Daily Archives: June 30, 2010

Having a baby before you are out of pigtails…

Posted by Wendy on June 30, 2010 No comments

Honestly, I just wish young teenage girls these days could muster up the internal fortitude to want to make a better future for themselves than signing up for parenthood before they are even old enough to learn to drive a bloody car.

A relatives daughter – all fifteen years of her – has happily announced her pregnancy, not that it has come of much of a shock to many people close to her, and has started planning not for her baby’s immediate future, not for how the heck she is going to support the child and herself over the coming years but that all-important baby shower. Barely 8 weeks gone and out have been sent all the baby shower invitations along with a wish-list of what she would like to be given.

I know what I’d give her if she was my daughter…a darn good shaking and a needle and thread – to sew ‘it’ closed afterwards.

Anjelic Karstrom applies for parole: this woman must stay in prison for the rest of her life.

Posted by Wendy on June 30, 2010 No comments

If ever a woman deserves the fate of remaining in prison for the rest of her life it is one Anjelic Karstrom, or as she was originally known…Gunn-Britt Ashfield. This woman has spent the last 17 years in prison in NSW for one of most heinous crimes ever committed in Australia – the bashing to death of her six year old son John Ashfield at her home in Nowra, NSW, in 1993. Few Australians would ever forget the image of that dear little boy on the television news or the despicable details that emerged when his mother and her boyfriend, Austin Allan Hughes, were arrested and charged with his torture and death.

It is difficult to put into words what kind of vile creatures these two people are. What else but the lowest contempt possible could you feel towards a mother who actively carried out, along with her creep of a boyfriend, a systematic beating which lasted several hours and included the use of a hammer, humiliation and abject degradation…all her own six year old child who had just arrived home after school?

John’s siblings will never forget, and nor will they forget, how their mother attempted to involve them in the torture of their brother, and then ultimately tried to blame them for it. John’s sister, Melissa, still lives with the memory of that dreadful day – with the sound of John’s pitiful cries begging his mother to stop, to leave him alone…and the sound of her mother and Hughes as they destroyed his little body. Anjelic Karstrom – Gunn Britt Ashfield – is applying for parole on Thursday Ist July, excluded from the hearing are the media and John’s remaining family. Melissa continues to fight for justice for her little brother and I hope that this young woman, who I admire so much for her strength and courage, will be able to rest assured that the person who murdered her little brother will never see the light of day ever again.

And of the members who sit on that parole board and will face Anjelic Karstrom tomorrow…? I hope that they will see not Anjelic Karstrom, but Gunn-Britt Ashfield – the woman who took the life of her own child and beat it out of him with her own fists and a hammer. I hope they are shown the coroners photos of John. I hope that when they look at her and listen to her pleas for mercy, that they extend to her the same amount of mercy that she extended to her six year old son that day as he screamed, cried and begged her to stop hurting him…and then return her to her cell and throw away the bloody key for good!

Further reading:

Why Karen Matthews reminded me of a little Australian boy named John Ashfield.

Gunn-Britt Ashfield denied parole (Oct 2009)

Will the Australian courts forget what happened to John Ashfield? (Nov 2009)