The devastating news that ABC staffer Jill Meagher‘s death involved a random attack, horrific rape and murder by repeated Melbourne sex offender Adrian Bayley caused significant outrage in Australia last year.
After Meagher’s killer received a life sentence and was revealed to have been on parole during the harrowing attack, a former girlfriend of Adrian Bayley, Loretta O’Neill has spoken exclusively with CLEO, admitting that Bayley had raped her during their relationship and lamented her frustration and sorrow that perhaps speaking out earlier could have impacted on Meagher’s fate.
The 35 year old O’Neill expressed her regret, “If I had gone to the cops and he was arrested, he would have been locked up and that poor woman could have been saved.” The Age reports that O’Neill contacted authorities upon hearing the Jill Meagher case that implicated Adrian Bayley, offering her assistance to progress the investigation.
O’Neill also expressed that she was unaware of Bayley’s past, “I thought he could have been The One, that we would have made something of it and maybe got married,” she told CLEO, but admitted that their relationship—about a year before Meagher’s death—turned sour: “Some days he would turn up and tell me I looked like s**t and that he was going home.” O’Neill relayed her heartfelt condolences and regret to the Meagher family, saying, “I am so very, very, sorry.“
Via The Age.
