Domestic violence victim Rekiah O’Donnell was killed by her partner. But Rekiah’s family believe the perpetrator “got away with murder” because of a troubling legal loophole.
Warning: this item deals with domestic violence and may be distressing for some readers.
Rekiah O’Donnell was just 22 years old when a bullet brought her life to an abrupt halt.
But the abusive thug who shot her in the head, Nelson Lai, wasn’t found guilty of murder.
Instead, 35-year-old Lai was found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter — despite shocking evidence showing he had violently abused Rekiah for years, and despite the fact that he’d texted her “I’ll kill you, rat” prior to the October 11, 2013 killing.
During his trial, Lai’s lawyers claimed the Sunshine man had been ‘coming down’ from the drug ice when he picked up a gun and pulled the trigger. Lai said he was minding the weapon for a friend, and didn’t know it was loaded.
It was excuse enough for a court to downgrade Lai’s conviction from murder to manslaughter — and that surprising verdict, delivered on 13 May, has left Rekiah’s family reeling. Now, they’re demanding change.
“Any amount of time (in jail) will never be enough, of course,” Rekiah’s brother Jesse O’Donnell told Mamamia of Lai’s sentence. “We were obviously hoping for a murder conviction which could have been anywhere up to a mid-3o range.”
Of the sentence Lai now faces — which could be as short as mere years — Jesse says: “Who knows what else he could do when he comes out?”
Jesse has “no single doubt” in his mind that Lai killed the young women intentionally.
“There was so much evidence including threats to kill… days before he killed her,” he explained in a segment on A Current Affair aired last night.
Rekiah’s family is now calling on the State Government to implement “Rekiah’s law”, an amendment that would ensure abusers like Lai are unable to use the fact they were high on drugs, or didn’t know there were bullets in the gun, to escape murder convictions.
“Rekiah’s law, in a nutshell, will be a law that says that anyone who points a gun at anybody, without doing it in self-defence, will be held responsible and (convicted of) murder,” Jesse said.
Sign the Change.org petition calling for Rekiah’s law here.
“We want to ensure that people can’t use ridiculous excuses to get out of it, such as not knowing there are bullets in the gun, or using drugs or alcohol,” he said.
“So what this is going to stop is people like that actually getting away with murder.”
Jesse, now 22 himself, has set up a Facebook page promoting Rekiah’s Law, while his best friend Dale Chapman, 21, has created a Change.org petition calling for legislative change.
Find the Rekiah’s Law Facebook page here, and the Change.org petition here.
And now, they’ve been provided a glimmer of hope — with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announcing that the state government will ask the Royal Commission into Family Violence to assess current laws.
It’s a move welcomed wholeheartedly by Jesse, who says he’s “hopeful” serious change will result.
“I’m very determined to get this changed, because I now know how it feels to have lost someone due to this, and basically knowing that the justice system doesn’t care is absolutely heart-wrenching.
“You live your whole life thinking ‘it’s okay, the justice system is behind us, the government is behind us,’ so to find the legal system to have not cared at all is the most gut-wrenching thing.”
“Me and my family and friends are very determined to make sure no other family has to go through this.”
The number of women killed each week by a partner or family member has almost doubled since last year, and domestic violence is the single greatest killer of women aged between 15 and 44.
So far, 25 women have died in 2015 alone in circumstances of alleged domestic violence. Regardless of class, age, location, race or religion, every woman is at risk.
It’s a fact that Jesse and the rest of the O’Donnell family know all too well — and that’s why they’re urging all Australians to join their push for Rekiah’s law.
“Nobody knows how many people are actually going through issues like this, how many people they actually know who are going through it- and these laws will actually help protect them as well,” he says.
“It could be your family, it could be your friend, and they could be next. If they like this page, if they share it… We are going to do our very best to make sure that no other family has to go through this.”
Find the Rekiah’s Law Facebook page here, and the Change.org petition here.
Watch the full A Current Affair segment here:
The following women have died in 2015 alone in circumstances of domestic violence or alleged domestic violence:
Related content:
25 women have now died in circumstances of alleged domestic violence in 2015.
It’s an issue that rarely makes front-page news. Until today.
He shot her in the head. But he’s been found not guilty of murder.
Top Comments
This proposal seems based around disagreeing with a jury's verdict. The very definitional difference between murder and manslaughter is one of intent. I.e. Actively intending to kill someone as opposed to doing an action which reasonably should have been foreseen as resulting in a fatality. The jury in this case decided that there was reasonable doubt about whether he was actively trying to kill her as opposed not caring whether he did or not.
“Rekiah’s law, in a nutshell, will be a law that says that anyone who points a gun at anybody, without doing it in self-defence, will be held responsible and (convicted of) murder,” Jesse said."
My neighbor has part of his hand missing where he put his hand on the end of a shotgun while climbing through a fence and it went off - does that make him guilty of murdering himself? I have read of several cases in the states where a child has accidently discharged a pistol into their mother - a child down a mother and automatically guilty of murder as well (setting aside legal culpability which is also one of the things that proposals wish to change)?
The law does consider aggravating factors in sentencing and I am sure that this fellow is going to get a stiff sentence relative to your average garden variety manslaughterer but the question that was asked of the jury was one of intent and they decided he didn't intend. fine tuning law is a daily task but knee jerking a solution suitable for one shocking example is not what good law is based upon.
Absolutely agree!
Cases like this exist where reactionary changes to law are demanded, but I do believe that leaving this to a objective commission is the best way to ensure that the changes to not impact negatively on another case.
This case is awful and very sad, and they obviously want murder, but the prosecution was unable to show beyond reasonable doubt that he had intent, and that is on them, not on the laws that exist.
I agree, there are plenty of issues with the proposed 'law' as it automatically assumes guilt. Our whole law system is supposed to be based on the idea of innocent till proven guilty, it is on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Of course this is a horrible incident that occurred, but law is not written based on emotion. It needs to be written based on logic and reason.
Actually, he won't get handed down a "stiff sentence" considering he pointed a gun directly to her temple while sitting in the front seat with her in the passenger seat, and he pulled the trigger. He'll get off extremely lightly considering his crime of murdering an innocent and lovely 22 year old girl; taking away her life and memories and her future and destroying her family's and friends' lives. No, I don't care that he was on drugs, or for any of his pathetic excuses. If you aim a gun at someone and shoot them dead, then you can deal with the consequences (you're a fully fledged murderer now!) which should be life in prison, so questions asked. Perhaps this law isn't written totally perfectly, but then again it wasn't proposed by law-makers. Don't get caught up on semantics though, because it's clear that this law needs to exist in order to allow JUSTICE for people like Rekiah and her family. Maybe it should read something more along the lines of "anyone who points a gun at anybody, without doing it in self-defence, and pulls the trigger resulting in death, that person will be held responsible and (convicted of) murder."
I think you should actually research a case before commenting - it was well established and reported that this happened in a bedroom - not in any seat of a car.
That he deliberately put a gun to her head is actually a point of contention - his version is that the gun went off while he was waving it around, unaware it was loaded. The jury (who were taken through all the research on the case by the prosecution and defense) was not convinced he did otherwise. He did not offer the excuse of drugs and in actual fact claims that drugs had nothing to do with what happened.
With regards to your proposal, it does not address the issues raised in my original comment. I seriously believe that the bulk of the support of this change is based on the fact that she looks to have been a very likable person, he being a very unlikeable person and an ignorance of the law and the details of this case due to ramped up misleading hyperbole as is contained in your comment.
I support this law! Too often, justice isn't served due to legal loopholes.