Central Coast toddler Courtney Morley-Clarke’s murderer expresses no remorse for horror crime decades on
The youngest person to be convicted of murder in Australia has revealed what it would take for him to kill again in a disturbing prison call where he said he feels satisfaction from revenge.
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Australia’s youngest murderer, who spent the best part of 25 years behind bars for the slaughter of a three-year-old, has disclosed he does not regret carrying out the catastrophic crime.
The killer, who was 13 when he murdered toddler Courtney Morley-Clarke on the Central Coast in 2001, told a Corrective Services NSW department supervising officer (DSO) “I don’t regret committing a murder”.
“I don’t think like you or anyone else, for me emotions aren’t really important,” he said in one of two chilling recorded custody calls earlier this year.
The man also revealed he would be prepared to kill again if something “big” took place, however, he said: “If I kill someone it won’t be a child.”
The now 37-year-old can only be identified as SLD due to his age at the time he snatched Courtney from her bed at Point Clare on a hot January night.
SLD stripped the girl naked, stabbed her through the heart and disposed of her lifeless body down a ditch before misleading and misdirecting the searchers made up of police and concerned community members.
He was eventually released in September, 2023, on a court-imposed extended supervision order (ESO) which, at the time, fewer than 200 of the state’s most high-risk violence, sex and terrorism offenders were subjected to.
However, within weeks SLD’s fixation on finding a girlfriend and losing his virginity saw him hauled back into custody after he approached three women with children at Bulli Beach in the Illawarra.
One of the conditions SLD had to abide by was not associating with children. SLD pleaded not guilty to three counts of failing to comply with an ESO, but was found guilty of one in a judge-alone trial at Wollongong District Court in October.
The trial heard SLD approached a woman with a child by the children’s pool at the beach before confronting another woman feeding a child. Neither of these women gave evidence with Judge William Fitzsimmons ruling SLD did not fail to comply with his ESO in these instances.
However, SLD approached a third woman who was showering sand off her infant and asked if he was “speaking yet”. He then asked if the baby had chickenpox and if their father was around.
Judge Fitzsimmons, when handing down his precedent-setting verdict, found SLD guilty of the charge given he “freely and voluntarily engaged in further conversation” about the child and “deliberately chose to comment on the child’s physical appearance while the child was unable to interact”.
During the trial, evidence was heard about how SLD was hellbent on finding a girlfriend. A DSO, who oversaw where and when he was allowed to leave his accommodation in Campbelltown, telling the court he “would approach at least one woman and ask them on a date” each time he was allowed in public.
A cafe worker approached by SLD on the day he was at the beach gave evidence he approached her and asked if she was “old enough to date” and after disclosing she was in her 20s he said: “You look incredibly young.”
The woman said SLD discussed his virginity, his desire to find love and how he had recently been released from jail, however, the conversation came to a halt when she told him she was a lesbian.
“Congratulations,” SLD responded.
Judge Fitzsimmons’ decision came a day before SLD faced a hearing in Wollongong Local Court where the phone calls with the DSO surfaced after he pleaded not guilty to intimidating a law officer and intimidating a law officer’s relative.
The law officer in question being the off-duty Corrective Services NSW officer who reported SLD to police for the charges which were the subject of the trial.
The trial heard the officer was at the beach when he noticed a “large male with reading glasses” approaching the women and children while sporting an ankle monitor.
The court was to hear audio from two recorded phone calls between SLD and a DSO, however, a technical glitch forced a transcript of the conversations to instead be tendered to Magistrate Michael Love.
This publication has obtained the transcript which exposes the remarks which SLD’s barrister Dev Bhutani told the court were not intended to “get back to” the officer.
“Of course I want to kill that f**ker (the officer), he’s lying throughout the entire brief,” SLD said during a call on March 11.
The DSO said he would be “pissed” if he was in the same situation, but stressed: “When you murdered someone before and you make threats to murder someone again that’s very serious … people are gonna take that really seriously.”
“Would I be in a murderous rage? Would I make threats to kill and rape that person’s daughter, to kidnap them? Absolutely not,” the DSO said.
SLD responded: “Hey I don’t think I said rape did I?”
“You did, you did,” the DSO said.
Before SLD abruptly ended the call the DSO said the killer had to be “rewired” urging him to do whatever he could to “break that criminal mindset”.
The following day the pair spoke again where SLD expressed the satisfaction he feels from revenge while recalling his evil decision to take Courtney’s life.
“I know revenge is not good for me … I know it’s not healthy,” SLD said.
“But I can’t help not thinking about it … it’s my being, it’s f--king what I’ve done for f--king years, I can’t help it.”
The DSO imparted some psychology 101, telling SLD he needed to “replace negative thoughts with positive ones”.
“It’s really difficult especially when you’ve been raised in the environment that you have,” he said.
“You’ve told me you want to have a family, you want to have your own place, you want to have an Xbox, you want to be able to go places.
“You want to do those things and if you enact any sort of revenge that’s never going to happen. You’re never going to get those things.”
SLD laughed as he replied: “I’m just hoping that my satisfaction with all those things I want outweighs the satisfaction I would get with revenge.”
The murderer was asked how long does the feeling of satisfaction last after enacting revenge before he disclosed disturbing thoughts about the murder.
“Well I’m not satisfied with what I actually did, but I’m still satisfied knowing that he’s still suffering,” SLD said before clarifying the “he” in question is one of Courtney’s brothers.
“I was being bullied. I was being teased … I just snapped and thought, well you know, I’ll kill him.
“But at the last minute, when I was standing at his front door, I changed my mind and I killed his sister.”
The DSO asked if this was the “right course of action” and SLD replied: “At the time yes, now no … What’s done is done, I can’t change it.”
“Well with regret with me, it’s the situation,” SLD continued when asked if he regretted murdering a child given the impact the decision has had on his life.
“I regret it being a child, but I don’t regret committing a murder,” he said.
“I don’t think like you or anyone else, for me emotions aren’t really important.”
The conversation turned with SLD stressing he would not kill another child though not ruling out claiming another life.
“If I kill someone it won’t be a child,” SLD said.
“They will always be over 18 … Like if I was to commit a murder, it would be anyone over the age of 18.”
The DSO probed about the chances of SLD committing another murder with the offender going on to say it would require something “big” to take place.
“I don’t see someone in the community and go hmm I wonder how that guy’s life is doing or etc etc why shouldn’t I kill him?” SLD explained.
“I don’t do that, so he doesn’t matter to me. They’re not anyone against me, f--k em, leave them alone, you know what I mean. I don’t just attack someone. Someone has to do something to me for me to respond.
“It would have to be big, like it can’t be a little, like, a tap on the shoulder is not gonna do it.
“Let’s say at night at a nightclub and someone f--king king hits me from behind then yeah I’m gonna do some damage if it’s not, umm, if it’s not warranted if I don’t believe I deserved it then yeah I’m gonna retaliate.
“If let’s say I hit on a woman and then her boyfriend jumps in and f--king whacks me one, obviously you know, I can understand that … But if I’m just getting whacked for no reason cause someone mistook me for someone else then yeah they’re gonna get hurt, so it has to be something either physical or something that goes on for a long long long time.”
Mr Love will deliver his verdict in December with the decision to come a week before he is sentenced in the District Court for the ESO breach.
An apprehended violence order was put in place for a period of five years for the protection of the officer and his family.
“Five years is very appropriate,” Mr Love said.
“I have no intention of doing anything like that so I don’t care,” SLD responded after being read the conditions of the AVO.
When SLD was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court 19 months after Courtney’s murder, Justice James Wood described it as a “parent’s worst nightmare”, characterising the offender as someone with “limited empathy” and a “record of bullying and domination of younger children”.
“Clearly, this was an exceedingly disturbing killing of a very young child with devastating consequences for the immediate family,” Judge Wood said.
“[The victim impact statements] demonstrate as clearly as could be imagined, the heartbreak and destructive impact of the loss of their child, in circumstances which exceed any parent’s worst nightmare.”
A sexual motive was probed during the investigation. SLD denied sexually abusing the girl, but admitted he removed her nappy in order to “find a good place to stab her”.
“No evidence was found of any sexual assault, although … concern must be entertained as to whether there was some sexual connotation involved, even if it fell short of a physical interference with her,” Wood said.
The court heard he had a history of sexually charged offending including stealing female underwear from neighbours, urinating on the bed of one of the victims and exposing his penis. He had also been charged with abducting a young girl and indecently assaulting her a week before killing Courtney.
SLD’s bleak childhood was also aired with the boy’s drug-using birth mother having a history of abuse towards her three surviving children – two other children were stillborn and one died with SIDS.
Psychiatric reports suggested she also had a severe personality disorder and had herself been born into a highly dysfunctional family. This background saw SLD enter foster care as a toddler with the couple he was with at the time of the murder adopting him as a four-year-old.
Adding to his troubles, SLD a chromosomal syndrome diagnosis causing a slightly unusual appearance and cognitive effects that could lead to anti-social behaviour and as one psychologist reported, he was a “peculiar-looking child who did peculiar things and who related to people in a peculiar way”.
Judge Wood sought out similar offending to guide his decision, but found: “Very few people of his age have been convicted of such an offence and, fortunately, few attempt it.’’
The judge referred to the horrific circumstances surrounding the murder of two-year-old James Bulger in England, who, in 1993, was abducted, tortured and murdered by 10-year-old boys Robert Thompson and Jon Venables in 1993.
The boys were sentenced to indefinite detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure on the basis their propensity to reoffend, and their danger to society, could be properly reassessed when they reached adulthood. Both boys were released at 18.
Judge Wood did not have such an option at his disposal and ultimately sentenced the killer to 20 years’ jail.
Got a court yarn? Email dylan.arvela@news.com.au
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