The Mildura Tragedy
6 killed in tragic Australia hit and run
courtesy The Age
Tragic: All the victims were aged between 15 and 17. Teens had passion for sport and life 20 Feb 06 Herald Sun Shane and Abby Hirst were good mates as well as brother and sister. Shane, 16, followed his 17-year-old sister this year to Mildura Senior College, where he started Year 11. Abby was in Year 12. The pair, from nearby Irymple, were both killed when they were struck by a car outside a birthday party on Saturday night. They had their entire lives ahead of them. Friends remembered Shane as a friendly and cheerful teenager who always stopped to say hello. He was a valued member of the Irymple Junior Football Club. Abby was also a keen athlete and played netball with the Swallows, a team affiliated with the Irymple Football Club. Club president Trevor Heaft said Abby and her friend, Stevie-Lee Weight, 15, had been regulars at the club. "They both played netball and worked here in the kiosk," Mr Heaft said. "They were both just lovely kids." Abby was part of a roster of netballers who worked in the kiosk on football game days to raise funds for their club. "The netballers would do it as a fundraiser. We would pay their dues and things and they would work in the canteen," Mr Heaft said. Stevie-Lee, of Mildura South, was a fun-loving girl who could be found most Saturdays in winter courtside with friend Abby. Stevie-Lee was consistently named a best player in the under-15 and under-17 competitions. Off the court, Stevie-Lee was known as a keen shopper who loved hitting the local stores with best friends Cassie Manners, also killed, and Josie Calvi, who is in a critical condition in the Royal Adelaide Hospital. A close friend who was with Stevie-Lee just before she died, Chanelle Gilardi, 16, said her friend was a talented and creative teenager. "Stevie really liked photography," she said. She also liked her music and was a fan of Michael Jackson. Chanelle said she yesterday visited Stevie's family, whom she described as beautiful and friendly people. "They're finding it really hard," she said. Cassandra Manners, 16 -- Cassie to her friends -- was a talented gymnast. She had recently moved to Mildura after growing up in Red Cliffs. A bright and cheerful young woman, she had spent some time on Saturday night getting ready to go out with her great friends Josie Calvi, Stevie-Lee and Chanelle. Chanelle, who went to a different party from her friends, said Cassie loved fashion and wanted a career as an executive. She didn't much mind what profession it was, provided she got to wear sharp clothes, "Cassie just wanted to work somewhere where she could wear a suit and carry a briefcase," Chanelle said. "Cassie was very smart." Cassandra was also an accomplished sportswoman, not only playing netball, but also heavily into gymnastics. "She was very good at gymnastics. She had no intention of going on with it as a career. It was just a bit of fun," Chanelle said. Sweet-faced Cory Dowling was raised by his father Rex at Mildura. The 16-year-old had regularly taken the field for the Mildura South Football Club in the under-17s but missed last season because of a broken ankle. Just last week he had discussed rejoining the club's team after his ankle had healed. Friend Chanelle said he was a nice person. "Cory was funny. He was nice. He always had a smile on his face," she said.
Mildura mourns: Mum recalls cheeky teens
Anthony Dowsley and Paul Anderson Abby and Shane Hirst were inseparable in life and will be together forever when they are buried on Friday. Family and friends have paid tribute to the brother and sister by writing farewells on their white coffins, which will be laid side by side in the same plot after the funeral.
