When Love Turns To Hate

Yazmina Acar was a curly-haired moppet who sang to her grandmother in French and rode a pink Barbie bike. She loved dancing and finger-painting and hugs. She loved her daddy too, of course, and he loved her - but, sadly, not enough to stop him taking a knife and stabbing her until her organs were exposed.

Ramazan Acar didn't just kill his only child, he slaughtered her, six days short of her third birthday. Just how he could bring himself to do it is an interesting question. At his pre-sentence hearing, after he'd pleaded guilty to murdering Yazmina on November 17 last year, the court was told Acar sympathised with Arthur Freeman, the father who threw his daughter to her death from the Westgate Bridge. No doubt he also understood where Robert Farquharson was coming from when he drove his car into a dam and drowned his three sons. But those killer dads, as horrific as their crimes were, didn't physically wound their children. Acar went one step further. He found it within himself to take a knife as long as Yazmina's torso and plunge it in, again and again, in a violent frenzy. The answer to how he could do that to his own flesh and blood lies in the complex relationship between love and hate. While Ramazan Acar loved his daughter, he hated her mother more. Yazmina's murder is a prime example of how love can turn to hate on a dime.

Ramazan Acar and Rachelle D'Argent were childhood sweethearts. His family was Turkish, she had a French mother, but the cultural differences weren't an issue. When his parents moved to Griffith, he found himself having to choose between his family and his girlfriend. He chose Rachelle, and moved back to Melbourne to be with her. When Yazmina was born in November 2006, she was the light of their lives. But throughout her infancy, her parents had more offs than ons in their relationship, due mainly to her father's propensity towards domestic violence. He threatened his girlfriend. He hit her. Coming from a mobile phone generation, he harrassed her with calls and texts. He knew he had a problem and had sought counselling and treatment more than once, so Rachelle gave him chances. But, as a therapist noted, he didn't have the internal resources to change. And chronic amphetamine abuse made things even worse. Eventually, Rachelle decided enough was enough, and she called things off for good, three months before the murder.
It was around this time that one passion within Ramazan Acar started manifesting itself as another. The love he had felt for Rachelle D'Argent since his mid-teens was quickly becoming the opposite emotion. She wouldn't let him see Yazmina and that stung. He suspected that not only did she not want to be with him, she was seeing someone else. He tried that tack too, but came on too strong, and when the new woman cooled things four days into their courtship, because he was coming on too strong, he told her she'd burned his heart.
Driving offences meant Acar had the threat of a jail term hanging over his head. It was the final straw, and he told his family he'd be better off walking into a police station with a knife so officers would shoot him and end his misery. On the day he killed his daughter, it was clear from the moment he woke up that something wasn't right. He quit his labouring job, then went to his grandmother's grave and drank. He posted morbid messages on Facebook and sent bizarre texts to his ex. When she arrived at her Hallam home later that afternoon, she found him sitting in his car with a 30cm decorative knife on his lap. When Yazmina saw him, she bounded up to him, starry-eyed, and played in and around his car for twenty minutes. The knife sat on the dashboard. Rachelle stood nearby.

When he was told it was time to leave, Acar pleaded for one last favour. He wanted to give his daughter a treat, by taking her to the milk bar to buy a Kinder Surprise. Rachelle knew that while 'Ramzy' was capable of hurting himself, the idea of him hurting their child wasn't on her radar, so she agreed. She became annoyed when he hadn't returned ten minutes later, but a text saying they were at McDonalds allayed her fears. When they failed to return a second time, though, alarm bells went off. Then her mobile phone started going off. It was Acar, and now his tone was chilling: "How does it feel to not have your child? I didn't have mine for three months."
That shocked her, but it was about to get worse. When she asked him to drop Yazmina at a police station, he said he'd do her no favours.
'Payback's a bitch. How does it feel?'
Then: 'Guess what, baby? You're not getting her back. I love you, Rachelle, and look what you've made me do. I have to decide whether to go 120kmh head on with another car or take the knife and put it through her throat.' Incredibly, and in another sign of the times, he found time to update his Facebook status and announce his intentions to his online world: 'Bout 2 kill ma kid.'
Rachelle wasn't a Facebook friend, so she couldn't read the post, but he expected mutual friends would see it and pass it on to her. He needn't have worried, though, that his point wasn't being heard. Rachelle knew by this stage that she was begging for her child's life, and she knew it was in vain when he responded, 'It's too late, it's too late,' and then delivered the line that sums up his crime: 'I love you more than her and that's why I'm doing this.'

