1. January 30, 1993 Julie Statham, Tyrone Civilian, Catholic, 20, single, student

A student at Queen's University in Belfast, she took her own life less than a month after her boyfriend, Diarmuid Shields, and his father, Patrick Shields, were killed by the UVF. Shortly before taking a fatal overdose she wrote: 'When they killed my darling. they killed me too. I have tried to cope for an entire month. Despite my outward appearance I am dead. I may be breathing and moving but what use is that when I don't have any emotions left inside me? When two shots were fired my life ended. I may, at one stage, have had lots to live for, but 27 days ago everything that mattered was snatched from my grasp never to be replaced. You all mean the world to me, but I couldn't let you watch me being miserable. So this seemed a sensible solution - well it did to me. Let me also tell you Mum and Dad-how very much I love you and how very sorry I am for the pain I've caused.'

Mrs Christine Statham, the dead woman's mother, later set up a fund-raising scheme to enable a bereavement counselling group to establish a local branch. Mrs Statham said: 'I do feel there should be immediate help available for relatives of victims. I am not saying Julie would be alive today if there was a counselling service but, my God, it might have helped her.' Her daughter had been trying to enrol for counselling with CRUSE, the voluntary organisation which helps the bereaved.

The organisation telephoned with an appointment just hours after her body was found in her bed at her Dungannon home. Her distressed father answered the CRUSE telephone call and told them: 'I am sorry but Julie is dead. No local counselling service was available so Julie had to approach the group in Belfast, and due to their workload they were unable to arrange an appointment until February. Many hundreds of people, including university colleagues and friends from her former school. St Patrick's Academy, attended the requiem mass for the young woman in St Patrick's Church, Dungannon.

— Lost Lives by David McKittrick (Page 1,310)