20th Murderer: Paul Haigh - Victims: Evelyn Adams, Bruno Cingolani, Wayne Keith Smith, Sheryle Gardner, Danny Mitchell, Lisa Brearley and Donald George Hatherley a fellow inmate
Paul Haigh, born Sept 1957, murdered six innocent people in 1979 in a series of shootings and stabbings, including a 10-year-old boy.
Paul Steven Haigh killed 7 people, incl a 9 year old boy
During separate robberies in 1978, he shot dead Windsor Tattslotto agency worker, Evelyn Abrahams, 58, and Caulfield pizza shop owner and family man Bruno Cingolani, 45.
In June 1979, Haigh shot dead in his Melbourne flat his associate, Wayne Smith, 27, so he “wouldn’t look weak” in front of accomplices, the Herald Sun reported.
The next month in Ripponlea, he shot dead Sheryle Gardner, 31, in a car to “shut her loosened, troublemaking mouth”. Her young son, Danny, was killed because he was a witness who had to be removed.
Sheryle Gardner, 31 and her son, Danny Mitchell, 9
Haigh murdered his girlfriend, Lisa Brearley, 19, after allowing another man to rape her. A court heard he stabbed her 157 times, later writing that “I only intended to do 20, but I lost count”. Of his slain partner he said: “Lisa became a loose end.”
Lisa
Maude Brearley, 19 Wayne
Smith, 37
In late 1979, Haigh was jailed for six life sentences without the possibility of parole for the brutal murders that the prosecution described as "pre-meditated, cold-blooded, and vile."
In 1991, while incarcerated, Haigh struck again when he lynched a sex offender in Pentridge Prison. It was years later that he found his spiritual awakening in the form of Paganism. Haigh's last victim was sex offender, Donald George Hatherley, whom Haigh murdered in a jail cell at Pentridge Prison in 1991. Haigh claimed he "assisted" Hatherley to commit suicide by placing a noose around his neck, kicking a cupboard out from under him then pushing down on Hatherley's shoulders. A jury found Haigh guilty of Hatherley's murder.
Paul Haigh is 63. He has been in jail for 41 years. Should he live until his mid-70s, he will have been in jail for 53 years. Based on the average annual cost of Maximum Security Incarceration in 2020, Paul Haigh will have cost the Victorian taxpayer $9.275 million circa ($175,000 p.a. x 53 years).