Australia's Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail

by Phelps, James

  Norris rushed over and dropped next to the prisoner, his knees landing in a quickly expanding puddle of blood.

  ‘I looked down at his torso and there were holes everywhere,’ Norris said. ‘I started sticking my fingers into his wounds to try and stop the bleeding. One … two … Eventually I had every finger in a stab hole. I had no more fingers and he had plenty more holes, so there was nothing more I could do. I screamed for help as I was sprayed with blood. I was absolutely covered from head to toe. He was pushing other officers and me away as we tried to keep him still and lying down. I heard him mumble something, but I couldn’t make out what it was.’

  Maurice Joseph Marsland, 35, was a rapist, a predator and a rock spider (a prison term for a child sex offender). Despised and reviled, he was serving a 12-year sentence for multiple sexual assaults. The media called him the Eastern Suburbs Rapist. Prison officers called him a piece of shit.

  ‘Marsland was a well-known predator,’ said former Governor Chisholm. ‘A sexual predator. He was a rapist on the outside and a rapist on the inside. He was a huge Aboriginal bloke, real big and real intimidating. And he could be a real arsehole. Generally he stuck to himself, but from time to time he was involved in skirmishes. He might steal someone else’s piece of arse and someone would go after him, or something like that. But it usually didn’t end well for the people who went after him, because he could fight.

  ‘He was certainly a target but he never asked for protection because he figured he could protect himself. He walked around doing what he wanted and taking what he wanted. He was a real piece of shit.’

  Marsland had been attacked in the shower.

  Whack.

  He hadn’t even had a chance to take off his shoes.

  Whack. Whack.

  He took a swing, slapping nothing but air.

  Whack. Whack. Whack.

  He desperately grabbed one of his attackers.

  Whack. Whack. Whack. Whack.

  The blows kept coming. He was stabbed relentlessly. The weapon: a piece of reinforcement building steel.

  Whaooof.

  The giant of a man pushed with all his might and two of his attackers hit the floor. And then the rapist ran – out of the shower block, towards the guards at the gate.

  ‘Gate up, chief. Gate up!’

  Norris recalled the crime scene: ‘There wasn’t as much blood in the showers as you would have thought. He obviously wasn’t attacked while he was showering because he was fully clothed. They most likely ambushed him when he came in. He came out with his shorts and shirt on. I think I was the one that ripped his shirt off when I was trying to get to all his wounds.’

  Marsland’s assault occurred on 13 February 1996, less than five months after Chamron’s stabbing death. Marsland had been running towards the same gate that the 5T gang member never got to, screaming as he grabbed at his bloody wounds.

  He dropped and, despite Norris’s efforts, died.

  ‘Marsland died on the Circle, as far as I was concerned,’ Norris said. ‘There were two versions: one with him dying there and one with him dying at the hospital. But looking at his body, looking at his wounds, I’m pretty sure he died in my arms.’

  Chisholm was fast on the scene.

  ‘He bled out in the yard,’ the governor confirmed. ‘And he died before he was loaded into the back of the ambulance.’

  Chisholm fingered three men for the murder.

  ‘One of them was a guy who was doing a triple life sentence for another murder,’ said Chisholm. ‘And from what I can work out, Marsland was killed as payback for something that had happened in Lithgow Jail. It was a frenzied attack and he ended up with 34 stab wounds. The killing blow was concluded to be the one he copped in the throat. One of the shivs was a long piece of steel and it just ripped his throat apart. We were doing construction around the jail at the time of the murders, and the prisoners were getting their hands on building materials.’

  Chisholm suspects Marsland was lured into the shower block under false pretenses.

  ‘Maybe they said they had a bloke in there for him to rape,’ Chisholm said. ‘And what happened next was just brutal. They really got into him and it was over in seconds. What you have to remember about jail fights is that they are real quick. They have a small window to attack and they go for maximum damage. It was a frantic job, and we found out that one of the killers got so excited while attacking [Marsland] that he pissed himself. Apparently Marsland had bashed and raped someone in Lithgow. Maybe he took someone’s piece of arse. Anyway, there was some big blue at Lithgow and a hit was put on him.’

  The shower block is notorious for stabbings.

