The Frankston Serial Killer

by Vikki Petraitis

  On the Saturday morning, Sharon had telephoned her work to tell them she was feeling sick and took the morning off. Paul's brother Steve had called around and he too had asked her about the scratches. Sharon told Steven the story about the clothes line and added that she didn't believe Paul. She said Steve didn't believe his brother either.

  'When we said this, Paul was hanging the washing on the line and he was just blocking us out. Steven asked him then if he had been in a fight. Paul just said it was the wire. I noticed a coat hanger then that had been undone and twisted around the line so that a piece of wire was hanging down. I'd never noticed it before. When I saw that, I eased off a bit because I thought maybe he was telling the truth.'

  Nonetheless, Sharon continued questioning throughout the following week and by the end of it, Paul began to get really annoyed with her.

  Sharon told the officers, 'At the start of our relationship, about 18 months ago, Paul used to lie quite frequently. Because of that, I always doubted what he said and I liked him to prove what he was saying.'

  The officers asked Sharon if Paul had ever been violent towards her.

  'In about May this year,' she replied, 'Paul was working at Pro Marine in Seaford as a general hand. During that time, we had a huge argument. I don't remember the day or what we were arguing about. One night we just started arguing and it went on for hours. I hit Paul, but I can't remember where, then he hit me back. We hit each other a few times and then Paul started really getting angry and he put both his hands around my throat. He squeezed really hard and I couldn't breathe. He kept doing it until he could hear that I was choking and then he just let go. I tried to talk but I couldn't. My neck really hurt and I can remember it hurt for about two weeks after that. I ran into the bathroom and locked myself in. I was terrified. Paul came to the door and was very apologetic. He didn't do it again.'

  Sharon told the officers she had noticed another scratch on Paul's face when he had met her after work on Friday afternoon. He had told her he got it while fixing his car. Sharon said she also noticed a knife on the dashboard. It was a long knife with tape around the handle, which she vaguely remembered seeing months earlier while washing the dishes.

  She said Paul told her that he had used the knife to fix his car. The knife was burnt on the end and Sharon was angry that Paul had ruined one of their kitchen knives. She told him to throw it out because they couldn't use it any more.

  Sharon repeated how they had gone to her mother's house for dinner and she added that Paul had complained of feeling ill. She didn't know if he had actually vomited, but he had felt sick all night.

  On the way to the wreckers in the morning before the police arrived, Paul and Sharon had driven down Skye Road and had seen all the police cars near the entrance to the bike track. The police were pulling over some cars and questioning occupants. Paul had told her that the girl could have been found on the bike track.

  Sharon also recalled a drive up Taylors Road a couple of weeks earlier on the way to a friend's place. Paul mentioned Debbie Fream by name, telling Sharon that this was where she had been found. In hindsight, Sharon wondered why they had taken Taylor Road since they didn't usually drive that way to visit the friend.

  Sharon told the officers about visiting Paul the previous day in the city watch house.

  'I started talking to Paul about the murders he'd been charged with. I assumed the policemen at the watch house could hear what we were talking about. Paul told me about the knives he used to kill the girls, how he got Debbie Fream and also the first girl. I asked him a lot of questions and he answered everything. He told me when he killed the first girl, he was on his way back from his mum's. He said he cut her throat with a pocket knife. I asked him if he threw the knife near the petrol station in the grass and he said he did. He said he told the police where that knife was. That was all he said about that first one.

  'He started talking about the next girl. I asked him what he was doing up there and he said he was wandering around up there and he saw Debbie go into Food Plus. While she was in there, he got in the car. With the third girl, he said he was driving and saw her crossing the road. He didn't say which road. He then just said that he killed her. He said it was a spur of the moment thing. I didn't go into details. He mentioned the knives he used. They were the one he made at Pro Marine and the one I saw in the car. He said he did it because of his family. I know his family don't take any interest in him and they think he is a liar. They only come to see him when they want something. Paul was mad about his dad because he never paid any interest whatsoever. Paul also thought that his dad's children from his current marriage get everything they want.'

