Woman killed man she believed was paedophile

6-22-2012 Australia:

A 22-YEAR-OLD Frenchwoman was "floridly psychotic" when voices in her head told her to kill an elderly Perth man last year, a court has been told.

Valentina Strabach, a paranoid schizophrenic, last year pleaded not guilty, on grounds of insanity, to murdering Murray Castlemaine, 79.

Today, Strabach's treating psychologist at Graylands Hospital, Mirchea Schineanu, told the WA Supreme Court the symptoms of her illness had reached a crescendo when she killed Mr Castlemaine in January 2011.

Strabach has admitted killing Mr Castlemaine in his South Perth home but says she believed she was doing the right thing morally because she had formed the belief he was a paedophile.

"She was attaching erroneous conclusions to things she'd seen and heard," Dr Schineanu told the court.

"In her sick mind, in the world she perceived through psychotic eyes, she was not (feeling) guilty ... because she believed she was doing the right thing."

Strabach was "floridly psychotic" when she committed the murder and was suffering from auditory and visual hallucinations, Dr Schineanu said.

The Frenchwoman did not have control over her actions because the voices in her head that compelled her meant she was effectively under duress, he said.

Dr Schineanu said Strabach had stated she felt possessed "like fire came to me, the voices saying `Kill him, kill him.'"

"She was irrational," he said. "She couldn't have had control over her actions."

After Strabach murdered Mr Quartermaine, whom she'd met at a bus stop, she said she felt like a "detective" and was a "hero" because she believed she had identified and killed a paedophile.

Asked by Strabach's lawyer Seamus Rafferty whether she was capable of making the rational decision to remove evidence - including singeing off the victim's pubic hair with a lighter and a can of aerosol - Dr Schineanu said her reasoning was too impaired.

It was "a bizarre caricature of removing evidence".

Strabach had alarmed her family with increasingly odd behaviour in the lead-up to the murder, the court heard.

The night before, she had argued with relatives on a visit to Cottesloe Beach because she didn't want to leave until she had caught crickets and eaten them, as the voices in her head demanded.

And when she didn't obey the voices in her head, they became more intense, Dr Schineanu said.

Strabach's relatives had previously observed her collecting leaves, which she believed carried messages from "the other life" and crickets, which she thought could be used to make spells.

She later told Dr Schineanu, in the mental hospital, that she had invented her own religion, which proved her reasoning remained faulty, he said.

The court also heard Strabach visited Perth to get away from France and her father, whom voices had told her to kill.

Dr Schineanu said Strabach had told him: "For the last year it was hell. I kept hearing the voices."

"The voices were telling me to kill my father - that's why I came to Australia."

But another voice - which she believed was a French witch - had warned her that something bad would happen if she went to Australia.

The trial continues. ..Source..age by AAP

Prostitute gets 10 years for 'degrading' killing of Sydney teacher

5-11-2012 Australia:

A 24-year-old male prostitute who subjected a respected Sydney high school teacher to a "cruel and degrading death" by binding and gagging him and leaving him to die, has been sentenced to 10 years' jail.

A Supreme Court judge said Yutian Li had demonstrated a "complete lack of humanity toward a fellow human being" when he killed Ian Craigie in his inner city flat in September 2009.

Mr Craigie, 63, a retired barrister who taught Classical Greek at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, was reported missing on September 21 when he failed to turn up to school.

He was found dead in his Glebe flat three days later.

Li pleaded guilty to manslaughter, one count of armed robbery and eight counts of obtaining money by deception.

Justice Christine Adamson said the two men had sex on a regular basis at the Glebe flat after meeting at a Granville brothel.

Li admitted that one morning in late September, he bound Mr Craigie's hands, feet, mouth and thighs with packing tape, stole his bank card and car, left the unit and did not return.

"The manner of restraint was cruel and degrading," Justice Adamson said.

"The offender went to considerable effort to disable and silence the deceased. He was aware that there was a good chance no one would find the deceased before he died."

Li later claimed that he did not call triple-0 because his English wasn't good enough and that he believed that the 63-year-old would be able to free himself or call for help.

