❤️HER NAME IS SANDRA DOROTHY BACON!❤️
I mourn a child I never knew.
Her name is Sandra Dorothy Bacon. Sandra was raped, abducted and murdered in Townsville, Qld, exactly 63 years ago today (November 24). She was only five years old.
The man who killed her would go on to marry my mother. Five years later he would abduct, rape and murder another little girl – Stacey-Ann Tracy. He would kill Stacey in my mother’s home, in a room nearby to where my younger sisters would sleep.
I will not use his name. But I will tell you what I know of Sandra’s story.
On November 24, 1962, little Sandra was playing in her front yard. The man next door, a 19-year-old – already with a history of rape, – asked her to come into his home to collect some books for her family member.
No one knew he was a rapist. No one knew he was a child predator. No one had reason to fear him.
Sandra never came out of that house.
That afternoon, he joined the search for Sandra. He spoke to her parents, telling them he knew their pain because his own brother had gone missing once.
Police found Sandra’s tiny fragile body in the boot of his car, in his garage. She was partially naked and wrapped in a sack.
This man was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in jail. But he fell in with members of the Baptist Church and over time became a minister of that church. And when it came time for his parole hearing, members of that church pleaded for his release.
He met my mother only a few weeks later in Toowoomba. They married.
Myself and my siblings had no idea of the truth behind this man – he told us he went to jail for killing a man in a bar fight. He told us it was manslaughter.
There was no Google then. We had no hope of understanding how terrifyingly dangerous he was.
They moved to Roma.
He got a job, he joined the State Emergency Service, he took part in sports events.
He blended in like monsters always do.
On May 22, 1990, nine-year-old Stacey-Ann took her little sister to school. She kissed her goodbye and started walking toward her own classroom. She never made it.
Back at my mother’s house, Stacey managed to escape. She ran fast. A man watched as the little girl fled down the street. The man watched as a big bearded man scooped that little girl up and took her back to the house. The man did not call police – he thought the little girl was running from her dad.
The next day, my stepfather put on his SES uniform and joined the search for Stacey. She was found days later, half-naked, wrapped in a garbage bag, dumped under a tree near the local tip.
Police came. They searched our house. They interviewed us. They took him away. They told me about Sandra’s murder and his criminal history.
I became a witness for the prosecution. He was convicted and died in jail.
My relationship with my mother imploded. I imploded.
Stacey’s family has never recovered. They still grieve their little girl. I do not know Sandra’s family, but I imagine the grief is still very deep.
As I said at the start, it is such a strange space to be in – to mourn a person I never met. To hold these girls in my heart like they are my own sisters.
For decades I carried the grief, guilt and anger around in my chest – it sat there, tick tock, tick tock. Waiting to explode.
I needed something to focus that pain and so I started documenting the stories of women and children killed. First Sandra’s story. Then Stacey’s story. Now almost 3000 stories of lives lived, lives loved, lives lost.
The RED HEART Campaign and Australian Femicide Watch are no my legacy – they’re the legacy of Sandra and Stacey.
I cannot change their stories but their stories can change HER story.
SANDRA DOROTHY BACON MATTERS!❤️
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