John Leslie Coombes was a man from Preston, in Melbourne's north, who pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria in May 2011 to murdering Raechel Betts, a 27-year-old childcare worker. The killing took place on Phillip Island in August 2009. When he entered his plea, the court and the public learned that he had already served more than 20 years in prison for two other murders, and that he had been on parole for them when Raechel Betts died. ABC News described him from then on as a man with three murder convictions.
In August 2011 Justice Geoffrey Nettle sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. The judge found no remorse and said he posed a real risk of killing again. In December 2011 a judge of the Court of Appeal refused his application for leave to appeal against that sentence.
Raechel Betts was 27. ABC News, drawing on court proceedings, described her as a childcare worker, and most reports gave her home as Epping, a suburb on the northern edge of Melbourne; one 2011 report gave Heidelberg Heights. Her first name is spelled Raechel in most reports, including captions credited to Victoria Police; some ABC reports printed it as Rachael or Rachel.
Her family stayed in the public eye throughout the case. Her grandfather, Neville Betts, appealed for information while she was still unaccounted for and spoke again after each stage in court. Her mother addressed the court before sentence, and her younger sister spoke to reporters on the day Coombes was sentenced.
Raechel Betts was last seen in early August 2009. Police later gave the date as August 11 and the place as Preston, a suburb in Melbourne's north. In September 2009 ABC News reported that she had told friends she was going to meet someone at shops in Heidelberg Heights, a neighboring suburb.
On September 17, 2009, police announced that Raechel Betts had been found dead on Phillip Island. Homicide detectives were investigating.
By late October 2009 detectives believed they were close to identifying the person responsible. On October 27 ABC News reported that police now thought she had been killed by a man she had planned to go away with. Detective Senior Sergeant David Snare said the investigators had made significant progress and were very close to identifying her killers, and that it was in the community's interest that whoever was responsible for what he called a brutal murder be caught.
Two calls to Crime Stoppers had given police useful information, and detectives asked both callers to make contact again. The first, in early September, concerned the man she had planned to travel with. The second, about two weeks before the appeal, reported a small white car seen on Phillip Island shortly after she disappeared; the car had been on the island for several days. Police released a picture of the car and went to the island to ask residents and visitors for more information.
Her grandfather urged anyone who knew something to come forward. "The family's been of the opinion all along that whoever she went with, her friends, knew," he told ABC News. He said the family was particularly excited by the calls to Crime Stoppers. He suggested that friends who knew who she had left with might have kept silent out of fear or loyalty.
On November 2, 2009, John Leslie Coombes, then reported as 55 and living in Preston, appeared at an out-of-sessions court hearing in Melbourne charged with the murder of Raechel Betts. The hearing was told that he had been with her at a house on Phillip Island when they argued, and police alleged that he strangled her and disposed of her body in the sea.
Three other people appeared at the same hearing. A 26-year-old woman was charged with being an accessory to murder. A 54-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man were each charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. ABC television news reported the next morning that Melbourne police were interviewing four men in connection with the case, a description that does not match the court list.
On November 4, 2009, Coombes appeared in court again and was remanded in custody. ABC News reported that two of the others charged were alleged to have lied to police about where he had been before his arrest that week. The case was adjourned to the following year, and a fourth person charged was due in court that Friday.
Coombes first pleaded not guilty. His committal hearing began in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in February 2011, and by then ABC News reported three other people charged over her death, among them his former partner and his girlfriend. On the first day the court heard allegations about the victim's own conduct.
On May 2, 2011, Coombes, now 56, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria to the murder. The court heard that he had killed her on Phillip Island in August 2009. It was at this hearing that his record became public: he had already spent more than 20 years in prison for two other murders. The family said it was relieved by the plea.
Two weeks later one of those charged with protecting Coombes was sentenced. On May 16, 2011, Ryan Buscema, 27, of Mill Park, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to attempting to pervert the course of justice. He had given police false statements to help Coombes avoid detection. The court accepted that Buscema believed he was covering up drug trafficking, not a killing.
Justice Nettle described the offending as relatively serious. "Your offending was intended to shield a drug trafficker and instead shielded a murderer," he told Buscema. Taking into account his remorse, his work record, his close family and his willingness to assist the prosecution, the judge imposed a two-and-a-half-year prison term, wholly suspended.
What became of the cases against the others charged in 2009 has not been reported.
The plea hearing before Justice Nettle took place in June 2011. Prosecutors asked for life imprisonment with no parole. Coombes's lawyer told the court that his client had not intended to kill her.
