My estranged dad called me every week for years – then I found out he was a cold-blooded murderer in prison

A WOMAN has revealed how she discovered the reason her only relationship with her estranged dad was a weekly phone call, was because he was actually in prison, serving time for murder.

Renee McBryde, from Sydney, Australia, who had only spoken to her father on the phone a few times, discovered the dark family secret when she was in High School.

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Renee would only speak to her father Michael Caldwell, without her mum knowing and was led to believe he was working at Cottee’s Cordial factory.

During a secret phone call when she was just six years old, her father let it slip that he was in prison.

She told  Mamamia: “He said ‘I can’t see you not because I’m working at a farm/factory, but because I’m in jail.

“I thought he was doing ‘important’ things and that he worked so far away.

“I did wonder ‘why don’t I have a dad around like everyone else’ and ‘where is he’.”

However it wasn’t until she was 16, that she discovered her dad’s crimes, as she was working on a school project.

While researching at the local library, Renee stumbled upon a newspaper clipping featuring her dad on the front page.

The article explained that Caldwell was in prison for life after he was convicted for the murder of two gay men Greek Consul General Constantine Giannaris and school teacher Peter Parkes, in Kings Cross in October 1981.

Caldwell, who was 19 at the time and a sex worker was sentenced to life behind bars alongside a 16-year-old boy.

Renne’s mum, who was 16 at the time, was just a few months pregnant when Caldwell was arrested.

The teenager also read that the presiding judge on the case had described her father as a “cold-blooded murderer”.

Earlier this year, Renee released a book, titled Unravelling Us, about growing up as the daughter of a convicted murderer. and admitted she hasn’t spoken to her father ever since.

She added: “After the book came out, he wrote to me on my website’s author page and said ‘I’m really proud of you for writing this book and I’m glad that you went on to have a normal life and you look happy’.

“And that was a huge relief for me.”

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