Ivan Milat: Arguably Australia’s most notorious serial killer, Milat was convicted of the rape, torture and murder of seven backpackers.
Kathleen Folbigg: Murderous mother who sent four of her infant children to an early grave.
Paul Denyer: Sexually obsessed young man who hacked three women to death in Frankston, Victoria.
Bevan von Einem: Gay torture slayer convicted of one murder and suspected of at least four more. But was he part of a sinister pedophile murder gang?
William MacDonald: Serial slasher who terrorized Sydney and was at the center of the bizarre “Case of the Walking Corpse.”
Caroline Grills: “Aunty Thally” routinely killed members of her family, adding rat poison to the cakes and cookies she baked for them.
David and Catherine Birnie: Depraved couple who kidnapped, sexual tortured, and murdered four young women in and around Perth, Western Australia.
Archibald McCafferty: Psychotic killer who believed that the voice of his dead baby son was instructing him to kill.
Francis Knorr: One of only four women to be hanged in Victoria, Francis Knorr was a baby farmer believed to have killed upwards of 18 infants.
John Wayne Glover: A repulsive sex fiend who preyed on elderly women in Sydney’s Mosman suburb, battering at least 6 victims to death.
Plus 12 more riveting cases….
Click the "Read More" link below to read a sample chapter from
Australian Monsters
Paul Denyer
The
Frankston Serial Killer
Paul Charles Denyer was born in Sydney, New
South Wales on April 14, 1972. His parents, Anthony and Maureen, had emigrated
from England in 1965, and Paul was the third of their six children, five boys
and a girl. The family eventually settled in Campbelltown near Sydney.
There was nothing unusual about Paul’s
childhood, save for the fact that he once rolled off a bench as an infant and
banged his head. The incident would become a bit of an in-joke in the Denyer
family. Whenever Paul did something odd, one of the family would usually
comment, “that’s because you fell on your head as a baby.”
Denyer was an introverted child who found
it difficult to mix with his peers. However, by the time he reached primary
school, he appeared to have overcome his social awkwardness and was just a
normal, happy kid, secure in his surroundings. Then an event occurred that would
disrupt his settled life. His father accepted a job in Frankston, Victoria and
the family had to move. None of the Denyer children was particularly happy
about the upheaval, but Paul took it particularly hard. He retreated back into
his shell and became a loner. To make matters worse, the hulking boy had begun
to put on weight, making him a target for schoolyard taunts.
It was around this time that Denyer started
showing signs of his abnormal psychology. First he started mutilating his
sisters’ teddy bears with one of his homemade knives. Then he turned his
attention to living creatures and killed and mutilated the family kitten,
hanging its slaughtered corpse in a tree.
Just before his thirteenth birthday, Denyer
was charged with stealing a car and was released with a warning. Two months
later he was charged with making a false report to the fire brigade. At age 15,
he was arrested for assault, after forcing another boy to masturbate in front
of a group of children.
By 1992, Denyer had sprouted to a height of
over 6-foot and was so obese that his colleagues at the Safeway’s Supermarket
where he worked called him John Candy, after the rotund comedic actor. Despite
this, he managed to attract the attention of a co-worker, Sharon Johnson, and
the two moved in together. A short while later, Denyer was fired from Safeway
after he deliberately knocked down a woman and a child with a shopping trolley.
He next applied to the Victoria Police Force but was rejected due to his
massive bulk. A subsequent job was also short-lived due to his workplace
behavior.
With Sharon now working two jobs to foot
the bills, Denyer was left to his own devices. He filled the time by breaking
into apartments, shredding clothes and trashing mementos. The worst of these
crimes was exacted against a couple named Les and Donna, who Sharon had
befriended. After breaking into their apartment, Denyer slaughtered their cat
and her kittens, leaving the poor creature’s blood and entrails scattered
around the apartment. He also ransacked every drawer, shredding clothes and
photographs. The message “Donna You’re Dead” was written in blood on the walls,
furniture was gorged and splintered. The couple was so traumatized by the
ordeal that they moved out of the apartment that same night, never to
return.