"They were good at their sport. They always had smiles on their faces, mainly Abby. She was a smiley person. She'd get flattened at basketball and still get up smiling. "Shane was more a cheeky-grin person. He could ride a bike without training wheels by himself by two. That was because Abby, and his other older sister, Kylie, helped him do everything. "While they picked on each other at home they stuck up for each other at school." While still trying to come to terms with Saturday night's hit-run tragedy, which claimed six young lives, Ms Prowse fondly remembered 17-year-old Abby and Shane, 16, in all their cheeky glory. She said when the family arrived in Mildura about the time Abby was born, they opened up a general store. But it wasn't to last. "The little buggers ate every lolly in the place," she said. Ms Prowse said Abby was a "good worker at school", but Shane dreamed of achievements on the sporting field rather than academic success. "Shane was the one who wanted to be outside doing things," she said. He played for the Mildura Mavericks basketball team and the Irymple footy club. And he set his sights high. "He thought he was going to be the next Michael Jordan and the next James Hird," Ms Prowse said. She said Abby and Shane were brought up to be strong. "I brought them up tough," she said. "They weren't allowed to come off the courts crying. Once Shane had a blood nose and he was crying, and even though the referee told him he had to get off, he wouldn't." Abby had a boyfriend, while Shane had many girlfriends. "All the boys were protective of Abby. They all went to the same parties together," Ms Prowse said. "Shane changed them (his girlfriends) like he changed his undies. It was always, 'Shane Hirst is a spunk'." One of his girlfriends, Taylar Reid, wrote a note that read: "A part of me has died as Shane made me feel special and complete, now without him I'll never be the same." Phillip Egan, 16, said Shane was a king of the kids who liked watching scary movies. He also loved spending time with Phillip's four-year-old nephew, Mehmet. "They used to play a lot at my house. Mehmet called Shane his uncle," Phillip said. "They used to chase each other and have play fights. Shane loved the little kid. He was good with kids. Mehmet's going to miss Shane. We're all going to miss him." A photograph obtained by the Herald Sun shows Shane enjoying a children's ride with Mehmet at the Mildura Plaza. Phillip was with Shane at a birthday party on the night before the tragedy. Earlier, they were at the plaza with their mates. "We had a good time at the plaza. We had a good perv," Phillip said. "On the way home we stopped at the senior college and made up a video clip for my phone. I'm going to hold on to that, as well as my memories of him. Shane was cool." Friends rang Ms Prowse minutes after Saturday night's accident. In tears, they told her Shane had been killed and they did not know where Abby was. "I came to the conclusion that Abby had to be gone too because she would have rung me," Ms Prowse said. Of the man accused of killing her two youngest children, Ms Prowse said: "The last thing I ever want to do is see him. "I just feel for his kids because I've lost my kids. It's not his kids' fault and it's not his family's fault. I'm not a great believer in vendettas." © Herald and Weekly Times
Mildura mourns: Daughter's final words of love
Anthony Dowsley and Paul Anderson Josie Calvi died doing what she loved -- living it up with her friends. Honest, happy, full of life, she spoke to her dad, Vince, less than two hours before Saturday night's tragedy in Cardross near Mildura. Still struck by the events that killed six teenagers and injured many others, Mr Calvi, choked with emotion, said yesterday he rang his 16-year-old daughter in a poignant last phone call. "Her last words were, 'I love you dad', before she hung up." Josie and her friends were waiting for a taxi when a driver struck them. Yesterday, family and friends filled the Calvis' Mildura home in support of the parents, who arrived back from Adelaide on Monday. Josie died in Royal Adelaide hospital on Sunday night after being flown there in a critical condition. Josie's mother, Carmel, said "Jo Jo" was full of love. "She loved her friends, she loved her family and cousins," she said. "She practically died doing what she loved doing -- partying with her friends . . . She always had the biggest smile." The young, fashionable teen, who had just turned 16, would take hours to get ready before a night out, constantly changed her hair colour and was always a trusted friend. Josie's family are angry her body will not be coming home in time for the planned funeral on Monday. Josie's anguished aunt, Antonella Grivec, last night told the Herald Sun the South Australian Coroner's office had advised Josie's body would not be released for up to a fortnight. Ms Grivec said the Coroner's office told the family that Josie's brain had to be closely examined to ascertain an exact cause of death. "The other kids' bodies will be returned, but not Josie," Ms Grivec said. "We cannot wait for two weeks. Her mother's been through enough. "The only reason Josie's funeral was going to be so late (after the accident) was because we wanted to give the other kids their days." Ms Grivec said the family was told to seek legal advice if it wanted to dispute the Coroner's decision. "This is causing the family so much trauma," Ms Grivec said. The future was bright for Josie, who was planning to go to university and travel. After the accident the family spent time with Josie in hospital. They shared final moments with her and told her they were proud of her. © Herald and Weekly Times
Last Picture of Three Young Lives
