He thought his marriage was perfect till his wife tried to k.i.l.l him
Chris Satiru grew up as the son of Andrew and Lula in a close Greek-Croatian family that immigrated to Australia in nineteen seventy-six.
He had a brother and two sisters. After leaving school he became a civil engineer and a successful one.
By his twenties he was already earning good money. In nineteen ninety-one he met Vicki Scarletus at the house of a mutual friend.
He liked what he saw, but he was already married and nothing happened. A year later Chris ended that marriage when he learned his first wife had been unfaithful.
Soon after, Vicki tracked him down and they started dating. Throughout their relationship, in the cards she gave him on special occasions, she always included the line “Love you to death.”
Chris was besotted with her. The same could not be said of his family, especially his sister Sula, who never trusted Vicki from the first day she met her.
Vicki came across as fake. She was the kind of person who could cause trouble yet somehow emerge looking clean.
In November nineteen ninety-four Chris and Vicki got married. No expense was spared. It was over the top and they were head over heels in love.
They had their first child two years later. They tried for more children without success, so Vicki went on an IVF program and in two thousand eight they were blessed with twins.
At home and at work, where his business was booming, Chris thought his life and his wife were perfect.
His brother John had misgivings. He could not pinpoint exactly why, but he knew the character of that woman was not truthful.
She looked kind of off from day one. Chris could not see that side of her because he loved her.
He did everything she asked. Clothes, luxury holidays, European cars, and jewelry. Chris showered Vicki in gifts and cash.
She received one thousand dollars a week just for pocket money. A hairdresser came to the house twice a week.
She never cooked. They ate out all the time. It was a dream life. Whatever she wanted, Vicki got.
But Vicki wanted more. In two thousand five at Preston Markets in Melbourne she met Tony Alexowski.
They exchanged phone numbers and soon began meeting in secret. It was not a romantic affair for him.
It was just an affair. It continued for months. Then one night in a Preston motel Vicki put a question to Tony that until now he had never spoken publicly about.
She said she wanted him to kill her husband and would give him fifty thousand dollars cash.
He was shocked and said no immediately. He told her that if she did not love him she should simply divorce him.
He thought it was a bad joke. Soon after, Vicki ended their relationship. In December two thousand six she turned forty.
Her devoted husband bought her a twelve-thousand-dollar dress. He also paid for the lavish birthday bash she had with girlfriends at Crown Casino that night.
The night she met her next lover. Ari Deatracus was a limo driver who had once briefly dated Vicki when she was in her twenties.
Following their chance meeting at the casino they began a torrid affair. Vicki sent him erotic cards and texts that contained the words “Till death do us part.”
Her betrayal of her husband included having the letter A for Ari tattooed on her wedding ring finger and on the back of her neck where her hair kept it hidden.
Apparently Ari had a tattoo of her name on his groin. Chris knew nothing. On January second, two thousand ten, on his forty-fourth birthday, Chris woke up feeling the luckiest man alive.
It was a beautiful day. She gave him a card and a present, a white shirt.
The card had beautiful words: to my dearest husband, thank you for making me the happiest woman in the world, thank you for loving me so much, the wife that adores you.
Then she said she was popping out to get some milk and was gone for nearly a couple of hours.
When she came back he asked why it took so long. She said she had to take some money out.
They then got ready for the surprise dinner she had arranged. At his wife’s request Chris put on the white shirt she had bought him.
Vicki insisted on driving, something she never normally did. She started driving and said it was his lucky night.
She was being very flirtatious, grabbing him and saying they were running late, that he was getting the full treat.
He thought it was good. Happy days. Going to get lucky. But Vicki did not park anywhere near the restaurant in Fitzroy.
Instead she parked half a kilometer away in a dimly lit street where later that night a big man in a bright white shirt would be easy to spot.
She turned left into a very secluded side street. He asked where they were going.
She said she was just going to park there because they were running late and could not be bothered looking for parking.
