A sadistic sex monster released from prison against psychiatric advice must obey 59 strict conditions for the next 20 years.
Mark Richard Lawrence, 58, was let out of Brisbane Correctional Centre early on Monday morning after 36 years behind bars.
He was jailed in 1983 for the Boxing Day rape and murder of Julie Anne Muirhead, 29, and kept locked up indefinitely under dangerous prisoner laws since 2008.
Lawrence now lives in the infamous Wacol precinct just up the road from the jail, just 2km from a school, alongside Queensland’s worst sex offenders.
Julie Ann Muirhead, 29, was raped and murdered then her body burned after she was lured away from Wolston Park Hospital in Brisbane by the promise of beer
Lawrence, now 58, has previously confessed that he had ‘always wanted to kill a girl’ and told one doctor that he ‘tried to kill his 12-year-old sister’
A supervision order by Supreme Court Justice Helen Bowskill lays out the exhaustive conditions he must live under until April 16, 2040, or be sent back to jail.
However, even these strict conditions are not believed to be enough by Lawrence’s victims, psychiatric doctors who have examined him, and even Peter Dutton.
Among the conditions are that he must receive regular injections of anti-libido medication Goserelin Acetate from his GP, or psychiatrist Dr Sarah Steele.
The medication was central to Lawrence’s successful bid for freedom after a dozen unsuccessful attempts since 2008, including to the High Court.
Psychiatrists have for years warned Lawrence constantly wants to commit horrific rapes and murders and the medication is aimed to suppress his urges.
To make sure the injections are working, he must submit to monthly blood test with GP to make sure his testosterone level stays below three nmol/L (nanomoles per litre).
Corrective services officers can also demand he take additional tests at any time.
Lawrence took it for a year in 1991 but stopped when he started growing breasts. In 2018 he started it again in the hopes of winning freedom.
‘I was turning into a female,’ he told the court.
‘If it’s got to make us, everyone, safe… I’m happy to take these medications and abide by the law.’
Lawrence has been moved to the Wacol sex offender precinct (pictured) just up the road from Brisbane Correctional
Julie’s body was finally found days after her murder, badly burned with her underwear around her ankles
Lawrence is strictly banned from contacting his numerous victims or any child under the age of 16, or being anywhere he might bump into children.
He can’t go to schools or childcare centre, anywhere near a playground or child minding area, public parks, or shopping centres, and can’t join or participate in any organisation involving children.
‘You must not collect photos, videos, or magazines which have images of children in them,’ the order also reads.
Lawrence must also obtain written permission from officers before he can watch or look at any kind of pornography, and discuss it with his psychologist Dr Lars Madsen.
Despite ordering his release, the document states that the court is satisfied he is ‘a serious danger to the community’.
‘You must develop a management plan with your psychologist and/or your psychiatrist to address any risk of committing a sexual offence,’ it reads.
Every part of Lawrence’s existence will be monitored and controlled by corrective services officers assigned to him, who have wide latitude under the order.
The repeat offender must give officers a plan of everything he wants to do in a week and will be told when and how to do it.
He must live where they tell him, wear an ankle monitor at all times, and may be subject to a curfew – likely initially for 24 hours a day without permission.
Lawrence is banned from leaving Queensland and needs written permission to work, study, or volunteer – which he must stop if told to do so.
He is only allowed to have one phone and the password must be provided to officers who can look through it at any time.
He needs written permission to access internet and must hand over user names and passwords for his email, and instant messenger, chat room, social media accounts.
Should officers find anything that breaches the order, he could be sent back to prison.
Even if he is allowed out of the precinct into the world, he can’t go to pubs, clubs, nightclubs without written permission, or any business only licenced to sell alcohol.
He is banned from drinking alcohol or taking drugs at all and will be subjected to saliva, urine, and blood tests on demand.
To protect anyone from unwittingly being charmed into becoming his next victim, everyone he communicates with, even online, can be told his sadistic history.
