Paul Steven Haigh was convicted of murdering six people in Victoria, Australia, in the late 1970s, when he was 21. Two of them were working in small businesses, one was a criminal associate, one was his own girlfriend, and two were a mother and her young son who were killed together in Melbourne in 1979. While in prison he was later convicted of a seventh murder, that of a fellow prisoner at Pentridge Prison in 1991. He received six life sentences without parole, and in 2009 the Supreme Court of Victoria refused his application to have a minimum term set.
Reports of his later court cases, in 2018 among them, called him Victoria's worst serial killer. By 2018 he was held at Barwon Prison in Victoria and was back in the Supreme Court over a smaller matter: four tarot cards that the prison had taken from him.
Little is known of his early life. The Otago Daily Times gave his age as 51 in its report of the 2009 ruling and as 54 at a later hearing; 1News reported him as 60 in August 2018. The Child Rights International Network's summary of the 2009 judgment records that the six murders were committed when he was 21. His date of birth and the details of his upbringing have not been reported.
The Otago Daily Times, reporting the 2009 decision, named the six people he was convicted of murdering in the late 1970s and gave a short description of each.
Evelyn Adams was 58 and worked at a Tattslotto agency, a lottery outlet.
Bruno Cingolani was 45. He ran a pizza shop and was a father of two.
Wayne Keith Smith, 27, was described by the Otago Daily Times as an associate of Haigh's.
Sheryle Gardner was 31. She and her son, Danny Mitchell, were killed together in Melbourne in 1979, according to the Otago Daily Times. That paper gave the boy's age as nine in 2009; its later report of the hearing before Justice Beach described him as a boy of 10. Both reports describe him as a child, and his death is one of the six murders of which Haigh was convicted.
Lisa Brearley was 19 and was Haigh's girlfriend.
VICE, in a 2018 profile, wrote that the killings began with two bungled armed robberies in which Haigh shot dead a lottery shop owner and a pizza chef, and that he then turned on people who knew about his crimes.
In her 2009 ruling, Justice Betty King acknowledged that some of the victims had been involved in criminal activity, but she said that did not lessen the value of their lives. "You are not the judge, jury and executioner, who can determine who may live and die," she told him, according to the Otago Daily Times. She said the victims had been as entitled to live as anyone else in the community.
He was sentenced to six terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. VICE reported that the sentences were imposed in 1979 and that the prosecution described the killings as "pre-meditated, cold-blooded, and vile." The date of his arrest, the court that passed the sentences and whether he pleaded guilty or was convicted at trial have not been reported.
By the time of his 2009 application he had spent 29 years in prison, the Otago Daily Times reported; by the later hearing, more than 30 years.
In 1991, while serving his life sentences at Pentridge Prison, Haigh took part in the death of a fellow prisoner, Donald George Hatherley, who died by hanging in a cell. He was convicted of Hatherley's murder, the Otago Daily Times reported, which made seven murder convictions in all. 1News, carrying an Australian Associated Press report in 2018, described Hatherley's death as a seventh murder. The sentence imposed for that conviction was not reported.
While he was seeking a minimum term, Haigh wrote a manuscript titled The House of the Blue Light. The Otago Daily Times reported objections to its publication from Noel McNamara, president of the Crime Victims Support Association, who said the book should never be released. "It's just showing a complete disrespect and disregard of victims," McNamara said. He described Haigh as remorseless and said he would write to the Victorian government to try to stop the book. "When you've got cold-blooded killers writing their thoughts, it just leaves a very nasty taste in your mouth," he said. VICE, writing in 2018, also referred to the memoir by that title. Whether the manuscript was ever published was not reported.
In 2009 Haigh asked the Supreme Court of Victoria to fix a non-parole period for his life sentences, which would have made him eligible for parole once it expired. According to the Child Rights International Network's summary of the judgment, the application was made under section 13 of the Sentencing Act 1991, and the court also considered section 18A of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1985.
