Lung cancer kills child killer Derek Percy weeks after diagnosis, coroner finds
SADISTIC child killer Derek Ernest Percy died in hospital with lung cancer about a month after first complaining of headaches, a coroner has found.
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SADISTIC child killer Derek Ernest Percy died within weeks of being diagnosed with lung cancer, a coroner has found.
Percy, 65, died in the St Augustine’s ward of St Vincent’s Hospital on July 24 last year, about a month after he first complained of headaches.
Under Victorian law, all deaths in custody must be investigated by a coroner.
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Percy had been locked up since 1969 for the murder of 12-year-old Yvonne Tuohy.
He was found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity, but received an indefinite life sentence because of the danger he presented to the community.
Coroner Paresa Spanos said Percy was a suspect in at least eight other unsolved child murders.
He is a suspect in the Wanda Beach killings of children Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt in 1965.
And he remains a suspect in the deaths interstate of three-year-old Sydney boy Simon Brook, Allen Redston, 6, of Canberra and the Beaumont siblings who were all murdered in the 1960s.
The Herald Sun reported last year that detectives had visited Percy in the hope he would make a death-bed confession and bring closure to the family of his suspected victims.
Percy was also quizzed as he lay dying in the presence of deputy state coroner Iain West about the disappearance of 12-year-old Linda Stilwell in 1969.
He maintained that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Coroner Spanos said care given to Percy by authorities was appropriate.
“I am satisfied care provided to Mr Percy during his incarceration and the onset of symptoms was appropriate and consistent with the care delivered in the Victorian public health care system,” Coroner Spanos found.
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