The death of a convicted killer leaves the families of other suspected victims with no hope
A DRUG lord’s jail-cell suicide has robbed a small Queensland community of closure in the deaths of two young men.
QLD News
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MURDERER and Outback drug lord Russell Williams destroyed a central Queensland community when he walked into a pub and shot his ex-partner dead on April 4, 1996.
Sitting at the bar of the Calliope Railway Hotel with her friends was his terrified ex-girlfriend Joanne Brown.
The group of young women may have been celebrating Joanne’s domestic violence order which had been granted that morning against Williams.
It was 10.40pm, but Williams was unfazed by the 60 people in the noisy venue.
Witnesses heard Joanne, 27, say “that’s it, I’m gone”, before Williams shot her dead at point blank range.
After a life of violence – punctuated by that night at the railway hotel – Williams was found dead in his Rockhampton jail cell on Tuesday.
The 51-year-old killer took his own life while awaiting trial over the 25-year-old cold case murder of Robert Grayson, 26, and Derek van der Poel, 23 – two “crop sitters” who vanished from Gladstone in 1993.
But it would be the circumstances surrounding Joanne’s demise that would lead police on the path towards solving the disappearance of those two men this year.
In fact, Joanne’s murder would change lives, police careers and the mentality of a small town.
Family, witnesses and the country cop at the centre of the case spoke to The Sunday Mail this week about the impact Williams had on their lives.
“He shot and killed … and brought years of misfortune to many people,” one family member, who asked not to be named, said.
“He wasn’t a nice person to anyone – a very unpredictable and violent being.”
Williams’ three-year relationship to Joanne had been marred by violence and a custody battle over the pair’s two-year-old son, Zorren, had ensued.
In the years leading up to Joanne’s death, police estimated Williams was growing 5000 cannabis trees a year.
Joanne feared her boyfriend, often hiding the reason why from her loved ones.
One relative told The Courier-Mail in 1997: “I feel she had seen something bad to know what he was capable of, but that she went to the grave with it.”
Many in Calliope and nearby Gladstone maintain Joanne was murdered because she knew about what Williams had done to Grayson and van der Poel in 1993 – and she was ready to speak.
The day before Joanne’s murder, investigators from the then criminal justice commission travelled to Gladstone in the hope that she might have been able to assist with the Grayson and van der Poel case.
Investigators were not able to interview Joanne, however, because she did not appear in court for her domestic violence matter the day she died.
After almost six days on the run, “expert bushman” Williams was eventually charged with Joanne’s murder. He was sentenced to life in jail.
Retired police officer Darryl Saw, who spent 27 years with the Calliope Police, declined to comment on what Joanne might have known about Williams before her death. Instead, Mr Saw said he wants to see a coronial inquest as soon as possible so the small community receives the answers it deserves.
“It’s a shame that he’s passed on – a lot of people want closure about what happened,” he told The Sunday Mail. “Joanne’s murder would be the most shocking crime I’ve seen. It’s lucky more people weren’t killed. I think people were shocked and disgusted that sort of thing could even happen in Calliope.”
A witness to Joanne’s murder remains adamant that she knew about van der Poel and Grayson.
He asked not to be named in fear of reprisal from Williams’ associates.
“We’ve been on edge for 25 years,” he said.
“He is a man who thought he owned a town and everyone in it.”
The witness described Joanne as “a beautiful girl – very popular”, adding that she was “just caught up with the wrong bloke”.
Since 1994, Gladstone detectives had built a case against Williams on evidence that he murdered van der Poel and Grayson in the Kroombit Tops National Park, about 90km southwest of Gladstone.
Despite several searches over the past 24 years, neither man’s body has been found.
Police believe van der Poel and Grayson had been employed “minding” Williams’ drug crop at Kroombit Tops.
The Rockhampton Supreme Court heard in 1997 that Grayson and van der Poel had found out that two former associates of Williams were about to start growing their own plantation.
Van der Poel and Grayson then stole some of Williams’ plants before leaving to work for the other men.
A short time later, the two former associates returned to their area to find their plantation stripped, the campsite ransacked. Van der Poel and Grayson were gone.
Van der Poel has not accessed his bank accounts and has not sought medication for a rare medical condition since May 1993.
His parents told The Courier-Mail in 1997 that they had phoned Williams’ Calliope home looking for their son.
Williams told them that van der Poel no longer worked for him and that their son was working for two men who were “bad news”.
The State Coroner is yet to reveal if a coronial investigation into Joanne’s death will be reopened, or whether an inquest into Williams’ death will be held.
Originally published as The death of a convicted killer leaves the families of other suspected victims with no hope