I confronted my daughter’s killer after seeing him walking down the high street… I'll never forget his shameless reply | The Sun
AS Jennifer McDermott walked down the high street, her blood ran cold when she spotted the back of a familiar figure.
Months earlier Mario Celaire had walked from court a free man after a jury failed to convict him of beating Jennifer’s 19-year-old daughter Cassandra and leaving her to die.
The sight of Celaire strolling along Tooting High Street while she faced a lifetime of anguish made Jennifer’s anger explode.
She told The Sun: “I actually shouted out, ‘You murdered my daughter and you have the audacity to be walking in Tooting!’ He came to me and said, ‘It’s not me, it’s not me. I didn’t do it.’
“He said he knew who did do it, and that he was going to call me.”
The call never came.
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The next time Jennifer saw Celaire was in court almost eight years later after he attacked another girlfriend – this time with a hammer.
He left his ex Kara Hoyte, 19, so badly disabled that she was only able to identify Celaire as the suspect by pointing at his name written among a list of suspects on a whiteboard.
This time there was no escape for one-time Maidstone United player Celaire, who met Cassandra in 1997 when he was 19 and she was just 15.
Between Cassandra and Kara’s trials the law on ‘double jeopardy’ – which meant a defendant couldn’t be tried for the same crime twice – had changed.
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In a landmark trial, not only did Celaire, then 31, of Sydenham, South London, face charges of attempting to murder Kara in 2007, but was once again before a jury for the manslaughter of Cassandra in 2001.
The court heard Celaire was a narcissistic control freak with a history of violence against women, who regularly hit Cassandra.
At the age of 15 he was involved in the gang rape of a 17-year-old girl with learning disabilities and jailed for five years, reduced to four on appeal.
In Channel 5 documentary Cold Case Killers, on tonight, Cassandra’s sister Andrea and Sophia, along with mum Jennifer, tell how they had no idea she was the victim of domestic abuse.
Jennifer told The Sun she banned her daughter from having a boyfriend because, at 15, she was too young.
She was also worried because Cassandra started staying out late or not coming home at all.
Sister Andrea, now 52, tells the programme she was shocked Cassandra didn’t tell the family about the abuse.
She says: “She didn’t tell us. We’d have said ‘leave him’, we’d have said all sorts of things…we just didn't get a chance to.”
Devastating discovery
It was Andrea who found Cassandra’s body at their mum’s home in Norbury, south London, lying on her bedroom floor under a duvet.
She had been living at her mum’s house while Jennifer visited friends in Jamaica.
Andrea says: “I got in the house and I remember it was quiet, the house was so quiet. And I got upstairs into my mum’s bedroom.
“I just saw Cassie covered in a duvet. I pulled back the cover and she was gone.
“Just seeing how she was on the floor was not natural. It couldn’t be. She had a quilt over her, she was covered in bruises. I knew she had been killed.”
Just seeing how she was on the floor was not natural. It couldn’t be. She had a quilt over her, she was covered in bruises. I knew she had been killed
Jennifer, a former probation officer, found out Cassandra was dead after a call from a family friend while on holiday.
She recalls: “It was Cass who said, ‘You need a break Mum’ and brought in all these holiday magazines. She insisted, so I went home to Jamaica.
“Then I received that call…I stood by the side of the road and I screamed, I was in a terrible, terrible state.
“I was able to speak with the police who confirmed it. The flight back from Jamaica was the longest ever.
“An appointment was made for us to visit [Cassandra] in the morgue. There is this glass panel which meant us with her on the other side, because we weren’t allowed to touch her.
“I wanted to hold her. I wanted to rock her and I couldn't touch her. I could see that there were bruises.”
Ex-Met Detective Chief Insp Nick Scola told tonight’s show how suspicion soon fell on Celaire because of his background.
He admitted he’d spent time with Cassandra – meaning his DNA would be in the house – but then clammed up.
The former cop says: “Celaire wouldn’t answer any questions but prepared a short written statement.
“He said he saw Cassandra on the Thursday [she was killed]. He said he was with her for three hours, but wouldn’t tell us which three hours, but that, when he left, she was alive.”
Detectives pieced together Cassandra and Celaire’s movements through phone calls and in 2002 he was charged with murder and manslaughter for beating the teenager and leaving her to choke on her own vomit.
But the family were left devastated when he was cleared by a jury at the Old Bailey who had no idea of his background.
The case remained unsolved until December 2007 when Celaire was charged with the attempted murder of Kara at a flat in Walthamstow.
Police believe he may have attempted to kill Kara to stop her telling police about his first victim when she found court papers relating to the case.
Kara was left in a three-day coma after the hammer attack and cops promised her mum Eunice: “We’ll find out who did this to her.”
Eunice, who died two years after Celaire was brought to justice, had the idea of writing down the names of everyone Kara knew on a whiteboard so the partially paralysed teen could indicate who was to blame.
When she wrote down Mario Celaire, Kara started frantically hitting the board.
When she was finally well enough to talk to detectives nine months later, she said Celaire had admitted to “mistakenly” killing Cassandra when she fell and hit her head.
With Kara’s courage, police were able to finally nail Celaire, then 31, for both attacks and he was jailed for life.
Cassandra’s mum Jennifer told The Sun she’s still in touch with Kara’s family today but expressed sadness that her condition has deteriorated in recent years.
She said: “Had it not been for Kara we would not have had the conviction.”
Jennifer and Cassandra’s sisters Angela and Sophia, 53, now run a charity in her name to help other young victims of domestic abuse.
Jennifer said: “We had no idea that Cassandra was being abused and we want to offer a safe space to young women who find themselves in that situation.
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“My advice to parents would be to talk, talk, talk to your children, keep the lines of communication open and always tell them you love them.”
Cold Case Killers: The Killing of Cassandra McDermott is on Channel 5 tonight (Thursday 15 June) at 10.30pm. To find out more about Jennifer’s charity and donate log on to cassandracentre.org.uk
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