‘You must also tell a corrective services officer the name of new persons you have met, and about any physical relationships you have started,’ the order states.
‘You may need to tell new contacts, or people you have a personal relationship with, about your supervision order and offending history.’
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton (left) is outraged Lawrence has been released from prison despite warnings he will kill again. Lawrence is living in the same halfway house where notorious rapist Robert John Fardon (right) spent six years after his release
Officers will instruct him to do so and may speak to his contacts to make sure he gave them all the information.
Lawrence must notify officers if he has contact more than once with the parent or guardian of a child. Officers may then tell them about his history.
Breaches of the order, or committing any sexual or indictable offences, may result in him being thrown back in prison.
Psychiatrists and victims argue no conditions are enough to keep the community safe and that the risk of him raping or killing another victim is ‘very high’.
Julie Muirhead’s niece Sarah, 35, said other sex offenders living at the precinct could even be at risk as Lawrence brazenly raped a fellow inmate in 1999.
‘I’m concerned about the other offenders residing with Lawrence, his previous patterns demonstrate that he doesn’t discriminate and that anyone is a potential victim,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘He also retains the mentality of ‘being discriminated against’ and this leads me to believe he won’t agree with the terms of his parole and is likely to violate them.
‘I remain extremely concerned for the safety of the residents of Brisbane and believe that when someone has demonstrated no regard for consequences of their actions, only incarceration can prevent them from reoffending.’
Dozens of rapists, paedophiles, and sex-crazed killers life side-by-side in a series of double-storey brick or wooden houses
The precinct is just 2km from a school and residents havepreviously escaped and gone on violent crime sprees
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton also told Daily Mail Australia that Lawrence is a ‘dangerous sexual predator’ who should die behind bars.
‘I am deeply disappointed to hear he has been released from custody,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘There is no form of community detention strict enough to keep Queenslanders safe from this criminal.
‘Premier Palaszczuk must explain to Queenslanders why this has happened and what she is going to do to fix it.’
Lawrence, then 22, lured Julie out of Wolston Park Hospital in Brisbane, where both were involuntary patients at a psychiatric ward, with the promise of beer.
He led her to a river bank where he choked her with a tea towel, raped her, and slashed her throat with a broken bottle before burning her body.
Justice Bowskill ordered his release despite numerous psychiatrists warning he is ‘very likely’ to rape and murder another woman.
Lawrence has previously confessed that he had ‘always wanted to kill a girl’ and told one doctor that he ‘tried to kill his 12-year-old sister’.
The Wacol precinct is a halfway house of sorts that is home to some of Queensland’s worst sex offenders as they transition back into society.
Dozens of rapists, paedophiles, and sex-crazed killers life side-by-side in a series of double-storey brick or wooden houses just 2km from a school.
Her niece Sarah Muirhead, 35, described the ripple effect from Julie’s murder that shattered four generations of her family and defined her whole life
Residents of the ‘Village of the Damned’ are constantly monitored by CCTV and spot checks, tracked by ankle monitors, and held by a wire fence.
They cook their own meals in shared kitchens in each house, and many have phones, internet, and TV.
But though strict supervision conditions restrict where and when paroled criminals can leave, the facility is not a jail and nowhere near as secure.
In 2012, Andrew Clive Ellis escaped by cutting off his GPS tracker and was seen on CCTV getting into a waiting car – though he claimed there was no car and to have walked 30km through bushland.
Ellis then committed a series of crimes including attacking a female police officer while she was jogging, and was charged with deprivation of liberty, and assault occasioning bodily harm.
Robert John Fardon, one of the most famous criminals in Wacol, was on a 24 hour curfew, but had chaperoned supermarket, medical, and legal excursions.
He also received a $751 old-age pension in 2013 of which just $95 was paid to Corrective Services in rent.
