Denise Allick was kind and caring, an all-round beautiful person who will be greatly missed, her friend Margaret DeGirolamo said Monday.
The slaying of the 40-year-old Victoria woman in mysterious circumstance last week in Nanaimo shocked DeGirolamo, who had been friends with Allick for 19 years.
“Denise was very energetic, enthusiastic, outgoing and a happy-go-lucky person. She would do anything for anybody to help in any way,” she said.
Around 10 p.m. on June 20, Nanaimo RCMP responded to a report of a disturbance outside a house in south Nanaimo. When they arrived, they found Allick dead from injuries.
Simon Baker, a 21-year-old Nanaimo man, was arrested without incident a short time later. He was charged with second-degree murder and remains in custody at the Vancouver Island Regional Correction Centre. His next court appearance is scheduled for July 5.
RCMP Const. Gary O’Brien said police still don’t know what the connection is between the two. “We don’t know what led her to be at that house,” he said.
Police would like to speak to anyone who knows why Allick was in Nanaimo.
DeGirolamo said she also wants to know what happened to her friend. “Why? Why was she out there?”
In 2018, NanaimoNewsNOW reported that Allick had been the victim of fraud. In a Facebook post that was shared more than 9,000 times, Allick said a Nanaimo man had drained her bank account of more than $5,000.
Jordan Shepherd was sentenced in May 2018 to 4 1/2 months in jail after pleading guilty to seven fraud charges.
NanaimoNewsNOW reported that Shepherd’s high-profile scam involved talking victims — women he primarily met through online dating sites — into advancing him $14,700. He asked his victims to cash cheques from a non-existent company.
