WARNING: This post has details of a violent crime and may be distressing for some readers.
By NICOLE HABERLY
Has there ever been a moment in your life that has completely changed you forever?
For me it was 8.09am one April morning in 2008 when my daughters, then 10 and 4, were getting ready for school. My eldest daughter was listening to the radio and she yelled for me to come into her room. She was standing there brushing her hair, looking at herself in the mirror. She had heard that an elderly couple had been found beaten to death in their Yokine home and wanted me to know that it was the same street that her Grandparents (my husband’s parents) lived on.
“Mummy, that’s Nanny and Poppy’s street, you better call them and make sure they are okay.”
In a heartbeat our lives changed and my husband, myself and our two young daughters found ourselves on a journey unlike anything we could have ever imagined.
The detectives made me get my husband home from work. I wasn’t allowed to tell him anything. They stood in my kitchen while I pleaded with him to please just come home. At some point I took my kids next door to the neighbours, the police needed to question my husband and I separately before we were able to talk to each other. I remember saying to the female detective over and over again while she questioned me for what seemed like hours, “but we just live in Beechboro,” this doesn’t happen to people like us and telling her she needed to call my brother-in-law, to let him know what had happened. Not until hours later did I find out that my brother-in-law was in police custody as the prime suspect.