A “brilliant mother” who died with stab wounds in London had just found out she was four weeks pregnant with her third child before she died, according to her sister.

Jasmine Yates, 26, told the PA news agency that Alana Odysseos, 32, will be remembered as a “pure-hearted person” after her death in east London in the early hours of Monday morning.

Ms Yates, a stay-at-home mother from Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, said: “We’re all truly devastated and struggling so much to come to terms with this that we feel so much anger at the same time.”

Shaine March, 46, appeared at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday charged with murdering Ms Odysseos.

Police received reports of an injured woman at about 3am on Monday morning and found Ms Odysseos “suffering stab wounds” at a property in Walthamstow, the Metropolitan Police said.

Ms Yates said her sister had two daughters aged 12 and two and was “such a happy and bubbly person”.

“She completely doted on her children and she was so excited to become a mother again because she just found out she was four weeks pregnant,” Ms Yates said.

“She loved her music – you’d always find her with her Alexa on loud in the kitchen just singing and dancing away.

“She had a mouth on her, she was very mouthy, but she was always the one that would be there when you needed her – she was just such a kind, pure-hearted person.

“Definitely she will be remembered for her mouth and she will be remembered for how much of a brilliant mother she was and for everything she overcame to turn her life around.”

Ms Yates, a mother of four, said she was “trying to be the strong one” after she learned of her sister’s death at around 9.30am on Monday morning from her sister’s friend, who “witnessed what happened”.

“I’m feeling broken at the same time because that was my sister and we were so close,” she said.

“I didn’t want to believe it, and I feel like I’m just in a living nightmare.”

She added Ms Odysseos was “just the best sister anybody could ask for”.

“We had the normal sister arguments that most sisters will have, but when it came down to it, me and her were there for each other,” Ms Yates said.

“We could talk about anything, absolutely anything, that we couldn’t talk about with other people, like we were so close these last few years. It’s the closest we’ve ever been in our lives.”

Ms Yates has set up a GoFundMe to raise funds for her sister’s funeral expenses.

She said: “We grew up in Newmarket and that is where all of our family are buried and is where Alana has always said that she wanted to be buried because she wants to be with our nan, my nanny Patricia, who she was very close to growing up.

“So that’s why I’ve started the GoFundMe, because it’s going to cost us a lot to get her from Walthamstow and be buried in Newmarket.”

Ms Yates is also fundraising to set up a trust fund for her sister’s children.

“She would want them to have a decent start in life and she would be doing the same for me and I just want to make her proud and give her the best send-off that we can,” she said.

Ms Yates’ fundraiser can be found at: www.gofundme.com/f/2zypg-alanas-funeral-costs