WHY HELL’S BELLES SHOCK MORE
Forget the seven deadly sins — these are the eight reasons why women kill, writes Adella Beaini
REVENGE, jealousy, thrill, gain, love, conviction/hate, concealment of crime, and psychosis are the main motives behind some of Australia’s worst homicides.
But women don’t kill often. And that is what makes their crimes more shocking, says forensic toxicologist Dr William Allender.
“Homicide is a far more complex event than a mere whittling down women’s motives to just a couple,” he said.
“Generally though, the victims have been their spouses and/or lovers and even their family.
“And sometimes, mental illness may have played a role in the crimes.”
In a new book, Dr Allender details 20 chilling homicide cases involving women, including four he was called to give expert evidence in.
These cases include Katherine Knight, dubbed “Hannibal Lecter”, after she skinned and decapitated her lover.
Then there’s Shamin Fernando, who killed her father; nurse Megan Haines who killed two aged care residents; and Kerry Forrest who poisoned a war veteran with morphine.
“To intentionally take a human life would have to be one of the gravest crimes one could commit when a human decides to take the life of another,” Dr Allender said.
“Not being a psychologist, I find it difficult even with the cases where I’ve provided testimony in court, why some people have found it necessary to end the life of a person.”
However, Dr Allender said that the situations are often “far more complex and often involve several motives”.
“I’ve had cases where the female offender’s motive was revenge, conviction/hate and, possibly, a macabre thrill – for example in Katherine Knight’s case,” he said.
“But in most cases, these are generally personal, family difficulties, financial and probable frustration seeking a ‘way out’ from a seemingly impossible situation.”
Bond University criminologist Dr Terry Goldsworthy investigated more than 25 homicides in his three decades as a detective with Queensland police.
Among them were two highlypublicised murders by women, including one who cut up her Japanese crime boss husband and threw his remains in the bin.
“As we know, men commit the bulk of murders, so we are somewhat inured to that,” Dr Goldsworthy said.
“But where we see a woman commit a murder that is particularly violent or gruesome, that stands out to us and conflicts with our broad notion of women as caregivers and nurturers, and not being given to violence.
“I was always amazed at the level of harm that one human could inflict on another human in terms of physical attacks. To some degree I think that the offenders just depersonalise the victim in order to allow them to commit the atrocious acts that they do.”
Here, Dr Allender and Dr Goldsworthy, pour over four gobsmacking murder cases involving Aussie women.
THE DAD KILLER
SHAMIN Fernando believed her father Vincent was leading a worldwide conspiracy against her, before she shot him dead in her home in Glebe, Sydney, in 2010.
Ms Fernando joined the Sydney Pistol Club to access the gun which she would use to kill the 70 year old. She hoped the killing would purge her of the paranoid delusions she had been experiencing.
“Shamin was clearly the most unsuitable applicant for a shooting licence,” Dr Allender said.
“The previous evidence given by other witnesses indicated that Shamin’s mental illness had not been adequately treated, and so a possible preventable tragedy may have been averted.”
In December 2011, Ms Fernando, then 44, was found not guilty of the murder due to mental illness.
Dr Allender said the tragic case was the “most unusual” he was involved in. “Most of the cases I’ve dealt with over the years have involved offences that have occurred while under the influence of various drugs, whether legal, for example alcohol, or illegal, methylamphetamine,” he said. “Here, the perpetrator was suffering from a lengthy mental illness, which was controlled by several medications.
“This was a tragic case because the medications she needed to have taken appeared to have been taken in insufficient amounts or, worse, not to have been taken at all, where her psychosis took over with subsequent deadly effects.”
THE ABATTOIR MOTHER
KATHERINE Mary Knight is the perpetrator of one of the most gruesome murders in the nation’s history.
The mother-of-four and abattoir worker was found guilty in 2001 of stabbing her partner John Price 37 times with a butcher’s knife in the tiny town of Aberdeen in the NSW Hunter Valley.
She hung his body from a hook, skinned it, then cooked the remains for dinner.
Knight had half-finished a bowl of the stew she had made, before trying to kill herself.
Beside the other prepared plates were the names of Mr Price’s adult children.
After the murder she was placed in a psychiatric ward, where it was determined she’d been sane when committing her heinous crimes.
“On the facts it would be reasonable to believe that revenge or anger were a motivating factor in the attack given the particular ferocity of the injuries inflicted and the intent displayed,” Dr Goldsworthy said.
“Knight's actions went far above and beyond what was required to commit the offence, in terms of the number of stab wounds inflicted. And the post-mortem interference with the body obviously had some kind of significance for Knight.”
Knight remains in Sydney’s Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre where she’s known as “Nanna”.
THE GAMBLING ADDICT
GAMBLING addict and carer Kerry Forrest was jailed for life after murdering a war veteran she was looking after.
The 54-year-old led Bill Adamson, 84, to ingest a lethal dose of a morphine-based painkiller in a Sydney motel room in April 2010.
She had been hired as Mr Adamson’s live-in carer less than a year earlier after his wife died.
However, within six months Forrest helped him sell his home, leaving them with a profit of more than $300,000.
“Profit would have been the motivation for Kerry when she killed Bill Adamson as she had used her position of control over his financial affairs to misappropriate funds,” Dr Goldsworthy said.
Looking back on the case, Dr Allender said he will never forget the “huge dosage of morphine” used
to kill Mr Adamson and the “callous way he was treated and disposed of”.
“(She did) all of this for her gambling needs to feed the voracious poker machines,” he said.
At the time of Forrest’s sentencing in 2014, Justice Hidden said she had “indulged in deceitful and manipulative behaviour” so she could gain control of the retired property developer’s financial affairs and feed her gambling addiction.
“She killed him to prevent that misappropriation being exposed,” he said.
CARER’S REVENGE
SIX shifts into her new role at a nursing home at Ballina, in northern NSW, Megan Haines entered the rooms of Marie Darragh, 82, and Isabella Spencer, 77, and injected them with lethal doses of insulin. Hours before administering the drugs to the two residents in 2014, the South African-born nurse was being questioned over complaints the pair had made about her bedside manner.
“Megan might have been driven by revenge or profit in terms of the need to retain her income and money after two nursing home residents complained about her and her employment was under threat,” Dr Goldsworthy said.
“Two elderly women who complained about their treatment were subsequently given a lethal dose of insulin which resulted in their deaths,” Dr Allender said.
“Once again, apparently no checks were carried out on Haines’ background as to her suitability for the job.”
Haines was found guilty and sentenced to a minimum 27 years’ jail. She will be eligible for parole in 2041. By then, she will be almost as old as her youngest victim, Ms Spencer.
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