❤️HER NAME IS KELLY WILKINSON❤️
Every femicide I document shows at least one point where she could have been saved. More often than not that critical moment is when a victim seeks help from police, but they are turned away. The domestic violence femicide of Kelly Wilkinson is more tangible evidence of how badly frayed our safety nets are.
Kelly begged police for help. They told her to give her abuser a break and to go ‘cool off’.
Nine days later, Earl Johnston burned Kelly alive. It was April 20, 2021. Kelly was only 27.
Johnston is serving life for Kelly’s murder.
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In Queensland, the coroner has suspended the inquest into Kelly’s death after disturbing evidence emerged of police ineptitude when she came to them for help at the most vulnerable time in her life.
The inquest was halted after Kelly’s sister Danielle Carroll told the court about that moment with police.
In the days before Kelly was murdered, Danielle and Kelly went to a police station together.
Danielle said an officer at the front desk told Kelly to ‘cool off, give Brian a break’.
A lawyer for Kelly’s family told the coroner that police lied about when Kelly approached police for help, saying she only attended on April 12 when in fact she also sought help on April 16.
Other failures included an officer improperly granting bail to Johnston eight days before he murdered Kelly and another officer claiming Kelly was ‘cop-shopping’ because she sought help from different stations.
Queensland Police Service has a long history of failing female domestic violence victims and supporting violent men. It has also shut down its dedicated domestic violence unit after declaring family abuse ‘is not core business’.
Women experience violence at exceedingly high rates, with one-third of us likely to be victims of DV. Kelly’s death – and the policing failures leading up to the killer’s decision to end her life – should lead to a reversal of this decision.
“All that Kelly wanted from life was to love and be loved and there are no words for the way she suffered in her last moments,” Danielle says.
“There will never be any words to pass into her children to make them feel okay.
“A mother can never be replaced.”
❤️KELLY WILKINSON MATTERS❤️
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