Marion Price: Murdered woman's son warns of abuse signs

The son of a woman murdered by her estranged husband has urged people to be alert to signs of abusive relationships among their loved ones.

Marion Price, 63, was shot dead in her car by Michael Reader in Northamptonshire in 2019.

Her son Gary Price said it could at times be hard for victims to recognise abuse in their own relationship.

He said: "I would say people around the person who is in the relationship will probably notice before they do."

He added: "I think people that are in an abusive relationship don't always think they are in an abusive relationship until it's too late."

Speaking to BBC Crimewatch Live, Mr Price said his mother was "really bubbly, always smiling [and] she used to sing around the house a lot".

Reader and Ms Price met online and her son said the first time he met him they were already living together.

"It was all very quick. Something didn't feel right," he said.

"I was trying to figure out what my mum had seen in this guy to want to marry him, and I just couldn't figure out why."

If you are affected by issues raised in this article, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line.

If you or someone you know needs support for issues relating to domestic abuse, these organisations may be also able to help.

Toni Brown said she remembered one Christmas when her mother came round on her own "quite devastated".

"She just said that they'd had an argument and he wasn't coming over. Then when she went home he'd taken all the Christmas decorations down.

"It was just control, I suppose. Seeing my mum go from this bubbly person to half the woman she was, it was just upsetting."

Ms Price left Reader after four years of marriage, but Det Ch Insp Joe Banfield said: "He was controlling enough that even when she was brave enough to leave him he wouldn't let her be."

The detective said Reader had used a tracking device on Ms Price's car and "he didn't quite understand why she'd left him, and he couldn't quite come to terms with that".

In December 2019 while Ms Price was in her car in Earls Barton, Reader pulled up alongside her on a motorbike and shot her dead.

Both Reader and his accomplice Stephen Welch were convicted of murder and jailed for life.

Sentencing, the judge said the murder was "an act of revenge, for the financial consequences of the divorce and punishment for the fact that Marion had moved on with her life after an abusive marriage".

Det Ch Insp Banfield said he believed the investigation would "stay with me forever".

Mr Price told the court he hoped "people will read or hear about my mum's story and help at least one other person to spot the signs they are in an abusive relationship".

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