Family rebuilding lives

Natalie Preece with sons Logan and Riley and her partner Michaelee Emmett, who was murdered in 2014 and right, Natalie with her new baby Rayah Bumby FOUR years ago, Natalie Preece had it all.

She and her partner Michaelee Emmett were looking forward to the birth of their little girl, to join their twin boys Logan and Riley.

Then one night in August 2014, everything changed.

Michaelee was murdered by a 16-year-old boy after walking him home from the Stone House pub in Cefn Forest, near Blackwood, after seeing he was drinking underage.

Father-to-be Michaelee, who was just 29 at the time, and a friend, John Williams, had dropped the boy off with his parents.

But the teenager grabbed a knife from inside the house and began to attack them.

Michealee suffered a deep wound to his liver and died a month later in hospital where he had been lying in a coma.

He died just six days after his daughter Lola-Grace was born.

His attacker, Connor Doughton, was jailed for a minimum of 15 years for the murder.

His partner Natalie, meanwhile, was left struggling to deal with life in the aftermath of unimaginable tragedy.

She had twin boys to bring up, as well as being the mother of a newborn baby – with little time to grieve for her loss.

“It was difficult, with everything else going on and trying to manage the boys’ feelings as well as my own and looking after a new baby,” Natalie said.

But now the children are older, life has changed dramatically.

“In the beginning, I can’t say they