A MAN has shared how he had to listen to his wife’s final moment as a brutal attacker snuck into their house.
Dan Cross had been on a trip in , leaving his wife to hold the fort at home with their children in Hertfordshire.
Dan Cross had to listen to his wife get murdered on the phone
Nicola Cross was attacked by a knife-wielding intruder in her own home
Marcin Porczynski broke into the home despite being detained by police earlier that evening
So when Dan received a call from his wife, Nicola, in the evening he thought nothing of it.
The day had started out as normal, and Nicola and Dan were in constant contact as the kids were off from nursery and school as they weren’t feeling well.
But later in the evening, Nicola noticed a strange man had been banging on her front door trying to get in.
She called the , who arrived and searched him, and although he “appeared distant” they decided there was no reason to detain him.
Just 30 minutes later on September 14 2015, Nicola would call Dan, telling him of what was going on.
Speaking to podcaster James English , Dan recalled: “The first thing she said was ‘There’s been a bloke hanging around outside the house earlier, and don’t get cross with me but I called the police’.”
Dan assured her she had done the right thing, while Nicola explained she could hear him banging on her front door again.
She said: “I’m a little bit worried, because I can hear banging again …I think he’s got the hump because I phoned the police on him and he’s going to have a go at me or something.”
As the pair were on the phone Nicola heard a loud crash from downstairs and went to investigate, still on the phone to her husband.
Dan heard her confront the intruder, explaining: “I heard Nikki actually say ‘What what do you want? Get out of my house.’
“I knew someone was in there.”
Dan was over three hours away unable to intervene, and within moments her words turned into blood-curdling screams.
I think deep down I knew something really awful had happened because of the nature of the screams
Dan Cross
He called 999, but was put through to the Hull police call centre, he explained he needed to speak to Hertfordshire police urgently.
Eventually, officers were sent to their home in Hemel Hempstead, and a police officer was also sent to Dan’s hotel.
Meanwhile, the phone line with Nicola had fallen eerily silent.
“I think deep down I knew something really awful had happened because of the nature of the screams,” Dan said.
Then he remembered his children were also in the home, “I kind of assumed that Nikki was probably dead, and I thought the kids were probably next,” he explained.
All Dan could do was wait, a second police officer arrived to his hotel and assured him his children were safe, but they were still waiting to hear about his wife.
Dan recalled: “Then she went away again, and when she came back she said ‘Mr Cross, I’m sorry to tell you your wife has died.’
“I just fell onto this copper, this big bloke and he was just hugging me and i was just sobbing my heart out.”
Nicola had been stabbed ten times by Polish car mechanic, Marcin Porczynski who lived in the neighbourhood.
Her children, six and three years old at the time, lay upstairs in their bed as the horrific attack took place after he gained entry by throwing a plant pot in a window.
After his brutal attack, he then tried to leave her Hemel Hempstead house with Dan and Nicola’s two children, leaving a bloodstained knife on an elf on the kids’ bedside tables.
Fortunately, he was apprehended before getting anywhere, but it was too late for Nicola who had died from her injuries.
Porczynski was charged with murder, two counts of kidnap, burglary of a neighbour’s house and aggravated burglary involving a weapon of offence.
It emerged during the police that he had paranoid schizophrenia and had been hearing voices telling him to save children who were being starved.
He pleaded not guilty to the five counts but guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility.
Dan says he only came face to face with his wife’s killer once. “He didn’t look evil,” he recalled. “He just looked like a lost soul.”
