Australia's Serial Killers by Paul B. Kidd

Author:Paul B. Kidd
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

CHAPTER 18

The Angel of Death

Helen Patricia Moore

Sydney, 1979–80

Helen Patricia Moore was every parent's worst nightmare – a babysitter who murdered the children entrusted to her care. A fresh-faced, 17-year-old cold-blooded murderer who blatantly went on killing those around her until she was eventually caught.

In Sydney's western suburbs, between May 1979 and March 1980, Helen Moore murdered three children and attempted to murder two others committed to her care. One of the survivors was left blind and permanently disabled and died several years later as a direct result of the attempt on his life by his babysitter. In addition to her atrocious crimes, Helen Moore was also charged with the murder of her stepbrother, but the charge was later dropped. Moore would later claim that his alleged cot death was the catalyst for the later killings.

Helen Patricia Moore was born and raised in Sydney's working-class far-western suburbs. At her murder trial her mother, Jesse, told the court that she remembered her little girl as a destructive part-angel, part-nightmare who loved to tear her toys apart and was always a bit distant and weird. Jesse Moore said that at age five Helen was attacked and molested by a pack of boys in the schoolyard, and at six a psychiatric patient ejaculated all over her uniform on a school bus. It was around about this time that she and Helen's natural father divorced.

Her mother also told the court that she had always believed her daughter suffered from a mental problem from an early age and that no-one would believe her. When Helen was aged 13, Jesse Moore took her to a psychiatrist after a particularly vicious fight with her brother where Helen pulled his hair so hard that it almost scalped him. Instead of diagnosing the child, the psychiatrist prescribed Valium for Jesse Moore.

Helen Moore alleged that from the age of eight she was molested by her uncle William McIntosh on a regular basis. His assaults only ended when Moore murdered his daughter, Suzanne, and William McIntosh no longer called at the Moore household. The allegations were vehemently denied by Mr McIntosh.

Helen Moore was aged 17 when her mother remarried. She worked as a clerk at Campbelltown Council and lived at home with her mother, stepfather, and her stepbrothers Peter and Andrew at the new Sydney outer-western Housing Commission suburb of Claymore, situated about as far west as Sydney got in 1979.

The horrors began in March 1979 when Helen Moore's 14-month-old stepbrother, Andrew, died, apparently from cot death. After her arrest for the other murders, Moore was charged with his death, but the charges were later dropped and it was believed that the boy died from a genuine case of cot death.

Helen Moore was deeply distressed by her stepbrother's death as she was extremely fond of the boy. She said later: ‘My life started to go wrong when Andrew died. I loved my brother Andrew. I don't know why he was taken away from me but when he was, something happened. Everything in my life went wrong and everything I did went wrong.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.