He proceeded to use the dead man's keycard to withdraw $1000 a day - the maximum allowed - for the next week, until he was apprehended.

"His failure to ring triple-0 shows his complete lack of humanity towards another human being who he had exploited and ultimately killed for his own gain," Justice Adamson said.

Mr Craigie's body was so decomposed that it was hard for the coroner to determine the exact cause of death, but it was believed to be a combination of asphyxiation and dehydration.

In accepting Li's manslaughter plea, the prosecution in the case accepted that he did not intend to kill Mr Craigie. However, Justice Adamson found that he "must have had some idea that the deceased would not survive".

She rejected Li's claim that, after initially paying the young man for sex, Mr Craigie then tried to blackmail him by threatening to send naked pictures to the media if Li did not continue the relationship.

Instead, she found that the 24-year-old had been motivated by greed.

"The speed with which the offender accessed the bank accounts of the deceased is inconsistent with fear and anxiety."

"It bespeaks the calculated implementation of a preconceived plan."

Justice Adamson sentenced Li to a maximum of 10 years in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of eight and a half years. With time served, he will be eligible for parole in March 2018.

Outside court, Mr Craigie's close friend Scott McCallum said he had expected a longer sentence given the gravity of the offence. ..Source.. by Paul Bibby

Murdered man ‘vigilante victim’

7-18-2009 Australia:

An alleged paedophile murdered as he slept in his Mandurah home in January was the victim of a vigilante attack, friends said yesterday.

They said Robert George Dalliston, 69, who was to face 25 charges of indecent dealings and sexual penetration involving several girls aged under 13, was a gentle and kind man who was killed as retribution for the alleged sex abuse.

Police believe Mr Dalliston, a widowed pensioner who lived alone, was attacked on January 8 while he slept at his Ward Street home. His body was found seven days later by a friend who went to check on him.

The charges against him were formally dropped in the District Court on Thursday after the Director of Public Prosecutions presented a death certificate.

Raelene Phillips, who lived across the street from Mr Dalliston, said he used to visit several times a week to socialise with her and her husband Jeffrey.

She did not believe he was a paedophile but believed the allegations led to his murder.

“He was a lovely, funny man and when people around here started saying he was a paedophile I just thought, ‘What? Where has that come from’,” Mrs Phillips said.

“I never believed he was that type of person. I had my grandchildren around him many times and he was more interested in us than the kids. But I think that (the allegations) is why they murdered him. Somebody’s sneaked in there and killed him because of that. It is just so sad that he has been killed because of allegations that were never even proved.”

She feared the police investigation into his death could be hindered because of the abuse allegations.

“I just hope that anyone who knows what happened to him wouldn’t hold back from telling the police because they thought he was a paedophile,” Mrs Phillips said.

Another former neighbour, who did not want her name published, said Mr Dalliston had been a good friend who regularly helped her with handyman work.

She described his death as tragic and said she, too, believed the murder might have been prompted by the sexual abuse allegations.

“He was going to court the next day (on sex charges), so my first thought was that someone’s got to him before he could talk,” she said.

Mr Dalliston was last seen alive at 8.22am on January 8. He was filmed on a CCTV camera at the post office at Silver Sands shopping centre in Mandurah. Detectives believe he went to Perth that day to volunteer at a bike shop before going home.

A week after his body was found, police raided a home in Elizabeth Street, three streets from the murder scene, and questioned an acquaintance of Mr Dalliston in his 40s. Detectives said they took clothes for forensic tests from that and other houses. ..Source.. by RONAN O’CONNELL

AU- A MAN fatally beat another - who he believed to be a pedophile - to protect his fiancee from sexual assault, a court has heard.

8-26-2008 Australia:

Duane Matthew Simpson today told the Supreme Court he "lost control" and killed Robert Albert Gardiner only after "extreme and grave provocation".

The court was told Simpson attacked Gardiner after walking in on the attempted assault of Tiahn Louise Lovell - who is charged with assisting her fiance's crime of manslaughter.