There was a text message: 'I loved you.' Then, shortly after, 'It's ova. I did it.'
Actually, he hadn't done it. But he'd decided he was definitely going to. His Facebook status changed again: 'Pay bk u slut.' There was an eleventh hour phone conversation, with more desperate pleas from Rachelle to let Yazmina go and more assertions from Acar that he was on the verge of killing her. If he hadn't already ripped out his ex's heart, he gave it one final yank with the cruellest of taunts.
'Do you have any last words for her?'
As Yazmina's tiny voice came on the line telling her mother she loved her, it was all Rachelle D'Argent could do to tell her she loved her back. Then Acar hung up.
The next time Rachelle answered her phone, her daughter was dead. 'I've killed her,' Acar said coolly. This time he meant it. 'She's lying there next to me.' He said he could see her intestines. But that didn't seem to bother him, because he'd achieved his aim. 'I killed her, man, I killed her. I killed her to get back at you. I don't care. Even if I go behind bars, I know you're suffering.'
His tune changed somewhat over the following hours, when reality started dawning. His texts took on a more sombre tone: 'She's in heaven I feel lyk shit,' then, 'I lv u mimi.' Mimi was Yazmina's nickname.

After Acar was arrested, he told police in considerable detail what he'd done. He drove Yazmina across to his side of town, to the northern suburbs, and parked in a housing estate. She was playing, blissfully oblivious to the unfolding drama, outside the car. He picked up the knife and walked over to her. As the child of dark-haired, olive-skinned parents, Yazmina Acar had dark brown hair and rich, chocolatey eyes. They were the eyes of any almost-three-year-old: curious, mischievous, trusting. Those eyes were so striking that when Ramazan Acar stood in front of her with his knife, he couldn't help but note that they were full of worry. It didn't stop him though. She would have watched him as he stabbed her the first time, then she probably saw the knife go in a second time, a third, possibly more. Somehow, in the frenzy, Acar managed to avoid hitting her vital organs. That wasn't a good thing. It simply meant it took her longer to bleed to death, prolonging her pain.

Acar was embarrassed by the excessive size of the murder weapon, so while he dumped Yazmina's tiny body at the Greenvale housing estate, he offloaded the knife elsewhere. He set fire to his car but couldn't bring himself to end his own life. He told police he simply didn't have the balls.
It goes without saying that if Ramazan Acar wanted to ruin Rachelle D'Argent's life, he did. In her victim impact statement, which she bravely read to the court at his pre-sentence hearing, she described how her grief had turned to anger, and her thoughts were plagued by her loss. She could no longer sleep or study, instead passing each hour reflecting on how her days used to be filled: with singing, dancing and painting; with baths, toys, scooter rides and cuddles. She's also grieving the routine tasks she'll never share with her daughter: her first haircut, her first day of school, her first tooth. While she once had the joy of a bouncy toddler jumping into her arms for a hug, all she can hold now is Yazmina's clothes, photos and toys, and hope she's somewhere watching over her.

