Daughter of elderly woman murdered in Ballina nursing home reveals inner pain and hope for the future
CHARLI Darragh will always regret urging her Ballina mum to complain about her ‘evil’ nurse. “Mum was a bit frightened to complain but I said, ‘What’s she going to do? Murder you?’. That’s exactly what she did.
Crime and Court
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HELENSVALE’S Charli Darragh has lived a nightmare for the past two and a half years.
Now, having finally seen nurse Megan Haines found guilty of murdering her 82-year-old mother at a Ballina nursing home, she is ready to focus on her dream.
“I’m determined this will never happen to another elderly person or family because we’ve been to hell and back,” Ms Darragh said of the Angels for the Elderly foundation she founded in the wake of her mother’s murder.
“My mum instilled guts and determination in me and I don’t want her to have died in vain.”
A NSW Supreme Court jury last week found Haines guilty of injecting Marie Darragh and Isabella Spencer, 77, with lethal doses of insulin in May 2014, just hours after she learned they had made complaints against her.
For Ms Darragh, her grief is tinged with guilt as she was the one who urged her mother to make that complaint.
“(Haines) had only done six shifts (at the nursing home) but I never got off the phone without Mum telling me what an evil woman she was, a rough woman who treated her and her friends terribly,” she said.
“Mum was a bit frightened to complain but I said, ‘What’s she going to do? Murder you?’.
“I will regret those words to the day I die because that’s exactly what she did.”
On May 10, 2014, Ms Darragh phoned her mother as she did every morning. This time, however, the person who answered told her to get to Ballina as fast as she could as her mother had suffered a stroke.
“I raced into her room and held her and cuddled her and kissed her and talked to her without even knowing she was already gone,” she recalled.
“I was absolutely in shock and a detective finally knelt beside me and said I had to leave the room as it was a crime scene, and I knew straight away Megan Haines had murdered my mother.
“It couldn’t be anyone else.”
A few hours earlier, a nurse had gone to wake Marie Darragh only to find her in a coma, soaking wet. When Isabella Spencer was found in a similar state, police were called and so began a 30-month journey to last week’s guilty verdict.
“She’s just a very evil monster,” Ms Darragh said of her mother’s murderer.
“We eyeballed each other quite often (in court) and I would just think, ‘You’re going under, girlfriend. If you think you’re getting away with this, you’ve got another thing coming’.
“We’ve got justice for Mum … now I just want to make sure others are safe.”
While Angels for the Elderly is still in its infancy, Ms Darragh envisages a network of volunteers providing companionship for nursing home residents and being an independent contact to discuss how they are being treated.
She is also calling for stricter background checks on nursing home staff and has written to political leaders, including the Prime Minister, to advocate the use of CCTV cameras “in every area of every nursing home”.
“I want change but I also know we will live with this for the rest of our lives,” Ms Darragh said.
“I still can’t believe it’s real.
“I feel like I’m the back row of the cinema watching an absolute horror movie.
“It’s unbelievable.”
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