  Sharon mentioned in her second official statement that earlier in the day two police officers had come around to her flat and taken, among other things, some video cassettes. She explained that Paul liked dramas, thrillers or 'anything with cops in it.' She said that the last video they had hired was about a man who strangled women. 'I didn't like that video. Paul said he didn't like it either.'

  Asked what else Paul liked to watch on television, Sharon said he liked Australia's Most Wanted, Cops and Hard Copy. Programs like Inside Edition and The Extraordinary were also favourites. Sharon said she had never seen Paul read a book because, he told her, he couldn't concentrate for long enough. However, he did like to draw, mostly scenery; but she had seen him draw a couple of guns.

  Sharon admitted that she had seen the glove gun, that Denyer had used to threaten his victims. In fact Paul had shown her how it worked, and a couple of times when they had gone out, he had carried it with him. Sharon had told him he was stupid to carry it. Paul had replied that it looked like a gun and someone wouldn't know in the dark if it wasn't. He had said that it was just a bluff.

  Sharon also remembered Paul carrying a pocket knife which he claimed was for protection. The knife had gadgets on it and Sharon recalled them both looking for it about a month ago to use the corkscrew but they couldn't find it.

  Sharon had no more to say. She signed her written statement and left the Frankston police station.

  Sharon Johnson was one of three girls in her family. Her parents had separated when she was only a baby. Sharon was living with her mother when she met Paul Denyer at the Safeway store at Karingal Hub where he'd worked as a shop assistant two years before. A couple of months later, Sharon and Paul began a relationship and Paul moved into Sharon's mother's house. Not long after, the couple moved out to the flat they shared on Frankston-Dandenong Road.

  Sharon and her mother belonged to a church called the Christian Reform Crusade which met weekly at the Seaford Community Centre. The religion was a fundamentalist organisation; its members spoke in tongues and believed in modern miracles. Members of the church weren't happy that Sharon was living with Paul without the blessing of marriage, but Sharon defied them on that particular issue. Paul wasn't really interested in the church but he told others that he respected Sharon's beliefs.

  Sharon was working two jobs because Paul had been unemployed for a couple of months. The 19-year-old would finish her job as a telemarketer for a charity in the early afternoon and go straight to her next job where she worked into the early evening.

  When Sharon began working for the charitable organisation, a number of fellow workers thought she was a bit strange. She dressed like someone much older, favouring long cardigans and dark floral dresses, and spoke mostly about Paul and work as if she had few other interests.

  Lorna, one of Sharon's co-workers, remembered her as being usually calm except for one day when her boyfriend Paul couldn't be found. Sharon had tried phoning him. He should have been home but he wasn't. She grew increasingly frantic, phoning Paul's family as well as her own to try to track him down. When he finally returned home and answered the phone, fellow workers could hear one side of a loud argument between the two. Sharon always wanted to know where he was; and when she didn't, everybody knew about it.

  Many at the charity felt uncomfortable with Paul Denye
r from the moment he accompanied Sharon to her initial job interview. He waited outside the manager's office while Sharon was interviewed and when she was called back for a second interview, Paul actually went into the office with her.

  He would often pick her up from work and would either wait in the car or come inside and wait by her desk. Sometimes he'd play on the computers, and occasionally exchange small talk with the women in the office.

  Lorna recalled a number of times when she walked to her car after work and waved to Paul as he sat in his car waiting for Sharon. He never waved back, even though they had spoken in the office many times. He would just stare at her in a way that made her feel really uncomfortable, giving no acknowledgement that they had ever met.

  One day, after Lorna had read an article in the paper about domestic violence, she spoke strongly about the subject to her workmates. When Sharon remarked casually that Paul had once tried to strangle her, Lorna asked bluntly why she was still with him. Sharon had shrugged and said that they sometimes fought and on that occasion, she had made him angry.

