A MOTHER brutally killed with four of her children had sought refuge in a shelter for battered women after fleeing from her home, it emerged yesterday. Later her 38 year old estranged husband was charged with her murder. He will appear in court today.
The 35 year old woman, believed to be a mother of six, had moved 150 miles from her terraced house in Montpelier, Bristol, some time ago.
She was stabbed to death after a row with a man outside Birmingham New Street police station on Saturday when her two and a half year old son was being handed over as part of a custody arrangement.
The child was found strangled in the back of a car after the woman collapsed with stab wounds. Her attacker was disarmed by a policewoman who witnessed the scene.
Later three girls - sisters aged 14, 11 and nine - were found dead in their beds at the family's home in West Grove, Bristol. They are thought to have suffered stab wounds. Two other boys, believed to be from the same family, escaped the tragedy and were being cared for by their grandparents.
Detectives from two forces were trying to piece together the events leading up to the tragedy. As churches in the family's home town of Bristol led prayers for the victims, officers from the city were travelling to Birmingham to question the 38 year old man who was treated at hospital yesterday with cuts to his wrists.
Prayers were being said for the victims at St Agnes's church, near their Bristol home. The Rev David Self, rector of St Agnes's, spoke of his congregation's shock at yet another tragedy. He said: "There is shock, stress, pain and anxiety - bewilderment. What on earth is going on?"
Det Supt Malcolm Ross, of West Midlands Police, who is leading the inquiry, said the woman was thought to have separated from her husband several months ago.
He said the couple, believed to be Asian, met weekly at either the Birmingham station or in Bristol to hand over the youngest boy, who lived with his mother at the refuge in Gough Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
He said: "The family are known to social services and we are in contact with them about this. The whole issue is very probably domestic."
He said the boy found in the car was seen alive at midday with the man, but the officers are still trying to trace their movements from then until the arranged meeting with the woman at 2 p.m. He said the woman had left her husband several months ago. "She was living in a refuge to try to give her some respite from some ongoing domestic problems," he added.
The refuge where the stabbed woman was staying is discreetly hidden in a wealthy area of Birmingham. The house stands in a wide street in Edgbaston, just south of the city centre.
It was the third major incident in the multi racial district in as many weeks.
On New Year's Day Mr Berry (37), caretaker of the nearby Malcolm X community centre, St Paul's, was gunned down as he and two friends went to aid a man being mugged in Sussex Place. He died from a gunshot wound to the head and his two friends were injured, one shot in the side.
Last week a husband and were found hanged in their raced home at Shaftesbury Their deaths followed the of their schoolgirl daughter December last year.