Sadistic rapist-murderer Barrie Watts makes bid for freedom

With the likelihood of life in prison looming, murderer and rapist Barrie Watts told his accomplice a stomach-churning secret – “I’d like to do it again”. Now, he wants to be free. READ THE 5 CHAPTERS

This is part one of a series into the story of Sian Kingi’s horrific rape and murder in 1987, and how they caught the diabolical couple behind her death.

For hours he ranted and railed, furious at the betrayal, furious at his wife who’d spoken out to save her own skin.

They sat in separate cells at the newly-built Noosa police station, metres apart but unable to see or touch. A beyond evil Bonnie and Clyde, their crime spree of rape, murder and horror at an end.

“You’ve confessed to the cops to a f … ing murder that never f … ing happened,” he said, his voice filled with venom.

“You’ve f … ing done me. You’ve f … ing been unfaithful. You have crucified me.”

Barrie Watts and accomplice Valmae Beck murdered and raped schoolgirl Sian Kingi. Photo: Supplied

Barrie Watts and Valmae Beck had been on the run for a week, fleeing the state after their victim’s mutilated body was discovered in state forest on the picturesque Sunshine Coast.

They’d been brought back to Noosa in cuffs, where a lynch mob of locals waited. Their crime was so terrible, it would change Queensland forever. It would bring crowds of people from their homes, shouting for the death penalty.

Police had carefully orchestrated the couple’s every move. With gifts of chocolates and soft drink, a softly spoken detective with a meticulous stream of questions had coaxed a confession from Beck.

Pages and pages of her evil had been typed out and shown to Watts. They’d told him to read it.

And then they’d sent him back to the cells with his wife – concrete and brick constructions with steel doors. They’d put them close enough that they’d be able to talk. But not so close they’d be able to whisper. Detectives had wanted to make sure the secret recording device they’d installed would pick up every word.

“I’ll say that I killed her,” Beck said, her hair dyed pale blonde in a failed attempt to throw police off her scent.

“I’ll say that you raped her and that I killed her, that I have such a hatred for school girls that I just wanted to kill one.

“Then you’ll get charged with rape and nothin’ else.”

Then, from Watts to his wife: “Could you kill yourself? Do you think you can?”

Then, from Beck to her husband: “I thought it was just all talk … going out and raping somebody is one thing – but to kill somebody in cold blood and not have any compassion at all, that worried me.”

She continued: “Because you told me that it wouldn’t bother ya, but I thought it would.”

“Did it?” Watts asked.

“Nah,” his wife said. “Hasn’t bothered you in the slightest.”

Then, the recording device captured words from Watts that should never be forgotten. Not in twenty years or thirty. Not ever.

“I’d like to do it again,” he said.

“You wanted to as well. You wanted to do it again.”

Barrie Watts, the man who tortured, raped and murdered a 12-year-old girl, days later said he wanted to do it again. And now he wants to be free.

MERELY MINUTES OF SEPARATION

NOVEMBER 27, 1987, was a day that would forever change the seaside hamlet of Noosa, a town where everyone knew everyone, where the streets were safe.

It was the end of the school year, and at Sunshine Beach State School, 12-year-old Sian Kingi was carrying books to the car for her teacher.

On the way she spotted a friend, Emma Forsyth. Sian stopped to ask Emma what she wanted for her birthday. Emma’s 13th birthday was only days away.

Murdered schoolgirl Sian Kingi.

“She was such a happy girl … such a striking girl,” school friend Nathan Bath said recently.

“You never saw her without a smile.”

Sian’s school friends have not forgotten a single moment of what happened that day. For some of them, it has changed the way they have raised their own children: fearfully, knowing the worst that can happen happened to someone they loved.

They described her as stunningly beautiful – and completely unaware of it. She was shy. Completely innocent.

After school, Sian had gone to the supermarket with her mother Lynda. She rode her bike home while Lynda walked.

It wasn’t far. They’d see each other again in just a few minutes.

But when Lynda arrived, Sian wasn’t there.

Sian Kingi.

At first, she thought she must have run into some friends. But as time passed, Sian’s parents, Lynda and Barry, began to worry. They called her friends’ homes. Nobody had seen her.

They got in the car to retrace her steps. At Pinaroo Park, they found her abandoned bike. Her 10-speed, her prized possession. She would never, ever have left it behind.

DIABOLIC DUO

BARRIE Watts and Valmae Cramb, a couple of petty crooks, met in Western Australia and married in 1986.

They kept up their habit of keeping on the wrong side of the law, breaking into cars to steal cash – Beck acting as the lookout.

In September 1987, with Watts facing charges of armed robbery and burglary and Beck charged with fraud, they skipped out on Western Australia and their bail restrictions.

They travelled through Melbourne and then onto Queensland, renting a house in Lowood.

Beck would later tell police they only fought about one thing: sex.

Barrie John Watts is serving a life sentence.

Watts had schoolgirl fantasies, rape fantasies.

“He’s always said that he’d just once like to rape somebody to feel what it felt like because he’s never raped anybody before,” she told them.

