“I hate him for what he did to my mummy”: Tragic statement from daughter of slain 23-year-old
Queenslander Gabrielle "Gabbie" Marshall, 23, moved to Tasmania to build a new life and hoped to be reunited with her daughter in the future.
Her killer, Colin William Drake, 37, lived on the same street just 230m away, and would later on stab her in a frenzied attack while she slept on the floor of her friend’s house in the coastal town of Ulverstone.
Although Drake had no clear motive for the attack on June 14, 2021, he had been arrested and appeared in the Supreme Court of Tasmania on Wednesday after pleading guilty to murder.
The Crown prosecutor Linda Mason SC, said that Gabbie suffered 17 stab wounds to her neck, arms and hands, in a desperate act to defend herself.
In heartbreaking turn of events, Gabbie's parents Heidi and Rick Marshall paid tribute to their young daughter in court.
“I saw two men approaching (our house) in suits. I knew they were detectives,” Heidi recalled the moment she found out about her daughter's death.
“I instantly knew something had happened to Gabrielle and my heart just broke.”
Heidi said that Gabbie felt the safest in Tasmania, after getting out of a bad relationship and would call her parents every night to tell them she loved them.
“Before her death she was the happiest she had ever been,” Gabbie's dad said.
“Just like that she was gone,” Heidi said.
“You never think anything like this would happen to your family.”
Gabbie's daughter, who was six at the time, was playing on the deck when the detectives arrived and overheard the conversation.
She "still sleeps with one of Gabbie’s jumpers,” Heidi said.
Gabbie's daughter, who continues to live with her grandparents, has written a heart-wrenching statement which was also read in court.
“When I hug my mummy’s jumper at night I get to talk to her,” the statement read.
“(She) won’t be there to see me finish school. I hate him very much for what he did to my mummy.”
The court was told that Drake, who is set to be sentenced in December, has a mild intellectual disability and a low IQ, sitting at the bottom 0.4 per cent of the population.
The Crown prosecutor said that there were several possible motives including sexual jealousy, desire, or that he entered the house to steal something.
She added that this is due to the sexualised comments he had made about women he saw while walking with his carer a few weeks prior.
He had no connection with Gabbie or her friend.
Defence lawyer Greg Barns SC said Drake had indicated to his legal advisers that he had remorse, and maintained that he went to the house to get cigarettes.
Images: 7News