Benjamin Hoffmann, Martin Leach, the NT’s ‘Hannibal Lecter’ Andy Albury: The killers condemned to die in prison
There are 37 people sentenced to life in prison, including some of the Territory’s most notorious killers.
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They have been condemned to die within the walls of a Territory cell, yet some are warning prisons are not preparing “lifers” for the world post parole.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics found in 2022 there were 37 people serving life sentences in Territory prisons.
However, due to parole eligibility 35 of those “life sentences” could walk free after more than 20 years behind bars, with only three true “lifers” in the clink.
Benjamin Hoffmann, Martin Leach and “the Hannibal Lecter of the Territory” Andy Albury have all been condemned to die in prison, sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Bradley Murdoch also faces the prospect of dying in prison if he continues to refuse to reveal where Peter Falconio’s remains are under the ‘No body, No Parole’ rules.
In November, Attorney-General Chansey Paech announced sweeping changes to mandatory sentencing laws — but left convicted murderers still facing a mandatory minimum of 20 years without parole.
Territory Criminal Lawyers have previously called these laws “draconian provisions”, NAAJA described them as “disproportionate and blunt instrument”, Danila Dilba called them costly, discriminatory and ineffective while the Aboriginal Justice Agreement — to which both sides of politics have supported — calls for the removal of mandatory sentencing and non-parole period provisions.
According to the ABS, of the 37 life sentences, 20 are Indigenous Territorians.
In 2019, then attorney-general Natasha Fyles asked the Northern Territory Law Reform Committee to investigate mandatory sentencing and community-based options.
The committee recommended the government abolish the penalty of mandatory life sentence for murder and the ‘special’ minimum non-parole period.
“Because the crime of murder can be committed in many different circumstances, not every murder carries the same degree of moral culpability,” it said.
Despite the clear recommendation, her government did not repeal the mandatory sentence for murder.
With the exception of the three true “lifers”, 35 Territorians are still expected to be eventually released.
Despite a coronial inquest critiquing the denial of prison release transition programs in 2017, it is understood no such programs are available to “lifers” heading into their parole period.
In 2017 then-coroner Greg Cavanagh investigated the suicide of 81-year-old “lifer” Roy Melbourne in Darwin prison.
The Queensland-born man was 60 when he stabbed his 71-year-old neighbour Irene Chambers three times in the throat.
After two decades in the clink, Melbourne became known as a “quiet, courteous, clean and very private” prisoner.
Despite being eligible for parole four months before his death, Melbourne cancelled his release application.
Mr Cavanagh found Melbourne was “well and truly institutionalised”, with Melbourne telling another prisoner: “By the looks of it, I will end up dying in here.”
Mr Cavanagh was critical the prison did not allow low security prisoners convicted of murder and sexual offending to take part in community activities and employment.
“It may be that humans have a natural emotional response against the idea of murderers and sexual offenders ever being freed from prison let alone being able during the last years of their term … to engage in community activities and employment,” he said.
“However, the fact is that terms of imprisonment usually end”.
Then corrections commissioner Mark Payne told Ms Fyles in 2017 despite these evidence-based “best practice” programs running for other prisoners there were 104 murderers and sexual offenders unable to access the services.
Mr Cavanagh said it was “unclear” why the government continued to deny the lifers access to these programs.
“The commissioner referred to ‘perceptions’,” he said.
“But, it clearly makes sense that if prisoners are to be released, that is undertaken in a progressive, supervised and supported way.
“Given the inflexibility of the system and the potential for such a system to make it less safe for the community, I urge the government to re-evaluate its policy.”
MEET THE TRUE LIFERS INSIDE PRISON
Benjamin Hoffmann: Life, with no parole
Mass shooter Benjamin Hoffmann is one of only three ‘true lifers’ currently in Territory prison.
Hoffmann was sentenced to three life sentences with no possibility of parole in October 2022 — four years after his drug-fuelled rampage took the lives of four men.
Over the course of three hours on January 4, 2019, Hoffmann hunted down Hassan Baydoun, Michael Sisois, Rob Courtney and Nigel Hellings — who was a case of mistaken identity with Hoffmann’s drug-addled mind wrongly believing the 75-year-old retiree was involved in a kidnapping.
His protracted trial — which was sidetracked by Hoffmann’s conspiracy theories and his dismissal of two legal teams — ended with Hoffmann pleading guilty four weeks into his trial.
As Justice John Burns condemned the killer to die inside the walls of Holtze Prison, he told Hoffmann: “Your personality cannot be cured”.
