Bernadette Naughton contacted Sara Smith, Debbie Fream's cousin, as well as Elizabeth Stevens's uncle, Paul Webster. Together, they organised petitions and hit the streets to gain support. At first, Bernadette was reluctant to walk the streets for signatures. Angry that she was being forced by circumstances to do what the legal system should have done, she nonetheless pushed on with the effort. She found that those most willing to sign petitions were young mothers with babies in prams. Perhaps they figured that if Denyer were released, their own babies might one day be his victims.
When Bernadette approached one young man, he asked her if she was collecting money for something. She replied, 'No, I want your signature. It is much more valuable to me than money.'
On Wednesday 10 August 1994, a public meeting was held at the Pines Forest Community Centre. It was hosted by Phil Wild, a member of the group PALS - People Against Lenient Sentences. The small hall was filled to capacity with nearly 200 people braving the winter chill, each with their own personal reasons for coming. Phil Wild informed the crowd that Natalie Russell's mother was in the audience; as were Paul and Rita Webster and Debbie Fream's cousin Sara Smith.
One middle-aged woman stood and told the assembly that she lived in the same street as Debbie Fream.
'We just feel very sad that this happened in our community,' she said, and went on, her quiet voice rising in indignation, to ask if public money funded Denyer's recent appeal to have a minimum sentence declared. Other voices joined hers in outrage.
A middle-aged man stood up and introduced himself as a member of the Crime Victims Support Association. His daughter, he said, had also been murdered and her killer had appealed his sentence but to no avail. 'Why can't victims appeal against sentences too?' asked the man.
People shouted in agreement, until a tall, young denim-clad man at the back of the hall stood up and shouted, 'Death! Death!'
The meeting had run exactly 12 minutes and already the anger and emotions had raised the spectre of a lynch mob.
Phil Wild brought the meeting to order by repeating that since Australia had no death penalty, legal execution wasn't an option in Denyer's case. He did point out, that Denyer's original life sentence served justice better than the recent 30-year minimum.
Quoting Justice Crockett in his finding that Denyer should not be made to serve longer than he deserved, Wild told the assembly that he believed the original life sentence was no longer than the killer deserved. The crowd cheered its approval.
Three television cameras and their bright lights circled the assembly, catching on film the impassioned pleas from the members of the Frankston community. A 19-year-old woman spoke passionately about how she had known two of Denyer's victims and of how her greatest concern was that when her own children were teenagers and Denyer was released, she would face the panic that her own mother had experienced during Denyer's killing spree.
The views of the assemblage went from the reasonable to the ridiculous. One man suggested publishing names and addresses of all judges so that people could write to them to voice their outrage at lenient sentences. A woman challenged nobody in particular to 'give Denyer to us'.
Ironically the voice of reason came from the families of the murder victims themselves.
Sara Smith quietly told the crowd, 'They can't let Denyer out ever. I lived through that terror with my family.' She stressed that the danger was that 'in 30 years, nobody will remember the terror.'
Paul Webster called upon the two dissenting Supreme Court judges to resign because they were out of touch with public opinion.
Finally, Carmel Russell stood and thanked everybody for coming. 'We felt happy when we knew he had life,' she said in a soft voice. 'Life is life.'
On Monday 15 August 1994, Director of Public Prosecutions Bernard Bongiorno announced that he had decided to make an application to the High Court for special leave to appeal the granting of the 30-year minimum sentence to Paul Denyer.
Among others, Neil Mitchell was surprised. He had never believed the DPP would appeal the minimum sentence, and he saw the turnaround as a victory. Such a victory would always be a hollow one, because it wouldn't bring the girls back, but the relatives of the murdered women saw the appeal as a way to continue to fight for justice.
They would put all their strength into the appeal and into continuing to get public feeling on their side - the side of justice.
One of the ironies of the Full Court's decision to grant Paul Denyer a minimum sentence was that other vicious killers used the precedent to further their own attempts to be granted minimum sentences. If Denyer's crimes were the worst the state had ever seen, they figured their own crimes should make a minimum sentence more easily attainable.
Raymond Edmunds - known as the rapist, Mr Stinky - had been convicted of murdering Abina Madill and Gary Heywood in Shepparton in 1966; as well as three other rapes and two attempted rapes. He sought a minimum term under the Sentencing Act. His lawyer argued that Edmunds 'was no Denyer.' In his case, the Full Court refused to grant his appeal.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Why?
Why did Paul Denyer kill three women in Frankston in 1993? By his own admission, he killed because he felt his 'own life had been taken,' alleging that his brother David had sexually abused him. But were these real memories festering since childhood, or did they stem from a message given to him, according to what he told his family, by Sharon's mother, Pauline.
There is a lot of room to toss around theories to explain why Paul Denyer chose to do what he did. Many, including Paul himself, try to use mitigating circumstances to explain the murders but there must be more to it. Millions of people world-wide suffer the same difficult life experiences that Paul did, without becoming serial killers.
Even if Paul Denyer had experienced sexual abuse at the hands of his brother, it still doesn't explain his hatred of women, or the fact that he chose women as his victims rather than men who resembled his brother, which would seem more logical.
