“My dad was a serial killer”
Aussie lawyer Elisha Rose has been tortured by her father’s crimes... and her need to atone for his sins
As I rounded the bend in our street and glanced up p the hill towards our home, e, I noticed my mum’s car in the driveway,” Perth lawyer Elisha Rose recalls. “She was not t due home for at least two hours. I instinctively knew something was wrong. Little did I know how w irrevocably my life would change in the next few minutes.”
Elisha was just a few months shy of 13 when she came home to find two detectives in her home. The men, who had flown from Sydney to Perth, asked her mother, and then her, about her father Lindsey Rose.
“Later, I learnt my father was accused of murder as I knelt on the mat in our lounge room, watching the evening news,” she told the ABC’S Australian Story.
Lindsey Rose was first a paramedic – he was credited ted with saving many lives in the 1977 977 Granville train disaster – then hen a private investigator. But what his family were unaware of f at the time was that between n 1984 and 1994 he was also a contract ntract n killer who murdered five pe people. eople.
LOVING DAD TO KILLER ER R
He was on the run for 12 months oonthss before police finally caught t up with him in Adelaide. He e confessed to five brutal murders, rders,r
showing no empathy and stating that he’d committed the crimes in a very matter-of-fact manner.
In adulthood, Elisha, now 34, tried to understand her father by studying law, reading books on forensic psychology and doing a Masters in Criminal Justice.
“The man that I knew, the man who raised me, e, was not this mass murderer,” Elisha says. However, she is also aware of the man her father turned out to be, and still finds it a horrific burden to carry.
“My father’s crimes were very violent. They were premeditated and that is very confronting, as he absolutely intended to do harm to these people.”
Elisha, who was forced ed to enter witness protection as a child for her own safety, is speaking out on the eve of the publication of a book – The Fatalist by Campbell Mcconachie – about her father’s crimes. “I… had built a layer of secrecy around my life and certainly I was very conscious about who knew and who didn’t know my history. I was concerned about my professional reputation [as a lawyer],” she says. “It’s time to cast off my father’s shadow. I am not my father,” she continues. “I no longer wanted to be burdened by the secret.” “I’m reliably advised by the police that most of the threats that were made [against me in the past], should have expired over this time. I’m hoping for the best.”
MAKING AMENDS
However, she has continued to torture herself over her father’s actions, trying to right his wrongs. “I feel a duty to atone for his sins,” she explains.
“I poured my heart and soul into helping a number of charities, giving countless hours of my time to those in need. I served on a number of boards and committees, and still do.
NEVER TO BE RELEASED
“I eventually discovered that not only was I fulfilling my deep-seated need to give back to the community, but volunteer work was incredibly rewarding.”
Lindsey Rose is still in the maximum security Goulburn Correctional Centre in NSW serving five consecutive life sentences without parole.
His prison notes are chilling: “Highly intelligent and manipulative inmate. Allegedly g y plotted to escape from Long Bay. Known to produce jail-made keys. High risk of escape.”
‘His crimes were very violent… he intended to do harm to them’