Janelle Patton | |
|---|---|
 Patton in an undated photo | |
| Born | c. 1972 |
| Died | 31 March 2002 |
Janelle Patton was a 29-year-old Sydney woman who was murdered on Norfolk Island on 31 March 2002. [1] The case made national headlines in Australia and New Zealand, as she was the first person to be murdered on Norfolk Island since 1893. [2]
Patton had initially relocated from Sydney, New South Wales, to Norfolk Island, an Australian territory to the northwest of New Zealand's North Island, in her late twenties; the move came after feeling dissatisfied and depressed with the state of her life on the mainland. Patton had stated to various friends and family that she simply wanted to "get away" from the chaos of life in a big city. In addition to personal and work prospects, the young lady was seeking a fresh start in her love life after a number of failed and tumultuous relationships in Sydney. One abusive ex-boyfriend had broken her jaw. With her sights set on Norfolk Island, Patton took a brief trip to the territory and secured a position working at one of the island's hotels, and an apartment.
It was later stated by Patton's family and friends on the island that she continued to be disappointed in the men she was seeing there. Allegedly, and whether she was aware of it or not, Patton had been dating at least one man who was already in a relationship; in a tense confrontation with an angry girlfriend, a woman reportedly slapped Patton across the face. At the time of her murder, Janelle was looking forward to a visit from her parents. Her parents' flight arrived from mainland Australia just one day before her murder; they stayed at a nearby hotel while Patton stayed at her apartment. It is unclear why her parents did not stay with their daughter.
Patton planned to take her parents to lunch the next day, after her morning hotel shift, saying she would stop by to pick them up by 1:00. The time came and went but she failed to show and did not contact anyone. Patton was last seen going on her morning walk before work along a coastal track near her home. She also appeared on CCTV from a grocery store. Her parents began searching that afternoon, bumping into one of her colleagues and, eventually, her landlady; neither had seen Patton since that morning. Later that evening, her parents decided to report her missing at the police station.
Soon after the Pattons reported their daughter missing, a woman's body matching Janelle's general description was discovered by two tourists from New Zealand. The body was discovered at Cockpit Waterfall Reserve, at the opposite end of the island from where Patton was last seen, wrapped in a large black plastic sheet. [3] Janelle's identity was confirmed by her landlady, who wanted to spare her parents the sight of the body.
It was believed by medical examiners that Patton had fought against her attacker, as her body bore several defensive wounds, primarily to her hands. She apparently managed to grab onto the blade of the killer's knife in an attempt to stop the prolonged attack, her thumb nearly being severed. Various shards of broken glass, plastic, and sand were found in her hair and her body was covered in bruises, leading examiners to believe she was struck with a glass bottle or a metallic pole, or something similar. Patton had endured a long attack, suffering a broken pelvis and ankle as well as a fractured skull — the result of being stabbed with great force through her eyeball. She was also stabbed over 65 times. The ultimate cause of death was a stab wound to the chest that punctured her lung.
The investigation into Patton's murder was protracted and difficult, although the main forensics were Patton's defensive wounds, the black sheet she was wrapped in, and pieces of green glass in her hair. [1] Eventually, on 1 February 2006, Glenn Peter Charles McNeill, a 28-year-old chef from New Zealand, was arrested for her murder near the city of Nelson, on the South Island of New Zealand, after being identified by an Australian Federal Police investigation. [3] He was subsequently extradited to Norfolk Island and formally charged with the crime. At the Norfolk Island Court of Petty Sessions McNeill claimed he had smoked marijuana that day and that he had accidentally run over Patton with his car, [1] [4] a statement he later retracted. [5] He was transferred to Silverwater Correctional Centre in Sydney.
