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Never to be the bride

With a wedding and baby on the way, one cloud still hung over my Ashleigh...


Published by: Laura Hinton and Sharon Ward
Published on: 10 January 2013

My little girl loved holding tea parties with her Barbie dolls. It'd only seemed like yesterday. Yet, now here she was standing in front of me wearing a stunning, strapless wedding gown. ‘Well?' Ashleigh grinned, giving me a twirl.
‘Beautiful,' I choked. ‘Now let me take a picture.' She struck her best pose.
‘If only it was purple,' she joked. I rolled my eyes. It was her favourite colour.
‘You look gorgeous,' called out her big sister Raechel. She was going to be her maid of honour. ‘But you'll have to order a bigger size now!'
Just a week before, Ashleigh had announced she was pregnant. It was a shock, and was the reason she and her fiancé Josh, 29, were marrying in less than six months.
He wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but they seemed happy.
He'd proposed when we were out celebrating my birthday.
Ashleigh was 20 now and becoming a mum - and I knew she'd make a fantastic one, she was such a caring girl.
Only a month earlier, it was Mother's Day and I'd caught her picking roses from the side of the road.
‘What are you doing?' I frowned, pulling the car over. ‘I can't afford to get you a present, but wanted you to have something,' she said sheepishly.
‘Oh, love,' I smiled.
Soon, she moved in with Josh and his pal Joshua, 20, a couple of hours drive away.
‘We should visit,' I told my partner Jim, 45. ‘I want to make sure she's taking care of herself.'
She'd been vague when she'd told me the address, but it was a small town. So, after driving around for an hour, I spotted Ashleigh's car. I was shocked though by the state of their dingy mobile home. There were empty beer cans all over the garden. But when Ashleigh saw us, her cheeks coloured.
‘This place is falling apart,' I snapped. ‘I'm not paying for a wedding if you can't even afford to live properly.' But I'd already forked out for the church. Josh stormed off with a face like thunder and Ashleigh burst into tears. ‘Josh slapped me,' she whispered. ‘He didn't mean to...'
I was horrified. ‘That's wrong, honey,' I said. ‘Come home with us tonight.'
She reluctantly agreed. But Josh was on the phone all night..
‘I'm going back,' she told us the following morning. ‘We're having a baby together.'
I knew there was no point arguing, Ashleigh was so stubborn. Realising we had to work with them rather than against them, I called a crisis meeting. Josh's mum Emanda joined us, too.
‘I'll stop drinking,' Josh sobbed, clearly distraught. ‘I'll do anything for you and the baby. I just blacked out.'
When Josh was 18, he'd been hit on the head during a fight and suffered from seizures since, but that was no excuse.
‘Perhaps Ashleigh should learn to keep her mouth shut,' Emanda shrugged. ‘There's never a reason for slapping a pregnant woman,'
I spluttered back.
‘Well, I didn't mean it quite like that,' she said, rolling her eyes. Jim gave me a look that told me I had to let it go. ‘I'm not happy about this,' I sighed. ‘I really think you should come home with us Ashleigh.'
‘Honestly, I'm going to change,' Josh promised us.
‘We're fine,' Ashleigh agreed.
Even though we didn't want to, we left without an argument. But, whenever I got her on the phone, Ashleigh wasn't herself.
‘I'm torn between wanting to help and pushing too far...'
I fretted to Jim.
‘Don't worry, we're doing all we can,' he soothed.
But, just two weeks later, I got a panicked call from him.
‘Ashleigh's taken off,' he said.
They'd had a row and she'd disappeared. I knew she'd be staying with a friend, though. Part of me was pleased that she seemed to be coming to her senses about him.
Two days later, I was relieved when Ashleigh finally got in touch.
‘Why didn't you call me?!' I pushed.
‘I left a note with Josh telling you not to worry,'
she said. ‘I've been staying with some friends.' Why had he lied to me?! Still, I got her to agree to meet the following day. When I saw her, I was horrified. She had a black eye and there were bruises all up her arms.
‘What has he done to you?' I sobbed, holding her tightly.
Through her sobs, she told me Josh had tied her up and beaten her. She'd managed to free herself and run away.
‘I've left him for good,' she cried. ‘It's over, Mum.'
‘Joshua was there for the whole thing,' she added, shivering. ‘But he did nothing.' I was beside myself. I'd have done anything to protect her. I'd wrap her up in cotton wool if I could. But, no matter how much I tried to convince her, she wouldn't come home.
‘I can't,' she admitted, shaking with fear. ‘Josh said he'd kill you all if I did.'
‘That's ridiculous,' I gasped, stunned by his threat.
‘I'm going to stay with friends for a bit,' she said, taking a deep breath. ‘I think it's the safest thing to do right now.'
Again, I wasn't happy. But I convinced her to go to the police with me and give a statement. They then filed an emergency protection order against him.
‘There's very little we can do at the moment,' the police officer told us a few days later. ‘We can't track him down, so we can't officially hand him the order.'
I felt so helpless. As Ashleigh hopped from friend to friend, I managed to see her a couple of times here and there.
Today, though, we were at the hospital for one of her first scans. As the sonographer smoothed the gel on her tummy, I forgot for a minute all about her troubles with Josh. It was just me, Ashleigh and the baby. Ashleigh's grin was a mile wide.
‘You're around three months pregnant,' the nurse smiled. ‘I'm afraid your baby is in a bit of an awkward position, so I can't tell the sex yet. You'll have to wait until next month.'
