Murdered mum Tara Costigan lodged DV application while in labour
Tara Costigan needed help dealing with her emotionally abusive partner. She went to apply for a Domestic Violence Order while in labour. He murdered her eight days later. Five years on, her family speaks of the toll it has taken on them and her three young children.
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She was murdered by her axe-wielding partner as she shielded their newborn daughter from his blows.
Now for the first time it can be revealed young mother Tara Costigan’s pleas for a domestic violence order came eight days earlier when she was literally in labour.
The 28-year-old was killed by Marcus Rappel after he attacked inside her Canberra home in front of her two young sons, her sister and her sister’s partner.
It was the first – and last time – her emotionally and verbally abusive partner had been physically violent. Something experts say happens in almost a quarter of intimate-partner homicides.
In her application for a domestic violence order, Ms Costigan writes of how she went to her local police station on February 21, 2015 but “could not fill out the paper work as I was in labour”.
She writes of how she called Rappel to tell him of their daughter’s birth and how he turned up to the hospital with his mother.
“He was very angry and said to me ‘I know about the other men’. He stayed no more than 10 min – he stormed out and left”.
She goes on to detail an incident three days later on February 24 where they met up at a local cafe.
“I could tell Marcus was in a bad mood”, she wrote before detailing how she left with their daughter when he continued to be verbally abusive.
Four days later Rappel killed Ms Costigan.
Five years on, Ms Costigan’s family are still dealing with the ripple effect of domestic violence.
“I think the biggest impact is the loss of family, because Tara was a very big part of my life from the moment she was born,” her grandmother Margaret Costigan, 82, said.
“Even when she became estranged from her mum, we became much, much closer and I helped her with the boys.”
Margaret recalled school drop-offs and pick-ups, and caring for the boys when they were sick, while single mother Ms Costigan worked tirelessly to provide for her young family.
“We were so thrilled when we found out she was having a little girl so if things had have been normal then that little girl would be running through my house the same as the boys did,” she said.
In the wake of her death, Ms Costigan’s now teenage boys now live with their biological father, while their five-year-old was unofficially “adopted” by her paternal aunt and uncle.
Rappel was sentenced to 32 years for Tara’s murder and has since earned another six years on top for assaults while in custody.
His attempts to smear Ms Costigan’s reputation by questioning his daughter’s paternity were thwarted when a DNA test conducted inside jail proved he was her father.
The Costigans are still part of the children’s lives, but now only see them on special occasions, one of which is the little girl’s annual birthday party. An event that remarkably sees the Costigan and Rappel families put their history aside to celebrate the one gift from the fatal union.
“She’s an amazing little girl, she’s incredible, absolutely incredible,” Tara’s aunt Maria Costigan, 57 said.
“Everyone says she looks like Tara but I don’t see Tara, I see the Rappels. I see Tara’s behaviour,” she adds, recalling Tara’s childhood nickname was ‘Terror’ or ‘Turkey’ for her wild, boundless energy.
“(She) bounces off walls, runs around everywhere with her head forward. It’s incredible how much she is like her mum when she was only with her mum for eight days.”
This the first time former corrections officer, Maria, is speaking publicly about her niece. A bizarre twist of fate had her working until recently at Canberra’s Alexander Maconochie Centre, the same jail where Rappel was serving his sentence.
“I don’t know why they did that — he should never have gone there while I was working there,” says Maria who recalls warnings Rappel had reportedly spoken of his plan to “shiv” her.
The circumstances around Tara’s murder are shocking, but they are not unique. According to recent research by the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network, in almost a quarter of intimate-partner homicide crimes nationally – 23.8 per cent – there was no history of physical violence by the male homicide offender prior to murder.
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This statistic helped drive author Heidi Lemon in her three-year “passion project” to write the Costigans’ story. Her compelling debut book, The First Time He Hit Her, will be released next week, and is something the Costigans’ hope will serve Tara’s children as a cherished record of their mother.
As for the Costigan matriarchs, Maria and Margaret are upbeat, despite living through a seemingly insurmountable tragedy.
“I do have days when I’d like to go out and punch a bag or something,” laughs Margaret, “but there’s been other things that happened beforehand that have toughened me up.
“I’ve lost two adult sons — Tara’s dad killed himself because he was bipolar and then after Tara died my second son, who had a heart condition, didn’t wake up from his fourth open heart surgery, and he was in his mid-50s and a dear soul … so that was a loss.
“But what do you do? You just keep going. I used to say, ‘I’d love to have an NBN line to heaven so I could talk to all of them up there, and Maria said, ‘Mum, they wouldn’t hear you because the football (on the television) would be too loud!’”