My Brother Was Captured and Executed by the Khmer Rouge

Rob Hamill is one of New Zealand's most storied and decorated rowers - a silver at the World Championships in 1994, the winner of the first-ever Atlantic Rowing Race in '97, and a man who has lived a life most people couldn't imagine. But beneath the athletic achievements is a story that shaped everything.

When Rob was 14, his older brother Kerry went missing while sailing through Southeast Asia on his OE. Sixteen months of silence followed. His parents wrote letter after letter to ports across Asia, hoping for news that never came. When it finally did, it arrived on the front page of a newspaper: Kerry had been blown off course into Cambodian waters, captured by the Khmer Rouge, tortured for months at the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison, and executed.

In this conversation, we get into grief, resilience, forgiveness, and what it means to carry loss through a life lived at full throttle.

Rob shares the extraordinary details of Kerry's forced confession — and the extraordinary messages his brother managed to hide inside it.

He talks about rowing across the Atlantic and discovering, alone in the middle of the ocean, that he had never truly grieved.

He talks about testifying at the War Crimes Tribunal in Cambodia thirty years later. About losing his other brother, John, in the aftermath. And about why, in 2018, he and his family set sail to circle the globe — finishing the journey Kerry never got to complete.

Please note: this episode talks about suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, free help is available through Lifeline, call 0508 TAUTOKO, that’s 0508 828 865.

Links mentioned in this episode:

🎤 Rob Hamill's TEDx Talk — On Forgiveness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q87a7KNq2YQ

🎤 Matt Brown — The Barbershop Where Men Go to Heal | TEDxChristchurch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UhP3OZ9ZCE