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I will get justice

I'd never let my daughter's killer get away with it...


Published by: Laura Hinton and Jacki Leroux
Published on: 5 July 2012

Like most parents, I've always believed there comes a time when you have to let your kids fly the nest. If they need you again, they'll come back. So that's why I'd been happy for my daughter Sabrina, 19, to settle in Colorado with her fiancé, Adam, 24, who she'd met there.
I smiled as I remembered how she'd rung me after a few days.
‘We've been rock-propelling, white-water rafting...' she'd twittered on.
I'd imagined her grinning from ear to ear, so proud that she'd beaten all the boys. While she was definitely big and bold enough to live without us, I still liked finding out how she was getting on.
But when she did next get in touch, I could tell something was wrong. She seemed tearful.
‘Is everything okay?' I pushed, gently.
‘Me and Adam argue a lot...' she finally admitted. ‘He's been violent... he's been choking me.'
My chest tightened. ‘You need to get away,' I urged. ‘I'll book you a plane ticket to come home.'
‘Honestly, Mum, I'll be fine,' she said. ‘I'll break up with him. I know I deserve better.'
‘Come home then,' I pressed. ‘Please.'
‘But I want to stay here for a while,' she sighed, and I could imagine her winding her fingers around the phone cord like she used to when she was younger. ‘I've just got a job at a nursery.'
I wasn't happy with the idea, though. She needed to get away from this creep as quickly as possible. Okay, I didn't know him - she'd never brought him home to visit, and I'd never got around to visiting them. But obviously there was something wrong.
Now I just wanted her with me. Yet she seemed so determined to get her life together - on her own terms - that I didn't feel I could make her do that. ‘Just finish with him,' I said. ‘I love you. I'm only a phone call away from you.'
Our conversation was still playing on my mind a week later when I was at the hospital with my mum. That's when I got a call from my hubby Dennis.
‘The police are here,' he said.
Driving back to the house, I tried to push away the hollow feeling in my chest. ‘It'll just be that Sabrina's had an accident,' I kept telling myself.
When I walked into the house, Dennis was talking to four officers. One introduced himself as Detective Gregg Slater. ‘It's about your daughter,' he said, clearing his throat.
Right then, I knew. And I couldn't face it. I ran to the bathroom, locked myself in.
‘Carol,' Dennis pleaded, knocking on the door. ‘Please let them tell us what's going on.'
No. If I heard the words, it would be real. But... even I knew I couldn't hide forever. With tears in my eyes, I opened the door.
‘Your daughter's dead,' Detective Slater said. ‘She was murdered.'
My knees buckled, I hit the floor. Sobbing, I listened as he explained that Sabrina had been missing for four days when her naked body had been found along a road in Denver. She'd been dumped like rubbish.
‘Who did this?' Dennis raged.
I already knew. ‘Adam,' I said. ‘He'd choked her before...'
‘We believe she was strangled,' Detective Slater said, taking notes before looking up at me.
‘She was breaking up with him, I just know he did this,'
I cried.
I felt so guilty. I knew Adam had been aggressive with Sabrina, but she'd told me she could deal with it. If only I could go back in time to talk to her...
At least she'd get justice, though. The evidence against Adam was overwhelming.
‘We found his DNA under Sabrina's fingernails, and his semen in her body,' Detective Slater continued, as Dennis helped me to the sofa. ‘He'd told us he'd not seen her for weeks.'
One of Sabrina's blankets was found in his truck, and this contained the scent of decomposition. There was long grass in there too, which was known to grow along the road where she was found.
Sickeningly, Adam had rung the local coroners' the day Sabrina was found to ask whether an unidentified female had been discovered.
‘We'll get an arrest any day,' Dennis kept telling me, whenever it got too much. Through all this heartbreak, that was the only comfort.
It was just so hard. My head would swim with what-ifs and lost moments. I'd never known very much about Adam, apart from the fact that they'd been together a year and were engaged to marry.
Should I have asked more questions? I was tormented with those thoughts - and one other. ‘Why haven't you arrested Adam yet?!' I pestered Detective Slater every day.
‘At the moment, all the evidence is circumstantial,' he'd tell me.
You see, Adam had bought his truck from a pig farmer only a few months before. So cops couldn't be sure whether the smell of decomposition was from the animals, or Sabrina's body.
‘My daughter deserves justice,' I sobbed to him.
‘I promise I'll see this through,' he told me. That hope was all I could cling on to.
A few days later, the phone rang.‘It's Adam Dixon here,' said a voice. Adam?!
He had the gall to phone me? I shook from head to toe as he spoke. ‘I want to come to her funeral,' he told me. ‘And she should be buried with her engagement ring.'
