Stories

Stories >> Stories home >> Deal with the Devil

Deal with the Devil

What would I have to do to get the desperate answers I needed...


Published by: Jai Breitnauer, Lisa Brookman and Sharon Ward
Published on: 11th February 2010

Everyone thinks their daughter is beautiful. But with Sherri it wasn't just her glowing skin and beautiful deep brown eyes.
Sherri's true beauty was in her heart. Always a helping hand around the house, befriending loners at school... I lost count of the number of stray cats she'd brought home!
She was popular, too - a team captain, football cheerleader, as well as doing well in all her lessons.
But she never let it go to her head.
All she wanted was to make a difference.
So when she told us she wanted to move two hours away for her dream job - working with disabled people - I knew there was no chance of changing her mind.
'This is me through and through, Mum,' she smiled.
'Call me every day,' I told her, helping her load up her car. 'And there will always be a bed made and dinner on the table here if you need it.'
Sherri nodded, tears in her eyes, as she planted a kiss on my cheek before hugging me.
The house seemed quiet without her that night.
'Remember when I got into a row with that bloke because his boy pushed her over in the park?' my husband Arthur smiled fondly.
I nodded sadly.
'She's not that far away,' I said, giving him a hug. 'You can still look after her.'
But she wasn't our little girl any more, and that was hard to swallow. When she called a few days later, just the sound of her voice made me light up.
'Sherri!' I beamed. 'How's work? How's your new flat?'
'It's great,' she gushed, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
'I've met a nice crowd. We're going camping this weekend.'
Over the next few months, we didn't see much of her. But she called or emailed every day, full of stories about the great times she was having.
And one name kept cropping up - Dec Bennett.
When she finally came back for some home-cooking, I cornered her about this new bloke.
'What's he like?' I asked.
'Tall, dark - the strong, silent type,' she grinned. Then her face came over serious.
'He's quite shy actually,' she said. 'He had a troubled childhood....'
It was typical of Sherri to be the one to fall for him!
'I'll bring him over in a couple of weeks,' she smiled.
She was true to her word and, before the end of the month, we were sitting having dinner with Dec.
He was polite, helped with the dishes and ate all his food. But he didn't say much.
'He wouldn't look me in the eye,' Arthur said when they left. 'I'm not sure I trust him.'
'He's just... different,' I said.
'He's a project,' Arthur said dismissively. 'Like that bird she brought home once with a broken wing - she wants to fix him. She'll move on.'
I nodded, but I knew how Sherri liked to make people's lives better. Dec was a real challenge.
Weeks turned into months and we heard from Sherri less and less. Her emails were brief, phone calls made on the run. Then one Sunday morning, she turned up on our doorstep.
'Honey, what's wrong?' I gasped
when I saw her.
She was thin and pale, her hair hung lank around her neck. She wiped a tear from the bags under her eyes.
'Me and Dec, we had a row,' she sniffed.
I sat her down at the table and put the kettle on.
'It got serious, Mum,' she croaked. 'I called the police. They arrested him for assault.'
As she said it, she wiped the hair from her neck, and I gasped.
Bruises! Her whole neck was peppered with bruises...
'Stay here,' I said, holding her hands. 'You'll be safe with us.'
Sherri nodded. But on Monday morning she wanted to go home.
'My clients rely on me,' she said. 'I can't let them down. And I think me and Dec can work this out.'
'I'm going to call him, have a chat,' Arthur said firmly, and
Sherri nodded.
Later, I heard my husband's voice booming down the line.
'...lay a hand on her again, you'll have me to deal with...'
Determined to keep a close eye on them, I invited them for Sunday dinner a week later.
Sherri seemed like her old self, laughing and smiling. Dec was very quiet and, when we finished eating, he wanted to leave.
'I'll call you in the week, Mum,' Sherri said, planting a huge kiss on my cheek. 'And next weekend I might come and stay. Perhaps we can hit the shops?'
'Perfect,' I grinned. 'We haven't had a day out together for months.'
I was pleased her life seemed to be getting back on track.
But a few days later - the day Dec was due to appear in court for assaulting Sherri - he phoned us.
'I can't find her anywhere. She's not answering her phone,' he said.
'We'll let you know as soon as she calls,' I said, my mind racing.
Had she left him? Was she on her way home?
The hours dragged on and no one could get hold of her. Then my younger daughter, Shanece, said she needed a word.
'Last weekend, Sherri told me she'd had enough,' she said tearfully. 'She was going to dump Dec before his court case.'
A knot of panic tightened in my throat. What if she'd split with him and he'd hit her? What if she was locked in the flat?
We called the police straight away and they went and checked her home, but no one was there.
'He's hurt her, I know it,' I told Arthur, in a panic.
It was too much of
a coincidence, her going missing the day he was due to appear in court for hurting her.
A missing person's report was filed, and police started searching her flat again.
'I've got a plan,' Arthur told me.
'Let's send Dec around there. Trick him into talking to police. They might trip him up, get something out of him.'
'Like a confession,' I muttered quietly.
So we phoned him and asked if he could help out by going round and feeding Sherri's dog.
A few hours later, there was a knock on the door - a policewoman stood on the other side.
'We've arrested Dec Bennett in connection with your daughter's disappearance,' she told us softly.
'I knew it,' Arthur spat. 'Have you found her! Is she okay?'
The officer then took a deep breath before continuing.
'We found traces of blood on the walls of her flat - we think this is a murder inquiry,' she said.
