Page 10 of Vengeance is Mine

I turned on the shower and allowed the room to fill up with steam and fog the mirrors before I climbed over the edge of the bath and let the hot water cascade over me. It was the longest and most luxurious shower I’d ever had, and I didn’t want it to end. When I went into the bedroom, the bedside clock told me I’d been in the bathroom for almost forty minutes. Where had the time gone? What had I been thinking about that had distracted me for so long? I couldn’t actually remember, but I had a pretty good idea – my father.

I felt empty and dazed. I wrapped my big pink towelling dressing gown around me, tied it around my waist and slumped, face-down, on the bed. I was asleep within minutes and stayed like that until I woke eight hours later at three o’clock.

I sat up with a feeling of determination running through me, as if my dreams had made me realise what I had to do. I looked at my phone: four missed calls and twelve text messages, all from my mother. She was a worrier. I didn’t bother to listen to the voicemails but read a couple of the texts and fired one back saying I was fine and just needed to be on my own for a while.

My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten anything since those few slices of pizza last night. I stumbled off the bed and into the kitchen. Looking through the cupboards, I realised I needed to do a shop, and soon. It would have to be pizza again.

I placed my order on the same app I had ordered from the night before, and while waiting for it to be delivered, I powered up the laptop on the small dining table and opened the Google home page. It was time to find out who my father really was.

Typing ‘Dominic Griffiths’ into the search engine revealed more than two million hits. The first was a Wikipedia entry for him. I know Wikipedia can’t be taken as gospel, as people can edit it whenever they like, but it was as good a place to start as any.

Murder of Stephanie White

Stephanie White (14 February 1986 – 14 February 1999) was a child murder victim in the UK.

Stephanie, from Winlaton, Newcastle, disappeared from nearby shops on the day of her thirteenth birthday. Her disappearance generated a large amount of national and international press coverage. A twenty-year-old man, Dominic Griffiths, was subsequently arrested and charged with her murder.

Search

On Sunday, 14 February 1999, Stephanie’s mother, Barbara White, made a call to Northumbria Police when her daughter failed to return home after going out to try out the new rollerblades she had been given as a present that morning. She was unsteady on the rollerblades and was wearing blue jeans and a black-and-white-striped Newcastle United home football shirt, another present she had been given that day by her parents.

The following day, a huge police operation began. Officers went to Stephanie’s school to interview teachers and pupils, and television news crews were quick to cover the story. Newcastle United players Alan Shearer and Shay Given gave impassioned pleas for anyone who knew the whereabouts of Stephanie White to get in touch.

By mid-week, Stephanie had not been found, and there had been no sightings of her. British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke in Parliament, saying the whole country was searching for her.

The following Saturday, Stephanie’s photograph was shown on a screen at St James’s Park, Newcastle United’s home football ground.

Body discovery

At an allotment site in Low Greenside, three miles from where Stephanie disappeared, a spate of break-ins at sheds led police to be called out. Upon checking sheds on the site, traces of blood were found. Samples were taken and identified as belonging to Stephanie White. The allotment was registered to Dominic Griffiths, who had taken over the site when his grandfather, Gordon Griffiths, died eight months before.

Northumbria Police, led by Detective Inspector Ian Braithwaite, went to Dominic’s home in Aldwick Road where Dominic still lived with his parents, Anthony and Carole Griffiths. Stephanie’s body was found in bin bags in the attic of the semi-detached home.

Trial

The trial of Dominic Griffiths began on Monday, 6 September 1999 before judge the Honourable Mr Justice Hilary. Dominic entered a plea of not guilty to murdering Stephanie but pleaded guilty to cutting up and hiding the body after finding it in his allotment and panicking.

Witnesses called to the court stated that only Dominic had a key to the shed, and nobody, apart from Dominic, had been seen entering or leaving the site since the death of his grandfather.

Samples of Dominic’s hair and fingerprints were found on Stephanie’s body, though his defence argued they could have been deposited while he was moving the body from the shed to the attic.

On Tuesday, 14 September 1999, the judge concluded his summing up and ordered the jury to retire to consider their verdict. They took twelve hours over two days to find Griffiths guilty of abduction, murder and attempting to pervert the course of justice. On Thursday, 16 September 1999, Griffiths was sentenced to life in prison to serve a minimum of twenty-five years. He appealed twice, only to have them both refused.

Dominic Griffiths has always denied murdering Stephanie White.

The intercom buzzed, and I literally screamed. My pizza had arrived, though I didn’t much feel like eating it now. It made me feel sick knowing that my father had murdered a poor, innocent young girl. And worse still, I knew her mother. She had taught me English. She introduced me to the classics. She was my favourite teacher, and all the time I knew her, we had had this horrifying connection.

I didn’t even open the pizza box. I tossed it onto the table then returned to the laptop.

I went back to the search page and looked up more information about the case and subsequent trial. I wanted to get a feel for the atmosphere at the time.

NEWCASTLE UTD JOIN HUNT FOR STEPHANIE

Alan Shearer and Shay Given made an impassioned plea for Stephanie White to come home at a press conference yesterday.

Stephanie disappeared last week on her thirteenth birthday and hasn’t been seen since. She was last seen leaving her home in Winlaton, wearing blue jeans and the famous black-and-white-striped Newcastle United home football shirt she had been given as a present that morning. She was also wearing rollerblades.

Stephanie, a keen Magpies fan, never misses a home game with her father, Detective Inspector Harry White. Her bedroom walls are adorned with posters of her favourite players.

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