Meet, Marry, Murder - Season 1, Episode 33 - Caliman - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: Faye Williams was young, beautiful, and someone who loved life.
But one thing was missing-- She just wanted a secure, safe, normal family home as such--
like a fairytale. It's what we all want, isn't it? NARRATOR: When she married Marian Caliman,
she thought her fairy tale had come true. You could just see it in her eyes, like she got the partner that she'd always wanted.
NARRATOR: But Caliman was no Prince Charming. I do know that they had some fights along the way--
verbally, and she told me that he had hit her once. She was saying all sorts just to get out of it.
You know, begging him. NARRATOR: Would her husband of three years heed her pleas
and leave her alone? Or was Faye Caliman's life truly in danger? [theme music] Bestwood in Nottingham, a former Pitt
village now home to a close-knit community of young parents and their children. Among them-- single mom Faye Williams.
She was really, really pretty. She was beautiful. She had a beautiful soul and a beautiful appearance.
She was lovely. We came from Kirkby-in-Ashfield, which is like a pit village, and she went to school there.
She had lots of friends there, and she kept those friendships right the way through to her adult life.
If someone had run out of sugar or something, or if someone needed something from the shop,
you'd pass their house, so you could always drop something in. It's really nice, really.
Quite old fashioned to live there, yeah. NARRATOR: Faye had settled down young and had
a steady boyfriend, barely out of her teens when she had her first child, putting
her party days behind her. She soon had another. Both were daughters. Everything that a mother should be.
She was there for her children, and she adopted the way of motherhood. I think she became me.
The kids wasn't allowed to do this, that, and the other, and yeah, she fell into it really well.
Changed her completely. An amazing mom. She really was. Her girls meant the world to her.
They always did. They come first every time. NARRATOR: Separated from the children's father,
Faye lived happily enough. But there was, as she saw it, something wrong. Faye wanted a family.
That's all Faye ever wanted, and she used to say to me and my partner, I want a family.
I want a family like what you've got. She just wanted that family routine. She wanted the girls to have mom and dad at home
and be the family that she always wanted. NARRATOR: And in 2013 she met someone.
She said that she'd met this guy, and she said that he was nice, and they was going out
for drinks and they was going to Nottingham and they was going to meet some friends.
NARRATOR: The guy was 27-year-old construction worker Marian Caliman, known to his friends as Mario.
She said, I like him, and I really do like him. And she was telling me things that they'd
been getting up on, on the dates and things what they've been up to. She told me she'd met him on a night out,
and she said she really liked him. And she didn't really say much because I think
it was just texting at first. Like the odd meeting up. NARRATOR: Caliman was new to the UK, having moved from Romania.
There were issues for the couple to overcome. She told me, obviously, when they first got together
it was very up and down. Obviously, they didn't understand each other with the language barrier.
But I think she saw that as a challenge. She liked challenges NARRATOR: Professor Jane Monckton Smith
understands the appeal that Faye will have held for a man who was living far from home.
It's quite possible that that ready made family would give him that-- that feeling of permanency,
of stability, of actually having formed an instant life in a new country. NARRATOR: Although Faye was clearly smitten,
the more Stella learned about Mario the more concerned she became. And I didn't like him.
I didn't want to meet him. Apparently there'd been some arguments at a flat where he was bunking down with his friends,
and there must have been about eight people in this small flat. And there was sleeping on the mattresses and things.
And I'm thinking, well, that's not something I want my daughter to be associated with.
NARRATOR: But Faye was falling in love. Me and my partner went out with them. We went out for something to eat,
and she was besotted with him. She was just-- you could just see it in her eyes.
Like she'd got the partner that she'd always wanted, and he wasn't too much and she wasn't too much for him,
and you could just see the connection between them. There was a connection between them.
Faye, when she met Caliman, would describe him as Mr. Popular. He was charming. He was the man of her dreams.
It was quite a quick, intense start to the relationship. NARRATOR: Whilst Faye's infatuation
ran deep, Jane Monckton Smith believes that Mario's apparent feelings masked something more sinister--
a practice known as "love bombing." Love bombing is very, very common in the early stages of a relationship with somebody
who's very controlling and very possessive. They will present themselves as Prince Charming almost.
I am your perfect man. Every clue that they pick up from what you are saying to them, they will come back with a reason
why they think that's wonderful. They think that's great, and you can come away with the idea
that you have met the perfect person. NARRATOR: And Faye wanted everything to be perfect.
