TIFFANY Taylor’s convicted killer was jailed for the stabbing murder of a 75-year-old Tasmanian pensioner more than 40 years before being found guilty of the pregnant Queensland teen’s slaying.
After Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, was yesterday found guilty of killing the 16-year-old and her unborn child at Waterford West on July 12, 2015, The Courier-Mail can reveal Williams was previously convicted of murdering another woman — Doris Rodman — in 1977.
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Williams was aged 24 when he killed Mrs Rodman during a bungled robbery at her Hobart home 43 years ago.
Court documents obtained by The Courier-Mail show he was jailed for life in 1978 by the Supreme Court in Hobart after Williams went to the elderly woman’s Harrington St flat late one September evening and tried to steal her money.
The 75-year-old knew Williams and let him in.
He punched her before stabbing the woman in the back as he feared she would identify him to police, court records show.
Bizarrely, after stabbing the woman, Williams helped her to her bedroom and removed her bloodstained clothing before bathing and dressing the stab wound.
Mrs Rodman died several hours later from the wound after Williams fled the scene.
After his arrest, he admitted in a police interview to killing the woman but tried to argue during his trial the murder was not premeditated but “a reflexive action’’.
Williams was granted parole in the 1990s but committed a sex offence and was later taken back into custody.
He was resentenced for the murder charge in 1995 and became eligible for parole that year.
Almost 25 years after his release, a Brisbane Supreme Court jury yesterday found Williams guilty of the senseless murder of Ms Taylor.
Crown Prosecutor Phil McCarthy QC told a Queensland jury during the trial that the 16-year-old’s bank accounts had not been touched and she had not made a Medicare claim since before July 2015, despite her pregnancy.
Her body has never been found.
The court heard Ms Taylor’s blood was later found in Williams’ car on the glove box, gearstick and front passenger seat.
“It was this car that Rodney Williams used to collect Tiffany for a paid sexual liaison that was meant to take place … and she has never been seen again,” Mr McCarthy said during the case.
Williams later told police officers he never had intercourse with the teen and attempted to explain the forensic evidence by saying she got into the car with a bloody nose.
The man pleaded not guilty to Ms Taylor’s murder and defence barrister Eoin Mac Giolla Ri said the prosecution had asked the jury to consider some things in detail but “ignore other aspects of the case, such as the near impossibility of him (Williams) killing her and disposing of the body”.
But the jury did not side with Williams.
The man met Ms Taylor on the social networking site Oasis where she was desperately offering sex for cash in a bid to raise the funds to pay her rent in the days before she died.
“I need money ASAP. I need to pay my rent and phone bill,” one message shown to the jury during the trial read.
But 65-year-old Williams wasn’t just looking for sex.
He advertised himself as a “master looking for submissive females”.
“I would love to teach the right girl the good life,” his profile read.
“ … I pride myself in the fact (that) I know more about the female body than most girls …
“Please girls say that you are willing to try anything for the first time, don’t run and hide …”
Ms Taylor disappeared shortly after Williams agreed to pay her $500 for sex.
Police say he picked the girl up from a motel in Logan where she was living with her older boyfriend Gregory Hill, who was unemployed.
Williams then drove to Larapinta industrial park where the murder is believed to have taken place.
After the killing, Williams drove to Esk, the jury heard during the trial.
Police later searched dams and bushland for the teen, but have never found a trace of the pregnant teen.
The girl’s Oasis messages to Williams abruptly ended on the same day she was due to meet the man at 1.26pm.
More than 12 hours after they made the agreement to meet, chat logs showed Williams wrote again to Ms Taylor, saying: “Sorry, I didn’t turn up, I decided I wasn’t going to pay for it”.
Police said Williams did this to create a “false trail” to cover his tracks after he killed the teen.
The 65-year-old would later tell police Ms Taylor wanted to meet up not for sex but because she told him he “sounded interesting”.
Ms Taylor had created more than a dozen user profiles on the Oasis website in the months before she disappeared.
The teenager listed her age as 21 and under profile names including Hotsexylady1 and Sexybabe11232.
When called to give evidence in the trial, Ms Taylor’s boyfriend Mr Hill, 45, denied pimping the teenager out despite 300 messages about money and meeting men allegedly being found on his phone.
Ms Taylor had left home at the age of 12 to live with 38-year-old Mr Hill.
The girl’s mother Leanne Dillon gave evidence during the trial daughter met the man when she was cleaning the house of another neighbour, Don.
“I think it’s disgusting,” she said of the relationship her daughter had with the man.
Williams was on Friday sentenced to life behind bars for Ms Taylor’s murder.
Under Queensland’s tough No Body No Parole laws, the 65-year-old will never be eligible for parole unless he tells police where Ms Taylor’s remains are.
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