Valmae Beck aka Fay Cramb was convicted for her part in the rape, torture and murder of Sian Kingi in 1987. Picture: HWT library Source: HWT Image Library
Judy Moran arrives at the Supreme Court for an appeal over the murder of brother-in-law Des Moran. Picture: HWT library Source: Herald Sun
Storm Brooke is infamous for what is believed to be the only murder inside a women's prison in Australia. Picture: HWT library
Victim Sian Kingi was enticed from a Noosa park by Valmae Beck, who pretended she was looking for her dog. Picture: HWT library Source: HWT Image Library
CHILD-killer Valmae Beck's role in luring a schoolgirl to her death earned her notoriety and hatred throughout the country.
In 1987 Beck enticed 12-year-old Sian Kingi from a Noosa park by pretending she was looking for her dog.
Her husband Barrie Watts then grabbed Sian and drove her to bushland, where he raped, stabbed and strangled her.
Beck and Watts were convicted of Sian’s murder, and police always suspected the couple’s involvement in other abductions and murders.
After being jailed for life Beck changed her name to Fay Cramb and became very religious.
But prison authorities had to move her to a different jail after attacks from other inmates left her with nerve damage, including one incident where Beck was bashed with a jam tin inside a sock.
After being ostracised by other inmates Beck – who was reportedly moved out of her kitchen job when her weight reached more than 150kg - became pen pals with child rapist Robert Fardon.
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They corresponded for eight years after meeting at a “lifers picnic” arranged for inmates in 1993.
In 1998 Fardon – who raped a 12-year-old girl and a woman in the 1970s – tried to get permission to buy Beck an engagement ring.
Beck died in a Townsville hospital in 2008.
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What is believed to have been the only murder committed inside an Australian women’s prison also took place in Queensland, at Brisbane’s Boggo Road jail.
Severe overcrowding saw violence erupt on January 7, 1990, when armed robber Storm Brooke grabbed a sharpened barbecue fork and repeatedly stabbed fellow prisoner Debbie Dick in the back.
Dick’s friend Deb Kilroy managed to fend off Brooke with a chair that she smashed over her.
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Brooke spent more than a year in isolation following the murder.
Brooke was given life for Dick’s murder, but in 1993 broke out of jail using a rope made of knotted sheets.
She scaled a 5m high wall and a fence and spent two months on the run before being recaptured in a raid on a Gold Coast house.
Kilroy, who was serving a sentence for drug offences, later went on to form the support group Sisters Inside, and wrote a book her experiences in jail and how she had turned her life around.
Victoria’s “Body in the Boot” assailant Tania Herman is prepared to admit she’s a wannabe killer – she admitting strangling her lover’s wife and leaving her for dead in a car boot.
But the former triathlete will meet any suggestion she might now be a prison “top dog” with outrage.
Herman used a bag strap to strangle Maria Korp in 2005.
Ms Korp, 50, died months later when her life support was switched off.
Herman pleaded guilty to attempted murder and offered to give evidence against Ms Korp’s husband Joe, whom she had met on an internet dating site.
She claimed she had no idea he was married at first, and was later seduced into killing his wife.
Korp took his own life before Herman could give evidence.
Herman was recently refused permission to marry her lover, fraudster Nicole Muscat, behind bars at Tarrengower Women’s Prison.
Before that she had shared a cell at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre with Bernadette Denny, who was involved in the killing of swinger millionaire Herman Rockefeller.
Herman was interviewed for Rochelle Jackson’s book, Partners and Crime, in which she revealed she was studying for a fine arts degree and enjoys cooking.
But claims from prison sources that Herman and ailing gangland matriarch Judy Moran had battled for control inside Dame Phyllis Frost Centre “deeply hurt” her during Moran’s bid for bail in 2010.
Herman provided an affidavit stating she had never spoken to Moran in jail, and denying they were in a turf war. The mere suggestion “defamed our solid and good reputations”, Herman said.
Moran, a former showgirl and mother of slain gangsters Jason and Mark Moran, was later convicted of the murder of her brother-in-law Des Moran.
Now using a wheelchair, Moran had been a talented dancer as a young woman and earned spots on several television shows in the 1960s.
Inmates claimed she was exaggerating her physical ailments, allegedly leading to a spat in which Moran drove over the foot of another prisoner.
Her first husband, Les Cole, was murdered in 1982. Her former de facto husband, Lewis Moran, was also executed in 2004.
