Ten years ago today Dave Middleton made the saddest journey any parent can ever make ? to bring home the body of his dead child.

Seventeen-year-old Rebecca had perished in one of the most sadistic attacks ever witnessed in Bermuda.

Raped, sodomised and stabbed 35 times, the brutality his daughter endured in her final moments still plays on Dave?s mind.

But in order to stay sane, he has learned to compartmentalise his pain.

?You have to be firm, this is reality, this is what happened.?

He gets through it by remembering the good times ? the laughing and joking.

?If you really started focusing on what you lost, what had happened to Becky and then what happened with the system in Bermuda, that would drive you crazy.?

He only learned his daughter was going to spend the summer in Bermuda a few days before she left as Becky had gone to live with her mother Cindy the autumn before following Dave?s split with his wife back home in Belleville, Ontario.

When told by his father-in-law about Becky?s fate, Mr. Middleton simply believed the report was wrong.

?I can remember thinking it was fake. I was going to have to make a few phone calls to get this thing straightened out.?

The grapevine proved quicker than the Police in confirming the news.

?By the time I talked to (Superintendent) Vic Richmond I knew it was true.?

Cindy recalls how she learned of her daughter?s fate ? although the gruesome details came later.

She had just returned to work at her government job after a long weekend but was surprised to see her future husband Wayne knocking at the front door and insisting she come home.

She feared it was bad news about Wayne?s dad, who had been unwell, until he told her about Becky. The pair then headed to see Dave Middleton who was with their middle son Mark. They then all went to the workplace of their oldest son Matthew.

?That was very hard when we saw Matthew. When he saw the three of us he knew something was up. Your whole family doesn?t come to your workplace, right??

Getting news from the Bermuda Police was a frustrating task. ?They weren?t helpful at all. It made it worse.

?They said someone will phone you back or they put you on hold. No one had any information.?

She wanted to be in Bermuda instantly but instead spent a sleepless night comforted by her sister, hoping the news wasn?t true but realising that was just wishful thinking.

Despite being without information she found herself besieged by those demanding news from her. Ringing for a plane ticket was difficult with reporters constantly calling for the latest so a friend had to help out.

News spread quickly in the tight-knit town of Belleville. ?My house was full of people.

?It didn?t sink in right away. I thought maybe she will be fine when I get there. But if she was fine she would be on the telephone right? That didn?t happen.?

Summing up her despair she said: ?It just feels like someone reaches right into you and pulls your heart right out through your chest.

?Dead is dead. If only I had known she had been hit by a bus. Accidents happen.

?The worst thing is your child is dead. That doesn?t change. But the manner in which she died ? that made me sick.?

The Middletons had also been in constant contact with Rick Meens, the family friend who had put Becky up that summer and who had identified the body on the road.

?He sounded terrible on the phone,? said Cindy. ?I can?t imagine what the poor guy was going through.

?I thought what if the roles were different and I had to call him to say something terrible had happened to his child?

?My heart went out to him ? he had the responsibility for another child. I felt so bad for him he had to call Wayne and give him that news.?

Reporters kept knocking on her door. ?Every time there was a knock I hoped it was some good news.?

The couple got to the Bermuda the day after the murder. ?All I wanted to do was go see Becky,? said Cindy.

Police were confident they would catch the killers which gave the family hope, said Cindy. She met Supt. Richmond who was supervising the case.

?Police said Becky had been stabbed, raped, probably hit about the face to submit but he didn?t get really graphic. He said she had a puncture wound in her lung.?

Later she learned her daughter had been tortured and suffered 35 stab wounds. ?Nothing can get worse than your child being killed. If there is I hope I never experience it.

?I don?t think anything could get worse. And ?til this day there is nothing worse ? other than no one has been held responsible.

?People can live after rape, after stab wounds and torture but she died. I prayed then that she died quickly.?

She saw the body the following day. ?I knew then that Becky was gone. It was only her body. All we wanted to do was bring Becky home.?

Dave remembers the moment he was ushered in to see Becky?s body.

?She didn?t look too bad ? just like she was sleeping but it has a certain finality to it.

?You don?t hope for it to be someone else but you hope for it not to be Becky but when you finally see the body you realise it isn?t a dream, it?s for real.?

He didn?t sleep for days after the loss. His son Mark, who was just two years older than Becky, took it particularly hard.

?He had a very tough time focusing in school. It was very difficult for the boys. I had to be strong for them. If I hadn?t had the kids, it would have been a lot worse but I had to focus on them, not on me.?

A decade later, the family has begun to come to terms with it.

?It?s not a common topic of conversation ? but we don?t avoid it either.

?I think every day about Becky. But somewhere along the line you have to decide if it is going to be something that drags you down and bothers you and makes your life miserable or whether you should be thankful for what you had over the years.

?We are just glad we had Becky for the 17 years we had her.?

Quietly spoken, some have misjudged his mild-mannered approach but he points out, he is not a ?forgive and forget type?.

?I think that people should have some kind of a system. I think we are in a community for a reason. We have to have rules and regulations ? we call them laws but we have to go by that.

?But at the time they had capital punishment in Bermuda.?

He hoped the murderers would be tried fairly and hanged.

?Do I feel vengeance to them? I wouldn?t like to do to them what they did to Becky but as far as I am concerned they should have hung.?

Now capital punishment is off the books.

?The whole legal system from the Police department through to the Attorney General?s department seemed to be so lax. Could it have been messed up worse than that? I don?t think so.?

He is still angered by the quote from Dame Lois Browne-Evans who said Bermuda didn?t owe the Middleton family anything.

Said Dave: ?I think they owe the people of Bermuda something better than that.?

He points out that his beef is with Bermuda?s legal system, not with its people who he describes as warm and friendly.

He has even been made to feel at home at private family functions in Bermuda.

?They have shown nothing but kindness and respect. We are very happy to have made so many friends. They feel very badly about this.

?They would wish their system could get better. I would like to see if we can make it happen.?

A decade on, with no killer convicted, the family are left to mull the tiny quirks of fate which can make the difference between life and death.

Her daughter was whisked to her death when she accepted a lift on a bike. Her friend Jasmine also accepted a lift with a stranger but got home safely.

Said Cindy: ?The only reason Becky got on that bike, I believe, was Becky was a lot smaller than Jasmine.

?There was no way Jasmine could have got on the bike with two guys.

?If they had it in their minds ahead of time they were going to do this, Becky would probably have been easy prey because of her size.

?It?s the size that made the difference.?

A church-goer, Becky?s death has not led Cindy to question her faith.

?I went through every emotion including anger but I wasn?t angry God did that. God didn?t do that. Evil people did that.?

She didn?t get private legal advice, trusting the Bermuda legal system would find the murderers.

?I figured it?s their country, they have to do what they have to do. I don?t have any legal rights.

?These things do happen elsewhere in the world. They happen here too but they get to the root of it. But in Bermuda they didn?t and this thing that happened with Becky is going to happen again. It may not be exactly the same circumstances but ...?