Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight's school cartoons show his deadly fantasies
The Sydney Morning Herald
John Silvester
about 1 hour ago (as at 17:54 AEST 11 November 2017)
‘Paul Steven Haigh is not physically imposing, not charismatic nor particularly frightening, yet he remains Australia's (equal) worst serial killer, having murdered seven times.
We talk of his crimes without emotion. Me because I don't want him to feel judged and withdraw - him because he seems incapable of normal feelings. He concentrates on the consequence of his actions to him, never reflecting on his victims. (At this point he had murdered six times. He would kill again five years later.)
Stalker-killers such as Derek Ernest Percy and Peter Norris Dupas would withdraw into themselves, refusing to acknowledge their crimes, for to do so would be to acknowledge that they are monsters.
Which is why, perhaps, he quotes a Chinese proverb: "When evil sees itself, it destroys itself."‘
‘Adopted, Haigh said he was "a neurotic youngster" who lived a sheltered life, had a "religious upbringing" and was bullied at school. Asked why he killed, he responded: "I don't know why. Was it my parents who tried too hard and so gave me a faulty foundation? Was it because I stubbed my toe when I was three? God knows."
"I always was, and still am a coward … It takes no hero to murder. The most puny man in the world can pull a trigger. The obstacle is a psychological one."’
‘Aged 21, Haigh killed six people, including a nine-year-old boy, in just 11 months. He shot Evelyn Abraham at a Prahran Tattslotto agency on September 1978, and Bruno Cingolani, 45, in a Caulfield pizza parlour in December the same year.
He then killed fellow criminal Wayne Smith, Sheryle Gardner and her nine-year-old son, Danny Mitchell, then his own girlfriend Lisa Maude Brearley, 19. He told me Gardner brought her son to a meeting as insurance, believing Haigh would not kill her in front of the boy.
"His mother I shot first. As Danny's back was to me, crying, I shot him too."
When I ask why he stabbed Brearley 157 times, he responds "I lost count", before miming stabbing motions while counting out loud. He then paused to sip his tea. It was getting cold.
"The crimes I committed were atrocious but I can't run back the clock. What is done is done."
But Haigh wasn't done. In 1991, he helped fellow prisoner Donald George Hatherley "suicide". Haigh slipped the noose around his neck, pulled away the small cupboard he was standing on and then pushed down on his shoulders to make sure Hatherley couldn't survive.
Prison officers say that after Julian Knight killed seven in Hoddle Street in 1987, Haigh fretted that he was no longer Victoria's most prolific killer - so he needed another victim.’
Read more at:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/hodd...how-his-deadly-fantasies-20171108-gzh7c4.html
