Court’s ‘no’ to 3-time killer
A NOTORIOUS serial killer, who brutally bashed to death a 19-year-old Darwin sailor, has had their plea for more freedom rejected by a judge.
Regina Kaye Arthurell, formerly known as Reginald Arthurell, had asked the court for permission to no longer wear a tracking anklet, to be able to drink alcohol and have free use of the internet. The triple-killer was released on parole on November 26 last year.
In 1981, Arthurell robbed and killed teenager Ross Browning, who was driving south with a trailer full of belongings in tow, after completing his attachment to the Darwin naval base.
After meeting Arthurell at Three Ways, Browning agreed to provide a lift, along with another hitchhiker, on his way down south. The trio drove a few kilometres down the Barkly Highway, before Arthurell and the other man bashed Browning. They disconnected his trailer, stole his car and $600, went back to Three Ways, then returned to the scene. Arthurell told detectives Browning was still alive so they bashed him to death.
Browning’s mutilated body was found in scrub just 35km east of Tennant Creek.
NT Police described the killing as “the most vicious” they had investigated, but two murder trials were aborted and Arthurell pleaded guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter. Arthurell is now a member of the trans community since being released from a male prison.
At 28, Arthurell killed stepfather, Thomas Thornton, 49, with a carving knife and then went on the run and ended up working at rodeos in Queensland and the NT.
While doing time in Darwin prison for killing Ross Browning Arthurell was befriended by Prison Fellowship Christian Venet Mulhall. Arthurell was baptised and convinced Ms Mulhall – and authorities – of having found God and reformed. They became engaged and Arthurell was released into her care in April 1991.
Venet Mulhall was bashed to death by Arthurell with a piece of wood in 1997 at the Coonabarabran home in central western NSW that Ms Mulhall had bought for them.
Arthurell was also named as the chief suspect in the 1971 murder of an 82-year-old woman bashed to death in her NSW home but he was never charged.
In denying 75-year-old Arthurell’s plea for more freedom, Justice Richard Button imposed a two-year Extended Supervision Order on the triple murderer with strict conditions until she was aged just over 77 years. He ruled that “a frail, even physically disabled, person can inflict fatal harm once armed with a weapon.” Arthurell has “significant hand tremors and is blind in one eye from glaucoma”.