My husband wanted to murder the man who killed our daughter, but I forgave him, he moved in with us, I see him as a son
ON ELIZABETH Jimenez’s phone there’s a picture of her daughter Maria blowing a kiss.
“I smile every time I see it,” the proud mum, 54, from Guilford says quietly.
“Eight years after we tragically lost her at just 24, every photo I have of Maria is precious.”
But there are other photos on her phone that also bring Elizabeth joy, including those of a young man with dark hair and a warm smile.
This is Nick Tay, 32, the man who caused Maria’s tragic death. The same man who Elizabeth has forgiven and now loves like a son.
“Maria was born happy in April 1992,” remembers Elizabeth.
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“Her favourite thing in the world was helping other people feel better.
“She was very close to her older brother Joshua, now 35, and her dad Fernando, now 67. He absolutely doted on her.”
The mother-daughter bond was so strong that even when Maria went to study linguistics at Brighton University in 2014, they spoke every day.
“She had such big plans for her future,” Elizabeth says.
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“In 2017 after she graduated, she told me that she’d applied to be a teacher in Korea. She was so excited for what was around the corner.”
In March 2017 Elizabeth heard the name Nick for the first time.
“Maria told me about this young man who’d come to the UK from Singapore to study and was in the same music group as her. His name was Nick.
“One day at church she pointed to a quiet, smart young man across the crowded room. ‘There he is mum!’ she said.
“Maria had been through a breakup the year before, and I was so pleased to see her smiling again.”
On March 22 Maria told Elizabeth that she was heading out for dinner with her music group, which included Nick.
“She said ‘Bye mum, I love you.’ ‘Love you too,’ I replied,” Elizabeth says.
“Putting the phone down I had no idea this would be the last time I’d ever hear her voice.”
At 9am the next morning Elizabeth walked out of her bathroom and saw Fernando standing there in the hallway, frozen.
“As he asked me to sit down, I felt this wave of fear go through me,” she remembers.
“Then he knelt at my feet and began to cry. I knew something life shattering had happened.
‘At first, I couldn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth. Something about the police having come to the house and an accident.
“Then in horror, three things became clear.
“Nick had been driving, there’d been a car crash, and Maria was gone.”
Elizabeth didn’t yet know all the details. That at 1:20am the night before, with Maria in the front passenger seat, Nick had driven at 110mph in a 50mph zone.
That the car had veered across two lanes before hitting the central reservation, rebounded back onto the grass verge and flipping over.
She didn’t know that Nick was driving Maria’s car despite not having insurance, or that he’d emerged unharmed while Maria had been thrown from the vehicle.
“I just understood that my darling daughter, my precious child, was no longer alive,” she says.
“It felt like being hit by a huge, physical force.”
But as she held Fernando and wept, as they sat for hours in the hospital waiting to see Maria’s body, one thought kept whirling through Eizabeth’s mind.
“‘What if it had been Fernando or Joshua at the wheel?’ I thought,” she says.
“‘What if it had been me?’”
“I knew that Nick had been arrested, and I couldn’t stop picturing him alone and terrified in the cells.
“Instead of a desire to blame him, to vent my fury and scream for revenge, I just wanted to know that he was okay.”
She didn’t tell Fernando how she was feeling.
“And he didn’t tell me that he was so angry with Nick that he wanted to kill him,” she says.
“In those dreadful hours at the hospital, we were just managing our overwhelming grief as best we could.”
That night when Elizabeth got home, knowing that Nick had been released from the police station, she reached for the phone to call him.
“It was the first time we’d ever spoken,” she says.
I knew that by forgiving Nick we shocked many people, from the police to some of Maria’s friends
Elizabeth Jimenez
“I heard myself say, ‘I love you Nick, and I forgive you,’ He just sobbed in reply.”
Two days later Elizabeth was nervously preparing for Nick to visit them at home.
“I knew that Fernando was still struggling with his anger, but I was in such incredible pain,” she says.
“I just felt that I needed to see Nick, that somehow it would help me, and seeing my anguish Fernando agreed to my request.
“Nick looked so terrified when he walked in that my heart hurt. I held my breath as he stepped towards Fernando, unsure how he would react.
