Southland farmer Adam Hill loved the simple things in life. The 25-year-old adored his fiancée Christine Pink (25) and his two young daughters, Shikana (8) and Maikayla (4). He was passionate about his work dairy farming and lived for the bush, going deer hunting and fishing every spare chance he had.
But in April, Adam’s young life tragically ended when he was shot dead by fellow hunter Wayne Edgerton (56) during a deer stalking excursion in Southland’s Longwood Forest.
Edgerton mistook Adam for a deer, despite the young father wearing a fluorescent orange vest. In a harsh twist of fate, the shooter was a gun safety advocate, who regularly preached the importance of being vigilant in the bush, yet failed to follow his own advice.
Edgerton, a landscape artist from Tuatapere, broke the cardinal rule of hunting – clearly identify your target. He was 40 metres from Adam when he pulled the trigger. Edgerton’s careless actions resulted in a bullet going straight through Adam’s chest, leaving two young girls without a father and tearing Christine’s life apart.
Christine says Adam was a devoted father, loving fiancé and an all-round good guy.
Speaking exclusively to the Weekly, Christine pays tribute to a devoted father, loving fiancé and an all-round good guy. And in his memory, the Winton mother is fighting for harsher penalties for those who accidentally shoot and kill other hunters in the bush, so that other families don’t have to endure the pain she has suffered.
“Before Adam went hunting, I spoke to him over the phone and told him that I loved him. I’m glad those were the last words he heard,” Christine says with tears in her eyes. “Not only have my girls lost a loving, devoted and amazing dad, I’ve also lost my best friend. I long to see his beautiful smile again.”
Christine is outraged that after pleading guilty to carelessly using a rifle causing death, Edgerton didn’t receive any jail time for fatally shooting Adam. Instead, he was given seven months home detention, 400 hours of community work, ordered to pay Christine $10,000 for emotional harm and forced to forfeit his firearm.
“It was like a kick in the guts. I feel like he got away with it. Adam’s life is worth much more than that,” Christine says. “Out of stupidity, the shooter has taken an innocent life. I know it wasn’t intentional, but the fact that he was also an advocate for gun safety makes me sick to my stomach. He obviously didn’t practise what he preached. He should have been made an example of, but instead he gets to go home to his family, and we’re left to pick up the pieces.“
Maikayla, Christine and Shikana have been forced to look to a future without Adam.
It has been four months since the painful ordeal, and Christine has been dealing with her grief one day at a time.
The couple had been together for six years after meeting in high school. Christine was over the moon when Adam proposed three years ago.
“He was charming and a real goofball. He could instantly connect with people,” she says.
The couple were apart for a week before Adam’s death, as Christine was nursing a cousin suffering from cancer. In a double tragedy, Christine’s cousin passed away and she was arranging the funeral when she received the phone call on April 13, to tell her that Adam had been killed.
“I’m devastated that I never got to spend that last week with my soulmate, but I didn’t think he would lose his life during a hunting trip. He was even wearing a fluoro vest. I don’t understand how this happened.”
Adam was a hard worker who had just been promoted to manager of three dairy farms, earning $80,000 a year. The couple’s future looked promising, but now the life Christine had always dreamed of is shattered.
“A month before he died, Adam told me he had everything he wanted in his life. Now we can’t make any new memories. We have to hold on to the ones we already have. My girls won’t get the chance to grow up with their dad, who they loved to go hunting and fishing with.”
Christine looks at the last picture of Adam, a blurry photo taken two hours before his death and capturing him in his element – in the bush with a huge smile on his face.
“It’s comforting to see that he was happy in his last moments. He was meant to come home to us. At this point, I have to think about our girls. They are keeping me strong,” she says, as her adorable daughters lie on the living room floor, making plastic bracelets for their mother.
Maikayla and Shikana often accompanied their dad on his “great outdoors” adventures.
To ensure Adam did not die in vain, Christine is on a crusade to make changes to the law. She’s fighting for harsher penalties for hunters who accidentally shoot and kill others, with a mandatory charge of manslaughter and jail time for all offenders. She has organised a petition to support her cause.
“Keeping myself busy has helped because if I don’t, then I’ll just dwell on the pain,” she explains. “These senseless tragedies can be avoided. Offenders should not receive home detention as this is not an acceptable punishment for the life of a loved one. If the penalty reflects the crime, this may make hunters think twice when they rush to improperly identify their target and recklessly take a life.”
One person who endorses Christine’s views is Brendon Diack, who shot dead 16-year-old Mark Whyte in 1996 in a similar hunting accident.
Maikayla, Christine and Shikana have been forced to look to a future without Adam.
The tragedy and the guilt of taking an innocent life continues to plague Brendon, who received a two-month jail sentence and was the first person in New Zealand to be sent to prison for a hunting accident causing death. On his release, Brendon recalls how fellow Tuatapere resident Edgerton gave him a hard time about his actions, and says that it’s a joke the accused received home detention and didn’t go to jail.
“Edgerton rubbished me and tried to drive me out of town, and now he’s done the same thing. What a hypocrite,” says Brendon.
“He’s an artist and he gets home detention. I went to jail and he essentially gets to work from home. The sentence is a load of crap. Where’s the consistency?”
As she recalls the happy days with Adam, Christine is reminded why she is pursuing her cause in ensuring that all hunters strictly follow gun safety rules.
“I don’t want another family to go through what we have been through. Now we have our good days and our bad. Just as long as our family is there for each other, we will get through this.”
