The predator set free to murder
An eight-minute walk caused the loved ones of Jill Meagher a lifetime of pain.
Eight minutes was all it took for Jill Meagher to go from the safety of her friends into the grips of evil. It was 1.30am in Melbourne, Australia, when Jill, 29, set off for the short walk, but she never made it home.
A chance encounter sealed her fate – a meeting that could have so easily been prevented.
Journalist Gillian ‘Jill’ Meagher was originally from County Louth, Ireland, but had moved to Melbourne with her husband Tom three years earlier. It was September 21, 2012. Jill had gone out for drinks after work with some colleagues in the Brunswick area of the city.
When she left Bar Etiquette in the early hours, friends offered to call her a cab, but she didn’t think it was necessary. On the way, she called her brother Michael and they had a brief chat about their dad who had been ill.
When Tom woke in the early hours, he realised that his wife hadn’t returned and that she wasn’t answering her phone.
He reported her missing
straight away and went out to search for her.
A huge social media campaign kicked into action.
Loved ones of Jill made public appeals and held candlelight vigils.
Jill’s handbag was found in an alleyway.
Police found CCTV footage showing a grainy image of Jill talking to a man dressed in a blue hoodie outside of a bridal shop.
Jill was captured speaking to him just eight minutes after leaving her friends at the bar. That man was
Adrian Bayley. Bayley, then 41, was a pipeline layer and a separated father of four, but he was also a serial sex offender with a long history of violent attacks on women spanning 20 years.
His first offence was when he was just 18 years old.
He had 21 convictions for rape against six women, and he thrived on the pain and humiliation of his victims.
In 2002, he’d been sentenced to 11 years for raping five prostitutes, but was out on parole when he came across Jill.
That night, gym-obsessed Bayley had been out drinking with his then girlfriend, but they’d rowed and she’d gone home.
Bayley stayed out late…and found Jill.
The CCTV led police to Bayley and he was arrested.
At first, he denied everything and was cocky with officers, but the footage was damning.
Bayley had a violent history and there were plenty of women who would testify to it.
Phone records put Bayley and Jill’s mobile phones in the same area. His girlfriend had even found
Jill’s broken mobile phone SIM card in their laundry basket.
Bayley knew the game was up and turned into a crying wreck.
‘You know it wasn’t really my intention to hurt her, you know that?’ he later told the police.
Bayley had spoken to Jill and when she’d rejected him, he dragged her into an alleyway, raped and killed her.
Five days after her disappearance, Bayley led the police to Jill’s body.
She was buried in a shallow grave in Gisborne South, around 50km north-west of Melbourne.
‘I hope they bring back the death penalty before I get sentenced,’ he was recorded saying. ‘I should be in jail anyway, you know. I shouldn’t have been let out last time – simple. And I say that in the hope someone hears that and they don’t ever let me out again. How many chances does a person need?’
After raping and strangling her in a graffiti-filled alleyway, he’d left her body there for several hours while he returned to his home to get his car – and a shovel.
Bayley threw Jill’s body into the
boot and drove to the countryside where he buried her in a shallow grave.
He threw her belongings from his car window on the way home and tried to clean his car of evidence.
That afternoon, Bayley watched films with his girlfriend and had a kebab like nothing had happened.
Bayley was charged with rape and murder.
When news broke of his arrest, ex-girlfriends came forward to talk about the violence they’d suffered at his hands.
Even strippers who Bayley had been to watch in the months before he became a killer described how he’d talked about a fantasy of choking a woman.
On September 30, around 30,000 people walked down Sydney Road in memory of Jill, and to raise awareness of violence against women.
In April 2013, Bayley pleaded guilty.
The court heard that he’d ‘bluffed his way’ through prison rehabilitation courses to get released.
He’d tricked everyone into believing he wasn’t a threat, and the case was described by politicians, law experts and police as a ‘catastrophic failure of the justice system.’
Husband Tom, 32, made an emotional impact statement and said the murder of his wife had left him ‘half a person’ and that Jill’s last terrified moments haunted him.
‘I think of her every second of every day and I think of the pain of never being able to laugh with her again,’ he said.
‘I think of the waste of a brilliant mind and a beautiful soul at the hands of a grotesque human being.’ At the Victorian Supreme Court in Melbourne, Justice Geoffrey Nettle sentenced Bayley to life for the murder of Jill and 15 years for what he described as ‘a savage violent rape of the worst kind.’ Bayley will be 76 before being eligible for parole. ‘Your rape and murder of the deceased has had profound, terrible effects on the lives of other people,’ Judge Nettle said. He added that his actions ranked ‘among the worst kinds conceivable.’ Surrounded by six officers, Bayley stared down at the floor throughout sentencing. The justice system failed Jill. A ruthless sex offender had been free to walk the streets of Melbourne, and allowed to take the final step to murder.
Jill’s death sparked peace marches in her memory
He left her dead in an alley