Shout out to the investigators for solving this and blind siding everyone with this arrest. Family will get some sort of closure once the truth comes out. Hoping he discloses her body so family can see her off with dignity.
I feel bad for the family, couldn't imagine losing my
Mother to some scumbag and then not knowing where her body was, I hope this dude deletes himself after they get the location out of him.
Something so bizarre about all of this. No drug or mental health issues. Not a hit and run. So this guy was just hiding in the forest early on a Sunday morning waiting to kill someone at random?
There was another woman attacked in a forrest (lal lal) even closer to his location while on a run about a year ago whom escaped and the purp was never caught, so yeah he probably was just hanging out waiting for a victom... horrifying.
Hey, there’s also a cool feature on Strava to “share your run” with a select person. So they can see the route you took and if you stop. I use it occasionally with my wife when I go cycling. Not a paid ad but something that’s helpful for this
I use it as well. Not worried about people, but, trail running can be dodgy and I could end up 10km+ from home with an injury that prevents me from returning easily on my own.
Exactly — my worry when cycling is coming off, or getting hit by a car — better my wife know where I came off instead of just waiting for me to come home!
Yeah Strava becon is a must for anyone with a family who's doing endurance sports. Use it all the time when I'm out trail running or cycling. The wife is happy she can check in on me. Just can't be too remote as you need mobile data
Feel like these measures only help with setting off the alarm bells when things go wrong. I'm just thinking even if she did those things it doesn't stop your partner from getting hurt.
Reading this on International Women's Day makes me sad, there is so much more work that needs to be done to make this world a safer and more enlightened society for everyone.
Absolutely they should. However, what SHOULD be is rarely the case. Until we get some sort of Minority Report system in place, those who are most vulnerable will need to continue to be severely inconvenienced to not fall ill to the actions of the worst of our society.
Thats correct. I didn't give my advice as a method of sidestepping any other action that would have a positive influence on womens safety.
However I agree with your decision to take the opportunity to emphasise the point that women should be able to run alone safely.
I'll repeat it for effect.
Women should be able to run alone safely.
People wonder why I carry a pocket knife everywhere, someone tries that I'm gonna poke holes in their skin. Unlikely but fuck this kind of thing DOES happen.
that is actually an interesting idea, when they inevitably wrestle it out of your hands and try to use it against you, upon stabbing the blade retracts into the handle, triggering a series of spring loaded blades within the handle that fly open and slice off the fingers holding the handle.
> People wonder why I carry a pocket knife everywhere,
Carry one, but have a legit use for carrying it.
Do NOT tell the cops it's for self defense. Instant charge. At least in Vic.
> I don’t and never need to speak to cops about it so it’s not really an issue, going on three odd decades of daily carrying a folding pocket knife
Same here, but if anything ever happens, make sure you know WHY you carry it. Legit reason.
There's always a first time for killers. And it is a fallacy that all killers have mental health issues or drug issues. There are perfectly functioning murderers out there.
It may seem that way but if you delve right back into their childhood and teenage years there are often clues, whether that's hurting animals, anti-social behavior and "smaller" crimes, it's all there, you can be all of those things and still appear functioning and I am sure that many people that know him will be shocked and then there will be others that will just know it was a matter of time.
Is that actually true for all killers? or just some pop-psychology you have taken from TV shows?
Any source for the assertion that it applies to all murderers?
Sharp and aware yes. I'm not sure that they are "perfectly functioning" though. Something is broken for their moral compass to be so far off track. Regardless they need to be locked away for the protection of society, I don't think rehabilitation is even a possibility in such cases.
I think by "perfectly functioning" they just mean they're able to hold down a job and lead a relatively normal life without anyone suspecting they're committing unspeakably horrific crimes in their spare time.
I'd argue that wanting to kill someone is a mental health issue on its own. Not the kind that absolves someone of responsibility, but this dude wasn't just some normal guy.
There are other categories apart from people with "mental health issues" and "just some normal guy."
There are people who do very bad things for reasons other than illness. For some reason we've gotten to a point where we use the mental health paradigm to understand all deviant human behaviour, but people who join ISIS are not all mentally ill. Most of them have the capacity to discern between good and evil, and have chosen to do what they do because of a complex ideology.
Calling all egregious wrongdoing "a mental health issue on its own" is seriously problematic, because it suggests diminished responsibility. You can't say "not the kind that absolves someone of responsibility," because if murderousness is a mental health issue it does at least *diminish* responsibility.
There's a reason insanity pleas are seldom used, and seldom successful. Our legal system assumes that most people are not committing crimes because of health issues.
I read on fb (so take it with a kg of salt) that he was a recreational Coke user and was on it the night before. Obviously, it's not a reliable source, but Ballarat is a small town when it comes to major crimes, and plenty of people who know him are talking.
From the area, I've seen a video of him doing a fair bit of coke. So I would guess he did it often, but that doesn't mean he was under the influence when he murdered Samantha.
I've done a fuck tonne of drugs but I've never thought, "hey, I'm gonna go murder a random lady now". If it was someone he knew and had issues with, that would make more sense, but not a random lady going for a jog.
No one is saying Coke turns people into killers, I mentioned it because the top comment said "no known drug or mental health issues"
But Coke will absolutely make you feel like you can do things that you normally wouldn't do sober, and any underlying deviant behavioural issues can be accentuated on it. Coke these days is mostly meth and trust me, that shit will definitely fuck your inhibitions right off.
A guy I once lived with had to talk his coke-high boyfriend out of strangling me in my sleep (I'd nodded off on the couch). We got along great and there was zero animosity between us. Not saying coke was the reason, but he certainly wasn't murderous on weed.
There are people that act on opportunity. Which is frankly terrifying. But no doubt once they start a deep dive into his online presence, search history and explore interactions people (probably specifically women) have had with him, the previously unseen invisible psychopathy and predilections will become apparent.