They then walked to the restaurant, arriving around nine o’clock. His best friends were there, his best man, their wives.
Great food, seafood, platters of meat, and lots of drinks. Throughout the night Vicki was particularly attentive to Chris.
She hugged him for a photo and was exuberantly happy. At around ten thirty she left the table.
Chris thought she had gone outside for a cigarette, but in fact she had gone to meet her lover to show him where her car was.
Earlier that day she had supplied him with the intended murder weapon, a twenty-four-centimeter razor-sharp knife from her own kitchen.
The knife had been a Christmas present from Chris to Vicki. She then snuck back into the restaurant.
When he asked where she had been she said she was in the bathroom. During the court proceedings it was revealed she had been crying for nearly half an hour.
At the end of his surprise birthday dinner Chris and Vicki walked down the street on their way back to their car.
It was eleven forty-five. CCTV captured Chris being led by his wife to be killed.
He was carrying leftover drinks in one hand and some presents. She was carrying another bag.
She said he had a great night. He said yes, had a great night, and kept thanking her.
They were walking back hugging and laughing and cuddling and reminiscing how beautiful the night was.
He felt as if he was the luckiest man in the world. As they approached the car he saw a guy sitting next to it crouching.
He asked whether the man was breaking into the car. She quickly replied no, it was not that car, it was the car behind.
She broke away from holding him and walked into the middle of the street. She was still holding the keys and pressed the remote.
She left his side and walked away. He went and questioned the man. He said, “You all right, mate?”
As he lifted his head the man grabbed him from the jacket and slit his throat.
There was no feeling. It was just shock. He felt the blood run down his chest, a warm fluid running down his body.
It happened so faSt. He started throwing punches. He hit the man across the jaw and face.
The man dropped the knife. Chris remembered the sound of it dropping. He was starting to lose consciousness and tried to reach out for Vicki, asking where she was.
He yelled for her to run. He fell against the fence. Then he felt a knife digging into his torso.
He was stabbed twice in the back. He remembered saying to Vicki that if he did not make it she should just look after the kids.
That was all he remembered. He thought he saw her watching him getting killed from the middle of the street.
Then someone was saying stay with him. Chris lived that night for one reason. Two off-duty doctors were parking their car up the street when they heard him scream.
They ran to help. Ari ran away, dropping the knife. While one doctor called an ambulance the other tried to stop the bleeding.
Vicki was acting hysterically and began clawing at the doctor’s hands. When Chris was being assisted she tried to push the hands away.
The doctor had to stop her and say he was trying to save her husband.
She wanted him dead. Within three minutes paramedics arrived. A big man was lying on his back on the footpath.
Beside him a lady was screaming, wailing, hysterical. There were lots of people around. Chris was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital nine minutes away.
As they went along he found it harder and harder to breathe due to punctured lungs.
His vital signs were going the wrong way. When they arrived he had no blood pressure.
The paramedic did not think he was going to survive. Chris felt no pain. He just went to sleep peacefully.
He saw a bright light. He was certain this was death. At the hospital his brother saw him lying naked on the bed with the cut under his neck and prayed.
The night they took him in it was touch and go. They did not think he was going to make it.
The police tried to tell the family it was a robbery that went wrong. John could not swallow it.
There was no way a robbery would have gone wrong when Vicki was standing next to him with fifty thousand dollars worth of jewelry on her.
Chris was in a coma for ten days. When he woke up the family celebrated.
His brother had his arm around Vicki saying how great it was that he was going to live.
She was miles away. John left the hospital with his mother and said Vicki was playing them.
His mother called him heartless and said she was going through depression. John insisted something did not seem right.
He believed Vicki thought by killing Chris and hiding the evidence no one would ever find out she was the evil person behind it.
She was living a double life, being the perfect wife and then at night out with a boyfriend planning his brother’s death.
The first time Chris remembered seeing Vicki after waking was when she was crying over him.
