The killer jailed for life after waging a murderous campaign against Family Court judges in retaliation for decisions made in disputes involving his ex-wife has died in prison.
Corrective Services NSW said Leonard John Warwick died in Long Bay Hospital on Friday. He had been sentenced in 2020 to life in prison without parole over the attacks across Sydney.
Leonard John Warwick murdered three people in a shooting and series of bombings.Credit: AAP
Warwick fatally shot Justice David Opas outside his family home in Woollahra in June 1980 in a crime that sent shockwaves through the legal fraternity.
Five years later, in July 1985, he planted a bomb outside the Greenwich home of Justice Raymond Watson that exploded and killed the judge’s wife, Pearl Watson.
“The bomb was targeted at Justice Watson, and its placement overnight outside the front door means it was intended to explode as the judge opened his front door to go to work,” NSW Supreme Court Justice Peter Garling said in a sentencing decision in 2020.
Warwick also targeted a Jehovah’s Witness congregation that helped his ex-wife and daughter leave Sydney by setting up a bomb at a prayer hall in Casula in July 1985.
The bomb blast killed worshipper Graham Wykes “and severely injured 13 members of the congregation, including young children”, Garling said.
A series of other bomb attacks engineered by Warwick, who was a fireman at the time, proved non-fatal only by chance.
Justice Richard Gee survived a blast in March 1984 that destroyed his Belrose home, while a bomb placed by Warwick outside the Family Court in Parramatta in April 1984 exploded at night.
A four-kilogram bomb, placed by Warwick in 1985 under the bonnet of a car parked outside a home where a lawyer acting for his ex-wife used to live, was discovered before the key was turned in the ignition.
Warwick evaded justice for decades before he was arrested in 2015.
The aftermath of the Family Court bombing in Parramatta in April 1984.Credit: NSW Police
Garling sentenced him in September 2020 to life imprisonment without parole for each of the three murders and described his crimes as “calculated, violent and hateful”.
“It was an evil attack on members of the Australian judiciary, the Family Court and a practitioner.
“[In] a final act of unspeakable evil, [he] then sought to wreak revenge on innocent members of the Lurnea congregation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses ... This was an entirely unjustified and cruel attack on innocent people.”
Warwick was given a 25-year jail sentence for the bombing of Gee’s home, 10 years for the Parramatta Family Court bombing, 25 years for targeting Watson in the explosion that killed his wife, and 15 years for the bomb underneath the car bonnet.
He was jailed for 25 years for causing a range of injuries sustained by other Jehovah’s Witness worshippers.
Corrective Services NSW said Warwick, 78, was “pronounced deceased at around 10.45am” on Friday.
“Any death in custody is immediately reported to the NSW Coroner and subject to a compulsory, rigorous public inquiry.
“Corrective Services NSW and NSW Police investigate all deaths in custody regardless of the circumstances.”
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