On 1 February 2007, McNeill formally went on trial for the murder. [1] A press blackout was imposed by the judge, Chief Justice Mark Weinberg, to prevent any dilution of the limited potential jury pool in Norfolk Island. [6] On 1 March 2007, McNeill told the Supreme Court, "I did not kill Janelle Patton", "I did not abduct her" and "I did not see Janelle Patton that day". [1] He said he could not recall what he had told police earlier, but "would have admitted to anything" due to his mental health problems. [5] The trial ended on 9 March 2007 when the 11-person jury returned a guilty verdict, [7] although the question of motive and an explanation for unidentified female DNA found on the body remained unclear. [1] On 25 July 2007, McNeill was sentenced to 24 years in prison by Chief Justice Weinberg in the Supreme Court of Norfolk Island sitting in Sydney. [8]
McNeill appealed his conviction to a Full Court of the Federal Court on grounds that included that his statement to the police should not have been admitted as evidence against him. The Full Court, Chief Justice Black, and Justices Lander and Besanko, dismissed his appeal. [9] [10] The High Court of Australia refused special leave to appeal on 14 November 2008. [11] [12]
McNeill was released on 31 January 2024 and immediately deported to New Zealand.
John Paul Newman was an Australian politician who served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1986 until his assassination.
Azaria Chantel Loren Chamberlain was a nine-week-old Australian baby girl who was killed by a dingo on the night of 17 August 1980 during a family camping trip to Uluru in the Northern Territory. Her body was never found. Her parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, reported that she had been taken from their tent by a dingo. However, Lindy was tried for murder and spent more than three years in prison. Michael received a suspended sentence. Lindy was released only after Azaria's jacket was found near a dingo lair and new inquests were opened. In 2012, 32 years after Azaria's death, the Chamberlains' version of events was officially supported by a coroner.
The Claremont serial killings is the name given by the media to a case involving the disappearance of an Australian woman, aged 18, and the killings of two others, aged 23 and 27, in 1996–1997. After attending night spots in Claremont, a wealthy western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, all three women disappeared in similar circumstances leading police to suspect that an unidentified serial killer was the offender. The case was described as the state's biggest, longest running, and most expensive investigation.
Peter Falconio was a British tourist who disappeared in a remote part of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia on the evening of 14 July 2001, while travelling with his girlfriend Joanne Lees.
Joanne Rachael Lees is a British woman who was attacked and subjected to an attempted abduction while travelling in Australia with her partner Peter Falconio. Lees escaped her attacker, but Falconio was never found. The attacker was identified as Bradley John Murdoch, and in 2005 he was convicted of Falconio's murder. Lees was the chief crown witness in the murder trial, which was conducted in Darwin. She later wrote a book about her experiences, which was made into a television film.
Bradley John Murdoch is an Australian criminal serving life imprisonment for the July 2001 murder of English backpacker Peter Falconio in Australia. He will be 74 when eligible for parole in 2032. Murdoch is being held in Darwin Correctional Centre in Darwin, Northern Territory. He has lodged two appeals against his conviction, both of which were unsuccessful. The High Court of Australia refused special leave to appeal on 21 June 2007. He is forbidden to talk to the press.
Sef Gonzales is a Filipino Australian man who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the July 2001 murders of his father Teodoro "Teddy" Gonzales (46), his mother Mary Loiva Gonzales (43), and his sister Clodine Gonzales (18), in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. As a result of notoriety surrounding the sale of the house where the crimes occurred, the New South Wales government made it illegal to not disclose information related to the history of a property.
Maria Korp was a Portuguese-born Australian woman reported missing for four days and later found, barely alive, in the boot of her car on 13 February 2005. She spent a short time in a coma before emerging into a state of post-coma unresponsiveness. She became the centre of a controversy in Australia during 2005. Depending upon their viewpoint, people have characterised the controversy as being about euthanasia or about human rights and protecting people with disabilities.
The Wanda Beach Murders, also known simply as "Wanda", were the unsolved murders of Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock at Wanda Beach near Cronulla in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on 11 January 1965. The victims, both aged 15, were best friends and neighbours from the suburb of West Ryde, and their partially buried bodies were discovered the next day. The brutal nature of the slayings and the fact that they occurred on a deserted, windswept beach brought massive publicity to the case. By April 1966, police had interviewed some 7,000 people, making it the largest investigation in Australian history. It remains one of the most infamous unsolved Australian murder cases of the 1960s, and New South Wales' oldest unsolved homicide case.
