Victim a ‘beautiful, big-hearted person’
Man charged in murder of 25-year-old woman under a restraining order
“Papa, I love you and I’ll see you later.”
Those were the last words Darian Hailey Henderson-Bellman said as she left her grandparents’ home in Halton Hills last week.
Her family is now struggling to deal with her murder.
“Her last words to me before she walked out the driveway were ‘Papa, I love you and I’ll see you later,’ ” said her grandfather Paul Henderson.
“And that’s what I’ve got left to hang onto. It may not be enough,” he told the Star late Friday.
On Tuesday, the 25-year-old was found dead after being shot in a Brampton home at Fairglen Avenue and Deerpark Crescent. Police had arrived after being called in to investigate at about 2:30 p.m.
Darnell Reid, 27, of Brampton, was also found at the home suffering from gunshot wounds. He remains in hospital in critical condition.
Reid now faces a second-degree murder charge in Henderson-Bellman’s death.
Peel police confirmed the couple had been in a relationship.
Reid had already been arrested four times for violating his bail terms by contacting Henderson-Bellman following a domestic incident, police said in a news release Friday. He had also been arrested two months earlier for possession of an illegal gun.
Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah called the case a “complete failure” of the system.
“The sadness I feel for the victim and her family is mixed with frustration for a complete failure of our justice system to protect her … The family and police struggled to keep her safe,” Duraiappah said in a statement.
“After only six days in custody, this accused — who regularly ignored his conditions of release, and continued to offend by possessing illegal firearms — was released back into the community with a GPS monitoring device,” he said.
“This was despite clear concerns regarding his risk to the victim, the community, and the potential to continue to re-offend.” Henderson-Bellman had worked in the restaurant industry prior to losing her job as a result of the pandemic, Henderson said. She had just gone through three job interviews the week prior, and was confident she would be hired any day now.
“Our daughter was just beautiful, a beautiful, big-hearted person, and she cared about people. When people were in trouble, she would go out of her way to help them. If somebody down the street had no food, she would go get food for them, that’s the way she was,” said Henderson. He and his wife Florence raised HendersonBellman from a young age.
His only hope is that her story might encourage other women to seek help before another innocent life is taken. Of the 31 homicides recorded in Peel last year, police say 13 were the result of domestic violence.
“If one girl could be pulled away one of these animals, and our daughter didn’t die in vain … If one girl could be pulled away without being victimized, as hundreds are, that would be a good thing to us,” he said.
Henderson said he was relieved to see the police chief standing up and not being afraid to say the truth.
An ankle bracelet wasn’t enough to stop his daughter from being killed, and if it were not for the pandemic, he might have already been locked up, he added.
“They use threats to keep their claws in them,” he said. “This will never be stopped.” Reid has been also been charged with possession of a loaded firearm, and two counts of failure to comply with a release order.
“This unacceptable failure is becoming entirely too familiar in our communities,” Duraiappah said. “Collectively we need to do better.”