On New Street in Donaghadee, Co Down, greengrocer Peter Wallace recalls how Sarah Montgomery always wanted to help people.
It is Tuesday lunchtime in the small coastal town, three days since the 27-year-old mother of two was found dead in her home less than a 10-minute walk away.
She was eight months pregnant.
This is the town where Ms Montgomery grew up, where her young daughters attend her former primary school and where she helped fundraise for the local lifeboat charity of which her grandfather, Arthur Arbuckle, was once a crew member.
RM Block
“She was well known and a lovely girl, very quiet,” Mr Wallace, owner of Grattan’s family greengrocers, says.
“She was a carer for her two brothers and adored her girls. They were so well-mannered when they came into the shop and always so well turned out.”
On Tuesday evening, police confirmed a 28-year-old man had been charged with murder and child destruction. The man is due to appear before Newtownards Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
Just a week before her death, Ms Montgomery gave pictures of scans of her unborn child, a baby boy, to her daughters.
There was great excitement about their new baby brother, Mr Wallace says.
“Our business put a post on social media yesterday to express our condolences. The response was unbelievable. The town is in complete shock,” he says.
Blue teddy bears are propped up on bouquets of flowers with handwritten sympathy messages outside Ms Montgomery’s home on Elmfield Walk.
Police cordons remain in place around the property where more flowers are laid throughout the afternoon.
At 2.15pm on Saturday, police received reports of an unconscious woman with a serious injury inside a house in the Elmfield area.
Officers and paramedics attended. Ms Montgomery was pronounced dead at the scene.
At the other end of New Street on Tuesday, staff at a chemist shop say they are struggling to come to terms with her death.
Ms Montgomery was a regular customer and “always spoiling her girls”.
“Being a mother and grandmother myself, this has really hit home,” says one staff member who did not wish to be named.
“I saw Sarah a week before she died. She was just a lovely person from a lovely family. She lost her parents a few years ago.
“She would have been in here four times a week. A great mother who loved her wee girls and was always buying them hair bobbles and treats. She was a great sister too.”
Around the corner, a book of condolence has opened at a coffee shop.
A young mother wipes away tears as she reads some of the messages.
Outside, an elderly woman on a walking stick shakes her head in disbelief.
“Sarah came to the coffee shop all the time with the girls. Them two kids were her world and it’s absolutely heartbreaking,” she says.
“Nothing like this has ever happened in this town, it is just devastation. Honestly, I can’t say enough about her. She was one of life’s nice people.”
On the laneway leading to Elmwood Park, a woman carries a bunch of roses to place outside Ms Montgomery’s home after work.
“Everybody knows everybody in this town. We can’t stop thinking about her and her children,” she says.
