The eldest brother of murdered schoolboy Daniel Morcombe has married his partner following a two-year engagement.
Denise Morcombe shared photos of her son Dean’s nuptials with Alice Webb on social media – accompanying them with a sombre reflection that her children had either ‘all grown up or gone’.
Dean was 16 when his 13-year-old brother Daniel went missing while waiting for a bus near their Sunshine Coast home in 2003.
It was almost eight years before his remains were found in Queensland’s Glasshouse Mountains – and in 2013 Brett Cowan was sentenced for his murder.
Daniel Morcombe’s eldest brother Dean has tied the knot with partner Alice Webb (pictured) following his engagement to her in 2016
Daniel’s mother Denise shared photos from the ceremony, including one of her with husband Bruce (pictured)
Brett Cowan, 48, (pictured) murdered 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe in 2003 and is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years
Cowan was convicted of Daniel’s (pictured) murder in the absence of any physical evidence after confessing to his actions to an undercover police officer
Cowan was convicted of Daniel’s murder in the absence of any physical evidence after confessing to his actions to an undercover police officer.
The Morecombe family has refused to be torn apart by the tragedy of their loss, with Denise launching a book in 2014 titled ‘Where is Daniel? The Family’s story’ – the same year Daniel twin’s Bradley married his school sweetheart Anna Martin.
Bradley has previously told of how he might have accompanied his brother on the fateful Christmas shopping expedition which led to his disappearance and murder – adding there had not been a day when he had not thought of Daniel.
Father Bruce meanwhile revealed in 2014 meanwhile that the search for Daniel almost led to his divorce from Denise.
Dean’s engagement in 2016 capped off a landmark year for the family – after Cowan’s sentencing appeal was thrown out in March of that year.
Earlier this year it emerged Cowan’s days could be numbered after inmates sparked a massive riot at Brisbane’s Wolston prison, plotting to use boiling hot jam, a toasted sandwich maker and sharpened broomsticks on the convicted paedophile and child killer.
She concluded the posts with a more melancholy picture of her three boys Daniel, Dean and Bradley playing in the snow – noting sadly that they were all ‘grown up or gone’
He will be there forever: Bradley Morcombe (pictured, left, with his twin brother Daniel) has said that although Daniel is gone, he is with him and his family every day
Since his conviction, Cowan has been the victim of a multiple prison attacks, most notably in 2016 when another inmate, Adam Paul Davidson, covered him in boiling water at Wolston jail.
‘He is a high profile inmate in that he has received a significant amount of publicity and most inmates would be aware of his notoriety,’ the former governor of Grafton Jail said.
‘After a long period of time and the publicity fades those responsible for inmate classification and placement may be tempted to move Cowan into the mainstream as a trial.
LEAD POLICE TO MURDER SCENE
Cowan has been moved to the protection unit at the Wolston Correctional Centre which is filled with murderers and sex offenders
Cowan, a convicted child sex offender, abducted and murdered 13-year-old schoolboy Daniel Morcombe on the Sunshine Coast in December 2003.
Morcombe had been planning to catch the bus to the shops to get a haircut and buy Christmas presents for his family.
But the bus he was supposed to catch never arrived and Daniel disappeared.
Cowan was a top police suspect in the boy’s disappearance.
Detectives finally elicited a confession from Cowan with an elaborate sting operations where officers posed as gangsters in a fake crime syndicate.
The officers gained Cowan’s confidence and he eventually admitted ‘you know, yeah, I did it.’
He even led detectives to the remote creek where he dumped the child’s body.
Cowan was sentenced to life in jail with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years in 2014.