A woman who crawled her way out of a shallow grave after being buried alive by her bodybuilder fiance has sadly died six years after the traumatic event. Stacey Gwilliam from Wales was only 34 when 39-year-old Keith Hughes attempted to murder her after she broke things off with him, trying to “snap her neck” before hiding her body under bushes along a coastal path. Now, at 40, Gwilliam has passed away.
View this post on Instagram
- Gwilliam passed away in November 2021. However, her family has only just annoyed the tragic news. She had allegedly been suffering ill health and is said to have died from pneumonia and combined drug toxicity.
- Police arrested Hughes after his horrific crime. After dumping Gwilliam’s body, he crashed her car and taunted police by insisting they would never be able to find her. However, Gwilliam was thankfully able to survive after clawing herself out of the ground. Gwilliam testified against Hughes in court and helped put him away. She told jurors that she was left requiring a cane to walk and had difficulty eating and speaking. She also struggled to breathe well, which will have contributed to her fatal pneumonia.
- She spent nearly three weeks in a coma. All for telling Hughes that she no longer wanted to be with him. “The simple truth is what he told me that day: ‘If I can’t have you no-one can,'” she told the court during Hughes’ trial. “He knew the relationship was over and knew I would not go back to him. He took me down there that day to kill me, and he nearly succeeded. I will never ever forget what he did to me that day and what he did to me throughout our relationship and now I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I only hope he does too.”
- Gwilliam was never able to find peace after her horrific ordeal. She was in constant pain and struggled with PTSD stemming from the incident. “From the moment I came around from the coma I have been in pain and reminded of this incident every waking minute,” Gwilliam said. “When I woke I could not speak, or eat and was very weak as I has contracted pneumonia whilst in the coma and an abscess on my lung. These were from being exposed to the elements whilst lying unconscious in the bushes on that coastal path. The effects of these I am still suffering with now and my chest is very weak.”
- Hughes was sent to prison for life with a minimum of eight years. However, Judge Paul Thomas noted at the time that he was a “severe risk.”
As terrible and tragic as Gwilliam’s death is, hopefully she has finally found some peace.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
