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divert police from the investigation’s focus.
    Kylee, as well as Scott’s parents, had made tearful public appeals for those with information to come forward, and there had been several TV programmes devoted to the case. But as the Guy family marked its first Christmas without Scott, to many there was a sense that police had run out of ideas and the investigation had stalled.
    All that was to change in the New Year, though, when police finally decided to release a vital piece of information to the public.

CHAPTER 4

A suspect emerges
    At the beginning of 2011, Sue Schwalger’s investigation team sat down and reassessed where the inquiry was at. New information from the public had almost totally dried up and existing leads had been exhausted. In December the full-time investigation team of 40 had been reduced to 24. By January this was cut to 14 and the General and Suspects squads of the investigation were combined. Schwalger had to admit to media they still didn’t know why Scott had been killed, let alone who had killed him.
    As police reconsidered the investigation’s direction, they decided to concentrate on what they called the ‘previous incidents’ phase and people who had issues with Scott Guy. They also formed a strong view that the arson and vandalism against Scott and Kylee’s property were connected to the murder, something many people had always believed. Ironically, even Ewen Macdonald’s father, Kerry, had told police two weeks after the murder, ‘My thoughts and gut feeling is that there’s some connection with the arson at Scott’s house and then the vandalism and now the murder.’
    So from January, the investigation team’s focus fell on Ewen Macdonald, primarily due to the fact that several people had pointed to friction between Macdonald and Scott and tension over the farm’s future ownership. While many had mentioned this, few really considered Macdonald could be the murderer, his links to Scott being too close, and their differences being typical of families in business together.
    Police had drip-fed information to the public throughout the investigation but remained silent about much of what they had discovered, not wanting to give the culprit any warning or advantage. But in early February 2011, in an attempt to spark a response from the public, they released details of the vandalism to Scott and Kylee’s house, including photos of the graffiti painted on the walls. Though the spelling was erratic, some of the lettering was distinctive and they thought somebody might recognise the style. Better still, they hoped someone would know about the attack and come forward.
    They got what they wanted.
    When the photos of the graffiti were published in the paper, the boss of Manawatu building company Turbine Residential, Ricky Crutchley, thought he recognised the handwriting of a former employee, Callum Boe. As he told the police, ‘My wife was at work and I was at home at the time we saw the newspaper with the graffiti. We both had the same thought when we saw it—that it was Callum’s writing. I reached straight for his timesheets to look at those, thinking, “I bet that’s how Callum writes.” I certainly think there are some similarities in the writing.’
    Boe’s parents had both died when he was young. After that he’d been raised by his grandparents, Dave and Rema Casey, at Colyton, not far from Byreburn, while his older brother, Reon, went to live with their other set of grandparents. The Guys wanted to help him so they gave him weekend and holiday work, and when Callum left school he went to work on the farm full-time, assisting Ewen Macdonald with the dairying operation. He formed a good friendship with Macdonald, even though he was quite a bit younger, and the pair used to go hunting often. At work they’d joke around in what some described as a slightly silly, childish way.
    Boe had left the farm in 2007 to take up a building apprenticeship with Crutchley, but he and