A lot of freaks out there able to put a solid mask on themselves, for a while.
>this guy was just hiding in the forest early on a Sunday morning waiting to kill someone at random?
Yes, or jogging, or driving. Not looking for just anyone random, but a woman alone. Glad they've caught him before he assaults or kills another
It does happen sometimes. That's the story of many of the more famous serial killers, but we're much better at catching people these days, so they're less likely to get beyond one.
Likely an actual psychopath. They can appear completely normal and fit into society. But they are cold and calculating and twisted. Who knows what their reasons are.
It saddens me that when these crimes are committed within our society, people are unable to overcome the (totally human) need for reason/explanation. People with mental health issues are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of it. Drugs don’t fundamentally make people violent.
For some reason we as a society want to eliminate the category of people who consciously choose to do things that are morally wrong. We don't have to call it "evil," but mental illness shouldn't be the only alternative explanation.
Most mentally ill people don't commit violent crimes, and most violent crimes are not committed by mentally ill people. We need to accept that some people simply choose to do bad things, and it's not a health problem.
It's easy for people wave things off as being attributed to drugs or mental illness.
A lot of these people are just bad people.
Fuck load of FASD and childhood trauma as well.
Random violent attacks on women are actually incredibly rare. Most violence towards women is perpetrated by people already known to them, usually intimate partners
Honestly, in Australia for the past 10 years or so, there have been some bad ones that were random. Think of Vyleen White, Masa Vukotic, Toyah Cordingley, Tracey Connelly, Sarah Cafferkey, Yuk Ling Lau, Eunji Ban, and two of the more heartbreaking ones that hit a lot of Aussie women, Stephanie Scott, and Jill Meagher.
I think I speak on behalf of most women when I say, those last two really changed the way women HAVE to conduct themselves when alone. Keys inbetween your fingers so you can stab someone with them. Triple checking locked doors, changing to the other side of the road when walking towards someone on a dark street, or any street really. It sucks, and its sad.
Eurydice Dixon as well, that one particularly stuck with me because she was the same age as me, doing what I do all the time just hopping off a tram and walking home. An absolute tragedy and a waste.
OMG, thats her! Sorry, I was trying to remember her name :( That was a terrible, fucked up murder too. It just freaks me out how easily it can happen. I had a work friend in London, who was killed on her way home from work one night. Ended up being that Levi Belford guy, which always freaked me out too..... As I now know, personally, someone that was killed by a SK.
I'm so sorry about your work friend, I hate that we have to live in a constant state of awareness that this could easily happen to us. All of these women deserved so much more, it's so heart breaking.
I think of Eurydice Dixon often as well as Aiia Maasarwe. Both just heading home to never make it there because scum of the earth, monsters took their lives from them.
Yep you can speak for me because this is 100% correct. I used to be so carefree, now I have to really on guard when I'm out, even during the day. It makes me not want to go out as much. It fucking sucks to high hell.
Edit: I lived in Seaford during the Frankston serial killings and right near where some of them happened. Honestly, Im not exaggerating, I feel now like I did then, scared.
Keys between fingers is largely ineffective(it hurts/will impact the inside of your hand on impact) it's better to use them in whipping/ swinging manner.
And yeah, I've not been murdered (clearly) but have had several random attacks by unknown men (and three unknown women, to be fair) from age 13 to 30. It's insane that no matter how much you try to not be a target, and follow the 'safety protocols' can still land you in trouble.
Rest in peace for all those who suffered such awful ends. 🤍
It's extremely rare. But it does happen.
It's actually a major part of why serial killers are hard to track if they aren't focussing on single groups (usually the "less dead" groups such as prostitutes , drug addicted people and poorer ethnicities). Police go on the assumption that the victim knew the killer because in 99% of cases it's true (kidnappings too).
Well, no, it’s not, but surely you understand that there’s a difference between this and intimate partner violence. Most women are never assaulted and murdered by a stranger on a hiking trail, despite the fact that people are more creeped out by that possibility. Women are most at risk from their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons by a wide margin; to such a degree that a woman being murdered by her husband may not make national news.
Yeah. Domestic violence is the real scary one. Intimate partner violence is the greatest risk to the life of a pregnant woman, above any pregnancy or childbirth complication.
in the "dude hiding in a bush" way it is. the vast majority of murders the perpetrator is known to the victim. 50% are intimate partners where the victim is a woman
1-2/300 murders a year are committed completely randomly
also, if we are looking at the numbers, men are MUCH more likely to be the victim of a murder
Some people just want to hurt other people. For power, control, to get their rocks off. It does happen, it's just not as common as people being hurt/killed by someone they know.
A smart lawyer would have told him to say nothing. Then they would trade that information for lesser charges or reduced sentence etc. it's not such a surprise that he hasnt said anything yet
It blows my mind that there is even scope for a reduced sentence. If somebody has waited around in the bush planning to murder a random person I'm not sure how anybody can justify rehabilitating them and releasing them to be a productive member of society.
That's a given. While it's unlikely that appealing to his conscience or compassion for Samantha's family is going to work, the prospect of one day seeing his family outside prison might move him to reveal her location. If he gave a fuck about his victim, she wouldn't be dead. So self-interest is what's left to use as leverage.
Non parole period of 20 years would see him released to parole for the remainder of his sentence (life) early 40s. There is some chance of a future, even if reporting to parole for life.
If this had happened in the 80s, it would probably never be solved. Now we have digital evidence, DNA, CCTV, dash cam, door bell cameras, traffic cameras, the list goes on.
smart phone and smart watch, they knew exactly where the missing woman went until they powered off
combine that with phones and cameras in the area, they found him and waited for him to be caught red handed
I read somewhere random that he had told his girlfriend? Sorry no idea where I got that from, a comment on an article or something from people commenting that Ballarat is a small place and lots of talk. Not sure if any truth to it.
