Killer Daryl Suckling dies while serving life for Jodie Larcombe’s murder

Killer Daryl Suckling has died in prison, taking to the grave the secrets of where he buried his young victims.

Killer Daryl Suckling has died in jail taking to his grave the secrets of where he buried his young victims.

Suckling, 84, who was serving a life sentence for the murder of Jodie Larcombe, 21, in 1987, was recently twice taken from jail to his killing fields outside Mildura where he told homicide detectives he could help them find Jodie’s body.

Despite a massive search, her remains were never found.

Her dad Ken Larcombe said on Tuesday that while he had now lost the chance of finding his daughter, he knew Suckling would never have told the truth.

“We would have never found her and he was never going to tell anyone where she was because of the other bodies of the girls he has out there,” Mr Larcombe said.

Daryl Suckling was arrested in 1989.

Jodie Larcombe was abducted from St Kilda in 1987, taken to an isolated property in NSW and killed. Her body has never been found.

Suckling was working as a caretaker on remote Wyarama Station when he drugged and killed Jodie after abducting her from Melbourne. He had a rap sheet six pages long covering NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, that included almost every crime in the book including carnal knowledge.

He had walked away from three rape charges and police believed there were more murder victims.

When he was finally arrested it was after the police Polair helicopter taped him looking for a fresh burial site on the NSW Central Coast for a women he had targeted as his next victim.

Truck driver Mr Larcombe, who moved to Mildura to be close to Jodie, said he was not sure how he felt.

His wife Dot suicided the day after Suckling lodged an appeal against his murder conviction.

“It’s the end of a saga,” he said.

“The consolation is both the girls (Dot and Jodie) are at peace together and his death means the end of a 34-year battle.”

He had engaged a solicitor and was hoping to get parole for telling police where Jodie was buried.

Police formed Strike Force Turret earlier this year after being contacted by Suckling’s solicitor.

He died in Long Bay Jail hospital on Monday night of natural causes after suffering emphysema and other health conditions.

“I don’t feel any joy about his death – he now has to atone for his earthly sins,” said now retired Detective Superintendent Peter Lennon, who hunted down Suckling along with the late police officer Mick McGann, said.

“I’m still filled with terrible sadness for the terrible pain and death he caused when he was alive. Pain that is still carried.”

Jodie Larcombe’s father Ken outside his home in Mildura. Picture: David Sickerdick

Suckling was not convicted until 1996 after the two original investigators, now retired Detective Superintendent Peter Lennon and the late Mick McGann, stuck with the case despite their first attempt to charge him being dropped by prosecutors.

They were investigating the abduction and rape of another young woman when they found Jodie’s belongings at Wyarama Station, near Pooncarie. They found photographs of her on a roll of film and worked back to where and when they had been taken.

Suckling never admitted to killing Jodie but secretly boasted that he cut off her nipples and had them as a keepsake in his tobacco pouch.

He was also secretly taped saying he had cut out her vagina and used it to keep his cigarette papers in. He said he tied her hands to the bullbar of his Landcruiser and chopped them off.