I think she always wanted the family home. She always wanted to settle down-- have her kids, a marriage.
She wanted that life as much as she liked to be with her friends and that, but they were family as well.
So she just wanted that fairytale, I think, and she did search for that. NARRATOR: Marian Caliman presented as Mr. Right.
He was happy to become partners to Faye. Father to her girls. Something that would have shown him in a good light
Oh, he must be a really good guy. He's willing to come and help me with my children.
He's not put off by that. And of course, these things can actually be the opposite of what we think.
NARRATOR: However, Faye's friends noticed that Mario made little effort with them.
He wasn't very sociable around Faye's friends. You never really got much of a conversation out of him.
NARRATOR: Jealousy played a part in the relationship, too. Yeah, I mean, when you first get with people,
you've got exes and things can be very turbulent anyway. But I do know that she told me he was involved with his ex
and she found messages and things like that. And I think she was just always worried that it was--
he was going to go back there. NARRATOR: But Faye was committed and eventually her mother
understood that Mario was here to stay. And then there was talking about you taking things further, and I thought, oh, I better meet him.
So they had this barbecue, and I went round and I met him. And he was nothing what I expected.
And I thought, well, if it's going to be serious, I need to now step up my game and be there.
And so I went round. We had a good night. He was very polite. Very, well, charming, really, and nothing
was too much problems, too much trouble for me. He'd kiss me on the cheek, and, hello, how are you?
Yeah, it was very, very pleasant, and he made it-- he made it his mission to make me like him.
NARRATOR: Mario moved into Faye's neat red brick terrace in Millbrook Place. Faye was a single mom.
She'd had a relationship before that hadn't worked out. She had two daughters. Clearly, she still had this very clear vision
about the fairy tale romance-- this idea of a nuclear family where you have a father and a mother and you bring
your children up together. NARRATOR: Faye's children took to Mario, and the couple tried for a child of their own.
After many unsuccessful attempts, in 2014 Faye became pregnant. She finally managed to conceive with this guy.
And she wanted to make it work, and she wanted the father to be there. NARRATOR: With the arrival of her third child,
Faye and Mario's family seemed complete. Inevitably, talk turned to marriage. She told friends that a ring on her finger
would complete her fairytale. Things started moving so quickly and with such power,
and there was this whirlwind around him-- almost like, oh, thank goodness. Somebody has come to rescue Faye.
NARRATOR: Talk of an engagement continued. Faye had no idea how wrong her Mr. Right would turn out to be.
Mr. Charming. Mr. Perfect. Mr. Wonderful. There's a phrase, if it sounds too good and it is too good,
perhaps it is too good. He spat in her face. She told me that he's hit her once.
She leaned over, grabbed some tissues, wiped her face, and it was like nothing had happened.
She just put a brave face on all the time. NARRATOR: Was this a fairy tale or a horror story?
Faye Williams became engaged to Marian Caliman, the father of her child. By now, he did seem to be perfect son-in-law material.
He tiled my kitchen. When I had a new fitted kitchen, he did all the tiling. And he was good with construction,
so he did laminate flooring. He painted for me. And I'd say, aw, let me give you something.
Oh no. No. No. This is fine. NARRATOR: And Faye's family were delighted when the couple announced they were indeed to marry.
The wedding would be proof of Mario's commitment. But whilst Faye threw herself into planning the big day,
her future husband seemed less enthusiastic I got the impression that he wasn't really into it
but Faye was. I said, do you want to marry her? Yeah. Yeah, of course, yeah. I said, right, OK.
I said, well, you don't seem excited. And he says, well, it's a bit overwhelming for him.
He said, that's girls talk, so he left us to it. NARRATOR: And on August the 4th, 2015,
the sun shone in Nottingham. The beach fair was in town and the children enjoyed going on the fairground rides when Faye
Williams became Mrs. Caliman. She was-- a lace dress. Very flattering. Beautiful hairstyle.
Makeup was done, and it was the first time that she'd been and had her hair done professionally,
so she took pleasure on the day and time, and she looked beautiful, yeah. NARRATOR: It was her mission to make her husband happy.
She's devoted. A devoted wife. Always wanted everything to be perfect for him and for her family.
She'd bend over backwards for him. Just a perfect-- perfect life. NARRATOR: It seemed Faye had everything that she'd ever
wanted, but those closest to her soon became concerned about the man that she had married.