Farndon’s housemates were Gregory David Kynuna, who committed multiple rapes including on a six-year-old girl, and serial rapist Farlane George.
He was released in January 2019 after six years at Wacol and moved into a flat elsewhere in Brisbane, even filmed taking public transport.
Lawrence was 22 when he lured Julie, 29, out of Wolston Park Hospital (pictured) in Brisbane , where both were involuntary patients at a psychiatric ward, with the promise of beer
Psychiatric reports have for years in no uncertain terms warned against Lawrence seeing the light of day.
At the hearing in March this year, a psychiatrist told the court that there was an unacceptable risk he would kill again.
‘Should (Lawrence) reoffend there is potential for the offence behaviour to be very serious, namely the committal of a sexually sadistic (killing),’ they said.
Julie’s niece Sarah, 35, said if two psychiatric reports said Lawrence was no longer a danger, she wouldn’t oppose his release.
‘But according to all of the documents tendered to the court, there’s a high risk someone else will suffer,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘He raped another inmate in prison without any fear of consequences. He doesn’t care if he ends up in jail again, he just wants to opportunity to reoffend.’
Sarah’s family are proof of the terrible consequences of letting Lawrence out of jail.
‘I was born into the aftermath, my family had not even begun to recover. Her murder affected every single aspect of my childhood, my life,’ she said.
The heinous crime sent her entire family into a downward spiral that ‘shattered’ the lives of four generations and left Sarah’s mother a paranoid wreck.
She was just 10 years old when she found out her aunt had been brutally murdered and raped by the depraved sex monster.
Julie (right) with her sisters including Sarah’s mother (centre), along with their mother Ann (bottom) who drowned herself in 1987 out of grief
Sarah (pictured in 2016 before dying her hair) was the spitting image of her aunt growing up, which made it difficult for her grandfather to bond with her
Confused as to why she wasn’t allowed to go to sleepovers like her friends, she kept nagging her mother to let her go – until one day her mum just snapped.
‘My mum just stopped the car in the middle of the road and started screaming and crying and said ‘do you know what happened to auntie Julie? This animal he raped her and he murdered her’,’ she recalled.
‘There was traffic going all around us beeping their horns and she was just sobbing uncontrollably into the steering wheel.
‘I can still hear the wobble in her voice and the howling and I didn’t understand.’
Sarah’s first memory as a toddler is her mother failing to resuscitate her grandmother Ann on the bathroom floor after she drowned herself out of grief.
‘I just remember screaming and screaming and my mum trying to get the water out of her chest but she couldn’t,’ Sarah said.
Sarah said her mother had a caesarean on January 25, 1985, the day before Julie’s birthday, because she was afraid Sarah would be born on the same day.
‘In my mum’s mind that meant something bad would happen to me. From before I was born I never had a chance at a normal life because of this man,’ she said.
‘With my birthday the day before it was never a proper birthday because the next day it was hers.
‘And because Julie was murdered on Boxing Day, every single Christmas was horrendous. Everyone was in tears and arguing with each other while trying to make the day normal – but it never could be.’
Sarah’s father left her mother while she was pregnant amid the strain of Julie’s death, forcing them to move in with her grandparents.
‘Because I looked so much like Julie growing up, my poor grandfather had to look at me every single day and see his daughter who was gone,’ she said.
‘It made it really hard for him to bond with me, he didn’t want to look at me.’
Sarah’s mother was so traumatised by her sister’s murder that she lived in debilitating fear that her daughter could suffer the same fate.
‘I was never allowed to go to friends’ houses because my mum was terrified that their fathers or their brothers would do something to me,’ she said.
Sarah, 35, said she learned from a news article Lawrence was to be released after more than a dozen attempts – none of which her family was allowed to address
‘I wasn’t allowed to play out in the street or ride my bike, even in my early teens.
‘I’ve never been able to trust men and never will, because I was taught not to every day for the first 18 years of my life.
