What Else? Solved and
Unsolved Atrocities
Science is always simple and always profound, it is only the half truths that are dangerous.
– GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, THE DOCTOR’S DILEMMA
Peter Dupas was the prime suspect in six murders. He has now been convicted of three of those and he is serving three life sentences without any prospect of parole.
Nicole Amanda Patterson
Dupas was suspected, and eventually convicted, of the murder of Nicole Patterson on 19 April 1999 after her semi-naked body was found lying on the lounge-room floor of her home in the northern Melbourne suburb of Northcote. She had been stabbed twenty-seven times and both of her breasts had been removed after death.
When the Homicide Squad arrived at the scene they found that the killer had removed jewellery and other items from her body and worn them. The killer had also removed her shirt and had taken that and unknown bloodied items, most likely the victim’s breasts, down to her bedroom where there is further evidence that the killer has dressed up in the victim’s clothing.
There was further evidence that the killer had searched the victim’s premises before leaving, clearly with a view to finding any incriminating evidence. However, the killer missed one most important item, and that was Nicole’s diary. On the day of her death she had written “Malcolm 9.00 am” and a phone number. A call charge record on the deceased’s phone revealed that a number which belonged to Dupas, who was by then a convicted serial rapist with a propensity for violence, had called Miss Patterson fifteen times over the last week, a chilling fact indeed.
Not long after, on 22 April, Homicide Squad detectives arrested Dupas at a local hotel and searched his house. In the rubbish bin outside the house police found a pair of white runners with blood stains all over them. Also located was a small piece of newspaper that had been torn into several pieces. When pieced back together, this piece of paper revealed the handwritten note “Nicci – Northcote – 9.00 o’clock morning – Malcolm”. It is obvious now that Dupas had rung and used a false name for the purposes of making an appointment with the victim. Also, on his fridge, was a handwritten note with a mobile number: the same as the phone number written in Patterson’s diary. Dupas had obviously deviously used another mobile phone to ring Patterson and make his fatal appointment.
During their search of the premises, the police also found a copy of the Herald Sun with the front page showing Patterson’s face after her murder was discovered. The picture had been slashed with a knife. Located in the garage were numerous tools with their handles wrapped in yellow electrical tape; the tape was identical to that found on the deceased’s body.
Well hidden in Dupas’s garage were a balaclava, gloves and a green army jacket with a packet of condoms in the pocket. On the sleeves were blood stains. DNA testing was later conducted and it became clear that the blood on the runners found in the rubbish bin and the blood on the jacket sleeve as that of Miss Patterson. Dupas was charged and bail refused. This was the beginning of the rest of his life in custody.
At the trial, expert evidence was given that the blood on the jacket located in Dupas’s garage was 6.53 billion times more likely to be that of Nicole Patterson than any other person. As a former lawyer familiar with DNA testing, I can say that these sorts of numbers show categorically that the blood was Nicole Patterson’s. Floated as Dupas’s defence was the highly unlikely and in my view fanciful scenario that Detective Senior Sergeant Geoff Maher and Detective Senior Detective Paul Scarlett had obtained a phial of the deceased’s blood and had walked around and sprinkled it liberally all over Dupas’s jacket and runners during the execution of the search warrant. I have heard some fanciful defences in my day, but this one takes the cake. It is no wonder the jury only took two hours to convict Dupas, and His Honour Justice Vincent duly sentenced him to life imprisonment with no minimum.
Margaret Josephine Maher
Margaret Maher was a well-known heroin user and had been addicted to the drug for most of her adult life. She had struggled with her use, as is often the case with heroin addicts, and had been unable to support her habit through legal means, so had turned to prostitution – a very common event.
