Making sense of the senseless

Updated

For every young person travelling overseas, there's a family back home worrying about them. When terror struck on the other side of the world, Mark and Julie Wallace spent four agonising days waiting for word on their missing daughter, Sara Zelenak. Then their worst fears were confirmed.

"Have you ever lost your child in a supermarket?" asks Julie Wallace. "How did you feel? Well, it was like that for four days."

It's the only way Julie can think to describe the panic and powerlessness she felt when she heard her daughter Sara was caught up in the London Bridge and Borough Market terrorist attack in June last year.

Terrorism was the last thing Julie worried about when she dropped her only daughter off at Brisbane International Airport on March 10, 2017, bound for London.

"It's a big city, there's millions of people there. It was never once a thought that we ever had. We thought she'd be safe," Mark Wallace, Sara's stepfather says.





"Sarz", as they knew her, was 21; a "practical, street-wise kind of kid" who, like so many others her age, was just itching to experience the world on her own.

She had the "biggest, cheesiest smile on her face" as she turned to wave her family one last goodbye. That departing smile is now etched in her mother's memory.

Julie waved back through tears. Mother and daughter were close.

"She was a little mini-me really," Julie says. They hadn't been apart for very long before and would miss each other.

But Mark and Julie were planning to reunite with Sara under the Eiffel Tower in three and a half months' time. In their message group they were counting down the days till they met again in Paris.

The travel bug

Mark and Julie Wallace raised their three children a long way from London in the bayside Brisbane area called The Redlands — known by locals as "The Deadlands", Julie says, because "nothing happens here". But it was bliss growing up around boats and the bay.

Sara was sporty and athletic. She loved fashion and the Kardashians, but didn't mind getting her hands dirty either when she worked with her stepfather, Mark, drilling holes to install sewer pipes. "She was my number-one crane operator," Mark says.

Like a lot of school-leavers, she didn't know exactly what to do after school. But one thing was clear, she wanted to live and work overseas.

It's such a rite of passage for most young Australians and "we encouraged her to do that," Mark says.

Once in London, Sara quickly scored a job as an au pair with a nice family with two young boys and got busy making new friends. But she always found time to keep in regular contact with her folks back home, including her grandmother, Heather New.

"Sara was special. She was my first little granddaughter. I was there when she was born," Heather says.

Sara and her Nan chatted via text every other day with their news about London weather and reading to small children and Nana's Irish dancing.

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The attack that changed everything

Sara had only been in London two weeks before the first major terror attack in 12 years happened. A man ploughed his vehicle into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. Sara had been there only the day before, and her alarmed grandmother urged her to "keep safe and watch out for these creeps".

In May, terror struck again, this time at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

When the news broke of a third attack in as many months, this time on London Bridge and in nearby Borough Market, Heather messaged Sara: "Hope you are okay after attack in London. Maybe stay away from crowds. Never know where these attacks will be next. Keep safe. Love you".

Only this time, Sara didn't respond.

Saturday June 3, 2017 was one of the first nights Sara had off work to enjoy London's nightlife.

At the last minute a chain of events drew Sara from safety and into a restaurant just at the end of London Bridge.

"She was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Julie says. "And then everything changed."

Back in Australia, it was a Sunday morning and Mark and Julie were out having breakfast. Their friend Jodie Johnston called with the breaking news that was still unfolding on the other side of the world.

Three terrorists had driven a van into pedestrians on London Bridge.

When the van crashed, the terrorists alighted and began stabbing people on the street and running into crowded pubs and restaurants in busy Borough Market.

Jodie got a bad feeling about Sarz straight away, but Julie was unperturbed. What were the chances that her daughter would be involved?

Later that night, Julie's calls to Sara's phone went unanswered. Later still, a call came through from Sara's host family. She hadn't come home from her Saturday night out.

"I thought, 'that's odd', because Sara would never just go home with someone else or anything strange like that. She never didn't come home. Never," Julie says.

As the night wore on, she began to worry, then pace, then panic.

Julie called her daughter "a hundred times", just kept hitting the redial button. Nothing.

Family friends reached out through their social networks for any word of Sara. Nothing.

The Australian High Commission was closed over the weekend, so Mark started cold-calling every accident and emergency room in greater London. He was sure that Sara was injured and that's why she couldn't be contacted.

But the hospitals weren't giving away any information.

The next day, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) arrived at the Wallace home around the same time as the media began camping on the couple's front lawn.

Mark and Julie were told by the AFP that Sara was in the area of Borough Market when the attack took place and that she was officially listed as missing. But beyond that, there was no other news.

In the Redlands, Julie was interviewed by the AFP for Sara's physical features, such as piercings and birthmarks, while in London, Scotland Yard were collecting DNA samples from Sara's room in her host family's home.

Things began to escalate with a knock on the door at midnight. The AFP returned to say that London Police had located Sara's passport, but were unable to confirm anything more.

"As parents, you can't think the worst. We still had hope," Mark says.

Mark and Julie made the long trip to London three days after the attack, still not knowing whether their daughter was alive or dead.

