Paul Steven Haigh: Inside the mind of one of Australia’s worst serial killers

Murderer Paul Steven Haigh, who is serving six consecutive life sentences for killing seven people, describes life inside Australia’s most infamous prison.

He is one of Australia’s worst serial killers and for the first time reveals the desperate efforts he went to in order to get out of jail, including covering himself in his own excrement.

Paul Steven Haigh is serving six consecutive life sentences for killing seven people, including a 10-year-old boy.

“(It was) a play to try and manipulate the legal system – but alas it failed,” Haigh tells author James Phelps in his soon-to-be-released book Australia’s Most Infamous Jail – Inside the Walls of Pentridge Prison.

“Instead of being sent to J Ward for the criminally insane, I had an embarrassing trip to the hospital”.

Paul Steven Haigh in 1972. Picture: Supplied

Haigh, who was being housed inside the prison’s high-security wing Jika Jika, was so desperate to be escape Jika Jika he “wiped my excrement on my head and through my beard”.

“I then tied a bag with spare excrement to my waist. I also had a sheet wrapped around me which I made into a noose when I reached the top of the cage, which enclosed the exercise yard,” Haigh said.

But his plan to fake a suicide attempt became unstuck when he fell off a 3m fence he had scaled, carrying a bag containing his faeces, before landing on the concrete below.

“The screws were alerted and climbed the outside of the cage,” Haigh told Phelps.

“But I kept them at bay with the lid of a tin I was using as a blade. Having their attention, I started making bogus demands, and it was no surprise that none of them were met”.

Now 65, Haigh was convicted of killing his seventh victim, fellow inmate Donald Hatherley in 1991.

Serial killer Paul Haigh (centre) and his victims Danny Mitchell, 9, his mother Sheryle Gardner, 31, (both left) and Lisa Maude Brearley, 19 (right). Picture: News Corp

Currently in a high-security unit at Barwon Prison, Haigh applied to have his life sentence commuted to a minimum term in 2012.

When asked about his crimes, Haigh said he did empathise with his victims, one of whom was his 19-year-old girlfriend Lisa Brearley.

‘It has been said in professional reports and court that I do not empathise well, so I put my mind to challenging this assertion,’ Haigh told Phelps.

“I pointed out to the court that I had empathised with victims of crime. I told the court I knew the victims of crime would feel fear and pain, and I plainly said these were the emotions I desired to evoke,” Haigh said.

“I knew the victims would undergo a span of ugliness, and this was based on my own experience with hostility and aggression. I imagined the ordeal I intended for my victims and put them in a position I wouldn’t want to experience myself.”

Australia’s Most Infamous Jail: Inside the walls of Pentridge Prison by James Phelps, published by HarperCollins. Out October 4; preorder now.

Originally published as Paul Steven Haigh: Inside the mind of one of Australia’s worst serial killers