Hammer attack survivor Josie Russell has announced her delight after getting engaged to her long-term boyfriend.
Josie, 30, from Gwynedd , got engaged at Christmas but has kept it secret until now.
Her mother Lin and six-year-old sister Megan were brutally murdererd in the Kent village of Chillenden in 1996.
Josie now wants to start a family with 31-year-old fiance Iwan Griffith who had no idea of her horrific history when they met.
Josie said: “It was on Christmas morning, Iwan gave me chocolates and said ‘Sorry, I didn’t get you much’. Then he produced the ring – a diamond solitaire – and said: ‘Happy Christmas’.
“He did offer to get down on one knee and propose but I told him he didn’t have to. It was a wonderful moment because Iwan is not only a wonderful man, he’s my best friend.”
Josie, from Gwynedd in north west Wales, was just nine at the time Michael Stone attacked the trio in July 1996 as they walked along a country lane in Kent.
The brutality of attack, in which Lin, 45, and Megan died alongside their pet dog, shocked the nation.
Josie moved with her father to North Wales and began a long and remarkable period of rehabilitation and managed to speak again after a year.
She has become a successful textile artist and met Iwan 12 years ago, when he had no knowledge of the murders.
She said of Iwan: “He asked about my mum once and I just told him she had died. Later his parents told him the full story but we never talk about the past.
“It’s better for me to just get on with the present.”
