What life has been like behind bars for 15 of Queensland’s most notorious prisoners
Their crimes would send chills up your spine. We take a look at some of the most notorious Queenslanders to be locked up in Queensland jails over the past decade.
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Child murderers, sadistic rapists and cop killers, their crimes sent chills throughout the state.
These are some of the worst criminals to be imprisoned in Queensland in the past decade.
From the infamous Brett Peter Cowan to Lindy Williams and bikie enforcer Lionel Patea, we’ve taken a look at 15 of Queensland’s most notorious men and women behind bars.
Here is a taste of what life is like for some of the state’s most notorious inmates.
Many found work in prison, some turned to religion and claimed to have reformed, while others continue to reoffend and others became victims of crime.
WOLSTON CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, 176A GRINDLE RD, WACOL
Rick Thorburn
A foster father who was convicted of killing his 12-year-old daughter was just two years into a sentence when he was found unresponsive in his jail cell.
Rick Thorburn was serving a life sentence for murdering his foster daughter Tiahleigh Palmer when he was rushed to hospital in a critical condition in September 2020.
Thorburn, who was then 60, had been considered a high risk of self-harm after being taken to the Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit in Woolloongabba.
He is now housed at Wolston Correctional Centre and is not eligible for parole until 2036.
Robert Paul Long
Childers Backpackers murderer Robert Paul Long was an unpopular loner who turned into a prison carer in bid to get parole, according to a former inmate.
Long would care for older prisoners and take them to medical check ups, take out rubbish, clean tables, control food orders and mop communal areas.
However, the inmate claimed it was all a rouse to gain parole and said Long was an “absolute grub”.
Long, who turns 60 this year, remains at Wolston after being jailed for 20 years following the horrific fire that killed 15 backpackers in June 2000.
Brett Peter Cowan
Brett Peter Cowan’s life sentence for the 2003 abduction and murder of Sunshine Coast schoolboy Daniel Morcombe has been tough.
Cowan, now 52, was formerly housed in an isolation unit at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre on Ipswich Rd, Darra, where he was described as a “bash on sight” target by vigilante inmates.
He has been shipped from prison to prison after several attacks from inmates and is now housed at Wolston.
Gerard Baden-Clay
Wife murderer Gerard Baden-Clay was accused of touching the backsides of inmates and an officer while serving a life sentence in the high security prison.
Baden-Clay would spend 14 hours a day locked away and had previously joined a waiting list for a job to earn him $60 a week doing metal work.
He was jailed in 2014 for a minimum of 15 years for murdering his wife Allison, 43, who disappeared from the couple’s Brookfield home in April 2012.
Allison’s body was found 10 days later.
At Wolston, Baden-Clay, now 51, is understood to have struck up a friendship with triple murderer Massimo “Max” Sica.
Massimo “Max” Sica
Triple murderer turned model prisoner Massimo Sica was a paid kitchen worker who officers say became friends with Baden-Clay.
Sica, now 52, is serving Queensland’s longest sentence — 35 years — for the gruesome murder of his ex-girlfriend Neelma Singh, 24, and her siblings Sidhi, 12, and Kunal, 18, at their Bridgeman Downs home in Brisbane’s north in April 2003.
Sica will be eligible for parole in 2047 and is widely considered a well-behaved prisoner.
Officers have observed Sica and Baden-Clay wandering grounds together.
Barrie John Watts
The man who tortured, raped and murdered Sunshine Coast schoolgirl Sian Kingi has found work in a kitchen at Wolston.
Barrie Watts was 34 when he abducted the 12-year-old Noosa schoolgirl on November 27, 1987, with the help of his then wife, Valmae Beck, 44.
Sian was riding her bike home through Pinnaroo Park in Noosa Heads when she disappeared, with her body later found dumped in bushland.
Watts has made several attempts to be released from Wolston where he has lived in a residential section of the prison.
WOODFORD CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, NEURUM RD, WOODFORD
Nelson Patea
In early 2021, Nelson Patea was bashed by members of the Brothers From Inside (BFI) gang while serving an eight year stint at Woodford for the manslaughter of father and Gold Coast pool builder Greg Dufty.
Patea was taken to hospital after being attacked by the fellow prisoners, with the BFI understood to be a recruiting tool for the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang.
It is also understood Patea, 28, identifies with the Muslim faith and has converted to Islam while in prison.
Patea, the brother of convicted killer Lionel, beat Mr Dufty to death on the Gold Coast in 2015.
Phillip Graeme Abell
Cop killer and bank robber Phillip Graeme Abell had a dark history of crime behind bars, long before the murder of Gold Coast policeman Damian Leeding, 35.
Abell was one of four prisoners who were initially charged with the murder of inmate David Edward Smith, 21, at the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre, 234 Wacol Station Rd, Wacol in 1994.
A coroner’s report found Smith was “violently murdered” in his cell, tied up by his neck with a coaxial cable and with 31 stab wounds to his body.
The indictments were later withdrawn on Abell when witnesses refused to take an oath in the Supreme Court.
Andrew Thomas Kranz, who will be 50 this year, later confessed to the murder and was jailed for life.
In 2011, then-41-year-old Abell shot Detective Senior Constable Leeding during a botched holdup at the Pacific Pines Tavern.
