Death in Yuendumu

Where everything is black and white and nothing is – a haunting true story of death and survival
in a remote outback community

Just hours after his grandfather's funeral in a dusty cemetery outside the remote NT community of Yuendumu, 19-year-old Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker was dead. He'd been shot three times by police constable Zachary Rolfe during an attempted arrest, after Walker stabbed the officer in the shoulder with a pair of surgical scissors.
Later, Rolfe was charged with murder, the first policeman in the NT ever to be committed to
stand trial for the killing of a First Nations person. Following Rolfe's acquittal, a coronial inquest
was called.
Now, in Kumanjayi, the ABC journalist who broke the story gives a clear-eyed account of two
worlds colliding – a young man with a tragic past and uncertain future, a constable mired in
allegations of misconduct, a family in mourning and a community fighting for justice in a system
they say is broken. All against the backdrop of the historical 1928 Coniston massacre, a series
of mass killings carried out nearby, in which as many as 170 Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytej
people were brutally murdered in retaliation for the murder of a dingo tracker.
Kumanjayi is powerful, haunting, riveting and unforgettable, a world in which everything is black and white, and yet nothing is.