  ‘All the officers had complained about the shower block in that wing for years,’ Norris said. ‘It should not have been built. Those showers were a very, very dangerous place to be. The officers have almost no vision into them, and under the privacy laws there can be no cameras. There were no guards inside, but there always had to be a guard standing outside. But one guard by himself is useless – all a crim has to do is distract him. That could be as easily done as asking him to go and get a block of soap. You had to walk at least 20 metres away to get the soap, and by the time you came back there could be a dead guy lying in the showers. The staffing in the jails is horribly low. When I was there you were looking at a ratio of 50 inmates to one guard. It’s worse now – about 75 to one.’

  The three men suspected of Marsland’s murder were detained and the investigation began.

  ‘The jail was sealed up for almost a week,’ Norris said. ‘They went around with a squad, searching for the shivs. They searched up and down the gutters, inside the cells and everywhere in the yard. I think they did find one, but they could never prove that it was the weapon that killed Marsland. Inmates are experts at hiding shivs. They hide them in the gutters, in the roofing, in steel tube railings that they even find a way to weld shut. They will even put it in a plastic bag and shove it up their backsides.’

  Norris became a vital witness as police began to build their case, offering up his personal notes from the day of the attack and providing a statement where he identified bank robber Raymond Carrion as suspect no.1.

  ‘The first time I saw Marsland he was on his knees near the front gate and facing away from the gate. I was 15 feet away from Marsland and had a good view of him. I could see his back. As I ran towards the gate I saw an inmate known to me as Raymond Carrion.

  ‘Raymond Carrion was standing to the left of, and slightly behind, Marsland. I saw Carrion raise his right hand with a clenched fist above Marsland’s head. I saw Carrion move his clenched fist in a downward motion. I saw Carrion’s clenched fist strike Marsland in the head. Carrion repeated this motion. The hits were in quick succession. Carrion again used his right clenched fist to strike Marsland on the right shoulder.

  ‘I saw Carrion run straight down the yard. I don’t know where he got to. By the time I got to the gate, Raymond Carrion was out of sight.’

  The police statement, dated 13 February 1996, also details Norris’s frantic bid to save Marsland’s life.

  18. Prison Officer Brownlie and I placed Marsland on his left side in an attempt to slow down the blood that was coming from the lower area of the front of his neck. I know that another Prison Officer, assisted by an inmate known to me as Alex Ibrahim, helped me take off Marsland’s jail green T-shirt. I could see a number of small-type puncture wounds on Marsland’s back in various positions. I saw blood coming from these puncture holes in Marsden’s upper back.

  19. I saw a member of the medical staff attend to Marsland and place a pad on Marsland’s neck. The medical officer applied pressure to the pad. At this time Marsland was pushing other officers and me away from him as we tried to keep him still and lying down. I heard Marsland mumble something but I couldn’t make out what it was.

  Norris has no doubt Carrion killed Marsland.

  ‘I was on the Circle and I started taking notes of everything that I saw. But I made a stupid mis
take in crossing Carrion off my notes before putting him back on. I wasn’t at first one hundred per cent sure that it was Carrion I saw hitting Marsland. He had come out of the showers with what looked like blood all over him. But he quickly went and got changed and came back wearing a clean shirt. That put some doubt in my mind.

  ‘But then when I had a second look I absolutely knew it was him. The cops pulled me up on it because I’d crossed his name off that first list; they told me that that would ruin us in court. It made me look like I was a bit unsure, but I was completely sure.’

  Chisholm interviewed Carrion following the attack. ‘He just laughed and said, “Go on, put me in jail why don’t you.” That’s the problem with these blokes. A lot of them have been jailed for life, so killing someone is nothing for them. They can’t be punished further.’

  Or so Carrion thought.

  While awaiting trial for Marsland’s murder, Carrion was found dead – his eyes stabbed out, his body fully bled. He was also killed in the shower.

  ‘That was payback for Marsland,’ Chisholm said.

  Marsland has been dead for almost 20 years, but Norris sees him on most nights.

  ‘He is there,’ Norris said. ‘In my dreams. In my nightmares. I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and he haunts me when I sleep. I can see him there … dying in my arms.’

