Scott Alan Murdoch pleads guilty to Melbourne mum’s murder
The family of Pakenham mum Kylie Blackwood has told of their trauma after a man pleaded guilty to murdering her while he was free on parole.
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A man who murdered a suburban mum in her home was free on parole over a brutal stabbing and bludgeoning of another woman.
Scott Alan Murdoch on Thursday pleaded guilty to the murder of mother of three Kylie Blackwood in her Pakenham home in 2013.
His plea came just hours before his Supreme Court trial was to start.
The Herald Sun can reveal Murdoch, 42, was being supervised on parole after serving time in prison over the 2006 attack on a woman he had met on a chat line.
He stabbed the woman at her Berwick home before bludgeoning her with a paperweight after she refused to have sex with him.
The single mother spent six weeks in hospital.
Murdoch had also become increasingly agitated in fortnightly meetings with his parole officer in the months before he killed Mrs Blackwood in what was suspected as being a burglary gone wrong.
In one meeting he was labelled a “moderate” risk to public safety.
It emerged years later that just hours prior to that meeting he had slit another woman’s throat.
“We deserve protection from these people, we deserve better,” family friend and former local MP Brian Paynter said.
“It’s just a pattern that keeps repeating. It’s another violent act by a man against a woman.”
Murdoch will be sentenced at a later date. Murder carries a maximum penalty of life in jail.
But Mr Paynter said Mrs Blackwood’s remorseless killer deserved no leniency for his guilty plea some six years later.
He said those years had been torturous for the 42-year-old’s family.
“There is just relief that there is an end in sight for the court case and he will be behind bars for a very long time hopefully,” Mr Paynter told the Herald Sun.
“It’s been extremely difficult. No family should suffer this type of trauma.”
In April 2016, it was Mr Paynter who sprayed abuse at Murdoch, calling him a “gutless coward” during a Melbourne Magistrates’ Court hearing.
Murdoch on Thursday also pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury to 79-year-old grandmother Ilona Prohaska when he barged into her Endeavour Hills home and slit her throat about 3pm on May 21, 2013 — less than three months before Mrs Blackwood’s twin daughters would find their mother dead.
He ran from Ms Prohaska’s home, leaving her unconscious in a pool of blood after hammering a knife into her neck, and went straight to an appointment with his parole officer.
In the Corrections worker’s notes from the supervised meeting at 4.30pm, she noted he appeared “unwell” and marked his risk of reoffending as “moderate”.
She said Murdoch advised there had been “no violent behaviour or issues since last appointment”.
“Scott reported that he did not want to live his life as a violent person,” she reported.
PAKENHAM MUM’S KILLER A TICKING TIME BOMB
She went on to see him another six times until August 28 — the same month he killed Mrs Blackwood — when she moved offices.
Murdoch’s case mirrors those of other parolees who were free to kill.
Adrian Bayley was on parole when he raped and murdered Jill Meagher, and Sarah Cafferkey was killed by Steven James Hunter nine days after his parole expired.