Enough is Enough

Road to Redemption

Reporter: Ray Martin

26 June 2009

RAY MARTIN: Goulburn was Australia's first inland town, a colonial settlement built on sheep and gold, but long ago it also became home to Australia's toughest prison. Maximum security is where we lock up our worst criminals. Men like Karl Kramer, put away for the murder of teenager Michael Marslew. Today, after 14 years, Karl Kramer will walk out of the joint a free man. Waiting for him outside is young Michael's father, Ken Marslew. In those minutes before Kramer came out, what were you thinking?

KEN MARSLEW: Oh Ray, all sorts of things. Am I doing the right thing, do I really want to be here?

RAY MARTIN: Ken is not here for revenge. Incredibly, he's here to offer Karl Kramer a second chance.

KEN MARSLEW: Welcome to the real world.

KARL KRAMER: Yeah, the 21st century.

KEN MARSLEW: You look different - out of green.

RAY MARTIN: I found it quite surreal with none of Kramer's family there to meet him, just the killer and his victim's dad. I don't believe that for one minute.

KEN MARSLEW: He looked different. He looked free.

RAY MARTIN: While everyone else has dumped Karl, Ken is giving him a chance at redemption. He has even offered him a job.

RAY MARTIN: Karl, what did you feel when you walked out today and saw Ken there waiting?

KARL KRAMER: Sadness.

RAY MARTIN: Sadness?

KARL KRAMER: Not sadness for me, but I felt his pain, his sadness.

RAY MARTIN: 15 years later?

KARL KRAMER: Every time I see him that's what I feel.

RAY MARTIN: Ken, why do you care about Karl Kramer?

KEN MARSLEW: I have a relationship with this guy whether I like it or not, and it started the night Michael was murdered, even though I didn't know who the hell he was. A relationship.

RAY MARTIN: There was a time in your life when you wanted to kill Karl Kramer.

KEN MARSLEW: Absolutely.

RAY MARTIN: Yesterday was your chance.

KEN MARSLEW: I didn't do it.

KEN MARSLEW: The best way I can describe it is, I owe Ken Marslew more than any other human being.

RAY MARTIN: So, without Ken, you would have stepped out of prison today a dangerous man?

KARL KRAMER: If I hadn't of had him to turn to at that moment, I would be one dangerous, dangerous, mother****er.

RAY MARTIN: It was here, in suburban Jannali, that 18-year-old Michael Marslew was murdered. He was a university student, just working part-time at the local pizza takeaway which has now gone. Karl Kramer didn't fire the shotgun, he was waiting in the getaway car across the road, but he was the one who organised the robbery. At the murder trial, he pleaded guilty. A few moments of madness left a young man dead and a family devastated.

KEN MARSLEW: If I got carried away with what I'm not going to have because I've lost Michael, where would I be? The grandkids I'm never going to see, the potential his life was. If I stayed in that place, I would never move forward.

RAY MARTIN: But before they can tackle the future, they have to confront the past. When this man talks of his son killed 15 years ago, that makes you cry?

KARL KRAMER: Yeah, of course.

RAY MARTIN: What do you feel if you cry?

KARL KRAMER: I feel his pain.

RAY MARTIN: Will you ever get rid of that?

KARL KRAMER: No, I don't want to.

RAY MARTIN: Four men were involved in Michael's callous and cold-blooded murder. Kramer and his brother, Andrew, Douglas Edwards, the getaway driver, and Vincent Piller - the man who pulled the trigger. Today, all four are free. At the time of their arrest, Ken Marslew was full of hate and wanted revenge. If you had the chance, if you had a gun, Would you have shot them?

KEN MARSLEW: Oh definitely. I didn't care what happened to me, you see. At the stage all I wanted to do was to get even. I was living that philosophy of a father - anyone touches your kids you kill 'em. That guy still lives in here, I just manage him a little better that I used to.

RAY MARTIN: Ken admits that for a while, his anger at Michael's senseless murder drove him crazy. But slowly, he turned that energy into a single-minded anti-violence crusade. Instead of wanting to kill Kramer Ken wanted to talk to him, and maybe even understand him.

ARCHIVE FOOTAGE - REPORTER: Would you like to confront your son's killers personally?

KEN MARSLEW: Yes, I would.

END ARCHIVE FOOTAGE.

RAY MARTIN: Ken got that chance four years after Michael's death. In a kind of shaming ceremony, and a world first, when Kramer agreed to a face-to-face meeting with Michael's family and friends.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE:

KEN MARSLEW: Maybe I can pose a question here - have either of you got children?

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE:

KARL KRAMER: I have.

KEN MARSLEW: Something that you really love, you hold closely and you plan the future? You see the potential this person has, and four maggots come out of the dark - cowardly things - and take it away, just like that.

RAY MARTIN: For the first time he was confronted with the pain he caused to Ken and Michael's mother, Joan Griffiths.

JOAN MARSLEW: All his eyelids were full of blood and his hair. And the bullets had come through his face. His little eyes were a bit open, like they were when he slept. I though he was asleep. so I went over to stroke him, I touched his hair and my hands were covered in blood. He was dead.