It didn't come to light at first. It was just snippets of things. It wasn't the whole package straightaway.
It was-- he'd control over how many smokes that she'd had. So they'd visit and she'd say, I'm just
going to go out for a smoke. Can I have a smoke? Oh no. You've had enough. And she's, well, they're mine--
I bought them. No, you're not having one. And I didn't like that. NARRATOR: There was other evidence
of controlling behavior. He was offered to come around and then didn't come around.
But again, Faye would still come over, and then you could start. Her phone would never stop going.
When she walked in once, she picked up her phone and she had to FaceTime him to prove that she was in our house
and not elsewhere. NARRATOR: Her friends noticed a difference in her demeanor. She'd be quite sheepish, like if we just met on our own
or like at school with all the girls or the moms and stuff, she'd be a totally different person than when
he was in her presence. And it was kind of like you couldn't really make a conversation with her
because it was a bit awkward. So then at that, from seeing him like that, being really quiet,
and just seeing her change of behavior, I thought, well, yeah, it don't seem very nice.
NARRATOR: Setting off on a rare girls' night out, Fran Bailey would witness another side
to her friend's husband. We got to the top of the street, and as we was leaving,
Mario was walking down the street and she pulled over and she said, I'm just nipping out.
And he says, what about my dinner? And she was like, you'll have to sort yourself out
because I'm going out. And he said something in Romanian. She knew what it was. I didn't, because obviously I didn't have a clue.
And he spat in her face. She told me that he'd hit her once, and that to me was enough, and I said that that shouldn't happen anyway.
If this is the first time she's experienced violence from Caliman, then the dynamics have changed and that's a real
concern as a high-risk factor. If Caliman's managed to control her by words alone and behavior, but now he's
happened to step up to violence to get the control, then that is a real warning high-risk indicator
about future violence. I did the school run with Faye one morning and was walking up to school and she was limping.
And I was like, what have you done there, because she was starting work after we dropped the kids off.
And she says, oh, I've twisted my ankle. And then I was like, oh, how you managed to do that?
And she was like, oh, just running down the stairs I twisted my ankle. And then I looked down.
I thought because she had like these little ballerina shoes on, and the top of her foot was bruised.
And I said, if you twisted your ankle, while why you got a bruise on the top of your foot?
And she was like, oh, I didn't twist my ankle. I trapped it. I trapped it in the door.
NARRATOR: Faye was quick to forgive her husband's actions, even to blame herself.
She'd always try and see a reason behind it. I don't know, if they fell out she'd tell, yeah,
but I'd done that. You know, she would make an excuse to cover up something that he has done, and no matter how
many times you say to someone, no, but it's not, they don't see that. You don't see it yourself.
But yeah, she did used to blame herself a lot. Maybe Faye herself couldn't see the fact that what was
happening to her was abusive. If that's how normal-- if that is her every day-- and it could be that the belief is
that that's just who he is and things aren't that bad and minimizing it. NARRATOR: Why had Faye become so submissive?
Very often, people will stay in a relationship with somebody who's controlling because they believe
that the control stems from some vulnerability that this person has. And I hear quite a lot people say things like, if he was just
loved enough to feel stable, to feel secure in the relationship-- if I can prove to him that there's
nothing to worry about, that I'm not going to leave, that will cure him of this behavior.
But they never change. In Faye's mind, the guy she met in the pub is the real Caliman.
Actually, the real Caliman is the abusive, nasty, controlling, violent man. NARRATOR: By the end of 2015, things were coming to a head.
So on Christmas Eve 2016, Caliman goes out with his friends and then he comes back presumably stinking
drunk, and there's a big row. She's not happy that he's this drunk around the children.
It starts a big, violent confrontation during which he throws her down the stairs.
NARRATOR: Caliman walked out, leaving the family to spend Christmas day alone. Faye was devastated.
He know how much Christmas was. To her it meant a lot, especially the girls waking up
on Christmas morning was everything and he managed to steal that from her because he'd
put her through that. Within a couple of days he's back saying that he misses his baby, and she takes him back.
And this is something we often see, even after very, very violent encounters like this.
A wife in these situations will sometimes take the husband back. We hear Caliman is referred to like Jekyll and Hyde.
