Monday, November 10, 2014

IN LOVING MEMORY OF SARAH CAFFERKEY (DIED: 10 NOVEMBER 2012)



            Let us not forget 22 year old Sarah Cafferkey who was murdered by Steven James Hunter on 10 November 2012. We are satisfied that Hunter will now die behind bars, keep in mind, he had earlier served a prison sentence for a previous murder and was released to kill again.


From an early age Sarah Cafferkey had an independent streak. Source: Supplied
 
            We, the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, will post this article to remember how Sarah Cafferkey lived on this earth and treasure her memories.


Sarah Cafferkey: the girl you never had a chance to know

November 25, 2012 12:00AM

SHE loved anything pink, fluffy and sparkly but most all she loved her black labrador Sprocket. MICHELLE AINSWORTH reports on the life of Sarah Cafferkey - one of too many young women to be murdered in Melbourne recently.

SHE loved to run, to sweat it out against the state's best in track events.

But when bubbly teen Sarah Cafferkey shed her athletics gear and the stinky joggers her friends always teased her about, she donned something pink. Or fluffy. Or sparkly.

Preferably all three, as in the  image below, captured when Sarah was about 14.

Her mother, Noelle Dickson, says the photo epitomises her baby girl - happy, smiling, energetic.


Sarah Cafferkey in her mum's favourite photo.
Which is why she'll ensure friends and family are all given a copy at her daughter's funeral this week.

SPROCKET, Sarah's black labrador, has been waiting for her to come home.

But her mistress hasn't returned to snuggle under the doona after one of her part-time pub shifts or take her pet for a run around their favourite track, an oval near their Bacchus Marsh home.

Much like Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard of Oz - which Sarah adored and could recite almost word for word - she and Sprocket were near inseparable.

The gentle hound arrived on the scene two years ago, and made herself at home in the townhouse Sarah and her mum shared.


Sarah Cafferkey's beloved dog Sprocket. Picture: Mark Stewart Source: Sunday Herald Sun

Pet toys litter the floor of Sarah's car, and the handbrake has obvious teeth marks. The silver Astra has personalised "OOHSEZ" number plates - pink, naturally, an 18th birthday present from Noelle.

Mum and daughter had been a tight unit since Sarah's father moved to Queensland when she was a toddler.

From early on Sarah had an independent streak. Even as a primary school kid, she'd tie her own shoelaces and make her own lunch.

But lately Sarah was really growing up. Last year she split with the high-school sweetheart she'd dated since she was about 15, and began exploring other friendships.

"I never asked where she was going or questioned what she was doing," Noelle said. "She was 22."

AN asthma sufferer, Sarah had long hoped her body wouldn't let her down.

After years of sudden, unexplained attacks in which her lungs collapsed, she was diagnosed with acute bronchial spasms at age 15.

The spasms would leave her gasping for air and almost always required an urgent trip to hospital.

"She would never tell anybody what was wrong with her ... that would hold her back a lot but she never played on it," Noelle said.

"She never wanted people to know about it (the attacks). She wasn't that sort of person at all."

The attacks often came when she was at school or on her way to work, leaving her stranded on the side of the road.

She once had an attack while driving to her old job at a wedding-dress shop and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance.

"The first thing she said when she came good was, 'I'm going to get the sack, I'm going to get the sack'. She was crying because she was going to get the sack and she was beside herself," Noelle said.

It was the fear of an asthma attack that worried Noelle when Sarah didn't come home on Saturday, November 10.

Was her only daughter stranded on the side of the road unable to get help?

THE last time Noelle saw Sarah was the previous night. By Sunday, police were called and the search for her began.

As the days went on with no word from Sarah, Noelle became worried. It wasn't the unused phone or bank account that really alarmed her, it was Sprocket.

"Got to get home to my baby girl," Sarah used to write on her Facebook page when she was out.

Only this time, she didn't.

Police believe Sarah met Steven James Hunter, 47, some time on November 10.

The Facebook friend returned to his house in Bacchus Marsh, the town Sarah had called home all her life, where he allegedly stabbed her multiple times.

Hunter allegedly drove Sarah's car, with the beloved pink number plates, to a street in Maribyrnong to dump it.

The next day he allegedly moved Sarah's body to a near-new rental house in Point Cook, where her body was found in a wheelie bin almost a week later.

In this sprawling housing estate, full of first-home buyers and immigrant families starting new lives, Sarah's came to an end.

ON a typical Saturday, Sarah would have loaded Sprocket into the car to visit friends for drinks and by evening she would inevitably end up at a party.

"She was a party girl," Noelle said. "Wherever there was a party she would be there and she was the life of the party."

If she wasn't out or with Sprocket, she was often working at the Golden Fleece Hotel in Melton, where regulars adored her bubbly nature. She loved that job, Noelle said, and her circle of friends had grown with it.

Sarah had enrolled in a TAFE legal studies course this year but deferred.

Her first love still hoped on some level they'd reconnect. He wrote a poignant message to his "bu bu" on her Facebook page last week.

"From the day I met you in the grandstand at Madingly (sic) Oval almost 10 years ago and along the path of life we decided to walk together (we formed) a love like I could have never imagined ... but 'bu bu' baby, looks like I gotta take this stroll on my own."

He is one of hundreds of people who, upon hearing of Sarah's tragic death, have turned to social media to pay tribute.

Friends universally recount how much she loved helping others, and only saw good in people.

One friend reminisced about carefree high school days and "the girl who would pick herself up every single time she fell down".

"She is irreplaceable. Unique. Beautiful in every way. Loyal," the post reads.

On Sarah's own old MySpace page, long since forgotten, with pink flowers in the background and a cheeky photo of her she uploaded long ago, she wrote the lyrics to her then-favourite song: "I never thought I'd die alone. I laughed the loudest who would have known?"

SARAH'S passion for running came naturally, without special running spikes or training, just she and a green oval with white painted lines.

She used to go there with her mum for what they called a "family day out".

Noelle returns to her baby's "stomping ground" every day now, to take Sprocket for a run. And to think.

She watches Sarah's baby chase after the ball, and remembers the times when her own baby girl used to run the same tracks. Happy, smiling, energetic.

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