Paul Charles Denyer was born in Sydney on April 14, 1972 and moved to Melbourne as a child. He was a large, awkward young man who killed and mutilated animals from childhood and was living with his girlfriend in Frankston, on the bay south-east of Melbourne, working intermittently.
Between June 11 and July 30, 1993 he killed Elizabeth Stevens, eighteen, Deborah Fream, twenty-two, and Natalie Russell, seventeen. All were attacked outdoors, on paths and in reserves, and stabbed. Frankston went into something close to a state of siege for those seven weeks; young women stopped going out, escorts were organised, and the police operation was the largest in Victoria at the time. The Melbourne press called him the Frankston Serial Killer, after the suburb.
He was caught by a car and a cut hand. Police canvassing after Natalie Russell's murder had logged a yellow Toyota near the path, and Denyer had cut himself badly during the attack. He was arrested on July 31, 1993 and confessed. Asked why, he said he hated women, and when the interviewing officer asked whether he meant the ones he had killed, he said he meant generally.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life with a minimum of thirty years, increased on appeal to a whole-of-life term and later restored to a thirty-year minimum. He has since sought to be recognised as a woman and to be transferred to a women's prison, which was refused. He was denied parole in 2023.