l f o r k i d s w i t hbehavioural problems.

Part of his problem, per-

haps — and this is from aclose fr iend — was thatFreeman had ‘‘zero peopleskills’’. Freeman mumbledw h e n h e s p o k e , w h i c hwasn’t often. No one can re-call any flirtations with girlsw h o w o u l d n o t r i s k‘‘reputational damage’’ byconsorting with him.

It is suggested that later,when others had trekkedpaths of romantic explo-ration, Freeman remainedunrounded in matters of emotional attachment.

When boys clustered ingroups, Freeman would lurkat the edges of this or thatgathering, never offeringconversation that wouldopen entry to a group. Hewas there, but he wasn’t.

He played football for atime and did weights.

Freeman would go on theannual school bike rides toAlbury or elsewhere. Amonga ‘‘power group’’ of boys,they would surge ahead on100km day rides to arrive attheir destination well beforethe pack.

He would ‘‘have a go atanything’’ says one peer, at ra i t la ter a t t r ibuted toDarcey, who tried tennisand football.

Acceptance wouldn’t befound until university, whenFreeman discovered alcoholand found two friends who,15 years later, would be com-pelled to testify against him.

Freeman tinkered withFord escorts, to preparethem for Autocross racing.

His first car was a yellow Es-cort , many of i ts panelsdinted and repaired. Hewould stay up until 5am onPlayStation, nap, then headto work at 8am. Later, whenhe met his future wife, Ardiewould start to be insteadcalled Artie.

By the time Freeman hadqualified with a computerscience honours degree, hehad l o s t h i s ha i r a t t hecrownof hishead.He wore itthen as he has at his murdertrial— hanginglong,lookingweird. While married, hishair was short and neat. Vi s i t i ng r e l a t i ve s we reshocked to see his peculiarnew hairstyle just before thetrial began in early March.

One insight into Free-man’s formative thinkingmaylieina poemhe wrotein1986, aged about 12. It wasconsidered good enough top u b l i s h i n t h e s c h o o l yearbook.

Called ‘‘Feelings’’, Free-m a n d e s c r i b e d f e a r a s‘‘when you’re in a maze witha tiger behind you’’.

You run for your lifeThen the tiger jumps youThepoem’s second stanza

took on Dr Seuss cadences.The last four lines would ac-quire a weird prescienceafter Darcey’s death.

A forensic psychologist,on recent ly reading thepoem, wrongly assumedthat Freeman had beenraised from a broken home.

It was written by a boywho later, as a man and a

father, is said to have triedto write letters to his sonsfrom jail.

But here comes your dadSo now you’re gald [glad]

that you have a dadThen he goes so you’re

angry and madButyoustillloveyour dad

I t may be tempting for hisformer school peers towrite off Freeman as an

aberration of nature. Almostevery one appears to havedone so. His single act de-fines him.

It hardly matters whethera court of law found Free-maninsaneor not. Hedidn’t just condemn his daughterand ex-wife. His own familyis burdened with a grief —and stigma — that may notfade. The Freemans didn’tlose one family member.They lost as many as four.

One school peer, whoseimpressions were supportedby others, spoke at greatlength to the Herald Sun .He was in Freeman’s gradesseveral times, and liked himwell enough to request aFacebook friendship yearslater, a few months beforeDarcey (the offer wasn’ttaken up).

‘‘He was l ike a MartinBryant type,’’ the peer says.

‘‘That look. He’d get thatstare. Bloody Oath, it wasscary. It was when he gotbullied a bit and had had toomuch. But at the end of theday he was a likeable sort of fellow. They picked on him

because he was harmless.But everyone knew he hadthat ability, that somethinginside him that could ex-plode at any time.’

Newcomb High alumni hitFacebook to describe theirshock and disgust at Free-man. One Facebook sites o u g h t m e m b e r s w h owanted Freeman killed.

Yet for those who knewFreeman, Darcey’s deathpresented a conundrum. Aclose acquaintance wrote of twisted loyalties.

‘‘I’m torn with my feel-ings,’’ she wrote. ‘‘One partof me is angry and wants jus-tice for Darcey and anotherpart of me feels for Ardy whois a friend in need. The con-flicting feelings are like astormchurning inside. Whichshould rate, my head or myheart? The more I hear, themore confused I get.’’

Two years la ter, Free-man’s h igh s choo l pee rkeeps callingDarcey’s deathan ‘‘accident’’, and keepscorrecting himself. Finally,he settles on ‘‘incident’’.

He is sitting in a Geelongpub, nursing a beer. Rockmusic plays. Punters studytheformforthenextat Sale.

His mind veers off, to acloudless morning and ametal railing where traffichas jammed and the city be-low, forever grey, is about toshimmer in a blast of heatand incomprehension.

Darcey’s final glimpses of life. Her panic? Her con-fusion? Such reflections

mash the hardest heart. Hehas linked Freeman’s deedto his own chi ldren. Hewants to shake and cry.

‘‘This c---,’ he says, ‘‘threwhis kid over the West GateBridge. ‘‘And for what?’’

F reeman’s closer friend,too, pondered deathpenalties when, a few

hours after Darcey fell 58m,heheard a radioreport ashedrove over the bridge.

Likeall close observers,hefeels a jolt of fresh shockeach day, asthough shedied just this morning. Like allc l o s e o b s e r v e r s , h eanguishes over a simplequestion — what if?

For him, the quest iongoes: What if their friend-ship had been rekindled?

This friend has also won-deredwhetherhe should visitFreeman in prison. He is un-certain if he would ask aboutDarcey’s death. Sometimeshe wants to understand;other times, he does not.

Such curiosity may bemoot. As far as the HeraldSun knows, Freeman talkstomatoes, but does not talkabout his daughter’s death.

The old friend still cannotabsorb Freeman’s deed. Noone can, especially those atFreeman’s murder trial whoconcluded that the morethey knew, the more theydidn’t know at all.

Yet the friend is a man of faith. He believesthat wherethere is justice, and justicemust be served, there mustalso be mercy.



S E C O N D

JUSTICE FOR DARCEY

GUILTY

Herald Sun heraldsun.com.au

Killer dad warned ex-wife would regret custody fight

REPORT: PAGE 4ORT: PAGE 4REP

ARTHUR Freeman faceslife in jail after he waslast night found guiltyof murdering hisdaughter Darcey bythrowing her off theWest Gate Bridge.

After ve days ofdeliberations, theSupreme Court juryconvicted Freeman,37, of consciously,voluntarily andintentionally tossingDarcey to her death onwhat was supposed to beher rst day of school.

Some jurors wept asthe verdict was read out,while Freeman remainedmotionless on hearinghis fate. His former wife,Peta Barnes, was silentas she left court.

The Herald Sun cantoday reveal Freeman– pictured with Darcey,left – warned two monthsbefore the murder that

his ex-wife would“regret it” if he ever

lost custody ofhis children.

FREE FLOWER & GARDEN SHOW MAGA

THE MAN BEHIND THE MONSTER:SPECIAL INVESTIGATION INSIDE

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2011 CITY: MOSTLY SUNNY. MAX: 27. PAGE 46 $1.10*(Incl. GST)

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