The Frankston Serial Killer

by Vikki Petraitis

  Neil Mitchell once again took up the cause, devoting part of his Monday radio program to the issue.

  'Just what do you have to do to be sentenced to life imprisonment in Victoria?' he asked, frustration clearly evident in his voice.

  He reminded the listening audience that Paul Denyer had killed three young women in cold blood and asked, 'What's wrong with our system? The Denyer case is lost.'

  Mitchell then called upon judges to acknowledge a new type of violent crime - like those committed by Paul Denyer - and to accommodate community feeling.

  Speaking with Carmel Russell on air, Mitchell gently asked her reaction to the decision.

  'The judges aren't in this world,' Carmel told him. 'It was all about the law, and the girls weren't even mentioned. There is something wrong with the law.'

  After Carmel, Neil Mitchell spoke to Dyson Hore-Lacy who stated once again that if Denyer's prognosis was correct and unchanged, then he would never be released anyway.

  The barrister stressed that, despite now having a 30-year minimum before being eligible for parole, Denyer still had a life sentence. He could still be kept in prison 'for life' unless a future parole board was satisfied that he was no longer a danger to the community.

  Mitchell then interviewed the Attorney General Jan Wade, who lost no time assuring listeners that Denyer was sentenced under an act made by the previous government; and that her own government had tightened the rules. Legislation now made provision for the community's right to protection as a consideration in sentencing. She said that if Denyer had committed the murders weeks later than he did, the judges would have had the option of an indefinite sentence.

  Mitchell asked her if it was fair that the judge couldn't give Denyer an indefinite sentence merely by a trick of the calendar. The Attorney General replied that it was inappropriate to interfere with a sentence once it had been through the entire appeal system.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Living with the Loss

  Two years after the murders, Rita Webster didn't answer the telephone at home any more. She used to, before Elizabeth was murdered, but the onslaught of media people ringing for interviews was so disturbing that she invested in an answering machine to take the calls for her.

  Rita believed it was the small things that affect people after such a tragedy. After Liz died, a relative told Rita she had said she wanted to stay with her aunt and uncle forever. Apparently, she told everyone that she would never leave them.

  Rita was deeply affected by the way they had touched Liz's life in the short time she had been with them - and the way she had touched theirs. Going through Liz's things after she died, Rita realised how much they still had to learn about their niece. She was such a lovely girl; six months with her just wasn't long enough.

  Paul and Rita Webster had no children of their own and Liz was their chance to leave their mark on the future generation. Liz had been in foster care since she was 14, and there were many things she had never experienced or done. Everything the Websters did for her was appreciated. When they took her to the penguins at Phillip Island, she laughed and jumped around with pure joy like a child. Rita remembers that Liz was touched not only because they took her, but because they cared enough to take her. She had been like that with everything.

  When Liz first moved into their home, Paul and Rita gave her a bedroom at the back of the house and told her that the adjoining bathroom was hers. Liz could hardly believe it. Rita suggested they paint the bedroom and that Liz choose the colour.

  After shopping for the paint and a matching bedspread, Liz said, 'What happens now?'

  Rita told her, 'We paint it.'

  Both women donned old clothes and set about the painting. When the job was done, Rita decided that the shocking chocolate-brown carpet had to go, so she bought a carpet square and laid it herself. Liz told her that she was amazing and Rita responded, 'I'll try anything.'

  Liz looked thoughtful and said, 'That's a good motto. I think I'll use it.'

  Paul Webster remembers how Liz used to help him around the house. They had fun in the garden and together got into a scrape trying to clear some huge trees that were causing problems. Paul would be up the tree sawing off branches while Liz would grab ropes and pull the branches down. One day when her uncle was out, Liz decided to continue the dangerous work alone and used the hand-saw to work on the Tasmanian blue gum in the front yard. Unfortunately, she cut away all the branches that her uncle had been using as foot holds. But he couldn't be annoyed with her. She was trying so hard, and she was so willing to learn.

