Judge rejects outback serial killer Regina Arthurell freedom plea
A judge has rejected outback serial killer Regina Arthurell’s bid for softer conditions, saying the 75-year-old must wear a tracking anklet, and not drink alcohol.
A judge has rejected outback serial killer Regina Kaye Arthurell’s plea not to wear a tracking anklet, to be able to drink alcohol and have free use of the internet.
Justice Richard Button has instead imposed a two-year Extended Supervision Order on the triple murderer with strict conditions until she is aged just over 77 years.
In a NSW Supreme Court judgment released today, His Honour rejected requests from the now 75-year-old’s lawyer for softer conditions for the killer, released ion 2020 after decades incarcerated under the name Reginald Kenneth Arthurell.
Arthurell’s lawyer had pleaded she not have to wear a satellite tracking device, not be stopped from drinking alcohol and have free range to go online, saying conditions were “onerous”.
Arthurell, a member of the trans community since being released from a male prison, was leading an “an extremely. isolated, difficult life in the community,” Justice Button noted.
But he ruled that “a frail, even physically disabled, person can inflict fatal harm once armed with a weapon,”
Arthurell has “significant hand tremors and is blind in one eye from glaucoma”.
However, Justice Button said of Arthurell’s criminal history: “To commit homicide on two separate occasions is exceptionally rare.
“To have been convicted of committing it three times, including once whilst on parole for a previous homicide, I daresay is approaching the unique.”
Justice Button said Arthurell was living in crisis accommodation in Sydney after she had been evicted from an aged care facility when the media revealed she was living there.
“The defendant has expressed a desire to live in the country, where she has tended to live as an adult when at liberty.
“The fatal offending of the defendant has occurred in locations hundreds – sometimes thousands – of kilometres apart.
“It is true that she is frail, but even very frail and very elderly people can use public transport to travel long distances in short times before their absence is detected.
“Murder was committed whilst the defendant was subject to conditional liberty for manslaughter.
“Alcohol played a role in all three homicides.
“Much of the period of abstinence on the part of the applicant was whilst she was in custody, where alcohol is at the least more difficult to obtain than in the community.
“In contrast, alcohol is available in every suburb of Sydney, even in the current constrained state of affairs.
“The defendant, as I have said, is leading a very difficult, lonely life.
“It is not unrealistic to think that she might begin to seek solace in alcohol, with potentially disastrous consequences.”
Justice Button acknowledged that although electronic monitoring was “intrusive” in Arthurell’s case “it is soundly appropriate”.
“The defendant is an elderly woman whose physical health is not good,” he said.
“I also accept that transitioning with regard to one’s gender can sometimes be difficult psychologically.”
Justice Button included in his judgment the fact Arthurell’s last murder – the third killing for which she was convicted – was described by the sentencing judge as “callous, senseless and wanton”.
“(Arthurell) did feel much more comfortable living in the country, worked for RM Williams and enjoyed rodeo riding,” Justice Button said at Arthurell’s hearing last month.
“A person can go to Central Station and jump on a long distance train to many different parts of NSW.
“An elderly person can pick up a steak knife.”
The NSW Supreme Court heard that Arthurell is at risk of committing future violence and killing again, but forgets to charge her electronic anklet and has a tremor which makes it difficult plugging it in.
The court was also told the triple killer, who is “undergoing a transition to her preferred gender, female” had cognitive decline.
This was disputed by Crown prosecutor Katrina Curry, who said a 2020 aged care assessment had deemed Arthurell “independent with all activities of daily living”.
She said Arthurell had a history of “irritability and recklessness and a reckless disregard” and was “still displaying some of those traits” which could lead to aggression and violence.
A psychiatrist told the court that supervision restrictions on Arthurell “could escalate her level of frustration so that she behaves in a violent manner”.
Forensic psychologist Ivanka Manoski told a supervision hearing before Justice Richard Button that Arthurell posed a moderate or medium risk of “committing a further serious violence offence (that) could involve serious violence that is fatal”.
Arthurell’s biggest risk factors for committing violence were “poor emotional regulation, alcohol abuse and isolation”, the court heard.
