Cop reveals ‘creepy’ love letters sent from child murderer’s prison cell

A detective still haunted by the case of a sadistic child murderer has revealed how the criminal sent him twisted “love” letters from prison.

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A detective still haunted by the case of a perverted child killer has revealed how the sadistic criminal sent him twisted “love” letters from prison.

He also revealed how the killer confessed he had toyed with the idea of murdering the detective – by ramming a pencil through his ear into the brain – when they revisited the crime scene.

Ian Spiers, now retired, was working as a detective at Murwillumbah in northern NSW when he was assigned to a case so horrifying it still haunts him today.

Robin Reid is being considered for parole almost 40 years after he and his soldier lover kidnapped two boys and tortured and buried alive Peter Aston, 13, before killing him in 1982.

Spiers, who says he would fear for his own life if the killer was granted release from prison, has revealed for the first time the contents of letters Reid sent from his jail cell.

Robin Reid told Ian Spiers he could have killed him at any point during the murder scene walk through by driving a pencil into his brain.

Ian Spiers (above with Robin Reid) at the boy’s gravesite says the killer wrote him love letters from prison. Picture: NSW Police

Ian Spiers (above) says only two offenders have ever really frightened him, one of them being ‘cunning’ Robert Reid.

Part of Reid’s ghastly pubic and stomach hair collection labelled with male names.

Murder victim Peter Aston was beaten, shaved, tortured and buried alive by Reid and his soldier lover.

“I remember opening the second or third one in the detectives’ office and … it was just so eerie, so creepy,” he says.

“He was writing like ‘because I have the deepest affection for you … I found your understanding and compassion for my plight … you are someone I could spend a life with’.

“I never should have done it, but I threw those notes in the bin.

“At that stage I didn’t realise this would play on my mind for the rest of my life.”

He also warned Reid could kill and maim again and was “a murderer in the truest sense. His chosen occupation is to maim, torture and kill”.

“People need to be reminded of what he actually did. I would be afraid for my own safety if he was ever let out,” he said.

Spiers is haunted by what unfolded after he became part of the detective team investigating what initially seemed like an improbable allegation by a terrified Brisbane schoolboy.

It was Tuesday, May 3, when Terry Ryan and Peter Aston, a slightly built bespectacled boy, decided to wag school together, steal some cigarettes and hitchhike south.

Terry was headed for the Gold Coast and Peter for Melbourne to see his older brother when they were picked up near Beenleigh by Australian Army Corporal Robin Reid, 34, and Private Paul Wayne Luckman, 17.

The two men were lovers, and Reid a Satanist and sadist with a desire to torture and kill a male as “sacrifice”.

As Reid drove his 4WD Daihatsu, Peter was handcuffed to the dashboard and Luckman threatened to shoot Terry in the back seat with a rifle he produced from under a blanket.

They drove over the border into NSW and stopped south of Kingscliff, where the men forced the boys out of the vehicle and down a secluded beach track.

Over the next six hours, both men kicked or beat Peter with a shovel.

They inflicted atrocities such as removing pieces of his ears with a hole punch, shaving his pubic hair and forcing Terry to eat it.

They dug a shallow grave and buried Peter alive before pouring sand down his throat to finish him off.

Terry’s street sense somehow enabled him to convince Reid and Luckman to let him go and he arrived home at 2am hysterical, screaming at his mother that “they’ve killed Peter, they’re gonna kill me”.

Surviving victim Terry Ryan (pictured in 1998) still suffers from the horror of what two depraved killers made him do.

Robin Reid shows Detective Jackson how he held a knife to the throat of 13-year-old Peter Aston.

Private Paul Luckman in custody.

Now known as Nicole Louise Pearce, Luckman was released in 1999.

Terry’s mother Deleta called the police who didn’t initially believe Terry’s story, but he guided them to the bush grave at Kingscliff where they found blood seeping from disturbed ground.

They exhumed Peter’s body and observed stab wounds, cuts, bruises, holes punched through the earlobes and the pubic region burnt and shaved.

