The sister of a Liverpool model who died after being left in a trunk for days said Christmas has been "tainted" since he was murdered.
Vanessa Allen, from Wavertree, described her baby brother, Nelson Asu, as "vibrant, happy and genuine". Nelson, the youngest of four, was making strides to get his name known in the modelling industry and after some time his career began to take off.
He was offered photoshoots in Manchester and took part in fashion shows at Garlands Nightclub in the city centre. However, Nelson was killed after two men pretended to be gay and took advantage of him.
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Vanessa, 53, told the ECHO how she still misses and thinks about her brother “day in and day out”. The support worker explained the two had the type of relationship where they would tell each other everything first before anyone else – with Nelson telling her he was gay before later coming out to his parents at the age of 16. When Vanessa fell pregnant with her daughter Keighley, she knew he needed to know as soon as possible.
Vanessa said: “We fought with each other as every brother and sister does. But it was clear that everybody loved him because he was so genuine and for his death to happen was such an utter shock for the whole of the community. If you had seen his funeral you would have understood how liked he was. He was the life of the party.”
When Nelson wasn’t posing for the camera, he was a regular on the city's gay scene. On the evening of November 21, 1996, he went out as normal, and visited a gay club – then called the She Club – on Victoria Street. There Nelson met two men who pretended to be gay to gain his trust, and the three of them headed back to his flat at around 7.30pm.
At some point in the evening, the men revealed they were thieves and threatened Nelson with a knife, pushed him to the ground and tied him up. Finally, they placed a red cloth over his face and forced him into a trunk with no room to move.
Nelson was found on Monday, November 25 1996, when his mum, Vanessa, and Vanessa’s then-partner visited his flat after he had not been seen for days. By the time they found him Nelson had been dead for some time, having asphyxiated and choked on his vomit.
Vanessa said: “It was awful, very traumatic, we were so close growing up so it hit hard because he was my baby brother. My mum was never the same and she ended up getting sick as well.
“It was just the worst time of our lives. I was the strong one, trying to keep everybody together because my mum was distraught. I nursed my mum through her illness so I never had the time to grieve. We didn’t even celebrate Christmas that year because the death had just happened.”
Nelson would have turned 51 this year, with Vanessa only two years his elder. She continued: “It never gets any easier. He’s on my mind 24/7. It breaks my heart every day but unfortunately life goes on, and I still need to be strong for my daughter.
“He would have loved her – he doted on her till she was three months old and then he passed away. He was constantly there taking her out of my arms. He would have had her everywhere and been made up with her.“
Since Nelson's horrific murder, Vanessa said the "happiness of Christmas has been sucked out of it". She added: "Christmas day was wild for us, me and Nelson used to sneak downstairs laughing our heads off and open the presents behind our parents' backs. We would get shouted at but we didn't care because it was family time for us, we were always together.
"It's not been the same since celebrating Christmas doesn't interest me the way it used to. The first few years after Nelson's death we celebrated because I had my daughter and I did it for her, but now she is older, it's hard to get into the mood of it all."
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