I felt sick. ‘We're having her cremated because of what you did to her,' I spat - hatred I hadn't known I was capable of burning through me. ‘Don't you dare come near us.' Then I hung up on him.
Thankfully, there was no sign of him at the service a week later. I had Sabrina's ashes put into a special box that I brought home.
Later, as we said goodbye to the guests, I tried replacing the sad memories with bright and happy ones of her past. She'd been so free-spirited, so fun...
An animal lover, she'd convinced me to buy a parrot which she called Smurf when she was just nine. ‘He's disabled,' I'd tried telling her. ‘He won't be able to fly.'
‘So, he deserves a home even more,' she'd begged.
Of course, I'd given in. Then it had become her mission to think of a way to help him fly again...
The next thing I'd known, she'd put Smurf on the handlebars of her bike and was riding along so he could flap his wings in the wind. I'd collapsed into a fit of giggles. The neighbours had all been peering from behind their curtains and laughing, too.
She was just too caring for her own good. Always saw the best in people - maybe that's how Adam had got his claws in.
I might not have been able to save my girl, but I'd get justice for her - no matter what.
So I became obsessed, would stay up all night watching unsolved murder programmes on the TV.
‘If I can see how they do it, maybe I could help Detective Slater,' I mumbled, frantically scribbling notes.
Dennis didn't know what to do to help me. ‘You need to let go,' he'd tell me. ‘Stop obsessing, and let the police do their job.'
It pushed us apart. A year after she died, we split. I was so sad, but it didn't change my mind. I'd sacrifice anything, everything, to get justice for my only daughter.
Even as the months turned into years, I constantly rang Detective Slater, reminding him of his promise. If I gave up, then I thought he might, too.
‘Prosecutors just don't think there's enough evidence to take Adam to trial,' he told me.
‘I'm so sorry about it.'
But I knew he believed it was Adam. There'd never been the mention of another suspect.
Frustrated, I threw myself into work. Opened two nightclubs, moved away from the area, then came back. Still I didn't forget my vow to Sabrina. Not even when I met a new man, Jerry, 47.
Every year, on her birthday and at Christmas, I'd burn a candle. It sat in my window and I'd stare out into the distance, thinking. ‘I'm sorry we didn't get justice for you,' I whispered.
Slowly the grief turned numb. The anger and hurt was always there, but I learnt how to hide it as the fifth anniversary of her death came and went. Then the 10th, then her 30th birthday...
I couldn't think about the fact Adam was living as a free man while my daughter was dead. Then in June last year, there was a call. ‘This is Detective Slater from the Lakewood police department.'
There was no need for introductions, I recognised his voice instantly - 13 years after we'd first spoken.
‘We've arrested Adam Dixon and charged him with Sabrina's murder,' he said. Yes! It felt like I'd been waiting a lifetime for that call.
A thousand questions choked me, and I couldn't speak.
‘A new district attorney arrived in Lakewood two years ago,' Detective Slater continued. ‘They reviewed the original case and realised they did have enough evidence to take Adam to court.'
I knew it! All the sadness, the tears, the anger rushed back. But now there was hope, too.
In March this year, Adam Dixon, now 39, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He never confessed to killing Sabrina, but plea-bargained his way out of a first-degree murder charge.
‘You can't really afford for the case to go to trial,' Jerry said. ‘He might get out on a technicality.'
I knew he was right. This was the best I was going to get. Jerry was by my side as we went to Jefferson County Court. Finally, I was going to see, for the first time, the man who killed my daughter.
In my head, he'd always been this fresh-faced 25-year-old. Now he was a balding man, pushing 40. He'd been free to live an easy life, get married and have children.
If he hadn't strangled her to death, Sabrina would have been 33 now. She could have had a career in childcare or counselling, as she'd planned. And I'd have had grandchildren.
All that had been stolen by Adam Dixon. Thankfully, the judge gave me the chance to have my say - I'd waited 13 long years to do that.
‘You have four children of your own - my daughter never got the chance to do that,' I told him. ‘I hope that when you look at your kids, you pray they never meet someone like you.'
He remained expressionless. But then, he'd had more than a decade to perfect that.
Later, when he was sentenced to 15 years in jail, I let out a little gasp of relief. ‘It's like this heavy weight has been lifted,' I sobbed.
Now, I feel like I can finally let go of the hatred, regret and anger. I'll never know exactly what happened before Sabrina was killed, but it almost doesn't matter now that he's behind bars.
My daughter wasn't just another unsolved murder. She was a real, living person, a beautiful young woman whose life was just starting. Finally, I can tell her: ‘Sabrina, I got you the justice you deserve.'

Carol Chacksfield, 51, Madison, Alabama, USA