Grieving Marjorie McDonald is haunted by the 6am call that would reveal her daughter’s horrific fate at the hands of her monster husband.
As Marjorie picked up the phone her grand-daughter Rhiannon, 20, screamed down the line: “Nan, get round here quick! Dad’s done something to Mum and he’s set the house on fire!”
Marjorie, 80, and husband Denis, 81, raced to daughter Karen’s house to find Rhiannon and her sisters – Imogen, 22, and a teenager – in hysterics outside their blazing home.
The girls’ bleating dad Thomas Peter was there too – denying he had done anything wrong.
But the horrible truth would emerge within minutes.
Serial adulterer Peter, 50, had stuffed a flannel in Karen’s mouth, strangled her, set her on fire – then locked her in her bedroom as the house went up in flames.
Marjorie, speaking to a national newspaper for the first time about that hellish day, August 2 last year, said: “We raced to the scene to see our grand-daughters outside in their pyjamas.
“They yelled ‘Mum’s inside! We have to get her out!’ Then we were confronted by Thomas.
“He told us, ‘Karen’s left home. She has taken the dog for a walk’.
“The girls swore their dad was lying. They said their German shepherd was inside their car.”
Marjorie said she screamed at Peter: “What have you done to her!”
She said Peter barred the way and said: “No one’s going in the house! Marge, you know I’d never hurt Karen.”
But after the fire crew broke down the door to the bedroom in Romford, Essex, they found Karen’s badly burned body.
Marjorie went on: “We saw Thomas handcuffed and taken away. But we didn’t see Karen’s body being brought out as we had been moved back by then.
“When it came to identifying Karen’s body, Denis was very firm that only he should go inside East Ham morgue.
“He told me, ‘I don’t want you to see her like that’.
“We are haunted by the fact we stood there helpless as Karen remained trapped inside the burning house.
“I have nightmares that Karen was alive when he set fire to her. How can any parent ever get over that? The girls could easily have also died in the blaze.”
Karen had endured 24 years of hell at the hands of control freak Peter. He carried out affairs with four women at once.
Last summer, Karen decided enough was enough and was about to leave him, telling friends: “I want my life back.”
She ditched her wedding ring, got her tongue pierced and had Lord of the Rings tattoos. Marjorie said: “Thomas was furious and said he would leave if she had any more – and one of Karen’s friends joked that she should have more so he’d go.”
But Karen would die before she got the chance to flee.
Peter had taken out a £310,000 life insurance policy on Karen’s life just a month before killing her.
In February he was jailed for life with a minimum of 25 years for murder and arson.
During the trial, Marjorie learned for the first time that Karen and Peter had divorced before remarrying, that he was an adulterer – and he tried to strangle her before.
They split in 2010 with Karen citing adultery on his part – before remarrying in 2012.
Marjorie said: “We were shocked.”
Marjorie was also horrified to learn about Peter’s affair with four women.
She said: “He played them off against each other. Later the girls told us one of the women he was seeing came storming round and was screaming and shouting outside the house.”
Of the earlier strangling attempt, retired factory worker Marjorie said: “Karen went to police but later told them to drop charges. We think she was scared of him.
“Karen told the girls how unhappy she was, but not to say anything to me and Denis because she didn’t want to alarm us.
“Thomas knew how to turn on the charm. Initially I thought he was a lovely guy, but over time we saw another side.
“He was a real know-all who didn’t like it if anyone corrected him about a fact if he got it wrong.
“We realised that even though she worked at the Job Centre, she was always short of money. Thomas had an accident years before while working at Ford.
“He injured his back and got a big payout. His favourite phrase has always been ‘milk the system’.”
Sentencing him at the Old Bailey, Judge Richard Marks QC said Peter was an “arrogant, egotistical chauvinistic controlling bully”, adding: “What a twisted mentality you have... this was a planned killing for financial gain.”
Marjorie said: “When Karen was with her daughters, she was full of laughter and happiness. It was a joy to see them.
“She used to love taking them to the stables to ride their horse Poppy. Then one day Karen called in tears to say, ‘Poppy has been killed’.
“Someone had slashed her throat.”
Now the family believe Peter killed Karen’s horse – after discovering from relatives he had stabbed a cat to death with a garden fork when he was a child.
Marjorie last saw Karen the day before the murder.
She recalled: “She came round with Imogen on my 80th birthday. Then they surprised us by coming along that evening to the RAFA club, where we all had a bit of dancing and fun together.
“Just before she left, Karen gave me a big hug and said, ‘Happy birthday Mum. I love you!’”
Marjorie is now warning other domestic violence victims to speak out before it is too late.
She said: “We want to warn anyone suffering from domestic violence not to suffer in silence, but to go and talk to someone about it before it is too late.
“There is help out there from the police and other agencies.”
