Networked Knowledge - Debi Marshall Reports

[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

Debi Marshall homepage

See also
Bob Moles: A state of Injustice - book now online
Bob Moles: Losing Their Grip - The Case of Henry Keogh - book now online

On 11 September 2009 Matt Neal of The Standard reported “Revealed: city's link to evil child predator Derek Percy”.

He said a depraved child killer who spent part of his life in Warrnambool is the subject of a new book linking him to numerous unsolved child murders. Derek Percy, dubbed by one prison guard as `Australia's answer to Hannibal Lecter', was jailed for the 1969 abduction, torture and murder of 12-year-old Yvonne Tuohy and has remained incarcerated ever since, making him Victoria's longest serving prisoner.

Percy's unwillingness to undergo therapy and his claims of memory loss have made it impossible for authorities to link Percy to other cold cases involving children. But Tasmanian crime writer Debi Marshall's latest book Lambs To The Slaughter suggests that Percy is behind a further four sadistic killings and mysterious abductions, including the infamous Beaumont children case.

Percy moved to Warrnambool with his family in 1958, when he was 10, and relocated again in 1961 to Mount Beauty where his deviant behaviour is believed to have started. In her book, Marshall suggests Percy was abused as a child and that the abuse could have taken place in Warrnambool. ``The psychologists and psychiatrists who looked at (Percy's) writings and who have studied him and even those who hadn't interviewed him agreed you only see that level of depravity in someone once a decade,'' Marshall told The Standard.

``(They agree that) the chance of him not being abused as a child is so slight as to be inconsequential. When you read the things he wrote, you have to wonder if, as a young boy, he suffered the most terrible abuse. ``Perhaps he was abused by someone in Warrnambool. But this sort of thing is usually sustained abuse.''

In Lambs To The Slaughter's final chapters, Marshall interviewed Percy's mother Elaine who cryptically told the author ``there were no incidents (in Warrnambool), but maybe something happened and it never came up... it's possible''. ``In those days, people tended to turn a blind eye,'' Marshall said.

Percy was only arrested for one murder. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity after he abducted, tortured, killed and mutilated Yvonne. He has been held at the Governor's pleasure in Victorian prisons for almost four decades. Percy's custody issues are currently being reviewed, with the child killer seeking to be moved to a minimum-security psychiatric hospital.

Top of Page