According to discussions I have had with people who knew her, she was considered likeable, harmless and a bit of a hopeless case as far as her drug use and prostitution were concerned. On 4 October 1997 at about 1.45 pm, the body of Margaret Maher was found dumped on the side of Cliffords Road, Somerton. She had been assaulted and stabbed numerous times and her left breast had been severed and shoved into her mouth. The police sealed off the area and began a minute forensic examination of the scene. Located on and near the deceased’s body were items of rubbish and discarded computer equipment that had purposely been placed there obviously to conceal the deceased’s body from passers-by. A problem for the killer was that one of his woollen gloves had slipped off and was found in the pile of rubbish.
You will note that Margaret Maher’s murder took place before Nicole Patterson’s. There was an extensive investigation by the Homicide Squad and they couldn’t find any records of a killer having severed a breast over the previous ten years. Sexually motivated killers usually follow a pattern of behaviour, whether they mean to or not. Once the pattern has been established, they tend to stick to it pretty rigorously. The only other known murder in which a breast was severed came in April 1999 when Dupas was arrested for the murder of Nicole Patterson. This breakthrough in the investigation was the beginning of the end for Peter Dupas because the Victoria police formed a task force known as Mikado and it re-examined the unsolved murders of five women: Margaret Maher, Mersina Halvagis, Kathleen Downes, Helen McMahon and Renita Brunton.
Having got to know Detective Senior Sergeant Geoff Maher and Detective Senior Constable Paul Scarlett well during my interaction with them and in the course of my giving evidence in the Mersina Halvagis prosecution, I can say from first-hand experience that these two police officers are dedicated, dogged and meticulous in the pursuit of solving outstanding crimes. That was how Senior Detective Scarlett came to talk to me at Fulham about Mersina Halvagis; any other cop would have put the issue of talking to me in the too-hard basket.
The police went back over all of the evidence that had been discovered at the scene and in the case. The obvious item for re-examination was the black woollen glove located alongside the victim’s body. DNA techniques have rocketed in their accuracy in the last decade or so, and the woollen glove was again subjected to DNA investigation, but this time using the most recent and accurate of testings. A DNA sample was subsequently discovered inside the glove, and Dupas could not be excluded as the source of this sample.
In a great piece of lateral thinking the coppers went back over Dupas’s phone records around the time of the death of Maher, and found that calls had been made from his landline to a phone sex service known as “Grandma’s sex line” on 1 November 1997, the day Dupas murdered Mersina Halvagis, and not quite a month since he had murdered Margaret Maher. The police spoke to a phone sex operator who was clearly rattled by the person who had called that day. She remembered a male calling the line and detailing to her how he had cut off a woman’s breast and cut around the nipple. She further recalled how the anonymous caller appeared to become more sexually aroused as he spoke about blood pouring over his knife and referred to the victim as his mother, “the bitch!” The person on the other end of the phone described in great detail injuries that bore a striking resemblance to the post-mortem injuries inflicted by Dupas on Margaret Maher.
On 2 October 2002 Dupas was charged with Maher’s murder and after a three-week trial he was convicted and sentenced to a second life sentence.
Mersina Halvagis
On Saturday 1 November 1997 Mersina left her fiancé’s house and drove to the Fawkner Cemetery to tend her grandmother’s grave, as was her usual practice. She arrived at the cemetery at about 3.30 pm and was last seen alive walking away from the car park at the Greek Orthodox section of the cemetery towards her grandmother’s grave. Mersina failed to arrive home that afternoon, and by that evening an extensive search involving all of her family and her fiancé was underway. It was totally out of character for her not to be at home on time. At about 4.00 am the following morning, Mersina’s fiancé climbed over the boundary fence into the cemetery. Lying in an empty plot just two graves from her grandmother’s gravesite, he made the gruesome discovery of Mersina’s body.
The Homicide Squad was called to the scene of the grisly murder. It was apparently random and obviously carried out with great force, displaying the frenzied infliction of a great number of wounds. The scene indicated to the police that Mersina had fought courageously with her attacker, despite the fact that she was short and weighed just 55 kilograms. A significant injury to the back of her head indicated that she had been attacked from behind, and she had received over eighty stab wounds to her body, with an obvious concentration in the breast area. The similarity with the Patterson and Maher murders was marked.