KEN MARSLEW: There is nothing I can say to you people, I don't have any excuses, none whatsoever. The fact is, you lost your son to a selfish act which I'm responsible for, and I can't change it.

KEN MARSLEW: I am going to be your nightmare for the rest of your time in jail, because you are going to do something to make a difference because of what you did to Michael. You think about it. END OF ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE FROM PRISON MEETING.

RAY MARTIN: That was 10 years ago today. Kramer is also talking about making difference in a way Ken could never have imagined. He wants Kramer to join him counselling wayward and violent kids. ... and then you come out of the wings, and actually do it.

KEN MARSLEW: I see an opportunity to use the relationship that we've got to perhaps break the cycle of violence, of crime, that some of these kids are heading down. That's it.

RAY MARTIN: Have you spent time counselling others in prison?

KARL KRAMER: Of course.

RAY MARTIN: An amateur psychologist?

KARL KRAMER: Not an amateur. I've got a Phd you can't get in university. I got mine in the penitentiary.

RAY MARTIN: So you think you're qualified to say to young people, "This is not the way to go?"

KARL KRAMER: Not talk to them, not preach to them, not tell them what they already know, right, but to sit beside them because I am them.

RAY MARTIN: He may be walking and talking with Karl Kramer, but Ken Marslew insists this is not about forgiveness.

KEN MARSLEW: Don't get the idea that this bloke is a mate, 'cause that's not what this is about. I haven't forgiven the guy. Let's see what the future brings. At this stage of the process, I have let go of the hate. End of story.

RAY MARTIN: For his crime, Karl Kramer has spent most of his adult life behind bars. Today he's a free man with plenty to catch up on. Want to make a phone call?

KARL KRAMER: I'm all confused already. What would I do with this?

RAY MARTIN: So you haven't seen a mobile phone at all?

KARL KRAMER: The old ones, the analogs, but I haven't really used one. WAITRESS: Can I help you? Can I get you anything to drink?

KARL KRAMER: I haven't had a steak in 16 years, so I think I'll have a steak.

RAY MARTIN: You'd better make it a good one after 16 years. And what we take for granted, for Kramer has a very different meaning. So what does it mean to be able to have a steak?

KARL KRAMER: That first piece symbolises my time is done, I've done my time in hard jail, and now I'm granted, by the law, a chance to live like everybody else again.

RAY MARTIN: But while society and Ken may accept Kramer's done his time, there are some who will never forgive him.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE FROM PRISON VISIT:

JOAN MARSLEW: I've got something for you, because it's Christmas. and when Christmas comes and you think about your family this is what I will spend my Christmas day with, (Drops plasic bag of ashes on the floor) That's what's left of my son, that's what you've left me. I hope you're very proud of yourselves.

(END OF ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE)

RAY MARTIN: Can you understand his ex-wife and Michael's mother saying, "I don't forgive, I want you to rot in hell"?

KARL KRAMER: Absolutely. Absolutely.

RAY MARTIN: What would you say to her today, 15 years later?

KARL KRAMER: I'm not worthy of even offering her my words.

RAY MARTIN: They think you're doing the wrong thing. They think you could have got rid of the hate and the veangance without actually going to Kramer?

KEN MARSLEW: Sure, but so do a lot of other people, as well. But if they can't handle what I do, that's their problem, it's not mine. I can't change what's happened. I've lost Michael, right, I can't change that, but I can make a conscious decision with what I do with the rest of my life, and I choose not to wallow in self pity.

RAY MARTIN: Ken still visits Michael's grave every month. His son's memory is what has driven him for the last 15 years. He is obsessive and relentless, you have to be if you're going to make a difference.

KEN MARSLEW: Those that say that I'm twisted, that I'm doing the wrong thing, you know, comments like, "You've let your son down, you're a coward, "you mustn't have loved your son," how do you reckon that registers in here? And I listen to it and I say, "That's your journey, it's not my journey." I'm OK with what I do, Ray.

KEN MARSLEW to KARL KRAMER at prison release: Well, you're out. you're getting a sense of that freedom, look forward to making a difference with you. Take care.

KARL KRAMER: I'll see you soon, and I will be there Ken. I'll be there.

RAY MARTIN: You'd have to say it's unusual for a man to lose his son and then go back to one of the killers and say...

KARL KRAMER: Extremely. I would say it's unusual, it's courageous, it shows a fortitude and a strength that I know I wouldn't be capable of.

RAY MARTIN: As a father of a boy about the same age of Michael when he died, I don't think I could have done what you have done. I couldn't accept Kramer.

KEN MARSLEW: Look, how do you know? Had you been where I've been, Ray, you might have a different view of the thing altogether. Maybe you wouldn't, maybe you don't agree with me, that's entirely up to you, you've got an opinion and so do I. I'm just hoping that I can show other dads that there is a better way than curling up in the corner and just literally dying inside. There is a better way to deal with this stuff.

Enough is Enough

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