By Jo Chandler - The Age
Her double-barrelled name, her dark curls and her pretty face come from her
mother, Jennie-May, who passed
No one's claiming credit for Stevie-Lee's creativity; it was just one of those blessings. (photo Stevie-Lee Weight flanked by her friends Josie Calvi (L) and Cassandra Manners (R) hours before they died. Stevie-Lee took the photograph. Photo: Simon O'Dwyer) Her lively, effervescent sureness in her world was surely the gift of a childhood spent in the safety of grapevines and a community where everyone knows everyone. In such a community, grief is not a lonely or quiet affair. "Look for the house with lots of cars out the front," had been the direction from Stevie-Lee's grandfather, Maurice Wedlake. Sure enough, 15 cars make it hard to miss. The house is full of flowers, casseroles and the voices of women — aunts and sisters (lots more hyphens), neighbours and friends, Stevie-Lee's teenage mates. It's been like this since Sunday morning, when a pall fell across Sunraysia with the news. Outside, some of the older blokes, not quite sure what to do with their grief, spend it loudly and usefully with hammers and up ladders attending to odd jobs that had waited for years and could surely have waited a few more. It's the home of a carpenter, jokes father Stephen Weight. Of course it needs work. The cars keep coming. Women wearing name tags from the shops in town, weighed down with bags of groceries. They are stoic until they clap eyes on Jennie-May, and then their faces draw tight with tears and grief. Jennie-May moves from one embrace to another. She's not surprised by the generosity — this is how things work in the country — but she is overwhelmed. A woman carries in a gown in a protective white bag. Stevie-Lee, who would have been 16 on March 30, was going to "do her deb" this year, a big moment in the life of any girl from the bush. So yesterday Joy Wedlake, with two of her daughters and her daughter-in-law, went into Mildura to shop for a deb dress for her granddaughter to be buried in. The woman in the shop refused to take any payment. People need to make a gesture. Do something, anything, to help the bereaved families and themselves find some way to handle the pain of a town where lives are so entwined by sport and school and the fruit crops that sustained Stevie-Lee's forebears on both sides. In the Weight house, there's a lot of remembering going on, scraps of conversations and events retrieved from memory to try to capture and share Stevie-Lee. "She always loved old people," says Jennie-May. While other kids might coo over babies or animals, her daughter would fuss over her elders. She had the tantrums and flounces that are the prerogative of every teenage girl who doesn't always get her way. And be back minutes later to apologise — "Oh Mum, I'm sorry, I don't know where that came from," she'd say. She loved her border collie, Oliver, her 15th birthday present. "If I accused her of using my mascara or something she'd say 'No Mum, I swear on my dog's life, I didn't' ." It was her most powerful, unarguable protest of innocence. She played netball winter and summer. Sometimes back-to-back games for the under-15s and the under 17s. She was good. She loved to dance, and took part in two award-winning rock eisteddford performances that were the pride of Red Cliffs Secondary College. She loved her friends. Last Friday night she slept at Abby Hirst's house along with Josephine Calvi, Cassandra Manners and Renee Carter. All but Renee were lost in the same awful instant. She loved to take photographs, mostly of her friends, and she took thousands of them after getting her first digital camera in 2003. Her last photograph shows her with Josie and Cassie laughing — the camera capturing their luminously excited, made-up faces after a seven-hour session getting ready for the parties on Saturday night. Her parents found the picture on her camera and had it printed yesterday. She fancied a career in photography, but her back-up plan was to be a primary school teacher. She had other plans too. She wanted to marry an AFL footballer. She had her eyes on Richmond's Thomas Roach — she had her picture taken with him once — but if not him, she'd find another. Once she'd been to the city and got herself a footballer, she was going to come back to Mildura to live. She had it all figured out. She liked to talk, but she "wasn't a yakker", says father Stephen. She was just so gorgeous, he says. "Inside and out," adds Jennie-May. She was growing up fast. She had been allowed to only a few parties last year, but this year her parents gave her more freedom to go to the teenage gatherings that are the social scene of country kids without the nightspots and suburban haunts their city peers might visit. Still, she was not too big to play with her little sisters, 11 and 12. Monica-Rose sits with her grandfather on the veranda listening to the memories, saying nothing, wearing a pink jewelled crucifix — Stevie-Lee's — around her neck. But it is Stevie-Lee's loving spirit that the family keeps coming back to. The hugs, the kisses, the declarations of love for her family and her friends — she is the child of a generation uninhibited by the polite, distant niceties of previous generations. Sitting on the veranda overlooking the vines, Stevie-Lee's parents and grandparents hope that the openness of these young people, not frightened to cry and put their arms around one another, will help them in the months ahead. That it will give some comfort to kids — so savagely deprived of that other pejorative feature of the teenager, invincibility — the certainty that while everything else is a punt, they will surely be allowed to grow old.
