Stories

The silent witnesses

Had my three granddaughters seen the full horror of what happened...?


Published by: Sharon Ward & Jai Breitnauer
Published on: 26th May 2011


Children are a blessing, that’s what they say, but I was only blessed with one. Still, Kristan was larger than life, a real tonic – everyone loved her. Her stepdad Bernie was so taken by her, he adopted her!
Hard working, bright, full of fun – life with Kristan was never dull. She was no angel either, mind. When she fell pregnant at just 16, I found it hard to hide my disappointment.
‘I want to stay at school, though, Mum,’ she sobbed. ‘Will you help me?’
‘Of course,’ I said. I was proud she wanted to finish her education, build a future for herself and her child.
When Aaron came along, he was autistic and suffered from cerebral palsy. Kristan needed all the help she could get, so I raised him as my own.
And now my darling daughter had just turned 20, and was sleeping in after a night out with friends at a local bar. While Bernie worked in the garden and Aaron, four, did some colouring, I made a birthday breakfast.
‘Morning, Mum,’ came a croak.
‘It lives!’ I laughed, handing Kristan a cup of tea. ‘Good night?’
‘Brilliant,’ she sighed, and there was something about that glassy-eyed smile.
‘A man?’ I winked.
‘You know me too well!’ she blushed. ‘His name is John – John Strutz. He’s a friend of a friend.’
‘And are you going to see him again?’ I probed.
Kristan smiled. ‘Tomorrow night!’ she squeaked.
The next evening when John turned up, I have to admit I was a bit shocked – bearded and covered in piercings and tattoos, he wasn’t exactly the boy next door. But he was polite and well spoken, and, as Kristan walked downstairs wearing her skinny jeans and her favourite pink top, I noticed the way his eyes lit up.
Over the next few months, John proved himself more than worthy.
‘Let me do that, Bernie,’ he’d say, strutting out on to the patio to chop some wood or mow the lawn.
‘My turn to load the dishwasher, Karen,’ he’d wink when he came over for dinner. Oh, and the hours he worked in his job as a welder!
‘You’ll burn yourself out,’ I sighed one evening, as John tried hard to stay awake.
‘I earn good money, but who knows how long that will last?’ he shrugged. ‘I want to buy my own place, somewhere with a garden for Kristan.’
He smiled, squeezing my daughter’s hand. Then they both looked at each other, nodded, and John flicked off the TV. ‘Mum,’ Kristan smiled. ‘I-I’m pregnant.’
‘Oh!’ I said, unsure how I should feel. They hadn’t been together long, after all. ‘Is that… good?’
‘It’s bloody brilliant!’ John cried, pulling me and Kristan into a hug before shaking Bernie’s hand.
‘We’re going to rent a flat, set up home,’ Kristan smiled.
‘I’m really pleased for you,’ I grinned, and I genuinely meant it.
A few weeks later, we helped the happy couple move in together. It was a pokey little flat, but it was home. John decorated it while Kristan hung family photos.
‘I’ll look after her,’ he promised, as we left. And I knew he meant it.
They married in a small civil ceremony on Valentine’s Day. When Arielle was born, the pair of them couldn’t have been any happier, and a year later Allie came along, followed by Abigail two years after that.
They bought a cute little house with a garden, and seemed the perfect family. But after five years of married bliss, my daughter seemed really down.
One day, I popped round to find her sadly pushing lettuce around her plate. ‘Another diet?’ I sighed.
‘I’ve tried everything to lose my baby weight and get back into my size 10 jeans, but nothing seems to work,’ she huffed.
‘So what? John loves you just the way you are.’
Suddenly, Kristan pushed her plate away, flinging her head into her hands.
‘That’s just it, Mum’ she sobbed. ‘He doesn’t love me. We haven’t made love in months, he says I’m a slob.
‘When I get in, he’s always cooked dinner for the girls, but never for me,’ she replied. ‘He won’t kiss me, look at me, and… we’re sleeping in separate beds.’
After a year of this misery, my girl seemed lower than ever. One day, she confided that John had dropped another bombshell.
‘He says he wants an open relationship – to date other people,’ Kristan cried.
I shook my head. What a thing for a man to say to his wife.
Just days later, she found a message on John’s phone and realised he was having an affair.
‘I found a saucy text message,’ Kristan explained, more angry than upset. ‘So I phoned the woman. She serves in the sandwich shop opposite where John works... I told her I was his wife.
‘Mum, he told her he was a single dad!’ she cried. ‘It’s like he wants me dead.
‘I had it out with him,’ she sniffed. ‘Told him things have got to change, and he’s going to try.’