He and Donna Lee McAvoy, then-39, were both found guilty of murdering the police officer.
BRISBANE CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, (FORMERLY SIR DAVID LONGLAND CORRECTIONAL CENTRE), 234 WACOL STATION RD, WACOL
Jason John Nixon
Nixon, 52, has spent most of his adulthood in jail and is set to remain behind bars indefinitely.
The notorious violent inmate has continuously reoffended while locked up and is serving a term for the murder of fellow prisoner and double murderer Mark Day, whom he bashed to death in the exercise yard of the maximum-security unit at Wacol in 2003.
Nixon was also involved in a group murder of prisoner Bart Vosmaer, 29, who was set upon in a prison gym and beaten to death with free weights in 1993.
In October 2019, Nixon also pelted correctional officers with faeces when they delivered lunch in his cell.
Nixon is jailed at Brisbane Correctional Centre.
ARTHUR GORRIE CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, 3068 IPSWICH RD, DARRA
Troy Allan Burley
The infamous Ipswich “railway rapist” of the mid-1990s was found to have performed several sadistic sex attacks on a fellow inmate in 2018 at Wolston Correctional Centre.
Burley was sentenced to 20 years’ jail in 1997 after he was convicted of the rapes of women at Ebbw Vale and Gailes railway stations, in Brisbane’s west as well as assaulting two other women.
He was released on parole in 2015, but was rearrested and convicted of property offences.
Burley was months away from being released when the court heard he forced a 21-year-old man to perform oral sex on him three times in May 2018.
The serial sex offender will remain behind bars until at least 2027 after a jury found him guilty of the “degrading and humiliating” assault on the first time prisoner.
Burley is now at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre.
BORALLON TRAINING AND CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, 75 IVAN LN, IRONBARK
John Brian Woodman
A triple murderer and rapist nearly killed a custodial officer in a king hit while serving a life sentence.
John Brian Woodman hit the officer from behind in 2014 and was only prevented from “bashing” him after another prisoner intervened.
The assault occurred at Woodford Correctional Centre, however Woodman is now at Borallon.
Woodman, now 33, is serving a life sentence for the murders of Michael Thompson, 30, and 17-year-olds David Lyons and Tyson Wilson at Mr Thompson’s North Toowoomba flat on May 30, 2005.
MARYBOROUGH CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, STEIN RD, ALDERSHOT
Lionel Patea
A former bikie enforcer who is serving two life sentences for murder is suing a prison company after he was assaulted at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre.
Former Bandidos motorcycle gang enforcer Lionel Patea, who is 31 this year, is serving two life sentences – one for the brutal 2015 murder of former partner Tara Brown, 24, and one for bashing Greg Dufty to death the same year.
Patea claimed to have been “made incontinent and suffered a head injury” during an assault at Arthur Gorrie in 2016, court documents state.
Patea, who is not eligible for parole until 2048, claimed he suffered lower back pain, anxiety and depression.
He is incarcerated at the Maryborough Correctional Centre.
SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, MILLERS RD, SPRING CREEK
Lindy Williams
A Sunshine Coast woman who hacked up her partner with an electric saw and set his torso on fire would repeatedly faint and spend time in hospital throughout her incarceration, according to prison sources.
Lindy Williams killed her partner George Gerbic in 2013 and for months used his email account to trick relatives into believing he was alive, before Mr Gerbic’s headless body was found on the side of the road near Gympie.
The then-60-year-old was convicted of the Coolum Football Club president’s murder in July 2018.
While serving a life sentence at Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre, at 176A Grindle Rd, Wacol, Williams had been living in the “cushier” section of the jail.
Prison sources said she was subject to fainting spells, trips and falls that would regularly put her in hospital.
She is now jailed at the Southern Queensland Correctional Centre and will be eligible for parole in 2034.
Donna-Lee McAvoy
Convicted cop killer Donna Lee McAvoy worked in the officers’ mess at Wacol and was a member on the prisoner advisory committee.
McAvoy was 39 when she was given a life-sentence alongside co-accused Phillip Graeme Abell, then-41, for the shooting of Queensland Police Service Senior Detective Constable Damian Leeding in 2011.
She is serving time at the Southern Queensland Correctional Centre and will be eligible for parole in 2026.
LOTUS GLEN CORRECTIONAL CENTRE, CHETTLE RD, ARRIGA, NEAR MAREEBA
Derek Bellington Sam
Convicted of murdering a still-missing teenager and suspected of killing two other women, Derek Bellington Sam has had a job as a prison tailor earning $45 a week.
The murderer has been described as a “respected, reliable and complaint” man who mentored younger prisoners at Lotus Glen.
Sam was convicted in August 2001 of murdering 16-year-old Nambour schoolgirl Jessica Gaudie on the Sunshine Coast after she babysat his children in 1999.
Her body has never been found with Sam, 49, being kept in prison under Queensland’s ‘No body, no parole’ law.
He is also a prime suspect in the disappearance of British backpacker, Celena Bridge, 28, last seen walking along Booloumba Creek Rd, Cambroon in July 1998, and the May 1999 disappearance of Kenilworth teacher aide Sabrina Ann Glassop, 46, who vanished near Kenilworth.
They have also never been found.
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