The 47-year-old has repeatedly threatened to retract his plea and appeal the conviction.
While locked up Hoffmann has allegedly been involved in a number of prison brawls — with the convicted murderer facing fresh aggravated assault charges while also being identified as the alleged victim in another ongoing case.
Andrew Albury: Life with no parole
It is unknown how many victims have lost their lives at the hands of the Territory’s ‘Hannibal Lecter’, Andrew Albury.
The Victorian-born ex-abattoir worker has admitted to at least 13 murders — confessing to butchering his victims in a random killing spree including on a lonely stretch of road infamously known in Queensland as the “highway of death” between Townsville and Mount Isa.
Investigations have concluded his confessions to 11 murders were fictional.
He came to the attention of police after the gruesome murder of Gloria Pindan in the Northern Territory 40 years ago.
Albury was convicted of using a broken bottle to mutilate the Aboriginal woman on Mitchell St, Darwin on November 25, 1983.
He cut off her nipples and gouged her eye out with his finger.
Her eyeball was found in grass four metres from her body.
The 29-year-old had been punched, kicked, slashed, bruised, beaten, mutilated – for no reason at all.
Blood spatters reached 1m up a nearby wall.
As he was arrested, police asked the 22-year-old: “Why kill this girl?”.
“It doesn’t worry me what I kill, they’re all blood and guts inside,” Albury replied.
Albury said he viewed killing people “about the same as thumping on a cockroach”.
The killer told police he believed in the ideals of the Ku Klux Klan, telling a psychiatrist about his hatred of Aboriginal and Asian people as well as “wogs and homosexuals”.
“I don’t particularly want to kill people – if it happens, it happens,” he said.
In a 2004 appeal — which if successful would have made him eligible to parole immediately — a psychiatrist shared Albury’s fantasy.
“He has a fantasy about terrorising a town by committing casual, motiveless murder for the purpose of making people frightened that they may be the next to be killed.
“He is not seeking publicity or notoriety.
“He simply gets pleasure out of the thought of having that degree of control over people.
“He would kill again given the opportunity.”
Albury hand wrote a letter to Chief Justice Brian Martin, signing off his final line with: “PS – will kill again – its what I do for an occupation.”
In 2004, Justice Martin condemned him to life in prison by refusing to fix a non-parole period.
“The respondent intended to kill the deceased. He enjoyed perpetrating the extreme violence. He enjoyed killing the deceased.”
The court heard he was a difficult prisoner to manage, as a danger to himself and others — including attacking a fellow inmate with a cricket bat.
A guard told the NT News in 2016 the deranged killer was kept in virtual isolation, quoted filthy lines from Silence of the Lambs and stripped off naked when he didn’t get his own way.
One of his arresting officers said Albury used to send him Christmas cards from prison with a festive message written in his own blood, while the murderer has also sent death threats to Territory ministers.
In 2014, a fake bomb threat to the NT Ombudsman’s office that led to the evacuation of the CBD was traced back to Albury in Berrimah Prison.
Martin Leach: Life without parole
The Berry Springs killer rapist is the longest serving prisoner in the Northern Territory, 39 years into his term of three consecutive life sentences.
Martin Leach was 23 when he raped and killed two teenagers at Berry Springs on June 20, 1983.
Leach had already been convicted and served time for the rape of another woman, when his next victims Janice Carnegie and her 15-year-old cousin Charmaine Aviet unknownly found themselves in the same pool of Berry Springs.
The 23-year-old killer watched the two teenagers for 30 minutes, until he and the girls were almost the only people left at the popular swimming hole.
Leach would later tell police he was “no longer in control”.
He removed a fishing knife and used it to threaten them away from the waterfall area towards a gully.
Leach used their own clothes to bind and gag the two girls but the older cousin tried to fight back.
Leach stabbed the 18-year-old and as she bled out raped her.
Leach then turned to the 15-year-old who had witnessed the horror and stabbed her in the heart killing her almost instantly.
The 18-year-old watched as her cousin was killed.
Leach stabbed her again, before walking away.
She was still alive and left to slowly bleed out.
Their naked bodies were found bound and gagged in bushland near Berry Springs.
Leach had spent 20 years in prison when the parole reforms came into effect in 2003.
However, Chief Justice Brian Martin found Leach’s crimes were “so extreme that the community interest in retribution, punishment, protection and deterrence can only be met if the offender is imprisoned for the term of his natural life without the possibility of release”.
In the appeal there was one dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Southwood said he would have set a non-parole period of 40 years, which would have made Leach eligible for release in 2024 as a 65-year-old.
