A former Australian Navy sailor who committed suicide left a chilling note admitting to killing ‘three times’.
Richard Dorrough, 37, was engaged, had three young children and was working as a diver when he walked into a shooting range in Perth in 2014 and pointed the gun at himself.
Days later, a package sent by him for his fiancée arrived containing some of his personal belongings, including a book. On one page he had scribbled the note, “I have killed three times.”
There was no further explanation, details or apology and he did not say who he killed or why.
But the former HMAS Geelong crew member, described as polite and charming by those who knew him, had led a double life with police being frustratingly close to locking him up in the past.
Richard Dorrough was in the Navy when he probably killed two of his victims
His confession was unraveled on Wednesday’s Nine’s Under Investigation with Senator Dorinda Cox, forensic psychologist Dr. Sarah Yule, former detective Gary Jubelin and human rights attorney Dr.
“He didn’t have the courage to make those confessions when he was alive,” said Mr. Jubelin.
“He just hung it up somewhere, which is kind of cruel… and sent it to his fiancée, what kind of person does that?”
Despite no details in his confession, Dorrough had been linked to the three young women found dead.
The first was Sara-Lee Davey, a 21-year-old Indigenous woman living in Broome, Western Australia.
Sara-Lee Davey disappeared from Broome in 1997 when the HMAS Geelong, which Dorrough was on board, docked in the harbor
Her mother Irene is still searching for answers and has never stopped pushing her daughter’s case
Dorrough had only been in the navy for two years and received unfavorable reviews from officers when his ship the HMAS Geelong docked in the remote town and he was allowed ashore on leave.
He met Davey in the early hours of January 13, 1997 at the Nippon Inn, where she was having a night out with friends, and convinced her to come with him.
The pair went back to the wharf where his ship was docked and tried to board, but were stopped by the sailor on watch.
Dorrough then took Mrs. Davey to the end of the wharf and minutes later returned to the ship alone, but with scratches on his face.
A nearby fisherman would later report hearing a scream from the dock and then a splash.
The young woman was reported missing days later and has never been found.
Her mother, Irene, who was on a short journey, returned to Broome three days later and when she was unable to contact Sara-Lee, she immediately went to the police.
“I think we were fired by everyone, including the local police. We left it to justice and hoped they would find her, but that never happened.’
Irene went to the police station every morning for over a month to no avail. She also made a public appeal to find her daughter on television and is still fighting for answers to this day.
When a real investigation began nine days after her disappearance, Dorrough had shipped along with some evidence.
Mr Jubelin said police should have questioned Sara-Lee’s friends in the pub, tracked Dorrough down, thoroughly searched his cabin and taken the clothes he was wearing.
Three months later, Dorrough was tracked down by police as a person of interest, but detectives wrote the interview off as inconclusive.
The second likely victim was Maori woman Rachael Campbell, a 29-year-old single mother who was murdered in Sydney on November 6, 1998.
Rachael Campbell was murdered in Sydney in 1998 with her own pocket knife that she carried for protection
She was a 29-year-old single mother who earned money as a prostitute
Mrs. Campbell earned money as a prostitute and carried a small pocket knife for protection.
She was found naked and wrapped in a sheet outside St. Joseph’s Church in Rosebery in the south of the city with stab wounds to her neck.
Like Mrs. Davey, her mother had also reported her missing, but the police were slow to act.
Dorrough lived only two miles away and owned an orange van similar to the one Mrs. Campbell got into.
The trail went cold, but when a national DNA database was established 10 years later, samples from Mrs. Davey’s case turned up a match: Richard Dorrough.
By that time, he had long since been discharged from the Navy for incompetence.
He went on trial for her 2010 murder, arguing that he had been a client of Mrs Campbell on the night of her murder but did not kill her, and was found not guilty by a jury.
The judge would later publicly state that if it had been up to him and not the jury, he would have passed a guilty verdict.
‘How was he acquitted? I would have been very shocked if I knew what I know about the case,” said Mr. Jubelin.
Two people who were never called as witnesses to the trial were his brother-in-law Stuart, who he was living with in Perth when he was arrested, and Karen, the boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend.
Stuart said that when he checked Dorrough’s room after his arrest, he found open laptops on numerous porn sites, but the devices were never seized by police for examination.
While Karen said he flat out told his girlfriend in front of her that he was ‘sh** afraid they (the police) would take his DNA because he killed someone in Sydney’.
The third probable victim was hairdresser Paula Brown, who died of blunt force trauma to the head in Sydney’s Oxford Street in May 1996.
Hairdresser Paula Brown was likely the third victim, according to the Under Investigation team
According to the Under Investigations panel, she fits the profile of the women Dorrough targeted and her saloon was across the road from a pub frequented by sailors.
In addition to the blows to her head, she had another obvious injury, bite marks, which were also found on Mrs. Campbell’s arm.
“It’s certainly quite rare behavior and a strong connection between the cases,” forensic psychologists Dr. Sarah Yule told the panel.
To this day, all three murders are officially unsolved.
Human rights lawyer Hannah McGlade said the justice system had failed the women, all of whom had Indigenous heritage.
Dorrough was a white man. How do you get away with killing three indigenous women in this country?’ she asked Mrs Hayes.
Anyone with information about the cases, which all remain open, are asked to contact police.
If you or someone you know is in need of free and confidential mental health services, please contact: Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636