Sadistic killer behind a Boxing Day rape and murder that sparked a horrific 'ripple effect' is back behind bars seven months after he was controversially RELEASED despite warnings he would strike again
A sadistic killer behind a Boxing Day rape and murder is back behind bars seven months after he was controversially released.
Mark Richard Lawrence, 59, was let out on parole from Brisbane Correctional Centre in May after 36 years.
He was jailed in 1983 for strangling Julie Anne Muirhead, 29, and slashing her throat and kept locked up indefinitely under dangerous prisoner laws since 2008.
After a dozen attempts, the Queensland Supreme Court ordered his release in April and state Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath declined to appeal.
But not even a year from his release, Lawrence was arrested by police on a warrant to protect the community from dangerous sex offenders and sent back to jail.
Julie Ann Muirhead, 29, was raped and murdered then her body burned after she was lured away from Wolston Park Hospital in Brisbane by the promise of beer
He appeared in the Supreme Court before Justice Peter Davis via video link on Sunday, The Courier-Mail reported.
The court heard Corrective Services suspect Lawrence is likely to contravene an order governing the provisions of his release, which includes attending psychological appointments.
The 59-year-old was released under 59 strict strict conditions and lived at a facility near the prison housing some of Australia's worst sex offenders.
Justice Davis said there would be grave consequences if Lawrence were to reoffend but he believed the likelihood was low.
This was despite numerous expert psychological reports tendered to the court in several parole attempts stating the exact opposite.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton was outraged the sadistic sex monster was released from prison despite those warnings that he would kill again.
Mr Dutton told Daily Mail Australia in May that Lawrence is a 'dangerous sexual predator' who should die behind bars.
Lawrence, now 59, has previously confessed that he had 'always wanted to kill a girl' and told one doctor that he 'tried to kill his 12-year-old sister'
'I am deeply disappointed to hear he has been released from custody,' Mr Dutton said.
'There is no form of community detention strict enough to keep Queenslanders safe from this criminal.
'Premier Palaszczuk must explain to Queenslanders why this has happened and what she is going to do to fix it.'
Lawrence, then 22, lured Julie out of Wolston Park Hospital in Brisbane, where both were involuntary patients at a psychiatric ward, with the promise of beer.
He led her to a river bank where he choked her with a tea towel, raped her, and slashed her throat with a broken bottle before burning her body.
Justice Helen Bowskill ordered his release early this year despite numerous psychiatrists warning he is 'very likely' to rape and murder another woman.
She was swayed by him agreeing to take anti-libido drugs that reduce his testosterone level, which he began using in 2018.
Lawrence has previously confessed that he had 'always wanted to kill a girl' and told one doctor that he 'tried to kill his 12-year-old sister'.
Julie's body was finally found days after her murder, badly burned with her underwear around her ankles
The brutal murder of Julie Muirhead
On Boxing Day in 1983, Mark Richard Lawrence lured Julie Muirhead from Wolston Park Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in the Queensland suburb of Wacol, and brutally raped her before slitting her throat and burning her body.
Ms Muirhead, 29, was discovered on January 4, more than a week after the attack, half-naked and with a tea towel wrapped around her neck.
When her corpse was found badly burned with her underwear around her ankles, her parents had to identify it.
Lawrence and his co-accused pleaded guilty to manslaughter, avoiding murder trials, and he was jailed for 15 years.
The sadistic murderer was due to be released from jail on February 7, 2008, after serving a further seven-year sentence for the rape of a prisoner in 1999.
Since then his sentence has been extended under laws keeping dangerous sex offenders in jail.
Psychiatric reports have for years in no uncertain terms warned against Lawrence seeing the light of day.
At the hearing in March this year, a psychiatrist told the court that there was an unacceptable risk he would kill again.
'Should reoffend there is potential for the offence behaviour to be very serious, namely the committal of a sexually sadistic ,' they said.
Julie's niece Sarah, 35, said if two psychiatric reports said Lawrence was no longer a danger, she wouldn't oppose his release.
'But according to all of the documents tendered to the court, there's a high risk someone else will suffer,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
'He raped another inmate in prison without any fear of consequences. He doesn't care if he ends up in jail again, he just wants to opportunity to reoffend.'
Sarah's family are proof of the terrible consequences of letting Lawrence out of jail.
