MURDER MOST FOUL

How police cracked shocking case of torture and execution

THE grisly discovery of a skull near Gympie gave detectives the vital breakthrough that led them to the sadistic criminals behind one of the Gold Coast’s most shocking crimes.

Robina father of one Shaun Barker (pictured) was brutally tortured and murdered before his mutilated remains were dumped in bushland.

After a lengthy investigation Matthew Armitage and his father Stephen Armitage were this week convicted of his murder.

It can now be reported that a third man, William Dean, was also found guilty of Mr Barker’s murder in March this year.

IT will go down as one of the most ghoulish murders in Gold Coast history.

But just as tantalising as the murder itself is the tale of how a handful of hard-nosed coppers working from a tiny office in Burleigh Heads cracked the case.

Under the cover of darkness and only weeks before Christmas in December 2013, 33-year-old father Shaun Barker met a group of men at the 7-Eleven Service Station on Sunshine Boulevard at Broadbeach, behind the bustling Pacific Fair Shopping Centre.

He was coaxed into a car and was never seen alive again.

Police believe Mr Barker was held against his will and driven to a house in Benowa, before he was driven to a property east of Gympie. There his attackers were said to have tied the Gold Coast father to a tree and smeared his testicles with honey so he would be eaten alive by ants.

Witnesses also alleged later

that Mr Barker was locked in a fishing Esky for between two and seven days before he died.

William Francis Dean was found guilty of Shaun Barker’s murder during a trial in March 2017.

This week, Stephen John Armitage and his son Matthew Leslie Armitage were convicted of the murder as well.

Until now, many of the details of the police investigation have been suppressed – unable to be published by the media.

This is the story of those few detectives who brought the men responsible for Shaun Barker’s murder and torture to justice.

THE DISAPPEARANCE

In the years leading up to his death Shaun Barker was, by all accounts a normal guy.

With a decent job at a car yard and a two-year-old girl to look after, the 33-year-old had plenty to live for.

But after developing an ice addiction in the final years before his death, Mr Barker fell quickly into the drug world as a small-time dealer.

In January of 2014, Barker’s sister Sheridan became concerned after she’d gone three weeks without being able to contact the father.

“We got that a day or two later basically as ‘do you want to look at this missing person job? It seems a bit odd’,” said Detective Sergeant Steve McBryde.

Sergeant McBryde was a team leader at Burleigh CIB at the time and immediately tasked Detective Senior Constables Mick Bradley and Annie Watt to the job.

“Our first port of call was to talk to Lauren Jones. Lauren Jones was the mother of Shaun Barker’s daughter,” Sergeant McBryde said.

“She reported that she hadn’t had contact with him since early December.

“He hadn’t seen his daughter for Christmas, which she thought was unusual.”

After several checks, including of bank accounts and phone records, detectives realised within days that something was awry.

“We could find no record of this bloke accessing anything,” Sergeant McBryde said.

“They basically came back to me and said there’s something amiss here. This bloke’s dropped off the planet basically.

“We treated it as more than a missing person then.”

The investigation soon widened to involve the homicide squad – namely detectives Duncan Gorrie and Adam Riley.

THE KIDNAPPING

In building a comprehensive profile of Shaun Barker’s life, police investigated many of the Gold Coaster’s closest friends and associates – most of whom were discounted as having no link to his disappearance or knowledge of his whereabouts.

One person police watched closely was Scot Murphy – the owner of a Surfers Paradise pizza shop and Mr Barker’s former employer.

The link was thought to be innocuous until late March when the Burleigh CIB was alerted to the vicious bashing of Luke Romhegyi.

Mr Romhegyi was taken from a service station to a disused train tunnel at Molendinar on March 24, 2014 where his jaw was strapped open and he was bashed over an unpaid debt owed by himself and his partner.

Murphy along with two other men – William Dean and Daniel Jaffe – were eventually found guilty of the attack but will now appeal their sentences.

Sergeant Steve McBryde said it was this attack that first led police to notice William

‘Billy’ Dean – a man who was later convicted of the murder of Shaun Barker.

“It (the Romhegyi attack) confirmed a couple of associations,” said Sergeant McBryde

“It became a parallel investigation.

“It was important in that it made a clear association between William Dean and … Scot Murphy.

“There’s clear links between then what occurred at Benowa where … Shaun Barker (was held and tortured).

“There was a real circle and association.”

THE DRUG SYNDICATE

Detectives continued to cast a wide net in their investigation into the attack on Romhegyi.

While profiling William Dean, Sergeant Steve McBryde said officers found numerous links between the Gold Coast drug dealer and known fisherman and drug dealer Stephen Armitage.

As they pieced together the backstory behind Stephen Armitage and his son Matthew from Cooloola Cove, west of Gympie, police discovered William Dean’s strong ties to the region.

Having worked for Stephen Armitage’s fishing business, officers quickly formed a suspicion of a drug trade between Cooloola Cove and the Gold Coast.

“Stephen Armytage developed a back injury through his fishing,” said Sergeant Steve McBryde.

“By all accounts … he’s a good fisherman.

“This is speculative – he might have started using maybe even prescription drugs and then maybe moved to methyl amphetamine.

“They used the term ‘when the fish are on, the fish are on’.

“If you work for long hours you can get some good fish and make some decent money.

“It would make sense in theory that if you could use methyl amphetamine, stay awake for 36 hours and fish for 36 hours straight that you’d make some decent money.

“That’s where that drug use may have developed.

“Most dealers start as users.”

THE SKULL

On April 20, 2014 a group of workers trudging through Toolara State Forest made a grisly discovery – the charred remains of a human skull and other body parts.

Gympie detectives were, at the time, working round the clock in an attempt to identify a headless torso discovered nearby early that year and thought they had made a breakthrough when reports filtered through to authorities that a skull had been found in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.

Months later, police discovered the body belonged to 66-year-old businessman George Gerbic.

Officers later charged Lindy Yvonne Williams with his murder.

The skull, however, belonged to someone else.

Sergeant Steve McBryde said Gold Coast police were shocked to receive the phone call informing them that DNA tests showed the skull belonged to Shaun Barker.

The experienced detective said the discovery of the skull helped to confirm police suspicions of links in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland region and contributed greatly to later arrests.

“That was also a major breakthrough for us – finding the remains,” he said.

“From there a lot of things happened – we looked at that area, associations we had from down here … to people up there.

“That led us eventually to executing a search warrant on the address of Stephen and Matthew Armitage … near Cooloola Cove.”

THE TRIALS

In March, William Francis Dean, Stephen John Armitage and his son Matthew Leslie Armitage stood trial for the murder of Shaun Barker.

Only Dean was found guilty.

A jury could not come to a decision on whether or not the father and son should be held accountable for murder or for manslaughter.

This week, Stephen John Armitage and his son Matthew Leslie Armitage again stood on trial for murder where they were found guilty.

All three men are set to be sentenced later this year.

Detective Senior Constable Mick Bradley said it was a great feeling to know the countless hours of work he and his colleagues poured into the case contributed to a conviction.

“It was a long and hard road,” he said.

“When he was initially reported missing we were behind the eight-ball for nearly a month or so.

“That was satisfying as well – knowing we were behind the eight-ball from the start.”

Detective Senior Constable Annie Watt said she was most happy with the result for what it would mean for Shaun Barker’s family.

“It’s very satisfying for the family because you spend so much time dealing with them.

Detective Sergeant Steve McBryde said: “Whilst securing convictions was rewarding for a long and difficult job, at the end of the day there are no winners.

“This job affected the victim’s family, witnesses and their families, and also the families of those convicted.”