“But when Nick said ‘please forgive me’ Fernando reached out to hug him. Suddenly they were embracing in tears and Fernando replied, ‘I forgive you son.’
“I wept to see it and felt the burden on my heart become lighter.”
From that moment Fernando and Elizabeth were united in their determination that Nick shouldn’t go to prison.
“I knew that by forgiving Nick we shocked many people, from the police to some of Maria’s friends,” she says.
“But we’d already lost Maria to this senseless tragedy, our darling girl was gone.
“Locking Nick up in prison wouldn’t change that, it would only increase the misery. I knew it wasn’t what Maria would have wanted.”
The couple then did something even more surprising. They asked Nick to move in with them.
“His family were in Singapore, and with the prosecution approaching he had nowhere else to live,” Elizabeth explains.
“In fact, it helped me as well as him. In those six weeks I felt the bond between us all grow, and it helped heal my heart.
Where to seek grief support
Need professional help with grief?
- Child Bereavement UK
- Cruse Bereavement Cruse.org.uk
- Relate Relate.org.uk
- The Good Grief Trust
- You can also always speak to your GP if you’re struggling.
You’re Not Alone
Check out these books, podcasts and apps that all expertly navigate grief…
- Griefcast: Cariad Lloyd interviews comedians on this award-winning podcast.
- The Madness Of Grief by Rev Richard Coles (£9.99, W&N): The Strictly fave writes movingly on losing his husband David to alcoholism.
- Terrible, Thanks For Asking: Podcast host Nora McInerny encourages non-celebs to share how they’re really feeling.
- Good Mourning by Sally Douglas and Imogen Carn (£14.99, Murdoch Books): A guide for people who’ve suffered sudden loss, like the authors who both lost their mums.
- Grief Works: Download this for daily meditations and expert tips.
- How To Grieve Like A Champ by Lianna Champ (£3.99, Red Door Press): A book for improving your relationship with death.
“It made me feel closer to Maria to know Nick, to see what a kind, thoughtful man he was. His anguish at what had happened matched our own. We were united in our pain.’
Nick’s court date in November 2017 was another heartbreaking day.
“Despite all my best efforts, when Nick pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by driving an uninsured vehicle, he was jailed for five years,” Elizabeth remembers.
“Hearing the sentence I collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably as he was led away. I felt so powerless.
“I knew this wasn’t what Maria would have wanted.”
It made Elizabeth even more determined to support Nick.
“Every week Fernando and I visited Nick in Maidstone prison,” she says.
“It was such a horrible place, so we focused on supporting him, always reminding him that he was forgiven and loved.”
Elizabeth encouraged him to join the choir run by Beating Time, an organisation that helps prisoners rebuild their lives.
In September 2019, after serving almost two years Nick was released, immediately deported back to Singapore.
“I wasn’t allowed to see him before he left and missed him desperately,” Elizabeth admitted.
“While we spoke every day, the pandemic made it impossible for me to travel out to Singapore to see him.
“I felt such joy when he told me that he was getting married in 2020, and when his son was born in 2021.
My heartbreak at losing her, imagining what she would be doing had she lived, is as strong as ever
Elizabeth Jimenez
“All I wanted for Nick was to be happy and find peace.”
In 2023 Elizabeth was finally able to make the trip to Singapore.
“Hugging Nick again was so wonderful, it truly felt like I was being reunited with a son,” she says.
“There was so much love between us that there wasn’t any space for sadness.”
The five weeks Elizabeth and Nick spent together only reinforced the bond between them.
“He calls me mum and Fernando is Papi, and when we’re together it truly is like family,” she says.
At the end of March, she will be flying back to Singapore.
“I can’t wait to meet their second son, who was born in 2024,” she says.
But before she flies, Elizabeth will have to endure the anniversary of losing Maria.
“It will be the eighth time and it never gets any easier,” she says.
“My heartbreak at losing her, imagining what she would be doing had she lived, is as strong as ever.”
But there is no anger or blame for Nick.
Elizabeth adds: “My forgiveness of him was total and has never wavered.
“I’ve learned in the years since just how powerful that can be.
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“It freed me from the added agony of blame and anger, which I know would only have eaten me up inside.
“When Maria died my heart was shattered. But responding with love instead of hate helped me heal. I know it’s what Maria would have wanted me to do.”
