Australia’s murder houses: From Victoria to Queensland, find out where they are
They’re the unassuming homes that harbour the same dark secret. From shootings and bashings, to frenzied stabbings, these are the crimes that have happened in our neighbourhoods. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
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They might have unassuming facades, but these houses across the nation have been marred by tragic murder cases.
From shootings and bashings, to frenzied stabbings, the horrors that have unfolded behind the walls are seriously disturbing.
MORE: ‘No one told me I bought Milat’s house’
VICTORIA
PRINCE ST, MORNINGTON
It was behind the charming weatherboard facade of this home that the “Mornington Monster” carried out his heinous crime in 2004.
Fifteen years ago, John Sharpe waited for his pregnant wife Anna Kemp to fall asleep before retrieving a speargun from the garage.
Sharpe returned to the bedroom before firing two spears into his wife’s head. He then dismembered her body and buried it in a shallow grave in the backyard.
But his evil act didn’t end there.
The killer didn’t believe he could maintain his innocent facade if his 20-month-old daughter Gracie was left alive. So several days later, he turned the same powerful weapon on the young girl, penetrating her skull which left her screaming and badly wounded.
It took two more shots to kill her.
Sharpe dumped Anna and Gracie at a local tip, and peddled the lie that his wife had left him for another man.
Several months later, he was arrested and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment.
Sharpe said a loveless marriage led him to murder his wife, but when asked why that meant Gracie had to die too, he replied: “I don’t really know. Irrational bloody madness.”
He will be eligible for parole in 2037.
MALVERN RD, SOUTH YARRA
Behind the shopfront is the one-bedroom apartment where prominent Melbourne interior designer Stuart Rattle was killed in 2013.
Mr Rattle’s partner, Michael O’Neill, hit him over the head with a saucepan, leaving him dazed. He then strangled the 53-year-old designer with a dog lead as he begged for his life.
O’Neill claimed he snapped after Mr Rattle called him a “frigid bitch” when he rejected a sexual advance.
With blood on his hands, O’Neill visited their Daylesford farm which Mr Rattle travelled to regularly, telling friends his murdered partner was unwell.
He then returned to Melbourne and set their apartment alight in an attempt to cover up the crime. Police initially believed the blaze to be the cause of death, but arrested O’Neill after they found inconsistencies with his story.
He immediately regretted killing his partner of 16 years, reportedly apologising to Mr Rattle’s body and even making him a cup of team.
The court heard O’Neill had a dependent personality disorder.
“[That] explains why you willingly submitted yourself to Mr Rattle’s needs and allowed him to largely control your life; but it also led to feelings of disempowerment and resentfulness,” Judge Hollingworth said.
He was sentenced to 18 years behind bars.
EASEY ST, COLLINGWOOD
The brutal murders that took place at this modest terrace in Easey St remain unsolved 42 years later.
Schoolteacher Susan Bartlett, 28, and her friend Suzanne Armstrong, a single mum aged 27, were found in pools of blood after they were stabbed 84 times between them in 1977.
Neighbours Ilona Stevens and her housemate Janet Powell discovered the gruesome scene two days later after the heard Ms Armstrong’s baby son, Gregory, crying.
It was a sight Ms Stevens said would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Police have described the crime as one of the most frenzied and baffling in Victoria’s history.
Ms Bartlett was found lying face down in the hallway with 55 stab wounds. Ms Armstrong had been stabbed 25 times, and was found on her back with her nightdress pulled up around her neck.
It was suggested one of the woman might have let the killer inside.
A $1 million reward was announced in 2017 to for help to solve the Easey St murders.
Police said a number of people have been subject to DNA-testing as part of their investigation, and some have been ruled out.
NEW SOUTH WALES
BOUNDARY RD, NORTH EPPING
The crime scene that greeted police at the Lin family’s house in 2009 was the stuff of nightmares.
Min “Norman” Lin, 45, his wife Yun Li “Lily” Lin 43, her sister Yun Bin “Irene” Lin, 39 and the Lins’ two sons Henry, 12, and Terry, 9, were found bludgeoned to death in their home.
The horrifying crime was carried out by just one person, Mr Lin’s brother-in law Robert Xie.
Xie’s was furious with his perceived “subordinate status”, the Crown claimed, and it was that anger which drove him to kill.
