41st Murderer, Roger Dean – Victims: Dorothy Wu, 85 / Alma Smith, 73 / Reginald Green, 87 / Lola Bennett, 86 / Ella Wood, 97 / Urbana Alipio, 79 / Caesar Galea, 82 / Doris Becke, 96 / Verna Webeck, 83 / Dorothy Sterling, 80 / Neeltje Valkay, 90
Roger Dean was a nurse who was convicted of murdering 11 nursing home residents in a fire at Quakers Hill, in Sydney’s northwest in 2011, and has been jailed for life without parole.
Judge Megan Latham of the NSW Supreme Court said Dean’s crimes were in the worst category.
“The pain and terror suffered by all of the victims must have been horrific. A worse fate is difficult to imagine,” she said.
Some of his victims died in the fire, but others died agonising deaths in the days after in hospital.
When he was interviewed by police, Dean said he loved the residents but he had been “corrupted with evil thoughts” and claimed “Satan” was talking to him.
Dean, now 44, is unlikely to ever be released from jail. He has been behind bars for 8½ years. Based on the average annual cost of Maximum Security Incarceration in 2020, should Dean live another 31 years to 75, his jail incarceration of 39½ years will have cost the NSW taxpayer $8.4 million circa ($175,000 p.a. X 50 years).