Linda Reynolds, 49, from Wollongong, NSW, shares her true life story;
Gasping for breath, I felt tears running down my face.
My younger brother, Mick, had cracked us all up by telling us how our pet duck had attacked him.
“He latched onto my privates and wouldn’t let go,” he chuckled. “The harder everyone tried to pull, the tighter the bloody thing’s grip was!”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“Ah, Mick, it could only happen to you,” I sighed.
He’d always been a character.
His three sons adored him and he was well known in the community as he played cricket and darts, and had a habit of walking everywhere so he was always bumping into people for a chat.
He’d never learned to drive, but people always stopped and offered him lifts, so it didn’t really matter.
Eight years ago, he’d lost the use of his left arm in an accident at the meat-packing plant where he worked.
It had been difficult for him to get a job after that, so he moved back home with both our parents.
After separating from his partner, I think he was enjoying having some time to himself.
Not long after the move, he met a woman named Rachel.
“Is she your girlfriend?” I asked curiously.
“Nah, just a friend,” he insisted.
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Mick said they’d met on one of his walks, when she’d asked him for directions.
I later learned that she’d been kicked out of her rental property and bought a tent, which she’d pitched by a lake.
Feeling sorry for her, my soft-hearted mum and dad let her stay at their place with Mick until she got back on her feet.
She’d also brought her cat, Angel, who she doted on.
“Rachel’s not Mick’s usual type,” Mum confided. “When things don’t go her way, she gets really angry at him. She’s very bossy.”
My other two brothers also couldn’t work out what he saw in her.
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My younger brother Mick was a real character.
Working at a hospital, I did shifts and hadn’t had the chance to meet Rachel.
Anyway, whatever romance they had started to fizzle out after six weeks.
She left my parents’ home to go back to living in her tent.
Mick told Mum that Rachel was always losing the plot so he’d ended it.
A couple of days later, I opened the front door to two policemen.
“It’s your brother, Mick,” one said.
My blood ran cold as I ushered them in.
“I’m afraid he was stabbed,” one began. My hand flew to my mouth.
“…and he died last night. We’ve got a female in custody.”
Rachel! It had to be.
My family and I are shattered.
My legs buckled as I processed the awful news.
When they told my parents, poor Mum collapsed on the floor.
Apparently Rachel had stabbed Mick in the back and admitted to it.
It was my other younger brother’s birthday, and my son was getting married the following week.
This should have been a happy time.
By the time it reached court, I finally saw Rachel for the first time.
“What a mutt,” I gasped to my husband.
She was so dowdy and mean looking.
We discovered that Mick had gone to Rachel’s tent the night he died to collect his stuff.
Rachel said she’d stabbed him in self-defence because she was scared he was trying to get in the tent.
“He was armed with an umbrella,” she said.
“Self-defence?” I scoffed. “He was stabbed in the back!”
And he had an umbrella because it was raining.
But the strangest thing of all was Rachel’s motive: her cat had been run over, and she blamed Mick.
Rachel Impson leaving court
Photo credit: Brook Mitchell
“I know you killed Angel, watch your back c***,” she’d texted him.
Everyone knew Mick didn’t drive!
The next day, she stabbed him.
Rachel Impson, 42, admitted to manslaughter but denied murder, claiming she had a mental illness.
She was found guilty of Mick’s murder and received 18 years with a 12-year non-parole period.
This senseless killing has absolutely shattered my entire family.
Mick was a loving dad, son and brother who was everyone’s mate.
He could make anyone smile.
To have lost him because of a cat and an umbrella is almost too much for us to bear.
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