‘Get out before it’s too late’ - A mother's plea 20 years on from her daughter's murder

The family of a Derry woman who was brutally murdered by her husband 20 years ago has urged other women experiencing domestic violence to ‘get out before it’s too late’.

Bridie McGrellis and her eldest son, John, spoke to the Derry News about the devastating impact the murder of their much-loved daughter and sister, Caroline, has had on their family over the last 20 years.

Caroline, 29, was murdered by her husband, John Crossan, as her three young children lay sleeping upstairs. She died on October 4, 1997, just three days after he savagely attacked her in their Culmore home.

The family also wanted to take the opportunity to highlight the issue of domestic violence and plead with women in abusive relationships to ‘get out’.

Bridie said that at this time of year, as Christmas approaches, domestic violence increases.

Bridie said that after Caroline’s death, women in need who had left their abusive partners turned up on her door and she would put them in touch with Women’s Aid.

Speaking at her Carnhill home where a portrait of her ‘sweet Caroline’ smiles down on her, Bridie said she and the rest of the family had no idea what Caroline had been going through ‘behind closed doors’.

“We always called her sweet Caroline,” smiled Bridie.

“She was murdered by her husband through domestic violence and we never, ever knew that there was anything going on with Caroline. She moved from Pennyburn to Culmore, further away from us, and she wasn’t in that house a year until that happened.

“The night it happened, the phone rang and a nurse said, ‘Mrs McGrellis, you would need to come over to the hospital and bring your family with you.

“When we got over, we were all sitting in a room and he (John Crossan) was sitting in the room with us. I happened to look down and around his fingernails was all blood.

“It must have been after 4.00 am when the doctor came down and told us we could go and see her; she was in a room in intensive care on her own. By this time, he had been arrested and taken away by police.

“When we got up the stairs, when I went in and looked at my daughter...I would never, ever want another family to go through what we went through. They had the lights dimmed down because they obviously didn’t want us to see too much. I just could not believe it. I never left the room; I stayed in that room all the time.”

Unrecognisable

Bridie said that the family brought in a picture of Caroline so that that the nurses and doctors treating her knew what she looked like before the attack that left her unrecognisable.

Bridie said that Caroline was a bright and happy person, always ‘full of fun’. She said her daughter worked part-time in a shop and often chatted to her customers, one of which was a paramedic, John McClintock.

“When he was in grabbing his lunch or bits and pieces, Caroline used to say to him, ‘Are you busy tonight, John?’ and he would say, ‘I’m always busy, Caroline’.

“His first call that night was to Caroline and he did not know her. He (Crossan) had her lying in that hall. They had to get something to cover her up, he even took her dignity. He had dragged her out and she was just lying in the hall.”

Bridie said Crossan’s vicious and sustained assault on her daughter started in the living room, into the kitchen and he finally dragged her into the hallway.

“It started in the living room and then he threw her over his shoulders, because Caroline was lightly made up, he took her through the doors to the kitchen and her two wee hand marks were on the door.

“He beat her head so hard, bones from her skull were all over the kitchen floor. After he had done that, he took the chip pot and poured the hot oil all over her then tried to light a match to burn her. It was the worst domestic violence at that time.

“When we got her remains home, it had to be a closed coffin. We had pictures of her that we put on top of it.”

Bridie said almost two months after the Caroline’s burial the family received more harrowing news.

“Marie Brown from Women’s Aid had asked me if I would go to England with her to do a broadcast and a talk and a live programme to Liverpool,” she said.

“We had a great day and when I came home my husband, Hugh, was in the kitchen. They all knew but didn’t want spoil my day.

“Hugh said, ‘Bridie, I have something to tell you’. I said, ‘If it’s bad, I don’t want to know because I’ve had a great day’. But he said, the rest of Caroline’s remains are getting released. I said, ‘What do you mean? Sure we buried her’.”

Bone fragments from Caroline’s skull were released to the family in a white coffin to be buried with her remains.

“We didn’t know anything about that, I was trying to cope,” said Bridie.

“We went to the cemetery and I had word for her three children but they didn’t appear. I cried for hours to think that he (Crossan) would do such a thing.”

Bridie said that she suffered the additional pain of losing contact with her three grandchildren, Caroline’s two sons and a daughter.

Sentence

Crossan, despite murdering their mother and serving a 15-year jail sentence, was still their legal guardian.

Bridie said that even when the family made the decision to donate Caroline’s organs as a positive gesture to come from such tragedy, Crossan’s permission as official next of kin had to be sought by ringing him in prison.

The family also endured having to see the man that murdered Caroline visit her in hospital before she died.

Bridie said that although the family did not pick up on the fact Caroline was being subjected to domestic abuse, knowing everything they know now, they look back and it is ‘like putting together a jigsaw’.

“She used to ring me and ask me not to call down because she had the cold or give me some excuse but that was to hide the bruises and when I called down there wouldn’t have been a lot of talk out of her,” she said.

“Her friend said that when they used to go out, he wouldn’t even let Caroline wear make-up and she used to have to put it on in the car. I can’t ever remember her wearing a skirt or anything either, she was always covered up.”

John, Caroline’s eldest brother, said that at the time of his sister’s murder, he felt that he was strong enough to go down to the house where she was robbed of her life. He said that it was only years later that he suffered a nervous breakdown and was plagued by nightmares.

“I went down before the house had been cleaned up,” he said.

“The bits of Caroline’s skull were still on the kitchen floor, I felt one of us should have been down to clean it all up but the CID said that they would get someone professional to do it.

“It was absolutely horrific. You could see where he was walking - the footprints of blood and see where she was struggling. It was awful. I felt I was strong enough and ready at the time but it took a few years before I ended up having a nervous breakdown. It devastated our whole family.”

Bridie pleaded with any women going through domestic abuse in any form, mental or physical, to get out and seek help.

“When that happened to Caroline, we never ever had a clue until we got that phone call,” she said.

“What he done to my daughter, I would never ever want another family to go through that. My family has never been the same since.

“Any woman that’s listening to me – get out before it’s too late.”