GEOFF Dickie broke down and cried on a police officer's shoulder upon learning that the body they found at Kholo Creek crossing in Brisbane's west this week was his "loving" daughter and "soulmate" Allison.
"We always had a positive attitude that each day was going to be the day we'd find her. And you would think if she was anywhere around, they would find her because of the amount of resources out," he said.
"We were staying positive and hoped she would be found alive.
"But after that length of time we were ready to find her body.
"He's (God) answered one of our prayers, she was found, and the second prayer is that we find who did this awful thing to our daughter."
Speaking exclusively to The Courier-Mail yesterday, Mr Dickie and wife Priscilla recalled how life had become a nightmare since receiving the call from their son-in-law Gerard on Friday two weeks ago.
"He (Mr Baden-Clay) just said she went for a walk and she didn't return - that's all he said," Mr Dickie said.
"If she was going for a walk in the morning, she'd have walked on the side of the road around Brookfield. She wouldn't have ventured into the middle of the bush somewhere."
Despite their grief, the family is grateful for the perseverance of police and emergency officers, saying it would be much harder not knowing.
"The Queensland Police Service and the senior officers we dealt with were amazing. The SES were there - 20 or 30 or more - a day, all the resources, the horses, the bikes, the helicopters. They couldn't have done any more. They did everything.
"We thought that after a while they'd scale it down. The head of the search team said we're not giving up.
"The Brookfield community was outstanding too and so was the show society. We were quite comfortable and we always had a lot of food."
Mrs Dickie said they knew there was "something wrong" from the beginning and now just wishes she could have the time back with her daughter.
"I remember our last hug," she said. "At Tallebudgera (on the Gold Coast) at Easter.
"They were saying goodbye, going back to Brookfield, we were staying at the Coast. I said 'love you', they were getting in the car. That's it. It's terrible isn't it. You just don't realise."
Mrs Baden-Clay's best friend, Kerry-Anne Walker, has helped the Dickies in their ordeal and was at the search site every day. She was one of the last to have contact with Mrs Baden-Clay, texting her on the night she disappeared about her plans for the following day.
"That Friday was a busy day for her. She had a full-day conference in town and the kids were having a sleepover that night, so she would have got all her stuff ready," Mrs Walker said.
"I had texted her that day, the Thursday, and she texted me back that night saying she'd drop around on her way home from this conference .
"She arranged to drop some stuff off for me on the way home. So it was all a bit of a shock."
Mrs Walker said the entire situation was "very bizarre".
"She would never have left her girls - never," she said.
"She would never, ever, have wanted to worry anybody.
"It should have never happened to her. She didn't deserve any of this.
"She didn't deserve this attention. She didn't deserve her ultimate demise, the way she was found. Our focus now is to make sure in the funeral to remember how beautiful she was."
Mrs Walker and the Dickies were at the Baden-Clays' Brookfield home yesterday helping to tidy up after the police forensic investigation so Mr Baden-Clay and the three girls could return home.
The next step was retrieving Mrs Baden-Clay's body after the autopsy and organising the funeral, as well as ensuring her daughters, who had enjoyed such a normal, happy life up until now, would be OK.
"It's been a bit of an unusual situation - I don't know what will happen when they finally go home," Mrs Walker said.
"We just want them to know that Allison loved them very much and she would never have left them and she's looking out for them."
Mr Dickie agreed the thing that would worry his daughter most now was her children.
"Irrespective of all of her achievements and what she's done, probably the proudest thing she would be is a good wife and a good mum," he said. "We want them to remember her.
"To us, she was just a loving daughter."
Husband silent as search continues
THE husband of murdered Brookfield mum Allison Baden-Clay will not say who he thinks killed his wife.
Gerard Baden-Clay's lawyer Darren Mahony said his client would be making no comment when asked who he thought had slain his wife, whose body was found beneath Kholo Creek Bridge at Mt Crosby on Monday.
Detectives continue to work to solve the murder of the mother of three. Pathology results that could confirm the cause of her death are due back in a week.
Mrs Baden-Clay's sudden disappearance a fortnight ago sparked a massive air and land search across the Brookfield area in Brisbane's west for more than 10 days.
The investigation, now being run by 25 detectives including State Crime Operations Command's Homicide Squad, was upgraded to a murder investigation only days after Mr Baden-Clay first reported his wife missing.
He told detectives his wife hadn't returned from a walk she took at 10pm the night before and reported her missing nine hours later at 7.30am.
Despite hundreds of search hours logged by Oxley police academy recruits, police officers and SES volunteers across a 2km-radius in Brookfield and across Mt Crosby near where Mrs Baden-Clay's body was found, her mobile phone remains lost.
Police were able to track it to within a 150m radius at Brookfield, close to the family home, before the battery died.
Detectives renewed their call for information from the roundabout at the intersection of Moggill Rd and Brookfield Rd yesterday, wanting further details from anyone who might have seen the family cars, a Holden Captiva and Toyota Prado, between 11.30pm on Thursday, April 19 and 4am the following day.
Mr Baden-Clay's sister Olivia Walton told media the family was taking the Baden-Clays' daughters for a much-needed break to visit their grandparents.
Mrs Baden-Clay's parents Geoff and Priscilla Dickie yesterday were at the family's rented home on Brookfield Rd, armed with cleaning products and tidying the back yard.
Mr Baden-Clay has not yet brought his daughters back to the home the family shared in happier times.
The number of flowers adorning the fence of the family home grew yesterday as Brookfield residents paid tribute to Mrs Baden-Clay.
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