That weekend, John turned up for his first family lunch at our place in months. And over the next few weeks, as they did more as a family, Kristan seemed to get a bit of her old self back. She was even helping to organise a hen do for her cousin Lindsay.
Kristan phoned one Friday, just as I was getting into bed.
‘Just checking you’re still coming over to decorate Lindsay’s house for the hen party tomorrow,’ she sighed.
‘Of course,’ I yawned. ‘Honey, you sound tired. Is everything okay?’ There was a pause before she answered, and I could hear John in the background.
‘Yeah, fine… I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ she said, hanging up.
But the next day, Kristan didn’t turn up at Lindsay’s house. ‘She was so excited, I can’t believe she’d miss out,’ said my sister Becky – Lindsay’s mum.
‘I’ll pop round, see if she needs a lift,’ I said.
Only John and the kids were at home, though. ‘She went shopping early this morning,’ John shrugged.
‘But her car’s outside,’ I said.
‘And Mummy’s handbag is in your car, Daddy,’ Abigail said. John shot her a look – and my blood ran cold.
‘Wh-what did Mummy say to you this morning? Before she left?’ I asked Allie.
‘We haven’t seen Mummy today,’ Allie said. Then she leaned in close and hissed, ‘Maybe she’s been killed.’
What a weird thing for a five-year-old to say! Suddenly, I noticed how tidy the place was, the faint smell of bleach.
‘I-I’m calling the police,’ I stuttered to John.
‘There’s really no need,’ he said, but didn’t stop me as I dialled. An hour later, the place was crawling with officers and the kids were being questioned by a child psychologist.
‘Daddy, where did Mummy go?’ Arielle asked as John was helped into the police car. He glared.
‘She ran off with another man, and forgot to say goodbye,’ he said finally. Then he turned to me and handed me Kristan’s wedding ring.
‘She didn’t want it,’ he said. A sob rose inside me – something bad had happened to my precious little girl, I just knew it.
It was a few days before the police came to see us.
‘We’ve arrested John on suspicion of murder,’ the detective explained. ‘We found hunting equipment, including a gun, in the bedroom, burned hacksaw blades in the barbecue, and…’
He paused, then, ‘Human remains in a bin in the garden.’
Suddenly, I felt dizzy, sick.
‘Mrs Broering,’ he continued, ‘we believe John shot your daughter, and then dismembered her corpse. We’ve recovered her torso, but her head and limbs have been disposed of elsewhere, and John won’t tell us their locations.’
‘I know they’d been having problems,’I whispered, in shock, as Bernie stroked my hair. ‘But this? I can’t believe it’s true’
‘We can’t dwell on the past, love,’ he said, looking at the girls playing with Aaron in the garden. ‘We’ve got our future to think about now.’
True. Sitting the girls down on the sofa, I gently explained that Mummy wasn’t coming home because she was in heaven. None of them cried, they just stared blankly at me. Then Allie said, ‘Did Daddy do it?’
Goosebumps prickled my skin. ‘What makes you think that?’ I whispered, but none of them would say. Later, we discovered John had taken the girls to the shops to buy bin bags and bleach, and driven them around in the car as he disposed of Kristan’s body parts.
It’s possible they saw the whole thing. No wonder Allie had said such a terrible thing to me – ‘maybe Mummy’s been killed’.
After a month of searching, police still couldn’t locate any more of my daughter’s remains other than her torso. As her coffin was lowered into a burial plot at our local cemetery, I dropped in one of her favourite pink dresses and matching shoes.
‘So you look nice in heaven, love,’ I sobbed. Suddenly, Aaron lurched forward. ‘Don’t put my mummy in there!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t take her away!’
Pulling him back from the grave’s edge, my heart shattered into a million pieces.
How could John do this to us?
In April last year, he was found guilty of murdering and dismembering Kristan, and was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison, despite always feigning innocence. About the same time, the girls started talking about their mummy again, after months of silence. They even showed Aaron, now 13, how to use a swing.
‘Look at me! I can reach Mummy in heaven!’ he now cries, swinging higher.
I’ve put Kristan’s photos up around the house, and the girls often ask me about what she was like at their age, or tell me stories of their own from happier times.
But there is one name that never gets mentioned – despite his letters and phone calls – and that’s ‘Daddy’. Kristan will live on in her family’s hearts and minds, but John Strutz? He’s already been forgotten.
Karen Broering, 52, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA