Victoria Bitter: The Jaidyn Leskie Story

Once Upon A Time in Moe

The city of Moe was once a prosperous place, a hard-working town carved out of the rocky highlands of Gippsland, a few hours drive from the Old Empire splendor of Melbourne. There were riches in the ground there, not gold or opals, but coal, enough of it to entice an army of laborers and technicians to do their part for a nation that was just beginning to struggle with industrialization. In a brief time, the promise of Moe lured men with strong backs and a willingness to work, and in turn, the ample supply of natural resources and available labor convinced the government to establish a power plant in the hills not far from the city.

It was a boom time for Moe and the people who lived in its prim cottages, prayed in its churches, and studied in its schools, a life of working-class comfort supported in large part by the largess of the government. But within the past generation, it all started to fall apart. The government, rethinking its commitment to the kind of gentle socialism it had practiced, divested its interests in Moe in the early 90s, and the free market took its toll on the town.

There are, of course, still pleasant neighborhoods in the city. There are still those in Moe who trim their gardens regularly and paint the eaves of their houses when they need to. But by the time Jaidyn Leskie was born on April 30, 1996, the city had become a haven for the underclass. As Jane Freeman, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, put it, the town became a dumping ground for Melbournes single mothers because of its cheap government housing. It had in fact, earned the derisive nickname, The Moccasin City.

To many -- journalists and social commentators among them -- young Jaidyn Leskie would become the poster child for the chaos, poverty and social disintegration that had gripped Moe, and other parts of Australia, in the mid to late 90s.

That decay was reflected in the vaguely incestuous collection of adults who passed for Jaidyns family. First among them was his mother, Bilynda, a hard-drinking young bottle blonde who had a tender heart and bad habit of falling for odd and quirky men.

Outside of Jaidyn, the most significant relationship in her life was with her sister, Kadee, a zaftig woman who liked to describe herself as a wild child. She had run away from home at 14, after changing her name from the more prosaic Katie, a decision she took, she said, for no other reason than to piss off the adults in her life. Her penchant for provocation continued into adulthood, and so did another adolescent trait. She seemed to harbor a kind of seething envy for her younger and prettier sister even though there was undeniable love between the two.

In a way, Jaidyn Leskie was a product of that schizophrenic enmity, at least thats the opinion of journalists and others who have probed the relationship between the two sisters. In the early 1990s, Kadee married a directionless young mechanic named Brett Leskie and together, they had a child. But their marriage was short-lived, and after the birth of a single child, Harley, the couple split. Within a month perhaps before that, according to some, Bilynda had taken up with Brett Leskie.

Leskie family photo

Though the couple never married, they had two children. A year after their relationship began they had a daughter whom they named Brehanna, an amalgamation, according to journalist Michael Gleeson of the Melbourne Age, of two of Bilyndas favorite names, Briana, the moniker of a checkout girl at a local supermarket, and Hanna, the name of one of her aunts. On April 30, Jaidyn was born. His name was taken from a guest Bilynda had once seen on The Rikki Lake Show.

From the beginning, the relationship between Brett Leskie and Bilynda Murphy was shaky. Journalists would later hear tales of how Kadee, apparently still seething with jealousy, sought to break up the relationship, trying, with apparent success, to persuade her impressionable young sister that Brett Leskie never really loved her. In time, the doubts that Kadee planted took root, Bilynda would later tell journalists, and though the couple never really formally ended their relationship, Brett Leskie ultimately became convinced that his best chance for success in life lay in Western Australia across the desert that covers most of the continent.