Scott Alan Murdoch’s horrific criminal history dating back 16 years revealed
Scott Alan Murdoch’s violence always seemed destined to end in murder. Before he stabbed Kylie Blackwood in her Pakenham home, the remorseless thug bludgeoned a young mum and beat a teenager so severely he was left gurgling blood.
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Scott Alan Murdoch was a ticking time bomb.
His horrific criminal history dating back 16 years seemed to be building to murder.
Murdoch’s shocking violence began at 20 when he beat a teenager limp, leaving him with brain damage, and continued up to his attack on a grandmother with a knife just weeks before he finally killed.
Kylie Blackwood was found dead in her McCaffery Rise home in Pakenham by her 11-year-old twin daughters on August 1, 2013.
She had been savagely stabbed to death in what police suspected was a burglary gone horribly wrong.
Murdoch today pleaded guitly to the brutal murder, just hours before he was due to face a supreme court trial.
He was on parole at the time of the killing of Mrs Blackwood, and months earlier when he attacked 79-year-old grandmother Ilona Prohaska with a knife.
The Herald Sun can reveal he went straight to an appointment with his parole officer after the attack on Ms Prohaska around 3pm.
In the Corrections worker’s notes from the supervised meeting at 4.30pm, she noted he appeared “unwell” and marked his risk of re-offending as “moderate”.
Talking about his violent offending, 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.
They had also met seven other times for fortnightly visits between February 3 and that day, May 21.
KYLIE’S BRUTAL MURDER
The investigation into Ms Blackwood’s death was initially hampered when CCTV footage that allegedly captured Murdoch using Ms Blackwood’s stolen credit card was not obtained by police.
The footage was subsequently deleted by the bank before the error was discovered.
It was a detailed eye witness account provided by a roof tiler that eventually led to Murdoch’s arrest.
The tiler described a man wearing a black baseball hat and a distinct striped hoodie.
A digital image of the man was splashed across media outlets across the state.
It was a hoodie another of Murdoch’s ex girlfriends had seen him wearing a day before the murder.
He was also driving a white rental vehicle police later identified as a vehicle that was captured on CCTV near Ms Blackwood’s home on the day she died.
When police caught up with Murdoch he was not talkative.
He told police he may have gone to Doughnut King that day for lunch and was getting around in a mate’s car.
The story never checked-out.
He was charged almost three years later when DNA taken from Ms Blackwood’s jeans came up with a possible match.
Six years after the crime and just hours before his Supreme Court trial was due to begin, Murdoch admitted to murdering the mother-of-three.
MURDOCH THE TICKING TIME BOMB
Just four years before he attacked Mrs Blackwood, Murdoch had appeared in court over the bashing and stabbing of another woman in neighbouring Berwick.
A court in 2009 heard harrowing evidence of how he met the victim through a chat line before the horrific attack.
After exchanging text messages, the woman drove to Pakenham in September, 2006, to collect Murdoch and they returned to her home.
Justice Betty King said they watched television and had a single mixed drink each.
It was then that Murdoch started to alarm the victim by wandering through the house looking into rooms.
He tried to kiss her and asked for sex but, after being knocked back, asked to be driven back to Pakenham.
The woman said she had been drinking and could not.
She then became worried about his behaviour but, as she tried to call triple-0, Murdoch pounced.
The court was told he throttled and stabbed her before bludgeoning her with a paperweight.
The victim, a single mother, spent six weeks in hospital.
Murdoch was sentenced to a maximum seven years in jail.
In 1998, Murdoch left a teenage boy “lifeless” and gurgling blood after a vicious beating.
Despite a lack of remorse, Murdoch, then aged 20, was sentenced to six months in jail over an onslaught which left the young victim with brain injuries and memory loss.
It was his first conviction for violence and was at that time considered “out-of-character.”
Court records show Murdoch bashed 19-year-old man Adam Williams at an 18th birthday party in Endeavour Hills after his sister accused the teenage victim of making unwelcome sexual advances toward her on April 4, 1998.
The victim was unable to defend himself as Murdoch landed multiple powerful blows to his face.
In sentencing, County Court Judge Barton Stott said: “You became angry and went to where Mr Williams was … (and) hit him in the face with your right fist more than five times as hard as you could.”
The impact of the beating caused Mr Williams to fall and hit his head on the concrete.
“He was lifeless and didn’t move for a few seconds, and then he was moaning. You left him there with blood on his mouth, and he was bubbling,” said Judge Stott.
Mr Williams spent over two weeks in intensive care and was left with brain haemorrhaging, memory loss and mobility issues.
Murdoch pleaded guilty to recklessly causing serious injury and was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment.
He only served six months behind bars despite Judge Scott noting his lack of remorse.
“You showed no remorse at the time, leaving the victim motionless at the scene, knowing he was seriously injured, and your failure to acknowledge responsibility for the victim’s injuries and your attempt to distance yourself from that responsibility,” the judge said.
A psychological report tended to the court at the time found Murdoch was not regarded as an angry man and that the bashing was an “aberrant response.”
He has previously been convicted for theft and making a false report to police.
Three months prior to killing Ms Blackwood, a knife-wielding Murdoch forced his way into the home of a grandmother and began “cutting” her neck with force.
Hungarian pensioner Ilona Prohaska opened the door to Murdoch, who she thought was a tradesman, in Endeavour Hills in May 21, 2013.
The elderly victim said he barged in and knocked her to the ground before holding a knife to her throat.
He began to cut as she screamed for help.
“He quickly came after me. He knelt on my chest and put the knife on my throat,” she said. “I was frozen and couldn’t move. His hand was shaking and he was cutting,” Ms Prohaska told a court in January this year.
A panic button was ripped from her neck during the attack.
After handing over $70 cash, Ms Prohaska said she was forced down stairs and pushed against a wall before her attacker removed a hammer from his jacket.
“He struck down (with the hammer) on to the knife, forcing it into my neck. Then he removed the knife and did the same thing on the other side,” she told the court.
Ms Prohaska collapsed in a pool of blood and later raised the alarm by crawling to her panic device.
She spent three weeks in hospital with a broken shoulder, a fractured spine and cuts and bruising to her face.
Murdoch today pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury to Ms Prohaska.