Wilson asked Denyer if he had felt any sexual urges towards Elizabeth Stevens and he admitted that he had but that they had subsided immediately after he had grabbed her. He described his conversation in the bushes at Lloyd Park with the woman he was about to kill. He had asked her name and sounded indignant when he said, 'She said she was 17, when she was 18.
'I said to her, "Do you want a fuck?" and she said, "How do you do that?" And I said, "Are you a virgin?" She said yeah and I said, "Well, I won't rape you or anything."'
Rod Wilson could only imagine the young woman's terror and he was fully aware that he was only getting one side of the story. Paul Denyer almost made it sound like a casual conversation between friends - not between a killer and his victim.
'She had her top rolled up tightly. Do you know how that came-?'
'Yeah, that happened when I was dragging her. It sort of got caught up on some blackberry bushes and pulled it all the way up.'
'But you can't remember inflicting those injuries?'
'It's possible, but I don't remember.'
Denyer described strangling Elizabeth Stevens and showed the detectives how he had pushed his thumb into her throat and made a stabbing motion as he described stabbing and slashing her throat. He told them that Elizabeth Stevens had then got to her feet.
'Are you saying that she got up after that? Did that surprise you?'
'Yeah, it did in a way. She got up and walked. And she didn't cry. She was just normal.'
'So how far? When you say she walked, how far did she actually walk?'
'Around in circles with me.'
'You were holding her still?'
'Yeah, just under one arm.'
'Why were you doing that? Did you help her up? Is that what you're indicating?'
'Yeah.'
'So what happened after she walked around in circles?'
'There was a puddle of like, flooded area there. And I pushed her into there so she could wash her, you know, blood off her and all that. And then I dragged her across the water.'
'Well, when did you put your foot on her neck as you described before?'
'When she was lying on the side of the sort of flooded area with her legs in the water.'
'And why did you do that?'
'To kill her,' Denyer said matter-of-factly.
'So you did that and then she went into a sort of spasm, you said before, or some sort of quivering?'
'Yes, her whole body just shook and everything, and then she stopped.'
'Did you think she was dead?'
'No, she was still breathing, from her neck.'
'How did you know that?'
'I could hear it.'
'How long did that last for?'
'Five minutes.'
'Did you do anything more to her then to stop that?'
'No.'
'Did you ever strike her in any way, punch her, I mean?'
'I might have.'
Denyer told Wilson that he had first seen Elizabeth Stevens around 7.15pm and the entire attack and hiding of the body had taken about half an hour. He described walking back to Sharon's mother's house and Sharon's mother had asked him where he had been. He told her that he had been to visit his mother but she hadn't been home.
He explained to Wilson that he didn't have any blood on him, because the rain had washed the blood from his hands; but he was drenched from being out for hours in the rain.
Denyer told the detectives that he had then eaten dinner - soup and a roast - and waited for Sharon to come home from work.
When Rod Wilson was satisfied that he had covered the murder of Elizabeth Stevens in as much detail as he could for the time being, going over all the details at least three times, he moved on to the murder of Debbie Fream.
Denyer's knowledge of the crime scenes and the young woman's movements were something only the killer would know. The young man had displayed little emotion during the questioning which had by now entered the early hours of Sunday morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Debbie Fream's murder
Rod Wilson had put in a long day. Called to the scene of Natalie Russell's murder at 4am on Saturday morning, Wilson found himself, 24 hours later, still only in the early stages of interviewing the self-confessed serial killer. The combined triumph and relief at catching Denyer before he could claim any more lives well and truly made up for the gruelling pace.
Darren O'Loughlin, too, had put in as many hours and it would probably be another 24 before any of the detectives would go home for some well-deserved and much needed sleep.
But for now it was time to lead the questioning to the attempted abduction of Roszsa Toth and the murder, hours later, of Deborah Fream.
Denyer told Wilson and O'Loughlin that he had seen Mrs Toth walking near the station. He described how he approached her from behind, and grabbed her with his left hand around her mouth while sticking his fake gun to her head with his other hand.
Denyer had thought Mrs Toth was Spanish when she cried out in a language he didn't understand. She bit his finger and screamed. He showed the detectives the bite mark still remaining on his finger.
'I wrestled with her. She ran out on the road but no one stopped. And I grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back towards the park and I said, "Shut up or I'll blow your fucking head off." And she said, "Si, si," in Spanish or something. And then she stood up and then went against her word and ran out on the road again.' Denyer's voice was indignant.
This indignation would show itself a number of times during the interview. Paul Denyer was indignant that the women he tried to kill either lied to him or tried to get away - almost as if they owed him some kind of loyalty. It was the same when he spoke of Elizabeth Stevens lying about her age.
His complete lack of empathy for them was telling. It was like in his mind, you didn't go against your word and if you did, that made you a liar. Of course those rules didn't apply to him; he promised Elizabeth Stevens he wouldn't 'rape her or anything', then killed her. It was these small glimpes that showed the dark inner workings of his mind.
