Goulburn Jail: Take a look at which criminals have served time at the facility

Goulburn Supermax is home to some of Australia’s most frightening criminals. Find out who’s spent time in the notorious prison.

Correctional Services Officer checks a cell in the high-risk management unit at Goulburn Jail 31/10/01. Pic Chris Pavlich. NSW / Prison / Interior

Within concrete walls, steel bars and electric fencing live some of the state’s most notorious and frightening criminals.

The Goulburn Supermax has been home to some of the nation’s most dangerous murderers, gang rapists, terrorists and paedophiles since September 2001.

Housing only males and built in 1884 the Goulburn Correctional Centre, the jail is located in the Southern Tablelands, 197km southwest of Sydney.

From sex pests to the men involved in murders that shocked the nation, take a look at who has served time in the prison.

MALCOLM NADEN

Malcolm Naden.

Born in 1973 Malcolm Naden was once one of the most wanted men in Australia.

After nearly seven years on the run, Naden was captured in 2012 and charged with the murder of his cousin Lateesha Nolan and his neighbour Kristy Scholes.

He also pleaded guilty to the indecent assault of 12-year-old girl and attempted murder of a police officer.

A year later in 2013 Naden thanked Justice Derek Price for his life sentence before he was led away to the Goulburn facility.

“Life outside a prison is not an option for him,” Justice Price said.

But even in jail Naden continues to make headlines as he was bashed by his second cousin Dean Nolan, with the handle of a sandwich toaster.

IVAN MILAT

Ivan Milat. Picture: Supplied.

Last year many Australian’s breathed a sigh of relief on October 27 as news hit that serial Ivan Milat had died.

Milat spent the majority of his seven life sentences at the Goulburn facility for the vile murders of seven backpackers who disappeared between 1989 and 1992.

Milat’s victims were discovered in the Belanglo State Forest.

He was held in solitary confinement in Goulburn until the final months of his life when he was transferred to the hospital ward suffering from advanced oesophageal cancer.

Milat made no deathbed confessions and claimed his innocence right until his last breath.

ROBERT HUGHES

Robert Hughes. Picture: Bradley Hunter

Hey Dad! star and convicted paedophile, Robert Hughes is one of the high profile men who have been hidden behind the fences at the Goulburn prison.

The disgraced actor was sent to the facility after he was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault and seven counts of indecent assault.

His victims were aged between seven and 15-years-old at the time of the crimes.

He was ordered to serve 10 years and nine months behind bars with a minimum non-parole period of six years.

His bid for parole was rejected in April of this year, leaving the former star’s chances to escape the cells early, unlikely.

But there was no celebrity treatment for the sex pest as its understood inmates at the Goulburn facility attacked Hughes by covering him in human faeces and urine.

MALCOLM BAKER

Malcolm Baker. Supplied.

After killing six people including his son, ex girlfriend, her sister, and their father in one of the worst killing sprees Australia had seen, Goulburn jail was the only suitable place to send Malcolm Baker.

On the evening of 27 October, 1992 Baker went on the shooting spree in Terrigal, Bateau Bay and Wyong and is the event that will be known through history as the Central Coast Massacre.

Less than an hour later Baker turned himself into police and at 2.30am hidden under a blanket, he was transferred from Toukley Police Station to Gosford Police Station.

He was charged with six counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

Baker was committed to stand trial and on August 6, 1993, and was sentenced to life imprisonment for each of the six murders.

He was one of the first six inmates of Goulburn Jail’s High Risk Management Unit upon its creation in 2001.

MICHAEL MURPHY

Anita Cobby. (AAP Image/Supplied)

Michael Murphy served most of his life sentence at the Goulburn jail after a judge ordered him, along with four others to be never released after committing a crime that shocked the nation.

Michael Murphy, 66, was one of the five men convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of 26-year-old nurse and beauty queen known as Anita Cobby in 1986.

Cobby’s life was cut suddenly short after she was walking home from Blacktown train station when the men dragged her into a stolen Holden Kingswood.
Its understood she bled to death in a secluded paddock after she was raped, bashed and had her throat cut.

Murphy died in 2019 in prison from liver cancer.

On Guard – an eight-part podcast – uncovers what really goes on behind bars as former correctional officers share shocking secrets from the frontline of working with some of Australia’s most infamous criminals. Listen below.