Children of convicted killers forced to ask if there is a murder gene

Renee McBryde (left) and Samantha Bryan (right) whose fathers are convicted murderers have opened up about what their lives have been like as the children of killers. Photo / 60 Minutes

The daughter of a convicted murderer has opened up about what life is like living as the child of a killer.

Mother-of-three Renee McBryde had known since she was 6 that her dad was in jail for committing a crime, but her mother and grandmother painted him as a "crusader".

He had acted in good faith, Renee heard, and in self-defence. She was warned if she ever spoke about her father she would be shunned by society.

But it wasn't until she was doing research for a high school assignment when she discovered her father had brutally murdered two people in cold blood, news.com.au reported.

In an interview with Channel 9's 60 Minutes, McBryde explained she was horrified to learn she was "conceived just at the time he committed one of the murders".

"My mother told me no one would ever accept, no one would want to be my friend," she recalled in an interview with 60 Minutes.

"She said I had his blood running through my veins. I understood why but it was tough because I felt like from that moment on, I couldn't be myself.

"I had no idea about the gravity of what that secret was going to mean going forward, and how it would shape my identity."

McBryde's father Michael Caldwell (pictured) was 19 and working as a prostitute when he was sentenced to life in prison for a double murder. Photo / 60 Minutes

Michael Caldwell was 19, working as a male prostitute in Sydney's King Cross, when he and a 16-year-old boy were charged with the murders of Constantine Giannaris, Greek Consul General to Australia, and Peter Parkes, a gay activist and schoolteacher.

"Both men were found bound and gagged, and appeared to have engaged in sex shortly before their murders," a newspaper report from 1981 reported.

Renee read those very words on a screen in the State Library of New South Wales while researching a high school assignment.

When tasked with writing a report about a crime, she had decided to explore her father's.

She knew it was serious, but had no idea what she would discover.

"It was a massive deal," she recalled.

"One of the murders was committed just at the time I was conceived. I struggled with that as a teenager. As my life was beginning, someone else's was ending at the hands of my father."

Worse, the newspaper article also contained information about a 15-year-old girl who was charged with concealing information about the first murder.

That girl was Renee's mother.

"As a child, so much of your identity is determined by who your parents are," Renee said.

"Who am I? What am I going to be like? How much of my parents is in me?"

So much of her life had been a lie and things began to unravel after that, she said. She became estranged from her mother, was the victim sexual assault and became trapped in a long-term abusive relationship.

Another woman, Samantha Bryan, also opened up about discovering she was the child of English schoolgirl killer Ian Huntley.

Her father was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2002 for the murders of 10-year-old Soham schoolgirls Holly Well and Jessica Chapman.

The girls had been at a barbecue at one of their homes in Cambridgeshire when they went out to buy some sweets. Their bodies were recovered two weeks later.

Another woman, Samantha Bryan (left) also opened up about discovering she was the child of English school-girl killer Ian Huntley, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murders 10-year-old Soham schoolgirls Holly Well and Jessica Chapman. Photo / 60 Minutes

However, Bryan said she's "nothing like" her father and refers to him simply as "a sperm donor".

Forensic Psychiatrist Dr Jeremy O'Day told host Liz Hayes there is no such thing as a killer gene.

There have been "very few people who are children of those who have been convicted of murder who go on to murder themselves", he said.

"The sins of the father don't have to visit the children."

Bryan has since been adopted by her mother's husband, while McBryde has turned her life around and married her best friend John, having three sons.

McBryde went on to write a book about her father's crimes, called The House Of Lies.

- Additional reporting by the Herald