Coombes was born in 1954 in Victoria. On February 26, 1984 he killed Michael Speirani, twenty, by running over him with a motorboat; the body was never recovered. In November 1984 he killed Henry Kells, forty-four, and dismembered the body.
He was convicted in connection with the 1984 offences and served a prison sentence. He was at liberty again by 2009.
On August 12, 2009 he killed Raechel Betts, twenty-seven, strangling her and dismembering the body, which he disposed of in a rural area.
He was convicted and sentenced on August 26, 2011 to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole, the sentencing judge describing him as a man who should never be released.
The gap is the case: twenty-five years between the first killings and the last, with a released prisoner in between. Michael Speirani's remains have never been found, which for his family is the unresolved part and is recorded here for that reason.