It was claimed he used a hammer-like object in his murderous rampage after quietly letting himself into the house with a key in the early hours of the morning. The victims were left bloodied, with spatters of red across the crisp white walls and red footprints through the home.
Xie maintained his innocence, but after three separate trials that ended without a verdict, he was finally found guilty and handed five consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.
SIR THOMAS MITCHELL DRIVE, DAVIDSON
It was here in 2016 that Fernando Manrique executed a murder-suicide, using a DIY death trap to kill he and his family in the dead of night.
As his wife Maria Lutz and their two children, Elisa, 12, and Martin, 11, slept, he went and switched on the contraption that would deliver a deadly dose of carbon monoxide throughout the brick house.
Not even the family dog, Tequila, was spared.
Police discovered the harrowing scene after Maria’s friends insisted they investigate.
First, they found Manrique in the hallway “grey in colour and firm to the touch”. Maria and Elisa were found dead in one bed, Martin in another.
A motive was never established, but an inquest into the deaths found the couple’s relationship was strained.
The couple was saddled with debt. Manrique had lost his $300,000 a year advertising job and took a new role and stake in a business that was struggling. Maria had given up her job as a lawyer to care for their two autistic children.
She also discovered her husband was sleeping with other women.
Manqrique moved out, but two weeks before the deaths, asked could he move back in while he found somewhere to live.
Maria told a friend he was a changed man. Little did she know, he was working on his deadly plan.
“For reasons we may never know, Fernando carefully planned this tragedy, the silent deaths in the night of his wife, two children and himself,” said Douglas Spencer, representing the family of Manrique.
COLLINS ST, NORTH RYDE
Greed motivated Sef Gonzales to kill his mother, Mary, father, Teddy, and 18-year-old sister Clodine at their double-storey home in 2001.
Gonzales — who was struggling at university and wanted to be the sole beneficiary of his family’s estate — entered Clodine’s bedroom with a baseball bad and two kitchen knives.
It was a brutal scene, with the teenager strangled, stabbed and repeatedly hit with the bat.
Gonzales then waited for his mother to return home, and showed her no mercy. Mary’s windpipe was completely transected, and was found with stab wounds to the face, chest, abdomen and neck.
And when Teddy stepped through the front door, Gonzales fell on his father stabbing his right lung and heart and partially severing his spinal cord.
He then spray painted “F--- off Asians KKK” on a wall in an attempt to trick police into thinking the deaths were the result of a hate crime.
He was eventually convicted and imprisoned for three life sentences, and the family home languished on the property market for three years.
It became the centre of a legal stoush after prospective buyers Ellen Lin and Derek Kwok found out about its grisly past, and were repaid their deposit.
Real estate company LJ Hooker was fined, and the NSW Government made it illegal to sell a property without disclosing murders.
QUEENSLAND
COMMERCIAL RD, TENERIFFE
Police found Marcus Volke dead in a bin after he murdered his wife Mayang Prasetyo at a trendy inner-Brisbane apartment in 2014.
Volke snapped after an argument with Ms Prasetyo, stabbing her in the neck before attempting to dispose of the deceased’s body.
Police attended the property after building managers reported a foul smell, and they discovered a harrowing scene. Some of Ms Prasetyo’s body parts were found in the washing machine wrapped in garbage bags, while others were in a stockpot on the kitchen floor.
Volke had fled out the rear Police knocked on the apartment door, and was later found dead in a commercial rubbish bin.
A coronial inquest heard the couple’s marriage was one of convenience. Ms Prasetyo had helped Volke get work to clear a credit card debt, while he assisted her in obtaining a visa.
It was also noted the murder was a case of domestic violence.
BERNARRA ST, THE GAP
This brick house in Brisbane’s west still stands 56 years after Honor Colbert killed her husband Ray and 17-year-old son, Rex.
She had taken a bad turn after moving from regional communities where the family was well-known. After moving to The Gap, she became a recluse and was visibly nervous.
One friend reported Honor had spoken “continuously” of suicide when they caught up.
Her dark thoughts spiralled from there. She feared her son might not get into university, and worried what would happen to Rex and Ray if she wasn’t around.
Honor reportedly wanted to spare them from facing a “hostile world”, and in August 1963, she decided to kill them.
She struck her husband’s forehead with a meat tenderising mallet as he slept, tied stocking around his neck and stabbed him 28 times. One of the wounds severed his spinal cord, and rumour was his blood sprayed across the room.