Gilbert Aitken, for Simpson, said Gardiner's actions mitigated his client's conduct.

"Simpson's first reaction was to go to the aid and protection of his fiancee, and all sorts of things were going through his head," he said.

"He saw a man trying to grope his fiancee, trying to touch her breasts, and he knew Gardiner was a sex offender who had been jailed for offences of violence.

"It was extreme and grave provocation, and he lost control."

Simpson, 27, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Lovell, 31, and their friend Brenton James Grosser, 44, have admitted assisting an offender.

Simpson killed Gardiner, whose badly beaten body was found at a property at Wandearah East, near Port Pirie, on Australia Day last year.

His ankles were bound by red tape, his shorts pulled down around his ankles and his T-shirt was stuck around his neck.

A broken piece of a whisky bottle was found wedged inside Gardiner's mouth and one of his legs was broken after his death.

In sentencing submissions today, Mr Aitken said Gardiner liked to get drunk and incite fights by claiming he was a pedophile.

He said Lovell had shared with Simpson her long history of sexual abuse and domestic violence.

It was these factors, he said, that prompted Simpson's actions.

"My client is now absolutely shocked by the gravity of his actions, and is genuinely remorseful," he said.

Justice Trish Kelly will sentence all three offenders next month. ..News Source.. by SEAN FEWSTER, COURT REPORTER

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Three people accused of murdering a man at Wandearah East, near Port Pirie, have changed their pleas in the Supreme Court at Port Augusta.

7-23-2008 Australia:

Duane Matthew Simpson, 27, Brenton James Grosser, 44, and Tiahn Louise Lovell, 31, each pleaded not guilty to bashing Robert Albert Gardiner to death, in January 2007.

Their trial began this month but was stopped when Simpson pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Lovell and Grosser have admitted to assisting an offender.

There will be a sentencing submissions hearing in Adelaide next month. ..News Source.. by ABC North and West

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Man jailed for killing sex offender

9-23-2008 Australia:

A SOUTH Australian man kicked and bashed a convicted sex offender to death after the man tried to grope his girlfriend, a court has been told.

Duane Matthew Simpson, 27, was today jailed for at least six years after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of Robert Gardiner on Australia Day last year.

SA Supreme Court justice Trish Kelly said a post-mortem examination showed Mr Gardiner suffered 10 to 15 blows to the head, consistent with being hit, kicked and stomped on.

His body also showed signs of being run over and he was found to have a broken cheekbone and part of a broken bottle wedged in his throat.

"Basically you kicked and beat Mr Gardiner to death in a sustained and violent attack," the judge told Simpson.

She said Simpson had admitted losing control after he saw the victim making sexual advances to his girlfriend, Tiahn Louise Lovell, at a house they all shared near Port Pirie, north of Adelaide.

The judge said Simpson had problems with anger management and abused both drugs and alcohol.

He also was aware that Mr Gardiner was a convicted sex offender.

After the bashing Simpson, and another occupant of the house, Brenton James Grosser, bound the dead man's ankles with tape and moved his body out of the house.

Simpson, Grosser and Lovell then fled the scene but were tracked down by police.

Justice Kelly said she accepted that Simpson had been provoked by Mr Gardiner's action but described his response as out of proportion.

She imposed a sentence of nine years and four months with a non-parole-period of six years.

Grosser, 45, was jailed for a minimum of six months after pleading guilty to assisting an offender while Lovell, 31, was given a six-month suspended sentence also for assisting an offender.

..News Source.. by The Australian

Primal rage: 'pedo' stomped to death

7-22-2008 Australia:

A convicted pedophile represented everyone who had ever abused the young Adelaide man who killed him in a primal rage, a court was told today.

Timothy Hemi Schaefer, 19, went to the home of Jeffrey Edwin Payne, 56, in Adelaide in April 2007, called him a "pedo", punched him and stabbed him in the leg.

Drunk and taunting his victim, Schaefer followed Payne across parklands before strangling and stabbing him and stomping on his head, the South Australian Supreme Court has heard after Schaefer pleaded guilty to murder.