Justice Southwood said Leach had attempted to reform himself and had demonstrated good behaviour in prison and was downgraded to a low-risk classification.
“During the late 1980s through to the early 1990s he established a toy-making venture, working predominantly with wooden products, of which the finished articles such as rocking horses and motorcycles were donated to charity,” he said.
Bradley Murdoch: Life, no body no parole
The man behind one of the biggest mysteries in the Territory will never be released from prison until he reveals where the body of murdered British tourist Peter Falconio is.
Bradley Murdoch is 17 years into his 28-year non-parole sentence but thanks to 2016 “no body, no parole” legislation his final days will be in a cell.
Murdoch pleaded not guilty to the roadside execution-style murder of Mr Falconio and assaulting and attempting to kidnap his girlfriend Joanne Lees on a remote part of the Stuart Hwy near Barrow Creek on July 14, 2001.
He was convicted in late 2005 to life with a 28-year non-parole period.
Murdoch has always maintained his innocence and many close to the case believe Murdoch will take his secrets to the grave.
The then attorney-general John Elferink was asked if this condemned a convicted person to indefinite detention if they did not know where the body was.
“Of course he’s guilty, because a court has said so and said so beyond reasonable doubt, that’s not an issue here,” Mr Elferink said in 2016.
Reports from the prison said before his 2019 cancer diagnosis, Murdoch was working in the prison kitchens as a pastry chef and was known for his desserts.
In 2015, the NT News was leaked documents that allege the murderer was treated “more like a prison guard” inside the Darwin Correctional Centre, regularly threw tantrums and wielded significant influence over the kitchen work gang.
He is one of a select group of high profile prisoners who the NT government prohibits from speaking to the media.
William Gordon Turner
One of the Territory’s worst paedophiles is likely to die in prison, facing an indefinite sentence for his abuse of girls and young women.
William Gordon Turner pleaded guilty to four years of abuse against an 11-year-old girl, his latest victim in a 30-year-old history of sexual crimes.
The court heard Turner was 18 when he was first convicted of a sex crime in 1973.
Turner served only a small portion of his six-year sentence after an “administrative error” following Cyclone Tracy.
Turner was condemned to an indefinite jail sentence, with the Chief Justice Brian Martin saying the “sexual predator” would reoffend no matter what age he is released.
In 2019 Turner was “king hit” by another prisoner in an unprovoked attack in Holtze, leaving the 63-year-old with a broken hip.
MEET SOME OF THOSE FACING LIFE WITH PAROLE
Zak Grieve
Zak Grieve, 19, was asleep in his home when 41-year-old Ray Niceforo’s head was smashed in with a spanner.
There is no evidence linking the Indigenous teenager to the Katherine home crime scene or to where Mr Niceforo’s body was dragged to Gorge Rd.
There is also no evidence the 19-year-old paid the $15,000 fee for the notorious 2011 contract killing — the Territory’s first paid hit.
But Grieve knew but never told anyone about the murder plot — and for that silence Grieve has served more than a decade in prison.
Bronwyn Buttery was found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for a maximum eight years after she financed the $15,000 hit of her abusive ex-partner Mr Niceforo.
Her son Christopher Malyschko recruited Grieve and Darren Halfpenny for the job but at the last minute Grieve pulled out of the plan.
However, under the law the 19-year-old was found guilty on the basis he did not take “all reasonable steps” to prevent the crime from happening.
Grieve had a clean criminal history, supportive family and strong work history, yet in 2013 he was condemned to spend the next 20 years in prison.
“I take no pleasure in this outcome,” Justice Dean Mildren told Grieve.
“It is the fault of mandatory minimum sentencing provisions which inevitably bring about injustice.”
In a gut-wrenching twist of the mandatory laws, the teenager received a harsher sentence than one of his co-accused who physically committed the crime.
In 2014 an appeal was dismissed, finding that “His Honour sentenced on the basis of the minimum that could be imposed at law”.
According to a 2018 petition, Grieve has not only committed to his education inside of prison but writes fiction and tutors others inside in maths, English and runs art programs.
In 2018, then-NT Administrator Vicki O’Halloran changed Grieve’s sentence to 12 years, meaning he will be eligible for release in 2023.
Ben William McLean and Phu Ngoc Trinh
It was a killer friendship that sprouted during a trip on a rural school bus and ended in 25 years behind bars.
Territory teen Ben William McLean and Vietnamese migrant Phu Ngoc Trinh turned their schoolyard friendship into a lethal bond that would have them living together in Darwin Correctional Centre until at least 2029, when they become eligible for parole.