“Every movie we watch, every video we watch, nine out of 10 of them are schoolgirls or women in mini dresses.

“It’s pretty sickening. We argue about it all the time. It’s about the only thing that causes arguments in our relationship.”

DEVOTED MOTHER GOES MISSING

HELEN Mary Feeney, a former nurse who had gone on to study teaching, was last seen alive in late October, 1987.

She’d been walking along Beams Rd at Zillmere, close to the Queensland University of Technology’s Carseldine campus.

Ms Feeney was a single mother, divorced and devoted to her six-year-old son.

She was living at a caravan park close to the campus where she’d been studying. Her husband reported her missing in late November when she didn’t show for an access visit.

Her car was later discovered abandoned in the university’s car park, it’s rear window smashed.

It would be years before police would connect her disappearance with Beck and Watts – but eventually they would.

“WE’RE LOST”

IN November, 1987, Beck and Watts embarked on a horror crime spree to fulfil Watts’ sick rape fantasy.

It was the evening of the 10th and a 25-year-old nurse named Nicole finished her shift at the Ipswich General Hospital and headed towards the staff car park. She crossed Chelmsford Ave and walked to her Holden Commodore.

As she did, she noticed a white station wagon, parked just off the road on the dirt. It was an unusual place to park and she stared at it – hospital staff had been having their petrol stolen.

She saw a woman behind the wheel. A man sat in the back seat. Police would learn that this is how Beck and Watts operated. Beck would drive. Watts would sit in the back seat waiting to pull their victim into the car. They’d use Beck – a chubby, middle aged woman with short hair – as bait. People don’t expect women to orchestrate kidnapping and rape.

Nicole got into her car and turned the key in the ignition. The white car drove up and pulled alongside her.

Sian Kingi murderer Valmae Faye Beck.

“We’re lost,” Beck said to her. She named a street and asked Nicole if she knew how to get there. The man got out of the car.

“Can you read a Refidex (street directory)?” one of them asked.

Nicole opened her door and looked at the map.

“Is this a change of shift?” Watts asked her.

“Why?” she asked him, suspicious. She could smell petrol.

Just then, a male nurse walked into the car park. Watts spotted him.

“Thanks,” Watts said. He got back into the back seat of the white station wagon. They drove a little way into the car park and stopped.

Nicole watched them for a few minutes before driving home.

Maria, another nurse, had chatted with friends in the car park before crossing Chelmsford Ave. It was dark, and her Toyota Corolla was the only car left in the lot.

She got into her car and closed the door. A white station wagon rolled up behind her, blocking her in.

It made her nervous. Maria locked her doors and placed her hand on the horn. A woman had got out of the white car and walked over to stand by her window.

Maria wound the window down.

“Do you know where Markwell St is?” Beck asked her.

Maria gave her directions but Beck continued to ask questions.

“Come on,” a man called out. “We can look it up in the directory.”

Beck hesitated before walking away. Maria, with her locked doors and her hand on the horn, was not an easy target.

Police at the scene where Sian Kingi was murdered.

AFTER FAILING, THEY TRIED AGAIN

THE following night they were back at it, cruising for a victim.

This time, they parked in the underground car park of the Target store at Booval. Cheryl Mortimer, a 24-year-old Target clerk, had finished her shift and was about to drive home.

A white Holden station wagon pulled into the car park and drove towards her. There was a woman driving. A man sat in the back seat. The woman waved at her.

Ms Mortimer stopped her car and the woman got out.

“Do you know how to get to Blackstone?” Beck asked.

Ms Mortimer said she did. Beck brought her a street directory and they looked at it together.

Beck turned to Watts.

“My eyes aren’t too good,” she told him. “You had better come and have a look.”

The man came over. He leaned into her car and switched off the ignition, put a knife to her ribs.

“Get out of the car, you bitch,” he said.

Watts opened the door and dragged her out, the knife in his right hand.

Incredibly, she grabbed it from him. Now she held the knife. She screamed for help.

They all struggled as Beck tried to clamp her hand over Ms Mortimer’s mouth. Beck got into their station wagon as Watts continued trying to drag her towards their car.

Ms Mortimer spotted a work colleague and screamed at her for help.

Beck and Watts gave up. They left the terrified woman behind and drove away, Watts nursing a cut to his hand.

AN EMPTY GRAVE

A week later, according to a statement Valmae Beck would later provide to police, Watts and his wife were in the car, going for a drive.

“I’ll show you something,” he told her.

He drove her to an area of bush off the highway between Esk and Fernvale.

They got out, Watts taking a shovel with him, and walked into the scrub. After about five minutes, they came to a creek bed.

Watts pointed to a hole, a shallow grave.

“That was for the girl at Ipswich,” he said.

He took his shovel and began digging the hole a little deeper.

“Well, what’s it for now?” she asked him.

“None of your business,” he told her.

Beck would tell police she walked away and left him there. They never discussed it again.

Three years later, she would take detectives to the same creek bed. Watts’ shallow grave was still there.

Originally published as Sadistic rapist-murderer Barrie Watts makes bid for freedom