A grieving father has told heartless thieves to ‘rot in hell’ after they stole a tribute to his 10-year-old daughter on the third anniversary of her savage death.
His ‘sweet, kind and curious’ daughter was brutally butchered by a teenage girl, 14, at a Gunnedah farmhouse in northern NSW on July 8, 2020.
Her horrific death was so gruesome a judge banned all details from being reported and the identities of the victim and her killer from being revealed for 20 years.
On Saturday, three years to the day after she was mercilessly killed in the unprovoked attack, the girl’s father placed a bouquet of flowers in her memory outside her old school.
But he revealed they were stolen almost instantly, sending the thieves a furious message: ‘To the person who stole these flowers…I got them for my baby. Rot in hell.’
In a post to Instagram on the day of the tragic anniversary, he included a picture of his daughter in school uniform with the caption: ‘Three years without you.’
A grieving father has told heartless thieves to ‘rot in hell’ after they stole a tribute to his 10-year-old daughter (pictured) on the third anniversary of her savage death
On Saturday, three years to the day after she was mercilessly killed in the unprovoked attack, the girl’s father placed a bouquet of flowers in her memory at her old school (pictured)
But the father (pictured with his daughter soon after she was born) revealed they were stolen almost instantly, and told the thieves to ‘rot in hell’
He also included a photograph of the flowers outside her primary school in country NSW where the former student is still fondly remembered.
Her old teachers even entered a piece of her work in an environmental recycling art competition the year after her death, which ended up winning her age group.
The girl’s mum proudly posted a newspaper cutting of the win to Facebook, calling it a ‘gorgeous gesture’ by her old school, and adding: ‘She was a talented little artist.’
The NSW Supreme Court ruled in November 2021 that the mentally ill teenage killer was not criminally responsible for the attack.
She was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment, but the victim’s family says they have learned she is now being prepared for day release just three years later.
‘Another huge f*** you to the Australian Legal system,’ her father posted on Instagram when they first heard her killer could be allowed to walk the streets again.
‘How in the f*** after less than three years can it even be considered to let the murdering scum out on day release?
‘My beautiful baby doesn’t get day release from heaven. I don’t get day release from my PTSD nightmares flashbacks of seeing her poor body. How is this justice!’
The victim’s parents now live separate lives, with the child’s mother engaged to a new partner while the father is still coming to terms with their loss.
He added in his post: ‘I don’t expect anyone to understand what I go through…
‘But imagine waking up tomorrow, you have lost your child, you have lost your mental health, you have lost your career and almost all of your possessions.’
At the time of the tragedy, it was reported that the child’s mother forgave the killer’s family – but the victim’s father said he could not, deepening the rift between them.
The girl’s family are desperate to keep their daughter’s memory alive but are furious that court orders prevent them from publicly identifying her and what happened to her
Her father is furious at hearing his daughter’s killer could be allowed to walk free on day release after just three years, fuming:x ‘My beautiful baby doesn’t get day release from heaven’
The little girl’s father has this single sunflower as a lasting memento of his child, engraved with his nickname for her and the message: ‘Happy heavenly 13th birthday’
Her family are desperate to keep their daughter’s memory alive but are furious that court orders prevent them from publicly identifying her and what happened to her.
The NSW Supreme Court imposed restrictions on publishing details of the case that are among the strictest ever seen in Australia, admitted one legal expert.
Aside from the normal ban on naming the under-age killer, the judge also ordered that details of the victim’s identity, injuries and connection to her killer not be revealed.
‘I can’t even show a picture of her face or use her name. She’s been made invisible by the legal system,’ the mother posted on Facebook.
‘I’m not allowed to even use my daughter’s picture or name to tell her story. All juvenile perpetrators have their identities suppressed.
‘[But] victims are not usually suppressed. In this case they are saying the crime was so horrific, it’s to protect us as the family.
‘However we already know what happened so it doesn’t protect us. It can’t protect [her] as she is dead, it achieves nothing that makes sense.
‘I think it only really provides further unnecessary protection to the perpetrator at the expense for [our daughter’s] story to be properly told using her name and face.
‘The suppression of the details of injuries essentially covers up the extent of the crime for the public.’
She added: ‘I view it as a massive injustice to silence and make victims disappear from the public in stories that hold significant public interest and allow victims a voice.
