The 31-year-old had just started a new role teaching children with special needs at a school in Sydney’s south.
She devoted her weekends to the Ramsgate Rams Women’s Football Club, where she’d played for 25 years and was team captain.
After her games, she loved to have a few drinks and hit the dancefloor with friends.
But as most of her friends settled down, Danni was eager to find a partner and do the same.
So in December 2022, she joined a dating app, where she matched with a man called Ashley Gaddie.
“She just seemed to click with him,” Danni’s mum, Jacky Finlay-Jones, told 60 Minutes.
“I think he told her everything she wanted to hear. He was only interested in a serious relationship, he wanted to settle down, he really wanted children.”
Their third date would be their last.
Danni took Gaddie along to Christmas drinks with friends at a pub in Sydney’s west.
Afterwards, they stayed the night with Danni’s best friend, Taylor Joseph.
It was Joseph who found Danni’s dead body on her spare room floor the next day.
“I opened the door, walked in, and she was lying on the floorā¦ bleeding from her face,” she recalled.
“I was just saying her name over and over again.”
It’s an image that still haunts her to this day. Danni had been beaten, strangled and suffocated.
“He’d certainly not held back on the damage he did to her,” Jacky said.
“I’ve got to hope it was quick, that she felt no pain. I guess we’ll never know.”
Gaddie was nowhere to be seen. He remained on the run for two days before police arrested and charged him with murder.
That’s when Danni’s family and friends learned he’d been harbouring a dark secret: Gaddie was a serial domestic violence offender.
He was on bail, halfway through a community corrections order for choking, stalking and assaulting an ex-girlfriend, when he met and murdered Danni.
He also had a string of apprehended violence orders dating back to 2016.
“I just felt utterly shocked that he could still have been out in society,” Jacky recalled.
“The system failed by letting him out on bail. If he had not been out on bail, Danni would be alive today.”
Danni’s brother Blake is just as furious.
“Knowing what we know now, it doesn’t seem like a surprise to us,” he said.
“It seemed like he was escalating towards killing a woman.”
This is the first time Danni’s family has spoken publicly about her murder, and their distress is still raw.
They said they’d put their grieving on hold to focus on the court process, hoping Gaddie would face justice.
But last month, the 33-year-old took his own life in a jail cell where he was awaiting trial.
It was another crushing blow for the Finlay-Jones family, who wanted to see him punished and to have their say in court through a victim impact statement.
“It’s a cop out,” said Blake.
“You’ve got to face the consequences for what you’ve done.”
Danni’s family are now focusing their energy on remembering Danni, and speaking out against domestic violence.
They’re calling for NSW bail laws to be overhauled, and for the introduction of police checks on dating apps.
“We’re really hoping that it wasn’t all for nothing,” Blake said.
“Hoping that there is something that comes out of this, where there is change, where less women are killed in the future.”
Source: 60 Minutes
