A distraught mother has revealed how her life has been destroyed since her son was killed in a cowardly one-punch attack on a night out – and how she realised her son was never coming out of a coma.
Kristina Vilkelis-Curas read her harrowing victim impact statement to Lismore District Court on November 4 as two young men pleaded guilty to varying charges relating to her son Jesse’s death at just 24 in 2019.
Jesse was attacked outside the The Shaws Bay Hotel in East Ballina, Northern NSW, on December 22, 2019.
A nurse revealed over the phone that Jesse’s eyes were ‘fixed and dilated’ and, as a nurse herself, Ms Vilkelis-Curas recognised that this meant her son would not survive the assault.
Bryson Larsen-Tai, 19, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, threw the first and fatal punch, while Tyrese Hickling, 20, pleaded guilty to assault and affray.
Both men are due to be sentenced on Friday.
Ms Vilkelis-Curas learned of the fight when she received a late-night phone call from her other son, Nikolas.
He shouted into the phone ‘Jesse’s been hit’ before the line went dead.
Jesse (pictured with his girlfriend) was fatally assaulted during a fight in East Ballina on December 22, 2019
Kristina Vilkelis-Curas (pictured with Jesse as a child) read her harrowing victim impact statement to Lismore District Court last week as two young men pleaded guilty to varying charges relating to her 24-year-old son Jesse’s death in 2019
She called from hospital to hospital before a staff member finally recognised her son’s name and said he was in a critical condition.
‘She refused to tell me whether he was going to survive,’ Ms Vilkelis-Curas recalled.
As an emergency nurse, she knew what to say next.
The mother-of-three asked if Jesse’s pupils were fixed and dilated, and the nurse hesitantly told her they were.
‘I knew in an instant, my precious son was brain dead and that meant ‘zero chance of survival’,’ Ms Vilkelis-Curas said.
‘It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.’
She said even before the confirmation, her maternal instinct told her that her son would not survive.
‘I fell to the floor screaming, ”not my boy, not my Jesse, not my baby, not my beautiful son”. I was vomiting, choking, and gasping for air,’ she recalled.
Jesse was not eligible for resuscitation and was relying on life support so his family could say goodbye
Some 200 people turned out to farewell the ‘gentle giant’ at his funeral
She and her third son could not get a flight in to Ballina until Christmas Eve. They sat on the flight, presumably surrounded by holidaymakers and people excited to be reunited with loved ones, in silence as they prepared for what they knew was ahead.
They arrived at Coolangatta airport 7am the morning of Christmas and rushed straight to the hospital.
On the way, her youngest son, who had not long turned 18, suffered a generalised seizure, which she believes was onset by the shock and fear.
An ambulance arrived and he, too, was rushed directly to Gold Coast University Hospital, where Jesse already lay in a coma.
‘I couldn’t help wondering whether my youngest son was also going to die,’ Ms Vilkelis-Curas said.
‘For both of my son’s to be unconscious and in a cerebrally traumatised state at exactly the same time felt like I was being tortured.’
Ms Vilkelis-Curas learned of the fight when she received a harrowing phone call from her other son, Nikolas. He shouted into the phone ‘Jesse’s been hit’ before the line went dead
Ms Vilkelis-Curas met with Jesse’s neurosurgeon, an intensive care unit consultant and a social worker before she was allowed in the room with her son.
They told her he had been involved in a fight and suffered a fatal blow to the head.
To be precise, she recalls, they told her ‘he is already dead but his organs have been kept alive via chemical and mechanical life support’ that would be turned off later that day.
The distraught mother convinced the medical team to give her son another day on life support, hopeful her father would make it back in time from Lithuania to say goodbye.
Jesse was not eligible for resuscitation, so while doctors agreed to hold off, there were no guarantees the 24-year-old would survive the night.
Ms Vilkelis-Curas’ father arrived back in Australia at 9.30am the next day, Boxing Day. At 1pm, after the family said their farewells, Jesse was pronounced dead.
‘I sat alone with my dead child, feeling his lifeless body going cold, kissing him, holding him and begging God to wake him up,’ she said.
Ms Vilkelis-Curas met with Jesse’s neurosurgeon, an intensive care unit consultant and a social worker before she was allowed in the room with her son
‘I still cannot get my head around the fact that my darling boy is dead and that I am not going to see him or kiss him or cuddle him again. I will never hear his chirpy happy voice or his funny songs. I will never again hang out with him and chat and laugh for hours like mothers and their kids should.’
She urged the two men who have pleaded guilty to offences relating to her son’s death to consider how ‘broken’ her family is as a result of their ‘acts of violence’.
‘You have traumatised, caused untold agony, ruined lives and destroyed the spirits of an innocent family. May god have mercy on you.’
One of the offenders, 19-year-old Bryson Larsen-Tai, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, while 20-year-old Tyrese Hickling pleaded guilty to affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Footage of the incident was played to the court, showed Larsen-Tai strike Jesse in the side of his head while he was not looking.
The court heard Hickling ‘stomped’ on his body as he lay on the ground.
Defence barrister for Larsen-Tai, Jason Watts, acknowledged to the court Jesse was ‘walking backwards… not in a fighting pose’ moments prior to the fatal strike.
But he said it would be wrong to suggest the brothers had been trying to diffuse the situation all evening.
Judge Warwick Hunt is expected to hand down sentences for the accused on November 12.
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