The court heard that Coombes had become angry after something she told him about two teenagers, and a psychologist gave evidence that the killing was directly related to abuse Coombes had suffered as a child.
The hearing also went back over his earlier sentence. In 1985, the court was told, he had been jailed for life with no parole. He was later granted a minimum term, and that minimum term was what had allowed him to be released.
Raechel Betts's mother, Sandra Betts, told the court that the justice system had failed her daughter. Outside court she said Coombes should not be allowed back into society. She did not want him released, she said, and did not believe society could ever regard it as safe to release him.
Justice Nettle sentenced Coombes on August 26, 2011, to life imprisonment without parole. The facts set out in court were that Raechel Betts had argued with him and that he had strangled her.
The judge found that Coombes had shown no remorse. He spoke of the "depraved inhumanity" of what had been done, and he found that there was a real risk Coombes would kill again.
After the sentence, Sandra Betts said that her daughter's killer should never have had the chance to kill again, and she called Coombes a manipulator and a liar. "No matter how many times a lie is stated, it does not become the truth," she said. "I am now stating the truth to put to rest the lies he has told." Of the sentence she added: "May he never be released and never have a chance to harm another being, human or animal."
Raechel's sister, who was 18, said the case had devastated the family. "It's been pretty hard hearing the details," she said. She said Coombes had lied throughout and had changed his story about four times. "His history is just disgusting, the things he's done to people," she said, adding that she thought he would do it again if he could.
Coombes sought leave to appeal against the sentence. He argued that his guilty plea and his remorse should have earned him a minimum term. On December 8, 2011, Justice Bernard Bongiorno, sitting alone in the Court of Appeal, refused the application and said he agreed with the sentence Justice Nettle had imposed. ABC News, reporting the decision through Australian Associated Press, said Coombes could still have the application heard by three judges of the Court of Appeal.
Neville Betts, Raechel's grandfather, said the family was still suffering and that the decision was fair.
Only the outline of Coombes's earlier record emerged in the 2011 case. He had served more than 20 years in prison for two murders. For the first sentence, imposed in 1985, he had received life with no parole; a minimum term granted later made his release possible, and he was on parole for those murders when Raechel Betts was killed in 2009. The names of the two earlier victims, and when and how they were killed, have not been reported.
The reports differ on some details. Raechel Betts's home suburb is given as Epping in the 2009 reports and in the sentencing report, and as Heidelberg Heights in the report of the guilty plea. Her first name appears as Raechel, Rachael and Rachel in ABC coverage.
The place she was last seen is given as Preston, on August 11, by police in October and November 2009; a September 2009 report said she had told friends she was meeting someone at shops in Heidelberg Heights.
Early reports on the arrests also conflict. A television news summary on November 3, 2009 said police were interviewing four men, while the court reports of November 2 and 4 named one man charged with murder and three other people, two of them women, charged with lesser offenses.
What angered Coombes on the night of the killing rests on what the court heard at the plea hearing. His own accounts changed; the victim's sister said he had told his story about four different ways.
On December 8, 2011, Coombes was serving a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, his application for leave to appeal having been refused by a single judge of the Court of Appeal.
1985: Jailed for life with no parole for murder, as the Supreme Court heard in 2011; a minimum term was later granted, allowing his release.
By 2009: Released on parole for two murders, for which he had served more than 20 years in prison.
August 11, 2009: Raechel Betts, 27, last seen in Preston, Melbourne.
August 2009: She is killed on Phillip Island.
September 17, 2009: Police announce that she has been found dead on Phillip Island.
October 27, 2009: Police say they are close to identifying a suspect and appeal to two Crime Stoppers callers.
November 2, 2009: Coombes, 55, of Preston, charged with her murder; three others charged with lesser offenses.
November 4, 2009: Coombes remanded in custody.
February 2011: Committal hearing begins in the Melbourne Magistrates Court; Coombes pleads not guilty.
May 2, 2011: Pleads guilty to murder in the Supreme Court of Victoria; his two earlier murder convictions become public.
May 16, 2011: Ryan Buscema receives a wholly suspended sentence for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
June 2011: Plea hearing; prosecutors seek life without parole; the victim's mother addresses the court.
August 26, 2011: Sentenced by Justice Geoffrey Nettle to life imprisonment without parole.
December 8, 2011: Justice Bernard Bongiorno refuses leave to appeal; the application may still go to three judges.