Ten years on, it’s still one of the most horrific murders Western Australian police have ever seen. An eight-year-old girl snatched, brutally strangled and assaulted by a stranger in a Canning Vale shopping centre toilet.
But, somehow, little Sofia Rodriguez-Urrutia Shu’s family aren’t angry.
Her father, Gabriel Rodriguez, told The Sunday Times that they choose to focus their energy on remembering who Sofia was – “an absolutely gorgeous, normal girl” – and not how she died.
“I try to keep our life as normal as possible, especially for the other three kids and I think we as a family have been very successful in that sense,” he said.
“As a family we talk about Sofia maybe once or twice a week. We talk more as if Sofia is still around, somehow, more than what happened. She would have turned 18 (last year), she would be driving now, legal now.”
Her legacy also remains in the form of a memorial scholarship at her primary school, as well as the creation of a public sex offender registry, which was lobbied for by her father.
Unfortunately, Sofia’s killer, shopping centre worker Dante Arthurs, isn’t on that list. Sexual assault charges against him were dropped, as prosecutors were unable to establish whether they were committed before or after the little girl’s death.
Arthurs observed Sofia enter the women’s toilets and waited, pulling her into the disabled bathroom when she emerged. It was there, just 10 minutes later, that Sofia’s brother discovered her naked, contorted body.