Can be nice one minute, not nice the next, and that's really common. And if you've got a baby and you've been with this man
for a long while, you want to invest in the nice. You want to think that, actually,
the bad days are not that bad. NARRATOR: Caliman might be back in the family home
but his mask was slipping. In April 2017 things start to change. The evidence of her abuse starts to become visible on her face.
There's one particular occasion when her mother reported seeing her with a black eye with strangulation marks
around her neck. As a relationship goes on and the abuse continues, the good days get less, the bad days get more.
NARRATOR: Until now, Faye had managed to hide the violence, but in April 2017 that changed.
And this time, Faye has injuries to her face. But more importantly and more dangerously,
she has bruising to her throat. So she has strangulation marks. One of the things we know about strangulation assaults
is that they raise the risk of homicide by eight times. If somebody has strangulation marks,
they are at much higher risk than most people in similar situations of ending up dead at the end.
NARRATOR: Stella grew increasingly worried about her daughter, a daughter who was battered
and bruised and seemingly had the weight of the world on her shoulders. I knew something was wrong and I said to her,
I said, I'm a bit worried about you. And I said, you know, you need to tell me what's happening.
So she said she'd got debts, the household debts, and a Barclay card that belonged to him, and catalogs.
And I said, well, tell me how much. And it turned out that she was nearly 5,000 pounds in debt.
NARRATOR: With Mario and Faye both working, their finances should have been in hand.
Her one time Mr. Perfect, the doting father and stepfather, the hardworking provider, was taking considerably
more than he gave in every way. He never paid a penny into the household, so the bills were racking up.
But he was working but he never gave her a penny for anything, so she was getting more unhappier and unhappier,
and as time went on, she was just going through a bigger hole. The weight started dropping off and, yes, it just looks like it
just spiralled into nothing. NARRATOR: After three years of marriage in 2018, Faye took the decision to separate from her husband.
Even friends who had been worried about her had no idea how toxic the marriage had really become.
I just thought that she'd fell out of love with him. She tried to tell him in the best way possible,
but still wanted a father there for her daughter. And that was the main thing for her.
She didn't want to lose him in that side of things, but couldn't be with him anymore.
NARRATOR: Ending the relationship seemed like Faye's only option, but it was a decision
that came with risks. The point of separation is the most dangerous time for somebody in a relationship with a controlling
person like Marian Caliman. Faye probably did not recognize the danger she was in.
NARRATOR: Marian Caliman seemed in denial about the relationship. Caliman probably didn't even think his behaviors--
there's anything wrong with them. That sense of entitlement, I can behave like this in my house.
You're my wife. That's my child. I can do what I want. And if I ask you to do something, you will do it.
Very many perpetrators don't see that their violence is out of order. They believe that they have a right to act in that way.
They blame the victim. So until you take accountability responsibility for your behavior, you literally can't shift it.
And what we know about Caliman is that Caliman was quite happy with his behavior.
NARRATOR: Faye believed that leaving her violent husband would give her the freedom to live again.
She couldn't know the danger she was in. 2018 and Faye Caliman had called time on her abusive marriage.
She planned to be independent and to provide a better life for herself and her children.
She got a new job in a call center that she'd been really, really wanting. It was her dream job.
She was really loving that, and it gave her that bit of a future in a sense of independence.
She really did enjoy it. She flourished. She was getting out of the home more. She seemed to be building a life for herself without him.
I noticed a change in her because she was coming out a lot more. I'd see her, she'd be with other friends.
Start socializing more and I thought, you know what, she's doing really well. I'm really, really happy for her.
NARRATOR: In spring 2018, Faye was looking forward to her mom's 50th birthday, and Mario was still part
of the planned celebration. We was going to fly out Fuerteventura, and there was going to be me and my partner.
There was going to be Faye, Mario, and the three girls. Although they'd split up by that time, he was still part of it,
and I still classed him as the son-in-law. And I said, would he still like to come?
He said yes, so he was still down to come. And I thought, well, at least if we get away,
it's beautiful in Fuerteventura. It's sunny. They could go for a walk on the beach.
I can have the girls. They can have a romantic meal, whatever they like, and try and reconcile everything.
She didn't tell me everything, what was going off, you see. NARRATOR: Faye was being bombarded
with messages from Caliman. Her distress was occasionally all too evident. On one such occasion she was with her girlfriends
when they got together to watch the races. So we all went out for the Grand National.
