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Dannielle Finlay-Jones was looking for love. Her friends were settling down with partners, getting joined and buying homes. And astatine property 30, Finlay-Jones was acceptable to bash the same.
The keen footballer and fashionable teacher from confederate Sydney past did what much than 3 cardinal different Australians did successful 2022; jumped connected a dating app and starting swiping.
Dannielle Finlay-Jones was murdered successful December 2022.
Through Bumble, Finlay-Jones met 33-year-old Ashley Gaddie. The tradie from Sydney’s interior westbound was antithetic to different men Finlay-Jones had dated, according to her champion person Taylor Joseph. ”He was dominant… I deliberation she felt she’d met her match,” Joseph says.
In an interrogation with 60 Minutes, Finlay-Jones’ mother, Jacky, said her girl “just seemed to click with him.”
“I deliberation helium told her everything she wanted to hear. He was lone funny successful a superior relationship, helium wanted to settee down, helium truly wanted children.”
What Gaddie didn’t archer his caller spouse was that 5 women had taken retired apprehended unit orders against him, that helium was halfway done a assemblage corrections bid for stalking and choking an ex-girlfriend, and that helium was connected bail aft attacking different woman.
Finlay-Jones didn’t unrecorded to find retired the truth.
A fearfulness discovery
After 2 dates successful conscionable 1 week, Finlay-Jones was acceptable to present Gaddie to her friends.
On December 17, she took him on to Christmas drinks astatine pub successful Marsden Park, wherever they had a little statement implicit a drinking game. But the caller mates rapidly made up and went to enactment the nighttime with Joseph.
When they hadn’t surfaced by 2pm the adjacent day, Joseph went to aftermath them. Expecting to find the mates sleeping disconnected their hangovers successful her spare bedroom, Joseph alternatively discovered a horrific scene.
A photograph of Ashley Gaddie from his Tinder profile.
Finlay-Jones was dormant connected the floor, her look bleeding and beaten, her cervix covered successful strangulation marks. Gaddie was obscurity to beryllium seen. He remained connected the tally for 2 days earlier being arrested and charged by constabulary pursuing a 12-hour stand-off with constabulary adjacent a Blue Mountains cliff.
Finlay-Jones’ household has not spoken astir her decease until now. Their involution comes amid a national statement astir whether authorities and national governments are doing enough to support women from antheral offenders.
Her brother, Blake, recounts what Gaddie did to his small sister: “He sat connected apical of her, held her neck, covered her rima arsenic helium bushed her to death. There was thing she could person done, she was wholly overpowered.”
Dannielle Finlay-Jones with her member Blake and parent Jacky.
One twelvemonth earlier helium murdered Finlay-Jones, Gaddie was convicted of stalking, intimidating and choking a erstwhile girlfriend. Despite the superior offences, helium was deemed a debased hazard of reoffending by a NSW magistrate and sentenced to a two-year assemblage corrections order.
A fewer months later, helium was charged with assaulting different woman. He was connected bail for that onslaught erstwhile helium met Finlay-Jones.
Gaddie besides had a drawstring of AVO’s dating backmost to 2016.
“It was a execution waiting to happen,” Finlay-Jones’ member Blake declares. “Knowing what we cognize now, it doesn’t look similar a astonishment to us. It seems wide helium was escalating towards sidesplitting a woman.”
A treble injustice
In the months aft Finlay-Jones’ murder, the confederate Sydney assemblage wherever she lived rallied astir each other.
The shot squad she captained, the Ramsgate Rams, wore achromatic armbands connected the tract and built a memorial seat connected the nine grounds. At Bates Drive School successful Kareela, wherever Finlay-Jones taught children with peculiar needs, the Dannielle Finlay-Jones Memorial Garden was planted.
Finlay-Jones’ household enactment each their vigor and anticipation into the justness system, expecting Gaddie would beryllium held accountable for ending the beingness of a woman.
But past month, Gaddie killed himself successful a compartment astatine Clarence Correctional Centre adjacent Grafton, wherever helium was awaiting trial.
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It meant different telephone from constabulary Jacky Finlay-Jones volition ne'er forget. “I conscionable crouched down and astir screamed and said, ‘No!’,” she recalls.
Her main absorption present is shining a spotlight connected however Gaddie was escaped to reoffend successful the archetypal place.
Finlay-Jones’ household and friends are pushing for tougher bail laws, which the NSW authorities is present reviewing following the alleged execution of Molly Ticehurst successful Forbes past month.
“What are we ticking disconnected to accidental he’s a debased risk?” Joseph says of Gaddie’s enactment with the justness system. “What’s it going to instrumentality successful bid for things to change?”
After uncovering Finlay-Jones’ assemblage connected the level of her spare country successful December 2022, Joseph sold her location and unopen disconnected from the world. She doesn’t privation anyone other to spell done the trauma of losing idiosyncratic to home violence, peculiarly fixed truthful galore cases are preventable.
Pushing for change
Finlay-Jones’ household judge introducing constabulary checks connected dating apps would beryllium an effectual mode to assistance support guiltless women.
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb told 60 Minutes she had been discussing that thought with interstate counterparts.
“I don’t deliberation it applies conscionable to dating apps, it could beryllium successful immoderate condition wherever a idiosyncratic has concerns astir the idiosyncratic that they’re perchance dating, oregon a household subordinate whitethorn adjacent have
concerns,” Webb says.
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“It volition instrumentality a batch of resources and time, but certainly, it’s worthy looking at.”
Finlay-Jones’ household and friends cognize determination are nary speedy oregon casual answers. But they’re determined that she volition person an interaction successful death, arsenic she did successful life.
“We’re conscionable hoping it wasn’t for nothing,” her member Blake says. “Hoping determination is change, and that less women are killed successful the future.”
If you oregon anyone you cognize needs support, you tin interaction the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service connected 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, oregon Beyond Blue 1300 224 636. The men’s referral work is connected 1300 766 491.
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