EMILY Longley’s stunning good looks and charm attracted thousands of admirers, both in life and death.
The popular teenager made an impression on everyone she met and she had hundreds of friends, both in the UK and in New Zealand.
And after her death an unprecedented 10,000 people joined a Facebook site set up in her memory.
Baby Emily was born in London and lived there with her parents, Mark and Caroline, and younger sister, Hannah, until she was nine years old.
The girls attended a private school but Emily had health problems and the family decided to move to New Zealand, where they already had many friends.
Her asthma and recurrent chest infections were driven by pollution but she thrived in the great outdoors in New Zealand, loving nothing more than spending time in the fresh air on the beach.
Sadly Mark and Caroline split up but the girls, Hannah just 18 months younger than her sister, had a dream lifestyle in the North Shore area of Auckland, on New Zealand’s North Island.
Emily attended Hauraki Primary School, Westlake Girls High School and the co-educational Takapuna Grammar School, where she excelled in sports including rowing, dancing and going to the gym.
Former Westlake rowing captain Shanice Duggan-Keefe said: “She was honestly like the sun – always so bright and bubbly” and Rowing Society chairman Neil Connolly said: “She was always one nice kid.”
A typical teenager, she enjoyed watching TV shows like Friends and Jersey Shore and was keen on fashion, modelling and photography.
Her musical interests included Lady Gaga and she had a carefree attitude to life with her Facebook page stating: “If you can’t be the best, be the best looking.”
It was during a visit to Bournemouth to see her grandparents that Emily made the decision to go to Brockenhurst College to take a business studies course.
Her dad, Mark, told the Daily Echo: “She had friends in Bournemouth who were going there and she went along to look round with them. She instantly loved the place and set up an interview, then she was accepted on the course.”
Caroline added: “Emily was very free-spirited – she didn’t like being reigned in – so Brockenhurst College suited her very well. The thing she loved about it was that she was respected and treated like an adult.
Emily moved in with her grandparents in Southbourne and was thoroughly enjoying her studies and a part-time job in Top Shop in Bournemouth when her life was tragically cut short.
Both parents are happy to admit that Emily was head-strong and determined to get her own way, which sometimes caused problems in her early years at school..
But Mark added: “She was very determined to get what she wanted. That would have taken her a long way in life as an adult.
“The last time we saw her she had matured and she had blossomed. At first when she went to Brockenhurst we thought she was too young to be away from us but we could see why she liked it and she was in an environment she was very familiar with – she had always spent a lot of time with her grandparents.”
Emily’s body was found at the Turner family home on the morning of May 7 last year and her grandparents were left to struggle with the unthinkable situation until Mark and Caroline could travel to the UK.
Before boarding a flight from New Zealand Mark, the managing editor of New Zealand newspaper the Whakatane Beacon, said: “We’re incredibly upset and just want to be with her.
“It’s a tragic loss of such a beautiful, life-loving girl and we’re dealing with that – we’re absolutely distraught.”
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