And what of the time, when Denyer was a boy, when he was charged with assault after making another boy masturbate in front of a group of kids? In that incident, Denyer was the offender, not the victim in a form of sexual abuse.
An important thing to remember when studying Paul Denyer, is that he is a compulsive liar. Even Sharon, in her police statement, said that he lied and she often caught him out. His family said the same thing.
Paul Denyer seemed to regard the truth as elastic and fooled a lot of people during his young life. When not blatantly lying, Denyer lied by omission.
Who could believe him when he said that Debbie Fream said nothing during the drive to Taylors Road? Having recently given birth, it is almost certain that she begged him to let her go; told him that she had just had a baby. But Denyer never admitted to that.
He told homicide detective Rod Wilson that he didn't remember the post-mortem mutilation of Elizabeth Stevens or the strange pin-point stab wounds to Debbie Fream's back. He conceded that if they were there, he must have done them, but he just didn't remember.
Considering that he was acting out things that he had been fantasising about for years, it is unlikely that he didn't recall inflicting the wounds. It's more likely that he didn't want to explain the post-mortem mutilations to the detectives; because it would give something away.
Paul Denyer had one life that people saw and another hidden inner life in which he fantasised about killing women. For years he stalked women, waiting for the right time to begin his murder spree. Unsuccessful at most things, Paul Denyer was, for a time, a successful murderer. It made him feel special and clever - more clever than the police who couldn't catch him. And then, when they did, he basked in the glory, confessing most of the things he had done and leading police step by step through his murderous activities.
Does he feel remorse - even now? Serial killers are typically without conscience and, while it may be comforting for the average person to hear that he is now sorry, he wasn't sorry when he murder
ed. He didn't telephone the police after he killed his first victim to beg for forgiveness. Even when he was caught, he didn't break down with the burden of what he had done. His confession came only after he realised that police could perform DNA tests on his blood and match it to the scene of Natalie Russell's murder.
The timing of his so-called remorse is also significant. He professed sorrow and repentance only when he had something to gain. He is a dangerous and manipulative individual and there is no guarantee that, if released, he won't kill again.
Another reality is that Paul Charles Denyer is a nice man. There is a side to him that is courteous, polite, caring and funny. He managed to hide the dark side and had over 21 years to practice hiding it, more or less successfully, even from those closest to him.
Devoid of female victims in prison, Paul Denyer may well prove to be a model prisoner; and that is the danger. Will he be able to convince a future parole board that his dark side is a thing of the past - simply because he had no access to potential victims in his 30 years in prison?
Paul Denyer had fantasies of killing that he chose to act upon. Were they irresistible urges or urges not resisted? He could resist the urge to kill when others were around, and he could resist the urge to kill when it was dangerous to him. But, when the opportunities arose, when he thought it was safe, he killed without pity for his victims and without remorse.
Denyer had no comprehension of the terror and suffering of his victims. He sounded indignant in his police interview when he says that Elizabeth Stevens lied about her age. He sounds indignant when he says that Roszsa Toth went 'against her word' and ran away from him - almost as if she owed him something. In his next breath he describes his intention to kill her. He expresses his disgust when he relates how Natalie Russell offered him sex or money. He could not understand that she was trying to bargain for her life.
Religion - or rather church - may have played a role in the killings. It is also a recurring theme. Roszsa Toth was abducted from the Seaford railway station, only 50 metres from the Seaford Community Hall - the place where the Christian Reform Crusade met regularly; the church to which Sharon Johnson belonged. Debbie Fream's car was left outside a Christian centre owned by the same church. Elizabeth Stevens had a series of crosses carved into her chest. Natalie Russell was wearing a Catholic school uniform and when Denyer confessed, it is to Darren O'Loughlin who was wearing a crucifix.
And there was the incident before the murder spree began, when Denyer ransacked the flat of a neighbour who was a devout Christian. He had earlier challenged her about her faith, and told her that he had seen the light, and didn't need the church any more. Two days before the attack on the flat was the christening of his nephew, during which Sharon Johnson accused Melissa of not being a proper Christian.
Denyer also showed a hatred towards young mothers. His murderous attempt on Donna Vanes was thwarted because she wasn't home when he broke in, but he admited his intent to kill her. He knew that if he killed her, a tiny baby would be left without a mother.
He showed no mercy to Debbie Fream, even though he saw the baby seat in the back of the car. And then there was the fleeting contempt for Melissa Denyer when she told him she was pregnant; and the visit he made to her street when she was home alone with her baby.
While the connections are tenuous, or conjecture, it is important to look more deeply into the psyche of the killer. Only Paul Denyer knows why he began to kill and where the urges came from. And only he knows whether there were other victims.
There was a knife attack against a couple crossing a walk bridge over the Kananook Creek before the murders began. The walk bridge is at the end of McCulloch Avenue where Debbie Fream was taken from. As they were walking across the bridge in the evening, a man approached the couple and lunged at the woman stabbing her in the chest and the face. When her companion came to her aid, the attacker savagely cut his throat. Both survived - just. While that attacker was never caught, investigating officers were surprised that he went for the woman first, rather than the man who'd pose a greater threat.
