Mark Richard Lawrence will kill again if released from jail, arresting officer warns

AN infamous killer and rapist who slit the throat of a fellow psychiatric patient at Wolston Park will offend again if he is let out of jail, his arresting ­officer has warned.

Mark Richard Lawrence has been described as a “sex maniac” by a former detective.

• Killer says he’ll take medication
• Killer rapist in fresh parole bid

SEX killer Mark Richard Lawrence will offend again if he is let out of jail, his arresting ­officer and a former prison guard say.

Lawrence was 22 when he slit the throat of fellow psychiatric patient Julie Ann Muirhead, 29, and raped her on Boxing Day 1983 after luring her to the Brisbane River at the notorious Wolston Park.

He was jailed for 15 years for manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility, then escaped while playing tennis at Holland Park in 1991. In 1999, he was sentenced to seven years for raping an inmate.

Lawrence told a court reviewing his detention this week that he was prepared to take hormones to reduce sexual urges, despite previously stopping medication because he started growing breasts.

His case will be considered again in 12 months.

Former detective Bob Munt at the now-closed Wolston Park asylum. Picture: Annette Dew

But former detective Bob Munt, who solved the Muirhead murder after it was written off as a suicide, said Lawrence should never be ­released on parole and was a “sex maniac”.

“I still think he is crazy,” Mr Munt said. “I believe he will reoffend without doubt as he has offended before the (killing) and after while in jail.

“I saw the way he acted, the things he did at the time, the way he spoke, the way he laughed in court at sentencing,” Mr Munt said.

In an interview with a ­psychiatrist in 2014, Lawrence said he had a fantasy of ­abducting a female in an ­isolated area and raping and killing her.

A trigger for a deviant thought was a television show that depicted a rape scene, ­according to another report filed in court in 2015.

Former prison officer Hans Andersen said the prisoner was “mentally unstable” and tried to rape an inmate at Moreton jail in 1995 during prison industry work.

“I don’t want to see anyone else get hurt,’’ Mr Andersen told The Courier-Mail.

Mr Andersen said he spoke with Lawrence after he caught him pulling another prisoner’s pants down.

He was working in an area where prisoners cut up rags and baled them into 20kg bags.

“He openly said to me he couldn’t see anything wrong with his behaviour,” Mr Andersen said.

“He’s got pretty strong urges, it’s a sexual drive with him. The day I caught him, he knew I patrolled the area, and he was prepared to take the risk.”