Unlike in the case of Margaret Maher, however, there was no glove containing a DNA sample at the scene; and unlike Patterson, no phone records to connect anybody to the murder. This attack appeared to be truly random – until it later emerged that Dupas’s grandmother is buried within a couple of hundred metres of Mersina’s grandmother. So much for Dupas’s later assertion that he had no connection to Fawkner Cemetery, had no knowledge of the area and had no logical reason to be there. Again deny, deny, deny.
The Halvagis family were devastated and constantly kept at everybody concerned to try to solve this awful murder. One of the most touching aspects of this investigation from the police’s point of view was the unflinching love of the family for their deceased daughter and sister and their unyielding determination to have Mersina’s killer brought to justice. Meanwhile, there was not one skerrick of forensic evidence for the police to hang their hat on. Over the next couple of years the police investigated, and eliminated as persons of interest, 215 suspects and they obtained 149 statements.
While the police were minutely combing whatever evidence they could find, it became apparent to them that, in the five months leading up to Mersina’s murder, there had been seven separate instances of females being approached at the Fawkner Cemetery, sometimes aggressively, by an unknown male. A couple of the women got a very good look at his face. When Dupas was apprehended for Nicole Patterson’s murder and his photograph was shown in the media, several women contacted police to say that he was the man who had accosted them in the cemetery. There are always problems with identification evidence, particularly after a long period of time, but Dupas’s face is quite distinctive, particularly as he is an older man, making it the kind that can be easily identified.
In May 2005 the police contacted me and I provided them with the evidence that was required to charge Dupas. He pleaded Not Guilty. The case received a huge amount of media coverage and, on 27 August 2007, Dupas was convicted of his second murder. He was again sentenced to life, no minimum.
The above three murders are those we know Dupas has committed. What about those for which he has never been convicted?
Helen McMahon
It is believed that Helen McMahon may have been Dupas’s first victim. On 13 February 1985 she left the Willows Caravan Park where she was living at Rosebud, in coastal Victoria, and went to the nearby Rye back beach. From the car park she walked about 800 metres into the sand dunes. For those of you who know this area, it is semi National Park Coastal Reserve, deserted and covered with very large sand dunes, which affords privacy and quiet. Helen McMahon liked this area because it was her habit to sunbake nude and it provided the isolation she required. What probably ended up being her undoing was the fact that she always went to sunbake in the same place, making her easy prey for a stalker.
At about 3.30 pm on that afternoon a passer-by noticed McMahon lying naked and partially wrapped in a towel. At first the person who saw the body thought nothing much of it until he noticed that the towel covering her was blood soaked and the surrounding sand was covered in blood. The passer-by then realised McMahon was dead and reported his gruesome discovery to the Rye police.
A police pathologist who conducted a post mortem said that McMahon died as a result of inter-cranial haemorrhage and contusions resulting from multiple blows to the head. There was also bruising on her hands which suggests that she was trying to protect herself during this violent and obviously unprovoked attack. When the crime scene examiners went over the area with a fine-toothed comb they found, among other things, a piece of blood-splattered wooden stake next to the naked body.
At the time of McMahon’s death Dupas was serving a twelve-year sentence for rape, so how could he possibly be in the frame for this particular murder? Originally, when all of the other murders took place, he was not considered a suspect because of the fact that he was undergoing sentence. The catch comes in the form of the fact that, when McMahon was killed, Dupas was almost at the end of this particular sentence and was released from prison on an eight-day temporary release program in order to assess his suitability for release on parole.
The crime for which Dupas was serving a sentence was a violent rape of a 26-year-old female in a public toilet in Frankston. Frankston, Rye and Rosebud are all beachside suburbs outside Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsular and are in relatively close proximity. On his eight-day release Dupas was residing with his elderly parents in the Frankston area. He returned to prison, as per the conditions of his temporary release, on 14 February 1985, the day after the murder of Helen McMahon. Dupas was released from prison on parole a short time later, and was again residing with his parents in Frankston when he drove his car to the Blairgowrie back beach, not far from the Rye back beach, where, armed with a knife, he attacked and raped a twenty-one-year-old while she was on the beach.
