73rd Murderer: John Ernest Cribb - Victims: Valda Connell, 39, and her children Sally, 10 and Damien 4
John Ernest Cribb (5 Aug 1950 – 21 Feb 2018) was an Australian triple murderer from Sydney. At the time of his death in Feb. 2018, Cribb was serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment, plus 45 years for the rape and murder of Valda Connell and the murder of her two children, Sally and Damien, at Swansea, NSW, on 11 Aug 1978 and numerous other offences.
Cribb was on parole in August 1978, after having served six years of a nine-year sentence for armed robbery. He broke into the Connell family's Baulkham Hills home. When he came out at about 3 pm, Valda Connell, 39, had just come home in her car with two of her six children, Sally (aged 10) and Damien (aged 4). He kidnapped them and drove north. He later rang Valda's husband, Paul, from a phonebox and said he had been having an affair with Valda, who had now run away with him to Queensland.
Valda Connell, 39
Sally Connell, 10 and Damien Connell 4
He drove the three more than 300km to Elands, on the mid north coast, where he stopped at a picnic ground near Ellenborough Falls.
There he raped Mrs. Connell in front of the children, tied them all up and stabbed each to death. He put the bodies in the boot of the car and dumped it at Swansea, near Newcastle.
John Ernest Cribb
Cribb died in jail aged 67 . He was behind bars for 46 years, when an additional 6 years' jail is included from earlier offences. Cribb committed the above three murderers whilst on parole.
Based on the average annual cost of Maximum Security Incarceration in 2020, Cribb's jail incarceration of 46 years cost the NSW taxpayer $8.05 million circa ($175,000 p.a. X 46 years).