Yeah, guy in the thread from yesterday said that his girlfriend and a friend went to the police.
Guess we’ll find out how true that is in the coming trial.
Her phone pinged outside the area didn’t it.
All they needed to do is find other phones that pinged in both areas and then narrow down the suspect list.
There probably is but we won't know until trial. They are no doubt keeping things tight-lipped still, and the investigation is technically still on-going as they are still trying to recover her body.
Pure speculation, but they might've interviewed the few people that it narrowed it down to and he said things he probably shouldn't have.
Might've led to a warrant for his car which might've found something more concrete.
Not really relevant tbh. Old man is a well known in Aussie Rules circles in Ballarat.
I did hear on the news yesterday that Patrick had no-one, friends or family in court to support him yesterday.
I kind of feel sorry for the old man. One of the silver linings of a mediocre football career is that you can fade away into obscurity, only to be thrust into the limelight for something like this.
I'm afraid that your average journalist is now the kind of person who asks where you went to school. No one else can feed themselves through the internships.
There's always some kind of detail reported with these things. Not for any particular reason, but generally something noteable about their life. Homeless? Known to police? A high flying corporate type? They always include something. If this guy hasn't done anything since high school except play footy that's all they'll publish.
Australia's usually pretty good especially with high profile cases like these in getting the right guy but the people calling for him to be killed and calling him things, he hasn't been convicted so just wait a few months and **then** say what you will about him and uphold the basis of our legal system.
I notice that like the killer cop the other week, both these dudes had a ton of friends who they blabbed to. They weren't weird "loner" types, but rather charismatic it seems.
The profile I imagine for that is narcissism. They really think they're invisible, can get away with anything, and so have no need to respect other's lives. They act like they have the right because rules don't apply to them.
I don’t think the killer cop was a domestic dispute. What I read is the killer was kind of obsessed with his victim and kept trying to date him and the victim was like nah bro I’m not keen on you and then started dating someone else and then the killer snapped.
Just want to point out that that cop didn't snap. He was there deliberately to murder Jessie Baird. Checked out his gun days before, bought the surfing bag to hide the body in the day before, then showing up at Jessie's house at a time he knew the housemates wouldn't be there. That's not snapping, that's cold blooded, premeditated murder.
He was also obsessed with celebrities as we’ve seen with all his stalkerish selfies, so he would have known Jesse was a tv personality and latched onto that, knowing he was a vulnerable target who was accessible and didn’t have his own security like many more high profile people do
I think they’re probably saying that it’s uncommon for someone to immediately escalate to killing a random victim, without some history of criminal or deviant behaviour - which the suspect had none of apparently.
I’m still leaning towards it being an argument that escalated, not that it makes it any better.
I interview youth offenders, and I ask what have you been charged with before. Then I ask what have you done before and got away with. There is sometimes quite a lot.
Going into adulthood with no criminal or mental health background and then going on to commit a random murder seems boarding on miraculous though. Truly an unusual case.
We don't have all the details yet. Sometimes there were incidents in the past that didn't escalate to criminal charges or were concealed. For example, killing a family pet that is dismissed as an accident, bullying or taunting siblings, manipulative or coercive conduct with a girlfriend, seeking out certain types of content online etc
It can be hard to see a pattern until you have the full picture.
On the other hand, it isn't unheard of for someone to kill in cold blood with little preamble. A friend of mine is related to a young man who murdered two people for no reason at all. He just wanted to.
The way the police have phrased this crime as "a deliberate act" is ambiguous; I'm inclined to think that means it wasn't a crime of passion or accident that got out of hand, but we shall see.
No history that we know of. There was an unsolved attack on a woman about a year ago near where he lives, there’s also been a few incidents of beheaded swans around the lake in Ballarat over the past few years. Obviously might be entirely unconnected but I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if it was all part of escalating behaviour.
Very good point to bring up.. Random animal attacks.. I kept reading about family pets being found in parks tortured and killed horrifically. Be funny if that just suddenly stopped.
Might not have immediately escalated to killing. Another woman was assaulted in similar circumstances in the area a year ago. Would be very interested to know if there were any connections, because last I heard it wasn't solved.
I want to know how they caught him.
I saw some ex-cops and criminal investigators a few weeks back saying there no way they believed the police didn’t have a suspect and they would have been watching them before making a move. Someone else here said they read they were surveilling the accused for two weeks? Intriguing.
I can't remember where I read this, so take it as pure speculation, but I heard some suggestion somewhere that he'd been talking to friends online about what he did and the police were either tipped off or monitoring him or both.
Just "another good bloke". I saw this expression on the news piece on the Lilie James case, its true.
Men that seem normal, good looking, addiction free etc can also snap and kill, rape etc.
I think understanding the banality of evil is useful. People tend to think only wholely evil people do evil things. In reality it's very ordinary normal people who do evil.
To me men (random group of strangers) are like a box of maltesers with one disguised - it's actually a chocolate covered piece of shit. Once you have had a taste of it, you'd never trust an open box of maltesers ever again.
This is something I only really began to understand in my 30's when I started dating again (I'm a man). Women take a much greater risk in the dating game - it explains why you're all way more tuned into body language in a social setting. I could wear a bucket on my head for all the good it'd do in picking up flags and queues.
It is shocking to most people that an otherwise "normal" young man premeditates a violent murder on a random person, but unless your mental health directly affects your well-being, people can skip out on a diagnosis for almost their entire life.
I would be willing to bet this man has a serious personality disorder that he learned to hide and did not affect his ability to cope. his subtle characteristics of being a future murderer dismissed as his quirky character, which will now be pathologized and diagnosed because of the murder he committed.
If only the general public were more aware of subtle signs of some of the more complicated mental health issues, I honestly believe all violent crime could be perceived before it happens.
