‘I love you mum’: crash victim Lisa was carrying note from daughter
A BELFAST mother-of-two killed by a stolen car after a police chase was carrying a note from her daughter which simply read: “I love you mum.”
Lisa Gow was killed as she walked to the shops from her Ballysillan home in the north of the city last month. She had just left her two children Olivia (8) and Riley (5) off at school.
Lisa was hit by a stolen Audi A4 car which had been taken from a home on the nearby Cavehill Road.
In an interview with UTV, the family talked of how they were struggling to come to terms with her death.
Sister Rebecca described how when she first heard the news of the crash she thought immediately of Lisa and how she would know for sure what had happened and to who.
Her calls and texts to her sis- ter were never returned.
“She wasn’t answering and I just sort of knew,” she said.
Father Peter said how in one of his last conversations with Lisa, she said she was intending to return to bed that morning and thought she must have been sleeping at the time news filtered around the community of a death.
He said: “I had just said to people someone will be getting a shock ... then the door rapped and I saw the policemen and I knew exactly what they were here for. I had to tell my wife and she fell to pieces.
“They call it joyriding but there was no joy in this household.”
Following the horrific crash investigators had to rely on blood samples and dental records to identify Lisa.
The family praised their undertaker for allowing them to eventually say goodbye to Lisa.
“I can never thank that man enough because I actually got to kiss my girl on the lips, she looked beautiful,” added Peter.
“You have to say goodbye or you’ll be thinking, ‘Is it her walking up the street?’ The amount of people you do see and you do actually think... you wish... you pray.”
The family said they had found solace in the many videos of Lisa they had from her final days in the run up to her death. They had also been inundated with messages of support from all communities across Belfast.
“They have helped us through it,” said sister Kelly Ann Gow. “You just knew people were there for you.”
The family said their emotions went from anger to devastation on a daily basis. An urn of Lisa’s ashes is surrounded by pictures in her parents’ home and her father says that as she never liked to be alone, it will remain there until their death and she will be buried with them.
Asked how he’d remember his daughter, he said: “Bossy, a great mother, fun-loving ... not here.”
A man, who had been on bail at the time on other charges, has appeared in court over the death.
Police denied being in pursuit at the time of the crash but the Police Ombudsman confirmed officers were “seconds” behind.
An investigation is ongoing.