Prosecutor Jane Powell said there was an element of "sanguinary" to the crime, with Schaefer stopping to smoke a cigarette during the brutal and prolonged attack.

Schaefer had never expressed remorse for killing Mr Payne, who was an extremely thin man, weighing just 47 kilograms, with ulcers and emphysema, she said.

"In fact, during his interview with police he referred to Mr Payne as a sack of shit," Ms Powell said.

"He would have had to hear and feel the sounds of the bones fracturing under foot."

Schaefer's lawyer Greg Mead said there was no clear motive for the crime.

But it appeared that, in Schaefer's drunk and enraged state, Payne had come to represent all the people who ever had abused him.

"He snapped ... he said to police, 'I just got heaps angry,' " Mr Mead said.

One of nine children, Schaefer suffered "a living hell" at the hands of a violent, alcoholic father who beat him every day, his lawyer said.

After his mother left, his father would abandon the children for weeks at a time, leaving them at the mercy of two friends who would sexually abuse some of them.

"He was fed rotten meat, his father would have to scrape the slime off," Mr Mead said.

"It was the cruelty and brutality of those early years that led to this almost primal expression of rage."

Judge John Sulan said the crime had "all the characteristics of a frenzied attack" and Schaefer could expect to be jailed for a long time.

He also said Schaefer had been "destroyed" by his appalling early life.

He ordered a neurological report to investigate possible damage from Schaefer being beaten with hammers in an earlier, unrelated attack.

Schaefer, who faces a possible life term, was remanded in custody for sentencing at a date to be set. ..News Source.. by smh.com

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Abused teenager jailed for murdering pedophile

10-7-2008 Australia:

STATE welfare authorities "failed" an abused and damaged teenager who went on to viciously murder a convicted pedophile, the Supreme Court has heard.

Timothy Hemi Schaefer was today described as a "damaged little boy" whose pent-up anger erupted in a prolonged and barbaric attack on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Edwin Payne, 56.

Schaefer, 20, will spend at least 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to Payne's murder outside his Northfield home in April 2007.

The convicted sex offender had been throttled unconscious, stabbed in the leg and face and had his skull crushed in the late-night attack.

Schaefer took time to smoke a cigarette during the brutal assault and later described his victim as a "sack of shit" during a police interview.

Justice John Sulan said Schaefer and a number of other boys had regularly gone to Payne's home in the years leading up to the murder.

"For a number of years (Payne) was regularly visited by young boys and he provided them with cigarettes alcohol and marijuana in exchange for sexual favours," Justice Sulan said.

"He had convictions for offences of a sexual nature against teenage boys and had been imprisoned in the past for sex offences against young boys."

Payne was mentioned during sentencing submissions for convicted Snowtown serial killer James Vlassakis, who is serving a life jail term for four murders.

Justice Sulan said Schaefer was drunk and angry when he went to Payne's home on the night of the killing and found there were "sexual connotations behind the attack."

Justice Sulan said Schaefer had endured a chaotic and dysfunctional childhood with an alcoholic mother and an abusive father, who routinely beat his five children and fed them rotten meat.

The judge referred to a letter from Schaefer's aunt, who described him as "a bright and intelligent child who grew up in circumstances of chaos and dysfunction" and became a "damaged little boy."

"In my opinion the state failed him as a child," the letter said.

Justice Sulan said Schaefer's problems were compounded when he suffered serious head injuries when assaulted with a hammer as a 17-year old.

He said Schaefer needed intensive psychiatric help to overcome his many problems.

"Sadly, it appears that you will not receive the treatment that you require while you are in custody," he said. ..News Source.. by ANDREW DOWDELL, COURT REPORTER

Man 'thought neighbours were pedophiles'

A MELBOURNE man allegedly murdered two of his neighbours because he wrongly believed they were pedophiles, a court was told today.
6-8-2007 Australia:

Codie Jeffrey Jakeman, 21, of Melton South, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court where he pleaded not guilty on the ground of mental impairment to two counts of murder.

