Let us not forget Zoe Buttigieg, every year on 8 August and 25 October. We made her one of The 82 murdered children of Unit 1012 where we
will not forget her. Let us remember how she lived on
this earth.
The
11-year-old schoolgirl has been remembered as a 'beautiful young lady' with a
'cheeky smile'
Zoe
Buttigieg
(8
August 2004 to 25 October 2015)
|
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/crime/zoe-buttigieg-was-murdered-in-her-bed-by-a-party-guest/news-story/b6314d77d9e066359ca4f1a837034fac
Zoe Buttigieg
was murdered in her bed by a party guest
August 12, 20168:02pm
Murdered 11-year-old Zoe Buttigieg’s mother
posted this picture saying it was a ‘a very special photo, my last day with my
beautiful girl’. Picture: Facebook
|
Candace
Sutton
HE WAS an
apparently normal party guest invited to celebrate a Saturday evening in an
ordinary suburban house where he raped an 11-year-old girl and then ended her
life.
The nightmare
on Inchbold Street in the north-eastern Victorian town of Wangaratta which
occurred on the morning of October 25 has shattered a family.
The mother of
the fourth grader, Zoe Buttigieg, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in
her own bedroom, has not ceased to ask why her adored daughter had to die.
In a constant
show of photographs of her beloved Zoe posted on her Facebook page, Janelle
Saunders has continually mourned her daughter’s senseless murder.
On June 17,
Ms Saunders posted a picture of her daughter smiling into the camera above
three crying emoticons, with the words: “So unfair. You
should be here with me”.
Zoe Buttigieg, 11, with beloved dog Jax at home in
Wangaratta, where she was murdered by prison parolee Bowe Maddigan. Picture:
Facebook Source: Facebook
|
Zoe, with her dog
Jax, was described by friends and neighbours as a happy normal little girl.
Picture: Facebook Source: Supplied
|
Zoe was killed by a trusted guest in her own home. Picture: Facebook Source: Facebook |
Nightmare on
Inchbold street: the suburban house where Zoe Buttigieg was raped and murdered
by a party guest. Picture: Google Source: Supplied
|
Last week,
beneath a photograph of Zoe glowing in the light of a blazing birthday cake, Ms
Saunders wrote “Can’t believe It’s all most your birthday and your not here
[sic]”.
On Thursday,
a picture of a grinning Zoe aged about four was added to the page and on
Friday, the family received the news that the man who destroyed their lives has
pleaded guilty to murder.
It was a warm
Saturday evening in Wangaratta when Ms Saunders and her partner invited friends
around for drinks.
Bowe
Maddigan, 29, was new in town and not long out of a Victorian prison where he
had served time for drug charges.
Maddigan had met Ms Saunders, who worked
at Wangaratta’s Big W, a week earlier through a mutual friend.
Zoe’s mother Janelle
Saunders (centre) is supported by friends and relatives at the funeral of her
murdered daughter, 11, in Wangaratta. Picture: Channel 7 Source: Channel
7
|
Zoe Buttigieg as a baby pictured with her father who died in an accident six years ago. |
Zoe Buttigieg was a popular fourth grader and netball player before she was cruelly murdered. |
A life cut short: Images of Zoe Buttigieg posted on Facebook by her grieving family following her murder in October last year. |
On the
Saturday night, Ms Saunders and her partner were having friends around for
drinks — not an uncommon occurrence — although supporters of the family were
later to deny one neighbour’s description of the Inchbold home as “a party
house”.
In evidence
later given at Wangaratta Local Court, Ms Saunders and her guests enjoyed a
marathon drinking and cannabis session that lasted well into the morning of
Zoe’s rape and murder.
Ms Saunders
said she had engaged in conversation with Maddigan, who she described as “very
deep” and “artistic”.
She said he
had been drinking and smoking cannabis, jumping from topic to topic as they
talked in the hours before the murder.
When Ms
Saunders went to bed at 7am on Sunday, October 25, she had been drinking
bourbon and coke for almost 12 hours.
At 11am, she
awoke and went into her daughter’s bedroom and found Zoe’s dead body. Bowe
Maddigan had left the house.
Bowe Maddigan, pictured
at Wangaratta Court, portrayed himself as artistic before he murdered Zoe, 11,
after smoking cannabis. Picture: Channel 7 Source: Channel 7
|
Zoe Buttigieg |
Zoe, pictured at a younger age, was a smart and
well-respected student.
|
Neighbours heard a scream, and then police and an
ambulance arrived.
Medical examiners would find that Zoe had been
sexually penetrated before she was killed.
Meanwhile, police had been called to the Hume
Highway near Glenrowan, 16km south of Wangaratta, where a dishevelled and
barefoot man had been seen wandering along the highway.
Maddigan was shoeless and wearing cargo pants and a
singlet and behaving erratically when police and paramedics picked him up about
a kilometre south of Glenrowan’s BP service station.
He was admitted to Wangaratta’s Kerferd psychiatric
clinic and, later, when police made the link between Maddigan and the murder of
Zoe Buttiegieg at the Inchbold Street house, he was placed under police guard.
Maddigan made his first appearance in Wangaratta
court four days later, arriving in the back of a police paddy wagon from which
he screamed “F**k you. Die in hell, you dog” to waiting media.
For Zoe’s family, her absence has been a living
hell, which Maddigan’s guilty plea may do little to end.
Ms Saunders has posted photographs of Zoe with her
father, who tragically died suddenly in an accident six years ago.
On January 27 this year, she posted a photograph of
her daughter sitting between two friends with four emoticon hearts and the
words, “a very special photo, my last day with my beautiful girl”.
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