Matthew Wales: Killers in their own words
As Matthew Wales walked through his sister’s home, he noticed something odd — “everybody else’s photographs were up except mine.” The killer explains his twisted logic for the Society Murders.
Police & Courts
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When Matthew Wales killed his mother and stepfather in cold blood the case was dubbed the “Society Murders”, it was a crime that seemed more at home in fiction than real life and later inspired a book and a television movie.
But Paul King and Margaret Wales-King were real victims, with a family who loved them. They were leading a picture perfect life until April 4, 2002 when their son snapped.
Matthew Wales is currently serving a minimum 24-year sentence for the pair’s murders.
The killings were premeditated, with crushed tablets hidden in the medicine cabinet prior to Mrs Wales-King and Mr King’s arrival for a family dinner.
Wales sprinkled the drugs into their meals and when his wife Maritza went upstairs to put their young son to bed, he attacked the couple as they stepped out of his house to drive home.
This is how Wales revealed to police the awful truth of what happened that night.
A KILLER IN HIS OWN WORDS
‘‘Mum and I went outside, and Paul, and I hit them over the head with a block of wood right on the back of the neck.
“I realised there’s no way I can do it in front of my wife.
‘‘As soon as they got out halfway through … the garden that’s when I attacked them.
‘‘It was common knowledge to me that if I struck them on the back of the neck that it would be quick.
“My head was going bananas and I just kept on hitting. I just kept on hitting.
“I made it as merciful as I possibly could. I first of all gave them drugs and then I went and I hit them on the back of the neck.”
Autopsies on the pair later revealed they did not die immediately and were instead unconscious when Wales went to tell his wife what he had done.
Wales told Maritza he had “done something” to his mother and Paul.
‘‘I couldn’t believe what I had done. I think I was walking around in circles for a while. And I felt like a mad dog.
‘‘I felt like … that all my pain had gone. And I felt scared shitless.’’
He told police the genesis of the incident had been years of feeling dominated by his mother.
‘‘Because there’s so much animosity and hurt between my mother and myself.
‘‘Everybody will probably think this is about money, OK? And it is about money.
‘‘Not in the use of me getting money. It’s the way she used her power for money — she used it against us all the time.
‘‘I just feel like every time she wanted me to do something she used it as leverage.
‘‘It is also the way she used to treat us. She used to manipulate us.
‘‘I feel like she has just alienated me from the family.
‘‘I walked around my sister’s (Sally’s) house the other day and I noticed that everybody else’s
photographs were up except mine.
‘‘This anger just built up inside me and they just wanted to alienate me from the family.
‘‘I had it in my mind for, I have no idea. I have always had that aggression towards her.
‘‘Ever since I was a kid.
‘‘I have never shown it to her emotionally. I just bottled it up inside for so long.
‘‘I just wanted to get this out of my system.
‘‘She was always sitting there and there was this dominating type of aura about her. Sitting back and always thinking that she’s a queen. That’s the way she is.”
After killing his parents, Wales began an amateurish attempt to cover his tracks.
First he covered Mr King and Mrs Wales-King’s bodies with his son’s plastic blow-up swimming pool, before driving and dumping their car in Middle Park.
He ignored Maritza’s pleas to call the police and the next day placed their bodies into a hired trailer, hiding them in the garage until deciding to bury them in the bush.
He also bought cleaning supplies, and removed grass from the area where he killed the pair.
“I didn’t know whether I was going to come in and talk to you (police), I didn’t know whether I was going to try and … bury the bodies. I didn’t know if I was going to try and submerge the bodies. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was thinking of options. I was thinking of Maritza. I was thinking of nothing else … Gaol as well, of course.”
Wales explained to police there was method in his decision to dump the pair in the bush.
‘‘I knew that it was the nicest place, and she loved the country, so I thought I’d take her to the country.”
As he dug their bush grave he told police his mind was racing.
“You’re trying to cover your tracks … you’re in the middle of friggin’ nowhere … and you’ve got two dead bodies beside you and you’re hearing noises left, right and centre. What would you want to do?
“I had it in mind, if I was going to get caught, I’d get caught.
“I put Mum on the bottom and Paul at the top,” he told police.
“This man loved Mum unconditionally … He did anything for her, OK … but Mum used to manipulate him all the time … I thought, if they’re going to stay here at least he gets to be on top.”
Wales’ siblings grew increasingly worried when they couldn’t get in touch with their mother and reported her and Mr King missing on April 8.
Wales told police – and convinced his wife to do the same – that he waved goodbye to his parents on April 4 after they left the dinner.
But his lies began to unravel on April 29 when rangers from Parks Victoria found the gravesite.
By May 10 Maritza “couldn’t live with herself anymore” and told police what she knew.
The following day, Wales was arrested and he confessed to his horrific crime.
The court would later hear his motive was not to seize his mother’s money but instead his “hatred” of her and “perceived injustice” of how he claimed she used money to “manipulate” him.
Justice John Coldrey labelled the murders as “born of the idiosyncratic obsession”.
In the eyes of Matthew Wales however, he was a hero.
In sentencing him on April 11, 2003 – several months after he pleaded guilty – Justice Coldrey ran through a list of the murderer’s disturbing statements.
The court heard that while he acknowledged he had done a “terrible thing” and hurt his family, he thought his actions were “morally justified”.
Speaking to his son at Port Phillip Prison, Brian Wales left with the impression Wales thought he was a hero, having done what “no-one else in the family” had “the guts to do”.
In the same conversation, Wales told his father his motive was “clear”.
“Just utter hatred for the couple which I have had for the past eight years,” he said.
Bizarrely, Wales also told police he thinks “he got on best with Paul out of all the family”.
In the end, Wales’ words offer little explanation for his cruel act.
An act, that in the words of his devastated family, robbed them of “loving, adoring parents”.
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