Curled up on the sofa, my daughter Savannah excitedly told me about her new boyfriend.

'Mom, he's so handsome,' she gushed.

I was happy for her.

Youngest of my three grown-up kids, Savannah, then 27, was a single mother to three boys. She lived in a self-contained apartment at my place and had her boys on alternating weeks. They were her whole world.

'I just want to be the best possible mom I can for them,' she often said.

And in 2022, she introduced me to her new man, Anthony Deschepper, then 36.

They were clearly crazy about each other: Anthony couldn't take his eyes off of her and was affectionate.

I liked him – and so did my grandsons then four, three and two. He soon became part of the family.

As the months passed though, I noticed Anthony always needed to know where Savannah was and who with.

He called constantly.

It seemed controlling to me, but Savannah explained it away: 'It's just he loves me so much.'

Then she got pregnant, and I knew – as much as she adored her sons – she yearned for a little girl.

Savannah - who loved hair, make-up, clothes and dance - squealed with excitement when she discovered she was expecting a daughter.

'Oh mom, I can't wait,' she said. 'All those pretty clothes I can buy.'

Anthony was happy, too, though he and Savannah were arguing frequently.

She rebelled against his constant need to know her whereabouts at all times.

'I can't move, mom. It's suffocating,' she once told me.

Yelling at her one day in the street he pulled a gun and fired it, fleeing before police arrived. When they caught him, he was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm.

At a preliminary hearing we discovered he'd been charged with firearms offences before and banned from owning guns in 2006 and 2019. So, I was shocked when he was released on bail pending trial.

I begged Savannah to not have anything more to do with him, and she promised she wouldn't. To my relief, she got a restraining order against him.

It was still in place at the end of May 2024 when she had her daughter, Skyla-Rose.

'I feel so complete now,' Savannah gushed as she cradled her newborn in the delivery room.

The court order prevented Anthony seeing his baby, which Savannah felt bad about – not that she should have.

She insisted that she still loved him and allowed him to see the baby once. Then, when the restraining order lapsed, she let him worm his way back into her life.

'He's promised he's changed,' she told me.

'Men like that don't change, love,' I replied.

They had a volatile on-off relationship, and by May 2025, Savannah realized Anthony would always try to control her. That's when she dumped him for good.

But he wouldn't take no for an answer, following her and calling her up to 70 times a day.

Soft-hearted as always, she still let him see Skyla-Rose.

A couple months later, Savannah had friends over for the day. Anthony called later and knew all about it.

'Mom, it was like he was watching us,' she told me.

Suspicious, she searched her bedroom and found a tiny pin-hole camera in the wall and others around the apartment.

He'd been spying on her.

'I can't stand this anymore,' she said. 'I want nothing to do with him.'

Anthony bombarded her with flowers and notes saying how much he loved her. I urged her to get another restraining order.

'It's not going to do any good,' she said. 'He just won't leave me alone.'

She didn't know what to do or where to turn. The courts had bailed him and she tried the police, but there was nothing they could do.

Then, at the end of September 2025, Anthony vanished.

Savannah got a call from one of his friends saying he'd been suicidal and taken off. They had called the police, and Anthony's car was found abandoned. He had left a suicide note for Savannah.

Heartbroken, she read it to me.

'Tell Skyla-Rose her mom was the cause of me dying,' he'd written. 'I love you so much Savannah, but this is all your fault.'

She was distraught. She was the sort of girl that wouldn't hurt a fly, and the thought she might be responsible for someone's death was torture.

'I don't want to be with him, but I don't want him dead,' she said sobbing.

Hoping he hadn't gone through with it, she called him constantly but there was no answer. She went to see his friends and all the places he frequented, but there was no sign of him.

As each day passed, she sank deeper into despair. After six days, she gave up hope.

Then she got a shock phone call: it was Anthony. He faked his own suicide.

She said when she answered his call, he just laughed like it was a big joke.

'He did it to torment and manipulate me,' she told me. 'Who would do something like that to someone they said they loved?'

It turned out some of his friends knew he'd faked his own suicide and even helped him hide from Savannah.

Whether he did it out of spite or in an attempt to show Savannah the depth of his feelings in the hope she'd get back with him we couldn't work out.

'Either way, he put me through hell,' she said.

I worried what else that man was capable of.

'I think if I did stay with him, he'd end up killing me,' Savannah said.

While she wasn't going back to him, she maintained contact for her daughter. And on October 21, just weeks later, she told me she was dropping Skyla-Rose, then 17 months, with Anthony for a few hours while she picked up the boys from their dad.

She assured me it would be fine: 'Despite everything, I think he loves me.'

That afternoon, I opened the front door to two police officers.

They told me she was dead. And they didn't know where Skyla-Rose was.

I think I screamed; it's a blur.

Witnesses saw Savannah hand the baby to Anthony in a strip mall parking lot.

As he put her in the back seat of his car, he snapped at her, asking for the diaper bag. When she turned back to her car to get it, he snarled, 'You forgot the damn nappy bag.'

Then he pulled out a gun and fired at Savannah six times. Three bullets hit her.

Paramedics fought to save her life, but my daughter died in that parking lot.

And I was certain Anthony would murder my granddaughter too.

Police issued a public alert and that evening they found her with one of Anthony's relatives.

Anthony, however, was still at large.

I was terrified, wondering if Savannah's boys, her siblings or I were at risk.

The next day, police arrived to tell me they'd cornered Anthony in a gas station eighty miles away and shot him dead.

I was relieved.

When I saw Savannah's boys, Joseph, six, Mathew, five and Kalem, four, they were crying for their mom. They understood Anthony was a bad man, had hurt their mom and she was never coming home again. They went to live with their dad.

In our community in Ontario, Canada, Savannah had developed a reputation for helping anyone in need. And as such, people were outraged by her murder.

Patrick Brown, our mayor in Brampton, summed it up: 'There are numerous reasons the killer should have been in custody. If one of them was adhered to, Savannah would be alive. When someone has a documented history of violence, firearms offences and abuse, releasing them on bail is not justice, it's absolute negligence.'

When a man constantly monitors your whereabouts, it's not because he misses you, it's because he's tracking you.

That's exactly how I saw it.

I couldn't view my daughter because of her terrible injuries, not that I wanted to remember her the way Anthony left her.

In her coffin, I had her dressed in pink and buried her with pictures of the kids.

More than 1,200 people came to Savannah's celebration of life. It was a freezing cold day, and I watched my daughter put into the ground as we released white doves.

My heart broke.

But I want Savannah's story to live on.

When he wants to spend all his time with you and gets angry if you're with family or friends, it's not because he loves you so much, it's control.

By the time the name calling, belittling and physical abuse starts, women are usually in too deep to escape.

It's why I advocate for bail reform that makes it more difficult for abusers to be released. Because right now, it's almost as if all the police can do is say, 'Give us a call when he kills you, then we'll do something.'

That's not good enough.

My daughter was a beautiful, kind girl, looking for love and with a lot of love to give. Most men would have cherished her.

Anthony seemed like he did, but, in reality, he wanted to own Savannah. When he finally realized he couldn't, the monster made sure nobody else ever would either.