Sian O’Callaghan’s mother Elaine broke her silence yesterday about her daughter’s murder.
“I always had hope but I still tried to prepare myself for the worst,” Mrs O’Callaghan said, speaking for the first time about the week that changed her life.
“It was the worst of the worst that I could’ve imagined, but they’d found her. That’s what I felt when he said it: ‘they’ve got her back’.”
Sian, 22, disappeared in the early hours of Saturday, March 19, shortly after leaving Suju night club, in Old Town, Swindon. Her body was found in a field near Uffington, Oxfordshire, last Thursday.
In her first interview, Ms O’Callaghan, who only appeared in public at the first press conference more than a week ago, said she was in some way relieved her daughter was found.
“When the detective, Steve Fulcher, told us there were mixed feelings,” said the 48-year-old.
“Her dad Mick just shook his hand and thanked him for finding our daughter.
“It was a relief in a way. I would have hated to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and looking at every brunette girl, wondering if that was her.
“I don’t know how other parents can cope with not knowing – I can’t imagine never having closure.”
Sian O’Callaghan: two bodies found, man arrested for murder
Sian O’Callaghan: £15000 to kill Chris Halliwell, say reports
Ms O’Callaghan spoke as the cabbie accused of murdering her daughter was spirited away to another jail yesterday – for his own safety.
Chris Halliwell, 47, was taken to a secret location far away from Swindon, Wilts, where he allegedly snatched clubber Sian.
The move came after The Sun revealed that a £150,000 bounty had been put on his head by the gypsy community, said to be linked to the case through friends of Sian’s boyfriend, Kevin Reape.
Like most parents, Ms O’Callaghan had not worried when the alarm was first raised – thinking that Sian was just at a friend’s house.
But as the day wore on it dawned on her that her daughter might have been in danger.
“It was what everybody says it is – a rollercoaster. It was mixed feelings and I was trying not to give up hope but also trying to prepare for the worst at the same time. One minute you are thinking she’ll be okay and then it’s something else the next.
“For me it started to become a worry when it got into seven or eight o’clock on Saturday evening.
“During the day we were still thinking ‘she’s gone to a mate’s’. That’s what we were hoping.
“I was saying ‘I bet she has gone with her mates’. I did not get the phone call and panic straight away.
“Me and Pete were away on that Friday and I got the call from her brother Liam at about nine that morning.
“But I started to say early on, by about Sunday, that this is not Sian.
“I still had hope but I had to try and get myself prepared for the worst.
“To be honest, I just kept going over the facts and logic made me prepare.
“I thought ‘would Sian have not been in touch with anyone of her own free will?’.
“First thing Sunday morning I knew Sian would not do it of her own free will – she would not leave Kevin like that.
“You know your kids – wherever she was it was not her choice.”
By Monday Ms O’Callaghan said she started to think the 22-year-old must have been being held somewhere against her will.
“You don’t expect it to be the worst of the worst and I was thinking if we do get her back we were going to hear some horrible things.
“When you know it’s all over the papers and the television your logic just says ‘she is not ignoring this – how can she be?’ “I knew that if she could have she would have got in touch.”
On Thursday, Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, who led the investigation into Sian’s disappearance, went to tell the family personally the devastating news.
The following day family members went to formally identify Sian’s body, but Elaine couldn’t face going into the room herself.