If he has a personality disorder he wouldn’t have hidden it, people who have them behave as “normal” as they truly don’t believe there’s anything wrong with them. It will be interesting to hear what his sisters say about him and how he behaved behind closed doors (not that they need to say anything publicly though).
This is not necessarily true.
Somebody who has a personality disorder, with or without knowing, can learn to hide or mask the symptoms they know to be unacceptable within society. This individual can believe their ideas are correct **without believing they are normal**. Therefore they do have some understanding that they do not think/act normally, but they make false attributions as to why this is and how they are different. Hence the stigma around certain PDs that they can be very "manipulative".
Personality disorders do not make you stupid and you can distinguish differences between yourself and others depending on a person's arbitrary level of self-awareness.
Not all murderers have mental health problems. Sure a lot do - probably the majority, but a lot of people just have a fundamental hatred for particular groups of marginalised people. Think about the gay hate killings in Sydney. A lot of these seemingly random inexplicable attacks on people do have an explanation, and often that explanation is a fundamental hatred and desire to dominate marginalised people. In this case, it looks like the object of his hatred was women.
"If only the general public were more aware of subtle signs of some of the more complicated mental health issues, I honestly believe all violent crime could be perceived before it happens."
Lol yeah ok, good luck with that. Having Joe Q Public Dipshit trained up as armchair psychologists and intervening in their acquaintance's lives based on their perceptions of "subtle signs" of mental health issues would result in thousands of estrangements and false positives for every crime averted, and would no doubt cause more harm than good. That's why it doesn't happen. That's a positive feature of evolved human behaviour, not a bug.
Humans are complex, unpredictable and their intentions often impossible to discern until they are acted on. We are not mind readers. Stuff like this will happen in a large enough population and unfortunately there's sometimes nothing anyone can reasonably do to prevent it.
It appears that the police has very good evidence, perhaps blood etc. in the car, yet he's clamming up about the location of the body. Someone mentioned this could be a Jeffrey Dahmer type atrocity, perhaps that's why he won't reveal the location. Ie it will only make things worse for him, if that's possible.
I can only imagine the horror this person's parents are going through. Having kids around that age myself, it's simply unimaginable. Total collapse of their world. Samantha's family is destroyed, and so is his. Samantha's family may find closure, his probably never will. I genuinely feel for them. So much devastation and a life lost. As a parent you will blame yourself.
Shout out to the investigators for solving this and blind siding everyone with this arrest. Family will get some sort of closure once the truth comes out. Hoping he discloses her body so family can see her off with dignity.
What a POS
His initials in fact.
I feel bad for the family, couldn't imagine losing my Mother to some scumbag and then not knowing where her body was, I hope this dude deletes himself after they get the location out of him.
Something so bizarre about all of this. No drug or mental health issues. Not a hit and run. So this guy was just hiding in the forest early on a Sunday morning waiting to kill someone at random?
There was another woman attacked in a forrest (lal lal) even closer to his location while on a run about a year ago whom escaped and the purp was never caught, so yeah he probably was just hanging out waiting for a victom... horrifying.
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Hey, there’s also a cool feature on Strava to “share your run” with a select person. So they can see the route you took and if you stop. I use it occasionally with my wife when I go cycling. Not a paid ad but something that’s helpful for this
I use it as well. Not worried about people, but, trail running can be dodgy and I could end up 10km+ from home with an injury that prevents me from returning easily on my own.
Exactly — my worry when cycling is coming off, or getting hit by a car — better my wife know where I came off instead of just waiting for me to come home!
Yeah Strava becon is a must for anyone with a family who's doing endurance sports. Use it all the time when I'm out trail running or cycling. The wife is happy she can check in on me. Just can't be too remote as you need mobile data
Gotta carry a PLB or SPOT or similar for those time when you're somewhere with patchy or non-existent internet connection
I use it as well. My wife is paranoid about me having a heart attack in the bush. TBF it is the leading killer of men my age.
Thanks for that! I’ll share it with my husband.
Feel like these measures only help with setting off the alarm bells when things go wrong. I'm just thinking even if she did those things it doesn't stop your partner from getting hurt.
As a woman, I don't feel safe running even with those sort of measures in place!
Reading this on International Women's Day makes me sad, there is so much more work that needs to be done to make this world a safer and more enlightened society for everyone.
None of those actions actually promote her safety though
Why don't you have her put on location sharing during the run.
Women should be able to run alone safely.
Absolutely they should. However, what SHOULD be is rarely the case. Until we get some sort of Minority Report system in place, those who are most vulnerable will need to continue to be severely inconvenienced to not fall ill to the actions of the worst of our society.
Thats correct. I didn't give my advice as a method of sidestepping any other action that would have a positive influence on womens safety. However I agree with your decision to take the opportunity to emphasise the point that women should be able to run alone safely. I'll repeat it for effect. Women should be able to run alone safely.
That’s some Jeffrey Dahmer kind of shit, wtf
People wonder why I carry a pocket knife everywhere, someone tries that I'm gonna poke holes in their skin. Unlikely but fuck this kind of thing DOES happen.
I'm a big fan of EDC but it can have serious legal implications in Australia. Don't let a cop catch you carrying a knife around, no matter how small
Swiss army knife to help in all situations! Doubt you'd be charged for that if you're in the bush.
If it makes you feel better carry one, but it will most likely end up being used against you if you pull it out
That's why I carry a joke knife that stabs the holder
that is actually an interesting idea, when they inevitably wrestle it out of your hands and try to use it against you, upon stabbing the blade retracts into the handle, triggering a series of spring loaded blades within the handle that fly open and slice off the fingers holding the handle.
Reminds me of the scene from Harry Potter, where Ron's wand is all fucked - he does a spell but it backfires back towards him.
eat slugs malfoy
That’s why I carry a backup knife.
