‘I NEVER THOUGHT HE WOULD KILL MUM’
HELEN’S LIFE WAS CRUELLY CUT SHORT BY HER HUSBAND PETER
Grant Dansie and his beautiful mother Helen were like two peas in a pod. From a young age, the South Australian-born man would spend his days hiking or taking trips with his fun-loving mum.
Helen loved to cook, she had a sweet affinity with her pet cats was a keen gardener – even after a stroke transformed her life in 1995.
But all that was cruelly ripped away when Helen was murdered by her abusive husband and supposed caretaker, Peter Rex Dansie.
“I witnessed his abuse and maltreatment of Mum for years … but I never would have thought that he would have murdered her,” Grant exclusively recalls to New Idea.
Sweet Helen, 67, lost her life in the most callous of ways.
After a 44-year marriage, wheelchair-bound Helen was found drowned in a pond at an Adelaide garden in April 2017.
Sadly, it was a horrifying end to a relationship that was fraught with domestic violence.
Grant says his mum “fell through the cracks” in a system that ultimately failed her.
“My mum was fantastic and loving and caring and that
“MUM WAS WELL AND TRULY FAILED BY A SYSTEM THAT WAS MEANT TO PROTECT HER”
was where I got all of my love from. My father was uninterested, not present and had a horrible temper. I left home at 17 and was able to get support from Centrelink due to his abusive behaviour,” Grant said.
“I think Mum was well and truly failed by a system that was meant to protect her. After her stroke Mum moved home but my father systematically failed to make home improvements to make the home safe and accessible for her.”
Helen relied on her husband Peter for basic tasks, however Grant says his father denied her the caretaking and kindness she desperately needed. And like many women affected by intimate partner violence, Helen became cut off from her family and friends.
It was a sad cycle Grant wishes he could have saved his mum from.
“To put it simply, the system failed to fully take account of her vulnerability. They failed to adequately take into account the issue of domestic violence,” Grant says.
“This is very disheartening as this type of exploitation could easily happen to other people in similar situations, that they fall through the cracks, while those that are meant to look after them subject them to domestic violence and misuse their money.
“There needs to be better safeguards in place to protect the most vulnerable – Mum was disabled, a victim of domestic violence and elderly.”
While living in Norway, Grant received a phone call from a friend that would make his blood run cold.
He couldn’t fathom the thought his mother’s death was murder – but Grant says he knew something sinister had happened the moment he saw the pond.
“I got a phone call from a family friend who said, ‘check the Advertiser website, your Mum has died in a pond’,” Grant remembers.
“I was very unsure about what had happened until I saw the pond and then I knew straight away that this was not an accident. Then the day after that, Major Crime asked if I would be willing to help with the investigation, which entailed wearing a wire and going to talk to my father.”
After a long investigation – with Grant’s help – police eventually arrested Dansie over his wife’s suspicious death.
Dansie, 70, was found guilty of Helen’s murder in the Adelaide Supreme Court in December 2019.
The judge found that Dansie had pushed his wife into the pond while she sat in a wheelchair in a deliberate act to drown her. Dansie is yet to be sentenced and it is not yet known if he will appeal.
Not only does Grant want to see change in the legal system to protect victims of violence, he also hopes his mother is remembered for her huge heart and the love she had for her family, rather than for the barbaric way she died.
After welcoming his twin baby girls into the world, Grant misses his mum more than ever.
“Unfortunately she did not get to meet her other grandchildren, Ellie and Lana, who were born after her death.
“I would like Mum to be remembered as the vibrant, vivacious and caring woman that she was,” he says, “as intelligent and loving, with a big heart and a massive smile.”
April Glover