Scarcely able to breathe I rang the police because I heard a woman had been murdered at Medowie. At first they didn’t want to tell me anything.  I feared the woman was my friend, Heather. In my gut, I knew it was her.  I didn’t want to, but I knew.

After they put me through lots of questions, they told me it was her, and then they asked me to make a statement. I was in such shock – but of course you want to do what you can. That took quite a while and I was completely exhausted after that.

When the statement was finished, the police asked me to identify her body at the morgue.

I’d never done that sort of thing before – again, it seemed like the least thing, the decent thing, I could do for her. I was already numb, in shock I suppose – it was all so unreal.

I thought I’d be OK – because you see it on TV and you think you understand – that you just do it.

I have never underestimated anything so badly, in my life. I have never been so wrong.

She was lying there. It was her – I knew instantly.

She was all alone.

It never crossed my mind that she would still be in the state she was in when they brought her to the morgue. I had no real expectations – I’d assumed she’d have wounds, yet she’d be ‘clean’. Yet there was this woman, bloodied and the fear she had experienced was etched into her face. She had been stabbed to death. Twenty-two times they said – with great savagery.

I may never forget that sight of this glorious, feisty, warm and loving woman. This was not just a visual take you get from TV. This is now part of me – a visceral thing – a reaction like tearing my heart and throat out.

There was no one to warn me or prepare me about what I would see or how it might affect me, no one to ‘counsel’ me – before or after the identification. 

I lived for the next eighteen months in a traumatised, grief-laden state of fear and locked into the horror of her death, waiting. There’s a lot of waiting – waiting for the phone to ring, for a letter, a summons to court, for the pain to go, to get some sleep, for the nightmares to stop.

I’d been told to ‘Be ready to give evidence!’ That translates to ‘Don’t you forget one single thing, not a second, not a word’. So she’s in your mind, alive then you remember she’s dead, that he killed her. And her in the morgue, the funeral. You go over everything, the kids are in your mind. Don’t forget, not for a second. If I did I might let her, and the children, down. I can’t hear her voice – what if I forget her laugh?

The idea of giving evidence, about her, in front of him, about what I knew – terrified me.

I had a mental breakdown.

At least, eventually he pleaded guilty, eventually. Then still made it out to be her fault.

It’s still all pretty vivid though. It’s all there, in my mind’s filing cabinet, always there.

I was really hurt to find out that even though the criminal system needed me, used me, tied me up as a witness – I’m not classed as a victim of crime – we’d only been in a relationship for two months – we had just fallen in love. Since I wasn’t her husband or close relative, I can’t qualify for counselling under the NSW Government Approved Counselling Scheme.

Apparently I would have had to witness the murder to qualify for free counselling. I could get counselling if I could pay, or by waiting until a Health Department counsellor was available.

Eventually, when I got some counselling, I soon discovered that not all professionals understand, not all are really interested and anyway, counselling isn’t really the answer but it can help.

I came to VOCAL; they knew Heather because they cared for her for over two years as a Domestic Violence victim who was in fear of being murdered – through many challenges. She had told me they gave her the courage and the support to live her best life, every day, instead of living like a victim, waiting to die. She did live those last two years, despite him, and she was happy.

I’m trying to get on with my life and I keep coming back to VOCAL. My new lady is welcome at VOCAL as she copes with me. Her life has been changed very much, but she’s not a victim, nor are my children. They just have to cope with me, and I’m trying to be a normal person, trying to be ‘me’ again.

VOCAL understand just how many people are affected, for how long and how it forces changes in everything – every aspect of life you once took for granted. It changes everything.

It’s hard to comprehend I’m not even ‘a victim of crime’. I certainly feel like one.

John (2004)