Underbelly 11 by John Silvester

Author:John Silvester
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2012-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

EVERYONE knew that Dupas was a hopeless case – a man who would continue to offend until he was dead or too old to attack. The State Government had introduced a law that enabled courts to sentence serious repeat sex offenders to indefinite jail terms. It could have been called the Dupas Law as it seemed to fit him so perfectly.

But Dupas’s lawyers and the prosecution cut a deal where the sex offender would plead to downgraded charges and the victim would be able to avoid the trauma of giving evidence. He agreed to plead guilty to false imprisonment and in return the prosecution dropped the more serious charges of kidnap, assault with a weapon and indecent assault.

The reduced charges placed him just under the level where he could be sentenced to an indefinite term.

The decision, however seemingly logical at the time, made it inevitable he would be freed to offend again.

But two months before the Lake Eppalock assault there was a murder in the area that police say has all the hallmarks of a Dupas attack.

Renita Brunton, 31, had been married a second time for just six months when she was stabbed to death on November 5, 1993.

She was a part-time religious instruction teacher and the mother of a three-year-old boy. She had owned the recycled clothes shop, Exclusive Pre-Loved Clothing, in Link Arcade, Sunbury, for a year but had recently put the business on the market.

Customers found the shop locked at 2pm with a sign on the door: ‘Back in five minutes’.

A neighbouring shopkeeper entered the store through the unlocked back door and found the body about 5pm. Renita Brunton had died of multiple stab wounds to the upper chest and neck.

One suspect seen in the area was described as 173–175cm tall, of chubby build with a fat stomach, short grey-brown hair, bald on top, oval-shaped face and wearing glasses.

In May 1993 Renita had married her husband, Robert, and they lived in Woodend where the couple became members of the local Anglican Church.

They bought a home in East Street and Dupas lived in a rented brick veneer house in South Road, just over a kilometre away.

But Sunbury is more than twenty kilometres from Woodend. How would Dupas know where the woman worked?

Dupas’s wife tried to keep order in her house despite the needy nature of her spoilt husband. Once a month, the day after pension day, she would do the household shopping and her husband would always go for the drive – to Sunbury.

The coroner was told Renita Brunton had been last seen in the Sunbury shopping centre between 1pm and 1.15. It was her habit to close the shop around this time to do a few chores, including doing the banking for her small business.

She was found fully clothed and had been stabbed 106 times. She also suffered a fractured skull from a severe blow. The head wound was similar – but not identical – to those suffered by many women attacked by Dupas. The frenzied stabbing was also typical of his methods.

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