‘Enormous injustice’: Dad shot and killed mum, then raised their three kids

Kathryn Joy was just three months old when their father shot and killed their mother in the bedroom of the family’s Lismore home.

Kathryn Joy was just three months old when their father shot and killed their mother in the bedroom of the family’s Lismore home.

Allan Stuckey, a pharmacist, had been monitoring the movements of his wife, Carolyn Joy Stuckey, via a private detective. Upon learning the beloved schoolteacher was having an affair with a man from her local amateur theatre group, Stuckey shot her three times in the abdomen and head with a bolt-action rifle – leaving his three children without a mother. That was January 31, 1985.

While Stuckey admitted to police he’d been the one to shoot Carolyn, a jury ultimately accepted the 39-year-old’s provocation defence, finding him not guilty of murder. A judge described him at trial as “a man of exceptional character and good standing in the community”.

He was convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter, served just 22 months behind bars, and was then released and allowed to raise Kathryn, who uses they/them pronouns, and their two older brothers.

Carolyn Joy Stuckey was shot and killed by her husband, Allan Stuckey, on January 31, 1985. Picture: Stan

Carolyn’s daughter, Kathryn, was just three months old at the time. Picture: Stan

“Upon my father’s release from prison, my brothers and I went back to live in the family home with him,” Kathryn, a family violence researcher at Melbourne University, recalled during the Children as Victims of Crime Round Table.

“Most of my childhood was spent in that house, with my father as a primary carer.”

The now-39-year-old appears in the upcoming Stan documentary Revealed: Killjoy. Eight years in the making, it focuses on Carolyn’s death and its aftermath.

“It’s not like people didn’t know that we were growing up in the house where our mother was killed, with the man that killed her,” Kathryn said in a trailer for the documentary.

“I’ve always wanted to know what happened, how it happened, why it happened. Like somehow I can make it better.”

Kathryn was long unaware of the dark history that surrounded their childhood – and has no concrete recollection of anyone explaining what exactly happened to their mother.

But, they said during the roundtable, they “continue to be amazed” that neither them or their siblings “once asked … if I was okay living in that house with (Stuckey)”.

“I wasn’t asked at any point … I don’t remember ever being asked anything,” Kathryn said.

“Though I realised later that part of the reason he served so little of his sentence was because they were keen to get him back to his family, his job, his life. As far as I could tell, everything was in his best interests, and nothing was in ours.”

Kathryn was raised in the house where their mother was killed. Picture: Stan

Kathryn at a memorial for Carolyn. Picture: Stan

‘I got good at lying. Another thing to feel ashamed about, but somehow less shameful than the truth.’ Picture: Stan

Kathryn, their brothers, and anyone who might have advocated for them – or the memory of their mother – “were up against a system and a society that saw my father as a victim – he was a white, well-educated, middle class man, and my mother had betrayed him”.

They also recalled coming to dread, as a teenager, questions from their peers about what their mother did for work – and, upon responding that she’d died, how that had happened.

“Whenever the question was asked, I would say ‘car accident’ or ‘cancer’. No less tragic, of course – however, I was already keenly aware, far more socially acceptable,” Kathryn said.

“I got good at lying. Another thing to feel ashamed about, but somehow less shameful than the truth: ‘My dad killed her.’ I never knew how to say that out loud.

“‘I am afraid of him.’ I never knew how to say that, either.”

Kathryn Joy seeks the truth about their mother’s in a new Stan documentary. Picture: Stan

‘May this story offer a remedy to the enormous injustice of my mother’s death.’ Picture: Stan

Kathryn hopes the documentary, which airs on September 8, will lead to better support for child victim-survivors of domestic homicide – research by Melbourne University suggests “probably more than” 1000 Australian children have lost a parent to domestic homicide in the past 20 years.

“Children and young people bereaved by domestic homicide are rarely part of the conversations surrounding family abuse and violence, and they should be,” they said in a statement ahead of Revealed: Killjoy’s release.

“They need more support, more advocacy, and more nuanced conversations about those who choose to cause harm, and the systems that allow this harm to continue.

“Being able to speak on my own terms, with the support and care of so many, has been a life-changing experience. May this story offer a remedy to the enormous injustice of my mother’s death.”