Knowing your beloved mum has not only been shot and killed in cold blood, but murdered at the hands of your father, is something no child should go through. But the Douthett children in Rotorua are doing their best every day to carry on. Remarkably, they are doing that while continuing to love and visit their dad in prison. The shattered children break their silence to journalist Kelly Makiha about life since the day their world fell apart.
The Douthett children's eyes light up as they remember a family holiday they all took to Australia.
The chatter among the young adults becomes louder and more excited as they all recount different memories of the trip.
It was the type of holiday every normal Kiwi family saves up for and takes.
To them, they were a normal Kiwi family.
But now their mum, Trish, is dead and their dad, Mike, is in prison for life after he fired two shots and killed his wife of 25 years.
It was a crime that shook the rural Ngākuru village, south of Rotorua on November 26 last year.
But no one was more shocked than the four Douthett children.
Mike Douthett, 57, was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years after pleading guilty to murdering his 50-year-old wife last year.
The court heard details about Mike's deteriorating mental health over the years and how he was under stress following the couple's break up.
He had told his sister about how he was feeling and she had made him a doctor's appointment but Mike killed his wife the day before he was to make the appointment.
The court heard how his family members regretted not doing more to help Mike get the help he needed.
However, Trish Douthett's sisters, in their victim impact statements read in court, described Mike as controlling and said that they had feared for their sister's safety.
Justice Anne Hinton said during sentencing that while there was no doubt he was suffering from a severe depressive disorder it did not excuse his violent and pre-meditated actions.
Trish Douthett had left her husband a few months before she died but she had to return daily to their family home to run the farm.
Trish and Mike lived and dairy farmed on Trish's family farm on Whirinaki Valley Rd but in early 2018, the couple separated.
Trish moved out and lived in a cottage owned by her father nearby to allow her to continue running the dairy farm.
On the day of the murder, Trish arrived at the house about 6am and put her gumboots on before heading to the milking shed.
Mike took a .22 bolt action rifle from the wardrobe, loaded it and hid it beneath the blankets in the master bedroom.
When Trish returned and went into the office, Mike grabbed the rifle, went to the office and fired a shot to her head. He then actioned the rifle and loaded another round into the chamber and fired a second shot at Trish's head.
He dropped the rifle in the hallway and called the police saying: "I have murdered my wife, I shot her".
Mike then drove his Toyota Land Cruiser towards Rotorua and into the path of a logging truck in an apparent attempt to end his life, but he suffered no injuries. He then walked along State Highway 30 and lay on the road in front of another truck, but the truck braked heavily and avoided hitting him.
Mike was then picked up by someone he knew and dropped at the Rotorua Police Station where he confessed.
The Douthetts lived all their life on the family farm. It used to belong to Trish's parents and was where she grew up as a child.
Mike Douthett has two daughters - Katie King, 32, and Nicole Douthett, 28 - while Mike and Trish have two sons together, Aidan Douthett, 19, and Mark Douthett, 18.
The Douthett children are quick to tell you they are a close foursome raised as one family.
Trish never liked names such as aunty or stepmother, so to Katie and Nicole she was simply Trish.
"We were just country kids," Katie said.
"I thought our upbringing was awesome," she said.
Mark said "not in a million years" did they think their dad would kill their mum.
"There was never violence in the 18 years I had been there."
Katie described the murder as a violent crime but in their eyes, their dad wasn't a violent man.
"The day it happened, I was driving out to the farm and I had the worst possible things going through my head, but turned out it was even more worse than that."
Nicole said even now she found it hard to believe it had happened.
All four children agree their dad was struggling mentally and despite depression clearly being very real, he wouldn't accept he had a problem.
"I just think men are not very good at asking for help," Katie said.
"It is the old school way. Tell me a 60-year-old man who is going to ring up the flippin' helpline," Katie said.
Nicole said her dad was even afraid for people to know he had initially been remanded to the mental health facility, Henry Bennett Centre in Hamilton.
"He's a tough farmer and wouldn't want people to think he wasn't handling stress," Nicole said.
Despite Trish being killed inside the family home, the children said they still loved being there because it held so many happy memories.
Mark still lives at the house with Nicole and her partner, who have moved home from Melbourne following Trish's death.
"It is still one of the best places to go when you've got nowhere to go," Mark said.
"For me, it's a happy feeling being there," Nicole said.
The children said they were doing their best to cope but relied heavily on each other.
"We have got each other and we are a foursome," Katie said.
The children regularly visit their dad in prison.
"I want to be angry but I can't because he is the only figure of a parent I have left," Mark said.
"Any chance we can go I usually go. It is good for him and it is good for me," Mark said.
Nicole said her dad cried a lot during their visits.
"He apologises to us and says he can't understand why we are visiting," Nicole said.