And then there is the mysterious disappearance and probable murder of Sarah McDiarmid. Serial killings are mostly precipitated by stress and the most stressful period of Paul Denyer's life occurred when the family problems with his brother David, came to a head around July 1990 - the time that Sarah vanished.
Paul was 18 at the time, with access to a car. While he told detectives that he wasn't responsible for her death, it certainly fits his pattern. She vanished from a railway station in the evening, possibly - given the amount of blood found near her car - suffering a wound to her throat.
There is a significant point near the end of Paul Denyer's confession when Rod Wilson pointed to the Kananook railway station on the map. After a gruelling interview, lasting nearly 10 hours, Wilson momentarily forgot Sarah McDiarmid's name.
'So you are aware that there was a woman who was taken from the Kananook railway station in 1990?'
Paul Denyer replied quickly, 'I didn't do that; not Sarah McDiarmid.'
It was Wilson's job to be thinking of Sarah McDiarmid at that moment. Denyer had no reason to remember the name of a woman who'd disappeared three years before. His stress level should have been much higher than Rod Wilson's, yet it was Denyer who immediately came up with her name.
If he had no intimate knowledge of her disappearance, why should she be in his mind at this moment, when he should be concerned only with the predicament he was in?
By his own admission, Denyer had already been stalking women for four years. Because Sarah McDiarmid had never been found, it would be difficult to pin her possible murder on anyone. Denyer only confessed to the other murders when the detectives asked for his blood samples. He had known the game was up. If Denyer was responsible for any other murders, he would know it would severely limit his chances of ever being released.
And the death of Michelle Brown? Could Denyer have been responsible for her murder as well? Members of his family remember that when her disappearance was covered on the television news, Paul jumped up and said, 'Hey! I know her!' He told them that they had taken classes together at school.
Paul Denyer claimed that his crimes were random and perhaps they were, but a case could be made that they weren't.
A couple of weeks before she died, Elizabeth Stevens had come flying into the house saying that someone had followed her home and it had scared her. Elizabeth's Aunt Rita had felt a sense of familiarity when she had first seen Paul Denyer in court. Could he have in fact been stalking Elizabeth?
When they found out where Elizabeth lived, the Denyer family were horrified. Before the Websters bought the house, it had been occupied by the family of a girl who was dating Richard Denyer. Paul had spent time in that very house.
What are the odds of that?
Roszsa Toth was of a similar age and build to Denyer's mother. Debbie was a young mum with a baby - just like Melissa Denyer. And his third victim was a school girl called Natalie. Paul's sister was a schoolgirl called Natalie. Coincidence? Maybe.
Only Paul Denyer knows for sure.
CHAPTER FORTY
The people's appeal
On St Patrick's day - 17 March 1994, the Director of Public Prosecutions Geoffrey Flatman, instructed by Crown Instructing Solicitor Ken Rivett, took the Denyer appeal to the High Court. The point of the DPP's appeal was that the Full Court judges had imported the issue of age into section 11 of the Sentencing Act, which should have dealt exclusively with the nature of the crime and the past history of the offender.
Justice Crockett had said that a life sentence with no set minimum term would be unfair to Paul Denyer because of his young age. The DPP was prepared to argue that his age was irrelevant.
Prior to the 17 March hearing, both the defence and the prosecution had presented written submissions to the three High Court judges. At the hearing, they were each allowed 20 minutes to speak and five minutes to reply - an orange light in the court room changed to red si
gnalling a barrister's time was up.
Natalie Russell's mother Carmel, Aunt Bernadette and her sister Janine formed part of the gallery. The three women sat watching as the first three cases for the day were dismissed. Bernadette had been praying to St Patrick ever since she had been given the date for the hearing. For the staunch Catholic family, it seemed like a good omen. However, when the other cases were dismissed, their own hopes faded.
The three judges sat, slightly raised in the modern courtroom, in front of Dyson Hore-Lacy and Geoff Flatman. Hore-Lacy appeared for Denyer and was confident that the non-parole period would stand up under appeal.
Under the Sentencing Act 1991, and legal precedents that a sentence could not be allowed to act as one of preventative detention, the judges would be left with little choice. Hore-Lacy argued that the Full Court was clearly correct in its handing down of the non-parole period, but stressed that a 30 year non-parole period did not necessarily mean that Denyer would be released after 30 years. His life sentence still stood.
After a tense period of complete silence, the family listened while the three judges dismissed the appeal. Carmel, Bernadette and Janine sat in the court room shattered. They had pinned so much hope on the leave to appeal. Now it was all over. People rose to leave, bowing towards the bench on the way out.
Carmel rose to leave too, but she didn't bow.
After giving a brief statement to the media, Bernadette steered her sister and her niece to a nearby coffee shop and the women sat down to take stock of the decision.
'They didn't even mention the girls' names,' Janine said, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks.
Bernadette nodded in agreement. 'It was as if we were on the side of justice and the judges were on the side of the law.'
The chasm between the two was obvious.
The Frankston Serial Killer Page 27
