Mother hopes to get justice for murdered daughter in retrial in Dominican Republic | UK news
A Cambridgeshire mother in her 90s hopes to finally see justice for her murdered daughter as a retrial into her death begins in the Dominican Republic this week.
The body of 64-year-old Lindsay de Feliz, a successful writer, was found in a shallow grave near her home in the northwest of the Dominican Republic in December 2019.
Her mother, Shirley Firth, who turns 94 next month and lives in the small village of Huntingdon, hopes those responsible for her daughter’s death will eventually be found guilty.
“We are surprised and delighted that this has happened, and we hope that new vital evidence will be presented this time,” Firth said. “Lindsay was intelligent, thoughtful, kind and generous in every way.”
Firth, who is still active and follows developments in his daughter’s case closely, was a church councilor until recently. She continues to keep in touch with some of her daughter’s friends on Facebook. Towards the end, they shared information with De Feliz that left him fearful for his life.
“I keep in touch with people on Facebook but I don’t use TikTok or Instagram,” Firth said.
De Feliz’s husband of 14 years, Danilo Feliz Torres, her two sons and a fourth man were acquitted at an earlier hearing after being charged with murder.
The acquittal was appealed to the country’s highest court, and a new trial has now been ordered before three different judges.
De Feliz lived a successful life in the UK, working as a marketing manager for various firms in the city. She longed for something different and in 2002 decided to leave her husband, her job and her life in the UK to pursue her passion for scuba diving.
After spending time in the Maldives, she settled in the Dominican Republic, where she worked as a scuba diving instructor and married a local man in 2005.
After he was shot in the throat during a robbery in 2006, de Feliz could no longer work as a diving instructor. started writing blogs He published two memoirs about his life in the Dominican Republic: What About Your Pots? and Life After My Pots.
The titles were a reference to a comment made by de Feliz’s mother, who bought him a set of pots for Christmas that he did not take with her to the Dominican Republic. His first book reached #1 on the Amazon Kindle travel books list.
He adored his adopted country and the Dominican people. According to his mother, after visiting home for Christmas, de Feliz would leave the UK with suitcases full of over-the-counter medicines such as aspirin and paracetamol, as well as tapes that he distributed to people living in poverty who could not access these basic needs.
Firth said she shared her fears for her daughter’s life with her friends rather than her family. However, on his birthday in 2019, he told his mother that he did not think he would live to an old age.
“When I tried to probe him about it, he changed the subject,” Firth said.
“We can’t close until this is all over,” he added. “We hope to find a solution and justice to be served. I believe that if I’m going to live to be old, I need to make good use of the time I have, stay active and keep at it.”
“I want justice for Lindsay, as do her family and many of her friends around the world. It means a lot to me to do what I can to achieve this.”
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesman said:: “We are supporting the family of a British woman who died in the Dominican Republic and are in contact with local authorities.”
