Penelope Pratt was brutally murdered and dumped in bushland

PENELOPE Pratt was gruesomely murdered in a quiet Melbourne suburb six years ago. It could have been avoided. WARNING: Graphic content.

Homicide Squad detectives are investigating the disappearance of a 27-year-old Boronia woman last month. Penelope "Penny" Pratt was last seen leaving the Maroondah Hospital on the evening of Sunday, 28 November. The mother-of-two was reported missing by her mother the following day. Investigators are treating her disappearance as suspicious and have grave concerns for her safety. Penny is described as being of Caucasian appearance, 170cm tall, medium build, green eyes and light brown hair.

WARNING: Graphic content

IT WAS a late, gruesome night in a small Boronia suburb.

A woman was being brutally tortured and murdered, unbeknown to those sleeping in their beds next-door.

It is such a disturbing and callous story, it’s something you’d think to only hear of in a movie.

The bloody details of Penelope Pratt’s murder have been revealed in the Coroner’s Court of Victoria, and findings suggest there was a chance her inhumane killing could have been stopped.

Ms Pratt was a troubled teen, she had a learning disability and dyslexia, and once she started high school, she began smoking pot and experimenting with hardcore drugs like heroin and needed psychiatric help.

By the time she reached adulthood, she had two young children, who she did not have custody of at the time she was murdered.

She could have had a new start in life in 2009, after the death of her father left her with almost $100,000, but she spent the money irresponsibly and it eventually wasted away.

In 2010 she suffered yet another loss when her partner overdosed on drugs and she then started spending time with James Potter and Aaron Gibson, drug addicts who often took amphetamine.

Later that year in November, Ms Pratt was suffering from depression over the deaths of her partner and father.

She couldn’t cope and called triple-0 in the early hours of the morning of November 28.

She was taken to Maroondah Hospital and was placed in the psychiatric ward and could leave whenever she was ready.

This was the start of a timeline of events that led to her vicious murder.

Potter and Gibson were looking for Ms Pratt and when they couldn’t find her at home, they were told she was at the hospital.

It was almost 11pm and the men went to see her but the receptionist would not let them in.

This made Potter furious, he began swearing and was forceful with a security guard called to calm him down.

Potter lied to the guard and said Ms Pratt was his sister and he had clothes for her, security called Ms Pratt and put her on the phone to Potter.

She then made the fatal mistake to leave hospital with the men, when Potter told her he had some money to give her.

The trio drove to Potter’s girlfriend’s house in Boronia but Ms Pratt quickly left.

She was seen by a man named Adrian Krelekamp, who was on his way to the address Ms Pratt fled.

Morning sun cuts through the mist in the Dandenong Ranges National Park, where Penelope Pratt’s body was dumped.

‘I’M GOING TO COP A BEATING’

Triple-0 received a call from Ms Pratt about 11.20pm, and she told the operator she had been picked up from the hospital by people drink driving and she said she wanted to go back as she would “cop a beating”.

The operator was unsure of Ms Pratt’s location and attempted to ask her questions about her whereabouts but Ms Pratt kept saying down the phone she just wanted her money.

She ended up hanging up on the operator and said “f***ing dealing with this”.

Ms Pratt then phoned back just before 11.30pm and told a different call-taker police should be sent to Alma Ave because there were two people officers would want to arrest.

She again said she wanted her money and told the call-taker she was hiding in a bush because she was going to be bashed.

When the call-taker tried to ask her questions about sending police, Ms Pratt called them a “b****” and the call ended.

Not long after, Ms Pratt began fighting with Gibson outside and Krelekamp instructed them to take it indoors.

The fighting continued and Ms Pratt turned on Potter, again demanding her money.

He just told her not to worry about it, which just irritated her more.

Gibson then violently grabbed Ms Pratt’s hair and pointed a .22 calibre sawn off rifle at her face, and shot her in the jaw.

She began pleading for her life and Gibson put her in a chair and shot her in the left side of her head.

Potter helped Gibson drag her to a bath and he took the gun and shot her in the right eye.

The Coroner's report said Gibson told Potter to “finish the job” and he got a large kitchen knife and stabbed her in the heart several times and cut her throat.

Gibson still wasn’t finished and he sadistically took an angle grinder out of his backpack and began cutting Ms Pratt’s head.

She laid decapitated in a bloody bath and then was wrapped in a living room rug and placed in a car boot that belonged to Krelekamp, the man who saw Ms Pratt trying to earlier flee the house.

On December 19, he helped police with their investigations and told them Ms Pratt had been dumped in a bush in the Dandenong Ranges National Park.

When Ms Pratt was dumped, her body was left unprotected in an open well, away from the road so it would not be easily found.

Penelope Pratt’s mother Julie believed the two men who murdered her daughter should have received a harsher sentence.

GIBSON AND POTTER FOUND GUILTY

On October 24, 2011, Gibson pleaded guilty and he was sentenced in August 2012 to 22 years imprisonment, with a fixed non-parole period of 19 years.

Potter was sentenced in October 2012 to 24 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 20 years.

The Coroner’s report said Potter showed no remorse and took no responsibility for his actions.

The report concluded there was a chance the brutal murder of Ms Pratt could have been stopped, if the second call-taker sent police to her location.

The Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority was responsible for the calls and quality improvement manager Mark Richards said the person who took Ms Pratt’s second call to triple-0 did not appreciate her circumstances.

He said with Ms Pratt unable to answer questions, the call-taker controlled the call and would speak over Ms Pratt whenever she did try to explain her situation.

Mr Richards said both the tone and questioning techniques of the call-taker were not to the proper standard.

He found the call-taker also incorrectly logged the call as an ‘advised event’, which closed the case rather than send police to do a welfare check.

After Ms Pratt’s murder, the call-taker was counselled and demoted for the serious breach and underwent further testing.

In court not long after Ms Pratt’s death, her mother believed if the call-taker took the right processes, police could have saved her daughter’s life.

“Or at the very least, caught the offenders in the horrific act of torture and murder”.

It was established there were only minutes between Ms Pratt making the call and going inside with Potter and Gibson, but state coroner Judge Ian Gray concluded that had the police been notified, they could have intervened in what was taking place inside.

He said the handling of Ms Pratt’s second call was well below standard.

“I cannot positively conclude that Penny’s death would have been prevented had the call been handled correctly. However the mishandling of the call effectively negated any chance of rapid and effective police intervention at the address where she was killed,” he said.