Terry told police the two men had short, police-style haircuts and he could spell the make of the vehicle, Daihatsu.

On the Wednesday morning, the army reported two soldiers were AWOL but that their vehicle, a yellow Daihatsu, was parked at the base.

When Ian Spiers and other detectives arrived at Enoggera, they were allowed to enter the room of Corporal Robin Reid.

What they found sent shivers down the spines of the officers.

Hanging on the walls and from the ceiling were swords, knives, daggers, knuckledusters, a rifle, and metal devices.

They found montages of male bondage pornography, books on Satanism and in a fold out holder, each encased in plastic and labelled with a male name, they found hair samples.

They were marked “pubic”, as well as “stomach”, “arm” and “head”.

In a laundry basket they found bloodstained clothing.

Ian Spiers remembers the horrifying feeling that not only had they found the boy’s murderer, they had possibly found evidence he had killed before.

They learned Luckman had only been at Enoggera for two weeks, but in that time Reid – known around the base as “Head Job Bob” – had put the new recruit in his room and they had become “inseparable”.

Reid shows Detectives Jackson and Spiers where he carried out the torture and murder of Peter Aston.

Reid shows Ian Spiers where he washed off blood in the male toilets at Tweed Heads after the murder.

Reid indicates to the detectives where he used the leather hole punch on Peter’s earlobes to obtain skin samples he kept as trophies.

Reid was a hated figure by many of the other soldiers, and had discussed his violent fantasies about kidnapping, torturing and sacrificing a male victim.

Spiers and the other detectives learnt that Reid and Luckman had taken off in a vehicle with another soldier, who it turned out Reid had kidnapped at knifepoint.

The soldier, Tony, managed to get away from them and went to the police, who eventually arrested the killer couple near Glen Innes, 400km southwest of the army base.

Detectives Ian Spiers and Bob Jackson were assigned to take Robin Reid on a walk through the crime scene the following day.

Reid seemed relaxed and co-operative, Spiers remembers, with a matchstick in his mouth to chew on as they drove around the spots where Peter Ashton had been tortured and killed.

Jackson would later report Reid acted as if the cops were his friends and told them Irish jokes.

Spiers remembers during the course of the run-around that Reid pretended he couldn’t speak so that he was given a notepad and pencil to write down his recollection of the crimes.

“It was part of his game,” Spiers told news.com.au. “He was cunning.

“He was sitting directly behind me as we were driving around.

“Later, he said to me, ‘You know I could have killed you at any time … with the pencil straight into your ear.’

“I said, ‘Why didn’t you try’ and he said, ‘That’s for me to know’.”

Reid’s car used to kidnap the boys who were wagging school after shoplifting on their way to the Gold Coast.

Robin Reid with Detective Jackson (left) and a uniformed officer.

Paul Luckman beat Aston so badly with the rifle that the butt broke, and kicked him so hard he injured his leg.

Ian Spiers (left) takes notes with Reid (right) telling him the grisly details of how he maimed and killed Aston, 13.

After Robin Reid and Paul Luckman appeared to be safely incarcerated for life in jail by sentencing judge Justice Aidan Roden, Spiers started receiving letters from prison.

They were from Reid, who wrote as many as four filled with affection, claiming he had “fallen” for him while they did the walk through.

“I think he was trying to spook me,” he said, “everything has a purpose for this twisted bizarre man.”

But at the time he received the letters, they were “so eerie, so creepy”.

In the company of other detectives, the investigators had decided, “Let’s just get this bloke out of our heads.”

So instead of keeping the letters in an evidence bag, Spiers “threw the notes in the bin”.

“I should never have done it,” he admits today.

“I have only been really fearful of two people, a psychiatric patient and Reid.

“As the sentencing judge said, he’s mad and bad. He’d be capable of absolutely anything.”

Reid, whose original life sentence for murder was redetermined down to 24 years, is being assessed for parole next month by the NSW State Parole Authority (SPA).

State Attorney-General Mark Speakman said SPA was “obliged to make community safety its paramount consideration in all cases”.