The then 18-year-old boys were convicted for murdering two Darwin sex workers by throwing their bodies, bound with cable ties and weighed down by car batteries, into the croc-infested waters at Adelaide River.
The bodies of 58-year-old Phuangsri Kroksamrong and 27-year-old Somjai Insamnan were discovered by crocodile-spotting tour operators a few days later.
Wayne William Roberts-Barlow
A 22-year-old who slit a young woman’s throat from ear to ear in a “commando-style” wound will remain behind bars until at least 2032.
Wayne William Roberts-Barlow was sober when he sliced the neck of an intoxicated woman on a deserted Nhulunbuy road in January 2011.
The court found there was no rational explanation for Roberts-Barlow’s conduct.
“There’s simply nothing — which is, of course, disturbing in itself,” Chief Justice Trevor Riley said.
The court heard Roberts-Barlow had reported a history of “blackouts” and did not recall killing the woman.
He will be 41 when his 20-year non-parole period expires.
Danny Deacon
A ‘cold-blooded’ killer who murdered the mother of his child and then fronted the missing persons campaign will remain in prison until 2036.
In 2015, Danny Deacon pleaded not guilty to the murder of his defacto partner Carlie Sinclair but over the course of the month-long trial admitted to choking her to death in 2013.
Deacon claimed it was a moment of “rage” when Ms Sinclair told him she planned to leave him.
However, Deacon dug the Berry Springs bush grave where he would later dump her body three weeks earlier.
She lay there undiscovered for 18 months, as her murderer went to the media to speak about her disappearance.
In the minutes before his arrest, Deacon was boasting tho undercover cops: “If you plan a murder, you’re f—cked, you’re in there for a very long time … no one gets away with that sh—t …”
Deacon said he planned to start a hunger strike over delays in the lead up to his appeal in 2019.
Deacon argued his head sentence of life imprisonment was “disproportionate” but his case was dismissed.
Deacon will be eligible for parole when he is 66, in 2036.
Darren Ashley
A man who murdered his estranged wife three weeks after she left him will not be able to be released for another decade.
Darren Ashley stabbed Kirsty Ashley 27 times the day after police served him with an application for a domestic violence order.
Her mother discovered her in a pool of her own blood an hour in an Alice Springs home after the brutal murder.
Justice Dean Mildren said the 51-year-old murderer had attempted to “control (Kirsty) and cajole her into coming home” in the days leading up to May 15, 2012.
He was sentenced to a 22-year non parole period, meaning he will be 69 years old when he will be eligible for parole in 2034.
In 2017 prison sources told the NT News the murderer was a “marked man” inside Holtze, with warnings he was at risk of “jailhouse justice”.
A paroled prisoner, who had served time alongside Ashley, said the twice-convicted murderer was a quiet inmate and “a bit of a loser”, who was considered “odd” by many other inmates.
Shaun Hudson
An outback child murderer who drowned a six-year-old girl in the muddy banks of a Hermannsburg swimming hole in 1998 could be released next year.
Shaun Hudson was 18 when he was arrested for the murder of the girl in front of other children, following one of his almost-daily petrol sniffing sessions.
The teenager was sentenced under the ‘life means life’ murder laws but after spending half his life in jail was handed a 26-year non-parole period.
The court heard Hudson suffered from sniffing-induced brain damage, with Justice Stephen Southwood saying Hudson would also have to convince the Parole Board he could be released safely.
Yvette Bennie
The woman accused of fatally stabbing the sister of then NT minister Bess Price was sentenced to life in jail, with a two-decade non-parole condition.
Yvette Bennie, 33, was found guilty of stabbing her cousin, Rosalie Nungarrayi Wayne, with a 16cm kitchen knife at Warlpiri Camp near Katherine on April 29, 2014.
Ms Price broke from tradition and asked that her murdered sister’s name be used in the media.
Justice Peter Barr assessed the offending to be in the lower middle of the range of objective seriousness and fixed the standard non-parole period of 20 years.
Gary Stewart Miles
A man who burned his mate to death in the boot of a car over an argument about missing beer cans and a comment about breasts was handed a 25-year non-parole sentence.
In 2013, Gary Stewart Miles was sentenced for the murder of 47-year-old Paul John Stamp.
Mr Stamp was heard screaming through the car’s hot metal in a lonely Darwin industrial area Miles and his co-accused Greg Channing walked away.
“He must have suffered a horrible and cruel death. Your conduct can only be described as deeply disturbing,” Chief Justice Trevor Riley said.
