A Perth family still grieving the death of a young woman has suffered a fresh blow.
Teagen Ferguson lived with a catastrophic brain injury for 15 years after being thrown to the ground as a toddler by her father.
Next month marks four years since she died from the catastrophic injuries Terrence Bice inflicted when she was just two years old.
“This figure was a monster to me. As a child, I was terrified of him,” sister Courtney said.
Bice threw little Teagen against the floor because she wouldn’t stop crying.
Despite battling 16 chronic disorders, Teagen went on to survive 15 years and her smile was never far away.
“She’d always be laughing,” Courtney said.
“You’d hiccup and she’d laugh, you’d sneeze and she’d laugh.”
Bice was sentenced in September to 4½ years’ jail for manslaughter.
Tragically, the girls’ mum, Kristy Ferguson, died of cancer just two weeks after his sentencing.
“Since then, it’s been quite traumatic and hard because Courtney’s now been left without her sister and now her mum,” their aunt Tanya Fogarty said.
“The stress and the emptiness and the loss of her missing a part of her and her child, it completely destroyed her,” Courtney said.
Bice is set to be released on parole tomorrow after serving 2½ years of the sentence but the reasons for the decision are being withheld by the review board.
“I’m a little bit angry at that,” Fogarty said.
“We haven’t been offered an explanation as to why he’s got parole.”
Terrence Bice was convicted and jailed twice for what happened, once in 2005 for aggravated grievous bodily harm and then after Teagen died for manslaughter.
He will have served 5½ years behind bars.
“We honestly don’t feel there’s been justice,” Fogarty said.
“Even though he has been held accountable by the law – he hasn’t really spent enough time for the time that he’s taken away from Teagen.”
“He didn’t just destroy Teagen’s life, he did destroy my life too,” Courtney said.
A GoFundMe has been set up by the family to help Courtney heal as the 23-year-old has draws on her sister’s strength.
“No matter what, she never gave up,” Courtney said.
“She always fought and fought and fought and she always did it with a smile too.”
