Child killer Derek Percy responsible for Melbourne girl Linda Stilwell’s death
CHILD killer Derek Percy is responsible for the death of seven-year-old Melbourne girl Linda Stilwell who vanished 46 years ago, an inquest has found. WATCH THE VIDEO
Law & Order
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Notorious child killer Derek Percy abducted and killed seven-year-old schoolgirl Linda Stilwell, a coronial inquest found today.
The finding by Deputy State Coroner Iain West ended a 46-year wait for some form of justice for Linda’s grieving mother Jean Priest and her family.
But despite being questioned on his death bed in hospital last year, Percy continued his refusal to identify the location where he left Linda’s body, claiming he was not involved in her murder or could not recall it or other child mutilation murders he is suspected of carrying out.
LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER: A PORTRAIT OF DEREK PERCY
“We just hope that eventually somebody will find Linda’s remains so that we can give her a decent funeral and show her the respect she deserved, rather than how it’s been left,” Mrs Priest said outside the hearing.
“But this has just been marvellous today. A sort of closure.”
Mrs Priest and her son and Linda’s brother, Gary Stilwell, said Percy, 65, showed no remorse and could find no shred of decency in himself to tell them what he did with Linda.
“I would have liked to have got the full answers, but it doesn’t look like we’ll ever get those answers,” Mrs Priest said.
Mr Stilwell said Percy was an evil predator.
“It’s now been proved that Derek Percy prayed on Linda and other innocent children,” he said.
“Thank God he has passed away and is not here to inflict anymore emotional and physical pain on us.”
Based on witness evidence and partial admissions by Percy about being in St Kilda where Linda was abducted on August 10, 1968, Mr West this morning officially found Linda “met her death by foul play” and that “Derek Percy caused the death of Linda Jane Stilwell”.
The five-year long inquest was delayed as appeals through higher courts were mounted by Ms Priest and her lawyers, Elizabeth McKinnon and Simon Gillespie-Jones, to finally compel Percy to give evidence before the coroner.
Prior to his death from lung cancer in July 2013, Percy had been Victoria’s longest serving prisoner after being jailed for the 1969 killing and mutilation of Yvonne Tuohy, 12 — for which he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Linda was abducted from the St Kilda foreshore 11 months before Yvonne was brutally killed at Warneet in 1969.
But he has remained a chief suspect in several other gruesome child murders and has previously admitted being in South Australia when the three Beaumont children were abducted in 1966, was in Canberra the same year Allen Redston was murdered, also 1966, and when Simon Brook was killed in Glebe, outside Sydney in 1968.
Tellingly, the spate of horrendous child abduction and mutilation killings in the mid-to-late 1960s ended after Percy was jailed.