‘Never mind,' Ashleigh smiled, all excited.
‘I hope it's a little girl! I'm going to call her Patience if it is.'
‘That's ironic!' I giggled. ‘Considering you don't have any!'
‘I want my child to be different,' she smiled.
Her happiness was infectious. Afterwards, we went shopping and bought lots of baby clothes.
‘Take care,' I said, hugging her goodbye.
Over the next few weeks, though, Ashleigh was even harder to get hold of as she moved around different friends' houses. She had to keep changing her number, too, because Josh kept finding it out. His behaviour was becoming even more erratic. He'd call me up to 30 times a day, asking where Ashleigh was and created at least 20 fake Facebook accounts trying to find her.
Still, she'd ring me when she could and, after a few weeks, she had good news. ‘I've got a job at McDonald's,' she told me.
‘I'm so proud of you,' I smiled. And things were looking up even more when I finally got her a place in a shelter.
‘I'll move in tomorrow,' she told me. ‘Thanks so much, Mum.' It was a relief to know she'd finally be safe.
Later that night, I was on Facebook when I noticed Joshua - the friend who'd watched my daughter being tormented - had changed his profile picture. He was now posing with a gun.
‘Jim,' I panicked.
‘I'm sure it's nothing,' he said, but we called the police anyway. For the next half an hour, we kept ringing Ashleigh's phone. Finally, Steve, one of the friends who was staying at the same house, answered it.
‘You have to get here,' Steve spluttered. ‘Josh has shot Ashleigh... and he's killed himself, too. There's so much blood everywhere.'
I felt my knees go weak. I just couldn't speak.
‘We're being held hostage,' he whispered. Then there was silence. It sounded like the phone had just dropped to the floor.
‘Don't tell anyone I'm here!' a man shouted.
My blood ran cold. I knew that voice. Joshua.
‘Ashleigh's been shot!' I spluttered to Jim.
We jumped in the car and raced to the local hospital in a daze. As soon as we arrived, we were led through to intensive care. My beautiful daughter was barely recognisable. Her head had ballooned from the swelling and her eyes were black and blue.
‘Ashleigh isn't responding,' the surgeon gently told us. ‘I'm so sorry, but it's just a matter
of time...' Tears tumbled down my cheeks. ‘And the baby?'
I croaked. ‘Her heart is failing,' he said. Her...
Ashleigh had never even known she was having a little girl. ‘Your little Patience,' I whispered to her.
For the next couple of hours, me, Jim and Raechel sat with Ashleigh and silently prayed. They did a sonogram and we listened as the baby's heart slowly stopped beating. I knew then that Ashleigh had to leave us, too.
‘If you're holding on for your baby, then you don't have to any longer,' I whispered in her ear. ‘Go and be with her.'
Seconds later, her heart crashed and she left us.
‘We couldn't save her,' I sobbed, holding my family close. I felt as though my own life had ended, too.
Over the next few hours, we learnt more from one of the policemen about what had happened. Apparently, Joshua had a difficult relationship with his mother's boyfriend, Chad Page, 43. So the two boys had used him in their twisted plan.
‘Joshua murdered Chad,' the officer said. ‘He lured him out for a drink but took him to woodland, shot him and then stole his car.'
He paused when he noticed the shock on my face. ‘After he met Josh at a gas station, they went to his mum's house,' he continued. ‘She's since admitted she gave them money and food.'
Emanda! I'd been wary of her when she'd made that comment about Josh slapping Ashleigh. She'd helped two killers. Double murder, hostages... This was turning into some kind of sick film.
It was soon revealed that Josh had kicked down the front door and chased Ashleigh up the stairs that night. She'd run to hide in the bathroom. But he'd barged his way in, shooting her in the shoulder and head. He'd then put the pistol in his mouth and killed himself. One of the girls in the house witnessed everything.
As the officer spoke, I imagined it all. The look of terror on Ashleigh's face, the fear she must have felt as she desperately tried to protect her baby. Blinking, I pulled myself together and listened as the officer continued.
‘Joshua broke in through the back door,' he said. ‘He held the other housemates hostage. We believe he was supposed to take the gun from Josh and shoot those witnesses.'
Except, when Josh shot himself, he'd collapsed on top of Ashleigh. The weapon had wedged between them.
‘But why would Joshua have got involved?' I sobbed.
‘We're not sure,' he said. ‘But we think Josh had promised Joshua his house.'
I kept playing those events over in my head, but I couldn't make sense of it as we somehow got through the next week.
For my Ashleigh's funeral, I tried to stay strong. Ashleigh's casket was purple and surrounded by orchids, and we all wore purple ribbons.
Her old cheerleading teacher said the most beautiful words. ‘Ashleigh was like a firework,' she croaked. ‘Slow, bright and beautiful, she left you wanting more.' Before burying her, we listened to a recording of Ashleigh singing Flowers in the Rain.
She'd recorded it for me one Mother's Day.
But, when the song finished, Ashleigh's voice continued.
‘I love you, Mummy,' she said. I'd never heard that before.
Six months on, Joshua Scott, 20, is still awaiting trial for first-degree murder. It's likely he'll receive life in prison. Josh's mum, Emanda Mahaffey, is facing charges of harbouring a fugitive.
Sometimes, I just sit and look at that picture of Ashleigh in the wedding dress. While it's a painful reminder of all the things she'll never get to be, I remember her then as she was in that moment - happy, beautiful and bright.
Tara Woodlee, 43, Windom, USA