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The Devil Made Me Do It: The Violent World of Darren Osborne

The coach captain checked the speedo on his 18-wheeler road liner. No, he wasn’t speeding. And he was certain that he hadn’t gone over the limit at any time since he had left Perth. Then why would the police want to have a chat with him? He was puzzled as to why they would radio ahead on the two-way radio and tell him to call in to Eucla for an unscheduled stop. And it was annoying. He was 15 hours into his journey to Adelaide and was dead on schedule. Still, it would give his passengers a chance to see how remarkable the tiny township is. Eucla is in the middle of the Nullarbor and sits on the top of the huge white cliffs that look across the Great Australian Bight. It is like a strange oasis.

As the coach captain pulled into the roadhouse parking area he was met by two plain-clothed policemen, who quietly boarded his bus.

‘Morning, Captain,’ said Sergeant George Johansen. ‘Sorry to interrupt your trip. Do you mind if we take a look around?’

‘Not at all,’ he replied, relieved that they appeared to be looking for someone. This was no traffic pinch.

The passengers looked up at Johansen as he slowly moved down the aisle. He hardly spared a glance at the young honeymooners cuddled up at the front, but threw a quick smile at the two pretty American tourists. They smiled back at the man who looked so out of place in a suit in the middle of the Nullarbor Plain. Then Sergeant Johansen had a close look at the hands of the clean-shaven young man who was asleep with his head resting against the window. No. That wasn’t him.

Finally his eyes rested on a young man. Short, bearded and pudgy, he was sitting at the back of the coach. The man was stooped over with his head in his lap, as if to hide his face. Johansen stood over the man for a few seconds, but did not speak. Although they had never met, Sergeant Johansen knew the man.

‘Show me your hands,’ Johansen demanded. The man complied. On the back of his hands were tattooed crosses. And on his forearm was a tattoo of a stickman.

‘Are you Darren Osborne?’

‘Yes.’

‘Grab your gear and come with me.’

Osborne offered no resistance but fearing otherwise, Johansen had his hand inside his jacket and around the butt of his police-issue .38 Smith and Wesson. The madman could come at him with a knife. If he did, then he was ready. But it seemed unlikely. The coward Osborne specialised only in attacking defenceless women. Besides, by now other police had arrived and surrounded the bus. Osborne’s opportunities to escape were nil. Chances are that the passengers on the bus on that day in May 1987 never found out that they were sharing their journey with one of Australia’s most wanted criminals.

Such was the ferocity of the sexual assault and murder of Susan Frost at Albany in southern Western Australia three days earlier that police had prepared themselves for the worst. This was an extremely dangerous homicidal maniac and their instructions were to approach with extreme caution.

Police also believed that Osborne could help interstate detectives with their inquiries into a series of extremely violent sexual assaults in Queensland and Victoria. There was also the recent assault of a 16-year-old girl at East Perth, in which the suspect answered Osborne’s description. In one of the attacks in Queensland, the victim had been left for dead with her throat cut from ear to ear.

When apprehended, Osborne confessed to all of the crimes.

Darren Osborne’s career as a violent rapist began in Queensland when he was just 18. He assaulted three girls at knifepoint and was sentenced to nine years’ jail. Released on parole in 1986 after serving just four and a half years, within a week of his release he launched one of the most savage knife attacks in Queensland’s criminal history.

Brisbane beautician Shari Davies was kidnapped at knifepoint from a car park on 5 November 1986. Her attacker told her to drive her car into remote bushland on the city’s outskirts. There she was viciously bashed and then stabbed 12 times in the neck and body before her throat was cut and she was left for dead. Semiconscious, she managed to crawl 50 metres to the side of the road where she lay for 10 hours before she was found the next morning. Shari hovered between life and death for a week, but she eventually recovered and was able to describe her attacker and the tattoos on the back of his hands. A massive manhunt was launched but her attacker had fled.

From her hospital bed, Shari Davies made a prophetic plea to police all around Australia. ‘Please find my evil attacker before an innocent girl is murdered,’ she begged. ‘He’ll kill next time. He’s got nothing to lose.’

Osborne next struck on 27 November 1986, when he assaulted a 33-year-old mother of two at knifepoint in the toilets of a McDonald’s in the heart of Melbourne. She described her attacker as having tattoos of crosses on the back of his hands. Police knew Osborne was on the run, violating women as he went, but where would he turn up next?

When a man with the now familiar tattoos violently assaulted a 16-year-old girl at knifepoint in Perth on 24 April 1987, police circulated a description of the man and his tattoos to the press. On 5 May, in Albany, in southern Western Australia, Osborne stole a knife and on Mother’s Day, 10 May, he abducted 23-year-old barmaid Susan Frost and assaulted her at knifepoint in a nearby car park, before stabbing her to death with 22 blows from a butcher’s knife. Her body was found the following morning.

Soon after committing the murder, Osborne buried the knife, washed off the blood, arrived at the home of a lady he had befriended and borrowed enough money for a coach ticket to Queensland. Osborne had told the lady of the murderous assault he had committed upon Shari Davies in Queensland and explained that he wanted to go back and confess.

The following morning when Miss Frost’s dead body turned up, the poor woman realised that the man the police were looking for was Osborne; she gave them details of Osborne’s bus trip and he was arrested. But instead of acting like the knife-wielding monster police were pursuing, on the long trip back to Perth their suspect broke down in tears, confessed his crimes and begged forgiveness because ‘the Devil made him do it’.

Upon hearing of Osborne’s arrest, Ian Davies, the father of Shari, the young lady lucky to escape with her life in Brisbane, was extremely critical of Osborne’s release after having served only half of his sentence for raping the three girls.

Darren Osborne was described in court as being one of the most evil killers in our history, and was sent to prison without ever the possibility of parole. The judge added, ‘You should never be released until senility overtakes you.’

In 1988, Shari Davies sued for damages and was awarded a record $40,000 compensation from the Queensland Government. In June 2001, the story of Shari’s bravery and survival was the subject of an episode of the ABC’s Australian Story.

Darren Osborne committed suicide in Perth’s Casuarina Prison in 1997.