A real madness washed over me: Killer John Myles Sharpe on murders of wife Anna, daughter Gracie
WHEN John Myles Sharpe realised he had been exposed as the cold-hearted killer in of one of Australia's most gruesome and callous double killings, he wept like a baby.
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WHEN John Myles Sharpe realised he had been exposed as a cold-hearted killer, he wept like a baby.
As he sobbed, he assured his parents he loved them and then revealed to police the details of one of Australia's most gruesome and callous double killings.
How Sharpe killed his pregnant wife of 10 years, Anna Kemp, 41, and their 19-month-old daughter, Gracie, was revealed in his own chilling words with the release of police documents to the Sunday Herald Sun.
The paper was also able to detail the intensive police hunt that prompted the evil Victorian father's confession.
Sharpe pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to two life sentences with a minimum of 33 years in 2005. But at the beginning of the police investigation he claimed to have been abandoned by his wife and that she took their daughter with her.
"It's a bloody shocking thing. A disgusting thing to have to own up to," Sharpe told police when he finally confessed, three months after the murders.
In a police interview on June 22, 2004 Sharpe stumbled on his words as he described ending Anna's life with a speargun.
Dressed in underpants and a T-shirt, he knelt next to Anna, who was asleep in their bed upstairs in their Mornington cottage on the night of March 23.
"Anna was asleep in bed and I used — used the spear and fired it — fired it into Anna's head on two occasions," Sharpe said. "That's how she died."
In his only explanation for the horror, Sharpe told how he had fantasised about killing his wife for months — before "a madness" took over him.
On the day of the crime, he thought about the murder for about 30 minutes, then took a speargun from his garage.
"You know what you're doing is sort of insane, but there's just this weird part of you that's almost unstoppable or something," Sharpe told police.
"You're almost like on automatic pilot sort of thing.
"I can't really remember much of what I thought of — of anything. Just apart from the sort of crazy sensation ... it was totally emotional.
"It's crazy ... it's a madness, but you sort of felt like there's something inside you that's just saying do it and, I mean, you know it's wrong. It's almost, it's almost feeling like you almost can't stop yourself."
He left Anna's body in their bed and a day later buried her in a shallow grave in their backyard.
For the next four days voices in Sharpe's head debated Gracie's fate.
"It was sort of in and out of my head all week — I could hear things going through my head ... the voices saying, 'You can't do it, you can do it, you've got to do it' ... every option was coming up," he said.
"I was thinking about taking care of Gracie by myself and just amongst all this madness — that's when I lost the plot."
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He took Gracie with him when he bought the spear he would use to end her life.
"When you're sort of insane, your mind's all over the place," he said.
"I had the idea that if I had a few drinks, I might just be crazy enough to go and do it."
Gracie's death was not instant.
"It's shocking. It's all shocking. I know that it didn't kill Gracie because she started screaming," Sharpe told police.
His wounded daughter looked at him when she awoke screaming. As he fumbled to finish the killing, he was unable to look at the toddler.
"I thought I was insane," he said.
Sharpe wrapped up Gracie's remains and took them to a dump. He told the attendant he had "a boot load of hard waste" and thought to himself, "I'm a madman".
His wife's body was still in a shallow grave in his backyard, metres from his office.
He admitted that digging up and dismembering Anna's body was "just like a nightmare".
Anna was crudely dismembered because her body was too heavy for Sharpe to lift.
On dismembering Anna, Sharpe said: "You know it's ludicrous. It's just like you're in another world."
A search by police later discovered both bodies in the tip.
Sharpe had a head start of weeks to cover his tracks before he came under the scrutiny of police.
But a combination of his bungling attempts to hide the crime and an exhaustive homicide investigation would bring him undone.
Sharpe confessed only after being confronted by the evidence collected by detectives and told he would be charged.
He tried to cover his tracks by claiming Anna had run off with another man and taken Gracie.
He used Anna's ATM card at a bank in Chelsea and emailed her mother in New Zealand purporting to be her daughter.
In the month after the murders, Sharpe wrote — under the letterhead of Fast Trak Conveyancing, the business he bought into about the time Gracie was born — to one of Anna's friends, telling her not to "hold her breath waiting for contact" from Anna.
"She has Gracie with her and is living in Chelsea," he wrote.
Sharpe also repeatedly protested his innocence in the media.
After more than a month's scrutiny, Sharpe cracked and confessed — but only after he was charged with murder on June 22.
Police charged him before they knew the whereabouts of Anna and Gracie's bodies. They believed they had a compelling case of circumstantial evidence.
Key items of evidence included:
A VIDEO of Sharpe visiting a Mornington toilet block and stashing Anna's ATM card and mobile phone.
A PHOTO of Sharpe using a public phone to arrange the removal of the mattress on which Anna was murdered.
POLICE discovering he bought a new mattress about two weeks after his wife disappeared.
EVIDENCE being found of Anna and Gracie's blood at the house.
THE killer's scrawled notes outlining parts of his cover story being found after being put in rubbish bins around Mornington.
POLICE knowing Sharpe told his mother-in-law Anna had left in a taxi — conflicting with his statement to detectives that she had driven away in a silver car.
A BABIES' names book containing the ultrasound scan of Anna's unborn baby, taken about seven weeks before the murder, being found discarded.
Victorian detectives were tipped off that Anna was missing by a NZ police officer, who had been alerted by Dunedin Catholic priest Tony Harrison. Anna's mother told the priest she was worried about her daughter in Australia.
Australian police first took their first statement from Sharpe on May 20, in which he maintained his marriage had collapsed and Anna had taken off with an unknown man.
Police issued a public appeal for information to find Anna and Gracie, but Sharpe decided against taking part.
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The pressure on Sharpe was stepped up on June 10 when homicide detectives told Sharpe they suspected his wife and daughter were dead and quizzed him for 5 1/2 hours.
The detectives probed him with more than 1000 questions.
He maintained Anna had left with another man on March 23 and returned a few days later and taken Gracie.
Detectives were closing in on Sharpe, but during the next 12 days they were able to compile a case strong enough to charge him.
On June 22, Sharpe was arrested at his parents' home in Mornington, where he had been staying for several weeks since the investigation became public.
He was taken to the St Kilda Rd police complex and, over more than two hours, he declined to answer many of the questions put to him.
At the end of the interview, Det-Sgt Shane Brundell told Sharpe he would be charged with the murders.
Sharpe broke down and sobbed when he was allowed to see his parents and two of his siblings.
What prompted the murders?
In his confession interview, Sharpe spoke of his wife's poisonous relationship with his family, her "very hot and cold" personality and their loveless marriage.
He said Anna would "wear the pants in the family".
"It was almost like it was her house and I was living in it," he said.
In the last minutes of Sharpe's chilling confession, Det-Sgt Shane Brundell asked him why he killed his wife.
"It's hard to explain . . . it was kind of madness," Sharpe said.
He was no more specific when asked why he murdered his daughter.
"I don't really know. Irrational bloody madness," he said.
- This is an edited version of a story first published in August 2006
Originally published as A real madness washed over me: Killer John Myles Sharpe on murders of wife Anna, daughter Gracie
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