Jenni Gilbert, staff writer 1990-1993, remembers the day she met this family of 73...
Photographer Neil Holbrook and I went on assignment to interview the now jailed polygamist Alistah Laishkochav — a man who had nine wives and 63 kids.
The family had moved from Byron Bay to a private house in Bluey's Beach on the NSW north coast because the press was hounding him.
I can remember thinking at the time that these nine women just seemed to be in awe of this man — he was this big, fat, sweaty, creepy man and these women were really quite attractive women and they were certainly very intelligent.
There was one woman who was legally married to him and the rest called themselves 'wives' and they were all living off their child support. We did the photos walking up and down the beach at Blueys and then we did the big all-in photo with all the kids too.
I remember saying to Neil, "There's something really weird here because these kids are the best behaved children I have ever seen."
There were 63 of them and they were all his. And they would compete among each other for his attention. And the women would also talk with great excitement about how they would compete for bed favours with him and I was just gagging!
Later it transpired that this man was obviously some sort of Svengali and these girls had been runaways and he had taken them under his wing in so many ways and had some sort of thrall over them. At first they were all really proud of their lifestyle and he really had them.
None of these women seemed scared at the time, they were all really intelligent and I kept wondering, what's all this about? Then when their story got all the publicity in
Woman's Day and on
60 Minutes the families of these women started recognising them and all came forward. For the first time in years these women were exposed to reality and they started looking at this man for what he really was. Over a few months they all left him.
He ended up at the YMCA at Byron Bay and later stories came out that he had been abusing the kids. I think that would account for why they were all so well behaved — they were ruled by fear.
Return to the Woman's Day 1990s page 
