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MATTHEW JAMES HARRIS

THE WAGGA SERIAL MURDERS

There were emotional scenes in the Wagga Local Court in rural New South Wales on 7 December 1998, as the man accused of murdering three local residents appeared in the dock. A relative of one of the victims drew his finger across his throat in a grim warning to the 30-year-old accused, local bus driver, Matthew James Harris. Police officers were strategically positioned about the packed court room in the event of trouble. Serial murder had come to Wagga and the locals didn’t like it one bit.

The accused, dressed in a white shirt and dark pants, sat quietly while a distraught female friend tried to catch his eye as she mouthed the words ‘I love you’ to him in the dock. But the accused’s head was down and he only looked up when the police prosecutor told the magistrate that the accused had admitted to the three murders. Harris, a regular heroin user, had confessed to the strangling murders of his 62-year-old neighbour, Peter Wennerbom, on 4 October 1998, a 30-year-old bus passenger, Yvonne Ford, on 17 October and another neighbour, Ronald Edward Galvin, who went missing on Melbourne Cup Day. All of the victims were disabled pensioners.

The court heard that Yvonne Ford’s body was found in the bath of her premises. Mr Galvin’s badly decomposed body was found in bushland by a man walking his dog on the day Harris was arrested and Mr Wennerbom’s remains were found in his home, just a few hundred metres from where Harris lived. All of the victim’s were known to Harris as passengers through his job driving the bus for the Wagga Community Transport Service for incapacitated and disabled local residents.

Harris was arrested in Sydney after he made a phone call to a local Wagga resident and confessed to her that he had murdered the three victims and robbed them for money to buy drugs. Harris was arrested at 4.35am on 1 December 1998, in Sydney’s notorious Kings Cross after the woman he had confessed to went to the police. The police notified Sydney detectives, who picked Harris up immediately when he was located.

Harris was remanded at the Wagga Local Court to stand trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court. At the trial held in March 2000, Harris pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and was bound over for sentencing. On the eve of his sentencing the local WIN Television broadcast a taped police interview with Harris that provided a chilling insight into the motive for the killings:

‘To me, I think of it as an achievement because I have achieved absolutely nothing in my lifetime,’ Harris said. ‘And to murder, and to keep murdering and to get away with it, was an achievement. But at the point of killing these people I didn’t care. I just thought I’d keep going and going and obviously I was going to get caught – and I was caught – but I just kept going.

‘The first one was like just a one-off. It wasn’t an accident … I just wanted to kill somebody, basically, I just wanted to kill someone. And I got away with it and I thought, “Well, why not go again?” And I go again and I got away with that one. And I went again and I got away with that one … I’d still be going if I hadn’t been caught.’

WIN Television also reported that police raids on Harris’s home uncovered a number of books about serial killers which included one on Australia’s most notorious serial killer, Ivan Milat. During the taped police interview Harris said: ‘The Ivan Milat book was an all right book. I don’t know … if I had to say one book, I’d say Ivan Milat’s book wasn’t an influence but it was a good read and it sort of sparked something off in me.’

In her summing up prior to sentencing Harris in the New South Wales Supreme Court on 7 April 2000, Justice Virginia Bell told the court that Harris had experienced a ‘significant level’ of emotional deprivation and rejection and his ‘unfortunate background was causative in the commission of these offences’. Justice Bell told the court that Harris believed his adoptive parents treated him differently to their natural children and left home at age 14 to live on the streets, prostituted himself and became a heroin user. She said that his lifestyle led to feelings of debasement and worthlessness. When Harris was later reunited with his natural mother the meeting lasted less than four minutes, with her saying she had given him up at birth and wanted nothing to do with him. Around the time of his 30th birthday Harris became overwhelmed by feelings of depression because he had achieved nothing with his life.

Justice Bell said that Harris had participated in an armed robbery with another man, forcing their way into a woman’s unit and holding a knife to her throat as her children looked on. ‘This ugly crime seemed to mark [Harris’s] degeneration,’ Justice Bell continued. ‘In six weeks he strangled three people in separate incidents. Emboldened by the armed robbery Harris went to the unit of Mr Wennerbom, whom he knew was ill and affected by a stroke, with the intention of robbing him but then strangled him to avoid detection.

‘After getting away with Mr Wennerbom’s murder Harris continued carrying out “opportunistic killings,”’ Justice Bell said. ‘He strangled Ms Ford, who had a mild intellectual disability, after convincing her to get into her bath and got in with her saying he would rub her neck. Harris told police he strangled Ms Ford because he believed she would be easy to kill.

‘Harris then strangled his immediate neighbour in the unit block he lived in, Ron Galvin, who was physically disabled. After Mr Galvin’s “senseless killing” Harris attempted to kill himself twice with heroin overdoses. Harris admitted to police to murdering the three after confessing to a friend, Mr Wenner-bom’s sister, that he had strangled Mr Galvin,’ Justice Bell concluded.

In sentencing Harris to a minimum of 25 years’ imprison-ment, Justice Bell said that the prisoner’s admissions were significant and he was not entirely without hope of rehabilitation. But the locals were far from impressed with the judge’s decision. It only worked out at 8.3 years for a human life and that wasn’t enough. Along with the families of the victims, the citizens of Wagga campaigned long and hard to have Justice Bell’s sentence overthrown and a longer sentence imposed. They wanted the maximum – life without parole.

The Crown agreed and appealed the leniency of the sentence and three days before Christmas in 2000, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal consisting of Justice Roger Giles, Justice James Wood and Justice Bruce James unanimously agreed that Justice Bell had failed to give due recognition to the degree of heinousness involved in the murders and sentenced Matthew Harris to life imprisonment.

And in New South Wales, life means life. There is no possibility of parole. The Wagga Serial Killer will die in jail. And given the nature of his despicable crimes against three of their lesser fortunate citizens, the residents of Wagga agree that that is fair justice.