John William Holznagel now a preacher in Rosewood after murdering wife Christine

A preacher in a sleepy Queensland town is actually a convicted murderer jailed for brutally stabbing his estranged wife and her lover to death.

A man who brutally murdered his estranged wife and her new boyfriend more than four decades ago is now a preacher living in a small town west of Brisbane.

John William Holznagel, then 24, and his wife Christine Joan Holznagel, 20, had been separated for several months in 1979 and shared a three-year-old daughter together.

Christine had moved in with 22-year-old John Steven Kingston, and Holznagel knew the couple would be out on Saturday, July 21, 1979.

He broke into Christine’s home on Mona St in Coorparoo about 6.30pm and lay in wait for several hours under his own daughter’s bed – the girl was away, staying with her grandparents.

When Christine and John returned about 11pm, Holznagel, armed with a fishing knife, crawled into the couple’s room and murdered them in a frenzied attack.

Speaking for the first time since the horror murders, Christine’s siblings revealed the 20-year-old’s phone line had been cut weeks earlier.

“Before my sister was murdered she confided in me that her phone wasn’t working and hadn’t been working for a couple of weeks … no one came out and fixed it,” Christine’s older brother Peter Abel said. “But when I moved all the stuff out from under her house I found where her (line) had been cut.”

Preacher John Holznagel in Rosewood.

Speaking about a bloody handprint on a wall of the Mona St home, Peter said: “That was Christine’s handprint, it was beside the phone and the phone was off the hook … she’d tried to call (for help). I think Christine just got married too early. She was married at 17. I’d moved out of home, Christine wanted to move out of home and I think she saw (getting married) as a way of getting out.”

Christine’s sister, who wished to remain anonymous, described Holznagel as a “crazed animal”.

Christine's brother Paul Abel Picture: Nigel Hallett

“You can’t do anything, but imagine what (Christine) went through … it wasn’t quick or with mercy, it was drawn-out and horrific,” she said.

Residents in the quaint town of Rosewood, which lies between Brisbane and Toowoomba, told The Sunday Mail that Holznagel led the occasional lay service at St Matthew’s Lutheran Church.

Christine’s younger brother Paul Abel said he came face-to-face with Holznagel at a family wedding about 20 years ago.

He said Holznagel was joined by his second wife, Judith, a former Queensland Corrective Services educational officer.

“I was still a police officer at the time (and) managed to get permission to attend the wedding while on duty so I was in full uniform,” Paul said.

Paul said during the ceremony a man turned around and said ‘hi, how are you doing, it’s good to see you again’.

“As you do, I reached out and grabbed this person’s hand – it was only when I was holding his hand that I looked into his eyes and realised who it was. It was John,” he said.

“It was a very surreal feeling, shaking the same hand that had just killed my sister 20 years earlier.”

Paul, who was just nine years old at the time of the murders, vividly remembers being told about Christine’s death and was traumatised by comments including that his sister had been “cut to ribbons”.

“(Christine and Holznagel) weren’t related (but) it was actually my cousin who murdered my sister,” he said.

Paul claimed Holznagel visited their family home on the Sunshine Coast a week before the murders.

“ (Holznagel) spoke to my mum, who was his aunty, and just sort of said ‘Aunty Glor, my girl is leaving me’,” he said.

Christine Holznagel (left), her brother Peter and sister Debbie. Christine Holznagel and John Kingston were murdered by her estranged husband John Holznagel on July 21, 1979. Photo: Supplied.

“The murder itself was quite calculated and premeditated … he knew what he was doing, he had planned it from the start. There was no remorse.”

Peter claimed he was allowed inside the Mona St home just 24 hours after the murders to pick up clothes for Christine’s daughter, Julie.

“I was 21 at the time, and honestly I still can’t get the sight out of my mind, nothing was cleaned up … it was the murder scene,” he said.

“It looked like someone had butchered a cow in there, there was a piece of meat the size of my hand just lying on the carpet.”

Holznagel was sentenced to life imprisonment on both murder counts but served about 13 years behind bars.

The Sunday Mail previously reported that Christine’s own mother found the bodies when she tried to drop Julie home about 9am on Sunday, July 22.

“Christine was slumped against the door,” Peter said.

Detectives at the time believed Holznagel found the couple in bed, killed John, and forced Christine to change her clothing, with blood stains and knife holes on the bedsheets.

The crown alleged Christine ran up the hall to the front veranda, where Holznagel lunged at her, striking and slashing her. She received multiple wounds to her head and body and her face was slashed laterally from the corners of her mouth.

Holznagel left the Mona St home, threw the knife into Breakfast Creek, and went to work the next day as a train guard before he was later arrested at Yandina.

The defence case was that Holznagel’s capacity to control his actions had been substantially impaired by his state of abnormality of mind. He pleaded not guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Preacher John Holznagel in Rosewood.

: Preacher John Holznagel in Rosewood.

Christine’s body was found near bloodstained walls on an enclosed veranda while John’s body was near the couple’s bedroom. The murder weapon was never recovered.

Paul said Christine, who was a month away from her 21st birthday, seemed “so mature, so indestructible”.

“Dad quite literally went white overnight … he was a different man the next day,” he said. “Mum was a little bit more removed because she had a foot in both camps … it was her nephew and her step daughter … she wanted to forgive (Holznagel).

“At the time there was no forgiveness in my heart … I can’t say that I hate him nor can I say I’ve forgiven him.

Christine Holznagel and her new boyfriend John Kingston were murdered at a Coorparoo home in 1979, with the 20-year-old's estranged husband John Holznagel later charged – Blood smeared wall just inside the front door of the house on Mona Street, Coorparoo where the body of a young women was found Picture Courier mail archive

“To know that she had defensive (wounds), she knew what was coming, she knew what was happening … so the mental anguish that she would have gone through in the moments before she was killed.”

Paul, who was a police officer for 15 years, said the murder hardened him and prepared him for “the real world”.

“It would be hard to deny that that wasn’t one of the reasons why I ended up wearing the uniform,” he said.

Peter first met Holznagel at a family lunch.

Christine Holznagel and her new boyfriend John Kingston were murdered at a Coorparoo home in 1979. Picture: Courier mail archive

“He had driven up from Rosewood and he was spruiking off that their cat had had seven kittens and they didn’t want them so he put them in the saddlebags of his motorbike and just kept throwing them out on the highway … he wasn’t the type of guy I would make friends with” he said.

Peter claimed his family were not aware Holznagel had been released until the wedding.

“It’s sickening … I never wanted to speak to him again,” he said.

St Matthew’s Lutheran Church has been contacted for comment.

Originally published as John William Holznagel now a preacher in Rosewood after murdering wife Christine