Psycho killer William Kelvin Fox one of Queensland’s most wanted
HE WAS just behind Brenden Abbott in Queensland’s 10 most wanted, and William Kelvin Fox was as hard to pin down as the Postcard Bandit.
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HE WAS one of Queensland’s top 10 most wanted, alongside “Postcard Bandit” Brenden Abbott, after leaving a trail of victims in his wake.
William Kelvin Fox, also known as Kevin Ford, was out on bail for the April 1992 attempted murder and kidnapping of Barbara Hellwich at a Miami caravan park when he murdered his ex-wife Patricia Gaye Atkinson and injured three others near Gympie in August 1996.
Fox, now 67, remains incarcerated at the Maryborough Correctional Centre, where he is serving two life sentences.
But for years in the 1990s he eluded police by living in the bush following violent crimes against his own family and some friends.
Fox had been added to the police top 10 list in October 1993 after shooting Ms Hellwich in the face, head and neck while she held her then two-year-old son in her arms.
The woman had tried to intervene in a domestic dispute between Fox and his de facto wife Coleen King, who had only just moved out of a women’s shelter weeks earlier, according to newspaper articles from the time.
Fox went into hiding and by February 1995, he had warned that he would not be taken alive and was prepared for a shoot-out with police.
At the time Fox, then 44, was listed as No.4 in Queensland police’s top 10 most wanted.
At No.3 was Abbott, with John Victor Bobak and Charles Manee at first and second on the list respectively.
Fox was arrested in 1995 by a Tiaro police officer after he was recognised in a random vehicle intercept south of Maryborough.
He was released on a $20,000 surety from the Southport Magistrates Court that same year, despite police opposing bail.
Even though the couple had been apart for about 10 years, Ms Atkinson, 44, had guaranteed the surety for her children’s father at the time.
They had three sons together.
In that decade, Ms Atkinson had remarried, moved to Sydney and had a fourth son, while Fox spent those years with Ms King.
When that marriage ended, Ms Atkinson and her sons moved to Glenwood, where — some reports at the time claim — she and Fox tried to rekindle their relationship at one point in the early 1990s.
Police later said that on August 26, 1996, Ms Atkinson, complete with a black eye, had driven to Brisbane and had the surety revoked, meaning Fox would go to jail until his trial if he could not meet the surety bail conditions himself.
She was due to return to the Supreme Court the next day to continue to discuss her allegations of stalking by her former husband.
Instead, Fox barged into his estranged wife’s rented Glenwood Estate home, 30km from Gympie, about 6.30am on August 27 and shot her in the head.
Police on the scene later that day said it was believed the former couple had been in a dispute over a house deed.
At the time, police said Fox also shot his middle son Peter’s 18-year-old girlfriend, Julie Cotter in the arm as he arrived, with Peter, then 19, being cut by glass as he jumped through a window to escape also being shot.
Court documents submitted years later painted a clearer picture of what happened that day.
The documents, submitted as part of Fox’s last parole application hearing in 2015, revealed Ms Cotter was outside feeding the dogs the day of Fox’s murderous rampage and looked up to see a balaclava-clad man approaching her with a pump-action shotgun.
She screamed and was shot in the left shoulder before she could run.
Fox barged into the house and shot at Peter, before coming upon Ms Atkinson.
Another son Justin, then 16, managed to escape undetected and ran to a neighbour’s house for help.
The court documents highlighted real or perceived conflict Fox had either between himself with Ms Atkinson and some of his sons, as well as between Ms Hellwich and one of his family members.
Following the 1996 morning rampage, police said Fox drove 4km to another farmhouse where he fired through a window and hit then-60-year-old John Horrex on the back of his body.
The murderer then dumped his car and headed off on foot into the bush between Gympie and Tin Can Bay.
Police said Fox incorrectly believed Mr Horrex, a well-known community leader, and Ms Atkinson were together.
One of Ms Atkinson’s friends said the woman had been living in fear of Fox for the previous few weeks and had alerted local police to his threats.
The experienced bushman once again escaped police until he was caught in February 1997.
About 40 police officers surprised Fox at a shed converted into a home in Mt Glorious northwest of Brisbane when they converged on him after he exited the house early one morning.
A search of the property revealed a trapdoor in the ground at the rear of the property, concealed underneath beehive boxes and a slab of concrete.
That door led into a secret room in the ground.
Fox was jailed for life in February 1998 for the 1996 shooting spree.
The convicted murderer was given another life sentence in September 1998 for the 1992 attempted murder of Ms Hellwich.
Fox, who has now been in prison for nearly 20 years, became eligible for parole in 2011.
He unsuccessfully applied in 2014 and 2015, but a Queensland Parole Board spokesman said they had not received an application from him again since that year.
Both corrective services officers and psychologists have previously described the inmate as a “charming man” who has “psychopathic interpersonal traits” higher than the average prisoner, according to articles from 2015.
During Fox’s 2015 parole application, Ms Hellwich expressed her disgust that Fox would even be given a chance for parole.
“...he shot me at point blank range 3 times, twice in the head and once under my armpit while I was holding and trying to protect my then 2 year old son whom he also aimed the gun at,” she wrote online.
“I begged him not to shoot him, he then shot me again and I lost consciousness. He must have been satisfied that he had killed me and left. He was given 2 life sentences among other charges, life should be life especially in this instance where he doesn’t even admit responsibility for what he did and continued going on shooting sprees (sic).”
Ms Hellwich, writing under a different name, said Fox could appeal his sentence or any parole application denial, but she could not go to a court hearing to give her opinion.
“I have to fill in a form which barely has enough space to write your name on it. Where’s the justice?” she wrote.
Ms Hellwich, now a grandmother, did not return messages before publication.
Her son, Bodein, will turn 28 in December and, at least at one point, became a singer according to his online profile.
Peter Fox and Ms Cotter, who now have a family of their own, declined to comment, saying it was all too upsetting.
Mr Horrex, now 82, said he had done his best to “put it all in the past,” and to concentrate on his government work, which he started in NSW before moving to Queensland in 1993.
He said he was president of the Tiaro Residents Action Committee at the time of the attack, which is how he knew Ms Atkinson and her family.
The father of four and grandfather of seven now has a long line of titles to his name, including the first mayor of Hawkesbury in NSW, the former mayor of Tiaro, former president of the Tiaro RSL and numerous other government-related awards or community leadership positions over the years.
Mr Horrex remains the Marlborough Arts Society president.
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