Justice Betty King refused it on May 12, 2009. The court said that refusing to fix a minimum term at a life prisoner's request would be an "exceptional course," and that the court had to weigh the nature of the offending and the applicant's history. It found that the number of murders and their brutality, together with Haigh's failure to show that he had truly changed and come to accept the values and laws of society, did not justify a non-parole period. His sentences remained life terms without a minimum.
The Otago Daily Times reported the judge's finding that the separate murders of six members of the community, and the callous manner in which they were carried out, made a minimum term inappropriate.
Haigh later applied again, representing himself before Justice David Beach of the Supreme Court of Victoria. He was 54 at the time, the Otago Daily Times reported. This time he argued that he had suffered from borderline personality disorder when he committed the murders and that this should count in his favor. "Being afflicted with borderline personality disorder provides me with mitigating circumstances," he told the court. "I shouldn't be punished as if I was a normal person at the time of my offences."
He compared himself with Julian Knight, the Hoddle Street gunman, who had been given a 27-year non-parole period, and argued that his own illness had been more severe. "Knight's anti-social behaviour is negligible when compared with my own," he said. He also told the court that doctors had since found that he no longer had the disorder, which he said usually fades with age. Justice Beach gave him extra time to finish his closing submission.
The outcome of that application has not been reported. In 2018, both 1News and VICE described him as serving a life sentence at Barwon Prison.
In late 2016 Haigh, described in the AAP report as a practicing pagan, applied for three packs of tarot cards, which he said were important to his religious practice. 1News, carrying the AAP report, said he used the cards as a "contemplative doorway" and a "spiritual tool." The governor of Barwon Prison, Brett Ryan, refused the request in January 2017, citing security risks, including the chance that the cards could cause unrest or be used to manipulate vulnerable prisoners.
Haigh complained to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, and the request was then allowed. In 2017, however, the prison removed four cards from his Deviant Moon deck because they showed female figures with bare breasts; prison staff called them "pornographic" or "objectionable." Haigh argued that the deck could not be used without them and that taking them was an unlawful limit on his right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief under Victoria's human rights law. The prison argued that he could use a different pack.
In August 2018 Justice Timothy Ginnane of the Supreme Court of Victoria ruled in Haigh's favor, and the four cards were returned. The judge remarked that a dispute over tarot cards hardly seemed worthy of the Supreme Court, but said it concerned the rights of prisoners. "The parliament has given prisoners, even those convicted of the most terrible crimes, rights," he wrote, according to the AAP report. He noted that the prison made provision for Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, as well as paganism, and he warned that courts and administrators should be very cautious about deciding what a person needs in order to practice a belief. Assuming paganism was a religion, he found, withholding the cards did "engage his right of religious freedom and belief."
In August and September 2018, 1News and VICE reported that Haigh was serving his sentence at Barwon Prison in Victoria. Neither report mentioned any date for his possible release.
Danny Mitchell's age is given as nine in the Otago Daily Times report of the 2009 ruling and as 10 in its later report of the hearing before Justice Beach.
VICE dated the robberies to 1979 and said Haigh was sentenced in 1979. The Otago Daily Times and 1News place the six murders more generally in the late 1970s. VICE also described the boy as the son of the associate and his girlfriend; the Otago Daily Times describes Sheryle Gardner and Danny Mitchell as mother and son and lists Wayne Keith Smith separately as an associate.
Late 1970s: Haigh, then 21, kills six people; he is convicted of all six murders.
1979: Sheryle Gardner, 31, and her son Danny Mitchell are killed together in Melbourne.
Late 1970s: Sentenced to six terms of life imprisonment without parole.
1991: Donald George Hatherley dies in a cell at Pentridge Prison; Haigh is later convicted of his murder.
May 12, 2009: Justice Betty King of the Supreme Court of Victoria refuses to fix a non-parole period.
Later: Haigh, 54, argues a second application before Justice David Beach, relying on borderline personality disorder.
Late 2016: Haigh applies for tarot cards at Barwon Prison.
January 2017: The prison governor refuses the request; it is later allowed after a complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
2017: Four cards are removed from his deck.
August 2018: Justice Timothy Ginnane rules that the cards must be returned.