Sharee Turnbull was awaiting parole review on new knife charge when she allegedly killed friend
A woman allegedly stabbed her friend to death while authorities waited 18 days to review her parole after she was charged with being in public with a knife. Two reviews will now probe the case of Sharee Turnbull after the fatal blunder.
NSW
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A woman allegedly stabbed her friend to death while authorities waited 18 days to review her parole after she was allegedly found in public with a knife.
Two major government reviews will probe the devastating blunder, in which parolee Sharee Lorraine Turnbull, 30, was free to allegedly murder Jack Mulligan, 25, in Camperdown on Saturday night despite being charged with possessing a knife two weeks earlier.
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Mr Mulligan was found crying for help in a pool of blood outside a housing commission tower around 8pm and later died in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Turnbull was arrested the following day and charged with murder.
Turnbull had been released on parole in May having served more than a year in jail for stabbing a woman in Tamworth in January 2018.
She was charged by police on September 14 with custody of a knife in a public place and ordered to front court in a month’s time.
Police Minister David Elliott and Corrections Minister Anthony Roberts confirmed it was nine days later on September 23, before police notified Correctives Services NSW of the new allegations against Turnbull.
“On the same day CSNSW notified the State Parole Authority (SPA) and also submitted a breach of parole report after the accused failed to comply with her parole conditions,” both ministers said in a joint statement.
The SPA was due to review Turnbull’s parole situation on October 2 — four days after the alleged murder.
Both ministers deny there was evidence their officers did anything wrong but confirmed that both departments would carry out a review.
“While an initial assessment does not show any evidence of inappropriate actions by NSW Police Force and Corrective Services NSW, due to the seriousness of the circumstances, both NSWPF and CSNSW have been asked to conduct a review,” the joint statement said.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that in a dark twist, Mr Mulligan’s father was allegedly murdered by a 23-year-old woman just 18 months ago.
Mr Mulligan’s aunt Carolyn Holder, who raised her nephew on the Gold Coast between the ages of three and eight, said she and her daughters were fuming that Turnbull had not been taken off the streets sooner.
“That’s 18 days from when she got (charged) and she’s only back in there now,” she said. “The girls are actually fuming that the parole board didn’t do it immediately … I’m on board with them.
“This has just hit them so hard, Jack was their little brother as far as they were concerned.
“The laws need to change … I think that it all should happen immediately.
“If they’ve done a crime, like she’d stabbed someone before … when she’s (charged) they should lock her up and get the parole board to deal with it then.”
She said Mr Mulligan entered a Grafton care home from the age of eight and suffered drug addiction and stints in prison in his adult life.
“He was a very gentle person, he was a naughty boy — don’t get me wrong, he was a runaway, he got into trouble. He was easily led, easily misled,” Ms Holder said.
“He used a lot of drugs in his time and he used to gravitate back to that. We couldn’t get him away from it.
“He was a good kid though, he wasn’t a nasty person.”
His father, retired shearer Christopher Holder, was allegedly intentionally run down in a car by a woman in Lightning Ridge. Mr Mulligan’s half-sister Samantha Brack said she was shocked police alleged that he had met a similar fate to their father.
“I just wish me and my sister had found out where he was before this to let him know he had family out here who loved him,” she said
It is the second time in less than a year that a parolee has been charged with another offence despite interactions with police. Anthony Sampieri was on parole after being jailed for raping a 60-year-old woman when he kidnapped a seven-year-old girl in November 2018 and raped her at knifepoint in the bathroom of a Kogarah dance studio.
NSW Police carried out a major internal investigation after it emerged a woman reported Sampieri to St George police over an offensive phone call weeks before the attack, yet the convicted rapist was not locked up.
Senior constable Andrew Michael Bruce has pleaded not guilty to four charges of neglecting duty over the handling of Sampieri.
Turnbull faced Newtown Local Court on Monday where her murder charge was adjourned to November 25.