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The remarkable thing about Bruce Emery is how utterly unremarkable he is. This small, fragile and terrified man, a father of three and successful small businessman, shakes as he describes the murder charges he faces, the death threats against his wife and children and the family home he can never return to.
Emery, his wife and three young daughters are hiding in a modest house in an undisclosed location after he allegedly fatally stabbed a teenage boy who graffitied his suburban home.
Emery has been out on bail for just a few days after a month in prison on remand - the first time he has ever been in trouble with the police. Next month he faces court again.
No matter what is decided about what happened on the January night that changed his life, Emery says he and his family are facing a life sentence. "[The death threats] really got to me," he sobbed as he spoke to the Herald on Sunday. "It brings it all back home to you, you know, the reality of the situation. Well, you think you are doing the best for your family and you're trying to protect them the best that you can and it's one night... and it all turns to custard. I now feel very vulnerable... everything the kids are doing can put them at risk."
IT WAS too hot to sleep on January 26, not a breath of wind in Mahia Rd, Manurewa.
"Normally at that time I'd be sitting in front of the telly or getting ready for bed," Emery recalls. "I got an iced tea and sat on the deck because it's nice and cool there and I just sort of looked down. There was this figure and I could hear the shaking of a can, a spray can and I yelled 'What the hell are you doing? What are you up to', you know?"
Emery's sprawling 70s house is also the office and workshop for his marine upholstery business. Graffiti vandals had previously targeted containers on his property and many of the local letterboxes and shops. But this time, the roller doors to Emery's garage were the focus and, he says, at the back of his mind were recent violent attacks on local shop owners.
"I was terrified," he says. "I mean only a week before the young Indian guy got stabbed at the dairy by a 15- year-old and another Indian dairy owner down the road from us got whacked in the head. There are a lot of things [in Manurewa] that don't make the papers."
What happened next is the crux of the case against Emery. Police say Emery chased 15-year-old Pihema Cameron from his property with a knife and stabbed him to death in a nearby street. Emery's lawyer Chris Comesky described it as: "He tells them to go away, he chases after them. There is a scuffle and within a minute or two he finds himself in a position where he now faces the most serious charge imaginable."
Emery says he had no idea Cameron was dead. Did he call the police? "No someone else did." Was there screaming and shouting? "No not really. When it happened I just got out of there as soon as possible... as quick as I could - I didn't want to hang around. I mean there could have been other people outside."
The emotion at Cameron's funeral the following week and during Emery's court appearances has been raw; Cameron's family says justice has not been done.
"He was allegedly tagging a fence, that should in no way condone being allegedly stabbed," Cameron's aunty Francine Harrison said outside court as Emery was granted bail. "That dude gets to go home and cuddle his family, we get to go visit my boy at a urupa. He should be stuck back in a jail cell."
Does Emery understand the family's anger? Does he know how they might be feeling? "Of course," he says, tears welling again. "We've lost family members before." And what would he say to them? The answer, after a long pause, is telling.
"I'm so sorry. It got out of control."
THE MONTH he spent in remand was a life-changing experience. The officers do the best they can, he says, but "you know it was a nightmare but surprisingly some of the inmates are quite good".
There were threats however, especially as he got close to getting bail. "They called me 'stabber', I guess it was to be expected you know. It's a lot like being in a zoo."
Did he fear for his life? "It's always at the back of your mind."
Emery is now philosophical, although he is under no illusions about what life holds for him. He has had support, from friends, neighbours and clients. "I've got cards and messages," he says. "That's the worst thing about having to be in hiding because you can't talk to anyone."
Even his closest friends cannot see him because he fears for their safety. His family too, have suffered. "There have been a lot of tears, a lot of questions asked," he says. "It's just turned everyone upside down." His daughters aged 14 to 10, "understand what happened".
They were there that night, he says. They love their dad. Sotju, the Chinese Indonesian wife he met across a local bakery counter 20 years ago, is now stared at in supermarkets and when she takes the children to school. Their business is "dead".
"It was a one-man show. I ran the business by myself. The whole point of it was to be with my kids."
He knows he will never go back to that Mahia Rd home. Emery says the past five years in the street had been difficult. "It's just gone crazy [there]. Constant noise, violence, police are constantly patrolling that road."
He and Sotju had been planning to move out for the past couple of years but "when you have kids and a small business and you're getting up to 50... it's hard to find a house that you can afford in a good area".
He'd worried then, that Sotju would miss her friends and networks and that it wasn't fair taking her away. Instead, now, she has an instant hotline to 111 and police patrol the street the family is hiding in.
