A heartbroken father found his daughter and her friend dead on a beach after knocking on the door in the days before Halloween. The police soon found the vile murderer.
Two girls were raped and murdered on a beach after knocking on doors in the days before Halloween.
Patricia Leedie, 9, and Leanne Oliver, 10, were outside trying to earn some pocket money. While Oliver’s parents were at a Sunday afternoon barbecue in a neighbor’s backyard, the girls decided to go knock on the door.
The friends were no strangers to doing odd jobs for a bit of money: they had previously asked their neighbors if they could do some housework for money. But that fateful day of October 29, 1995, they did not return home.
Both girls were last seen around 3pm that day. At 7 p.m., he was reported missing and a major search began. Authorities searched the area until midnight and resumed the search at dawn. the express we information.
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Alby Oliver, Leanne’s father, was the first to discover the girls that morning, approximately 12 hours after they disappeared. Their partially clothed bodies were found side by side in the sand dunes of Warana Beach.
Post-mortem examinations later revealed that both girls had been sexually assaulted, ABC reports. Police began questioning residents and barbecue attendees as they attempted to piece together the day’s events and solve the double murder.
Shortly afterwards, a wallet belonging to Paul Stephen Osborne, 27, a worker from Wurtulla, who had previously served time for sexually assaulting a teenage girl, was found on the beach near where the girls’ bodies were discovered.
Osborne had attended the same barbecue as Leanne’s parents on the afternoon of the murders and was later seen heading to the beach. Police interviewed Osborne the same night they discovered the girls and charged him with their murders that same night.
The horrific attack sparked a public outcry which necessitated increased security at Maroochydore Magistrates Court on the day of his trial.
At the same time, relatives of both girls and some family friends shed tears as they waited for the process to begin. When Osborne was brought into the courtroom, attendees shouted insults at him, causing many to be kicked out of the gallery, according to ABC.
Osborne admitted all charges and received two life sentences for the murders and two 18-year sentences for the rapes. He remains a restricted prisoner due to the severity of his crimes.
Even after three decades, the Warana community, located north of Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast region of Queensland, Australia, is still grappling with one of the most gruesome crimes it has ever witnessed. Osborne was recently denied parole and will not be eligible for release for at least another eight years.
When Supreme Court Justice Glen Williams handed him two life sentences for murder and two 18-year sentences for rape, he said Osborne should never be released.
Although he was eligible for parole in 2020, he was denied. Queensland Parole Board chairman Michael Byrne announced Osborne would not be allowed to reapply for parole until at least May 22, 2032.
Byrne acknowledged the seriousness of the crimes, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, emphasizing the risk that Osborne’s release would pose to the public.
