Sisters claim prison-yard killer confessed to Annette Mason slaying

Two Toowoomba sisters claim to have overheard a notorious prison-yard killer confess to the slaying of 15-year-old Annette Mason.

Second inquest into 15-year-old Annette Mason’s murder continues. Photo: Contributed

TWO Toowoomba sisters have told a coronial inquest they heard a man confess to killing 15-year-old Annette Mason in the weeks after the girl was found bludgeoned to death in her bed.

The second inquest into the 1989 cold case murder this morning heard from sisters Kellie-Lee and Kylie Leggart who said now notorious prison-yard killer Allen MacQueen told a group of people he was drinking with and playing cards with he killed Annette.

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“The only thing I heard was Allen (MacQueen) say that he killed her,” Kellie-Lee Leggart told the coroners court.

“He said ‘I killed Annette Mason.’

“And Craig (Gill, his brother) telling him to shut the f*** up.”

Ms Leggart said she didn’t take the comment seriously because she thought he was joking.

“That was the sort of person I knew him as,” she said.

Her sister Kylie Leggart told the inquest she heard Allen make similar comments at the party.

“When we were sitting at the table yeah he just piped up and said I killed her but it was an accident,” she said.

“Yeah, (I thought he was) just being an idiot.

“That’s the way Allen was he always loved attention.”

MacQueen, an armed robber dubbed “The General” of the infamous Angry Gang, was sentenced to life in prison 24 years ago for savagely bludgeoning an inmate to death with weights in the Sir David Longland prison gym.

Former Queensland Police officer Vernon Holcombe also gave evidence he heard MacQueen talking about Annette’s death weeks after the murder when he arrested MacQueen and his brother Craig Gill in relation to a pub brawl.

Mr Holcombe said the pair were “screaming and yelling” in the watch house and at one point he heard a man he believed was MacQueen refer to Annette, saying another man had sexually assaulted her “while I bashed her over the head”.

The inquest continues.