  Liz also gained the dubious reputation of being the only person who dared push her uncle into the family pool. On one warm day, Paul changed into his bathers and approached the water in his typical unhurried way; he always entered slowly, adjusting to the temperature. His time-honoured tradition was respected by all - except Liz. She waited as he dipped his toes into the cold pool and then with one well-timed shove sent him flying. By the time Paul surfaced, Liz was nowhere to be seen.

  She loved the pool and would go flying down the slide into the water like a child. Rita would tell her that the slide was for children but Liz didn't care. She also loved their dog, Blaze, and played with her all the time. One of her favourite tricks was to run down the passage to the front of the house and hide, then knock and call to Blaze who would run searching for her. Then she would run back to her own room and repeat the knocking. Blaze would turn and come running through the kitchen where the tiles were too slippery for her to stop in time for the turn into Liz's room. Every time, Blaze would slide across the kitchen floor and end up crashing into the wall. Liz would giggle with delight and call, 'Where's the little doggie?'

  After Rita and Liz had painted her bedroom, the decorating bug bit and they started on Liz's bathroom. On Good Friday morning, Liz was putting the finishing touches to the wall above the bath. She was trying to balance herself with a foot on either side of the bath when she suddenly let out a yell and went crashing though the bathroom window.

  Rita and Paul raced in to her. Liz was moaning that her back hurt but Rita said, 'Forget your back; you're bleeding!'

  Liz had cut her arm badly and the three of them spent the day in Frankston Hospital where Liz was initially told she might need 30 stitches. 'I'm going to beat Grandma!' she had cried with childish glee. Her grandmother had had a great number of stitches after an accident. Liz was disappointed when eventually there were only 11 stitches.

  Another thing Rita Webster stopped doing, was forward planning. She, Liz and Paul had made so many plans, all of which came to nothing when Liz was murdered.

  They had been talking about Christmas in the weeks before Liz died. It was six months away, but she wanted a Christmas party like one Paul and Rita had given when she was young. All the relatives had been there and Liz had a wonderful memory of it. Christmas 1993 had to be the same, so the two women had already begun planning.

  But the end of that terrible year held nothing to celebrate. Paul and Rita spent the time just before the festive season attending the trial of Liz's murderer. To Rita, it seemed that any plans for the future were futile, and merely tempting fate.

  Paul Webster stopped doing the garden. He had spent so many hours there with Liz, that after she died it just wasn't the same. Everything seemed to have her mark on it and it didn't feel right to do it without her. The couple considered moving but they finally realised that there was nowhere to run. They had to begin to confront their memories and their grief. They had to begin again without Liz.

  Liz also shared her uncle's love of motorbikes. When he got himself a bigger bike, Liz convinced him to keep his old bike for her. Two months before she was murdered, she went with Rita and Paul to an annual motorbike rally. Rita remembered Liz taking in everything with wide-eyed curiosity. Rita couldn't go to the 1994 rally; the memories were too painful.

  Paul went. He had faced the media and appeared regularly on news bulletins and he wondered what the reaction would be.
When he arrived, one of the bikies, Spider, came up and put a big arm around his shoulder and said, 'Sorry about that mate.' The simple, honest gesture moved him.

  Public reaction after Liz's murder affected the couple greatly. Sometimes people would drive up to their house in Paterson Avenue and stop and point. Paul recalled a woman with a car- load of children, who all stopped and stared. He still doesn't understand the curiosity.

  One of Rita Webster's greatest sorrows is that no one will ever know Liz's potential. When she went to live with them, Liz had been shy and rather distant. When Rita hugged her, the girl would freeze up. She was unresponsive and afraid of gestures of affection. After six months, she was finally starting to melt and to respond to the unconditional love of her aunt and uncle.

  Rita said Liz was a blossom emerging from a bud and will always wonder what the years would have brought. Liz had made so much progress in everything.

