Sonia Exelby’s family is demanding justice as her accused killer prepares to face trial next month.
The 32-year-old British music teacher’s body was found in a shallow grave in Marion Oaks, Florida, last October, just days after she flew from her UK home to the Ocala area northwest of Orlando. Former pizza delivery driver Dwain Hall, 54, stands charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in her death, charges he denies.
Exelby’s relatives reject the official narrative that she orchestrated her own death. They contend she spent two years being groomed on a fetish website used by American men to murder women, and that her true aim in traveling to Florida was to expose the platform’s dangers.
“It is an important cause to us all to get these sites removed,” her brother Barry Wilton, 39, said of London.
“We want the maximum sentence and full extent of justice.”
Police paint a different picture. They believe Exelby, who struggled with depression and body dysmorphia, paid Hall to kill her after months of online correspondence. Authorities say she left computer evidence indicating suicidal intent and traveled to the United States specifically to be harmed by him.
Hall’s alleged preparations were methodical, according to investigators. On October 10, the pagan worshipper of the Egyptian death god Anubis purchased gun cleaner, rope, a shovel and paracord at a Walmart before collecting Exelby at Gainesville Regional Airport and transporting her to an Airbnb in Reddick.
The next afternoon, police said, he transferred $1,200 from Exelby’s bank card and recorded a four-minute video of her on his phone. In the footage, a heavily bruised Exelby reportedly told the camera she had traveled to the US to die and was not being held against her will.
“I’ve crushed everyone who ever loves me,” she reportedly said in the video, which Hall allegedly deleted before authorities could recover it.
Exelby’s body was discovered in woodland near a highway on October 17. Hall was arrested ten days later on credit card fraud charges tied to her bank account, then charged with murder and kidnapping in November. He remains held without bond.
Exelby’s sister Gemma Isaj launched a GoFundMe campaign to finance the family’s attendance at Hall’s trial, scheduled for next month.
“We all have to be there to tell Sonia’s story,” Isaj said.
“This is about mental health [but also] there are websites and a bigger movement. We had our experience with our sister [and] we don’t know how big it goes.”