She then set upon Rex, also striking his forehead before fixing stockings around his head and stabbing him 44 times in the back of the head.
Three days later, police found Honor dead inside the home. She’d stabbed herself multiple times, slashed her wrists and had consumed more than 50 barbiturate tablets.
GRASS TREE CLOSE, BRIDGEMAN DOWNS
It took five and a half years to convict Massimo “Max” Sica of murdering former his 24-year-old girlfriend Neelma Singh and her siblings Kunal, 18, and Sidhi, 12.
The trio’s bodies at the home in April 2003 after Sica made an emergency triple-0 call.
What police found was horrifying. Trails of blood lead from Neelma, Kunal and Sidhi’s bedrooms a bubbling spa bath, where their bodies had been dumped.
Their parents Shirley and Vijar learnt three of their four children had been killed while in Fiji.
The Crown alleged Sica was hungry for revenge after being rejected by the Singh’s. He acted inappropriately on several occasions before the murders, including distributing an email with naked photos of Neelema to her family and friends.
Sica was formally charged in 2008 and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013 with a non-parole period of 35 years.
He has launched a number of appeals, most recently this year. But Queensland’s Supreme Court ruled there was a “significant body of circumstantial evidence’’ to find Sica guilty of murder.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
MURRAY ST, CALLINGTON
In September 2010, retired nurse Pirjo Kemppainen called police to report a glass door had been smashed by a rock at her house.
Sixteen hours later, her brother found her dead in the laundry.
Two youths were accused of killing the 63-year-old in what has come to be known as one of the most shocking crime’s in the state’s history.
They were both just 14 at the time, and became known as A and B due to a suppression order.
B was eventually found guilty, and later told a court he had wanted to kill someone since he was in Year 1.
After smashing the door, B entered the property and proceeded to stab and bash the pensioner more than 120 times.
He describe his violent act to a court in graphic detail.
“I put the knife in her stomach,” B told the court, pausing to mime the action.
“I tried to stab her twice in the stomach and then I repeatedly stabbed her in the head.
“She was screaming.”
If B avoids institutionalisation, he will be eligible for release in 2025.
SOMERFIELD AVE, REYNELLA
The head and hands of pensioner Vonne McGlynn have never been found after she was murdered at her home in 2008.
Angelika Gavare stalked the 84-year-old and broke into her home before knocking her unconscious.
Her murderous act was driven by greed, and she hoped use Ms McGlynn’s identity to steal her house and money in order to make a better life for herself and her two daughters.
She returned later that evening, dismembering her elderly victim before dumping the body parts at a nearby creek bed.
In court, Gavare’s mother Inara Dombrovska testified against her, saying she confessed to the murder at a Christmas celebration that same year.
Gavare was sentenced to at least 32 years behind bars in 2011.
HARRIET ST, KAPUNDA
Jealousy and anger drove Jason Downie to murder 16-year-old Chantelle Rowe and her parents in 2010.
Downie — a loner who Chantelle had befriended — became sexually infatuated with the teenager. One night, knowing her boyfriend wasn’t with her, he broke in through a bathroom window and commenced his killing spree.
In a crime scene described by one veteran cop as the “worst [he] had seen”, Chantelle’s father Andrew was found with 29 stab wounds. Her mother, Rose, had 50.
Knife pieces were found in their bodies.
Downie then found Chantelle hiding under her bed and proceeded to stab her multiple times.
Despite her efforts to resist him when she regained consciousness, he stabbed her with a second knife and raped her.
A day before the one-year anniversary of the killings, Downie pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to life in jail with a 35-year non-parole period.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
OSMINGTON RD, OSMINGTON
The murder-suicide of three adults and four children sent shockwaves through the Margaret River community in 2018.
Peter Miles, 61, is believed to have been behind the horror shooting that left his wife Cynda, daughter Kartina and her three young children, Taye, Rylan and Arye dead.
Miles was found dead on the front porch with a rifle between his legs.
COODE ST, BEDFORD
Five bodies were found at a house on the corner of Coode and Fort streets last year.
Anthony Robert Harvey pleaded guilty in 2019 to the murders of his partner Mara Harvey, their three-year-old daughter Charlotte, and their two-year-old twins Alice and Beatrix.
He also confessed to killing Ms Harvey’s mother Beverley Quinn.
All five were found dead at the family home, and Mr Harvey lived with their bodies for several days.
He will be sentenced on July 19.
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