  'No one will ever know what she would have become,' Rita said. 'Denyer took that.'

  Trying to capture the essence of Debbie Fream is like trying to catch and bottle a shimmering light. A free spirit since she was a child, Debbie developed into a young woman who rejected ties and whose life objective was to be happy. Being unhappy made no sense to her; and with any hint of it, she would simply remove herself from the situation whether it be a job, the place she lived or a group of friends.

  Debbie would say, 'I'm not happy, I'm going,' and she would leave. Her family were used to her and loved her free spirit. She went to go grape picking in Mildura once. She didn't pick a grape but had a great time.

  Torn between the security of Casterton and the freedom of the city, Debbie tried both, regularly returning to her home town and then living again in the city. It was not unusual for her to live on the lounge room floor of any of a number of friends for a couple of months and then move on. When she finally returned to Melbourne for good, she told her cousin Sara Smith that she was sick of being broke and she wanted to get a job and settle down. She admired the fact that Sara had settled and wanted to emulate her cousin.

  Debbie got a job and began to buy the simple things that had so far eluded her. Her first major purchase was a black wooden bedroom suite which her friends realised was something that she couldn't throw in a suitcase and move on. In a subtle way, the bedroom setting represented a change in direction for Debbie Fream.

  Debbie loved people and could talk to anyone; most of her conversations ended up being about the world, the universe, and most of all, dreams. She read everything she could lay her hands on about dreams and dream analysis and it gave her great pleasure to interpret other people's dreams. She also loved fantasy; a favourite pastime was to scour bookshops for yet another fantasy novel. She covered every book in plastic before she read it, because she read them all over and over and they wouldn't otherwise last the distance.

  Debbie was someone who people could turn to with their problems. She knew how to listen and how to help people work out the best course of action. It was just her way. She also loved matchmaking. The day her cousin Sara married Steve - after Debbie died - it was a special pleasure to Sara that it was Debbie who had introduced them. Her matchmaking efforts had finally borne fruit.

  Debbie worked hard and partied hard. She loved going out but, a few months into her new job, was overcome by intense and persistent nausea. She discovered she was 10-weeks pregnant.

  It was finally time to settle down. She and Garry moved to the small rented house in Kananook Avenue and Debbie began to plan for the baby. Accustomed to living on very little money for so much of her adult life, she never gave up her frugal cooking habits. Her cooking bible was 101 Meals to Have With Mince. In fact, according to Debbie, if it couldn't be cooked with mince it wasn't worth cooking.

  Pregnancy didn't slow her down. Debbie was determined to do as much as she could to make a home for the baby and took great delight as the baby grew and her stomach extended. At 9.30 one morning, she turned up at Sara's door saying excitedly, 'I've got a gap!' The night before, she had felt the baby dropping. Unable to wake Garry, she had stood alone in front of a mirror and watched enthralled as the baby's movement created waves in her stomach. Finally, the baby settled lower in her abdomen, creating the gap between her stomach and chest about which she was so excited. The baby was getting closer to being born! She had to share the news. Sara led the excited Debbie out to the backyard, and took photographs of her smiling and heavily-pregnant cousin posing in a maternity smock.

  Reality touched Debbie Fream for probably the first time in her life with the birth of her son Jake. He was permanent, something that she couldn't run away from, and she took her commitment as a mother seriously. So seriously in fact, that within a week of his birth, she was talking about having another baby. Her labour had been short and Jake had arrived a few days early, coinciding with a visit from her mother. Ann felt so lucky to have been with her daughter, and to hold her tiny grandson just half an hour after he was born. The moment became even more precious less than two weeks later when the new mother's life was so cruelly and tragically taken.

  Only a few days after he was born, Jake looked alert and intelligent and was moving his head around to look at things. Debbie was delighted. It pleased her no end to think of reading him stories and teaching him things when he got older. She had been very bright at school and she hoped Jake would take after her in that respect.