‘She told me over and over again that any man could kill me and she would physically keep me away from all the males at any social gathering, even with family, and I had no idea why.’
Now with an 11-year-old daughter of her own, she realises that if she was in her mother’s position, she would have done the same thing.
But as a teenager she felt suffocated by the constant sadness and left Brisbane with little more than the clothes on her back aged 18.
‘I needed to start a new life. I have no photos of myself as a child, I couldn’t have any visual reminders around, it’s the only way I can life my life,’ she said.
However, her mother never recovered and was trapped in what Sarah likens to an ‘invisible prison’, straining relations to breaking point.
‘I don’t even know if my mother is still alive, I haven’t spoken to her since 2016. I know that sounds terrible but my family really did shatter,’ she said.
Sarah said she was, with the help of a family psychologist, trying to give her daughter as close to a normal life as possible far from Brisbane in Sydney.
But though the young girl is ‘independent and headstrong’, Sarah said she couldn’t help passing down a ‘hyper-vigilance’ that made her old then her years.
‘She’s always been very aware of what’s right and wrong for adults. She’ll tell my husband or anyone else off if she sees them behaving inappropriately,’ she said.
‘One of her friends told her she was raped by a family member and she immediately brought it to me. Other 11-year-olds wouldn’t know what to do, but she did.’
Sarah said her mother had a cesarean the day before Julie’s birthday because she was afraid Sarah would be born on the same day
Lawrence looms as a constant spectre over their lives and his dozen attempts to be released on parole hurt like a stabbing pain each time.
With a small pool of suspects it was not long after the Julie’s murder before police arrested Lawrence and elicited a chilling confession.
‘I think she was definitely dead before one of us set her alight,’ he said.
Lawrence and his co-accused pleaded guilty to manslaughter, avoiding murder trials, and he was jailed for 15 years.
Another seven years was added on when he raped a fellow inmate in his dormitory-style prison in October 1999.
‘Don’t make a noise, because I’ll kill you,’ he said during the rape, and after told him: ‘I’ll be watching you. And remember, I’m a psychopathic murderer.’
By 2008 he Lawrence was eligible for parole but authorities used the Dangerous Prisoner (Sexual Offender) Act to lock him up indefinitely.
Sarah said mother was so traumatised by her sister’s murder that she lived in debilitating fear that her daughter could suffer the same fate – leading her to tightly control her childhood
Sarah’s mother, pictured when she was 24, was the younger sister to Julie and looked up to her
He appealed numerous times, even all the way to the High Court, but was denied until 2014 when the Supreme Court said he should be released under strict conditions.
Then-Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie successfully appealed and several more bids failed, but last month Justice Helen Bowskill ordered his release.
Lawrence serious crimes may go back to 44 years as earlier this year he was hit with a slew of other charges including attempting to rape underage boys in 1976-77.
The charges include indecent treatment of boys under 17 assault with intent to commit unlawful anal, two counts of attempted sodomy, assault, deprivation of, and two counts of making threats.
Sarah said her desire to keep Lawrence locked up was not to punish him, but to stop him killing again.
‘My family and I would rather die than see him do this to another woman and their family,’ she said.
‘This isn’t about punishing him, it’s about protecting the community so another family doesn’t go through this. I’m not vengeful no matter how much what he did has hurt me.
Sarah now lives in Sydney and is married with a 11-year-old daughter (both pictured with her but not identified at her request)
‘I would be the first person to cry foul if he was being mistreated in jail. If we take their human rights away, we’re no better than them.’
Queensland’s shadow Attorney-General David Janetzki tried in vain to keep Lawrence behind bars with a letter to Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath last week.
‘The community cannot be adequately protected by this prisoner’s release on supervision,’ he wrote.
‘He simply cannot be trusted in the community – under any condition, especially reliance on this man’s compliance with medication’.
Ms D’Ath said she had no plans to appeal the decision, and Lawrence’s release went ahead.