❤️HER NAME IS STACEY-ANN TRACY❤️
They found her small broken body slumped against a tree in the undergrowth by a dry creek bed.
She lay a few metres from a roughly hewn track connecting the nearby town to its rubbish dump, the heavy bushland shielding her from the view of passing motorists.
For four long cold miserable nights, she was crumpled against that tree – a nine-year-old girl scared of the dark discarded in death like rubbish.
In a rushed attempt to hide his hideous actions, he tossed her away with all the murderous accoutrements in place.
A window blind cord wrapped tightly around her neck, its fibres cutting into her delicate pale skin; a splash of brightly coloured material grotesquely spilling from the corner of her mouth; a bruise, the size of his fist, darkening one of her cheeks.
Bizarrely, he tried to preserve her modesty, sliding her legs and waist into a used black garbage bag. Beneath the rumpled plastic her underpants were missing, her netball skirt askew.
A torn scrap of paper, covered in handwritten names and numbers, clung resolutely to one of her toes – a calling card of sorts unwittingly left behind by her killer.
He’d shoved her own underwear down her throat to silence her screams during his vile assault. When she did not choke to death on the material, he strangled the remaining life from her body with the blind cord.
The autopsy showed she had been raped before – and after – she died.
Her name is Stacey-Ann Tracy. She was murdered in Roma, Qld, on May 22, 1990.
It was just weeks after Stacey-Ann’s ninth birthday.
She was walking her little sister Libby to school.
He followed them.
He watched Stacey drop Libby off safely.
Then, somewhere between the little school and Stacey’s school, he put her into his car.
Within hours he’d killed her and dumped her.
That afternoon and the next day, he joined the search for Stacey.
On the day they found Stacey’s body, the police came knocking.
It was my mother’s door.
He was her husband.
He was my stepfather.
Stacey wasn’t his first victim.
He also abducted, raped and murdered five-year-old Sandra Dorothy Bacon.
On November 24, 1962, he lured Sandra into his home under the pretense of giving her a book for a family member.
After killing Sandra, he hid her body, wrapped in a corn bag, in the boot of his car.
He joined the search for her.
He spoke to her family, telling them he understood their pain because his brother went missing once.
He served 23 years, and released because a church group convinced the parole board he was safe.
He wasn’t – he was a danger to little girls. A timebomb ready to explode.
Stacey’s nan Joan, mum Janet and sister Libby adored her. She was fun and kind – a born entertainer who made the world a better place. The pain for them has never lessened. Their grief has never dimmed.
“We did everything together,” Libby says. “Anywhere she went she’d say ‘Libby’s coming with me’ – whether I wanted to go or not. I’d have followed her anywhere.”
“I never thought I would outlive my grandchild,” Joan said. “When she was killed it broke my husband’s heart – he changed overnight and he never really spoke her name again.”
“We got the life sentence. Stacey got the death sentence. He got bed and breakfast. I wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone,” Janet told me years ago.
A rage and sadness sat deep in my soul for many years.
The actions of my stepfather – the guilt and the shame – weighed heavy.
I started The RED HEART Campaign to give violence survivors a voice they were so often denied by courts, media and their abusers.
But even this did not ease the heaviness.
Creating a tribute to Stacey and Sandra is my solace.
That tribute is the Memorial to Women and Children Lost to Violence.
Stacey and Sandra were the first names – and stories – I entered on this project.
Now that list of names and stories has grown to more than 2000 women and children killed.
Stacey-Ann and Sandra are at the heart of everything I do.
I know I can never undo his actions.
I know I can never bring them back to their families.
I know I can never assuage their pain and their grief.
But the one thing I can do …. Ensure their stories make the world a safer place for your daughter, your daughter’s daughter and all the daughters after them.
STACEY-ANN TRACY MATTERS! ❤️
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