  Norris feared he had contracted HIV following the murder when Marsland was found to have full-blown AIDS.

  ‘It was a living hell,’ Norris said. ‘I had to wait a long time to get the test results back and I thought I was done. He had bled all over me and I had been sticking my fingers straight into his wounds. I found out I was okay, but I was still really miserable for the next five years. I am better now, but I still suffer from it. I see him in my dreams, and no one should ever have to go through something like that.’

  Unfortunately, plenty at Goulburn did.

  White Powder and White Ox

  He nodded at his partner after winning the trick. ‘My luck is with me today,’ he said. He looked back at his cards, all neatly sorted: blacks with blacks, reds with reds, spades next to clubs, diamonds hanging out alongside hearts. ‘Your turn.’

  The inmate next to him also had his cards precisely fanned. Mr My-Turn-Next reached out to pluck a card. But then he stopped, his gaze suddenly frozen on Mr Lucky-One-Who-Won-The-Trick. Well, not on him … behind him.

  Shhliiiiiit.

  Serrated steel flashed across flesh, a lightning wrist action slashing open the card player’s neck.

  ‘Eerrrr. Eerrrr,’ the victim rattled. His hands flew towards his throat, throwing cards and then finding blood.

  Whack. Whack.

  Lightning struck twice, then three times, four, the slicing motion now a stabbing one – the target the body, not the throat. The other men at the table remained still. Remained silent. And they never would talk, the full story of the Colombian cocaine king’s killing remaining a mystery. Until now …

  A former Elizabeth Bay waiter, Javier Francisco Lara-Gomez was arrested in 1993 after being busted with 98kg of cocaine – the biggest ever seizure in Australia – and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Known as ‘Frank’, his case intrigued the nation: A Colombian in Sydney? A Colombian in Sydney with 98kg of Colombian cocaine?

  He was our own Pablo Escobar: all Medellín, machine guns and millions stacked neatly in brief cases. It was reported that Lara-Gomez, just months before his death, had given a statement to the Corrective Services Internal Investigations Unit, claiming he had paid a criminal network $350,000 to bust him from Parramatta Jail. He was also constantly being pursued by organised crime investigators wanting the details of his knowledge of the cartels. Lara-Gomez was allegedly being offered a chance to return to his homeland to complete his sentence in return for giving information to the Australian Federal Police.

  Bottom line: Lara-Gomez didn’t talk to anyone. He knew the cartel he was dealing with, and he knew what breaking the strict code of silence meant – death. He refused to talk to Australian Federal Police after his arrest in 1993, and he also declined to give evidence at his trial. Lara-Gomez was resigned, even content, to do his time. He made the most of prison life. He was regarded as a model inmate while at Sydney’s Long Bay Jail. He painted, sculpted clay and kept himself out of harm’s way. And then he was moved to Goulburn …

  ‘No one dies in here,’ Lara-Gomez said. ‘Not in my wing. Not while I am in here.’

  The Colombian was already a leader.

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ the inmate said. ‘Why do you care who we hit? There is a contract out on him.’

  ‘I’m the sweeper,’ Lara-Gomez replied, referring to the prison term for inmates who are given extra privileges in return for keeping order in a wing. ‘And this wing is my responsibility. It’s good in here now. We don’t want that to change. Why bring trouble? The screws will come down on me and make life tough for everyone.’

  The wannabe contract killer turned his back and walked away. He was fuming. Fucker thinks he can push us around. Big-shot Colombian. Fuck him and fuck his connections. He stormed into the yard and put out a contract of his own: one packet of White Ox smokes for anyone who kills that son of a bitch Lara-Gomez.

  ‘[Lara-Gomez] had actually stopped a hit earlier that day,’ revealed former Goulburn Night Senior Kevin Camberwell. ‘Being a Colombian, he was one of the blokes in charge of the yard. Nothing happened in the yard without his say-so. A couple of Aboriginals wanted to stab some other fella, and he stepped up and said, “That isn’t happening in my yard.”’