His neighbours John Philemon Greene, 59, and his de facto wife Kathryn Hogg, 46, both had intellectual disabilities and were well-known and liked in the community, the court was told..

However, Mr Jakeman allegedly believed they were pedophiles and had told others he wanted to kill all pedophiles and rid the world of them, according to a police summary tendered to the court.

Police allege the couple were murdered on June 10 last year when they went to Mr Jakeman's house to help him with renovations.

Mr Greene died of head and chest injuries and Ms Hogg of head and neck wounds. Their bodies were found in Mr Jakeman's home.

Magistrate Donna Bakos remanded Mr Jakeman in custody for trial in the Victorian Supreme Court in September. ..more.. by News.com.au

10 years later, vigilante officer is finally happy

1-16-2005 Australia:
A former police officer, acquitted of murder after he shot dead an alleged child molester, has reinvented himself as a Sydney real-estate agent.

In May 1995, Fairfield detective Said Morgan took the law into his own hands and shot a man charged with having molested three girls, including two young relatives.

When a jury took 33 minutes to decide his actions were justified, public debate erupted over the implications of vigilante-style justice.

Mr Morgan assumed a low profile after he was refused reinstatement into the NSW Police force. But 10 years on from the shooting, he is running his own real-estate firm in Sydney's north-west.

"I'm happy again," he said yesterday. "I've worked hard and built a new life for myself. But I've only achieved that by learning to leave the past in the past."

A former employee at Morgans One Stop Realty in Castle Hill said: "Said remains happily married to his wife. They have three beautiful children and a tight knit extended family."

Concerned the alleged offender had received bail and that he might carry out a threat to kill the children, Mr Morgan illegally traced his target's address on a police computer, then gained entry to his Oakhurst home by flashing his detective's badge at a woman who answered the door.

He walked down a hall, passed a teenage boy watching television and found the alleged molester in bed.

In an action described in court as a "Clint Eastwood notion of justice", Mr Morgan emptied his service revolver, shooting the man six times. "It was bang, bang and then he kept coming forward and bang, bang; before I realised it, the fifth or sixth shot was fired," Mr Morgan told the court.

"I was more conscious of the last two [shots] than the first four. The first four were more instinctive."

When asked if he would do the same thing again, Morgan replied: "Without a doubt."

Mr Morgan was flooded with letters supporting his actions.

One eight-year-old boy wrote: "Dear policeman, I'm glad you shot a child molester. I hate them. I know how bad they are and what they do."

Another read: "Dear Constable, I'm a grandmother of two abused children whose father was found guilty by a judge and jury, only to win his appeal and be let off. We are all angry that these men get off with the dreadful behaviour and manage to destroy innocent children. All of my family supports you and your actions."

Another card, signed simply "Sarah", declared: "You are the champion, the protector of all children everywhere so, on their behalf, I thank you."

On August 1, 1997, a jury rejected the Crown argument it was a revenge shooting, finding Mr Morgan instead acted out of fear for the girls' safety.

Acquitted of murder and manslaughter, he said: "The reason why I believe my case gained so much public interest is because it's such a sensitive issue that involves something so close to people as a whole, irrespective of their background, race or social upbringing."

Three days after being acquitted, Morgan accepted $50,000 from A Current Affair for a tell-all interview.

As legal practitioners wrestled with the implications of the ruling, Mr Morgan said in August 1997 his focus would be to put "these two, terrible years" behind him.

"I am going to relax now," he said then with a grin as his wife, Laurice, clung to his arm and their sons, Robert and Michael played beside them.

Revealing an overwhelming desire to return to police duty, he added: "One third of my life was spent as a policeman. All I ever knew was the cops. Eat, sleep, cops - and I loved it. I love my job."

But while a jury exonerated him, the police recruitment branch rejected his application to rejoin.

Mr Morgan told The Sun-Herald he hadn't spoken publicly about the case "in years". He added: "For the sake of myself and others involved, it's better left that way."

A former work colleague, still in regular contact with Mr Morgan, said: "He's a terrific bloke both personally and professionally. He's very determined and has worked really hard to build his business up from scratch.

