Peter Dupas
Peter Norris Dupas is an Australian convicted serial killer, currently serving three life sentences without parole for murder and primarily for being a serious habitual offender. He has a very significant criminal history involving serious sexual and violent offences, with his violent criminal history spanning more than three decades, and with every release from prison has been known to commit further crimes against women with increasing levels of violence. His criminal signature is to remove the breasts of his female victims.
As of 2007, Dupas has been convicted of three murders and is a prime suspect in at least three other murders committed in the vicinity of the Melbourne area during the 1980s and 1990s.
Early life
Peter Dupas was the youngest of three children, born into what has been described as "a fairly normal family." Born in Sydney, New South Wales, his family moved to Melbourne, Victoria while he was still a toddler. With both siblings considerably older, his elderly parents treated him much like an only child. Dupas left high school upon completing Grade 10 and later obtained his Higher School Certificate.On 3 October 1968, at the age of 15, Dupas visited his next-door neighbour, requesting to borrow a knife for the purpose of peeling vegetables. Dupas was apprehended after he stabbed the woman in the face, neck, and hand as she attempted to fight off his attack. He later told police he could not help himself and did not know why he began to attack the woman. He was placed on 18 months' probation and admitted to the Larundel Psychiatric Hospital for evaluation; he was released after two weeks and treated as an outpatient.
In October 1969, a mortuary located at the Austin Hospital was broken into. The bodies of two elderly women were mutilated using a pathologist's knife. One body contained a strange wound inflicted with a knife to the area of the thigh. Police believe Dupas was involved in the break-in as the wounds inflicted matched that of a later murder victim, Nicole Patterson.
Senior Detective Ian Armstrong, who interviewed Dupas on 30 November 1973, at the Nunawading Police Station, described Dupas as "weak and compliant" when confronted by authority.
Sex offences
On 25 July 1974, Dupas was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment with a minimum period of five years for an attack on a woman in her own home. Dupas broke into the victim's house and threatened her with a knife before tying her up with cord and raping her. He threatened to harm her baby when she resisted his attack. The sentencing judge described the offence as "one of the worst rapes that could be imagined". After Dupas was sentenced, prison psychiatrist Dr. Allen Bartholomew noted Dupas was in constant denial of his criminal activity, remarking that: "I am reasonably certain that this youth has a serious psychosexual problem, that he is using the technique of denial as a coping device and that he is to be seen as potentially dangerous. The denial technique makes for huge difficulty in treatment."In 1979, approximately two months after his release from prison, Dupas again molested women in four separate attacks over a ten-day period. On 28 February 1980, Dupas received a five-year minimum prison sentence for three charges of assault with intent to rape, malicious wounding, assault with intent to rob, and indecent assault. A 1980 report on Dupas stated that: "There is little that can be said in Dupas's favour. He remains an extremely disturbed, immature, and dangerous man. His release on parole was a mistake."
Dupas was again released from prison in February 1985. Approximately one month later, he raped a 21-year-old woman on a beach at Blairgowrie, Victoria. After alighting from his car, Dupas followed the woman and attacked her, holding her to the ground at knifepoint before raping her. He later told police: "I'm sorry for what happened. Everyone was telling me I'm OK now. I never thought it was going to happen again. I only wanted to live a normal life." On 28 June 1985, Dupas was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment for the Blairgowrie rape and released in 1992 after serving seven years of his sentence.
Less than two years after his release from prison, Dupas was arrested on charges of false imprisonment over an incident at Lake Eppalock in January 1994. Wearing a hood and armed with a knife, insulation tape, and handcuffs, Dupas followed a woman who was picnicking and held her at knifepoint in a toilet block but was chased off by her friends. As he was leaving the scene, he crashed his car and was apprehended. On 18 August 1994, after entering a guilty plea to one count of false imprisonment in the County Court in Bendigo, Dupas was sentenced to three years and nine months' imprisonment, with a minimum period of two years and nine months. In September 1996, Dupas was again released from prison and moved into a house in the Melbourne suburb of Pascoe Vale.
