Shandee Blackburn’s mum Vicki is being sued by accused killer John Peros

Vicki Blackburn is being sued for defamation by the man accused of killing her daughter, over comments made by other people.

Amateur boxer and accused killer John Peros is suing victim Shandee Blackburn’s mum, Vicki, over Facebook posts made by others on the Justice for Shandee page. Photo Lee Constable / Daily Mercury

Murder victim Shandee Blackburn’s mum Vicki is being sued for defamation by the man accused of savagely killing her daughter, over comments other people posted on Facebook.

John Peros, who a coroner found viciously stabbed Blackburn to death as she walked home from work in Mackay in 2013, has launched a civil claim against her mother Vicki Blackburn in the Federal Court.

The defamation case is over comments other people made on the Justice for Shandee Blackburn Facebook page.

Ms Blackburn is an administrator of the page, established 10 years ago to help fight for justice for the murdered 23-year-old.

Shandee Blackburn's mum, Vicki, and sister, Shannah, speak to the media days after her 2013 murder. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

It comes after Mr Peros last year launched a separate legal claim against Shandee’s older sister, Shannah, for calling him a murderer on The Australian’s podcast Shandee’s Story.

The former champion amateur boxer has always emphatically denied killing Blackburn.

He this year also lodged a $20m damages claim in Queensland’s Supreme Court against the state and the lead police investigator, Detective Sergeant Lisa Elkins, alleging he was a victim of malicious prosecution and wrongful imprisonment.

The new case against Blackburn’s mother was briefly mentioned in the Federal Court in Brisbane on Thursday without Ms Blackburn’s knowledge that it was to be heard.

The Australian’s podcast series Shandee's Story examined the brutal unsolved murder of Shandee Blackburn that has haunted Mackay for the past decade.

Judge Roger Derrington adjourned the matter until a case management hearing on November 21.

“I was not aware of the mention in court today. My lawyers will be in court on the 21st of November,” Ms Blackburn said.

In 2017, a Supreme Court jury in Mackay took less than two hours to find Mr Peros not guilty of Blackburn’s murder.

But in 2020, after examining the case, ­coroner David O’Connell found that Mr Peros ambushed and killed Blackburn, his former girlfriend.

Blackburn suffered 23 stab and slash wounds to her face, neck, chest and arm in the ­frenzied attack.

Despite the coroner’s findings, due to Queensland’s double jeopardy laws Mr Peros cannot be charged again with Blackburn’s murder unless fresh and compelling evidence emerges.

Images of the location of Blackburn’s wounds, from a report for police by biomechanics expert Zac Couper.

Blackburn suffered 23 stab and slash wounds to her face, neck, chest and arm in the ­frenzied attack. Source: Supplied

Shannah Blackburn told the Shandee’s Story investigative podcast series that she believed Mr O’Connell got it right when he found that Mr Peros was the killer.

Mr Peros’s original legal claim over Shannah Blackburn’s comments was made in the Supreme Court in Perth in August 2022, but has since been transferred to the Supreme Court in Queensland.

He is also suing The Australian’s publishers Nationwide News and investigative journalist Hedley Thomas over Shannah Blackburn’s comments, but has dropped a claim against podcast sponsor Harvey Norman.

Mr Peros has been living in Western Australia and is represented in his defamation cases by Rostron Carlyle Rojas ­Lawyers.

The Justice for Shandee Blackburn page remains online with more than 6400 members but has been set to private, requiring people to request to join the group to see posts.

It contains a decade worth of memories of Blackburn, with people who knew her encouraged to share their recollections and pictures, and apart from the quest for justice is of huge sentimental value to her family.

Vicki Blackburn has previously said the legal action against Shannah had “devastated” her only surviving daughter.

“It’s come out of nowhere and is totally unreasonable and just quite cruel. It’s horrible,” she told the Shandee’s Legacy podcast last year.

The coroner’s findings that Mr Peros killed Shandee had been openly published, she said at the time.

Police take hair samples from John Peros during their investigation into Shandee Blackburn’s murder. Source: Supplied

“It seems he’s just ignored that finding completely and just reverted back to a not guilty finding in the trial,” she said.

“There’s no reasonable logic to that. It’s public knowledge. It’s been announced in public.

“We’ve always been very, very careful and mindful of what we say. And we’ve had to restrict what we say and keep so much to ourselves.

“That alone has been quite ­difficult, and when we finally get the coroner’s findings, we would assume that that’s public, that’s common knowledge, we can ­finally talk about who took ­Shandee’s life.”

Police video of John Peros being questioned by detectives about Blackburn’s murder.

Shannah last year said she was “blown away” that Mr Peros was allowed to sue her after the coroner’s public findings.

“I’m not really sure if disbelief covers how I felt at the time. But that’s obviously one word that comes to mind,” she said.

“It feels like such a wrongdoing that my sister was murdered and now this man, who has been publicly named as the person who Shandee died at the hands of, that I now have to suffer through a ­possible trial and possibly suffer ­financially and emotionally.

“It’s absolutely distressing. The findings have been released, so there’s absolutely no way that we thought anything like this could be possible.”

Mr Peros alleges in his claim against the State of Queensland that police failed to properly investigate another man, William Daniel, the nephew of a police officer involved in the Blackburn investigation. Daniel has denied any involvement in the murder.

Coroner O’Connell reopened his investigations into Blackburn’s murder in early 2022 after the Shandee’s Story podcast revealed serious failures in the state’s DNA lab. The coroner’s investigations are ongoing.

In his 2020 findings, Mr O’Connell said he had no doubt it was Mr Peros’s ute captured on CCTV near the murder scene just minutes before Blackburn was stabbed to death.

He also had no doubt Mr Peros was the driver.

CCTV footage pointed to the driver, Mr Peros, being the person who concealed himself in foliage outside a Guides Hut while Blackburn passed by, Mr O’Connell said.

Mr Peros was the person who ran towards Blackburn as she was entering Boddington St Mackay, “and is the person who attacked Miss Blackburn, and caused the injuries which resulted in her death”, Mr O’Connell said.

“Mr Peros then ran back, across Juliet Street, re-entered and started his vehicle, and then drove to the end of Sydney Street, where he turned left into Evans Street, in the direction of his home,” he said.