Mother of murdered 3-year-old girl begs her daughter’s killer to stay behind bars as he bids for freedom over technicality
- Toddler killer John Bennett asks for parole
- The murdered girl’s mother begs him to stay in prison
- The body of Kelly Anne Jones has not been found
The mother of a murdered toddler has made a passionate plea to authorities to keep her daughter’s killer behind bars.
John William Bennett is serving a life sentence for murdering three-year-old Kelly Anne Jones just days before her fourth birthday on September 24, 1989.
The child’s body was never found, despite extensive searches involving hundreds of volunteers.
The 71-year-old convicted killer is seeking parole on medical grounds and asked the Queensland Parole Board to waive the ‘no body, no parole’ clause.
Kelly’s mother Caroline Jones says Bennett’s request to be released from prison should be rejected.
Caroline Jones has made an anguished request to authorities not to shorten the time her three-year-old daughter’s killer spends behind bars.
“I had nightmares laying there thinking about what he had done to her,” Ms Jones told Channel Seven on Saturday.
“They never found a trace of my daughter. I may have a plaque, but I have no body.”
Bennett, a family friend, was supposed to take Kelly back to her mother in Ipswich, a town in south-east Queensland, from an aunt’s house in the nearby town of Toowoomba, where the toddler had been enjoying a flower show.
However, Kelly never made it home and was last seen in the back of Bennett’s car before confessing to police that he killed the girl.
Normally, under Queensland’s nobody body and non-parole sentence, Bennett would not be eligible to be released from prison.
The wheelchair-bound inmate had requested a probation committee hearing on Friday for a medical exemption because of his ill health.
“Don’t let him out,” Mrs. Jones said.
“People like this should never be released. An eye for an eye, life for life.’
State Police Secretary Mark Ryan also called Bennett, who was imprisoned in June 1990, “a disgraceful, disgusting human being.”
“I think the hearts of all Queensland residents are breaking for that family.”
In order to be released, Bennett must convince the parole board that he made sufficient effort to lead the police to the body.
Three-year-old Kelly Anne Jones was last seen in the car of her killer, John William Bennett
Bennett claimed in 2020 that he had dreams about where he left the toddler’s body, but they didn’t lead to a discovery
After his original confession, he told police in 1989 that he left the body in a dump.
Despite a search by hundreds of volunteers, no body was found in a rubbish dump north of Toowoomba.
Inspector Chris Knight told Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday that in 2020 Bennett dreamed about where he would have dumped the body.
Bennett told police he thought the body might be in Ma Ma Creek, about 60 miles from the areas searched in 1989.
Knight said Bennett provided an area on the creek where the body could be found and added new details that the toddler had been left in a dumpster and wrapped in a blanket.
However, his descriptions were too vague to warrant a search.
The probation committee will make a decision within six weeks of assessing the submissions.
Ms Jones said she hopes authorities continue to search for her daughter.
“I hope they don’t give up,” said Mrs. Jones.
“It’s the not-knowing that’s hard to go through.”