Kylie Maybury’s murderer Gregory Keith Davies attacked another schoolgirl with a hammer
THE killer of six-year-old Kylie Maybury attacked another schoolgirl with a hammer so violently she nearly died.
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THE killer of six-year-old Kylie Maybury attacked another schoolgirl with a hammer so violently she nearly died.
Gregory Keith Davies was convicted of attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm after bashing 14-year-old Lucy Stasiewcz on a Melbourne train in 1970.
He served several years behind bars but, tragically, was freed in ample time to then rape and murder six-year-old Kylie Maybury in 1984.
Davies yesterday admitted the Maybury offences in the Supreme Court and was remanded in custody until his sentencing hearing on September 21.
Ms Stasiewcz was so badly injured during the brutal 1970 attack on her on the Hurstbridge line that she had to give her evidence against Davies from a wheelchair at a specially-convened sitting of Melbourne Magistrates’ Court at the Austin Hospital.
“I was sitting in the compartment when a man came up and started hitting me on the head with a hammer,” the Diamond Creek schoolgirl told the court.
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“I fell to the floor and he went back into the other part of the carriage.
“Then he came back and hit me on the shoulder with the hammer once more.
“The next thing I remember was being in an ambulance.”
Her doctor told the court she had severe depressions of the skull when she arrived at hospital and that she was partly paralysed down her left side.
A relative of Davies confirmed the hammer attack and said some within the extended Davies family believed he had also sexually abused a number of girls known to him.
“I am aware of some of the girls suspected of being molested by him,” the relative, who asked not to be named, told the Herald Sun.
“I know people have tried over the years to get the girls to talk about it and report his abhorrent behaviour to police, but they haven’t been prepared to so he got away with it.”
The relative said he and others in the extended Davies family were surprised his mother and siblings welcomed him back home when he was released from Ararat jail after serving his time over the near-fatal hammer attack on Ms Stasiewcz.
“He spent some time in the psychiatric ward there,” he said.
“I used to see a fair bit of him prior to the hammer attack, but wanted nothing to do with him afterwards.”
After Davies beat Ms Stasiewcz’s head to a bloody pulp he was spotted by railway employee John Cox as he jumped off the wrong side of the train at Diamond Creek station and then ran across the track as the train moved off.
Diamond Creek Constable Albert Cole later saw Davies standing on the platform holding a gladstone bag.
“I asked him some questions and he appeared nervous and agitated,” Constable Cole told the court.
“I noticed a hammer in the bag. It had red stains on the head and on the handle.
“There were also red stains on the left leg of his jeans.”
Davies was arrested and later convicted. At the time he was 28-year-old welder of Francis Grove, Thornbury.
“He tried to use the excuse that he had been paint sniffing and that had affected him, but I don’t believe that,” the relative said.