Walter Marsh: Nurse Michele Beets’ killer dies in Lithgow Jail

In 2010 he callously killed his boss, a loved Sydney nurse, slitting her throat in an attack described as “full of hatred”. Now he has died alone in his prison cell.

Nurse killer Walter Ciaran Marsh has died in jail.

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The former US Marine who stabbed a nurse to death and slit her throat has died in Lithgow Jail.

Walter Ciaran Marsh was in 2011 convicted of the brutal murder of his boss Michelle Beets, 57, believing at the time of the attack in 2010 that she had given him several bad references which prevented him from landing another job to stay in Australia.

NSW Corrections are investigating the circumstances surrounding his death after he was found unresponsive in his cell on Friday.

His Supreme Court trial had heard Marsh was full of “deep resentment and hatred” when he broke into Ms Beets’ Chatswood home and slashed her throat on her veranda.

Ms Beets had died on her veranda after Marsh attacked her.

She had been stabbed eight times in the chest and was left to die after Marsh spent weeks planning the murder, staking out her house and practising throat-slitting techniques used by the marines on family members.

His wife Samantha had told his trial Marsh had said: “I did it, the bitch is gone, no more bad references”, referring to his boss at the Royal North Shore Hospital.

Marsh had fled after neighbours were alerted to the distressing scene as a result of Ms Beets’ screams for help.

Marsh was described as “full of hatred” at trial in 2011.

He was sentenced to life in jail in 2012.

NSW Corrections this afternoon confirmed Marsh had died in his cell on Friday morning, a decade after the slaying of Ms Beets.

“A 59-year-old man has died at Lithgow Correctional Centre. He was found unresponsive in his cell by officers about 8.20am on Friday, 3 April 2020,” a corrections spokeswoman said.

“The Corrective Services NSW Investigations Branch and NSW Police are investigating.”

His death will now be the subject of a coronial inquest given it occurred in custody.

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