KEY POINTS:
IPSWICH - "I never in my worst nightmares thought your life would turn out like this," read the card attached to a bunch of flowers where Gemma Adams was last seen.
To her parents, she was still the intelligent, animated child who had played the piano and joined the Brownies while growing up in the comfortable suburb of Kesgrave, near Ipswich.
Yesterday, it became increasingly likely that Adams, the girl who was once so devoted to her dog, Holly, would forever be linked with the ravages of a serial killer.
Brian and Gail Adams were still reeling from the news, broken to them two weeks ago, that their "wonderful" daughter was working as a prostitute and had disappeared off the streets of Ipswich. A fortnight later, police returned to tell them the 25-year-old's naked body had been found in a brook a few kilometres away.
The headlines and news bulletins described their daughter as a "murdered prostitute" but her parents were determined to offer a more positive image of their beloved daughter.
"I don't want people to think of her only as a prostitute," her father said. "The Gemma we want to remember was a loving, beautiful and wonderful girl."
Growing up with her two siblings in a large detached house on the outskirts of Ipswich, the bubbly youngster had enjoyed an uncomplicated life, horse-riding and making the best of family summer holidays.
While at Kesgrave High School, aged 15, she met her childhood sweetheart Jon Simpson and fell into the "wrong crowd" every parent dreads.
The pair would descend into a spiral of heroin addiction.
Two years ago she was sacked from an insurance company because she was missing so much work.
Her parents took her to see doctors and the community drug rehabilitation team but all attempts to wean her off the drugs failed.
"It's every parent's worst nightmare. Once your child is involved with hard drugs you're heart is already broken," her father said.
"Despite numerous attempts to make contact to try to help her resolve her problems we were unable to."
Gradually, she drifted away from the family and - unbeknown to them - began working with the small group of women who hang about near a playground in the few streets around Ipswich Town Football Club.
Women who worked in the same area remember how an increasingly desperate Adams had fallen out with one of her regular clients after "blagging" a loan from him. Her boyfriend reported her missing on November 15. Seventeen days later, her naked body was found.
As her parents attempt to come to terms with her troubled life and brutal death, the hunt for the killer goes on. Her father said: "We can only hope that they catch them soon." However, he added: "It's too late for us now."
- INDEPENDENT
