Growing up, my father, Ed, was my best friend.
My mother, Lisa, had mild cerebral palsy, which paralysed her right hand, so Dad always did my braids and ponytails for school.
A Navy veteran, he was strict and could be gruff, but he was never too manly to fix his little girl’s hair.
It really bonded us, and when I got older, we loved to cook Italian food and watch football together.
When I went off to university, a two-hour drive away, we still spoke on the phone every day, and Dad helped me buy my first car.
While studying, I met my now-husband, Kevin, and was relieved when he got Dad’s seal of approval. They even played golf together.
In April 2005, when I was 22, my father left a message on my voicemail.
‘Shae Marie, don’t go to work. Call me. I love you,’ he said.
My father, Ed Bigley, a navy veteran, was a strict and sometimes gruff parent – but he was also my best friend and had a gentle side (the author, Shae Willis, is pictured as a toddler with her dad at one of his homecomings)
Ed is pictured in his US Navy uniform
I called back immediately, and I could tell he was crying.
‘Your mother passed away,’ he sobbed.
I was floored. She was just 46 years old and had died of a heart attack in her sleep. My parents had been married for 28 years, and Dad was absolutely broken. As their only child, I was beyond devastated, too.
After the funeral, my father retreated entirely into himself.
A doctor who specialised in treating military veterans put him on sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication.
He wasn’t the same, though. ‘The house is empty, and I don’t know what to do with myself,’ he told me one night.
Almost overnight, his salt-and-pepper hair turned completely grey, and he lost 19kg (3st or 42lb).
Then, in January, just seven months after my mother died, Dad dropped a bombshell: he was seeing someone new – a local woman called Lesia.
‘When I went off to university, a two-hour drive away, we still spoke on the phone every single day and Dad helped me buy my first car,’ says Shae (pictured here with her father, Ed)
My mother, Lisa (right), was only 46 when she died of a heart attack. Afterwards, my dad (left) completely retreated into himself
‘Dad, I don’t want you to be alone, but this is too soon,’ I said firmly.
He insisted it wasn’t a rebound.
One thing that never sat right with me was that Lesia was an old school friend of my mother‘s.
Dad didn’t know that. He didn’t know her at all until the day she walked up to him in the street to offer her sympathies.
But my grandmother knew her. She had a reputation.
‘She was nothing but trouble – and trash,’ she said.
I heard from others that Lesia had been married three times and hadn’t worked in years. She clearly just saw my dad as a meal ticket.
I tried to talk to him about it, but it was like he had tunnel vision when it came to Lesia.
On Valentine’s Day, Dad emailed me photos of him and Lesia getting married.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ I said to Kevin.
When I called the house, Lesia picked up, and I couldn’t keep my feelings to myself any longer.
‘You’re not good for my dad,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing this.’
I was stunned when she replied, ‘Little girl, I will beat you.’ What the hell?
When I spoke to my father, I was blunt.
‘I miss my father so much. He never got to walk me down the aisle, never met my son,’ says Shae (pictured here in a recent photo)
‘Dad, this is not right. She’s not good for you. You could have just hung out. You didn’t have to marry her,’ I said.
But he wouldn’t listen.
I was so upset, I refused to call after that. Still, I missed him.
Juggling work, my studies, and my mother’s death, it took a while to finish my degree, but I did, and my graduation ceremony was scheduled for May 2006.
I really wanted my dad there, so called to invite him – and was relieved when he said he was coming without Lesia.
Mercifully, he’d spoken to a divorce lawyer. The marriage, as I had long expected, wasn’t working out.
‘I don’t know what I was thinking with her. She’s crazy and didn’t make me happy,’ he said.
All I felt was relief.
‘You were grieving,’ I told him. ‘Don’t be hard on yourself.’
At the beginning of August 2006, he left me a strange voicemail.
‘Shae Marie, if anything happens to me, I’ve made recordings of Lesia that are in my safe. I’ll leave them on this message, too.’
I was horrified as I listened to the messages. Lesia was verbally abusing him.
‘You’re worthless! Not even a man,’ she was shouting.
It was cruel, emasculating vitriol against the strongest man I’d ever known – who happened to be a widower and veteran.
I called Dad straight away and asked him what in the world was going on.
‘Lesia’s a psycho,’ he said.
Ominously, he then told me where his life insurance paperwork was.
I spent the next fortnight worried for his safety. Two weeks later, I called him to see how he was coping.
When he didn’t answer, I left a message – but soon after, a detective called me. I was confused when he put dad’s best friend, Joe, on the line.
‘Shae, she killed him,’ he said. ‘He’s gone.’
I burst into tears. Of course, I knew instantly he meant Lesia had killed Dad.
Later, I found out she had shot him nine times, in his nose, mouth and penis.
She was like some kind of Black Widow. Married multiple times, leeching off her husbands, and now killing one of them…
After shooting Dad, Lesia smashed up framed photos of me, and my parents together, then took canned food from his cupboards and drove off in his work truck.
She was still wearing a T-shirt with Dad’s blood on it when police caught up with her.
Lesia was legally my father’s next of kin, so I needed her permission to release his body for a funeral, but she wouldn’t give it.
Dad had to remain in the morgue until a friend of his went to the jail and begged Lesia to release him, which she finally did.
Lesia Bigley, the woman who killed Shae’s father, is due to be released next year
Lesia was charged with murder but claimed insanity. She told vicious lies about my dad, saying he had violently and sexually abused her. I knew it wasn’t true.
Despite the fact she’d bought the gun weeks before killing Dad, he’d virtually predicted his own death, and she could have changed her mind about killing him during the 30-minute drive to his home, the prosecution offered her a plea deal.
I was in court when she admitted manslaughter.
‘I would like for all of you to know how truly sorry and remorseful I am that this happened,’ she said. ‘I pray that Ed is at peace and is in heaven.’
It didn’t fool me.
‘You’re a horrible person. I despise you. I hope you can never forget what you did to my father, and I hope it haunts you every day of your life. You are going to hell,’ I told her.
Haughtily, she announced, ‘God has forgiven me.’
She was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but just seven years later applied for parole. She didn’t get it and multiple other attempts were refused.
But by August 2026 she will have served her full sentence and be freed. I genuinely fear for my safety.
I miss my father so much. He never got to walk me down the aisle, never got to meet his grandchild.
I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs now and it feels like I’m honouring Dad every day.
- As told to John Parrish
