A former weather presenter has spoken up about the time she witnessed her father slice his own throat and savagely attack her mother with a corkscrew.
The heartbreaking account of how Melody Horrill, a 55-year-old Adelaide environmental journalist, was subjected to domestic abuse as a child at the hands of her father is only now being revealed in her book A Dolphin Called Jock.
She claimed that in April 1986, her father had arrived to her house after she and her mother had attempted to flee, only for him to launch at her and sever his wife’s face with the corkscrew.
Ms. Horrill then witnessed her father slash his throat with a carving knife and collapse into a pool of blood as she hurried to dial 911.
Her placid demeanor concealing the years of anguish she endured, Ms. Horrill went on to become one of Channel 7’s top weather presenters.
She claims in her book that the one thing that helped her recover was the extraordinarily intimate relationship she had with Jock, a shy but lovable dolphin that lived in Port River.
‘The bond I forged with him obliterated the walls I’d built around my heart. He taught me that my life didn’t have to be ruled by fear and mistrust,’ she wrote in an extract from her book.
Ms. Horrill was brutalized by her father as a child, and she grew up in Adelaide with her brother, mother, and father.
Police frequently visited the residence of Ms. Horrill’s parents, who frequently engaged in violent altercations.
‘Yes, it was difficult. But I think I realised I had to be brave,’ she told The Advertiser.
After a particularly horrific flare up between the pair, her mother slipped out of the front door, giving the future presenter a gift to remember her by – a scented handkerchief – in what looked to be a final goodbye.
She then returned to the home days later as if nothing had transpired.
In her later years of youth, Ms Horrill moved with her mother to a flat in an attempt to escape her father but he instead stalked them, sometimes showing up in bizarre disguises.
The resilient presenter recalled in her book how she would obsess over the locks and watch the street through her windows, at the same time hiding behind her curtains.
Ms Horrill’s mother said it was herself her ex-partner was obsessed with and moved out of the flat on the advice of the police, into a place with her new boyfriend.
The young Ms Horrill was joined in the flat by a close friend but the family violence came to boiling point when Ms Horrill’s mother visited a few months later to drop off some laundry.
It was then that Ms Horrill’s father ambushed the two of them, lurching for Ms Horrill’s mother with the corkscrew, narrowly missing her eyes.
Authorities arrived to find the young woman crouched in a corner of her home held there by fear and trauma.
Her father survived his own injuries, and abused Ms Horrill as she gave evidence against him in the courtroom.
The case ultimately ended in his imprisonment where he spent 18 months behind bars.
He was released from jail and six months later and just one week before Ms Horrill was due to sit her final high school exams, her father took his own life in the family home.
‘There was just a turning point in my life where I realised I had to drag myself out of these dark patches,’ she said, adding she was determined to complete her exams.
Through persistence and determination Ms Horrill then entered a degree in communications, majoring in psychology, but was traumatised by the experiences in her teenage years.
Her father’s voice telling her she would ‘never amount to anything’ echoed in her mind.
But a class with a psychology professor passionate about man’s reconnection to nature led her to researching Port River dolphins, and falling in love with the species.
One dolphin captured the future presenter’s heart, Jock – an animal scarred and mangled by fishing equipment, and too scared to swim with the other dolphins in the main river.
‘He appeared not only so physically damaged but his behaviour was so different, he seemed so lonely. It seemed so very sad and I felt this massive empathy for him and a connection to him,’ she said.
In her book, Ms. Horrill describes how the mammal’s trustworthiness “blew her mind” and “fill a gaping hole in my heart.”
Over the course of three years and several research projects, she and her professor Mike Bossley visited Jock, who was always glad to see them.
After spending time with the dolphins, Ms. Horrill claimed she experienced personal growth and healing. She then collaborated with Mr. Bossley to found the Australian Dolphin Research Foundation.
As her career developed, she found herself thinking back on her interactions with Jock and even pitched a documentary on the Port River Dolphins that was eventually picked up by CNN in the US and Channel 10 nationwide.
She admitted that it was difficult for her to move past the pain from her childhood, but she described accepting “a dolphin and his mates” as her “salvation.”
A Dolphin Called Jock by Melody Horrill is out now.