NSW’s murder hot spots revealed: criminologist shines light on data
Murder is one of the worst imaginable crimes, yet in some areas, this awful, deadly act happens too often. We have crunched a decade of data to reveal the state’s murder hot spots.
Southern Courier
Don't miss out on the headlines from Southern Courier. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Murder is one of the worst imaginable crimes. The idea of a person taking someone else’s life is, for many, incomprehensible. But the deadly, awful act happens all too often.
In NSW, the rate of murder is dropping but at a slower pace than other criminal offences. A fresh analysis of data has revealed the murder hot spots across the state, with a criminologist shedding light on the types of homicide most difficult to tackle.
In the ten years to December 2021 there were 722 incidents of murder recorded across NSW, figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show.
Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland and Blacktown had the most reported murders, with 54, 42 and 40 respectively.
Sydney was next on the list, with 37 reported murders, followed by the Central Coast with 35, Fairfield with 29 and Newcastle with 27.
Canterbury-Bankstown had the highest number of murder incidents in four of the 10 years (2017, 2016, 2013 and 2012), Blacktown had the highest number three times (2020, 2018 and 2015) while Cumberland recorded the most murders in 2019 and 2014.
Murder rates in the majority of the hot spots have dropped slightly across the past decade – and that’s also the case across NSW in general, except for last year.
While the yearly figure dropped 30 per cent from 2012 to 2021 (73 to 51), it was just five per cent lower in 2020 compared to 2012, and was a mere one per cent lower in 2019 than in 2012.
Criminology professor at the University of Wollongong, Jason Payne, said there were various reasons why murder rates had not dropped as fast as other types of crime.
“What we know is a substantial proportion of murders are intimate partner violence, and that has proven to be the type of homicide that can’t be brought down quite as quickly,” Professor Payne said.
“What has trended down faster over the past 10 years is homicide between strangers, such as in bars and clubs.”
Professor Payne was cautious about over-interpreting trends of the relatively low data set of individual LGAs.
He said understanding socio-economic levels was helpful in learning about what drives certain crimes, but stressed domestic violence affected all sectors of society.
When it came to the influence of organised crime, Professor Payne said it was difficult to know the true scale of its impact.
“One hidden element is the statistics on missing persons and their link to homicides,” he said.
“When a person goes missing in a potential link to organised crime and is presumed dead after a long time, that might not necessarily be recorded as a homicide.”
Other LGAs that were listed in the top three over the years were: Parramatta, Lake Macquarie, Liverpool and Penrith.
Behind every statistic is someone taken from their loved ones too soon, under brutal circumstances.
Some of those murdered in the state’s hot spots were:
Kirralee Paepaerei – victim
In March 2018, Joshua Homann was found guilty of murdering his pregnant partner, Kirralee Paepaerei, killing their unborn child. Ms Paepaerei suffered nearly 50 stab wounds to her neck and chest at their Blacktown townhouse. He was sentenced to at least 22 years in jail for the brutal slashing.
Dane McNeill – victim
It was an unassuming garbage collector who stumbled across the young body of Dane McNeill in a smouldering suitcase at Picnic Point, near Bankstown. The 20-year-old suffered a spiralling ice addiction before he was murdered. Brothers Azam and Haysem Charbaji were found guilty of the murder in 2016. Haysem was jailed for 36 years with a non-parole period of 27 years for the violent crime, while his brother got 32 years with a 24-year non-parole period.
Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara – murderers
Former NSW Police detectives Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara were jailed for life for shooting dead drug dealer Jamie Gao in a Padstow storage unit in 2014, before wrapping his body in a tarpaulin and dumping it in Cronulla.
Laurie Starling – victim
Bikie John Richard Weston killed a custom car builder “on a whim” in a dispute over a rare motorcycle, and was jailed in 2017 for more than 25 years. The 37-year-old ambushed and shot dead Laurie Starling as the 29-year-old left his NSW Central Coast business The Chop Shop. Starling had innocently tried to retrieve a unique, custom-made motorcycle that was seized by Weston’s gang. Weston was sentenced to more than 25 years jail.
Michaela Dunn – victim
Michaela Dunn campaigned against sexual violence and online harassment before she discreetly worked in the sex industry. Mert Ney, known as the “CBD stabber” made an appointment with the 24-year-old at her fourth-floor Clarence Street unit before murdering her in August 2019. Court heard he took a 10 second video of her lying dead on the floor and texted his friend saying “I was laughing bro”.
Ney was convicted of murder and sentenced to 44 years prison.
Luke Close – murderer
A 34-year-old man who stabbed his friend 52 times in a “frenzy” after a failed search of his home for drugs was jailed for 21 years in November, 2020.
Luke Close was sentenced to 21 years jail for the murder of 63-year-old Garry Welsh, 63, inside a Nowra unit in 2018.
The court heard Close was drunk and high on stimulants and an opioid at the time of the murder, and the next day had no memory of his “unplanned and irrational but intentional” attack on his “sick and defenceless” friend who trusted him.
Kristian Kovaleff – murderer
Calculated killer, Kristian Kovaleff, went to Bunnings the day he knifed a teenage girl at a Parramatta apartment tower and bought a saw — in case her body failed to fit in the boot of his BMW and needed to be chopped up. Kovaleff, 19, plotted to fatally stab the 17-year-old before leaving her slain body in the apartment bedroom and casually telling her injured friend he wanted to “chill out’’ instead of call an ambulance.
Kovaleff has pleaded guilty to murder and will face sentencing at the Supreme Court on May 6.
Lowes owner lists Vaucluse home for $18m
The co-owner of Lowes Menwear has listed his Vaucluse home for sale with an $18m guide following an upgrade to a Rose Bay mansion that cost nearly $40m.
Former Fairfax exec lists luxury pad above Delta
A former Fairfax Media chief executive has listed his luxury apartment in the same block as where superstar Delta Goodrem owns.