Man who killed Stacey-Ann Tracy was already a convicted murderer and pedophile

HER little body had been callously half-stuffed into a black garbage bag and dumped by the edge of a creek. And the monster who murdered her had killed before.

Stacey-Ann Tracy was abducted and murdered on her way to school in Roma in 1990.

JANET Tracy moved from the Gold Coast to the country Queensland town of Roma to keep her two daughters safe.

Never did she imagine it would be the place her eldest daughter’s life would come to a shocking end.

Stacey-Ann Tracy was just nine when she went missing on the morning of May 23, 1990.

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl was last seen walking in heavy rain towards Roma Middle School after dropping her younger sister off at school.

Her mum’s worst fears were confirmed two days later when her schoolbag and umbrella were found about 5km south of Roma.

But it quickly became a living nightmare when the young girl’s half-naked body was located on a creek bank three days after her disappearance.

Stacey-Ann Tracy’s mum Janet and step father.

The top half of her body remained clothed, but from the waist down she was naked and she’d been partially wrapped in a black garbage bag.

An autopsy revealed she had been vigorously sexually assaulted.

Ultimately though she died of asphyxiation and strangulation.

During her killer’s trial, it was revealed the primary cause of death were her own underpants being pushed so far down her throat it cut off her air supply.

Convicted murderer and pedophile Barry Gordon Hadlow was charged with Stacey-Ann’s murder, while on parole for the murder of five-year-old Sandra Bacon in Townsville in 1962.

He served 23 years in jail, before being released in 1985.

Angry crowds screamed abuse at the 48-year-old as he made his way to the Roma Magistrates Court for his first appearance.

Hadlow successfully applied to have his trial moved to Brisbane, for fear the local jury members would be biased against him.

He pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

But three inmates turned on their fellow prisoner, telling the court Hadlow admitted killing Stacey-Ann and then disposing of her body.

Barry Gordon Hadlow was on parole when he was charged with the murder of Stacy-Ann Tracy.

The jury took three days to reach its verdict, but ultimately found the darts champion guilty of murdering the young girl.

Stacey-Ann and her family had moved from the Gold Coast to Roma to escape the violence on the Glitter Strip.

Just four weeks later the little girl was reported missing,

“I thought the Coast was getting dangerous and I wanted to give my two girls a quiet country childhood,” Janet Tracy said at the time.

“It seems nobody is safe anywhere anymore.”

It was revealed Hadlow offered to give Stacey-Ann a lift to school in his car, but she would never make it to class.

Instead he took her to his flat, where he assaulted and killed her before her body was placed in his car while he drove around looking for a place to dispose it.

After his conviction, Ms Tracy said Hadlow should never have been released from jail following the murder of his first victim.

His parole was allowed despite the fact a 1963 report warned he would likely reoffend.

The traumatic deaths of Stacey-Ann and Sandra Bacon were frighteningly similar.

Little Sandra has been walking by Hadlow’s house in 1963 when he called her inside, promising he would give her some books for her sister.

Once indoors, he had taken the child to a bedroom and taken off her clothes. When she began to scream he strangled her.

Her little body, covered in stab wounds, had been placed into a corn sack and put into the boot of a car.

A police officer who had spoken to Hadlow after his arrest for that crime said the killer had told him: “Yes, I’ve killed her. I’ve been expecting you to pick me up.”

Both Ms Tracy and Sandra Bacon’s father, Don Bacon, said after Stacey-Ann’s trial they were terrified Hadlow could be released again in another 20 years.

“Can we risk another child being murdered?” Mr Bacon said.

“He has done it too many times for us to believe he won’t try again.”

Ultimately Hadlow would never walk free again.

The child killer died in the Princess Alexandra Hospital in July 2007.

The 65-year-old was transported from the maximum security Wolston Correctional Centre after complaining of shortness of breath and chest pains.

He died less than three hours after he was admitted.

Prior to his death, the two-time killer had been listed as one of Australia’s most dangerous convicts.

At his trial for the murder of Stacy-Ann, Justice Shepherdson urged Hadlow’s papers be stamped with the letters NTBR — never to be released.