Prudence’s stepdaughter thought Joseph was the man of her dreams. But after their wedding, his mask slipped…
The crowd cooed at the five-year-old flower girl trailing petals down the aisle.
I followed behind little Emily and met her dad Randy at the end.
When our wedding vows were done, I was excited to officially be Emily’s stepmum.
She was just three when I’d met Randy, but we’d instantly formed a close bond.
‘I’m her daughter,’ she used to tell people.
It was adorable and I loved her with all my heart.
As she grew up, we stayed close and she’d come to visit us now and again.
She was always cute, but she blossomed into a beautiful young woman.
‘Do we get to meet the lucky man?’
When she was 20, she came to us with some exciting news.
‘I’ve met someone,’ she smiled. ‘His name’s Joseph.’
‘How did you meet?’ I asked.
‘Me and my friend went to get tattoos together and he was the tattoo artist,’ she explained.
Then, she told us he was 24 and divorced.
‘I’m not sure about him,’ Randy said once she’d left.
‘Me neither,’ I agreed.
The fact that he was already divorced at such a young age was concerning.
But if she was happy, so were we.
Five months later, Emily came to visit us again.
‘We’re engaged!’ she shrieked.
Randy and I gave each other a look.
It was so soon.
‘When do we get to meet the lucky man?’ Randy asked.
‘I’ll bring him over next time,’ she replied.
She was true to her word.
But when Joseph greeted us, he didn’t even smile.
‘Hi,’ he said, slumping onto the sofa.
The way he was staring at us as we chatted away gave me the creeps.
After they left, the strange look in his eyes played on my mind.
But for Emily’s sake, I tried to get excited for their wedding.
She put me in charge of getting a guest book, a ring pillow and some decorations.
When she saw everything I’d got, she was over the moon.
A few days later, with seven months to go before the wedding, I came home from shopping to find Randy upset.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Look at this,’ he said, handing me his phone.
It was a nasty Facebook message from Emily’s profile, but it didn’t sound like her at all.
I don’t want anything to do with you or Prudy, read one line.
You’re both uninvited to the wedding, said another.
My mouth dropped in shock.
‘Something’s not right,’ I said.
I grabbed my phone and tried to message her. But she’d blocked me.
‘It’s not like her,’ Randy remarked.
‘I have a feeling Joseph is behind this,’ I said.
We were devastated.
But with no way to contact her, all we could do was hope she’d come around.
Her wedding day came and went.
A year went by and we still hadn’t heard a peep from her.
One evening, Randy’s phone rang.
It was Emily’s maternal grandma. We rarely spoke, so it put me on edge.
I listened in on their conversation.
‘Have you seen Emily?’ she asked him.
‘No, why?’ he replied.
‘She’s missing,’ she said.
My heart dropped. We went out of our minds with worry.
Next day, Randy’s phone rang again.
But this time, it was an unknown number.
‘Hello?’ he answered cautiously.
It was a detective.
‘We’ve found human remains in a camper van which we suspect are your daughter Emily’s,’ he said. ‘But we are yet to confirm this.’
‘Oh my God,’ I blurted.
‘We’ve arrested her husband, Joseph Ferlazzo,’ he added.
When Randy got off the call, all we could do was pray the remains weren’t hers.
That night, the detective called Randy back.
‘I’m sorry, but tests have confirmed the remains are Emily’s,’ he said.
‘No!’ I screamed.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
When Randy got off the phone, we held each other and sobbed.
‘Joseph confessed to killing her,’ he told me.
The coroner called with the results from the autopsy.
He explained Emily was shot twice in the head and dismembered.
‘We confirmed it was her by her tattoos,’ he told us.
Emily had a sleeve on her left arm and a snake that went around her belly button, up to her chest.
There was no mistaking it was her.
We eventually found out what had happened to her through news reports and speaking to the police.
To celebrate their first wedding anniversary, Emily and Joseph had gone away in their campervan to visit some of his relatives.
Joseph told police what occurred,
That night, he and Emily were in the van when they got into an argument.
According to him, she started to lash out, punching and kicking him.
Then, she went to lie on their bed to calm down.
Around ten minutes later, Joseph grabbed the gun he kept stashed away.
He jumped on top of her and shot her twice in the head without a second’s thought.
Then he moved her body to the bathroom.
Next morning, he left her there while he went for breakfast with his sister.
Afterwards, he drove the camper van to a friend’s house 60 miles away.
By then it had been 12 to 15 hours since he’d killed Emily, and he knew he had to come up with a plan to get rid of her body.
He chose the sickest way possible.
Using a handsaw, he cut her limbs from her body and put them in bin bags.
Leaving her remains in the vehicle, he decided to abandon it.
Then he went to see Emily’s mum and stepdad.
When he got there, he told them he’d last seen her two days before, when in fact she’d been dead for three days.
He made up a story about her storming off after their argument and telling him she was going to get a taxi home.
He told them he’d tried to look for her.
‘He’s the same age as me!’
It made me sick that he’d tried to appear the doting husband.
Later that day, when Emily’s mum couldn’t get hold of her, she’d reported her missing.
That’s when Randy got the call from Emily’s grandma.
Police then found her remains in eight different bin bags.
She was only 22.
Then, we found out Joseph wasn’t 26.
He was 41.
‘He’s the same age as me!’ I shrieked.
Emily knew we wouldn’t have liked the age gap.
Thanks to his vile acts, we didn’t even get to bury her.
Emily’s remains had to be cremated.
We found out Joseph had been physically abusive to her throughout their relationship.
Randy and I wished we’d tried harder to contact her.
Joseph’s case went to court and he tried to claim the killing was in self-defence.
But it was rejected and after a three-year wait for justice, Joseph Ferlazzo, 44, was convicted of murder.
He’s awaiting sentencing, but he faces life in prison.
Our gut instinct about Joseph turned out to be true, so we want other parents to learn from our mistakes.
If your child is acting out of character, do everything you can to get to the bottom of it.
We know in our hearts that it was Joseph that sent Randy those nasty Facebook messages using Emily’s profile.
Or, he made her type out those hurtful words against her will.
Despite our suspicions, we hoped Emily was happy with her new husband.
But when they were supposed to be celebrating their anniversary, he marked the occasion in the most horrific way possible.
Now, I try to focus on happy memories of Emily, not how she died.
I picture her tottering down the aisle as our flower girl or us nattering away over a cuppa.
She was one of a kind and will never be forgotten.
Prudence Schwarz, 45