Russell Manser: Meet the Byron Bay ‘wild child’ turned barrister who stole bank robber turned TikTok star’s heart after he walked out of prison ‘and had no idea how to treat a woman’

EXCLUSIVE

Bank robber turned TikTok star, who died last Saturday at his Sydney Harbor apartment, once planned to marry a lawyer he met in prison.

Manser began a relationship with Mary Keaney after he left prison for the last time seven years ago and later bought a farm with her in the Tweed Valley in north-eastern NSW.

Property documents list Ms Keaney and Manser as joint owners of that four-bedroom house on six acres at Stokers Siding, which cost $1,240,000 in December 2020.

Daily Mail Australia understands Ms Keaney was still living on the farm at the time of Manser’s death.

Manser, who had a long history of drug abuse including heroin, died on Saturday evening at the age of 56 at his apartment on King Street Wharf near Barangaroo.

The cause of death has not been made public, but there were no suspicious circumstances.

Manser spent 23 years in prisons across Australia until he turned his life around and became an advocate for victims of institutional child abuse.

He was raped repeatedly in juvenile detention, and then again in an adult prison as a teenager, and launched “The Voice of a Survivor” in 2017 to help abused inmates get compensation.

Ms Keaney, who describes herself on Instagram as “not your average lawyer” and is a self-confessed social justice warrior, was called to the bar in 2017.

Manser first met Ms Keaney when he was in prison after giving evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Ms Keaney had been working on a justice project and heard about Manser’s efforts to help other prisoners seek redress for the abuse they suffered as children.

“The people I had helped in prison had told her everything about me,” Manser said in a video interview on YouTube.

“So she contacted me and asked me to be involved in this justice project where survivors can tell their stories… about what happened to them.”

Two weeks before Manser was set to be released in 2017, he learned he was about to be indicted for a series of bank robberies committed before his last stint in prison.

He was granted bail, went to rehab and did not have to serve any more jail time when he was convicted of the old crimes in 2018.

Ms Keaney, who had previously been married in her early 20s, was one of the lawyers to whom Manser felt he owed his freedom.

A source said Manser was struggling to adapt to life on the outside after being in custody for so long.

“He basically acted like a 20-year-old because he had no idea how to have a relationship with a woman,” the source said.

The relationship between Manser and Mrs Keaney started slowly, but they eventually settled in the Stokers Siding estate, with Manser spending some of the compensation he received for being abused as a teenager.

His social media posts from that time show the couple enjoying country life – Mrs Keaney is a keen horse rider – and apparently making plans to get married.

“I feel blessed,” Manser wrote in September 2020 with a photo of the couple.

‘We have been through a lot together, we are stronger than ever. The bank robber (ex-bank robber) and the lawyer, we make a great team.’

That caption was followed by the hashtags “marriage material,” “lovers,” “soulmates,” “twin souls,” “living life” and “strength.”

In another post from 2020, Manser wished Ms Keaney a happy International Women’s Day, addressing her as “Punchy” and saying: “I love the strong, smart, supportive, beautiful and independent woman you are.”

The same year, Manser posted a newspaper photo of Mrs. Keaney in her wig and dress with the caption “She is a good person who always fights for the rights of others.”

In her profile for Frederick Jordan Chambers, Ms Keaney mentions her previous employment with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Aid Services in Alice Springs and Brisbane.

“In addition to her criminal law practice, she also acts in common law matters, primarily for plaintiffs in personal injury cases arising from historical child sexual abuse,” the profile said.

Ms Keaney did not appear on camera when the ABC television program Australian Story showed an episode about Manser in May 2022.

By then, the father-of-two had published a book called The Voice of a Survivor – The Russell Manser Story, with the help of bank robber and author John Killick.

Manser later amassed 134,000 followers on TikTok, where his posts included videos about life behind bars, and hosted a podcast called The Stick Up.

Ms Keaney spoke to former detective Gary Jubelin for an episode of his I Catch Killers podcast entitled ‘A wild child who went from protester to lawyer’, which aired in March last year.

During the interview, Ms. Keaney agreed with Jubelin that she was a “social justice warrior” who found the law after spending her early adulthood partying too much and lacking direction.

A turning point for Ms Keaney was reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk To Freedom, written after the South African anti-apartheid activist had spent 27 years in prison.

“I have approached the practice of criminal law from the perspective that people are generally not bad,” she told Jubelin.

‘People are products of the society they live in and how they have grown and their life experiences and people make mistakes.’

Jubelin was a close friend of Manser, but no mention was made of the criminal’s past relationship with Ms Keaney during the podcast interview.

A source who knew Manser well said he and Mrs Keaney had discussed getting married on the grounds of the Stokers Siding estate, but that was not the intention.

After the couple split, Manser had a brief relationship with a Serbian woman named Liliana Gagic and the couple lived together on the Gold Coast.

When that was done, Manser returned to Stokers Siding, where Mrs Keaney lived.

“Then he finally decided to move back to Sydney to his old hometown, but he had to go back to the farm regularly,” said a source close to Manser.

‘He went there for his sanity and it was very important. Maria was still there.

“He said they weren’t together anymore, but they found a way to live together while he was up there.”

Manser deleted Ms Gagic’s social media posts after they split, but Ms Keaney still features prominently on his Facebook page.

The day after Manser died, Ms. Gagic posted a series of photos of them together on Instagram.

In a caption, she wrote: “Goodbye my love, until we meet again.”

Ms Gagic subsequently told Daily Mail Australia: ‘Russell and I had an open relationship.’

“I’m in Europe right now, so I wasn’t next to him (when he died),” she said.

“Russell was a warrior. A person with a mission. Soul, everyone who ever met will remember it forever. A man of freedom, frequency and vibration that not many people embody.’

Ms Gagic said Manser showed ‘love and compassion towards victims of sexual abuse’ and called him ‘one in a million men’.

Ms Keaney declined to comment when contacted by Daily Mail Australia.