My 18-year-old daughter Shelby had the world at her feet. 

She had just finished school, got her own place, and had enrolled in a veterinary nursing course.

Her new boyfriend Christian Goyne-Yarns, 19, whom she’d met through a friend, had moved in too and they were inseparable.

I was happy for them. But then there was bad news.

Christian was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

He’d battled a brain tumour just a year earlier. It seemed so unfair. 

As he began cancer treatment for a second time, Shelby dropped a bombshell.

‘Christian needs to have children as soon as possible because the doctors can’t save his sperm,’ she told me.

Not long after Shelby met Christian, he told her had brain cancer, then testicular cancer

Not long after Shelby met Christian, he told her had brain cancer, then testicular cancer

When I was living with Shelby and Christian, I saw how controlling he could be

When I was living with Shelby and Christian, I saw how controlling he could be 

I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want Shelby to rush into things with someone she had just met. She was too young to be tied down.

I was also confused because my friend’s husband had testicular cancer and he was still able to have children.

The next time I saw Christian, I gently asked him about it. 

‘My sperm didn’t meet the quality threshold,’ he explained.

When I asked a couple more questions about his treatment, he simply shrugged. 

‘I just leave it to the doctors,’ he told me. 

Something felt off but I had my own health worries. I had just started suffering from debilitating migraines.

In January 2017, Shelby told me she was pregnant. She had been with Christian for just seven months and it worried me.

Shelby and I were estranged for 18 months when she was under his spell. Finally, she came to her senses and left him

Shelby and I were estranged for 18 months when she was under his spell. Finally, she came to her senses and left him

When Christian moved an ex-girlfriend into the home and began seeing other women, Shelby said it was like he wanted a 'harem'

When Christian moved an ex-girlfriend into the home and began seeing other women, Shelby said it was like he wanted a ‘harem’

We came to a mutual agreement. I would move into the upstairs flat of the house they were renting. I’d help Shelby with the baby, and she’d be able to help me when I was suffering from my migraines.

Unexpectedly, Christian said I had to pay rent and bills.

‘Get a job and give me your pay cheque. I’ll give you what’s left over,’ he barked. 

My daughter was starting out in life, and I was living at their home, so I reluctantly agreed to his demand.

Soon, I was working in a hardware store and a pizza parlour, earning almost $1,000 a week. Christian took it all, handing back just $50.

‘Where’s my money going?’ I asked.

‘We’re using more utilities since you moved in,’ he said. ‘You’ve been leaving the heating on and windows open.’

If that wasn’t bad enough, I thought the way he treated Shelby was really controlling.  

Shelby refused to talk about it, but I noticed her spark had gone.

After she gave birth to baby Matthew, I noticed Christian’s ex popping by constantly.

‘She’s still in love with him,’ I warned Shelby.

‘I know, mum,’ she sighed. But she was unable to stop the visits.

I couldn’t understand what women saw in a deadbeat like Christian. Deep down, I thought he used his illnesses to garner sympathy.

He never even mentioned his cancer anymore, come to think of it, and I began to wonder if he really was sick at all.

Things between me and Christian became so tense that he wanted me gone. He used the excuse that the landlord had changed the lease.

But later I bumped into the landlord, who said that wasn’t the case. When I confronted Christian, he pushed me across the room in anger. 

Shelby, under his spell, did not defend me, and watched on in silence as I packed my things and moved into a women’s shelter.

I got a restraining order against Christian, and Shelby stopped talking to me.

About five months later, I spotted her in a supermarket. She was pregnant. Another child with that maniac, I thought.

We had been estranged for 18 months when she called me in tears.

Her second baby, Luke, was 12 weeks old.

‘Mum, Christian’s invited another woman to move in to help with the children. But she took Luke off me and said she was going to breastfeed him!’

Shelby thought this woman was Christian’s girlfriend. She told me she suspected he had been seeing up to four other women.

‘Mum, it’s like he wants a harem,’ Shelby wept.

Finally, she came to her senses and left him. After that, we grew close again and I supported her through the break-up.  

‘I think he lied about having cancer to reel me in,’ she confessed. 

I knew it. He had certainly seemed healthy enough, insisting on having the boys every other week.

But on the weeks he had custody, he failed to take the kids to daycare, their activities and medical appointments.

Shelby was too scared to fight for full custody.

‘Mum, he’s got a gun,’ she told me. ‘He told me to “stay in my lane” or else. I always keep my phone in my hand, ready to call the police.’

Eventually, Shelby met someone new and tried to move on with her life.

Then, on February 3, 2022, more than two years after the split, my son Tony rang me, sobbing.

‘Mum, that bastard got Shelby. He shot her four times.’

Christian had gunned her down in the car park of the medical records office where she worked. Shelby called the emergency operator herself.

I rushed to the hospital.

A doctor told me one bullet had severed Shelby’s spinal cord and another had gone through both lungs, lodging in the sac around her heart.

When I saw her, she was in a coma, bloody tubes snaking out of her chest.

A CT scan showed severe brain damage. By day three, I knew she was gone.

I held her in my arms as she was pronounced dead. She was just 24.

Later, police told me Christian had waited in his car for Shelby to arrive at work.

After shooting her, he drove back to his factory job and told workmates he’d been in the toilet with an upset stomach.

He was charged with first-degree murder.

At his trial in December 2022, the jury returned a guilty verdict in under two hours and Christian was jailed for life.

He couldn’t accept Shelby had moved on and he couldn’t control her.

Shelby’s boys now live with a relative. I wish with all my heart she had never crossed paths with that monster. 

As told to John Parrish  

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