Overview

What would drive an 18-year-old youth to bash, dismember and mutilate the body of a former lord mayor of Wollongong? Mark Valera stuck tiepins into his victim's eyes and kicked and beat the corpse for several hours before discarding his own clothes for those of the dead man. Two weeks earlier, the body of a 60-year-old shopkeeper had been found in his suburban Wollongong home, his severed head left in the kitchen sink, satanic writings scrawled on the walls. Again, Valera's macabre handiwork. Four months later, Valera walked into Wollongong police station and casually confessed to the murders. At his trial he pleaded childhood sexual abuse and family dysfunction as his defence. But the story didn't end there - in August 2000, Valera's father was murdered, dispatched by a tomahawk, knife and fire poker. This time it was Mark's 19-year-old sister Belinda who was behind the killing, although it was her lover, Keith Schreiber, who landed the blows. This is a bizarre and chilling tale of blood lust, homophobia and manipulation. Focussing on the lives of the murdered and their murderers, John Suter Linton tracks the police investigations and uncovers the dark secrets of three young Australians and their insatiable desire for revenge. Three victims and three perpetrators - all bound by blood.

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9781741141764

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Born in Sydney, John Suter Linton began his media career as an office boy with Radio Station 2GB at the age of seventeen, and went on to work as a radio journalist in Woolongong and Tamworth. He moved into television in 1984, writing for 'Sons and Daughters', 'Neighbours', 'Late Night Oz' and developing the pilot for 'Australia's Most Wanted'. He did a stint as publicist for ABC television, Marketing Manager of ABC Radio and in recent times has been media adviser on environmental issues for the NSW State Government. In 1997, his first true crime book The Stranger You Know about the Kim Barry murder was published.

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