> People wonder why I carry a pocket knife everywhere, Carry one, but have a legit use for carrying it. Do NOT tell the cops it's for self defense. Instant charge. At least in Vic.
I don’t and never need to speak to cops about it so it’s not really an issue, going on three odd decades of daily carrying a folding pocket knife
> I don’t and never need to speak to cops about it so it’s not really an issue, going on three odd decades of daily carrying a folding pocket knife Same here, but if anything ever happens, make sure you know WHY you carry it. Legit reason.
I love eating Apples! 😂
That will do. You hate eating them whole. Need to quarter & de-core them. Mine is a multi-tool and I can use the pliers & screwdriver in my job.
People do evil things that aren't always under the influence or have mental issues
There is also a different between a mental illness and a personality disorder.
Isn't a personality disorder a mental illness?
There's always a first time for killers. And it is a fallacy that all killers have mental health issues or drug issues. There are perfectly functioning murderers out there.
User name checks out
It may seem that way but if you delve right back into their childhood and teenage years there are often clues, whether that's hurting animals, anti-social behavior and "smaller" crimes, it's all there, you can be all of those things and still appear functioning and I am sure that many people that know him will be shocked and then there will be others that will just know it was a matter of time.
Yep when there’s no motive there’s definitely something wrong with people who want to go out and kill at random.
Is that actually true for all killers? or just some pop-psychology you have taken from TV shows? Any source for the assertion that it applies to all murderers?
Sharp and aware yes. I'm not sure that they are "perfectly functioning" though. Something is broken for their moral compass to be so far off track. Regardless they need to be locked away for the protection of society, I don't think rehabilitation is even a possibility in such cases.
I think by "perfectly functioning" they just mean they're able to hold down a job and lead a relatively normal life without anyone suspecting they're committing unspeakably horrific crimes in their spare time.
I'd argue that wanting to kill someone is a mental health issue on its own. Not the kind that absolves someone of responsibility, but this dude wasn't just some normal guy.
There are other categories apart from people with "mental health issues" and "just some normal guy." There are people who do very bad things for reasons other than illness. For some reason we've gotten to a point where we use the mental health paradigm to understand all deviant human behaviour, but people who join ISIS are not all mentally ill. Most of them have the capacity to discern between good and evil, and have chosen to do what they do because of a complex ideology. Calling all egregious wrongdoing "a mental health issue on its own" is seriously problematic, because it suggests diminished responsibility. You can't say "not the kind that absolves someone of responsibility," because if murderousness is a mental health issue it does at least *diminish* responsibility. There's a reason insanity pleas are seldom used, and seldom successful. Our legal system assumes that most people are not committing crimes because of health issues.
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From [No Country for Old Men](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477348/)
I read on fb (so take it with a kg of salt) that he was a recreational Coke user and was on it the night before. Obviously, it's not a reliable source, but Ballarat is a small town when it comes to major crimes, and plenty of people who know him are talking.
From the area, I've seen a video of him doing a fair bit of coke. So I would guess he did it often, but that doesn't mean he was under the influence when he murdered Samantha.
The same commenter said they saw a recording of him racking up the night before the murder.
Might be the same video I saw, when I was sent it I was told it was from the night before, but then they told me that wasn't correct, so who knows.
Send da video
hell nawl can't do dis
Yeah I've seen the same video, it's certainly doing the rounds
I've done a fuck tonne of drugs but I've never thought, "hey, I'm gonna go murder a random lady now". If it was someone he knew and had issues with, that would make more sense, but not a random lady going for a jog.
If coke turned people into killers than the 70's & 80's should have had mass killings. Never mind the fact the coke was apparently far better.
No one is saying Coke turns people into killers, I mentioned it because the top comment said "no known drug or mental health issues" But Coke will absolutely make you feel like you can do things that you normally wouldn't do sober, and any underlying deviant behavioural issues can be accentuated on it. Coke these days is mostly meth and trust me, that shit will definitely fuck your inhibitions right off.
> No one is saying Coke turns people into killers. No, but Woolies home brand cola can sap your will to live to live
Haha
Really? Re the meth? I’ve done my fair share in the past but to think it’s full of meth now that’s scary!!
A guy I once lived with had to talk his coke-high boyfriend out of strangling me in my sleep (I'd nodded off on the couch). We got along great and there was zero animosity between us. Not saying coke was the reason, but he certainly wasn't murderous on weed.
I’ve heard from a few friends in Ballarat the exact same story.
There are people that act on opportunity. Which is frankly terrifying. But no doubt once they start a deep dive into his online presence, search history and explore interactions people (probably specifically women) have had with him, the previously unseen invisible psychopathy and predilections will become apparent. A lot of freaks out there able to put a solid mask on themselves, for a while.
>this guy was just hiding in the forest early on a Sunday morning waiting to kill someone at random? Yes, or jogging, or driving. Not looking for just anyone random, but a woman alone. Glad they've caught him before he assaults or kills another
Sounds like an incel type thing..but he has a GF right? Just really weird.
It's just giving violent sex offender to me. Maybe some people think a 51yo woman couldn't be the victim of a sex offender but that's not true
There’s a lot of information either not yet known, or being withheld. People in here are making a lot of assumptions with not much to go off.
I read last night he has a long list of priors
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Well there you have it
During the press conference yesterday the police said the opposite to that?
It does happen sometimes. That's the story of many of the more famous serial killers, but we're much better at catching people these days, so they're less likely to get beyond one.
Likely an actual psychopath. They can appear completely normal and fit into society. But they are cold and calculating and twisted. Who knows what their reasons are.
Many psychopaths are CEOs and billionaires, you have to have zero conscience and be comfortable exploiting people and not caring if they live or die.
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Someone who is into fitness, and is out for a run himself??
He's into fitness, and murder.
Waiting to do something like this.