What sort of supervision, if any, was Dupas under while he was on day leave? It would appear not much if he was able to travel to the beach and kill somebody, and to date get away with it.
While I was on day release from jail I was required to be at certain places at certain times and the jail rang and checked on me repeatedly. It seems they check drug users but not rapist/murderers.
As in the case of Halvagis and Kathleen Downes, no forensic evidence has come to light.
Renita Brunton
Renita Brunton died on 5 November 1993 at her store, Exclusive Pre-loved Clothing, at 3 Link Arcade, Sunbury, in regional Victoria. She was a strong-willed woman and set in her ways. She was apparently easygoing but not afraid to say what was on her mind. She made friends easily.
On the day of her death Ms Brunton was at her store in Sunbury, which was open for business. Several people had been in and out the store in the morning. The police have revealed that unusual noises were heard coming from the vicinity of Brunton’s shop early that afternoon. While witnesses described the noises as “concerning”, nobody investigated further at the time. Had anybody gone to investigate, chances are Renita Brunton would be alive today. Instead, the noises stopped and nothing else transpired for the remainder of the day – until about 5.30 pm when someone came to visit Brunton. The shop was still open, which was unusual at that time, and Renita Brunton’s body was found in the back of the shop. Brunton had died as a result of multiple stab wounds to the chest.
At the time Peter Dupas was living in Woodend, close to Sunbury, with the woman to whom he was then married, Grace McConnell. On Fridays, where would Grace McConnell go to do her weekly shopping? Sunbury! On 5 November 1993, guess who went to Sunbury with Grace McConnell to do some shopping? Peter Dupas!
While Dupas has not been charged with this murder he is a suspect. If my involvement in the Halvagis matter is anything to go by, it is never too late to bring new evidence to light in such cases. Anybody who has any recollection of, or information about, anything relevant that took place or was noticed in Sunbury all those years ago, on 5 November 1993, they would be doing a community service to contact Crime Stoppers.
Kathleen Downes
Kathleen Downes was born on 29 January 1902, and on 31 December 1997, at nearly ninety-six years of age, she was murdered in the Brunswick Lodge Nursing Home. Mrs Downes has been described by staff at the Brunswick Lodge Nursing Home as a dear old lady with a wonderful nature. She was considered the matriarch of the nursing home.
On 30 December 1997, the residents had all gone to bed by approximately 8.00 pm. Staff always ensured that all external doors were locked and the premises were secure. In the early hours of the following morning, at about 12.30 am, staff made a routine check and confirmed that the residents in the eastern wing, including Kathleen Downes, were asleep.
At 6.20 am the same morning the day shift staff arrived and that was when one of the staff observed that the door leading into Mrs Downes’s room was ajar. As she pushed it open she found to her dismay the bloodied body of dear old Mrs Downes on the floor. At the time of this murder Dupas had just moved from a flat in Rose Street, Brunswick, close to the nursing home, to a house in Cone Street, Pascoe Vale.
The Homicide Squad have now made a direct link between Dupas and the nursing home. That link is phone calls made from Dupas’s phone in the weeks preceding Mrs Downes’s murder.
More important, and far more explicit than the phone conversations, is Dupas’s conversation with me in prison and his astounding voluntary admissions against his interest, which you can see in my statement. There I mention having talked to Dupas about the significance of the DNA evidence on the glove at the scene of the Maher murder, to which Dupas replied that he had not left any “forensics at Fawkner”, meaning Halvagis, nor, more significantly with “the old sheila down the road”. I have absolutely no doubt that Dupas was admitting to me that he killed Margaret Downes and that he had left no forensic evidence at the scene. When one combines the phone calls with the admission to me, Dupas is, in my view, a certainty to have been the killer of Mrs Downes.
Once again, if anybody has any evidence at all they should contact Crime Stoppers.