She came around. She was very quiet that day, and look, she's not a quiet person.
So again that's when he'd been sending her messages. The things he must have been saying--
they just got to her. And she didn't even say much all night, and normally we'd confide in each other with everything,
but she didn't say anything. I didn't realize that he was pestering her as such, so she was really, really going through it.
But she just put a brave face on all the time. NARRATOR: It was on Friday the 27th of April
that Kirstie Newberry saw her friend. She was not her usual self. She was outside the shop and Mario went in the shop.
And she'd got this puppy-- she had a puppy there in the car with her. I had the same dog at the time so I rang her up.
Obviously, I'm, poor little puppy. But she was very timid. And I was like, are you OK?
And it's, like, she couldn't talk. Yeah, it's like, I'll talk to you later sort of thing.
So that was the last time I saw her. NARRATOR: The next day matters escalated. Child care, again, was the central issue.
On the 28th of April 2018 things had really come to a head. There's been a big argument over childcare arrangements,
and Faye phones her mother in floods of tears saying that he's kicking off, and Stella
offers to go around to help. It was the 28th of April, and I'd been to work in the morning
till the afternoon, and the night time was when I relaxed. So me and my partner was planning a movie.
Faye was at work and she was coming around to collect some bikinis and towels and things
that I collected for the holiday for the following Saturday. And she was a little bit agitated when she came round.
She finished at 6 o'clock and I'd had rung her and I said, are you still coming?
Yeah. Yeah. I'm on my way. So she came. She was a bit agitated, and I said to her, what's the matter?
She said, I've got to go. NARRATOR: Caliman had previously agreed to look after their daughter.
Faye confided her concerns to her mother. Might Mario simply leave the child alone?
He's got the little one and he's threatened to leave her in the house on her own.
I said, right, OK, so I gave her the bags of things, she kissed me, hugged me, see you later, love you lots.
Then went and got in the car. Just settling down and she rings about half past 7:00
and she said, Mom, he's threatening now not to have the little one tomorrow while I go to work.
She was on the weekend, so I said, right, OK, I have her on a Monday anyway. By all means bring her here and I'll have her.
NARRATOR: For Faye it was a solution to a problem, but for Mario Caliman it was a red rag to a bull.
She will go and have her mother look after them. Now that means that even the tiny bit of control that he
might have been able to exert is now redundant, so he has nowhere to go. He is completely useless in the relationship to her,
and that would have been absolutely infuriating to him. NARRATOR: With arrangements in place for her daughter,
Faye returned home to find her youngest in bed and her estranged husband in a state of rage.
In the sitting room he attacks. The next thing that is known is that Caliman is violently
attacking his wife, and even more shockingly, he's filming himself doing it. This was a particularly brutal attack, absolutely rage filled,
and he was meting out punishment. He hadn't lost control of himself. This wasn't some external reason.
This was self-generated rage. The video showed him abusing her, assaulting her, pointing a knife at her, telling her he
was going to kill her. We tend to think that when two people break up there is heartbreak and that people
are acting out of character. Somebody like Marian Caliman is acting out of character because his heart is broken
because he loved her so much. He is actually outraged that she should dare to leave him.
For Faye, I imagine in the initial stages of the attack she would have just considered this another assault,
so she'd have been very scared. She'd have been afraid of his behavior. She'd have obviously been concerned about the fact he was
filming, but I imagine contextually she wouldn't have imagined that he was going to murder her.
He wanted to enjoy that moment where he was getting his revenge on Faye, and he filmed the attack.
He actually filmed the attack. He's abusing her. He's brandishing a knife at her.
He's threatening to kill her. He's assaulting her, kicking her, punching her, pushing her over.
And then, tragically, he stabs her 12 times. This is punishment. This is punishment.
He stabbed her multiple times-- 12 times. In the neck, the head, the chest with such force
that the knife is broken and a piece of the knife is left in her body. The final stab wound was into the heart
and that was the one that killed her. More violence was used than was necessary to kill Faye.
This wasn't about just killing her. He could have done that with one stab. No, this was rage--
overkill, punishment-- enjoyment at some level-- that he was finally punishing her.