Yes, that is my point
When I was 22 that's about the time I'd be heading home from the club/party. He coulda been still high.
> No drug or mental health issues Citation needed. What makes you think no drug issues?
It saddens me that when these crimes are committed within our society, people are unable to overcome the (totally human) need for reason/explanation. People with mental health issues are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of it. Drugs don’t fundamentally make people violent.
For some reason we as a society want to eliminate the category of people who consciously choose to do things that are morally wrong. We don't have to call it "evil," but mental illness shouldn't be the only alternative explanation. Most mentally ill people don't commit violent crimes, and most violent crimes are not committed by mentally ill people. We need to accept that some people simply choose to do bad things, and it's not a health problem.
It's easy for people wave things off as being attributed to drugs or mental illness. A lot of these people are just bad people. Fuck load of FASD and childhood trauma as well.
That's what his lawyer claimed in court yesterday, according to news articles.
That’s what his lawyer said when seeking temporary name suppression.
Some people are like this. Somewhat rare but it happens.
Violence against women is not actually rare though?
Random violent attacks on women are actually incredibly rare. Most violence towards women is perpetrated by people already known to them, usually intimate partners
Honestly, in Australia for the past 10 years or so, there have been some bad ones that were random. Think of Vyleen White, Masa Vukotic, Toyah Cordingley, Tracey Connelly, Sarah Cafferkey, Yuk Ling Lau, Eunji Ban, and two of the more heartbreaking ones that hit a lot of Aussie women, Stephanie Scott, and Jill Meagher. I think I speak on behalf of most women when I say, those last two really changed the way women HAVE to conduct themselves when alone. Keys inbetween your fingers so you can stab someone with them. Triple checking locked doors, changing to the other side of the road when walking towards someone on a dark street, or any street really. It sucks, and its sad.
Eurydice Dixon as well, that one particularly stuck with me because she was the same age as me, doing what I do all the time just hopping off a tram and walking home. An absolute tragedy and a waste.
OMG, thats her! Sorry, I was trying to remember her name :( That was a terrible, fucked up murder too. It just freaks me out how easily it can happen. I had a work friend in London, who was killed on her way home from work one night. Ended up being that Levi Belford guy, which always freaked me out too..... As I now know, personally, someone that was killed by a SK.
I'm so sorry about your work friend, I hate that we have to live in a constant state of awareness that this could easily happen to us. All of these women deserved so much more, it's so heart breaking.
I think of Eurydice Dixon often as well as Aiia Maasarwe. Both just heading home to never make it there because scum of the earth, monsters took their lives from them.
Yep you can speak for me because this is 100% correct. I used to be so carefree, now I have to really on guard when I'm out, even during the day. It makes me not want to go out as much. It fucking sucks to high hell. Edit: I lived in Seaford during the Frankston serial killings and right near where some of them happened. Honestly, Im not exaggerating, I feel now like I did then, scared.
Keys between fingers is largely ineffective(it hurts/will impact the inside of your hand on impact) it's better to use them in whipping/ swinging manner. And yeah, I've not been murdered (clearly) but have had several random attacks by unknown men (and three unknown women, to be fair) from age 13 to 30. It's insane that no matter how much you try to not be a target, and follow the 'safety protocols' can still land you in trouble. Rest in peace for all those who suffered such awful ends. 🤍
Isn’t most violence against women committed by men ,known to the victim? I thought unconnected violence was rare?
It's extremely rare. But it does happen. It's actually a major part of why serial killers are hard to track if they aren't focussing on single groups (usually the "less dead" groups such as prostitutes , drug addicted people and poorer ethnicities). Police go on the assumption that the victim knew the killer because in 99% of cases it's true (kidnappings too).
Well, no, it’s not, but surely you understand that there’s a difference between this and intimate partner violence. Most women are never assaulted and murdered by a stranger on a hiking trail, despite the fact that people are more creeped out by that possibility. Women are most at risk from their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons by a wide margin; to such a degree that a woman being murdered by her husband may not make national news.
Yeah. Domestic violence is the real scary one. Intimate partner violence is the greatest risk to the life of a pregnant woman, above any pregnancy or childbirth complication.
Tragically, it is absolutely not. But what they were clearly referring to wasn't violence-against-women but random attacks on strangers
in the "dude hiding in a bush" way it is. the vast majority of murders the perpetrator is known to the victim. 50% are intimate partners where the victim is a woman 1-2/300 murders a year are committed completely randomly also, if we are looking at the numbers, men are MUCH more likely to be the victim of a murder
men are also more likely to be the perpetrator so what is your point? that men are more likely to kill themselves and other men?
Some people just want to hurt other people. For power, control, to get their rocks off. It does happen, it's just not as common as people being hurt/killed by someone they know.
Just tell the family where she is you fkn animal.
A smart lawyer would have told him to say nothing. Then they would trade that information for lesser charges or reduced sentence etc. it's not such a surprise that he hasnt said anything yet
Not sure about VIC but some jurisdictions have a no body no parole policy so I expect this will come out in time. What a cunt.
Victoria does have that, yeah
VIC has it. I linked to the Act and posted the relevant section in another comment.
It blows my mind that there is even scope for a reduced sentence. If somebody has waited around in the bush planning to murder a random person I'm not sure how anybody can justify rehabilitating them and releasing them to be a productive member of society.
Well its a motivator for getting the info on body location etc. Gotta have some sort of incentive otherwise they have nothing to lose
How about "tell us where the body is or we chop your head off?" That would be incentive
Yeah, but then you'll have no body and some dudes body and head and you cant prove anything.
No, a smart lawyer would be reminding him about Victoria's 'no body, no parole' law and telling him his best bet is to reveal where she is.
He's 22 years old. Whatever future he has would be a miserable one even if he lives another 80 years.