Aidan said despite still visiting his father, forgiveness was a hard word for him.
"I'm still pissed off with him."
Aidan said they all just missed their mum terribly.
"She used to come around here [to his home] quite a bit whenever she was in town and to have that gone so quickly is pretty sad," Aidan said.
"She would call in all the time, sometimes it wouldn't be for long, just for 10 minutes and have a cup of tea and a yarn and see what was happening and then we'd see her again in a couple of days."
Aidan said he missed having both his parents around for advice and support.
"With me and Mark being pretty young and only really just out of school and in our first jobs, we've got questions to ask, learning how to do stuff and you just want to ring up mum and dad and say 'how did you do this when you were our age?'."
Aidan said not having their dad to lean on when they lost their mum was the hardest part.
"When mum passed away, we didn't have dad to have a cry on his shoulder because he was gone as well."
Meanwhile, the children are learning to cope by keeping busy, remembering the good times and leaning on each other as much as they can.
They say their dad wasn't in his right mind when he committed the unthinkable and they had just one message to anyone reading their story - don't let it be too late to ask for help.
A life taken too soon
Trish Douthett was a hard worker, a brilliant mother, loved horses and never liked the limelight.
A typical farm mum, she wasn't one to wrap her kids in cotton wool, instead, she'd let them learn from their own experiences.
She was in boots and all when it came to the children's kindergarten, school, soccer and pony club activities and was known for carting around kids in her horse truck.
The family home on Whirinaki Valley Rd was always bustling with children and their friends.
It was mentioned during her eulogy the family home must have been a great place to be because sons Aidan and Mark constantly had friends around.
Her children told the Rotorua Daily Post she loved her animals so much, she practically had a name for every cow on the farm.
She had at least 10 horses and her sister, Rosie Wallis, said they were taken to the paddock next to the Ngākuru Hall on the day of her funeral.
"The funeral director said she had never seen anything like it as her coffin was carried across the road, the horses just stood there together in a line and watched."
A woman of few words, Trish wouldn't let too many things bother her, including wet or cold weather.
Her children said no matter what the conditions outside, she was usually dressed in a tee-shirt and shorts.
She loved the rain and her children said she would have been laughing on the day of her funeral watching everyone having to come up with wet weather contingency plans as the rain poured down.
Despite suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, Trish was incredibly active, including being an integral member of the local hunt club, carrying out a lot of the physical farm work, including milking when she needed to, and showing her cows until recently at the local A & P Show.
One of her greatest achievements was taking part in the Great New Zealand Trek, a horse trek, mountain bike ride or walk that went for 14 years. The trek was from Cape Reinga to Bluff to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis and Trish took part each year since 2005 by riding a section of the trek for a week.
She should have completed the final section of the trek in March this year but instead, Katie King, Mike's daughter, rode it in her honour on one of Trish's many horses.
Rosie said Trish was a wonderful mother and she now wished she could have asked her advice when it came to raising boys.
"One thing I would like to say about my nephews [Mark and Aidan] is I am so proud of those boys and in awe of their manners, and I'm sure this is Trish's influence ... They never ever forget to say thanks for things. As a mum, I am still working on that with my boy. If only I could ask her how she did it."
Rosie said she and Trish were very close growing up because in those days they were playmates as there were no such places as daycares.
"When she went off to school, I remember being so lonely."
Barbara Wallis (known as Bob), the youngest sister, was born four years after Rosie and the three had fond memories of their childhood riding bikes and ponies and going to hockey, athletics and equestrian events.
Trish went to Ngākuru School and then Rotorua Girls' High School until the seventh form when she went to Wesley College in Auckland.
She earned the prize of deputy dux and the school's top athletics prize.
The following year she started a Bachelor of Agricultural Science at Massey University with aspirations of being a vet. After a year she took a year off to work with racehorses and running a farm in Warkworth before finishing her degree.
During her university days, she got together with Mike, whose family farm was only two farms from the Wallis' in Ngakuru, and eventually, she returned to Ngakuru. She and Mike later took over the Wallis family farm.
Bob said Trish was a typical big sister and she often recalled Trish using her as the "electric fence tester" by getting her to touch the wires to see if she had hooked them up right.
Bob said she would also make her run around the farm doing errands, disguising the work as fun by offering to time her.
Bob said in later years she and Trish became very close and Bob became more like a big sister as Trish confided in her a lot.
"She told me all about her plans and there were all these hopes and dreams and ambitions. She deserved to have that life."
Where to get help:
If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.
Or if you need to talk to someone else:
0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP) (available 24/7) https://www.lifeline.org.nz/services/suicide-crisis-helpline
Youthline: 0800 376 633 NEED TO TALK? Free call or text 1737 (available 24/7) Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7) Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm) Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 or Text 4202