She knew she was being punished. This is about outrage. NARRATOR: Their two-year-old still upstairs, Faye stabbed
12 times and bleeding heavily. Any delay in calling for help would almost certainly
mean she would die. It was 20 minutes after 10 o'clock on April 28th when Marian Caliman called 999
and told them what he'd done. Emergency services mobilized. I'd gone out that night and I was on my way home
in a taxi about 11 o'clock and there was just helicopters everywhere. And we were in a small village, there's, like, literally,
one way in, one way out. So it's very weird to have something go off and no one know about it.
No one knew what's actually happened, but there was just helicopters, police, ambulances.
It was just literally crazy. NARRATOR: For Stella Williams, it was the moment every parent dreads.
Almost midnight and a knock at the door. It was the police. He said-- he asked me my name and if I
got a daughter called Faye. And I said yes. And he said, I've got some really bad news for you.
I'm so sorry to tell you that there's been a fatal incident where Faye has been injured
and it was fatal. And he had to tell me three times, because I was like, let me get dressed.
Is she OK? Is she in the hospital? Is she asking for me? Can you take me to her?
NARRATOR: But the attack had been fatal. The call for help too late. And at 1/2 past 11, paramedics pronounced
Faye dead at the scene. It didn't register and I didn't believe it. So I took the phone and I rung Stella
because I thought I've got to ring. Not dead. If he's going to hurt her, maybe he just beat her up
and but maybe she's admitted in hospital, but not surely dead. And Stella told me it was right, and I
just collapsed in the kitchen. NARRATOR: As the terrible reality of Faye's death
sank in with Stella, she then had to face the fact that it was at the hands of her own son-in-law.
I said to them, it's him, isn't it? And they said, well, yes we do believe it is.
So they said that they was looking for him, and apparently he'd gone under the railway bridge
and he'd taken a knife. He was going to kill himself. NARRATOR: A cold-blooded killer was armed and on the loose.
30-year-old Faye Caliman was dead, her suspected killer on the loose. For Stella Williams grief led to confusion.
I was making excuses for him in the beginning. It was like no, no, no. It's an accident.
He's gone wrong. It's not as bad as it seems and they've got all this wrong. No. No.
No. No. This doesn't happen to me. This doesn't happen in our family. You read about it, but it doesn't happen here.
And it was. It was. So when I wasn't believing it, I was still making excuses for him.
Looking back now, I think, have I gone mad? He's done this to my daughter but I'm still trying to make
excuse after excuse for him. Just could not take it on board. NARRATOR: A full-scale manhunt was mounted,
and in the early hours of the morning Caliman was found under a tree by a nearby railway bridge.
Within 24 hours he was in court and remanded in custody. When he pleaded not guilty, he just looked smug.
You can't even explain the feeling. Like, why would you want to-- you've took a daughter away from her mother.
A mother-- a child has been motherless now through your actions. Why would you want to go to trial
and put them through everything? Why would you when you know what you've done? He knew what he'd done.
NARRATOR: And the day Stella should have flown out to Spain was spent in a way she could never have foreseen.
Instead of us all getting on a plane, I spent the morning in the mortuary at her bedside.
NARRATOR: Two months later, Nottingham Crown Court and the trial. Stella thought she knew what to expect.
She was wrong. I expected him to say, I was sorry-- he was sorry, and I expected him to put his hands up and say,
I didn't mean it. And no, he didn't. He didn't even look at me. He wouldn't even look at anybody.
He just stood with his head down and nothing. No remorse, no tears, no nothing. Just stood there as if nothing had happened.
NARRATOR: He hoped for the lesser charge of manslaughter, citing a momentary loss of control.
Caliman had called a friend after the murder to say that he'd lost control-- he saw black in his eyes.
However, this was entirely rejected by the trial judge. He said that this wasn't hot-tempered crime.
This was cold, hard, and calculating. NARRATOR: Judge Jomba just refused to believe
Caliman had simply snapped. Seasoned detective, Neil Lancaster, explains why. Caliman went there with a knife.
He had enough presence of mind to get his mobile phone out to film what he was going to do.
This isn't a loss of control. He knew what he wanted to do. This is cold. It's calculating, and it's vicious.
He filmed himself killing the mother of his child. NARRATOR: There would be no drawn-out defense.
Prosecution had come across vital evidence-- Caliman's own video of the murder. We was asked if we could see it because in court the judge
is saying quite a lot of things that's happened in stabbings and domestic violence.
And it was just if we could play it in court, then the judge could actually see it
and he could make his judgment from there. So we went ahead with that. NARRATOR: It was something no parent should see.
