Sian Kingi’s parents deserve a life without Barrie John Watts at large
News that Sian Kingi’s killer is seeking parole has been met with a disgust best demonstrated by the noose that greeted him when he first appeared outside a court.
Sunshine Coast
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AS a nervous young reporter, I will never forget meeting the parents of Sian Kingi, days after the angelic looking Noosa schoolgirl vanished.
Barry and Lynda Kingi were so polite as we approached their home seeking to find out more about Sian, what they thought might have happened, and how they were coping with not knowing.
I was moved by their kindness and gentleness of spirit. Instead of abusing us for invading their world, they apologised that we had been called out on a Sunday to help publicise the search for the Year 7 Sunshine Beach State School student.
Like everyone, they hoped the 12-year-old's disappearance on the Friday afternoon after a shopping trip with mum, would turn out to be some misunderstanding.
At the time, I wrote how they were putting on a brave face. It hardly captured what I saw.
They were not agitated, angry, overtly anxious, but rather displayed a sense of calmness, a strong hope that their shy, beautiful daughter would return or be returned. Looking now through the lens of a parent, it was probably the only way they could cope with what was unfolding.
But even then, police were fearing the worst, saying an abduction was the most likely scenario.
Detectives gave a description of a white Holden station wagon and a man in his 30s seen in the area.
By coincidence, Sian, had earlier visited the Sunshine Coast Daily newsroom when her class got to see how the local news was put together.
The tall, athletic girl with that innocent face was pictured next to our then sports editor Bill Hoffman.
It was a photo that would circulate around the world.
As we were invited into the Kingi home, less than kilometre from where Sian vanished while riding her bike home that afternoon, Lynda Kingi told me how out of character it was for her to do anything without telling her parents.
"She's a really good kid,'' she said.
"She's good at school and she never gets into trouble.''
Sian was described as someone who was well liked by her friends, teachers, and someone who was good at netball, and loved dancing.
The Year 7 student went missing shortly after she left her mother at the Noosa Fair Shopping Centre.
It was estimated from when she was last seen to when she vanished, the time span was about four minutes.
When she failed to arrive home, Mrs Kingi, who had walked to the family house via a different route, went looking for her daughter after checks with friends confirmed she was not with them.
She found Sian's yellow bike outside Pinnaroo Picnic Park in Noosa Junction on a new cement track at 8.15pm.
The Kingis immediately raised the alarm with Noosa Heads Police Station.
A quick thinking officer managed to get a small item in the Sunshine Coast Daily the next day after phoning the newsroom late at night.
On the Sunday, friends of the Kingi family distributed posters headlined 'Have you seen this girl?' With a picture of Sian and her description and joined State Emergency Service volunteers and police in searches of bushland behind the park.
Sian, who would have turned 13 just a couple of weeks later, had been looking forward to going to a party.
The 12-year-old with blonde hair, blue eyes and slim build was described as 'striking' by police briefing SES searchers.
Mrs Kingi told the Sunshine Coast Daily that Sian' biggest concern at the time was that she had broken a friend's vase and she would have to tell the friend when she arrived on the weekend.
What unfolded in coming days was a crime which shocked not only Noosa and the Sunshine Coast but reverberated around Australia.
Working a few weekends later, I still remember the day police told me a man in his 30s and a woman in her 40s would be charged over the rape and murder of Sian.
We reported the news on the front page the next morning.
'A man and his wife are expected to appear in the Noosa Magistrates Court this afternoon facing charges over the killing of 12-year-old Noosa schoolgirl Sian Kingi.''
It was confirmation of a loss of innocence for the Sunshine Coast which in many ways back then was still a big country town or a collection of tight communities, more accurately.
As the details emerged of what happened, the revulsion increased.
The accused couple lured Sian off her bike by asking her to help look for a supposed lost dog.
The schoolgirl was bound and gagged and driven some 12km to a Tinbeerwah forest where she was raped and killed by Barrie John Watts as mother of six Valmae Faye Beck stood by.
When Watts and Beck were brought before the Noosa Magistrates Court, after being extradited from New South Wales, the scenes were unprecedented.
An angry crowd of more than 200 people, many schoolchildren on holidays at the time, were calling for blood.
