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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Eden Gillespie

Crime scene clean-up: a victim’s family wants Queenslanders to be spared the trauma

Josie Spicer (right) with her cousin Haley Allison (left). Haley was murdered by her estranged husband north of Brisbane in 2009.
Josie Spicer (right) with her cousin Haley Allison. Spicer says having to organise the clean-up after Haley was murdered ‘compounded the trauma’. Photograph: supplied

Shelley Allison will never forget the look on her dad’s face after he walked out of the house where her daughter Haley was murdered. “Before the crime scene clean-up, my father had to do a walk-through of the house and I never understood why,” Allison says. “This big man, he went white … It was heartbreaking.”

The family were still coming to terms with Haley’s death when they learned, in the midst of their grief, that they were responsible for organising the cleaning of the gruesome crime scene.

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