A mother of three has described the heartbreaking last moment she saw her children before her husband murdered them and threw himself off a cliff.
Ruth Fuller, 34, told husband Ceri, 35, she was leaving him because of a ‘schoolgirl crush’ on a university lecturer.
She asked him to give her space while she packed by taking their children Sam, 12, Rebecca, eight, and Charlotte, seven, on a drive away from their home in Milkwall in Gloucestershire, an inquest heard.
She heard a car door slam but it was only much later, when she saw her son’s treasured mobile was left behind, that she knew ‘something horrible had happened’, she said.
In fact, her husband had taken the children to a secluded beauty spot in Shropshire, where he stabbed them to death with a 6.5inch hunting knife before killing himself.
‘I was up early on the Thursday and I was telling him I was going soon,’ Mrs Fuller said. ‘I was trying to pack a bag. I said, “take the kids for a drive and I will tidy up the house”.
‘That was the last time I saw Ceri. All I remember is hearing the car door shut.’
Unaware of the impending tragedy, Mrs Fuller left the house and continued to send ‘flirty’ texts to tutor Mark Lindley-Highfield, 38. She told the hearing the first sign something was wrong came when the children’s school called. ‘School rang to ask where the kids were and I said they were sick. They had been sick recently.’
Mrs Fuller became increasingly worried about where her husband had gone.
‘By this point I was with mum and I was panicking. I realised I didn’t know if the children were at home or at school.
‘I had walked around and looked in their duvets before I left and not seen them.
‘I went home with my dad and there was Ceri’s phone and there was also Sam’s phone, which was unusual,’ she said.
