Gary Speed's widow Louise opens up about horror of finding husband dead

Gary Speed’s widow has spoken about the horror of finding her beloved husband dead.

Louise Speed told of the night she lost her husband in her new book, Gary Speed Unspoken: The Family’s Untold Story.

Extracts of the novel have revealed that the former Newcastle United footballer wrote about his battle with depression when he was just 17.

In extracts, published by the Mirror, Ms Speed has also written about the moment she found her husband dead. The couple have two children together.

She said: “There’s never a day goes by that the memory of it doesn’t take my breath away. That scene was like a horror film.

"I wish there was an operation which could take your memory out and ­obliterate it from my mind,” says Louise.

“It’s something I will find hard to forgive Gary for. We were the ones who had to pick up the pieces.

“Everyone asks why he did it but I have no answers. That’s why I’ll never have any closure.”

Ms Speed described the day before her husband died, in 2011, as a normal Saturday.

Her children, Ed and Tom, had been playing football and Gary had gone to record BBC’s Football Focus.

She said: “If someone had told me during that day what was going to happen that night I’d have been so shocked I’d have said Gary needed to be in some secure unit.

“But he was his normal self. There was no hint of what would happen.”

She added: “The morning it all happened will never leave me. It was horrific.

"The evening before, we had been out locally to a friend’s house. It was the first night we allowed our boys to stay at home with their friends while Gary and I went out. We felt they had got to that age where they could be left.

"The next morning back at our home turned into a horror film. I was the one who found him.”

Ms Speed said she called the emergency services afterward.

She said: “I then called my mum and dad and then Gary’s mum and dad. I said it as it was and it was horrible hearing their screams of anguish on the other end of the phone.

"I remember lying on the couch most of the day as people were coming and going. No one really knew what to say or do."

For confidential support, call Samaritans on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org