Denyer had run away when Roszsa Toth had escaped him the second time but when Wilson asked him what he had intended doing with the middle-aged woman, he replied, 'I was just gonna drag her in the park and kill her, that's all.'
Wilson asked him if he had again felt the urge to kill and Denyer tried to articulate the feeling building up inside him.
'Yeah, like every day it was just going up, boiling up, till I got to that stage.' He raised his hand in front of him to simulate a temperature gauge.
After the attack on Roszsa Toth, Denyer had jumped on a Frankston-bound train which took him from Seaford to the next station down the line, Kananook. He got off the train and crossed the overpass. Thwarted in his bloodlust, he had gone in search of another victim and found Debbie Fream.
He was walking down McCulloch Avenue towards the milk bar on the corner, he had seen a woman pull up across the road in a grey Pulsar. He showed detectives on the Melways map.
'What caused you to select her at the time?' asked Wilson.
'Just that go feeling. While she was in the milk bar, I walked up to the car and checked the driver's door and it was unlocked, so I opened the door and put my hand through and unlocked the back door. I hopped in the car and crouched down behind the seat and pulled out a gun that I had. Then I looked up out of the car window and I saw her in the milk bar. I crouched down and I could hear her footsteps coming closer to the car. And then she opened the door. The interior light went on and then she hopped in the car. She didn't see me in the back. And then she closed the door, you know, the light went out and everything, and it was dark. And I waited for her to start up the car so no one could hear her scream or anything. And she put it into gear and she went to do a U-turn. And I startled her just as she was doing that turn and she kept going into the wall of the milk bar, which caused a dent on the bonnet. I told her to, you know, shut up or I'd blow her head off and all of that shit.'
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Denyer told the detectives that he had held the fake gun in Deborah Fream's side. Rod Wilson asked Denyer if he had noticed anything in the car when he had hopped in. Denyer told him that he had seen the baby capsule in the back seat. Even if Debbie Fream hadn't told him, Paul Denyer would have had a pretty good idea that he was killing the mother of a young baby.
Denyer said that he had instructed Debbie Fream to drive back up Kananook Avenue - ironically right past the house she shared with Garry and their son, Jake. Denyer traced the journey on the map to Hartnett Drive in Seaford.
'I told her when we got there that if she gave any signals to anyone, I'd blow her head off; I'd decorate the car with her brains.' Denyer said he was sitting upright, directly behind the young mother as he directed her towards Taylors Road.
Wilson asked if Denyer knew this area well.
'Yeah, I know it very well,' he replied. 'I used to sit down there in the car at night a couple of years ago and smoke marijuana.'
Denyer had directed Debbie Fream to stop the car near some trees on Taylors Road. He told the detectives that she had told him to take her money and her car and that he had told her he didn't want either. He then told her to get out of the car. Denyer had tucked the fake gun down the front of his tracksuit pants and pulled a cord from his pocket.
'I popped it over her eyes real quickly so she didn't see it… cause I was gonna strangle her. But I didn't want her to see the cord first. I lifted the cord up and I said, "Can you see this?" And she just put her hand up to grab it to feel it and when she did that I just yanked on it real quickly round her neck. And then I was struggling with her for about five minutes.'
'She was struggling?' asked Wilson.
'Yeah, until she started to faint a bit. And then when she was, you know, like weaker, I pulled me knife out of me sock then, and started stabbing her around the neck and the chest several, several times.'
'You strangled her?' asked O'Loughlin. 'Is that the first thing that happened?'
'As she sort of weakened and fell onto the ground, that's when I stabbed her in the throat.'
'Once?'
'Many times and once in the stomach.'
'Where was she?' asked O'Loughlin.
'Lying on the ground.'
'Was she dead or alive when you stabbed her in the throat?'
'Almost dead.'
'So you stabbed her a number of times. And what happened then?' asked Rod Wilson
'She started breathing out of her neck, just like Elizabeth Stevens. I could just hear bubbling noises.'
'Did Debbie Fream put up any resistance?'
'Yeah, she put up quite a fight. And her white jumper was pulled off during that time as well. I just felt the same way I did when I killed Elizabeth Stevens.'
'What happened after you stabbed her round the throat and chest area?'
'I lifted up her top and then ploughed the knife into her gut.'
The detectives knew that the top had a hole in it corresponding with the stab wound. Denyer hadn't lifted the top until the young mother was dead.
Wilson asked Denyer why and he replied that he wasn't sure.
'You lifted the top to do that?' asked O'Loughlin.
'Yeah,' Denyer affirmed.
'Do you know why you lifted her top?'
'I wanted to see how big her boobs were,' said Denyer.
'Beg your pardon?' asked O'Loughlin, momentarily taken aback by the childish statement.
'I wanted to see how big her boobs were,' he repeated.
'Was that part of the fantasy?' pressed O'Loughlin, trying to keep the hint of disgust from creeping into his voice.
'I don't know.'
'You actually recall thinking that way?'
'Sort of,' Denyer replied, 'and I saw her bare stomach so I just lunged at her with the knife.'
