There’s something so deeply unsettling when you hear stories about women who are reaching out to all the right people for help when it comes to leaving an abusive relationship, but they’re continually turned away or told it will likely get better in time. Oftentimes, it doesn’t get better. Instead, it only gets more and more dangerous. A 27-year-old mother of three in Australia was turned away by police and told to give her estranged husband some time after she tried to report domestic violence concerns. Four days later, she was stabbed and set on fire in her own home by the man she had been so worried about.
A former US Marine, Brian Earl Johnston is serving a life sentence after confessing to the 2021 murder of his 27-year-old estranged wife, Kelly Wilkinson, Australian Broadcasting Company News reported. The mom of three was stabbed and set on fire at her Arundel home on Australia’s Gold Coast, per People.
According to The Guardian, Wilkinson was “turned away” from the Southport police station and told to “cool off” and “give Brian a break” when she sought help just four days before her brutal murder. A coronial inquest into the murder of Wilkinson has heard that police “missed opportunities” in their response to her domestic violence complaints in the weeks leading up to her death, per ABC News.
The coronial inquest in Southport Coroners Court is examining the interactions Wilkinson and Johnston had with the police in the lead up to her death, ABC News reported. It’s also asking important questions about whether the Queensland police have made “appropriate changes to policy and procedure” in the years since.
The inquest found that the victim had several police interactions in the three weeks before her death, per ABC News. For instance, the inquest heard that Wilkinson went to the Southport Police Station to file a complaint about Johnston breaching a temporary protection order, but it was logged by an officer as a “street check.“
A detective investigator involved in the inquest explained that street checks were not used for domestic violence matters, as they could “get lost in the system,” per ABC News. Outrageously, a file note left by an officer in the police database stated Wilkinson appeared to be “cop shopping to get the outcome she wants.” That comment was deemed “wildly inappropriate” during the inquest.
The lawyer acting on behalf of the Wilkinson family stated that the young woman went to the police station just four days before her murder, but there is no record of this in the internal police system, according to The Guardian. The family’s lawyer explained that one of Wilkinson’s sisters drove her and waited in the car, and when Wilkinson returned, she said she’d been turned away at the front desk.
Johnston was also “improperly granted bail” just eight days before he murdered Wilkinson, per The Guardian.
This mother’s death serves as a very real reminder of how sometimes the system fails women who need help. Kelly Wilkinson’s family has started the Kelly Wilkinson Foundation to help support families affected by domestic violence homicide.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of domestic abuse, you can find help and support at DVIS.org, the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or by contacting your local women’s shelter (domesticshelters.org).
