Australia’s ‘Hannibal Lector’ Andy Albury’s fight to be moved out of High Security cell in NT Prison

A notorious NT convicted killer has made a bid for an interstate transfer after claiming he’s spent decades in solitary confinement. Warning: Confronting.

Murderer Andy Albury is led by detectives through the Darwin Airport. Albury was convicted of killing a woman in Darwin's Mitchell Street in November 1983 and mutilating her body. Circa: 8/1984.

Australia’s own ‘Hannibal Lecter’ claims to have spent four decades locked in a “dark cell” of solitary confinement, begging the courts “why don’t you just kill me?”.

A muttering old man with a shaggy beard and long grey hair appeared on the prison live feed into the Territory Supreme Court on Thursday.

The now 62-year-old Andrew Albury looked very different from famous photos of the wild-eyed, clean-shaven, killer in a tuxedo T-shirt who was arrested off the streets of Darwin in 1983.

The Victorian-born ex-abattoir worker claims to have butchered at least 13 people along the Flinders ‘highway of death’ between 1970 and 1982.

But Gloria Pindan is his only confirmed victim.

The young Indigenous woman’s mutilated body was found in a flower bed on Mitchell St, in the heart of Darwin CBD on November 25, 1983.

Albury stabbed the 29-year-old 30 times, cut off her nipples and gouged her eye out with his finger.

Her eyeball was found in grass four metres from her body, while the blood spatters reached 1m up a nearby wall.

This was just eight weeks after another Indigenous woman, Patricia Carlton, was brutally beaten and left to die in a Mount Isa carpark in 1983.

Albury allegedly made admissions to her killing and remains the lead suspect to the cold case, after her boyfriend Kelvin Condren was wrongly jailed for six years before his murder conviction was withdrawn.

Albury told police he believed in the ideals of the Ku Klux Klan, and has disclosed to psychiatrists his “fantasies” of “casual, motiveless murder”.

Murderer Andy Albury is led by detectives through the Darwin Airport. Albury was convicted of killing a woman in Darwin's Mitchell Street in November 1983 and mutilating her body. Circa: 8/1984.

On Thursday the ageing convicted killer shared his latest vicious daydreams – this time against his own defence barrister Ambrith Abayasekara.

“I’d like to shoot him,” Albury muttered over the Supreme Court prison video link.

“Want to kill my lawyer. At least that way I’ll get a new one.”

The infamous murderer is one of only three true “lifers” in the Territory prison system, facing an indefinite sentence without the possibility of parole.

During his mandated 12-month sentence review, Albury told the Supreme Court that he had been in lockdown in his High Security Sector cell for years, only released for breakfast and lunch.

“I have been in solitary confinement for 41 years,” the 62-year-old said.

“I’m back in my dark cell.

“Why don't you kill me?

“Can you please kill me. Shoot me to death. Or get me out of solitary.

“Can someone please let me out for more than an hour?”

Albury said he was regularly self-harming, and due to the potential risk to himself and fellow prisoners he had been denied glasses and a hearing aid.

The court heard the 62-year-old was recently diagnosed with autism, and Justice Jenny Blokland asked: “What’s happening with NDIS?”

“This can’t go on surely where someone is locked down all the time,” Justice Blokland said.

Corrections acknowledged to the Supreme Court that the situation was not satisfactory, with two plans to deal with the ageing, high-security prisoner languishing in solitary confinement.

Mr Abayasekara said an application had been made to the Attorney-General’s office to request for an interstate prison transfer to Victoria, which has cells “that are better designed for his needs”.

For this to occur both the NT and interstate prison Attorneys-General had to agree to accept the convicted killer, and Albury has already been rejected for similar prison transfers.

The NT Attorney-General Chansey Paech was asked if he would approve the application, and he said he could not comment “on matters pertaining to individual prisoners”.

Mr Abayasekara said the alternative was for Corrections to get funding for a cell specifically for Albury as a high-security, ageing prisoner with a mentally impairment.

Corrections representative Ruth Brebner said there was only one cell other in the entire prison that currently met his needs, which was in use by another prisoner in the complex behavioural unit.

Mr Abayasekara said it was agreed that the purpose-built soft cell in the CBU was the “best strategy” long term, with a quote obtained and Victorian architects already contracted to design as of mid last year.

“A plan was made, quotes were obtained, it was put through the system for Department responses — and that doesn’t seem to have taken place,” he said.

“It’s completely stalled”.

The matter was adjourned to April 26 for a further hearing.

Originally published as Australia’s ‘Hannibal Lector’ Andy Albury’s fight to be moved out of High Security cell in NT Prison