Twisted Minds podcast unmasks Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon’s killers

Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon were murdered by two kinds of killers. What we see as most disgusting, they find arousing. Listen to our Twisted Minds podcast.

Two young women, snatched from the street as they walked home.

Two devastating murders.

But Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon were murdered by two very different kinds of killers.

That’s the opinion of forensic psychologist, Professor James Ogloff, who assessed them both.

His introduction to Jill Meagher’s killer, Adrian Bayley, came first, in 2012.

Inside a sparsely furnished interview room at the Melbourne Assessment Prison, the two men sat facing each other on plastic chairs.

Professor James Ogloff has more than 30 years’ experience assessing violent offenders. Picture: Alex Coppel

Bayley, a serial sex offender in his 40s, red-faced and rodent-like, with spiky blonde tips.

Professor Ogloff, distinguished in slim black spectacles, approachable and fatherly in manner – a well-liked industry leader with more than 30 years’ experience assessing violent offenders.

“He really was almost somebody who had two sides to him,” Professor Ogloff, who interviewed Bayley over several hours to prepare a psychological assessment report for his sentencing hearing, tells the Twisted Minds podcast.

Listen to episode two of the podcast below:

“One side was a person that was generally likeable. He was someone that people in his private life, and even when he went into prison, really saw as a nice, likeable man.

“But he had a very hidden darkness in him, sexual feelings which he couldn’t overcome. So he was essentially dominated by the need to really rape and harm women.”

Serial sex offender and convicted killer Adrian Bayley.

Jill Meagher was raped and killed by Bayley after the pair crossed paths while she was walking home from a night out. Picture: AFP/ABC

In the early hours of 22 September, 2012, Bayley raped and murdered 29-year-old ABC worker, Jill Meagher, after spotting her walking home from a Brunswick pub.

He told Professor Ogloff he cracked onto Jill, and when she rejected him, he attacked in retaliation.

But Professor Ogloff wasn’t buying it. He’d seen the police footage of Bayley stalking Jill.

“No one in the right mind would think that in the dark, a woman walking alone is going to somehow be attracted to somebody just coming up to them. So my view is that he would formed a view very early on that he was going to sexually assault her.”

CCTV footage from Sydney Rd Brunswick the night Jill Meagher went missing.

However, he does not believe Bayley’s intention was murder. He thinks Jill’s death was a tragic outcome of the force used to subdue her.

“People like Adrian Bayley, for a variety of reasons, develop their interest really in the rape itself – forcing somebody to have sex.

“The things we find most disgusting are the things they find most arousing,” Prof Ogloff said.

“That’s why [Eurydice Dixon’s killer, Jaymes] Todd and Bayley are two very different people,” he said.

Six years after Jill Meagher’s murder, 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon was raped and murdered as she walked home through Melbourne’s Princes Park in June, 2018.

In almost identical circumstances to his meeting with Bayley, Professor Ogloff now sat opposite Eurydice’s killer, 20-year-old Jaymes Todd.

Comedian Eurydice Dixon was raped and murdered as she walked home through Melbourne’s Princes Park in June, 2018.

Professor Ogloff diagnosed Ms Dixon’s killer Jaymes Todd as a true sexual sadist. Picture: David Crosling

“He was fascinated with violence. And even though he’s a very young man, for a period of years, he was fascinated and sexually aroused, not just by sexually assaulting someone, but in fact by ending their life. So that was his motivation.”

Professor Ogloff diagnosed Todd as a true sexual sadist, a rare brand of killer responsible for between one to five per cent of homicides.

“It is very rare that somebody with such an aberrant sexual interest actually carries it out. Even if you have a dark desire to end someone’s life, it’s difficult to do that psychologically because we’re trained our whole lives not to hurt someone.

“When someone’s being attacked, they’re fearful, they’re frightened, they’re typically screaming, they’re fighting for their lives. And so most people, even if they have a desire to hurt someone, will stop. But with Todd, for whatever reason, he persisted to the point where he sexually assaulted, raped, and killed this poor young woman.”

Originally published as Twisted Minds podcast unmasks Jill Meagher and Eurydice Dixon’s killers