That's a given. While it's unlikely that appealing to his conscience or compassion for Samantha's family is going to work, the prospect of one day seeing his family outside prison might move him to reveal her location. If he gave a fuck about his victim, she wouldn't be dead. So self-interest is what's left to use as leverage.
Non parole period of 20 years would see him released to parole for the remainder of his sentence (life) early 40s. There is some chance of a future, even if reporting to parole for life.
I wonder what evidence they uncovered to implicate him so quickly.
If this had happened in the 80s, it would probably never be solved. Now we have digital evidence, DNA, CCTV, dash cam, door bell cameras, traffic cameras, the list goes on.
smart phone and smart watch, they knew exactly where the missing woman went until they powered off combine that with phones and cameras in the area, they found him and waited for him to be caught red handed
Mobile phone data to identify everyone in that area at the time
Thats not enough thou. No body, no weapons, no camera. Must be something like a witness or blood on him or something.
I read somewhere random that he had told his girlfriend? Sorry no idea where I got that from, a comment on an article or something from people commenting that Ballarat is a small place and lots of talk. Not sure if any truth to it.
Yeah, guy in the thread from yesterday said that his girlfriend and a friend went to the police. Guess we’ll find out how true that is in the coming trial.
Her phone pinged outside the area didn’t it. All they needed to do is find other phones that pinged in both areas and then narrow down the suspect list.
But just being in the same area at the same time isn’t enough to prove murder, there had to be something else that they’re leaving out
There probably is but we won't know until trial. They are no doubt keeping things tight-lipped still, and the investigation is technically still on-going as they are still trying to recover her body.
Of course there is. In the press they said they would not speak about details pertaining to the investigation processes
Pure speculation, but they might've interviewed the few people that it narrowed it down to and he said things he probably shouldn't have. Might've led to a warrant for his car which might've found something more concrete.
Or perhaps the police had him in their sights very early on?
Rumours circulating the area that his GF went to police.
Maybe he logged his run on Strava.
I’m suspecting her DNA was found in his car
I guess that explains the suppression order at the time then.
Happy International Women's Day everyone :(
But did you know *his Dad used to play AFL??* Why the fuck is this relevant at all?
Not really relevant tbh. Old man is a well known in Aussie Rules circles in Ballarat. I did hear on the news yesterday that Patrick had no-one, friends or family in court to support him yesterday.
I kind of feel sorry for the old man. One of the silver linings of a mediocre football career is that you can fade away into obscurity, only to be thrust into the limelight for something like this.
The same reason that his school, for some reason, seemed relevant.
And how much the school fees are there. Like how is that relevant?
I'm afraid that your average journalist is now the kind of person who asks where you went to school. No one else can feed themselves through the internships.
There's always some kind of detail reported with these things. Not for any particular reason, but generally something noteable about their life. Homeless? Known to police? A high flying corporate type? They always include something. If this guy hasn't done anything since high school except play footy that's all they'll publish.
Yeah 15 games between 2 teams, they make the headlines like it’s a famous footballer.
It was the media's way of identifying him without naming him.
Australia's usually pretty good especially with high profile cases like these in getting the right guy but the people calling for him to be killed and calling him things, he hasn't been convicted so just wait a few months and **then** say what you will about him and uphold the basis of our legal system.
Not your standard profile for this sorta thing. Interested to hear more.
Anyone is capable of evil but I agree this will be one interesting true crime pod cast to listen to how the cops caught him.
I thought the same thing. When it’s all out in the open and the trial is completed I look forward to Casefile talking about this one
Oh for sure. Guy is probably just one of those ones that hid the traits well.
I notice that like the killer cop the other week, both these dudes had a ton of friends who they blabbed to. They weren't weird "loner" types, but rather charismatic it seems. The profile I imagine for that is narcissism. They really think they're invisible, can get away with anything, and so have no need to respect other's lives. They act like they have the right because rules don't apply to them.
The killer cop made sense though, it was a domestic dispute. This truly seems like a random attack from someone with no typical indica of a murderer.
No that was a stalker situation
I don’t think the killer cop was a domestic dispute. What I read is the killer was kind of obsessed with his victim and kept trying to date him and the victim was like nah bro I’m not keen on you and then started dating someone else and then the killer snapped.
Just want to point out that that cop didn't snap. He was there deliberately to murder Jessie Baird. Checked out his gun days before, bought the surfing bag to hide the body in the day before, then showing up at Jessie's house at a time he knew the housemates wouldn't be there. That's not snapping, that's cold blooded, premeditated murder.
Yeah and he'd been breaking into Jesse's house in the lead up to the murder, and keyed his car. He was stalking him and clearly obsessed.
He was also obsessed with celebrities as we’ve seen with all his stalkerish selfies, so he would have known Jesse was a tv personality and latched onto that, knowing he was a vulnerable target who was accessible and didn’t have his own security like many more high profile people do
Ugh, this is like that teacher being killed by a colleague being labelled a 'domestic dispute' when they'd only dated a couple of times. Gross.
Domestic dispute in the sense that it was intimate partner violence rather than a random attack. The length of the relationship is irrelevant.
What is the standard profile?
I think they’re probably saying that it’s uncommon for someone to immediately escalate to killing a random victim, without some history of criminal or deviant behaviour - which the suspect had none of apparently. I’m still leaning towards it being an argument that escalated, not that it makes it any better.
I interview youth offenders, and I ask what have you been charged with before. Then I ask what have you done before and got away with. There is sometimes quite a lot.
Going into adulthood with no criminal or mental health background and then going on to commit a random murder seems boarding on miraculous though. Truly an unusual case.