'I was born into the aftermath, my family had not even begun to recover. Her murder affected every single aspect of my childhood, my life,' she said.
Her niece Sarah Muirhead, 35, described the ripple effect from Julie's murder that shattered four generations of her family and defined her whole life
Lawrence was 22 when he lured Julie, 29, out of Wolston Park Hospital in Brisbane, where both were involuntary patients at a psychiatric ward, with the promise of beer
The heinous crime sent her entire family into a downward spiral that 'shattered' the lives of four generations and left Sarah's mother a paranoid wreck.
She was just 10 years old when she found out her aunt had been brutally murdered and raped by the depraved sex monster.
Confused as to why she wasn't allowed to go to sleepovers like her friends, she kept nagging her mother to let her go - until one day her mum just snapped.
'My mum just stopped the car in the middle of the road and started screaming and crying and said 'do you know what happened to auntie Julie? This animal he raped her and he murdered her',' she recalled.
'There was traffic going all around us beeping their horns and she was just sobbing uncontrollably into the steering wheel.
'I can still hear the wobble in her voice and the howling and I didn't understand.'
Sarah's first memory as a toddler is her mother failing to resuscitate her grandmother Ann on the bathroom floor after she drowned herself out of grief.
'I just remember screaming and screaming and my mum trying to get the water out of her chest but she couldn't,' Sarah said.
Julie with her sisters including Sarah's mother , along with their mother Ann who drowned herself in 1987 out of grief
Sarah said her mother had a caesarean on January 25, 1985, the day before Julie's birthday, because she was afraid Sarah would be born on the same day.
'In my mum's mind that meant something bad would happen to me. From before I was born I never had a chance at a normal life because of this man,' she said.
'With my birthday the day before it was never a proper birthday because the next day it was hers.
'And because Julie was murdered on Boxing Day, every single Christmas was horrendous. Everyone was in tears and arguing with each other while trying to make the day normal - but it never could be.'
Sarah's father left her mother while she was pregnant amid the strain of Julie's death, forcing them to move in with her grandparents.
'Because I looked so much like Julie growing up, my poor grandfather had to look at me every single day and see his daughter who was gone,' she said.
'It made it really hard for him to bond with me, he didn't want to look at me.'
Sarah's mother was so traumatised by her sister's murder that she lived in debilitating fear that her daughter could suffer the same fate.
'I was never allowed to go to friends' houses because my mum was terrified that their fathers or their brothers would do something to me,' she said.
Sarah, 35, said she learned from a news article Lawrence was to be released after more than a dozen attempts - none of which her family was allowed to address. Lawrence has since been arrested
Mark Lawrence's crimes and their horrific ripple effect
Late 1970s: Lawrence is given a series of slaps on the wrist for assaults on teenagers
1981: Lawrence is sent to Wolston Park Hospital but escapes by holding a knife to a taxi driver's throat
December 26, 1983: Back at Wolston, Lawrence rapes and murders Julie Ann Muirhead
January 25, 1985: Sarah Muirhead is born the day before her aunt Julie's birthday
1987: Ann Muirhead, Julie's distraught mother, drowns herself in the bath
1991: Lawrence briefly escapes from jail during an excursion to the tennis
1995: Sarah, aged 10, is told what happened to her aunt
1999: Lawrence is jailed for another seven years for raping an inmate
2003: Sarah, aged 18, leaves Brisbane to escape her family's sadness
July 7, 2008: Lawrence is due for release but is kept in jail by serious offender laws
2014: After numerous attempts, Supreme Court orders Lawrence be released, government appeals
2016: At another appeal, psychiatrist says that given 'the slightest degree of freedom', Lawrence was a 'very high risk' of reoffending
2018: Lawrence begins taking anti-libido medicine to lower sexual urges
Early 2020: Lawrence is charged with attempting to rape underage boys in Dec 1976 to July 1977
March 2020: Court hears Lawrence was at risk of committing 'sexually sadistic' killings if released
April 2020: Lawrence wins his bid for freedom
December 2020: Lawrence is arrested
'I wasn't allowed to play out in the street or ride my bike, even in my early teens.
'I've never been able to trust men and never will, because I was taught not to every day for the first 18 years of my life.
'She told me over and over again that any man could kill me and she would physically keep me away from all the males at any social gathering, even with family, and I had no idea why.'