Denyer couldn't explain the small pinpoint stab injuries Debbie Fream had suffered to her back. He described dragging Debbie about a metre into a group of trees and leaving her lying against a fence. He broke off two branches from the nearest tree and threw them over her body. Denyer detailed the five-minute search for his knife which he had dropped in the attack. He found it and put it in his pocket.
'I took off my jumper because it had blood stains all over it. And I had blood all over here, all over my hands, all up my arms, blood all over the place. And then hopped in her car.' Denyer explained that he had adjusted the seat 'to match my height cause she was a lot smaller than me.'
Denyer had wiped off most of the blood using his blue jumper, which he tossed into the car, and then threw Debbie's white windcheater into the bushes.
'I hopped back in the car again and then done a U-turn and headed back down Taylors Road. I pulled up outside the New Life Christian Centre. I grabbed my jumper and wiped off my prints off the steering wheel. Wiped my prints off the transmission lever or gear stick. Off the handbrake, off the door knobs on the inside. I got out of the car and just walked home.'
Wilson established the route Denyer had walked.
'Yeah, when I got back there, I took off all my clothes and washed 'em.' Denyer was home in time to telephone Sharon at work and arrange to meet her at Kananook railway station.
Incredibly, Denyer then admitted returning to the unlocked car the following morning after his girlfriend had gone to work. He told the detectives that he took the two cartons of milk and eggs out of the car along with a packet of cigarettes and a chocolate.
'Did you think that was a bit risky?'
'At first, yeah.'
'And you took her purse?'
'It had exactly 22 dollars in it.'
'What happened to the money?'
'Spent it or something. Can't remember.'
Denyer told the detectives that he had gone back for the purse to find out the name of the woman he had killed. Taking the groceries home with him, he emptied the milk down the sink, threw the eggs out the back and burnt the cartons which he saw as evidence. Denyer took the purse and buried it at the golf course along the same track where he had killed Natalie Russell. After his busy morning, Denyer told the detectives, he 'just sat back and did nothing.'
'Did at any stage, Debbie Fream mention anything about her personal life to you?'
'No.'
'Why did you kill her?' Wilson asked.
'Same reason why I killed Elizabeth Stevens. I just wanted to.'
Denyer described how he dismantled his home-made knife and hid the pieces in the air vent in the laundry at his flat.
'Why didn't you get rid of that? Why did you put it in the air vent?'
'Couldn't think of anywhere else to hide it.'
'Like you buried the purse.'
'Well, I thought that I might have been under surveillance so if I took it anywhere and buried it I would've been seen doing it.'
'But you might have been seen burying the purse for that same reason, wouldn't you have thought?'
'Yeah, different time of day, different method of thinking,' Denyer said cryptically.
Denyer told Wilson that he had dug the hole with his hands to bury the purse. 'How would you be able to find the spot?'
'Oh, I'll find it. I know where it is,' he replied confidently.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Natalie Russell's murder
The Sunday morning sun had yet to rise when, inside the Frankston police station, a young man began telling two tired detectives how, less than 48 hours earlier, he had cut the throat of a schoolgirl.
Ironically, as the Sunday newspapers arrived on doorsteps around Melbourne with headlines screaming, 'Killer Strikes Again', that very killer was coming to the end of his extensive statement to police. As Denyer confessed his brutal actions, both the Sunday Herald Sun and The Sunday Age delivered stories about how police were still frantically hunting the killer of Natalie Russell, convinced he would strike again'. The papers had to wait until Monday to run their: 'Man, 21, In Court' headlines.
Rod Wilson entered the home stretch of the intervi
ew, almost forgetting that Saturday had turned into Sunday. 'The next incident occurred yesterday,' he began. 'Sorry, it's now the day after, but on Friday. What can you tell me about that?'
Denyer again said his car had overheated. He had stopped at the reserve and then on Skye Road opposite the bike track.
'Well, you already knew the track existed because that's where you-'
'I went up there earlier that day and cut the holes in the fences,' Denyer said. He explained that he had cut three holes in the cyclone wire fences with a pair of pliers that he kept in the car. He had tested each hole for size by climbing through. After that, he had visited his mother's de facto husband, and then gone to hunt for car parts at a local wreckers.
Denyer then drove back to Skye Road to wait for a victim.
'I sat in the car for 20 minutes till about quarter to three and then I saw the girl coming down the road.'
Denyer said the girl was wearing a blue school uniform and he had seen her coming out of the road where John Paul College was. 'When I saw her coming over the hill, I predicted straight away where she'd be heading cause she crossed the road. She crossed the road onto the golf course side. I knew exactly where she was heading.'
Strangely, Denyer denied feeling the urge to kill this time even though he'd cut the holes in the fence and waited in his car for 20 minutes for a victim. This time, he told Wilson, he had just decided to take a walk up the track. He also admitted being armed with a red-handled knife for his 'walk'.
Denyer said he entered the track ahead of Natalie Russell, climbed through one of the holes he had cut, and waited for her.
Wilson asked if he had any other weapons.
Denyer replied, 'Oh, and the leather strap.'
The Frankston Serial Killer Page 18