She may have been convicted for blackmailing her cheating ex boyfriend, but for Hamilton woman Kaycee Wall, revenge was sweet.
When Kaycee and Aucklander Lani Aperahama discovered they were sleeping with the same man in Rotorua, their urge to ransack his house proved impossible to resist.
Kaycee (30) and Lani (40) were furious to find out that their mutual boyfriend had been seeing both of them over a two-year period, and they took revenge by pouring golden syrup in his bed, cooking his shoes in the microwave, turning his freezer off and threatening to make obscene photos he sent them public.
In an exclusive interview with New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Kaycee has revealed details about her ex-boyfriend’s deceitful double life, and that taking revenge helped her heal.
For three years, mother-of-two Kaycee thought she was the only special woman in her boyfriend’s life – until she received a phone call in November 2009 from Lani telling her she had been his girlfriend too.
“I was stunned. She broke down and cried on the phone. I told her I wanted to meet her.”
After meeting in a café and comparing notes, Kaycee said she wanted to go around to the man’s house to pick up her stuff. “I went there and it wasn’t until I walked into his bedroom and saw the shirts that I bought him that I thought, ‘You cheeky ****.’ I grabbed the Janola and threw it all through his wardrobe.
“We golden-syruped the bed, shoved his toys in the toilet, and pulled out the fish in his freezer to stink the house out.
“Then I saw his $400 Nike shoes on the floor and my casserole in the fridge, which I’d cooked for him the night before, and I thought, ‘Bugger it.’ I tipped it into his shoes and microwaved them. We put them on for 20 minutes – there was no smoke but the casserole was bubbling away.
“Then we sat down and drank his beers.”
They kept drinking after leaving his house, unravelling the terrible truth about the man they’d both been sleeping with.
“We talked about what a bastard he was. He’d been sending text messages saying ‘I love you babe’ to both of us at the same time! We found out had sent the naked photos to both of us.”
At this stage, their boyfriend knew he’d been found out because Lani had called and texted him. The following day he called Kaycee and told her not to believe anything Lani said. “He told me not to speak to her but she had stayed the night at my house and was sitting beside me. He never confessed.”
The pair then conspired to blackmail him for money they say he owed them.
In the style of reality TV show The Amazing Race, they left a series of clues around Rotorua, threatening to make the explicit photos he had texted them public if he didn’t give them $4000 each.
“We sent him on a race with clues to find his photos. We put them in envelopes and he had time limits to get to them. Each envelope had a clue to find the next one.
“He did the first two, then he started panicking and went to the cops.”
Their ex rang them to say he was ready to give them the money and to meet him in half an hour. But it was a setup.
“When we got there about six cop cars swooped on us. There were crowds of people watching. I was so embarrassed.”
At the police station they were warned they were in serious trouble. Blackmail carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail but after pleading guilty to the charge and one of intentional damage, the pair were sentenced to 350 hours of community service each.
The judge concluded that although their actions couldn’t be condoned, their ex’s conduct was “morally reprehensible” and they acted on the spur of the moment.
In court, their former lover apologised.
“I did wrong to both of them and I deeply regret it,” he said.
The conviction means that Kaycee can no longer study midwifery, and she is now considering studying environmental law.
Looking back, there were telltale signs of her lover’s cheating, but Kaycee says she never suspected a thing.
“I’ve never dealt with a cheating boyfriend before. I was never interested in trying to find out what my man was up to when he was away from me. I was busy doing my own thing. We talked on the phone two or three times a day and we saw each other every day. I felt secure.
“But he always had his phone turned down and never left it lying around, and he always had business meetings. He had a teenage daughter at home and if he needed to get back for Lani, he’d use the excuse that she’d seen a prowler around the house and needed to shoot off. Also, he was pedantic about washing himself.”
Kaycee had met him through work and he had met Lani around the same time.
Kaycee says she made it clear she wanted a monogamous relationship, but they didn’t get serious until they’d been seeing each other for three months, with a view to a long-term relationship.
“We spent almost every night together. He was able to pull that off because Lani was working night shift, so he’d see her during the day while I was at work.”
Since breaking up with him 18 months ago, Kaycee and Lani have discovered they weren’t the only ones in his life. on one occasion he told them both he was going on a fishing trip but they later found out he took yet another woman overseas.
Despite her conviction, Kaycee feels better since taking revenge. “It was great. It’s so therapeutic. I don’t regret anything I’ve done. The only thing I regret is that I broke the law in the process. If I had known a way to do that without breaking the law I still would have done it.”
And Kaycee says she won’t let her cheating ex turn her against men.
“It’s not going to change me as a person. But I’ve learned my lesson.”
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