"But despite all that, the only thing that really matters is his family. He counts them above everything, as I think he always has." ..more.. by Eamonn Duff


Regina v Said Morgan Matter No 70064/95 (28 July 1997), Supreme Court of New South Wales

Killers likely to die in jail

10-30-2003 Australia:
Snowtown murderers John Justin Bunting and Robert Joe Wagner are likely to die in jail after being sentenced yesterday by a judge who condemned them as cowards in the business of killing for pleasure.

Denounced by Justice Brian Martin as beyond rehabilitation and lacking contrition, 37-year-old Bunting - convicted of 11 gruesome murders, some preceded by torture - and 31-year-old Wagner - convicted of 10 - will serve mandatory life sentences without parole on each count.

Justice Martin, who said dreadful crimes required dreadful punishment, refused to set a non-parole period and warned future judges not to relent. "I make it plain I cannot envisage anything that would justify fixing a non-parole period," he said after hearing statements from some of the families of the victims of the men, two of a gang of four who became Australia's worst serial killers.

"If I had the power to make an order for them never to be released, I would unhesitatingly make that order."

In the only submission made in the South Australian Supreme Court yesterday in the defence of either man, Wagner told the court he was only doing what the authorities failed to do by hunting down pedophiles.

A handcuffed Wagner, illiterate at the time of his arrest, stood up to explain his reasons for killing: "Pedophiles were doing terrible things to children and innocent children were being damaged," he said, reading from a statement. "The authorities did nothing about it, I was very angry. Someone had to do something about it. I decided to take action and I took that action."

But Justice Martin did not accept that the killers were motivated by vigilantism. "I am satisfied both of you derived pleasure from the physical act of killing and the violence and torture that preceded some of the killings," he said. "I am also satisfied you derived pleasure from the defleshing and dismembering of some of the bodies."

Another killer, James Vlassakis, 23, who was recruited into the ring for the last four murders, was sentenced last year to 26 years' jail after pleading guilty.

Bunting, a former abattoir worker whose hatred of pedophiles drove the serial murders that ran from 1992 until just before his arrest in May 1999, and Wagner, the strongman who did much of the killing, were found guilty by a jury early last month of 11 and seven counts of murder respectively. Before that trial, Wagner had pleaded guilty to three more murders, including that of Barry Lane, a convicted pedophile he ran away from home to live with when 14.

The verdict was the culmination of a police inquiry that linked a series of missing people. On May 21, 1999, police broke into a disused bank vault at Snowtown, a small town in South Australia's mid-north. There they found the rotting and dismembered remains of eight people in six heavy-duty plastic barrels. Another four bodies were found at three other sites.

While most of the victims were strangled, some were also tortured using pliers to crush their toes, either to extract voice recordings used later to dupe relatives and authorities, to gain PINs to access bank accounts or for pleasure. Before murdering him, Bunting and Wagner burnt Fred Brooks, 18, with cigarettes.

After the deaths, Wagner and Bunting succumbed to a kind of blood lust, dismembering corpses and playing with them. On one occasion Wagner held the head of a victim and invited Bunting to "kiss the puppet". Wagner also took flesh from David Johnson's thigh, putting it into a glove he offered to Bunting, saying he had a surprise.

The deaths were premeditated, sometimes planned weeks in advance. In the case of the final victim, David Johnson, 24, Bunting offered to sell Johnson's car 10 days before he was murdered.

After 11 months of evidence from 227 witnesses and 17,000 pages of transcript, the Snowtown trial became the longest and most expensive criminal trial in South Australian history, requiring its own budget allocation of $15 million.

But the Snowtown business is not finished.

After the jury became deadlocked over charges relating to the 12th victim, Suzanne Allen, Justice Martin discharged it. He agreed yesterday to a request from state prosecutors that the Allen murder go to a retrial.

After sentencing the men to indefinite imprisonment, they were immediately remanded to a new trial for the murder of Suzanne Allen. A fourth man, Mark Haydon, married to victim Elizabeth Haydon, has yet to stand trial for the murders. ..more.. by Penelope Debelle