She said once he got out she wanted to go to Greece for a long time and grab the kids and just go away.
He said okay. When Vicki led her unsuspecting husband to be ambushed by her lover her motive was money as much as it was luSt. As a divorced husband he was probably worth three million.
As a dead husband he was probably worth seven million. In hospital in a coma Chris fought to live.
By his bedside Vicki played the distraught wife. She wanted to be the victim, the poor widow.
She wanted to play the whole scene. But suspicion began to fall on Vicki and police hinted as much to Chris’s brother.
Ten days after the stabbing Chris woke from his coma. John was there early in the morning.
Chris woke up and asked for Vicki, telling John to tell her he loved her.
John stood there thinking only if you knew. He gave Chris a big kiss and hug and said the police had him, they were moving in.
Chris whispered that was great and asked who. John said they would not tell him.
He knew at that moment he would break his brother’s heart if he told him.
Vicki came around nine in the morning. John conveyed the same news. She turned pale.
That same day a panicked Vicki rang police to tell them she suspected her lover Ari was responsible.
Later that day she went alone to Richmond police station and confessed that she and Ari had organized it.
She said it was stupid, absolutely silly. It was the strangest thing, a woman sitting there admitting she wanted to kill her husband and still not really being responsible for what had happened.
When asked who did the actual stabbing she said she did not know. She thought it was Ari but was not sure.
She tried to appeal to the detective’s motherly side about her children. The senior constable believed Vicki had formed the mistaken view that the investigators were her friends and that she could manipulate them.
She thought they would just let her go, that it was a silly thing to do.
Outside in the backyard John got the phone call from his wife saying it was Vicki.
He felt so sick. He screamed. The tears flowed. He could not stop. The next day the family and police went to break the news to Chris.
John said they got him. Chris asked who. John told him it was Vicki and her lover.
Chris lost it. He wanted to rip all his tubes off. He said no. About five of them tried to calm him down.
He wanted to jump out the window. He wanted to die. Back at the police station Vicki wanted her lover to take the fall.
She claimed Ari had stalked her and her children for months before finally forcing her to join his murder plot.
She said she did not really want Chris dead. He kept forcing her and she just thought yes all right.
Ari also lied and denied. There was no way she or Ari were going to walk free.
When that did not happen Vicki’s bravado broke down. Realization dawned and her whole world collapsed.
In late two thousand eleven she went to trial and pleaded not guilty. The jury did not believe her.
Judge Elizabeth Curtain was scathing about the depth of Vicki’s betrayal. Her husband had provided her with an affluent lifestyle and from the sentiments in the birthday card she was prepared to have him believe he was loved and appreciated.
In truth she wanted him dead. Vicki’s family refused to accept the truth. They tried to turn everything on Chris, claiming he had organized his own murder plot.
Worse was to come. Before she was convicted Vicki, in an act of pure evil, told their daughter Marie the same twisted story, convincing the teenager that her father had masterminded his own stabbing to frame her mom.
Marie and Chris have been estranged ever since. If Marie is watching, Chris hopes she is okay.
This is his story. This is the truth. His door will always be open. Vicki Satiru was found guilty by jury verdict of the attempted murder of her husband Chris Satiru.
As soon as the family heard she was guilty they clapped and the whole court clapped.
Then they all started crying from joy that she was going to get punished. She was convicted and sentenced to twelve years imprisonment.
It has taken a long time, but physically and mentally Chris is in a good place.
He is so grateful he survived and is around to see his twins grow up.
They have asked where their mother is after a little girl saw the scars on his body at the beach.
He told them mommy did it and that she is in jail. That is one of the questions he is really challenged with.
How does he tell them more. The will to get over something like this is absolutely brilliant.
He is also lucky that he has met a new partner who is standing by him and loving him and bringing the children up as if they are her own.
He has a second chance. She is a beautiful soul. He does not spoil her as he used to spoil Vicki, but he is very grateful they found each other and have an opportunity to grow all together.
