Four men were ultimately convicted of murdering Ashley Dale, 28, in Liverpool, England. Senior crown prosecutor Olivia Cristinacce-Travis said the recovery of the victim’s phone meant her case was a “very modern prosecution”.

Dale was not the target of the killers, but she was home alone when they broke in.

The shocking murder came seven years after her half-brother was also shot dead in a case of mistaken identity.

The phone belonging to Dale was found near her body when police officers discovered her, fatally injured, in the back garden of her home in Old Swan, Liverpool. She was killed on August 21, 2022. Gunman James Witham forced his way in and shot the council worker with a Skorpion machine gun.

Police were able to use the phone to find out why this happened to Dale. And to convict her killers who along with her boyfriend were part of the organized crime group, known as the Hillsiders.

 “We all do text messages and WhatsApp, but it was the amount of voice notes that she used, which I suppose shows the realities of being in 2023 and the victim being a young woman.” The prosecutor added. 

“It is it is quite unprecedented to have a narrator, essentially, telling her own story.”

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Very Modern Prosecution 

In the Liverpool Crown Court, the jury heard about all the events in the weeks before she died in Dale’s voice recordings. A large number of them were placed in evidence and played to the jury.

Detective Chief Inspector Cath Cummings described the impact.  “For me, as a senior investigating officer, this was the most compelling and emotional part of the case.”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the evidence of the murder victim play such a crucial role in a court case.

“Ashley was narrating her own story and events that led to her death.

“There was barely a dry eye in the courtroom as her increased fear and anxiety was played out through recovered voice notes from her phone,” she added.

Cummings explained how through hundreds of voice recordings recovered from her phone the murder victim told her own story and brought her killers to justice.

Messages and voice notes sent between Miss Dale and her friends were analyzed by police. And they found evidence dating back from her murder.

The motive 

In June she attended the Glastonbury Music Festival with her boyfriend Lee Harrison.  At the event, there was a fight between her boyfriend, and the four men now convicted of her murder.

In the voice notes and text messages, Miss Dale told of an argument between Niall Barry, 26, and Harrison that went back years and stemmed from the theft of drugs.

She also explained to friends how the feud had been reignited after the fight at Glastonbury which also involved co-defendant Sean Zeisz, 28.

In messages, she told friends she had a “bad, bad feeling about everything”.

Three weeks before her murder she said: “My nerves are gone, when am out in the car with Lee just feeling like I’m looking over my shoulder all the time.”

The prosecutor and Dale’s mother and stepfather all claim that her boyfriend lied to police and in court.  Dale’s words convicted her killers who were trying to kill her boyfriend.

The very modern prosecution provided the motive and told the truth in the murdered woman's own voice.

A Voice of Truth

Miss Dale’s stepfather Rob Jones said her phone had been a “massive part” of the conviction of her murderers. And he blamed her boyfriend, as much as the 3 men involved in a conspiracy to kill Harrison.

He added “If it was left up to the accused and the person who ultimately there was the conspiracy to murder, Lee, this would never have got to trial because they all lie, they all cheat, they all steal, they know no different.”

Her mother Julie Dale, 43, talked about her daughter after the 7 week trial. "Ashley was very career driven, you know Ashley was working up to become a chartered environmental health officer, she was working to do her portfolio, she got up every morning and she went to work every single day the whole time her and Lee were together.

She also blamed Ashley’s boyfriend for her death.

"I used to tell her on a regular basis I wasn't happy about her being with someone like that, by someone like that I mean someone who didn't have the same hopes and dreams as what she did. But unfortunately, she just fell in love with the wrong person and he didn't love her."