Warning: This story contains names of Indigenous people who have died and graphic details of a crime.

Mount Isa detectives have officially named Andy Albury, a sadistic killer behind bars in the Northern Territory, as the man they believe murdered Patricia Carlton in 1983.

The 24-year-old woman was found barely alive in a Mount Isa car park on the morning of October 1 after being beaten with a metal pole.

Her boyfriend, Kelvin Condren, was wrongly arrested and jailed for six years over her murder.

But after those charges were dropped, no-one had ever been named over his partner’s death, until last month.

A small team of detectives picked up the case in March last year, and leading investigator Jason Smith has revealed how they combed through every shred of evidence, reinterviewed old detectives and witnesses, and finally put the horrific case to bed.

PATRICIA’S MURDER

On September 29, 1983, Patricia Carlton was enjoying a few beers with friends at a pub in Mount Isa on a spring afternoon.

Hours later, she’d be dead, brutally murdered.

The 24-year-old indigenous woman’s body was mutilated, she was beaten to a pulp, with a large stone inserted in her genitalia, and left to die in a vacant lot.

For 38 years her murder has been unsolved, but police have recently named Andy Albury as the man they suspect who took her life.

Albury kills for fun. The Victorian-born man picks his victims at random, mutilates their bodies and moves onto his next unsuspecting person without a care in the world, describing murder as an occupation he loves.

Police believe Ms Carlton was one of these victims.

A new police investigations revealed Ms Carlton was spotted with a caucasian man before her death. They believe this man is Albury.

Albury had arrived in Mount Isa, picked his victim, and killed her about 7.30pm, according to information obtained by police.

He left Mount Isa on a Greyhound bus bound for Darwin at 8.30pm.

Ms Carlton’s body was found the next day, and police turned their attention to her boyfriend, indigenous man Kelvin Condren.

Police extracted a confession from Mr Condren, but he would later reveal that he never killed his girlfriend, and only admitted to the killing to “stop the pressure” from cops.

He was convicted on August 15, 1984, and sentenced to life in prison.

But, he was completely innocent, and Albury went on to kill just weeks later.

HANNIBAL LECTER

Ms Carlton was just 24 years old when police believe she was killed by 21-year-old Albury.

She was a loved friend and girlfriend, but Albury has been described as one of the worst psychopathic murders in Australia’s history.

The ex-abattoir worker has been dubbed the country’s own Hannibal Lecter after telling police he butchered multiple people on a lonely stretch of the Flinders Highway between 1970 and 1982.

He’s only ever been convicted of one murder, but police believe he’s responsible for many more.

In his short life before jail, he developed a hatred for Aboriginal people and started to believe in the ideals of the Ku Klux Klan.

Psychologists have dubbed him as “sadistic,” saying he kills out of pleasure and control.

“I think I’ll do it again. I get enjoyment out of it, don’t know why,” he said. He told a psychiatrist that he saw killing as “about the same as thumping on a cockroach.”

The man, now 59 years old, is a danger to the community, and in 2004 a court ruled he stay in prison for the rest of his natural life.

Justice Martin granted the application after being inundated with psych reports.

“Albury is an extremely dangerous man,” one report stated. “His mental disorder is such that he has a casual disregard for the act of killing. He still fantasises about killing people.

“He has a fantasy about terrorising a town by committing casual, motiveless murder for the purpose of making people frightened that they may be the next to be killed.”

The madman has continued his carnage while in jail.

In 1988, he put a garden hoe through the head of an inmate because The Doors singer Jim Morrison told him to spill blood.

He cracked another inmate’s skull with a cricket bat while serving time in Alice Springs.

“Give me a day or another life sentence,” he told magistrate Daynor Trigg, before walking from the dock and adding: “See you next time – and there will be a next time.”

INJUSTICE

Gloria Pinder was Albury’s next victim.

The young indigenous woman was murdered by Albury in Darwin just eight weeks after police believe he took Ms Carlton’s life.

He stabbed the 29-year-old 30 times, cut off her nipples, gouged out her eyeball and mutilated her with a broken bottle.

He confessed to Ms Pinder’s murder almost immediately, but he toyed with police about Ms Carlton.

Albury made a stunning statement while under arrest that he killed another woman in Mount Isa just eight weeks earlier.

Mount Isa District Detective Inspector Jason Smith said Albury even drew a “mud map” of where Ms Carlton was killed, but he retracted his confession at Mr Condren’s trial for the murder.

Mr Condren remained in jail, despite no physical evidence tying him to her death.

At the committal hearing, two of the witnesses that propped up the police case against Mr Condren unravelled, saying they’d been coerced into lying.

One claimed he was intimidated by police to sign a fake statement, and the other witness said he eventually gave a false statement after police bashed him.

In Mr Condren’s trial, he refused to repeat his confession and later revealed that police had hit him with a phone book, kept at him, accused him and threatened to lock him away if he didn’t admit to the killing.

“Eventually I signed it, just went along with it to stop the pressure,” Mr Condren previously said.

Mr Condren spent seven years in jail until new evidence uncovered by media revealed that Mr Condren was not in the area at the time of Ms Carlton’s murder, and he in fact had an alibi.

“It is my firm belief that my arrest and conviction were due to the fact that I am an Aborigine,” Condren told the Sunday Territorian after his release.

Kelvin Condren was released from prison in 1990. His conviction was withdrawn, and he was later granted $400,000 compensation by the Queensland Government.

Adding insult to injury, the Criminal Justice Commission did not recommend action be taken against the police officers who put him in jail. That, he believed, was the most humiliating part.

SOLVING THE CASE

Detective Inspector Smith said he owed it to Mount Isa to solve Ms Carlton’s murder.

The cold case was reopened in March last year and a team of 10 detectives started work straight away.

Insp Smith said they went through “every skerrick” of information and spoke to “every possible witness.”

“This required us to really take on, an anything is possible mindset,” Insp Smith said.

“Obviously other investigators came to a different conclusion … so we had to look at what’s gone on and take the evidence as what it was.”

Detectives spoke with Northern Territory police, witnesses, and former detectives who worked on Ms Carlton’s murder in the 80s.

While some were apprehensive to help, most wanted to close the door on the investigation.

They uncovered new evidence about Albury’s movements before and after Ms Carlton death, including that they were spotted together just hours before she died.

Insp Smith said Albury knew things about the murder that only the killer would know.

He even drew police a “mud map” of where Ms Carlton was attacked.

Insp Smith believed it was enough to name Albury as the killer, and praised his team for their thorough and gutsy work.

“I think some people might have just considered that it’s a challenge to go over old territory where previous, high-level detectives have made a certain call.”

“The conduct of those police in the initial investigation was reviewed, and it was determined they did nothing wrong.

“However, it’s a long time (since then), and we think differently and are more culturally aware now and are more empathetic to indigenous people and the way evidence is given.”

Police issued an arrest warrant for Albury on June 11.

It is very unlikely he will ever face court over Ms Carlton’s death as he is serving natural life, without parole, in a Northern Territory jail.

Insp Smith said despite this, they were able to close the book for Ms Carlton’s family.

“The family is very grateful that we have come to that result, and giving them an answer. Kelvin is also grateful for the closure.

“But there’s always been Patricia, the biggest victim in all of this, and this is an answer to her death.”

shayla.bulloch@news.com.au