The Bega schoolgirl murders refer to the abduction, rape and murder of two Australian schoolgirls; 14-year-old Lauren Margaret Barry and 16-year-old Nichole Emma Collins of Bega, New South Wales, Australia on 6 October 1997. They were abducted by Leslie Camilleri and Lindsay Beckett, both from the New South Wales town of Yass. The men subjected the girls to repeated rapes and sexual assaults on five or more separate occasions, while driving them to remote locations throughout rural New South Wales and Victoria. Over a twelve-hour period, the girls had been driven several hundred kilometres from Bega to Fiddler's Green Creek in Victoria, where they were stabbed to death by Beckett under the order of Camilleri.
Paul Charles Denyer is an Australian serial killer currently serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years for the murders of three young women in Melbourne, in 1993. Denyer became known in the media as the Frankston Serial Killer as his crimes occurred in the neighbouring suburbs of Frankston.
Andrew Mark Mallard was a British-born Australian who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Almost 12 years later, after an appeal to the High Court of Australia, his conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered. However, the charges against him were dropped and Mallard was released. At the time, the Director of Public Prosecutions stated that Mallard remained the prime suspect and that if further evidence became available he could still be prosecuted. He was released from prison in 2006 after his conviction was quashed by the High Court, and was paid $3.25 million compensation by the state government. The Western Australian Commission on Crime and Corruption investigated whether there was misconduct by any public officer associated with this case and made findings against two policemen and a senior prosecutor.
Joji Obara, born Kim Sung-jong is a Korean-Japanese serial rapist who raped between 150 and 400 women. He was charged with drugging, raping and killing an English woman, Lucie Blackman, in July 2000, the rape and manslaughter of an Australian woman, Carita Ridgway, and the rape of eight other women.
David John Birnie and Catherine Margaret Birnie were an Australian couple from Perth who murdered four women at their home in 1986, also attempting to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies' address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth.
Daniel James Morcombe was an Australian boy who was abducted from the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, on 7 December 2003 when he was 13 years old. Eight years later, Brett Peter Cowan, a former Sunshine Coast resident, was charged with Morcombe's murder. In the same month, DNA tests confirmed bones in the Glass House Mountains were Morcombe's. On 13 March 2014, Cowan was found guilty of the murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder, indecently dealing with a child, and interference with a corpse.
Sian Kingi was a twelve-year-old New Zealand-Australian girl of partial Maori descent who was abducted, raped and murdered in Noosa, Queensland in November 1987. Barrie John Watts and Valmae Faye Beck, a married couple, were convicted in 1988 of the much-publicised crime. Watts was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Beck would have been eligible for parole after 14.5 years, but died while she was still incarcerated.
Tina Watson was a 26-year-old American woman from Helena, Alabama, who died while scuba diving in Queensland, Australia, on 22 October 2003. Tina had been on her honeymoon with her new husband, American Gabe Watson, who was initially charged by Queensland authorities with his wife's murder. Watson pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
Ivan Robert Marko Milat, commonly referred to in media as the Backpacker Murderer, was an Australian serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed and murdered two men and five women in New South Wales between 1989 and 1992. His modus operandi was to approach backpackers along the Hume Highway under the guise of providing them transport to areas of southern New South Wales, then take his victims into the Belanglo State Forest where he would incapacitate and murder them. Milat is also suspected of having committed many other similar offences around Australia.
Casefile is an Australian crime podcast that first aired in January 2016 and is hosted by an Australian man who remains anonymous. The podcast, produced by Casefile True Crime Podcast, is usually released on a Saturday for three consecutive weeks, with a bonus episode on the fourth week. The series deals with solved or cold criminal cases, often related to well-known murders and serial crimes. Unlike a number of similar podcasts, the series is fully scripted and narrated, while relying primarily on original police or mass-media documents, eyewitness accounts, and interview or public announcement recordings.
Simone Monika Strobel was a 25-year-old German kindergarten teacher and backpacker whose body was found at a sportsground in Lismore, New South Wales, six days after being reported missing from the caravan park where she had been staying. An initial inquest in 2007 found insufficient evidence to lay charges over her death.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