‘It makes them invisible in their own story, and in this case, prevents us from properly even being able to fight publicly for justice by using [her] name and face in media.’
The 10-year-old girl (pictured with one of her artworks) was killed by the teenager, now aged 17, at a farmhouse in Gunnedah, northern NSW, on July 8, 2020
The farming community of Gunnedah in north-western NSW was shocked by the incident
To commemorate what would have been her 12th birthday in October 2021, the victim’s mother posted a touching insight into her ongoing trauma.
‘There are no words to describe the pain of the place in our hearts where we carry her loss and the terrible way we lost her,’ she said.
‘I have no idea how we survived and continue to survive, but we do. In the terrible darkness, light shines blindingly. We are brought to our knees at the mercy of forces of life.
‘We feel the fleeting, preciousness of life that gifts to us the ability to experience all, the terrible, the horrible, but also the wondrously beautiful.’
The family has launched a petition to change the laws around Victim Support using a drawing of their daughter in a bid to get around the ban on photographs.
The suppression order prevents Daily Mail Australia from linking to their petition.
Disturbed teenager’s deadly attack
In the weeks leading up to the deadly attack, the twisted killer tried to tell her parents she ‘thought about killing people all the time’.
In texts the night before the killing, revealed in court documents, she admitted to her friend: ‘I’m not okay. I can’t do it any more. I think I’m going crazy.
‘I don’t know what to do. I seriously can’t take it any longer. I’m not talking to my parents – they are the cause of it.
‘Something bad is going to happen and it’s going to be irreversible.’
Court documents revealed the day before the killing, the teen boasted to a school friend that she had been standing over her sleeping parents holding a ‘big a** knife’, ready to stab her father to death.
The disturbed teenager (pictured after her arrest) who savagely killed a 10-year-old girl warned she was set to go on a murderous rampage in a series of terrifying texts
Just a few hours after these menacing texts, the teenager killed her 10-year-old victim
The former animal lover had previously began killing and mutilating chickens every day, using knives she had been collecting and nicknaming each one.
In chilling late night messages to the friend, the teen – a former star pupil at school – warned she was on a mission to kill, but was frustrated that no-one believed her.
Her friend begged the soon-to-be killer not to follow through on the threats – but she refused, saying: ‘I don’t like to lie about promises and won’t make them if I don’t mean them.
‘I want to kill dad, torture mum and stab [my sister] countless times then sprawl their corpse out onto the kitchen table.’
She added: ‘Sorry, I have to go,’ according to the court documents.
On the day of the killing, between 6.30am and 7am, the teenager armed herself with a tomahawk she had nicknamed Tommy, which her father had given her two weeks earlier.
She then tracked down her 10-year-old victim and killed her before dragging the body to her 12-year-old sister’s room. The teen then put on a backpack and walked out of the house.
A psychiatric report later found the girl was suffering from untreated schizophrenia which included auditory hallucinations coaxing her to kill, and delusions her life and experiences were not real.
A short no-jury trial, overseen by Acting Justice Carolyn Simpson, found the girl was suffering from severe mental illness and had difficulty separating ‘dreams from reality’.
The teenager was ordered to remain in detention under supervision, with her condition reviewed by the Mental Health Tribunal until deemed fit for release.
The victim’s family say they have been told their daughter’s killer is ‘being granted day leave and will probably be out in the next couple of years’.
In a series of posts on Reddit, which have since been deleted, the girl’s mother unleashed her anger at the system which she said had made her daughter ‘invisible’.
‘Less then three years rehabilitation is not enough for taking a child’s life,’ she wrote.
‘It’s so unjust and is causing us so much further distress to think that’s all our daughter’s life is worth.
She said the family had been denied any input into the decision on releasing the killer back into the community.
‘It’s completely in the hands of the mental health tribunal,’ she said. ‘We have no power and no say.
‘I think given the horrific, serious nature of her act in murdering my daughter, less than three years for rehabilitation and treatment is not enough to be allowed to access the community.
‘The fact she’ll likely be living in the community in another couple of years is deeply distressing to us, her family victims.
‘She’s granted these rights and the right my murdered daughter has to be visible and named in the telling of her story has been taken away for 20 years!’
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