Now firmly entrenched in a high-security, protection unit in prison, Ramazan Acar has a new emotion to deal with: regret. While love, then hate, once consumed him, all his energy these days is funnelled into feeling sorry, both for himself and for what he's done. He had a pencil sharpener blade in his cell and was working up the nerve to end his life with it, but it was confiscated. He expects he will find the courage for suicide one day, but feels it's more likely fellow prisoners who're appalled by his crime will do the job for him. He dreads the long nights spent locked in his cell, because that's when he dwells most on what he's done. But even if his mind could forget, his body cannot. He's given himself permanent reminders in the form of jailhouse tattoos: Yazmina's initials on his stomach, and tears around his eyes. Scars he concedes he should bear for life.

And, so, to return to the question of how Ramazan Acar could do what he did,the answer isn't clear and leaves us wanting. He isn't a psychopath. It's not a case of being mad or bad. He was upset and acting strangely on the day of the murder, but he's not mentally ill. He's been diagnosed with what's known as a personality disorder, but all that means is he's prone to impulsivity, immaturity and substance abuse. Any one of us probably knows a handful of people who qualify for the same diagnosis. It boils down to him being what Justice Elizabeth Curtain summed up as 'an angry, young man.' He abused drugs and alcohol, but so do a lot of people who manage to get through each day without butchering anybody. There's no affliction or condition which makes it easier for the community to understand and accept why he committed his crime. Arthur Freeman and Robert Farquharson were also somewhat troubled but otherwise unremarkable men. The uncomfortable conclusion is that parental payback murders can and do happen and you simply can't pick who, or when, or what will tip the perpetrator over the edge. New parents who've gazed at each other in teary awe as they cradle their tiny miracle in hospital can one day find themselves glaring at each other across a courtroom, with one of them in the dock.
Yazmina Acar, with her grinning face and twinkling eyes, joins a line-up of child victims, alongside four-year-old Darcey Freeman, the three Farquharson boys and numerous others who've suffered the same fate. It's a sad fact of life that while she may be the latest addition to this tragic club, she won't be the last. It's hard to imagine a more heart-wrenching case than a father brutally killing his toddler daughter. The Supreme Court laboured under the weight of emotion this afternoon as 24-year-old Ramazan Acar was jailed for life, with 33 years minimum, after pleading guilty to his little girl's murder. Kate Osborn delves deeper into a case which has left everyone asking: why?

Yazmina Acar was a curly-haired moppet who sang to her grandmother in French and rode a pink Barbie bike. She loved dancing and finger-painting and hugs. She loved her daddy too, of course, and he loved her - but, sadly, not enough to stop him taking a knife and stabbing her until her organs were exposed.

Ramazan Acar didn't just kill his only child, he slaughtered her, six days short of her third birthday. Just how he could bring himself to do it is an interesting question. At his pre-sentence hearing, after he'd pleaded guilty to murdering Yazmina on November 17 last year, the court was told Acar sympathised with Arthur Freeman, the father who threw his daughter to her death from the Westgate Bridge. No doubt he also understood where Robert Farquharson was coming from when he drove his car into a dam and drowned his three sons. But those killer dads, as horrific as their crimes were, didn't physically wound their children. Acar went one step further. He found it within himself to take a knife as long as Yazmina's torso and plunge it in, again and again, in a violent frenzy. The answer to how he could do that to his own flesh and blood lies in the complex relationship between love and hate. While Ramazan Acar loved his daughter, he hated her mother more. Yazmina's murder is a prime example of how love can turn to hate on a dime.