And never, never seen her like that. She knew. She knew she was going to die. She was saying all sorts just to get out of it, you know,
and begging him. And that on my worst days, my lowest days-- that haunts me. That's all I can hear.
But because I was told there was a video, I knew what the video would look like.
But seeing it and hearing it-- you just don't understand the feelings that run through you,
and I saw exactly where the knife was positioned. The phone. Can you imagine how that must have felt?
To see her pleading in her pajamas, almost begging for her life as the blows rained down on her.
Can we all imagine what that must be like to see your child being killed on film
during a criminal trial. The only thing I didn't know was what she was wearing and what she would be saying.
I hadn't taken that into account. But I knew exactly where she would be sitting--
in her chair. But to see the footage-- that's crippling. NARRATOR: Finally, Caliman had been seen for the monster
that he was. Few believed he felt any remorse. The most common emotion felt after these homicides is
relief, not remorse or shame or guilt. And Caliman was a very manipulative person.
He would possibly have feigned remorse. But somebody who films the violent murder of their wife
isn't that type of person. They're callous. There is no remorse there. NARRATOR: Caliman eventually pleaded guilty to the murder
of his wife. On the 28th of September in Nottingham Crown Court he was sentenced.
That day will never leave me-- in court when he got sentenced, because it was just the sheer-- you could hear
the sheer pain in everybody, not just her family or her close friends. There was newspaper reporters in there.
There was police officers and there was all in bits. You could just-- it affected everybody.
It affected everybody and it was just-- it was just like he didn't care. It's just-- there was never--
sorry would never cut it, but there was never no remorse or there was never a look on his face to say, what have I done?
NARRATOR: His guilty plea meant his sentence was reduced by three years. He got 19 years.
He got 21, but because he finally and eventually he pleaded guilty, they gave him 19.
But they gave him a life sentence, which he will have to serve-- 19 years before he gets any parole so--
I wanted him, you know. But that's not in this country now, is it? We don't do hanging.
NARRATOR: Her friends and family can do nothing to bring Faye back but they have learned of the dangers
of ignoring signs of abuse. If I even noticed anything little like that, then I would--
I'd be straight there, because I would never want anyone to go through what Faye went through.
Ever. For what Faye's girls are going to have to go through for the rest of their life.
For Faye's family not having their daughter with them. Just everything. You don't-- it doesn't get easier.
You just learn to live with it because you can't change it. Being a mother I would have been there,
you know, and it would have been a lot different had I known. But I don't know why she didn't tell me and that is
one of the things that I ask myself-- why don't-- why didn't you? NARRATOR: Faye was a beautiful and bright young woman.
A friend, a mother, a daughter, and a wife to the wrong man. He was described as a devil with two faces,
and in some ways that's quite accurate, because he had this face that he used to manipulate
everybody around Faye to represent himself as this wonderful person. The other face was actually just the real him,
who was somebody who was entitled and controlling and possessive and unstable. I just remember her being fun, loving,
and I'll never find a friend like her. I never will. She was the best person I've ever met in my life
and we had so much plans. So much to do. And it just-- it was just robbed and she didn't deserve it.
She was very caring, very loyal, loved her family, loved her friends and if you was in her little corner, you know,
you'll know that she was a person-- she'd got your back. So yes, she was. She was lovely.
[music playing] [theme music]

Marian Caliman was charming and helpful. He won over his wife Faye and her family until he showed his true colors as a violent abuser.

Though wedded couples vow to stay together until death do they part, this new true crime series looks at what happens when a groom or bride causes their beloved's death.

Brief Summary

Faye Williams' tragic story reveals the dangers of domestic abuse and the fatal consequences of her relationship with Marian Caliman.

Key points

Faye's Fairy Tale Dream. Faye Williams dreamed of a secure family life, but her reality was far from it.
The Dark Side of Love. Faye's relationship with Marian quickly turned abusive, revealing his true nature.
The Warning Signs. Faye's friends noticed controlling behavior from Marian, raising concerns about her safety.
The Danger of Separation. Faye's decision to leave Marian came with significant risks, as it is often the most dangerous time.
Faye's New Beginning. After leaving her abusive marriage, Faye sought independence and a better life for her children.
Faye's New Job. Faye lands her dream job, marking a new chapter in her life.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Faye wanted a family.

Her desire for a stable family life.

3:02WatchJun 8, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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