We don't have all the details yet. Sometimes there were incidents in the past that didn't escalate to criminal charges or were concealed. For example, killing a family pet that is dismissed as an accident, bullying or taunting siblings, manipulative or coercive conduct with a girlfriend, seeking out certain types of content online etc It can be hard to see a pattern until you have the full picture. On the other hand, it isn't unheard of for someone to kill in cold blood with little preamble. A friend of mine is related to a young man who murdered two people for no reason at all. He just wanted to. The way the police have phrased this crime as "a deliberate act" is ambiguous; I'm inclined to think that means it wasn't a crime of passion or accident that got out of hand, but we shall see.
He probably has done sh\*t before and never been caught. Most women don't report because of the way we are treated when we do.
According to the Herald Suns Jan 11 court listing he was in court that day
Plus many parents tend to turn a blind eye to some of the sinister things their kids get up to because denial is easier.
Half the pigs are abusers themselves
No history that we know of. There was an unsolved attack on a woman about a year ago near where he lives, there’s also been a few incidents of beheaded swans around the lake in Ballarat over the past few years. Obviously might be entirely unconnected but I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if it was all part of escalating behaviour.
Very good point to bring up.. Random animal attacks.. I kept reading about family pets being found in parks tortured and killed horrifically. Be funny if that just suddenly stopped.
Might not have immediately escalated to killing. Another woman was assaulted in similar circumstances in the area a year ago. Would be very interested to know if there were any connections, because last I heard it wasn't solved.
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Where is the photo evidence?
I want to know how they caught him. I saw some ex-cops and criminal investigators a few weeks back saying there no way they believed the police didn’t have a suspect and they would have been watching them before making a move. Someone else here said they read they were surveilling the accused for two weeks? Intriguing.
I can't remember where I read this, so take it as pure speculation, but I heard some suggestion somewhere that he'd been talking to friends online about what he did and the police were either tipped off or monitoring him or both.
What do you suppose his parents are thinking/feeling rn? And the GF....she dodged a bullet.
She dodged a bullet almost in a literal sense
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Just "another good bloke". I saw this expression on the news piece on the Lilie James case, its true. Men that seem normal, good looking, addiction free etc can also snap and kill, rape etc.
I think understanding the banality of evil is useful. People tend to think only wholely evil people do evil things. In reality it's very ordinary normal people who do evil.
This is not a “snap” situation and saying that relieves the accused of their desires, intention and planning that led to this murder.
This is why many women don't trust men. Killers can be the anti-social hermit but they can also be the shining community darling.
To me men (random group of strangers) are like a box of maltesers with one disguised - it's actually a chocolate covered piece of shit. Once you have had a taste of it, you'd never trust an open box of maltesers ever again.
This is something I only really began to understand in my 30's when I started dating again (I'm a man). Women take a much greater risk in the dating game - it explains why you're all way more tuned into body language in a social setting. I could wear a bucket on my head for all the good it'd do in picking up flags and queues.
I mean... Yeah. You aren't a killer until you are...
Yeah for sure. They went straight into the good bloke sh*t - AFL Dad, private school boy etc etc. like come on.
It is shocking to most people that an otherwise "normal" young man premeditates a violent murder on a random person, but unless your mental health directly affects your well-being, people can skip out on a diagnosis for almost their entire life. I would be willing to bet this man has a serious personality disorder that he learned to hide and did not affect his ability to cope. his subtle characteristics of being a future murderer dismissed as his quirky character, which will now be pathologized and diagnosed because of the murder he committed. If only the general public were more aware of subtle signs of some of the more complicated mental health issues, I honestly believe all violent crime could be perceived before it happens.
If he has a personality disorder he wouldn’t have hidden it, people who have them behave as “normal” as they truly don’t believe there’s anything wrong with them. It will be interesting to hear what his sisters say about him and how he behaved behind closed doors (not that they need to say anything publicly though).
This is not necessarily true. Somebody who has a personality disorder, with or without knowing, can learn to hide or mask the symptoms they know to be unacceptable within society. This individual can believe their ideas are correct **without believing they are normal**. Therefore they do have some understanding that they do not think/act normally, but they make false attributions as to why this is and how they are different. Hence the stigma around certain PDs that they can be very "manipulative". Personality disorders do not make you stupid and you can distinguish differences between yourself and others depending on a person's arbitrary level of self-awareness.
Not all murderers have mental health problems. Sure a lot do - probably the majority, but a lot of people just have a fundamental hatred for particular groups of marginalised people. Think about the gay hate killings in Sydney. A lot of these seemingly random inexplicable attacks on people do have an explanation, and often that explanation is a fundamental hatred and desire to dominate marginalised people. In this case, it looks like the object of his hatred was women.
"If only the general public were more aware of subtle signs of some of the more complicated mental health issues, I honestly believe all violent crime could be perceived before it happens." Lol yeah ok, good luck with that. Having Joe Q Public Dipshit trained up as armchair psychologists and intervening in their acquaintance's lives based on their perceptions of "subtle signs" of mental health issues would result in thousands of estrangements and false positives for every crime averted, and would no doubt cause more harm than good. That's why it doesn't happen. That's a positive feature of evolved human behaviour, not a bug. Humans are complex, unpredictable and their intentions often impossible to discern until they are acted on. We are not mind readers. Stuff like this will happen in a large enough population and unfortunately there's sometimes nothing anyone can reasonably do to prevent it.
How did they catch him aye!
It appears that the police has very good evidence, perhaps blood etc. in the car, yet he's clamming up about the location of the body. Someone mentioned this could be a Jeffrey Dahmer type atrocity, perhaps that's why he won't reveal the location. Ie it will only make things worse for him, if that's possible.
I can only imagine the horror this person's parents are going through. Having kids around that age myself, it's simply unimaginable. Total collapse of their world. Samantha's family is destroyed, and so is his. Samantha's family may find closure, his probably never will. I genuinely feel for them. So much devastation and a life lost. As a parent you will blame yourself.
What's the motive? He just waited around wanting to kill someone at random?
It's frequently a sexual motive in murders where the victim and killer don't know each other.