Murder convictions
Nicole Patterson
Nicole Amanda Patterson was a 28-year-old psychotherapist and youth counsellor employed with the Ardoch Youth Foundation, an organisation formed to assist young drug users. Patterson had desired to operate her own private practice and was using her Northcote home as an office. She placed several classified ads in a local newspaper, the Northcote Leader, in an effort to expand her client base.Two neighbours reported hearing the screams of a young woman coming from Patterson's house between 9:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on the day of her murder. Attempts by Patterson's boyfriend to contact her in the afternoon failed, raising suspicions.
On 19 April 1999, Patterson's body was discovered by a friend in the front room of her Harper Street, Northcote residence. Patterson's friend had visited to attend a dinner engagement. Upon hearing music from a radio and discovering the front door unlocked, she entered the house and found the body of Patterson severely mutilated.
Patterson died from 27 stab wounds to her chest and back. Her body was discovered naked from the waist down, with her skirt found in a nearby bedroom and her underwear around her ankles. Small pieces of yellow PVC tape were attached to her body and both of her breasts had been removed using a sharp knife. Her handbag and driver's licence were stolen during the attack. The murder weapon and Patterson's breasts have never been recovered.
Arrest
Police investigations of the crime scene revealed Patterson had a 9am appointment with a new client by the name of "Malcolm" as noted in her personal diary alongside a mobile telephone number. The number was traced to an Indian student studying at La Trobe University named "Harry." Police learned Dupas had approached Harry with an offer of labouring work. On 22 April 1999, police arrested Dupas at midday at the Excelsior Hotel in Thomastown and charged him with the murder of Patterson later the same day.Telephone records revealed Dupas had made three prior telephone calls to Patterson to arrange a counselling session to treat depression and a gambling addiction, the first from a public telephone booth approximately six weeks before her murder. Over the course of the next six weeks, Dupas made calls to Patterson in an attempt to establish her vulnerability. Dupas later told police he cancelled his appointment with Patterson after being told by her his problem was something he was able to work through of his own accord.
Police also noticed scratches on Dupas's face and hand, consistent with a recent struggle. Dupas claimed the scratches had occurred when he was working in his backyard shed and a piece of wood hit him while using a lathe; Dupas did not own a lathe, however. He later changed his story to the effect that the injuries were sustained while working in the shed and walking by a protruding piece of wood.
A police search of Dupas's home revealed blood-stained clothing, PVC tape similar to that located at the crime scene, a ski mask, newspaper clippings detailing Patterson's murder, and also a paper containing her advertisement for psychotherapy services.
Trial and appeal
After retiring for less than three hours, the jury returned to deliver a guilty verdict. On 22 August 2000, while sentencing Dupas to life imprisonment without the opportunity for release on parole, Judge Frank Vincent remarked:"...the prospects of your eventual rehabilitation must be regarded as so close to hopeless that they can be effectively discounted. There is no indication whatsoever that you have experienced any sense of remorse for what you have done, and I doubt that you are capable of any such human response. At a fundamental level, as human beings, you present for us the awful, threatening and unanswerable question: How did you come to be as you are?"Dupas appeared in the Supreme Court of Victoria Court of Appeal in August 2001 to appeal his conviction for the murder of Patterson. His appeal was dismissed.
Margaret Maher
Margaret Josephine Maher, 40, was a sex worker working in the Melbourne area who was last seen alive at the Safeway supermarket at 12:20 a.m. in Broadmeadows on 4 October 1997.Her body was discovered under a cardboard box containing computer parts at 1:45 p.m. on 4 October 1997 by a man who made the discovery while he was collecting aluminium with his wife and her sister beside Cliffords Road in Somerton. A black woollen glove was found near Maher's body which police later confirmed contained DNA matching that of Dupas.
A post-mortem examination revealed Maher had suffered a stab wound to her left wrist, bruising to her neck, blunt force trauma with a cinder block to the area of her right eyebrow, and lacerations to her right arm. Maher's left breast had been removed and placed into her mouth. At the time of Maher's murder, Dupas had been out of prison for just over a year after serving time for rape offences and was no longer under the supervision of the government corrections agency, Corrections Victoria.
Dupas was already serving a life sentence without parole for the murder of Patterson at the time of his arrest for the murder of Maher. With Dupas in custody, police were able to obtain a DNA sample, linking him to the 1997 murder of Maher.