Father loses best friend
By Matt Cunningham Cory Dowling was his father's son through and through. Rex Dowling raised Cory on his own from the time he was 18 months old after splitting with his partner. Rex was too upset to talk about his son last night but asked his brother-in-law, Basil Taggert, to speak on his behalf. Mr Taggert told the Herald Sun that Cory idolised his dad. They were best mates, he said. Just two nights before Cory's tragic death, the teenager slept in the same bed as his father. "Somebody had tried to break into the house the night before," Mr Taggert said. "He was a cocky little kid and always had plenty of front, but at the end of the day he was just a little kid at heart and he loved his dad." Mr Taggert said Cory followed in his father's footsteps in many ways. They were both talented footballers and loved riding motorbikes. "Rex loved life and used to push everything to the max and that's what Cory did too," he said. Family and friends will farewell Cory at his funeral at Mildura's Sacred Heart Catholic Church at 2.30pm (AEDT) today. After the service a memorial will be held at the South Mildura Football Club, were Cory and Rex had both played. Mr Taggert said Rex had done everything he could to give Cory a good upbringing. "It made it hard for him financially at times too," he said. Mr Taggert said Rex, a tradesman, would often get up early, take Cory to school, work all day and then look after him at night. "A lot of people wouldn't have been able to cope with that." Mr Taggert said Rex's sister Sue Taggert, was a great support to Rex in raising Cory. But he said Rex never went looking for help. "He was the type of bloke who would never ask you for anything." Cory also had a cheeky side and a habit for causing mischief, Mr Taggert said. "There was a party once and Rex told Cory he couldn't go because he'd been out at a party the night before. Cory went anyway. "Sue tracked him down and said he had to be home by 10 o'clock or she would take his computer off him. "Cory said 'Well, you are probably going to take it off me anyway', so Sue said 'I suppose you won't be back by 10 o'clock then'." Copyright 2006 News Limited.
Mildura grieves: Brave Marco the symbol of hope Paul Anderson / Herald Sun 21 Feb 06
Marco Medici has emerged as the young braveheart of the Mildura hit-run tragedy that killed six of his friends. The victims Marco, 15, "died" on the operating table, but was revived after several minutes. He remains in a coma in a critical condition at the Alfred hospital with severe internal injuries, broken legs and a broken hip. But his uncle, Matthew Medici, believes Marco is listening as his family urges him to pull through. "I had a bit of a whisper in his ear. I asked him to hang in there," he said. "I told him all his family was with him and that we love him. "I told him it's not his turn and that he can't go because we'd miss him too much. "He'd been going to the gym for quite a while, and doctors say he's a fit boy with youth on his side. "He's not out of the woods yet but he's a strong kid." Marco -- who had left school to become a mechanic -- was friends with all those hit by a station wagon outside a party on Saturday night. He was particularly close to two. One was 16-year-old Josephine Calvi, who died on Sunday night at the Royal Adelaide Hospital after her family had no option but to turn off her life support. The other, best mate Nick Pezaniti, 14, is recovering in the Royal Children's Hospital with several broken bones and other injuries. Marco, a fit teenager who has been working out in the gym in recent times, died for several minutes after being flown to the Alfred on Sunday. But doctors managed to bring him back. "If he hadn't been such a (physically) trained young kid he wouldn't have made it," the Alfred's Prof Thomas Kossman said yesterday. If he pulls through, Marco will have to spend about a year in hospital and learn to walk again. Ten teenagers in a group of 13 were hit when a station wagon careered out of control across Myall Rd, in Cardross near Mildura, about 9.40pm on Saturday. Killed instantly were brother and sister Shane and Abby Hirst, 16 and 17, Cory Dowling, 16, Stevie-Lee Weight, 15, and Cassandra Manners, 16. They were waiting by the roadside to be picked up after leaving a party. Matthew Medici said he was shattered by the deaths and injuries. "It was a very sad thing to hear. All these kids were only just beginning to find out what the world's all about," he said. "To all the families of the other kids, our hearts go out to them. Stay strong for the sake of the kids." Mr Medici said he was very upset when Josie's uncle rang him late Sunday to say she had died. The Medici family are maintaining a bedside vigil as they pray for Marco's recovery. "I'm going to be here until he's up on his feet again," Mr Medici said. "He left home Saturday night a perfect healthy boy and now he'll have to spend the next 12 months in hospital." Another of Marco's best friends, Michael O'Donnell, said the young mechanic was probably the shortest in his group of mates, but the tallest when it came to character. "He sticks up for his friends. He's done that a few times. He's a very loyal friend," he said. Marco left school after Year 8 to become a mechanic -- thanks to his father Vince's background in the drag racing scene. "He found a '56 Cadillac in one of the car mags," Mr Medici said. "He said he was going to buy it and cruise in it until its wheels fell off. It's sad that he's now lying fighting for his life in a hospital bed. "I love that kid."
