Remember when ... one of Australia’s most brutal slayings occurred at Kingscliff back in 1982

A MARSDEN boy, tortured and stabbed to death in front of his mate was found buried in a shallow, sandy grave on a lonely beach south of Kingscliff.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Bulletin 1982, May 6. Front page.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Thursday May 6, 1982

A MARSDEN boy, tortured and stabbed to death in front of his mate was found buried in a shallow, sandy grave on a lonely beach south of Kingscliff.

The “bizarre” murder of the boy later revealed to be Peter Aston was reported to Beenleigh police at 2am the previous morning after the surviving boy was released by his captors.

He told police he and his friend had been abducted by two men in a four-wheel drive and driven to Kingscliff

Police said the boy, Terry Ryan witnessed the torture and killing of Aston whose body was found soon after, less than a kilometre from where the badly decomposed bodies of Gold Coast couple Phillip Baker and Caroline Dow were found three years earlier.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Bulletin 1982, May 6. Front page.

The boys had been abducted while Aston was attempting to hitchhike to his hometown of Melbourne.

Ryan had agreed to keep him company as far south as the Gold Coast before going home.

Robert Reid and his accomplice Paul Luckman, both serving army personnel, were soon arrested and charged before appearing in Tweed Heads Court.

However, death threats against the men led the case to be moved to Sydney where both were found guilty and sentence to life imprisonment.

Luckman later came out as being transgender, became known as Nicole Louise Pearce and was released from prison in 1999.

Reid remains imprisoned, having had his sentence cut to 24 years and has been out of his non-parol period for a decade.