  In the short time she had Jake, Debbie was finally and totally happy and settled. Garry was a doting father and she happily embraced her new role in life; all she wanted was to look after them both.

  And then she was murdered.

  One of the saddest things for Debbie Fream's family is that Jake will never know his mother. He will never hear her laugh, will never learn from her. She wasn't there for his first words or his first steps or his first day at school. She will never be there.

  But her family will tell him how happy he made her. They want him to know about her free spirit, and that she was a fine person who touched everyone around her.

  The Christmas after she died, Debbie's grandfather brought out a tiny piece of plastic mistletoe from a hamper that Debbie had given him the Christmas before. He carefully placed it in the centre of the Christmas cake and said, 'This is from Debbie.'

  Natalie Russell's sister Janine got married on an unseasonably cold day in early October, dressed in a beautiful off-the-shoulder wedding gown. Janine's day was clouded only by her missing sister. Natalie wasn't there.

  Janine is not only angry that Paul Denyer deprived her sister of her life, but that he deprived the whole family of her life. Her absence is so keenly felt. The Russell house was so quiet after she died. Her laughter no longer echoed through the family room.

  Ten years older than Natalie, Janine, as older sisters often do, had taken on part of the parenting of her little sister, giving her an evening bottle or a bath and taking care of her. Their mother worked in a family business when Natalie was young, so the whole family pitched in to help. They were all very close.

  Natalie had cried when Janine moved to Sydney. Carmel Russell recalled that Natalie only cried when something really sad happened - when her dog had to be put down or a sister moved away. Tears, as far as Natalie was concerned, were reserved for important things.

  In the Easter break before she died, Natalie and her brother Damien visited Janine in Sydney. The start of the visit put Janine in a panic. She was waiting at Central Station to meet their bus, but it didn't arrive. She finally telephoned the head office, she learnt that the bus didn't stop at Central Station - it stopped at Oxford Street. Janine raced there, worried about how late she was and knowing that the area was full of bars and clubs. Relief replaced panic when she found Natalie and Damien waiting patiently in Oxford Street, having a great time watching the colourful population arrive for a good night out.

  Natalie and Damien looked alike and had similar personalities. Janine laughed when her house guests took off the Simpsons characters word f
or word. It was a great holiday for all of them. Janine took them to Darling Harbour and Bondi Beach and a funny movie.

  One night, Janine's fiancé Martin went to a party. Janine figured that it would be too late a night for her little brother so she, Natalie and Damien stayed home. Martin was going to stay overnight at the party so Natalie curled up in her sister's bed with her and slept there. Changing his mind about staying, Martin arrived home in the small hours of the morning. Seeing his bed occupied, he went to sleep in the lounge room. Natalie awoke early the next morning, went into the lounge and turned on the television, keeping the sound low so as not to disturb Martin who was snoring loudly in an armchair. When he woke up, he looked over at Natalie.

  'Was I snoring?' he asked, embarrassed.

  'Yep,' Natalie told him simply.

  'Why didn't you wake me up?'

  Natalie shrugged. It didn't bother her.

  To Martin, that moment epitomised Natalie. She accepted, she didn't judge, it didn't bother her.

  At the party, Martin had been given a pair of small round John Lennon sunglasses which he in turn gave to Natalie. She was delighted and wore them everywhere.

  A week later, Natalie and Damien boarded the bus for home. It was the last time Janine saw her little sister alive.

  In late October 1994 - just days before what would have been Natalie's 19th birthday - the Russell family moved away from the house their daughter never came home to. Her things were lovingly packed into boxes and moved with the rest of their belongings to a new house; not too far away, but far away enough to make a new start.

  In the boxes, the Russells took with them the legacy of a bright young life cut short by a serial killer. Natalie was a prolific writer. Diaries dating back to primary school show an articulate writing style of a girl who wanted to be a journalist.

  Ironically, in one of her Year 12 essays, she writes about murder and retribution: