Beauty Point home where Sydney Granny Killer John Glover claimed his last victim has been sold
A MULTI-MILLION dollar house in one of Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs that was once the chilling scene of an infamous serial killer’s last stand has a new owner.
THE Beauty Point house where infamous Sydney ‘granny killer’ John Glover murdered his last victim was sold on Friday.
The property, at 14 Pindari Ave, Beauty Point, was sold for an undisclosed price, believed to be in the high $3 millions. It had price expectations of $4.1 million pre-auction, but the price range was amended to $3.6-$3.9 million after it was passed in on April 2.
The property was where Glover was finally captured, having tried to kill himself in the bath after leaving the bloodied body of 60-year-old widow Joan Violet Sinclair on the carpet on March 19, 1990.
She was the last victim in Glover’s killing spree. The middle-aged pie salesman from Mosman had previously bludgeoned to death five other women — three in other locations in Mosman — and terrorised the suburb.
The property had not changed hands for 25 years, since it was put on the market at the end of 1990, only months after the tragic murder of its owner.
In an advertisement at the time, the property was described as “a truly rare find”.
Selling agent, Sandro Petrini of Belle Property, said before the sale that potential buyers had been told of the house’s history.
He said he had received a mixed reaction to the information but the property’s size made it a rare offering in the area.
Disclosure requirements for agents selling houses in which a violent crime has occurred are not set in stone.
Under section 52 of the state’s Property, Stock and Business Agents Act, 2002, real estate agents across NSW are obliged to disclose to potential buyers any ‘material facts’ that may influence their decision to purchase a property, including a violent crime.
But according to REINSW President John Cunningham, the definition — or lack of definition — of what exactly a material fact is, is largely left up to agent’s discretion to determine, leaving disclosure open to ambiguity.
The only precedent case that they can draw on is that of Sef Gonzales, who in 2004 murdered his family in a Sydney home, which was subsequently sold by two LJ Hooker agents to buyers who were not aware of the crime at the time of purchase.
After discovering the crime, they chose not to proceed with the sale, prompting a review of the laws surrounding disclosure.
“We’re in a really tricky place because we don’t have enough definition and we are in the process of working with Fair Trading to get a better definition surrounding ‘material fact’,” Mr Cunningham said.
“In the case of 26 years ago, it’s a question of what is reasonable. Would it be reasonable that everyone would want to know that? Would it be reasonable that it would have a negative impact on everyone? So we as practitioners need to get better guidance within the laws to determine what is and what isn’t reasonable within the respect of material fact.”
Richardson & Wrench Mosman and Neutral Bay director Robert Simeon, who assisted in the sale of the home in 1991, declined to comment on the relisting of the property or its past.
However, in an article published on realestate.com.au in February 2014, he was quoted as saying the home was on the market for quite some time following the murders, and was eventually sold at a heavily discounted price.
The multi-million dollar property sits on an impressive 1442sq m of land and the property still has a tennis court and swimming pool but the house itself has been renovated.
In advertisements this month in The Mosman Daily, the property was described as a grand estate “Rising resplendent amid private parklike gardens, the elegant ‘Pindari’ presents an inspiring blank canvas.....”
TRAGIC LAST STAND
THE murder of Joan Sinclair, 60, in March 1990 was doubly tragic because, by then, police had Glover under surveillance and were sitting in cars up and down Pindari Ave while he was inside committing the murder.
The police didn’t storm the house until the lights failed to go on after dark, only to find Sinclair’s body and Glover naked in the bath. He had taken a cocktail of tablets and whiskey.
Glover allegedly told police he had formed an intimate friendship with Sinclair over 18 months.
According to police, Glover told them in reference to murdering Sinclair: “I can’t help myself, Half of me wants to do these things and half of me doesn’t.”
Police claimed at the time they had no reason to suspect Glover would murder Sinclair, particularly as she was younger than the other “grannies’’.
“There was no cause for the police surveillance team to think that his visit was for the purpose of anything other than a social or a business visit,’’ Inspector Hagan said after Glover’s arrest.
GLOVER DIES IN JAIL
GLOVER was convicted in 1991 of the murder of six elderly women and other counts of attempted murder, indecent assault and robbery.
He was sentenced to jail and marked never to be released. He committed suicide in jail by choking himself on a bedsheet in 2005.
His other victims over a 13-month period included Gwendoline Mitchelhill, 82, who was killed at the entrance to her Military Rd home near Mosman Village
Glover also killed Lady Winifreda Ashton, 85, outside her unit in Raglan St, Muriel Falconer, 93, in Muston St, Mosman, and Margaret Pahud, 85.
Doris Cox, 86, was bashed by Glover but survived the attack.
Margaret Pahud, 78, was murdered in a Lane Cove backstreet and Olive Cleveland, 81, was killed at a Belrose retirement village.
He attempted to kill Doris Cox, 86, at The Garrison retirement complex at Spit Junction but she survived.
Glover was also suspected of killing at least 11 other women including artist and socialite Florence Broadhurst but he never confessed to any other murders.
The Mosman community was horrified when Glover was arrested.
He was often described as a charming man “a pillar of the Mosman community” who frequented the Mosman RS Club and had even safely escorted elderly women home, warning them of the dangers of the Granny Killer.
His wife and two daughters, who had no inkling of his double life, fled to New Zealand after his arrest.
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