Ramazan Acar and Rachelle D'Argent were childhood sweethearts. His family was Turkish, she had a French mother, but the cultural differences weren't an issue. When his parents moved to Griffith, he found himself having to choose between his family and his girlfriend. He chose Rachelle, and moved back to Melbourne to be with her. When Yazmina was born in November 2006, she was the light of their lives. But throughout her infancy, her parents had more offs than ons in their relationship, due mainly to her father's propensity towards domestic violence. He threatened his girlfriend. He hit her. Coming from a mobile phone generation, he harrassed her with calls and texts. He knew he had a problem and had sought counselling and treatment more than once, so Rachelle gave him chances. But, as a therapist noted, he didn't have the internal resources to change. And chronic amphetamine abuse made things even worse. Eventually, Rachelle decided enough was enough, and she called things off for good, three months before the murder.
It was around this time that one passion within Ramazan Acar started manifesting itself as another. The love he had felt for Rachelle D'Argent since his mid-teens was quickly becoming the opposite emotion. She wouldn't let him see Yazmina and that stung. He suspected that not only did she not want to be with him, she was seeing someone else. He tried that tack too, but came on too strong, and when the new woman cooled things four days into their courtship, because he was coming on too strong, he told her she'd burned his heart.
Driving offences meant Acar had the threat of a jail term hanging over his head. It was the final straw, and he told his family he'd be better off walking into a police station with a knife so officers would shoot him and end his misery. On the day he killed his daughter, it was clear from the moment he woke up that something wasn't right. He quit his labouring job, then went to his grandmother's grave and drank. He posted morbid messages on Facebook and sent bizarre texts to his ex. When she arrived at her Hallam home later that afternoon, she found him sitting in his car with a 30cm decorative knife on his lap. When Yazmina saw him, she bounded up to him, starry-eyed, and played in and around his car for twenty minutes. The knife sat on the dashboard. Rachelle stood nearby.

When he was told it was time to leave, Acar pleaded for one last favour. He wanted to give his daughter a treat, by taking her to the milk bar to buy a Kinder Surprise. Rachelle knew that while 'Ramzy' was capable of hurting himself, the idea of him hurting their child wasn't on her radar, so she agreed. She became annoyed when he hadn't returned ten minutes later, but a text saying they were at McDonalds allayed her fears. When they failed to return a second time, though, alarm bells went off. Then her mobile phone started going off. It was Acar, and now his tone was chilling: "How does it feel to not have your child? I didn't have mine for three months."
That shocked her, but it was about to get worse. When she asked him to drop Yazmina at a police station, he said he'd do her no favours.
'Payback's a bitch. How does it feel?'
Then: 'Guess what, baby? You're not getting her back. I love you, Rachelle, and look what you've made me do. I have to decide whether to go 120kmh head on with another car or take the knife and put it through her throat.' Incredibly, and in another sign of the times, he found time to update his Facebook status and announce his intentions to his online world: 'Bout 2 kill ma kid.'
Rachelle wasn't a Facebook friend, so she couldn't read the post, but he expected mutual friends would see it and pass it on to her. He needn't have worried, though, that his point wasn't being heard. Rachelle knew by this stage that she was begging for her child's life, and she knew it was in vain when he responded, 'It's too late, it's too late,' and then delivered the line that sums up his crime: 'I love you more than her and that's why I'm doing this.'

There was a text message: 'I loved you.' Then, shortly after, 'It's ova. I did it.'
Actually, he hadn't done it. But he'd decided he was definitely going to. His Facebook status changed again: 'Pay bk u slut.' There was an eleventh hour phone conversation, with more desperate pleas from Rachelle to let Yazmina go and more assertions from Acar that he was on the verge of killing her. If he hadn't already ripped out his ex's heart, he gave it one final yank with the cruellest of taunts.
'Do you have any last words for her?'
As Yazmina's tiny voice came on the line telling her mother she loved her, it was all Rachelle D'Argent could do to tell her she loved her back. Then Acar hung up.
The next time Rachelle answered her phone, her daughter was dead. 'I've killed her,' Acar said coolly. This time he meant it. 'She's lying there next to me.' He said he could see her intestines. But that didn't seem to bother him, because he'd achieved his aim. 'I killed her, man, I killed her. I killed her to get back at you. I don't care. Even if I go behind bars, I know you're suffering.'
His tune changed somewhat over the following hours, when reality started dawning. His texts took on a more sombre tone: 'She's in heaven I feel lyk shit,' then, 'I lv u mimi.' Mimi was Yazmina's nickname.