  Like most people in Frankston, the women in the office discussed the local murders. Not long after Elizabeth Stevens's murder, Sharon told a co-worker that Elizabeth Stevens had noughts and crosses carved into her chest. The co-worker was surprised, as she'd read nothing about noughts and crosses in the paper. She asked Sharon how she knew.

  Sharon explained that Paul had a friend who was a police officer and he'd found out through the friend. Sharon also discussed a possible move to another flat in Frankston. When co-workers spoke of how dangerous it was to live in Frankston then, Sharon had replied, rather strangely, that the murderer was a taxi driver and she didn't catch taxis.

  Although Sharon was happy and friendly at work; with Paul, it seemed, things weren't always wine and roses. Fellow workers couldn't fail to notice the arguments they had over the phone. In their opinion, Sharon totally dominated Paul in every way.

  Another co-worker, called Janet, took an instant dislike to Sharon and her boyfriend. It was Janet's job to show Sharon the ropes of the computer and the telemarketing side of the job. But Janet would avoid any other contact with the young woman. She even told colleagues that she was scared of Paul. So great was Janet's feeling of unease, that she quit her job when she knew that Sharon was returning to work after Paul's arrest. When Sharon's trial period was up, the charity let her go and Janet returned to her old job. Janet was the only one at the office who wasn't surprised when Paul was arrested.

  When Sharon returned to work a couple of weeks after Paul's arrest, she spoke to Lorna.

  'I suppose you know what happened?' she said.

  Lorna looked at Sharon sympathetically. The young woman had dyed her blonde hair black which made her look different. Lorna told her that she had heard that Paul had been arrested and said soothingly that Sharon could now pick up the pieces and get on with her life.

  To Lorna's surprise, Sharon said happily that she was sticking by Paul and that there were reasons for what he had done.

  'Sharon, there are no reasons for what he did. He didn't kill one person in anger, he killed three women in cold blood.' Lorna couldn't fathom Sharon's reasoning.

  'But there are reasons you don't understand,' Sharon insisted, 'It will all come out soon. I love him and I am not going to leave him because of what he's done.'

  That was the end of the conversation. As far as Lorna was concerned, if Sharon could love a man who killed three young women in cold blood, she wanted nothing more to do with her.

  Lorna had been off work with the flu and had left work early on the day that Natalie Russell had been murdered, but her co-workers later told her that Paul had come in to pick Sharon up and had seemed unusually happy and animated. He had waited and played on the computer while Sharon finished her work.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Flowers

  THREE weeks before she died, Natalie Russell said to her friend, Karen, 'When I die, I don't want to die in my sleep, I want to go out with a bang.'

  In one of life's bitter ironies, Natalie Russell got her wish. Her funeral made national headlines and was attended by over a thousand people.

  As Carmel Russell left her home in Forest Drive to go to her daughter's funeral, she took one last look around the lounge room. There were so many flowers, it looked like a florist shop. She reflected sadly that when a clairvoyant had told her just a few weeks ago that she would soon be surrounded by flowers, she had thought it meant she would receive a couple of bunches for her birthday. Just the week before, when her eldest daughter Lisa had sent her a bunch of flowers, Natalie had told her that the prediction had come true. They had laughed about it.

  In the hall of John Paul College, hundreds of bunches of flowers surrounded a makeshift altar as a thousand people, many of them fellow students in the light-blue John Paul College uniform, took their seats. Quiet music played as they waited for the service to begin.

  Constable Angela Butts, who had stayed with the Russell family on the night Natalie was murdered, was there. She wanted to show the Russell family that for her, it wasn't just a job; she cared. With so many people milling around the giant hall at John Paul College, Angela Butts wasn't sure whether Carmel Russell would remember her or even notice that she was there. However, as soon as the policewoman appeared, Mrs Russell walked over, gave her a hug and invited her to sit near the family.

  Angela was initially reluctant, partly because a high-ranking police officer in full dress uniform was sitting nearby. 'If I cry,' the constable told Carmel, 'I don't want him to think that I'm weak.' Angela Butts need not have worried. Halfway through the service she looked over at the police officer and saw the tears running down his cheeks.

