Mum’s despair as her girl lay dying
MARLENE Locke’s husband went to the kitchen, got a knife, calmly walked into the lounge room and stabbed his step daughter through the heart.
Ms Locke was then cruelly forced to watch as the life drained from her first-born daughter.
“She was screaming at me to help her, screaming ‘Mum, I’m bleeding’,” Ms Locke told the Bulletin, choking back tears. “Then after a while she went quiet and her lips started to turn blue.”
It’s been three years since Ms Locke’s abusive husband stabbed her daughter as she sat watching television in the family lounge room.
It was about 11.30pm on February 16, 2014, when Ray Mead plunged the knife into Sherelle Locke’s chest.
Mead then turned on his wife, who was holding the couple’s two-year-old son, as she tried to call for help.
The then 48-year-old held Ms Locke by the throat against the wall, holding the carving knife above her head screaming, “You’re next, you’re (expletive) next”.
“There was nothing I could do,” Ms Locke said. “He had me and I was terrified he was going to turn the knife on our son.
“I begged him, ‘ Don’t do this’ ... it felt like forever he had me against that wall, but it was probably about five or 10 minutes.
“All I could see was Sherelle, she was begging me to help her, gasping for air ... then her voice got softer and then she stopped making sound.
“By the time he let me go and I ran to her she had no pulse, I managed to get the phone and ring triple 0, but it was too late.”
In November, Mead was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of the 23-year-old mother of three.
Ms Locke said she blamed herself for her daughter’s death, but was in counselling trying to work through the terrible heartache.
“We were just sitting on the lounge watching television. Ray had been in the garage, with his bottle of champagne ... I was glad he was out there, usually he was all up in our faces.
“Sherelle had just moved to the Gold Coast, but was staying the night with us that day ... it was special motherdaughter time we didn’t often get.
“When it happened there was no fight, no confrontation, nothing.
“We thought Ray was getting ready for bed, but out of nowhere he came into the lounge room, sat on Sherelle’s lap and held her by throat.
“It looked like he punched her in the chest ... the first I knew of him stabbing her was
IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS EXPERIENCING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CALL DV CONNECT ON 1800 811 811 when I saw him pull the knife out.”
The 44-year-old had been with Mead for seven years on and off. They had two children together.
She said he had beaten her many times and more than once she tried to flee.
“I would just always seem to end up back there ... I would take the kids and seek refuge at shelters, but I was so broken ... I wanted my kids to have a dad, I wanted them to have a home with nice things, so back I would go,” she said.
“The warning signs were all there – he was jealous of Sherelle, he hated her – but he was also jealous of our own kids, he wanted all my attention on him.
“If I could give anyone in a violent relationship advice now, it would be to leave, just get out.
“Don’t tell your abuser you are leaving, find one person you trust completely to help you, take the kids and get the hell out.”
Today Ms Locke lives a quiet life with her two kids at Browns Plains.
“I try to keep everything as normal as possible. Both kids are in counselling, it took my son a long time to get over the trauma,” she said.
“Sometimes the kids want to go past the Boronia Heights house where it happened, they want to see where they last saw their big sister.
“We now have a plaque for Sherelle at a memorial garden, it’s a happier place to remember her.
“I also have a glass cabinet with all her belongings in it, her ashes, her jewellery.”
Ms Locke has become an ambassador for the Red Rose Foundation, an organisation working to spread domestic violence awareness and help women in need.
“It is my aim now to make a difference, to help other women ... to make sure no one has to live through something like this again.”
MARLENE LOCKE