Rodney Kenyon
A notorious murderer and rapist is a third of the way through his 25-year non-parole period.
Rodney Kenyon was sentenced to life in jail for the 2015 execution style murder of Fabian Brock, the shotgun-armed kidnapping of Jacob-Noble Webster and an earlier machete-armed double rape.
He stood trial in 2017, self represented, for stabbing one of Mr Brock’s best mates, Linton Baird, and threatening to kill Mr Baird’s brother-in-law, Ashley Connolly.
But in an unprecedented move, Kenyon abandoned the trial – which he had been appearing at by video link – instead preferring to return to gardening duty at Holtze Prison.
He faces a 25-year non-parole period and will not be eligible for release until 2041.
Francis Martin
Two decades after murdering his partner during a prolonged bashing, Francis Martin will be eligible for release in 2028.
In 2008 the 23-year-old was convicted for the alcohol-related domestic assault at an Alice Springs town camp.
Martin beat her and left her lying naked in the dark. She passed away the next morning in hospital.
He was sentenced to life, with a 20-year non-parole period.
Darin Andrew Clare
A Virginia man who turned his neighbour into a human torch by dousing him in petrol was sentenced to a 20-year non-parole period and his term is nearing the halfway mark.
Darin Andrew Clare, 37, pleaded guilty in 2013 to pouring petrol over neighbour Philip ‘Pig’ John Cure because he believed his 60-year-old neighbour had been harrassing his sister and her family.
Justice Peter Barr said when Clare lit up the petrol, his neighbour was engulfed in a fireball.
Godwin Ladd
A domestic abuser with 36 prior convictions stabbed his 40-year-old partner in the chest, with his victim passing away 13 days later.
Godwin Ladd told the court in 2008 he had drunk two casks of wine and a large amount of beer when he stabbed her.
He was sentenced to life, with a non-parole period of 20 years, meaning he will be eligible for release in 2028.
Jason Robinson
A man who beat his wife to death with a heavy glass bottle at a service station will remain in prison until at least 2030.
Witnesses to the Alice Springs region murder said they tried to revive the woman but her bloody head felt “just like jelly”.
Jason Robinson was convicted after a trial of murder in 2010, with a non-parole period of 20 years.
Ronald Djana
Over eight hours a woman was bashed, whopped and stomped on, before she was ‘impaled” with a metal rod by her husband on a dry riverbed outside Alice Springs in 2007.
Ronald Djana was found guilty of perpetrating the prolonged “merciless flogging” of his 32-year-old wife, which ended with him ramming the pole between her legs.
The court heard Djana had a history of abuse against his wife, with five previous aggravated assaults and restraining order breaches on his criminal record.
At the time the 27 years to life sentence was the longest non-parole sentence ever handed down to an Aboriginal murderer in the Northern Territory.
Djana will be eligible for parole in 2035.
Matej Vanko
An immigration detention centre worker who took his supervisor hostage, executed her brother and his dogs will remain behind bars until at least 2035.
In 2012, 35-year-old Vanko held Noelene Stevens captive for several hours, handcuffed and tied up with strips of tea towel and a mobile phone charger cord while her brother lay dead in another room.
In 2014 he was sentenced to 23 years non-parole, meaning he will be eligible for release at 60.
In 2016 Vanko was found guilty of bashing a fellow inmate at Darwin prison.
The court heard the convicted killer was being held in the remand wing of Alice Springs prison and was sleeping on the floor as one of 19 men in an 11-bed dormitory.
The courts have heard Vanko was seen as a leader in Alice Springs prison, helping deliver the “QuickSmart” program, which assists prisoners with low levels of literacy, and had completed an entry program through Queensland University to allow him to enrol in a degree.
Vanko was identified as the ringleader of a prison protest in 2016, where eight prisoners climbed onto a roof.
Vanko sued the NT government in 2021 for assault and false imprisonment in the aftermath of the prison riot, which allegedly “left him feeling like a tortured animal, vulnerable, unsafe and distressed”.
William John Keighran
A drunk man stabbed his wife with a carving knife seven times in front of her family and children on Christmas Eve.
The court found the then 32-year-old, William John Keighran, showed no remorse for the brutal murder of his wife at Borroloola in 2009.
During sentencing, Justice Stephen Southwood said Keighran’s actions were fuelled by overwhelming feelings of jealousy enhanced by alcohol.
He said the murder was swift and merciless, with the 29-year-old woman totally unable to defend herself.
He was sentenced to life, with his non-parole period set to expire in 2029.
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