The room span and I felt bile rise in my throat as I heard those awful words.
A murder inquiry?
'No!' I heard a voice scream. 'No! No! No!'
It was me yelling hysterically as a tearful Arthur pulled me in a bear hug, trying to calm me down.
'I'll leave you alone,' the officer said as I crumpled, sobbing, into my husband's arms.
'Why didn't I make her stay?' I whimpered. 'Why did we let her go back to that monster?'
'I shouldn't have let Dec go near her, not after he'd hurt her once,' fumed Arthur. 'I should have been there to protect her.'
'It has to be Dec!' I cried. 'At least the police have arrested him.'
Over the next few weeks, Dec was grilled by detectives, but he denied any wrongdoing - and without a body or murder weapon, they couldn't keep him locked up.
Dec was bailed in the new year.
'We just don't have enough evidence,' the police told us.
I couldn't believe my daughter - my beautiful, helpful, happy little girl - was dead, and her killer was free to walk the streets.
'We've got to do something,' Arthur fumed.
'But what?' I wept.
How do you convince the police that they've just let a murderer go? That the person who's been helping them with their inquiries is the killer.
He was playing the police for fools - why were we the only ones to see it?
'I just want to see her one last time,' I sighed. 'I want to lay her to rest, and see him go down for it.'
We couldn't even have a funeral.
Because Dec was too cowardly to admit he'd murdered my precious girl, we'd never find out where her body was - or see him brought to justice if the police continued to be dazzled by his lies.
Our lives were put on hold, and stayed that way for the next 17 months. It was a living nightmare.
However often we went to the police and begged them to question Dec again, or urged them to look at the proof of his past
court case, they kept saying the same thing - there just wasn't enough evidence.
For that, the police needed a body.
For nearly a year and a half, we watched them combing the woods, wasteland and building sites. But it was no use.
Then officers came to see us.
'Dec has agreed to tell us where Sherri's body is if we reduce the charge to manslaughter,' they told us.
That would mean he'd face a maximum of 16 years in prison. He'd be in his early 40s by the time he was released, young enough to start a new life, get married, have a family... all the things Sherri had been denied.
'But this is all on his terms,' I said. 'He's only admitting to it now so he'll get a lighter sentence.'
'If we oppose this, we might never see Sherri again,' Arthur
said sadly.
'Why should Dec be the one to benefit when he's a murderer?' I cried. It was hard to swallow.
'Can you live with no body, no funeral, no grave to visit and pay your respects?' he pleaded, tears brimming in his eyes.
But this was like bargaining with the devil.
My body shook with the weight of grief inside me. If we stood in the way of this deal, if we told police not to go-ahead with it... well, we'd spend the rest of our lives wondering where our daughter was, and Dec would be free as a bird.
'Okay, do the deal,' I whispered.
But would we ever see Dec brought to justice?
A few days later, we drove solemnly to a house in the suburbs, the address police had given us. It was Dec's mother's house - he'd buried our little girl in the garden, discarded her like a piece of meat.
'When do you think they'll start digging?' I asked, as we sat opposite the fenced-off garden.
'Now...' Arthur whispered, nodding to my left. To my horror, a huge digger was trundling down the road towards us.
I couldn't believe it had come to this. The hours dragged by, and I sobbed every time the digger blade bit into the ground.
'What if he's lying?' I wept. 'What if this is just a wild goose chase?'
My only ray of hope had been that this was nearly over, that finally, we could move on.
Eventually, an officer came over to see us. 'We've got Dec out of prison to show us where the body is,' he said.
'What, you mean he's in there now?' Arthur seethed. Scrabbling at the door he tried to get out of the car.
'I'll tear him limb from limb!' he roared.
'No, please stay here,' I shrieked. 'I can't lose you, too. I need you, Arthur.'
I couldn't stand to think of Dec there, in the garden, with our Sherri either. But that monster needed to do this one last thing - then we could have our daughter back forever.
And finally, all our hours of accusing Dec would be over, the police would finally know we had been right from the very start.
It was another five hours before the police came and told us they'd found a body, in a 4ft deep grave, covered by a bag.
'Can...we see her?' I whispered.
Pale faced, the officer shook his head. 'Remember her as she was, Mrs Jackson. You don't want to see her like this.'
Dear God!
Four weeks later, we laid Sherri to rest at the cemetery in the town where she grew up. 'It should have been me first,' I whispered, sprinkling dirt on her coffin.
Two months later, we were in court when Dec Bennett was given 13 years for killing Sherri. He didn't even look at us. When his lawyer read out a letter apologising for Sherri's 'accidental' death, I wanted to scream.
The evidence showed she'd been thrown around her flat like a rag doll, and then strangled.
There was nothing accidental about the way she died.
Guilt over Sherri's death still plagues me. We were a close, loving family, yet she still fell victim to domestic abuse.
In just over a decade, Dec will be free. Perhaps he'll abuse other women, kill again, leave another family's lives hanging in shreds.
I'm just grateful our fight for justice finally succeeded.
If we hadn't made sure the police kept an eye on Dec from the start, who knows, he could have escaped all together.
The plea bargain still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, though. I know it sounds odd, but in my mind it's as if he's got away with it.
The only good thing is, without that deal, Sherri would still be in a plastic bag in an unmarked grave - she might never have been found. And our girl, well... she deserved better than that.
Clara Jackson, 67, Morganton, North Carolina, USA