Mass murderer Julian Knight must die in jail over Hoddle St shootings
IT is 30 years since Julian Knight committed one of the worst crimes in Victoria’s history and we must ensure he dies in jail, writes Keith Moor.
Opinion
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IT IS 30 years today since army reject and cowardly gun nut Julian Knight shot dead seven people and wounded 19 others in Hoddle St. The mass murderer is one of the most disturbing individuals I have ever met — and he should never be released.
Tracey Marie Skinner was just one of his victims. She was travelling home from a family birthday celebration with her husband, Kevin, driving and 18-month-old son Adam sitting on her lap in the front passenger seat.
Mr Skinner saw four bodies on the roadway in the gutter. Seconds later the car door seemed to explode.
“I yelled out to Tracey to get down. I felt her head hit my knee, and I thought that she had done as I said,” he later told police. “The first shot was followed by about four or five more. After I heard the first shot I tried to accelerate, but the car coughed and spluttered and nearly stalled.
“I realised there were other bodies on the road and I had to put my head up to avoid hitting anyone. It was then I realised that Tracey had been killed.
“She had no face left. Adam was sitting against the door just staring at her.”
Multiply that horror a hundredfold and some idea is gained of the terror that reigned when Knight declared war on the public at large and fulfilled a long-held ambition to feel what it would be like to kill someone.
I was the first journalist to interview Knight after his 48-minute shooting spree in Clifton Hill on August 9, 1987. He and I met face to face twice inside the bluestone walls of Pentridge Prison.
He was 20 at the time and I saw him several weeks before he was sentenced to life and ordered to serve a minimum of 27 years.
“They trained me to kill and I killed,” Knight told me while trying and failing to convince me he wasn’t responsible for his actions.
Journalists then — and now — are not allowed to interview prisoners inside jail without permission — and permission is rarely granted. That meant my visit had to be arranged secretly with Knight himself and I was never certain I would get in until I was actually sitting opposite him.
His mother, brother and sister were also visiting him the day Knight told me to turn up at Pentridge. After 20 minutes or so of general chitchat with him and his family I asked Knight if I could come back and see him alone.
Knight, claiming I was a mate he wanted to chat to, arranged with the prison staff for me to come back later that day for a one-on-one visit.
When I asked Knight to run through his day leading up to the shootings — and to describe the killings themselves — he started talking in a flat monotone voice with very little expression. I remember thinking at the time it was as though he was in an army debrief and was telling his commanding officer how the mission went.
THERE was no emotion in his voice as he told me how he ducked and weaved and fired off shots.
Then he asked me if I had seen the photographs. I said: “What photographs?” He said he was talking about the autopsy photographs of his naked victims on the slab.
In fact I had seen the inquest brief and had viewed some of the most sickening photographs I have ever seen — but I didn’t particularly want to be discussing them with the person who caused their deaths so I said I hadn’t seen them.
It was then that a chilling and significantly telling change came over Knight. He leaned forward, animated for the first time in our long discussion.
MASS MURDERER JULIAN KNIGHT PENS OPEN LETTER FROM PRISON DEMANDING PAROLE
He began describing the various wounds he had inflicted on his victims. He did so graphically and with obvious excitement in his voice.
In an instant Knight went from being the army robot coldly describing his mission to a perverted creep who was getting pleasure out of talking about seeing photographs of the people he murdered.
As he looked me in the eyes, I noticed his were sparkling for the first time in the interview.
“You should have seen the naked pictures of the woman I shot in the head and the side,” Knight said. “There was this massive hole in her side. I got her good and proper.”
I have no doubt that Knight was sexually excited while he was talking about the injuries he had caused. My skin crawled. I regretted giving him the opportunity to get off on talking about his killing spree. I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough.
Since then he has continued to claim to the parole board, and others, that it wasn’t Julian Knight the man who shot up Hoddle St, but that it was the Julian Knight brainwashed by the military, a man who snapped after a bad day and reverted to his army training in robotic fashion while not in control of himself.
That’s the fake Knight.
The real Knight is a sick individual who revels in what he did and gets sexual gratification from thinking about it.
He deserves to die in jail.
Keith Moor is the Herald Sun Insight Editor
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