"No air for these pair. Hang 'em,'' one placard read.
"Noosa is angry,'' said another.
A petition calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty circulated and a noose hung outside the Noosa courthouse spoke volumes of sentiment.
More than 34 years later, as Barrie John Watts seeks parole, I doubt that sentiment has changed one iota.
Watts is a monster who will never be rehabilitated.
He is an opportunist who has shown no remorse.
As the parole board considers his application, it shouldn't take long.
We've already seen shocking examples where people who prey on children are released into the community only to reoffend again.
Brett Peter Cowan was one of them and Daniel Morcombe is dead because someone gave his killer a second chance.
Unlike Bruce and Denise Morcombe, Barry and Lynda Kingi have chosen to stay out of the public spotlight.
The Kingis deserve to live in peace for the rest of their days knowing that Watts will never be released.
As a community we should remember Sian for the beautiful, innocent young girl she was.
We will do that more easily if Watts dies right where he is, in custody.
1987 - A YEAR THE SUNSHINE COAST WILL NEVER FORGET
News of the death of Sian Kingi came during a tumultuous time on the Sunshine Coast and across Queensland.
The FitzGerald Inquiry into police corruption heard damning evidence against former top cop Sir Terence Lewis, who was described as the shark who took the biggest bite out of bribes paid to police.
Locally, it was the year that 'Nambour burned', while 'Witta's Night of Terror became one of the biggest talked about stories.
Late in the evening of April 24, 1987, a 43-year-old man by the name of Kenneth George Gosschalk went on an arson spree, setting fire to four churches and the Christian Literature Centre in Queen St.
With jerry can in hand, Gosschalk started his trail of devastation at the Anglican Church in Currie St followed by the Catholic Church (now St Joseph's) opposite. From there, he moved on to the Uniting Church in Maud St, the one church that was completely destroyed, never to be restored. The Lutheran church in Sydney St was next and, along with the destruction of the altar, was vandalised with obscene, anti-Nazi graffiti.
The blaze from the Literature Centre spread to the adjacent shops and bank, causing more destruction.
The hinterland town of Witta, near Maleny, didn't know what hit it when a gunman hijacked a petrol tanker before fleeing on foot, sparking one of the biggest manhunts the Coast had seen.
On the council front, locals were raging against plans for an ocean outfall off Kawana, while there was much debate over a nine storey building in Duporth Ave breaking the six storey limit.
Queensland was debating bringing sex education into schools; smoking was only just about to be banned on Australian Airlines, while blocks of land at Mountain Creek near Buderim were selling for under $22,000. Even canal blocks at Kawana could be bought for $40,000.
It was a time there was mounting excitement over the tourism benefits of Expo '88 while nightclubs like The Galaxy went up against new comer My Place for entertainment dollars.
Former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was fighting for his political life after sacking two Sunshine Coast Ministers, Mike Ahern and Brian Austin.
Much to the horror of Sir Joh, Mr Ahern, the Member for Landsborough, dubbed the 'Conondale kid', won an important victory in the National Party state conference which approved AIDS education and the legalisation of condom vending machines.
He would later replace Sir Joh as Queensland's Premier, promising to bring in the recommendations of the Fitzgerald Inquiry 'lock, stock and barrel'.
Back then moral issues were in the news more often with the Sunshine Coast's biggest church was crusading against Playboy magazines being sold in Kmart and Coles stores. It was a story that went national and led to the removal of the adult magazines in the stores.
Days before Sian Kingi went missing, one of the detectives who would play a key role in the investigation, Senior Sergeant Neil Magnussen, the head of the Criminal Investigation Branch, was honoured for his work investigating the murder and rape of a Redcliffe woman two years earlier.
"He just wanted to kill a woman, it could have been anyone. It could have been my wife,'' Snr Sgt Magnussen said.
"It was a very brutal murder. I knew the girl and her fiance, which made it worse.''
Vanessa Joyce O'Brien was abducted in broad daylight from Redcliffe Shopping Centre by a man with a knife. She had gone to the shopping centre to pick up her wedding ring.
She was taken to a nearby dump, raped and murdered.
That scenario would soon sound horribly familiar again.
Originally published as An encounter with Sian Kingi's parents I'll never forget
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