Mystery still surrounds some of the worst cases of violence against our society’s most vulnerable people
A look at the worst crimes committed against children, including those that remain unsolved
Crime in Focus
Don't miss out on the headlines from Crime in Focus. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It is part of human nature to protect children from the evils that lurk in the shadows.
Perhaps that is why acts of violence against children hit us the hardest.
Over the course of the past 50 years, Queenslanders have been deeply shocked and suffered lasting consequences as a result of predators who target the most vulnerable members of our community.
Some of the children who have been taken under the most violent and degrading circumstances have been either unable to fight back, or simply too innocent to know they were being targeted before it was too late.
Over the decades we have witnessed the tragic and ongoing effect these appalling crimes have, not only on family members, but all of us as a community.
Some of the crimes mentioned below are still unsolved.
Few crimes committed against children remain as troubling as the appalling murder of 17-month old Deidre Kennedy in April 1973.
Deidre was abducted from her cot in her Ipswich home on April 13 and brutalised. Her body dressed in women’s underwear was found discarded on the roof of a toilet block in Limestone Park the next day.
Police identified bite marks on her leg which formed part of the ongoing investigation. The case received national coverage.
A man was convicted of her murder in 1985 but this was overturned on appeal.
The case of her abduction and brutal murder remains open.
A horrific case of child murder was that of Sian Kingi, a 12-year-old Sunshine Coast schoolgirl who was kidnapped, raped and killed after being snatched by a married couple while riding her bicycle.
Sian was taken at Noosa Heads on November 27, 1987.
After shopping with her mother Sian rode home alone though Pinnaroo Park and disappeared.
Her yellow bicycle was found abandoned that night in the park.
Sian’s body was not discovered until December 3, 1987. It was found 15km away near Castaways Creek in the Tinbeerwah Mountain state forest.
A Lockyer Valley couple Valmae Beck and husband Barrie Watts, from Perth but then living in Lowood, were identified as persons of interest after suspicions were raised about the activities of a white 1973 Holden Kingswood.
Both had extensive criminal history.
They were also under suspicion regarding a number of reported incidents in the Ipswich area.
Watts grabbed the girl from behind. She was bound and driven by Beck to Tinbeerwah.
Watts raped, stabbed and strangled the girl.
Beck was found guilty on October 20, 1988 and received life imprisonment. In May 2008 Beck died in jail.
Watts was found guilty on 28 February 28,1990, and received life imprisonment.
Eight children found dead inside a Murray Street housein the Cairns suburb of Manoora on December 19, 2014 were alleged to have been killed by the mother of seven of the victims.
The four boys and four girls aged between 18 months and 14 years were killed – all bodies suffering stab wounds. Raina Mersane Ina Thaiday, the mother of seven of the children (also known as Mersane Warria), was charged with their murder.
At the time she was hospitalised for self-inflicted wounds.
In April 2017 the Queensland Mental Health Court ruled that Thaiday was of unsound mind having suffered a psychotic episode and not criminally responsible for her actions.
Schoolgirl Stacey-Ann Tracy, 9, disappeared while walking to school in Roma on May 22, 1990.
Her body was found a few days later against a tree near a dry creek bed on a track near the dump.
A blind cord was around her neck and she was found to have been raped and killed.
Strangely the child’s killer used a black garbage bag to conceal her legs and waist.
After being convicted of her murder, Barry Gordon Hadlow, 65, died in custody 17 years later on July 13, 2007 after being taken from jail to a secure unit of Brisbane hospital with a medical condition.
Hadlow was previously convicted of murdering another child in north Queensland when he was a teenager.
Hadlow was still on parole when he raped and killed Stacey-Ann.
Then aged 16, in November 1962, he raped and killed 5-year-old Sandra Dorothy Bacon in Townsville.
The little girl struggled with him and Hadlow, who first tried to strangle her, used a hunting knife to stab her in the heart.
“She wasn’t dying fast enough,” the then-teenager confessed to police at the time.
After killing Sandra, he wrapped the bottom half of her body in an old corn sack and tossed her into the boot of his car.
He later joined the police and Townsville residents in the search for her body.
Detectives found her body in his car and arrested him.
“Yes, I‘ve killed her,” he told the officers.
On March 15, 1991, a jury convicted Hadlow of Stacey-Ann‘s murder.
In marking Hadlow‘s file never to be released, Justice Tom Shepherdson in the Supreme Court said a “dreadful mistake” was made when parole authorities released Hadlow after he killed Sandra Bacon.
Justice Shepherdson said it was clear from a psychiatrist's report given to the parole board, that Hadlow was an ongoing danger, his penchant for sexually violating and killing girls would never be curtailed.
“I cannot understand how anyone who had the opportunity to read the psychiatric report could have allowed you to be released,” Justice Shepherdson said.
Bowen teenager Rachel Antonio was 16 when last seen alive in April 1998.
Her disappearance on Anzac Day that year has been treated as murder, but her body was never found.
Her mysterious disappearance was subject to two trials and a coronial hearing.
Former Bowen Surf Life Saving Club captain Robert Hytch was charged with her murder. At his trial a jury found him guilty of manslaughter but this was overturned on appeal.
A second jury trial followed and Mr Hytch was found not guilty.
Rachel’s mother last saw her alive when she dropped her off at a cinema that evening.
The inquest into her death heard she briefly spoke to two Mormon missionaries at Queens Beach that same evening, and was seen by two young males (cousins) soon after.
Her disappearance and likely death remains officially unsolved.
Leanne Holland was 12 when she went missing from her Alice Street home at Goodna in September 1991. Four days later her battered body was found in bushland beside Redbank Plains Rd. She had suffered extensive head injuries.
Police charged Graham Stafford, the boyfriend of Leanne‘s older sister, with murder. Following his trial he was convicted in 1992, but after serving 14 years in jail, his conviction was overturned.
Mr Stafford has always strenuously denied killing Leanne and maintains his innocence.
His murder conviction was quashed in 2009 and a retrial was ordered. In March 2010 the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions ruled that it would not proceed.
The case was closed in 2012.
Tiahleigh (Tiah) Palmer was 12 when she was murdered on October 30, 2015 by her foster father Rick Thorburn at Logan.
The body of the Marsden High school student was found six days later on the banks of the Pimpama River.
Thorburn on May 25, 2018 pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to life in jail.
A shocking child murder that remains prominent in the minds of people across Queensland is that of Daniel Morcombe.
Daniel was 13 when abducted on the Sunshine Coast on December 7, 2003.
He was waiting for a bus fromunder the Kiel Mountain Road overpass when he was taken.
Eight years later Brett Peter Cowan was charged with his murder.
DNA tests matched remains found in the Glass House Mountains to Daniel.
In March 2014, Cowan was found guilty of the murder, indecently dealing with a child and interfering with a corpse. He was sentenced to life in jail.
Originally published as Mystery still surrounds some of the worst cases of violence against our society’s most vulnerable people
How Assange’s father is derailing his chance of a pardon
Australia spent significant political capital to get Julian Assange out of prison while the US attempted to extradite him on spying charges — but now his father has intervened.
‘Living nightmare’: Family pain of Aussies killed in the Philippines
The family of an Australian couple found dead in a hotel room broke down as they revealed the cruelty behind the senseless murder the Philippines.