They received a message when they came in to land that confirmed their worst fears.

"I said 'Sara's dead?', I couldn't breathe, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't take the seat belt off. I just went into shock," Julie remembers.

"As soon as Jules stood up and started crying then she didn't have to say anything. I knew. We were both just bawling our eyes out. We couldn't believe it," Mark says.

The first face they saw after they touched down at Heathrow Airport was Jim Galvin, the London Metropolitan Police officer assigned to guide them through the aftermath. "I immediately warmed to him. He was a big, cuddly, huggy bear," Julie says. And she fell into his arms.

The now-retired detective constable has worked with 58 families, all reeling from the traumatic loss of a loved one, as a family liaison officer, or "FLO".

"It's a tough job and you never know what to expect," he says.

"The trauma that Julie had gone through I can't begin to imagine but there was strength to her as well," Jim says.

Julie and Mark shared stories of Sara with Jim as he gently shepherded them from Scotland Yard briefings to church services and formal gatherings with dignitaries. They told him they'd been counting down the days until they were reunited with Sara in Paris before fate intervened. With a daughter the same age, it wasn't hard for Jim to feel their loss.

In the days that followed, Mark and Julie pieced together Sara's last movements. She'd been dining just metres from where the terrorists had begun their stabbing frenzy. She was caught up in the chaos and unable to get away. She was probably one of the first stabbing victims.

Another Australian woman, Kirsty Boden, was also among the eight people who died in the attack. The young South Australian nurse was killed trying to help the injured and was later awarded a posthumous Queen's Commendation for Bravery.

The two young women died not far from each other.

Julie wanted to retrace Sara's last steps. She wanted to see where Sara had died.

Still a crime scene, London Bridge and Borough Market was cordoned off. Exactly one week after the attack, Jim took them there, past the police tape and through the market, past restaurants and pubs. Glasses and plates and pots of food, now covered in flies in the summer heat, were sitting on tables exactly where they'd been abandoned.

Jim took Mark and Julie up some stairs to a spot in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral and said "this is where we found her".

"We walked every step she walked at exactly the same time, seven days later. And then we put flowers down where her body was found. We put candles all around and we prayed and did a little service for her there," Julie says.

Julie gouged a piece of concrete out of the ground where Sara's body had lain and tucked the keepsake into her top, close to her heart.

It wasn't until her parents saw her body that reality sank in. "Mark and I both held Sara's hand. Her hand was warm and I felt she was squeezing my hand back. Ever since then she's been with me, ever since. And she still holds my hand every day," Julie says.

Julie, Heather and several other family members now wear a silver pendant featuring an impression of Sara's fingerprint. "When I'm thinking of her or if I feel anxious, I just rub it with my thumb," Julie says.

Instead of preparing for their reunion in Paris, Mark and Julie brought their daughter's body home, already thinking about what they could do to honour her memory.

Sarz Sanctuary

Julie went back to work as a personal trainer. She had to keep moving.

Some days Mark struggled to get out of bed. His work was a constant reminder of Sara.

It would be easy to be consumed with anger and hate for the people who'd unleashed the violence. But Mark and Julie refuse to let the senseless act terrorise them into living in fear.

They hope their two sons are not discouraged from experiencing the wider world.

"Even after the tragic circumstances with Sarz, we'll still encourage her brothers to travel. You can't think it's going to happen to everyone," Mark says.

The couple themselves have returned to London twice in the 12 months since the attack. They've found purpose they'd never expected — to establish a charity that offers a retreat in both Australia and the UK that provides alternative healing therapies for victims of trauma such as yoga and reiki.

"If I wasn't doing this, I'd be an angry man that probably would not want to be a positive member of society," Mark says.

They're calling it Sarz Sanctuary in memory of Sara.

It was their FLO, Jim Galvin, who came up with the idea for the flagship fundraising event for Sarz Sanctuary — a 500km bike ride from the steps of Southwark Cathedral where Sara died to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, one year to the day after the family had planned to meet.

On June 23 this year, Mark and Julie and a small group of supporters including Jim Galvin gathered just off London Bridge, at the place where Sara "was last in life".

"It seemed appropriate," Jim says. "I know Mark and Julie go there on their own now, it's not a place they avoid. It's a place they find comfort from."

Mark and Julie were jubilant when they cycled into Paris one week later, greeted by the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove.

The couple walked around the base of the Eiffel Tower and took some time alone to think about Sara and the chain of events that had brought them there.

They did not think about the men who murdered their daughter.

"These people want you to hate everyone. So I won't. Nah, not gonna. Because then they've won," Julie says.

Watch Australian Story's 'Meet You in Paris' on ABC iview or Youtube.

Credits

Producer and reporter: Kristine Taylor

Photography: Lincoln Rothall, Anthony Sines, Dan Loh, Reuters

Digital Producer: Megan Mackander

Graphics: Stephan Hammat

Topics: terrorism, accidents, grief, death, brisbane-4000, england

First posted