  Camberwell, who worked in the wing where the murder took place, dismissed speculation that the murder was related to Lara-Gomez’s drugs charge: ‘It wasn’t over drugs or anything like that. Not at all. He was just a victim of Goulburn. A contract was put on him, a packet of White Ox the payment, and inmate Ronald Priestly took it up. He was the one who killed him, and a bloke named Carl Little was the one who ordered the hit.’

  Camberwell said the Indigenous inmates were particularly volatile because of a perceived lack of power within the jail. No Aboriginal inmate had held the position of prison sweeper, and they were pissed off about it, especially since Lara-Gomez had been handed the privilege almost as soon as he arrived.

  ‘The Aboriginals didn’t like being told what to do in any case,’ Camberwell said, ‘and it was just a power show. Like in most places, the Aboriginals had no pull in the yard – even though they outnumbered everyone else.’

  Priestly, a notorious inmate who would soon spark a prison riot before being moved to Supermax, waited for his moment. And he did not have to wait too long. Lara-Gomez was easy meat, the drug-dealing prison sweeper sitting down for a game of cards following lunch. Lara-Gomez was facing a wall. He wouldn’t see it coming.

  Armed with a large knife, Priestly crept up behind Lara-Gomez, slit his throat and stabbed him another 26 times. He must have really wanted those cigarettes.

  ‘It was a gruesome killing,’ Camberwell recalled. ‘It was actually in my wing at the time: C Wing, 7 Yard. He never saw it coming. He was sitting under the shelter, playing away, and then he was dead.’

  Camberwell recalled eating pizza over Lara-Gomez’s corpse after the killing:

  ‘I was actually the one who had to guard the body. We called it “body watch”, and I was keeping the crows from pecking at him. I was standing there eating pizza when the coppers arrived, and they asked me how I could stomach it. I just laughed and said, “Easy, I’m hungry.” I was there for a few hours waiting for the coroner, standing over the dead body.’

  The autopsy concluded that the weapon used in the killing was a hunting knife. The revelation astounded guards and fuelled the conspiracy theories.

  ‘Most inmates are stabbed with shivs,’ said a guard who asked to remain unnamed. ‘Sharpened toothbrushes, bedsprings, bits of metal they pull out of buckets. But this bloke was killed with a knife. And not just a knife, a friggin’ huge hunting knife. That is not someth
ing that would be easy to get into a prison, or to hide. We will never know where it came from.’

  Police were at a loss when it came to finding the hunting knife or the killer.

  ‘We didn’t see a thing,’ all the prisoners said. ‘Don’t know nothing.’

  There was no video footage. No suspects. No obvious motive for anyone in the wing to have killed him.

  Must have been them Colombians.

  The ‘long and vengeful arm of the Central American drug cartel’ was first blamed for the execution. And why not? Surely the people who gave Lara-Gomez the 98kg of cocaine were mad. Maybe they were even murderous, considering he had been offered the prospect of parole in return for evidence.

  The incident was initially reported as a ‘symbolic slaying, a grisly warning to all foot soldiers in the Medellín Cartel that their silence is absolute’.

  ‘Then the weapon was found,’ Camberwell said. ‘It wasn’t found for a couple of years, but it was found all the same. A random search stumbled upon a hunting knife, and they knew straightaway what it was and who it had been used on. It was found in the S-bend of a toilet in the yard. And that’s when they found the killer … not a Colombian, but a bloke who was killing for a smoke.’

  ‘Priestly only put up his hand when the weapon was found, because he knew his fingerprints were on it,’ Camberwell continued. ‘He would have been pinched anyway, but when they found [the knife] I think he wanted to be pinched because he was a dead man walking if he ever left the jail …. The Colombians were waiting for him to be released. He wanted to make sure he was in a place like Supermax where they couldn’t get at him.’

  So, despite suggestions of cartels, corruption and cocaine-crazed Colombians, Lara-Gomez turned out to be just another victim in the Killing Fields.

  Mr Singh?

  Pritam Singh walked into Goulburn Jail’s voluminous reception room.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ Singh, a rapist, said to a fellow prisoner. ‘I’ve been sent to a prison farm in Tumbarumba. You know? A low-security joint. But apparently the five-hour trip from Sydney can’t be done in a day, so I have to spend a night in here. In fucking Goulburn.’