Now with an 11-year-old daughter of her own, she realises that if she was in her mother's position, she would have done the same thing.
But as a teenager she felt suffocated by the constant sadness and left Brisbane with little more than the clothes on her back aged 18.
'I needed to start a new life. I have no photos of myself as a child, I couldn't have any visual reminders around, it's the only way I can life my life,' she said.
However, her mother never recovered and was trapped in what Sarah likens to an 'invisible prison', straining relations to breaking point.
'I don't even know if my mother is still alive, I haven't spoken to her since 2016. I know that sounds terrible but my family really did shatter,' she said.
Sarah said she was, with the help of a family psychologist, trying to give her daughter as close to a normal life as possible far from Brisbane in Sydney.
But though the young girl is 'independent and headstrong', Sarah said she couldn't help passing down a 'hyper-vigilance' that made her old then her years.
'She's always been very aware of what's right and wrong for adults. She'll tell my husband or anyone else off if she sees them behaving inappropriately,' she said.
'One of her friends told her she was raped by a family member and she immediately brought it to me. Other 11-year-olds wouldn't know what to do, but she did.'
Lawrence and his co-accused pleaded guilty to manslaughter, avoiding murder trials, and he was jailed for 15 years.
Another seven years was added on when he raped a fellow inmate in his dormitory-style prison in October 1999.
'Don't make a noise, because I'll kill you,' he said during the rape, and after told him: 'I'll be watching you. And remember, I'm a psychopathic murderer.'
By 2008 he Lawrence was eligible for parole but authorities used the Dangerous Prisoner (Sexual Offender) Act to lock him up indefinitely.
Sarah said mother was so traumatised by her sister's murder that she lived in debilitating fear that her daughter could suffer the same fate - leading her to tightly control her childhood
Sarah's mother, pictured when she was 24, was the younger sister to Julie and looked up to her
Sarah now lives in Sydney and is married with a 11-year-old daughter (both pictured with her but not identified at her request)
He appealed numerous times, even all the way to the High Court, but was denied until 2014 when the Supreme Court said he should be released under strict conditions.
Then-Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie successfully appealed and several more bids failed, but last month Justice Helen Bowskill ordered his release.
Justice Bowskill was swayed by Lawrence agreeing to 59 strict conditions including taking an anti-libido drug that lowered his testosterone.
He took it for a year in 1991 but stopped when he started growing breasts. In 2018 he started it again in the hopes of winning freedom.
'I was turning into a female,' he told the court.
'If it's got to make us, everyone, safe… I'm happy to take these medications and abide by the law.'
Lawrence serious crimes may go back to 44 years as earlier this year he was hit with a slew of other charges including attempting to rape underage boys in 1976-77.
The charges include indecent treatment of boys under 17 assault with intent to commit unlawful anal, two counts of attempted sodomy, assault, deprivation of, and two counts of making threats.
Mark Lawrence's release conditions
Must report to corrective services officers and allow them inside his home whenever they show up
Must receive regular injections of anti-libido medication Goserelin Acetate from his GP
Testosterone level must stay below three nmol/L (nanomoles per litre) in monthly blood tests, or whenever officers demand
Banned from contacting victims or children under 16 by any means
Banned from schools or childcare centre, anywhere near a playground or child minding area, public parks, or shopping centres, and can't join or participate in any organisation involving children
Must not collect photos, videos, or magazines which have images of children in them
Needs written permission to watch or look at pornography
Must develop a 'management plan' with his psychologist and/or psychiatrist to address any risk of him committing a sexual offence
Must give officers a plan of everything he wants to do in a week and will be told when and how to do it
Must live where officers tell him, wear an ankle monitor at all times, and may be subject to a curfew
Banned from leaving Queensland without written permission
Needs written permission to work, study, or volunteer - which he must stop if told to do so
Only allowed to have one phone and the password must be provided to officers who can look through it at any time
Needs written permission to access internet and must hand over user names and passwords for his email, and instant messenger, chat room, social media accounts
Can't go to pubs, clubs, nightclubs without written permission, or any business only licenced to sell alcohol
Banned from drinking alcohol or taking drugs at all and will be subjected to saliva, urine, and blood tests on demand.
Must tell officers about any sex partners or new friends and acquaintances, and be directed to tell them his criminal history
Must notify officers if he has contact more than once with the parent or guardian of a child. Officers may then tell them about his history