Ms Arthurell, who the court heard had spent 37 years in prison for one murder and two manslaughter convictions.
The defendant offended in Queensland and the Northern Territory, before murdering her fiancee Venet Mulhall, who was bashed to death with a piece of wood in 1995.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr Yolisha Singh told the court that a proposed condition that significant changes to her appearance be reported “might prove quite onerous”.
Dr Singh said a gender transition involved “all sorts of different changes, taking deportment classes to change the way to walk, elocution classes, in addition to changing physical changes in hairstyle or wigs or attire”.
“Ms Arthurell said to me how distressed she was that she was photographed by the media in different wigs.”
Dr Singh said she had found Arthurell to be “very unsteady on her feet” and that she “mobilised very slowly”.
The psychiatrists said she had noticed when asking the offender to sign a consent form, Arthurell had “a marked tremor” and had to use her other hand to still the signing hand.
The doctor said Arthurell had “hearing and visual impairments” and there was a “concern about her remembering to charge the electronic monitoring equipment”.
“In addition, I think her tremor makes that process quite difficult, quite frustrating,” Dr Singh said, marking a warning note that this could lead to violence.
“Conditions that are hostile or unnecessarily restrictive … could escalate her level of frustration so that she behaves in a violent manner or acts aggressively to return to custody where she has felt a sense of belonging or acceptance,” Dr Singh said.
Arthurell’s full sentence and supervision on parole ended on May 24, but NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman took out the ISO which came into force on that day.
This meant Arthurell was still required to wear a tracking anklet and be subject to restrictions over changing his appearance.
Photos posted by the violent outback killer on the internet showed her dressed in a series of women’s wigs posing for the camera.
The photos were allegedly posted on a transgender community friendship page by Arthurell, who now goes by the name of Regina Kaye.
She posed in three different coloured wigs, including one in a dark brown bob which she used as her signature image with the words, “Hi, I’m Regina”.
Arthurell was released on parole last November after serving 24 years in prison for bludgeoning Venet Mulhall, then his fiancee, to death in 1997 with a piece of wood.
Arthurell, a former rodeo worker, was an outback drifter when he committed his first two killings four decades ago.
The tall, powerful, self styled “cowboy” had two manslaughter convictions when he met vulnerable and devoutly religious Venet Raylee Mulhall in the 1980s.
When Arthurell was 28, he killed his stepfather, Thomas Thornton, 49, with a carving knife and then went on the run.
Working at rodeos in Queensland and the Northern Territory, Arthurell met another man and together in 1981 they robbed and killed 19-year-old sailor, Ross Browning.
Browning’s mutilated body was found in scrub just 35km east of Tennant Creek.
NT Police described the killing as “the most vicious” they had investigated, but two murder trials were aborted and both men pleaded guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter.
Ms Mulhall started writing to Arthurell in 1986 when he was serving time in Darwin Correctional Centre for Browning’s killing.
A Prison Fellowship Christian, Ms Mulhall was five years older than Arthurell and visited him in Darwin jail, where he was baptised and convinced her – and authorities – he had found God and reformed.
Ms Mulhall had suffered a broken marriage and had been left with her face permanently paralysed and disfigured by an operation to remove a tumour next to her brain.
Arthurell, who had proposed to Ms Mulhall, was released into the care of his new fiancee in April 1991.
He was still on parole in February 1997 when he murdered her at the Coonabarabran home in central western NSW that Ms Mulhall had bought to forge their new life together.
Her brother, Paul Quinn, found Ms Mulhall’s decomposing body at the home.
Inside, he discovered – on his sister’s camera – images of Arthurell, who had fled in Ms Mulhall’s car, wearing his fiancee’s clothing.
Ms Mulhall’s brother, Paul Quinn, said Arthurell should have been sentenced to life without parole.
“These people commit crimes that are so outrageous that they exclude themselves from society,” Mr Quinn told 2GB.
“The first thing the judge should actually consider is how do you reintegrate these people back into society.
“You can’t. They should stay in prison for the rest of their life.”