Bound, gagged & killed
killer called herself my girl’s best mate...
Shuffling from one foot to the other, my daughter Dionne looked anxious.
‘Mum...’ she started. ‘I’m pregnant.’ The news was a shock. It was September 2006, and Dionne was only 17.
The baby wasn’t planned, the father wasn’t around.
But what was the point of telling her off? My girl needed help. ‘We’ll do this together,’ I promised.
Dionne was my youngest of three and had always been a happy kid.
She’d not been without her problems, though.
She struggled at school, and always wanted to be on the move, couldn’t keep still.
‘Dionne’s dancing feet,’ I used to call it.
I wondered whether she had ADHD.
And now I worried how she’d cope with motherhood. Yet Dionne surprised us all. When her little girl Rebecca was born in May 2007, Dionne doted on her. She was so caring and kind. She saw the good in everyone, was always offering to help out friends.
I watched her blossom into a lovely young woman and mother.
Dionne had a speech impediment after being born with a cleft palate.
But she didn’t let it get her down.
She was always bouncing around the living room, singing at the top of her lungs.
Over the next eight years, Dionne had three more children.
Unfortunately her relationships hadn’t worked out, but she tried her best to raise the kids as a single mum.
Only, it was a lot to take on for a young woman.
Sadly, Dionne had issues
with drugs, too. I tried to help. But in the end, Social Services got involved, and her youngest three had to go live with their dads or their grandparents. Dionne was distraught. ‘I’ll win them back,’ she vowed.
She really was trying to get her life back on track, never lost her spark. She was popular, too. ‘Do you remember Libby Ellis?’ she asked one day in April last year. I shook my head. ‘She went to my school, a few years below me,’ Dionne told me.
They’d planned to go out later.
‘Could you babysit Rebecca?’ she asked.
‘Of course. Hope you girls have fun!’ I smiled.
After that, Dionne and Libby were inseparable.
Despite being seven years apart – Dionne was 27 while Libby was 20 – the pair got on like a house on fire. And Libby seemed nice enough.
It wasn’t long before she’d moved in with Dionne.
I’d nip over regularly for a brew and a catch-up.
‘Look at this,’ Dionne laughed over a cuppa one afternoon.
It was a photo she’d taken of a local funeral car she’d spotted.
The licence plate looked to spell out DEVIL!
‘If I ever die, don’t get me this,’ she giggled. Her smile was infectious.
‘Noted,’ I laughed.
The following weekend, Dionne popped out to do some shopping with Libby.
I tried to call her the next day as she’d borrowed my bank card, but I had no luck.
Working nights, I went to bed around 11am.
But just a couple of hours later, I was awoken by my daughter Danielle, 29, crying.
Running into my room, she was in a state.
‘What’s wrong, what’s going on?’ I panicked.
‘It’s Dionne. She’s been killed,’ Danielle cried.
In a state of shock, I couldn’t
In seconds, my whole world came crashing down
believe what I was hearing.
Two police officers were downstairs.
‘She was found dead this morning,’ one told me. I screamed. In just a couple of seconds, my whole world came crashing down around me.
My beautiful daughter was only 27. The pain was too much. The officers offered to tell our family, and Dionne’s dad Gary was informed.
Thankfully, Rebecca was with her dad when we heard the news.
As I listened to the policeman talk, I realised it was Father’s Day. It tore my heart in two. But worse was to come. We heard how our beautiful daughter had been found in the home of a man named Dominic Wallis.
Curled up under a bloodstained duvet. As if she was sleeping. ‘I’ve never heard of him,’ I sobbed.
Dionne had never mentioned him before.
We learnt he was Libby’s ex, and the three of them had been together in his house, drinking,
taking drugs. My heart shattered further. I’d thought Dionne had moved past all that.
Libby and Dominic claimed Dionne had got into a street fight, then later fallen asleep on the floor. And never woken up. ‘Lies,’ I cried. My daughter had her troubles, but she wasn’t the type to get in fights.
The pair were charged with murder, while Dominic’s parents – Kingsley and Karen Wallis – were charged with perverting the course of justice.
I had endless questions.
What the hell had happened to my daughter?
Rumours of violence swirled.
But as I could be called as a witness, I wasn’t allowed to know more.
Dionne’s youngest three stayed living with their dads, but Rebecca moved in with me.
‘Your mummy’s gone to heaven,’ I told her.
As we waited for the trial, Gary and I arranged Dionne’s funeral. Everything felt surreal. Just weeks earlier, I’d been joking with Dionne about that funeral car.
Now, thanks to generous donations from the community, a horse and carriage pulled Dionne’s casket.
Saying goodbye to my youngest girl felt so wrong.
Especially because we didn’t know why she’d been snatched away.
Or what’d happened in those last hours of her life.
Finally, last November, the trial began at Birmingham Crown Court.
Would we finally get answers..?