The Lost Ones podcast: Grisly murders in Tasmania as bodies hidden in the bush

Tasmania’s bushland has — quite literally — been soaked in blood. These are the violent murders that have occurred and why some go unsolved. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST.

A man cuts off his flatmate’s head and throws it over a bridge.

Teenagers stab a boy 18 times in the neck, back and head over an ounce of cannabis.

And a savage trio uses a pickaxe handle, shovel and knife to dispose of an enemy on a remote track.

For a long time, Tasmania’s bushland has — quite literally — been soaked in blood.

The island state is often described as having something of a “hangover” from its days as a penal colony in the 1800s.

Then called Van Diemen’s Land, it was a violent place.

Bushrangers ran wild, murders were frequent and, sadly, First Nations people often found themselves in the cross hairs.

While Tasmania has moved on from those lawless, dark old days, the distancing effects of the Bass Strait and the density of the bush means there’s still plenty of scope to hide evidence, clues and bodies.

Greg Barns SC. Picture: Chris Kidd

Criminal defence lawyer and political commentator Greg Barns SC said Tasmania suffered from being a small jurisdiction, with a lack of resources sometimes hampering the resolution of cold cases and unsolved missing persons cases.

“You don’t get the resources, you don’t get the skills, the skill sets that you require for sometimes complex investigations,” he told episode seven of News Corp’s The Lost Ones podcast.

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“I think if you do live in a smaller jurisdiction, you do, you are in some sense a second-class citizen in terms of those lack of resources.”

Mr Barns, who has worked in a number of “harrowing and gruelling” murder cases over the years, said the bush added extra complexity to murders and missing persons cases in Tasmania.

“Certainly the bush plays a part of, I think, every lawyer criminal lawyer’s life in Australia because, even if you practice in the cities, often criminal activity takes place or the proceeds of that crime or implements used are hidden in the bush or people use bush hideouts,” he said.

“It’s well known that people will drive into the bush to bury a body.”

Mr Barns also said while it sometimes seemed there was little or no warning before a person committed a violent crime such as murder, sometimes those warning signs had simply not been recognised.

“Human nature is such that it’s pretty rare for people to simply, if they’ve had no history of violence, verbal or otherwise, to suddenly pick up a gun or pick up a knife and start killing people,” he said.

“There’s generally some warning … there’s just a lot we don’t know in what motivates people to do terrible things.”

TASMANIAN BUSH MURDERS

Noel Ingham

Darren Ward Gale was found guilty of murdering his vulnerable, elderly housemate Mr Ingham at Ulverstone, on the northern coast, in 2016. The Court heard he decapitated him and buried his headless body in forestry outside Railton, flinging his head from a bridge. The skeletons of Mr Ingham’s two dogs were found in his burnt-out car nearby. Gale is appealing his conviction.

Noel Joseph Ingham.

Jake Anderson-Brettner

Jack Harrison Vincent Sadler was jailed in 2021 for murdering the 24-year-old in a Launceston home, disposing of his torso in bushland and placing other body parts in garbage bags and wheelie bins.

Jake Anderson- Brettner. Picture: Facebook

Paul “Joey” Jarman

Leigh James Butwell, Michael Adam Thompson and a 17-year-old male lured Mr Jarman to a remote bush track in the northeast in March 2000 before they killed him with a pickaxe handle, shovel and knife in a “frenzy of savagery”. Mr Jarman’s body was later found.

Paul ‘Joey’ Jarman.

Billy Ray Waters

Teenagers William Adair Rothwell and Jacob Michael Brennan killed the18-year-old over an ounce of cannabis. They shot him in the leg, bashed him, stabbed him 18 times in the neck, back and head and then fired one final fatal gunshot into the back of his head. Mr Waters’ body was found in bushland near Launceston, in 2019.

Billy Ray Waters.

Kerry Michael

A peaceful bushwalk turned into an horrific homicide in 2015 when South Australian couple Robin and Kerry Michael were holidaying in Tasmania.

The pair was descending Mt Roland, in the state’s northwest, when Robin Michael “went nuts and completely lost it”, murdering his wife with a rock in a fit of jealousy.

Mr Michael later took his own life at Hobart’s Risdon Prison.

South Australian woman Kerry Michael. Picture: Facebook

To listen to episode seven of The Lost Ones podcast, go to lostonespodcast.com.au

Originally published as The Lost Ones podcast: Grisly murders in Tasmania as bodies hidden in the bush