  All the Year 12 students, walking in two lines, filed into the hall. Two of Natalie's friends carried a huge red cross which they placed on top of her small oak coffin. Many heads were bowed with the incredible sadness of it all. Eight priests followed the procession of students and the congregation sang God Gives His People Strength.

  John Paul College principal Liam Davison welcomed the gathering and offered his sympathy to the Russell family, then Father John Rogan began the service. In the centre of the hall, the polished floor gleamed, lined with the markings of a basketball court. Natalie's coffin rested on a trolley standing on a red rug on the area in which she used to play netball.

  Father Rogan called upon four students to lay a white cloth over the coffin; another four brought forward a T-shirt, a poster, one of Natalie's favourite childhood toys and her netball skirt. The symbols of her life were placed on the floor in front of her coffin.

  In his homily, Father Rogan told the congregation, 'In truth, we have been faced with rampant evil and its effects on our very doorstep and we feel shock, fear and anger and the weight of great sorrow.

  'Natalie left school last Friday afternoon with all the expectations of a normal 17-year-old, all the hopes and probings of one who loved life. In her own way, she influenced so many of her friends. One who loved her netball, her music, she took on the demands of the VCE, and questioned with real energy the values of the society in which she lived. All of this was part of her unique and particular story.'

  Father Rogan told the congregation that everybody's story deserved to be told and that death was much easier to cope with after a long and full life.

  'Natalie's death,' he said, 'had come in the first flush of her youth, an abrupt, painful and cruel end.'

  The priest spoke about God's love and the freedom of will that could sometimes lead to such evil. 'Why has this happened? Why does such a dreadful thing happen to a good and innocent young woman?' he asked, before assuring the congregation that it was not God's will.

  'God suffers with us today,' he said.

  The priest stepped away from the pulpit and Bernadette Naughton, Natalie's aunt, took his place. Her voice was soft with emotion. She had written a eulogy, painstakingly trying to capture the essence of her niece.

  Nat
alie was a loving daughter and sister; she loved animals and had a great sense of humour. Making the congregation laugh, Bernadette repeated some of the nicknames that Natalie had given to staff at John Paul College, as well as how, like so many other young people, she referred to her parents as 'the olds'.

  Bernadette spoke of the 'Joyce' video that Natalie had made with her friend Sally. Everyone who had seen it smiled at the memory of Natalie dressed in a navy tracksuit playing a failed diet clinic customer. She had stuffed a pillow up her top and filled the legs of her pants with padding. She played the character straight while Sally giggled behind the camera. 'Joyce' went out the front gate and walked around the neighbourhood shouting 'Hi' to boys riding past on bikes. She tumbled around at a local park, swinging on the monkey bars and sliding down a yellow winding slide head first.

  'Natalie has touched each of us in her own special way,' Bernadette Naughton said. 'Her passion for life, and her comic appreciation of it will bring a warmth to our precious memories of her. Natalie has left the world a better place,' she said, before stepping away from the pulpit.

  As she sat through the service, Carmel Russell thought about Natalie's last years on earth. Her treasured daughter had blossomed into a confident young woman. Something that Natalie's boyfriend David had repeated to Carmel came to her mind.

  Two days before she died, Natalie had told David, on the telephone, 'I've got ace parents. They trust me. I must be the happiest girl in the world.'

  Carmel knew that her daughter died having known the utter joy of being young, loved and appreciated. It was a small comfort to the grieving mother.

  Carmel recalled another thing David had told her. A couple of weeks earlier, when Natalie had visited David at his flat, she had suddenly burst into tears. She had cried and shook uncontrollably, but had later been at a loss to explain her tears. She said she didn't know why she was crying; there was no reason. Now, Carmel wondered whether somehow Natalie knew that she would never live long enough to enjoy her life, never grow up, never become a journalist, and never have children.