Trio killed in night of horror inside unit
Historic case still haunts
WHAT ignited a night of horror on Hume St where three people were murdered in vicious, sadistic and prolonged manners has never been made clear.
But so heinous were the actions of John Brian Woodman when he beat, stomped, stabbed and cut to death three people in May, 2005, that he became the first juvenile offender to be named in Queensland.
Together with his 17-year-old cokiller Scott Geoffrey Maygar, Woodman threatened with death a third teenager inside the unit, compelling the 16-year-old to join in the massacre.
The unnamed teen, referred to in court documents as WT, was “a person of very limited intelligence” and one who “has a need for acceptance by others which is unusually strong”.
It was WT who had been living with Michael Thompson, the tenant of the North Toowoomba unit in which he and two others, Tyson Wilson, 17, and David Lyons, 17, would die horrific deaths.
A Rockhampton teen, Maygar arrived at the unit on May 30, 2005.
Woodman was already there, along with a number of other people including a young mother and her baby.
Mr Wilson was the first to die, killed by repeated blows of a pool ball in a stocking swung at his head, along with a chain to which a padlock was attached at one end.
Maygar and Woodman inflicted the deadly blows.
The killer pair told the other people in the unit they were all about to die except for the first person to tell them where to dispose of the bodies.
Mr Lyons, in a desperate bid to placate Maygar, asked if he could lick the blood off the metal pole which he did – twice – before the sadistic killer hit him in the head with the very pole several times.
Soon after Maygar turned on WT, the illiterate offender who told the Rockhampton teen that he couldn’t kill him because, “I am your bro.”
Maygar hit WT in the head several times. WT feared for his life, and told the older teen, “I will prove myself.”
WT then bludgeoned Mr Lyons with the metal pole more than four times, then picked up a broken knife and cut at his throat.
“The possibility that Lyons was dead before WT’s attacks could not be excluded beyond reasonable doubt,” the Queensland Court of Appeal noted.
“It was on this basis that WT pleaded guilty to the charge of interfering with a corpse.”
Undeniably the worst offending in the house was by Maygar and Woodman.
WT saved the life of a young baby whose mother was violently raped four times – a major factor in mitigating the eventual sentence he received for pleading guilty to murder, manslaughter and interfering with a corpse.
Woodman, astonishingly, shook hands with Mr Thompson who had pleaded to die in “the quickest way”.
It was anything but quick, with six different methods detailed in court, before Mr Thompson succumbed to his injuries.
WT played a role in two of those methods but the court accepted his involvement was because, “it is common ground, he did not want to be hit again” with the metal poles.
Woodman received detention for life, with his prison terms to be extended after attempted murder offences while incarcerated.
Maygar was originally sentenced to 15 years for the manslaughter of Mr Wilson, and 10 years for each of the four counts of rape.
He was described as a continuing danger to society, with a real risk of re-offending if he was ever released.
“The denunciation of the horrific murders committed by Maygar requires the period of imprisonment that must be served by Maygar before being eligible for parole to be increased from the minimum of 20 years,” the Queensland Court of Appeal found.
Woodman received 15 years imprisonment and, after a campaign to have his identity revealed, was named on the front page of The Chronicle.