As horrific as that crime was, Paul Denyer
was about to take things to a new level. On Saturday, June 12, 1993, the
partially clothed body of 18-year-old Elizabeth Stevens was found in a park in
Langwarrin, just a short drive from Frankston. Her throat had been cut, and
there were six deep knife wounds to her chest. In addition, four vertical cuts
ran from her breast to her navel and four horizontal cuts had been inflicted
forming a macabre crisscross pattern on her abdomen. The victim had also
suffered a beating, resulting in a broken nose. Her bra was pulled up around
her neck, but there was no evidence of sexual assault, leaving the police
baffled as to the motive for the crime.
A massive manhunt was launched, but the
police had not yet made any progress when, on July 8, 1993, Denyer struck
again, attacking two women in a single night. The first victim was 41-year-old
bank clerk Roszsa Toth, who put up such a fight that Denyer eventually broke
off the attack and fled. But Toth’s bravery spelled disaster for another woman.
Frustrated at the failed attack, Denyer went looking for another victim.
The one he found was 22-year-old Debbie
Fream, who had given birth to her first child just 12 days earlier. Debbie went
out to buy milk for the baby and never returned. Her body was found in a field
in nearby Carrum Downs four days later. She had suffered 24 stab wounds to her
neck, head and chest. She had also been strangled, but as in the Elizabeth
Stevens murder, there was no sign of sexual assault.
This latest murder sent shock waves through
Frankston and its surrounding communities. It was now clear that there was a
madman on the streets, attacking and killing women at random. The police
meanwhile, upped their patrols and set up a dedicated line to process tips from
the public. Every lead, no matter how trivial was followed up. It did no good.
On the afternoon of July 30, 17-year-old
Natalie Russell went missing while riding her bike home from school. Eight
hours later, her body was found in bushes near the Peninsula and Long Island
Golf clubs. She had been stabbed repeatedly in the face and neck, the attack
carried out with even more ferocity than the previous two. This time, however,
the killer had left a clue. A sliver of skin found on the victim’s throat was
believed to have come from the killer. Police believed he had accidently sliced
it from his own finger while carrying out the frenzied attack.
That, of course, would help the police to
nail the perpetrator once they had him in custody. But they still had to catch
him. Then an even more promising lead emerged. A yellow Toyota Corona had been
spotted by a police officer in the vicinity of the crime scene at the time the
murder was believed to have occurred. The car had no plates, so the officer
jotted down the number from its license disc. Running that number through the
system, delivered a name. The car was registered to Paul Charles Denyer.
The first thing detectives noticed when
they called at Denyer’s home, was that his hands were cut in several places.
Denyer cheerily answered their questions, admitting to being in the vicinity of
the crime scene, but denying any involvement in the murder. His explanation for
the cuts on his hands, however, was so weak that the detectives asked him to
come down to the station for further questioning. There he continued to
proclaim his innocence until investigators asked him to submit blood and hair
samples for DNA analysis. Probably realizing by now that the game was up,
Denyer then said, “Okay, I killed them. I killed all three of them.”
Over the hours that followed, Denyer gave a
detailed confession to the murders, describing the gory details so
matter-of-factly that even the most seasoned of investigators was shocked.
Asked why he’d killed the women, Denyer said. “I just hate them.” Asked if he
was referring to just the woman he’d killed or to women in general, he
responded, “General.”
Paul Charles Denyer went on trial at the
Victoria Supreme Court on December 15, 1993. After entering guilty pleas to all
of the charges against him, he was sentenced to three terms of life imprisonment
with no possibility of parole. A subsequent appeal saw that sentence adjusted
to include parole eligibility after 30 years. It means that the Frankston
Serial Killer, one of the most vicious murderers in Australian history, could
walk free from prison in 2023.
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