No Mercy, No Remorse

-(RAIN PATTERS) -(DISTURBING MUSIC)

We have an awful fascination with the dark twins,

evil and tragedy.

It is what makes us slow and stare at an accident scene,

prepared to be horrified at what we see,

and yet we still look.

And it is what makes us wonder what makes a serial killer,

that rare body that walks among us,

hiding in plain sight.

(INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER)

But I couldn't sleep a wink, because, um...

..the reality is, you know, he'd gone again

and...and, uh, we'd missed our opportunity and...

..it was...it was just gut-wrenching.

Could you just hold that up?

The offender was a quiet loner named Paul Charles Denyer.

The signs were there

that Denyer was a potential psychopath...

That's the way you operate it.

..if anyone had bothered to look.

-(SOLEMN PIANO MUSIC) -(SEAGULLS SQUAWK)

It was 1993,

long before social media dominated

the communications landscape,

and by any definition, Melbourne was blessed

with a relatively low crime rate.

But in the bayside suburb of Frankston,

that changed in just six weeks,

when three women -

Elizabeth Stevens,

young mother Debbie Fream

and schoolgirl Natalie Russell -

were stalked and murdered in the dead of winter.

The serial killer forced a large slice of Melbourne

into virtual lockdown

and left a homicide task force fighting the clock.

Yeah, look, I was on call on 11 June 1993,

running a team.

And we got the call, and no different to any other job.

We've got a body of a young female

in a place called Lloyd Park,

which is about 3km, um, east of Frankston.

Um, she's in a culvert.

She's, um, dressed.

And it was absolutely pouring

and so we were behind the eight ball

before we even started.

It was just like a satanic killing

because of the...

..the wounds to the torso concerned us,

the very significant injuries to the throat.

Um, that, uh...

It was, I suppose, you could say

a stage of an overkill.

And that tells you a story

that there is no way known this woman is going to survive

because she would've been able to identify the offender.

So you read these things into it.

Very quickly you could tell with the first murder

that, um, Elizabeth Stevens,

it was unusual

and certainly, with the marks on her body,

there was something astray.

So the Homicide squad took that on immediately.

When I saw the... the marks on the body,

uh, they were unusual

and there is a history of that type of behaviour

with serial killers,

so I was immediately alert to

the potential for something worse to come.

-(TRAM BELL RINGS) -(GRIM MUSIC)

We had that many suspects,

it was really a difficult process to try and filter down

as to who or someone we should look at.

And we looked at plenty of individuals

and invested lots of time

in what ended up being red herrings

but you don't know it at the time

and you've got to follow the trail.

And we had a mannequin we dressed as the same clothing,

um, had a face depicted on the mannequin,

and we had leaflets, we did roadblocks

to try and put her on that bus.

This was well before CCTV was in vogue that we have today.

We certainly knew she was at the TAFE college.

From that point, blank.

Then came the issue with a missing persons report

of Debbie Fream.

Um, and it wasn't until her body was found,

um, near a farmland

just out of Frankston.

And once I went to that scene,

you could see that she'd been fully clothed.

Uh, throat was cut savagely - same as Elizabeth Stevens.

She had one or two branches covering her,

and then you knew.

-(DOGS BARK) -(MOURNFUL MUSIC)

Detectives have been told

she was driving erratically.

She appeared to be in a distressed state

and was flashing the headlights of the car

to, uh...presumably to attract attention.

The second murder, everyone started to fear that,

"Do we have a serial murder in the town?"

And questions in the media started sparking that.

But the issue then was

of keeping calm within the community,

of not going out and declaring that.

-(UNSETTLING MUSIC) -(THUNDER RUMBLES)

He, uh...he struck when

there was extremely heavy... heavy rain happening,

lightning and thunder and, um...

And as we eventually found out, the reason he did that

was it offered him a cloak of opportunity

to strike when no-one would hear anything,

no-one would hear anyone screaming

because of the rain and the... and the extreme weather.

-(UNSETTLING MUSIC) -(THUNDER RUMBLES)

Debbie Fream lived with her boyfriend, Garry Blair,

in Kananook Avenue, Seaford.

On July 8, 1993,

she drove down the road to the local milk bar

to buy eggs, milk and a chocolate bar.

She was out of the car for little more than a minute.

Her son, Jake, was 12 days old.

I remember the public identified Debbie Fream's car

that had been dumped in Frankston,

and that was our first breakthrough,

as far as I was concerned.

And that's when we knew that the offender

must live within walking distance of that car.

We had blood in the car

and it had been driven back.

There are, uh, perhaps some similarities,

uh, in the two recent murders.

And we wanted to deal with the crime scene

where the car was found and the car itself.

But at that stage,

Peter took the view that, uh,

we've got real problems here with this guy

and we need to get, um,

a really strong investigation focus on it.

But the community could read about it -

two women abducted

within a matter of weeks of each other,

unassociated.

We're sick and tired of these attacks.

The fact that you can't even go down to your local milk bar

without being attacked is now very serious in this area.

I'm certainly not saying that there is a serial killer loose.

What I am saying is that there are similarities

between the murder of... in Frankston

and the murder at Langwarrin.

And because of that,

people shouldn't treat them in isolation.

I would like to see as many local residents as we can

get to the meeting

because there'll be authorities there

that can tell us exactly what to do for our own protection.

The mood in Frankston at the time

was, um...

..everyone was in fear.

Um...you know, we... we didn't really know

exactly what was going on.

Detectives revealed their latest lead

in the hunt for Debbie Fream's killer

in the wake of last night's huge turnout

to a community crisis meeting at Seaford.

Dozens of people were turned away

when the local community centre reached capacity.

But on the night that Debbie Fream disappeared,

he observed a man washing blood from his hands and face

in the Seaford area.

And they were really quick - relatively quick.

One after the other.

So there was a real sense,

especially after the second one,

"What's gonna happen next?"

And there are times when things occur

that are beyond your control.

And yet you can see

a community becoming agitated.

And that's what started to occur then.

You started to see a community concerned.

Not turning on itself,

but concerned and worried and wanting resolution.

I know my wife was concerned

to go, um, anywhere by herself.

Um, it was the topic of everyone's conversation

in a coffee shop or at home.

So that fear quickly developed.

The media were...

I don't like to use the word 'frenzied',

but there was a lot of activity in Frankston

about, um, the potential that this guy could strike again.

It was difficult to, uh, take over the control

of another team's murder,