‘Brutal and cruel’ killer William Matheson denied parole after murdering Lyndsay van Blanken

He killed a talented young woman and hid her body in a cricket bag - now William Matheson has been denied release seven years before his sentence ends.

Almost two decades after the “brutal and cruel” murder of Lyndsay van Blanken, the outcast who strangled her and hid her body in a cricket bag has been considered and denied parole.

William Matheson is currently serving 25 years in prison after killing Ms van Blanken, a gifted animator with a promising career at Disney, in November 2003.

Late last month the State Parole Authority were required to consider paroling Matheson ahead of his earliest possible release date in May.

That would mean the killer would be allowed to live in the community, albeit under strict conditions, for the final seven years of his sentence.

But the SPA, acting on the advice of its own experts, told The Daily Telegraph they are planning to refuse his release bid.

“Having considered all the relevant expert advice and reports, the SPA decided parole is not in the interests of community safety,” a spokeswoman said this week.

Ms van Blanken was a beloved daughter and talented animator whose killer is now seeking parole.

Lyndsay van Blanken aged 18.

Matheson has been in custody since his arrest in 2004.

He was then a 23-year-old social and academic failure who won the affection of his victim by playing the cello at the wedding of Ms van Blanken’s mother and stepfather.

Ms van Blanken, a warm and affectionate young woman, went on long walks with Matheson before she met someone else.

Court documents show Matheson became obsessive and began stalking Ms van Blanken after she met the love of her life over the internet and became engaged.

Ms van Blanken and her new partner were followed by Matheson before the young woman told her mother she was getting “very frightened” by Matheson shortly before her death.

Stalker and killer William Matheson shocked the city when he murdered his former girlfriend and left her body in a unit block storage room.

Matheson, on an evening in November 2003, waited for Ms van Blanken outside a Bondi Junction pub and walked with her toward Queens Park.

She was never seen alive again.

Six weeks later the bag containing Ms van Blanken’s body was found in a storage room under a Queens Park apartment block.

The court found that Matheson had tightened zip ties around Ms van Blanken’s throat, strangling her to death.

“It is a horror which haunts her mother and her sister to this day,” the judge noted, sentencing Matheson.

Matheson stuffed the young woman in a cricket bag then went to Sydney Entertainment Centre and played his cello for a crowd, acting “quite normally” through the evening.

Witnesses recalled seeing him covered in scratches and marks.

William Matheson is arrested by detectives at his Oberon Street home in Randwick, Sydney, for the murder of ex girlfriend Lyndsay van Blanken.

Police later discovered only one bag of that type had been sold in the entire Eastern Suburbs over the prior six months — and CCTV showed Matheson carrying it out of the shops.

When the jury found Matheson guilty his lawyers tried to argue it was a “crime of passion”.

But the judge found the killing was just “brutal and cruel in the extreme”.

Matheson claimed he had mental health disorders including voices in his head that told him to kill.

But psychological experts questioned how impaired he was by his mental health given he had planned, days in advance, to buy the cricket bag and cable ties.

Matheson will finish his sentence in May 2029 and will be eligible to reapply for parole multiple times before that date.