Shandee Blackburn’s mother Vicki agonises over daughter’s death

For 23 years, Vicki Blackburn did her best to guide her youngest daughter through life. She wonders now, six years after Shandee was stabbed to death in their street, whether she should have done more.

FOR 23 years, Vicki Blackburn did her best to guide her youngest daughter through life. Lesson one: Your family loves you. And lesson two: You can come home any time.

She wonders now, six years after Shandee was stabbed to death in their street, whether she should have done more. Whether there was more she should have taught her daughter.

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Vicki, a survivor of family violence, never told her children a lot about her upbringing. She grew up with a violent father in a time when it was difficult for a mother to leave, to support a family alone.

Vicki Blackburn and her partner Paul Beardmore at court in Brisbane. File picture

And now, speaking during Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month, Vicki wonders whether being more open could have somehow helped her daughter.

Shandee was 23 when she was murdered just metres from her home when someone stabbed her more than 30 times. A former boyfriend, John Peros, was charged with her murder but was acquitted by a jury. Her attacker has never been found.

Shandee Blackburn.

An inquest will be held in July to examine the circumstances surrounding her brutal death. Vicki believes Shandee, who had moved back home from the Gold Coast months earlier, knew the person who killed her.

She said Shandee had been involved in a series of tumultuous relationships — including with Mr Peros — until she’d met her last boyfriend, Arron Macklin. She said Mr Macklin had been a wonderful partner to her daughter and they loved him still.

“It wasn’t a good relationship (with Mr Peros) but she’d had relationships like that before,” Vicki said.

“She was struggling with her own self-worth and she had been for a long time.”

Vicki said it was her own relationship with her partner Paul Beardmore that had given Shandee a positive example of stability and respect.

“After Paul and I got together, she started to see how Paul and I related,” she said.

“But I never really talked to the kids much about what my experiences were growing up. I’d be very vague about it. And that’s something I probably regret now, I think.”

Vicki Blackburn lights a candle in her daughter’s bedroom in her memory. File picture

Vicki said Shandee and Mr Peros had been dating for months when she suddenly announced she was moving to the Gold Coast, where her sister, Shannah, lived.

Shandee and Mr Peros parted ways while Shandee was living on the Gold Coast and in early 2013, Vicki told her daughter it was time to move home. But the Shandee who returned was withdrawn and seldom left the house.

The trial into Shandee’s murder was held in 2017. Mr Peros’ defence team argued Shandee had been killed in a robbery gone wrong and that there was no evidence her ex-boyfriend was responsible. A jury found him not guilty.

Vicki has spoken at domestic violence awareness events in the years following her daughter’s murder to tell her own story.

“Domestic violence is not a black and white issue,” she said. “It’s very complex. I think talking about it is one of the most important things you can do.”