One daughter is celebrated with the words of another
By Jo Chandler A TINY woman of disproportionate strength stood before a couple of thousand people in Mildura yesterday to present a gift, from one grieving mother to another. At the funeral of 16-year-old Cassandra Manners, Carmel Calvi rose to read two poems written by her daughter, who was Cassie's best friend. The young poet, Josephine Calvi, also 16, will be buried on Monday.
The first poem celebrates the tight bonds of young female friendship, the
excitement of what lies ahead, the
pacts It talks of a book in which the girls have recorded their thoughts and dreams. "At the end of year 12, when we go our separate ways, we will dig up the book and have a gaze." The poem was written when Josie was toying with the idea of moving schools, a notion she eventually discarded. "I won't say goodbye till the very last breath." And if that was not enough, then came the second verse, which Carmel Calvi told Sharon Manners from the podium of the packed basketball stadium that she wanted to read because it captured what Josie and Cassie were to each other: "Love is not forever, love is not to stay. Love is quite painful, it hurts you in many ways, "It's only one sort of love that's forever, it's only one sort of love that stays, "It's the love of friendship, a friendship like yours and mine." Cassandra and Josephine, along with their friends Stevie-Lee Weight, 15, Abby Hirst, 17, her brother Shane, 16, and Cory Dowling, 16, were killed after a station wagon ploughed into a group of 13 teenagers outside Mildura last Saturday night. The funeral of Cassandra Renee Manners opened with a Britney Spears song, one of Cassie's favourites — I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman. Sixteen friends then lit 16 candles. Her sister, Kirsten, remembered Cassandra's love of watching footy, cricket and tennis. Her talent for gymnastics. Her winning rock eisteddfod performances. The marathon shopping trips in the city. Her gift for sensing if anyone had disturbed anything in her room. Her love of books. The blushes that would cover her "from the top of her head to the tip of her toes — she hated this aspect of her make-up". She also had "the world record for sending text messages — 1300 in one month … (but) only after 8pm". Friends remembered Cassandra for her smile, her bursts of laughter, and her tendency to talk so fast they struggled to understand her. They brought flowers, toys, and a Tigers scarf to drape over her casket before forming a guard of honour. Mildura Senior College chaplain Colin Cole, who conducted the service, said he could not provide any explanation for the tragedy, and that there was no magic remedy for the pain it had caused. He told the congregation — dominated by teenagers, many supported by their parents — that while life would never be the same, their grief could "if you let it, be the catalyst of a better appreciation of life". The mourners included uniformed senior representatives of the police, fire brigade, ambulance and SES. A police escort preceded the funeral cortege. Copyright © 2006. The Age Company Ltd.
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"They
were good kids but they were buggers of kids too, like every kid," mother
Kerry Prowse told the Herald Sun last night.
on the
hyphen to all three of her girls — Stevie-Lee, Milly-Rae and Monica-Rose.
Happy
times: This is the last photo of Josie Calvi and Marco Medici, taken just
hours before a hit-run driver took six lives. Josie, 16, and Marco, 15, were
pictured at a birthday party in Cardross, near Mildura, just before the tragedy.
Josie died. Marco is fighting for his life.
and promises to share the future and not lose the past.