After Acar was arrested, he told police in considerable detail what he'd done. He drove Yazmina across to his side of town, to the northern suburbs, and parked in a housing estate. She was playing, blissfully oblivious to the unfolding drama, outside the car. He picked up the knife and walked over to her. As the child of dark-haired, olive-skinned parents, Yazmina Acar had dark brown hair and rich, chocolatey eyes. They were the eyes of any almost-three-year-old: curious, mischievous, trusting. Those eyes were so striking that when Ramazan Acar stood in front of her with his knife, he couldn't help but note that they were full of worry. It didn't stop him though. She would have watched him as he stabbed her the first time, then she probably saw the knife go in a second time, a third, possibly more. Somehow, in the frenzy, Acar managed to avoid hitting her vital organs. That wasn't a good thing. It simply meant it took her longer to bleed to death, prolonging her pain.

Acar was embarrassed by the excessive size of the murder weapon, so while he dumped Yazmina's tiny body at the Greenvale housing estate, he offloaded the knife elsewhere. He set fire to his car but couldn't bring himself to end his own life. He told police he simply didn't have the balls.
It goes without saying that if Ramazan Acar wanted to ruin Rachelle D'Argent's life, he did. In her victim impact statement, which she bravely read to the court at his pre-sentence hearing, she described how her grief had turned to anger, and her thoughts were plagued by her loss. She could no longer sleep or study, instead passing each hour reflecting on how her days used to be filled: with singing, dancing and painting; with baths, toys, scooter rides and cuddles. She's also grieving the routine tasks she'll never share with her daughter: her first haircut, her first day of school, her first tooth. While she once had the joy of a bouncy toddler jumping into her arms for a hug, all she can hold now is Yazmina's clothes, photos and toys, and hope she's somewhere watching over her.

Now firmly entrenched in a high-security, protection unit in prison, Ramazan Acar has a new emotion to deal with: regret. While love, then hate, once consumed him, all his energy these days is funnelled into feeling sorry, both for himself and for what he's done. He had a pencil sharpener blade in his cell and was working up the nerve to end his life with it, but it was confiscated. He expects he will find the courage for suicide one day, but feels it's more likely fellow prisoners who're appalled by his crime will do the job for him. He dreads the long nights spent locked in his cell, because that's when he dwells most on what he's done. But even if his mind could forget, his body cannot. He's given himself permanent reminders in the form of jailhouse tattoos: Yazmina's initials on his stomach, and tears around his eyes. Scars he concedes he should bear for life.

And, so, to return to the question of how Ramazan Acar could do what he did,the answer isn't clear and leaves us wanting. He isn't a psychopath. It's not a case of being mad or bad. He was upset and acting strangely on the day of the murder, but he's not mentally ill. He's been diagnosed with what's known as a personality disorder, but all that means is he's prone to impulsivity, immaturity and substance abuse. Any one of us probably knows a handful of people who qualify for the same diagnosis. It boils down to him being what Justice Elizabeth Curtain summed up as 'an angry, young man.' He abused drugs and alcohol, but so do a lot of people who manage to get through each day without butchering anybody. There's no affliction or condition which makes it easier for the community to understand and accept why he committed his crime. Arthur Freeman and Robert Farquharson were also somewhat troubled but otherwise unremarkable men. The uncomfortable conclusion is that parental payback murders can and do happen and you simply can't pick who, or when, or what will tip the perpetrator over the edge. New parents who've gazed at each other in teary awe as they cradle their tiny miracle in hospital can one day find themselves glaring at each other across a courtroom, with one of them in the dock.
Yazmina Acar, with her grinning face and twinkling eyes, joins a line-up of child victims, alongside four-year-old Darcey Freeman, the three Farquharson boys and numerous others who've suffered the same fate. It's a sad fact of life that while she may be the latest addition to this tragic club, she won't be the last.