Gregory Keith Davies admits 1984 murder of Melbourne girl Kylie Maybury
THE mother of murder victim Kylie Maybury has revealed she used to visit the family home of the man who has pleaded guilty to the 1984 murder of her daughter.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- The vicious crime that shocked the state
- Mum’s first glimpse of alleged killer
- Accused killer ‘always looking for a beer’
THE mother of murder victim Kylie Maybury used to visit the family home of the man who has pleaded guilty to the 1984 murder of her daughter.
“I was stunned to find out I knew his mother,” Julie Maybury told the Herald Sun.
Ms Maybury was in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court yesterday as paedophile Gregory Keith Davies, 74, admitted to raping and murdering six-year-old Kylie almost 32 years ago.
It was through DNA that the police finally got their man.
More: Maybury horror not easily forgotten
DNA wasn’t on anybody’s radar when Davies kidnapped Kylie as she walked back to her Gregory Grove home in East Preston on Melbourne Cup Day in 1984 after buying a bag of sugar at a nearby shop.
The first time DNA evidence was used in a criminal case in Victoria wasn’t until five years later and it hadn’t been used as evidence anywhere in the world at the time Davies attacked Kylie.
That meant Davies had no idea at the time that the bodily fluids he left behind would one day be able to not just implicate him in the rape and murder of Kylie, but prove he did it.
It wasn’t until homicide squad detectives visited Davies on April 8, 2016, at his home in Ryans Rd, Waterford Park — after suspicions arose from an earlier tip-off to police that he might be Kylie’s killer — that they got a voluntary DNA sample from him to compare with the one from the Kylie crime scene.
Those detectives were rewarded when the Victoria Police DNA database found the DNA the killer left at the scene perfectly matched Davies’ DNA.
Davies was arrested on June 9, 2016, and charged over Kylie’s death.
He initially denied raping and murdering Kylie, telling detectives it was coincidence that he happened to be in the area at the time Kylie went missing.
Faced with the damning DNA evidence, Davies yesterday decided to plead guilty on what had been set down as the first day of his preliminary hearing.
Ms Maybury shed a tear in court as she stared down the man who so cruelly took away her beloved Kylie.
She had been preparing to take the witness box to give evidence.
Grasping her husband Bruce’s hand, she breathed a sigh of relief as Davies told the court he was pleading guilty to the brutal crime that shocked the nation.
Outside the court, Ms Maybury yesterday said Davies’ guilty plea was unexpected, but welcome.
“I’m so totally over the moon that he’s done it,” she said. “We all can move on and we don’t have to look in the dark again.
“The dark is nearly over.”
Documents released by the court yesterday reveal Davies was one of hundreds of people questioned by police in the days following the dumping of Kylie’s body in a gutter in Donald St, East Preston, but there was no evidence then to make him a suspect.