Crimes that shocked Melbourne: Meet the real-life monsters who stalked the southern suburbs
FRANKSTON serial killer Paul Denyer stalked women at random before killing them for thrills in the most terrifying way. But was his crime spree the southern suburbs’ worst?
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VICTORIA’S southern suburbs have been witness to many horrific crimes which have stunned the community.
In our series on the worst crimes that have rocked each region of Melbourne, True Crime Scene has chosen five of the most shocking incidents in the southern suburbs in recent memory.
The Frankston serial killer
SADISTIC serial killer Paul Charles Denyer brought terror to the Frankston area while randomly preying on young women during a seven-week killing spree in 1993.
Denyer stalked, cut and stabbed to death three victims: schoolgirl Elizabeth Stevens; young mother Debra Fream; and student Natalie Russell.
A horror movie fan, Denyer got the idea of slashing throats from a particular film because it “looked effective”.
According to a psychologist, a remorseless Denyer received “intense gratification and stimulation from demeaning, mutilating and killing other human beings.”
When sentencing Denyer to life with no minimum term, Supreme Court judge Justice Frank Vincent said to him, in part: “The apprehension you have caused to thousands of women in the community will be felt for a very long time.
“For many, you are the fear that quickens their steps as they walk home or causes a parent to look anxiously at the clock when a child is late.”
In a shocking decision, the full court overturned Justice Vincent’s sentence and imposed a 30-year minimum term.
A TWISTED MIND: Denyer defies cross-dressing ban
Mother-and-son murder was just to keep them quiet
IT was July 1979 when the man destined to become the state’s worst mass killer committed arguably the worst of his seven murders — in Ripponlea, near South Yarra.
While sitting in a car, a young Paul Steven Haigh shot a woman named Sheryle Gardner at close range in front of her 10-year-old son, Danny Mitchell.
Haigh shot Ms Gardner because she knew too much about crimes he’d previously committed.
According to Haigh, he feared Ms Gardner would “tell a story to the police” so he shot her “to shut her loosened troublemaking mouth”.
Haigh then consoled young Danny, before turning the gun on the boy to eradicate him as a witness.
“Danny being present complicated matters greatly,” Haigh would later say.
“Poor young Danny seen me shoot his mother.”
Haigh would write about the killing: “I shot him three times in the back of the head and after this I turned the gun on his mother again, just to make sure she was dead.”
Haigh blamed Ms Gardner for the boy’s death, stating she shouldn’t have used him as “a shield”.
“Criminals aren’t supposed to kill children but she (Gardner) put him in a terrible situation where she ran the risk her son would meet with trouble. Sadly he did.”
VICIOUS MIND: Why cunning Paul Haig confessed to murder
The Walsh Street police murders
CONSTABLES Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre were two young, innocent policemen ambushed for what many police still believe was payback for the shooting death of a notorious bandit.
Thirteen hours before Tynan and Eyre were gunned down in cold-blood in Walsh St, South Yarra, Armed Robbery Squad detectives had been forced to shoot dead a career criminal named Graeme Jensen while trying to arrest him for questioning about a fatal hold up.
It was alleged in court that Jensen’s death led to some of his associates laying a trap to lure random police to a stolen car left in Walsh St on the night of October 12, 1988.
It was alleged one career criminal suspected of involvement had demanded two police officers be killed to avenge Jensen’s death.
An unsuspecting Tynan and Eyre were shot dead as they checked on the stolen car in the dark street.
As Constable Eyre checked the registration number, Constable Tynan went to the driver’s side, sliding in behind the steering wheel.
As Constable Eyre moved around to the same side, a gunman came from behind, blasting Constable Tynan in the head with a shotgun.
As he slumped across the seat, the gunman turned on Damian Eyre, blasting him in the shoulder. Amazingly he kept his footing and fought the gunman.
It was then that a second gunman moved up behind Constable Eyre, removed his .38 service revolver from his holster and shot him in the head.
After collapsing beside the car, he was shot once more in the back.
“It’s not just any criminal who could commit that sort of atrocity,” Insp John Noonan said.
A jury acquitted four men charged with the police murders.
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Why I dobbed in Walsh St killers’
ARMED ROBBERY FILES: Did guards slaying spark cop killings?
Blue men down in Moorabbin
THE ice-cold murders of policemen Sgt Gary Silk and Sen-Constable Rod Miller in Moorabbin rocked Victoria Police, shocked the community and brought back chilling memories of the execution of constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre in South Yarra back in 1988.
Sgt Silk and Sen-Constable Miller were working a stakeout operation on the night of August 16, 1998, in an effort to nab two bandits who had robbed a string of restaurants in Melbourne’s south east.
Bandali Michael Debs, with a younger accomplice in tow, shot and killed the officers after being pulled over for a routine car check in Cochranes Rd.
“It just seems so tragic that two young men sign on to duty to do a job for the community and suddenly a few hours later they find themselves being assailed and shot by some desperate criminal,” then Police Commissioner Neil Comrie said in the immediate aftermath.
“Their murders are a shocking and outrageous attack on law and order in this state.”
Sen-Constable Miller had a wife and baby son.
A two-year investigation brought Debs and his accomplice to justice.
“You are of ordinary intelligence at best, but are of highly dangerous predisposition,” Supreme Court judge Justice Philip Cummins told Debs when sentencing him to life with no chance of parole.
SPECIAL REPORT: The Satan of suburbia
HOW THEY CAUGHT HIM: Tiny pieces of evidence led to Debs
Stolen from her bedroom, and never seen again
LITTLE Eloise Worledge was entitled to feel safe and secure as she slept in her bedroom at her parents’ Beaumaris home.
But what happened to her on the night of January 13 in 1976 sent shivers down the spine of the Victorian community.
A mystery abductor stole Eloise, aged 8, from her room that night.
Her dad, Lindsay, had checked on a sleeping Eloise at 11.30pm, an hour after she’d gone to bed.
Her brother Blake noticed she was not in her room at 7.30am.
A massive police hunt found little evidence.
A neighbour reported hearing a car speed down the street about 2am.
The flyscreen on Eloise’s window had been cut, but the hole was too small to admit a person without a lot of noise.
Police believe Eloise was lured from the home.
Her body has never been found and no one ever been charged.
“I don’t know if she’s alive,” Eloise’s mum, Patsy Worledge, said in 1988.
“I think about the situation but I try not to dwell on the unanswerable. I’ve got a little box in my brain I can pull the blind down on and that’s usually the way I leave it.
“Sometimes I can have a bad day when the blind goes up. I can’t help it.”
MORE CRIMES THAT SHOCKED MELBOURNE: The CBD | The North | The East
THE BIKINI KILLER: Charming playboy left a trail of corpses
THE POISONERS: Hitmen, spies and serial killers
ARMED ROB FILES: Bandit lured loner to doom | Guard’s slaying link to cop killing
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