{"id":4798,"date":"2017-01-03T11:06:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T16:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=4798"},"modified":"2017-01-03T11:06:31","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T16:06:31","slug":"long-bay-jail-john-walsh-charged-sandwich-press-murder-inmate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/01\/03\/long-bay-jail-john-walsh-charged-sandwich-press-murder-inmate\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Bay Jail: John Walsh charged over sandwich press murder of inmate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

John Walsh, a 77-year-old prisoner allegedly stuffed a Breville sandwich press into a pillow case before swinging the makeshift weapon repeatedly into the head of a similarly elderly cellmate who later died from his horrific injuries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Police yesterday charged inmate John Walsh with murdering fellow convicted killer Frank Townsend, 71, with the prison-issued sandwich press inside Long Bay\u2019s Kevin Waller unit about 11pm on Monday.\u00a0 Dressed in a white hospital gown, Walsh appeared via video link at Parramatta Bail Court in the afternoon, cupping his left hand to his ear as he struggled to hear the brief proceedings.<\/p>\n

When acting magistrate Mark Shepherd formally adjourned the case and asked if the accused understood what had occurred, he replied: \u201cYes, got that \u2026 thank you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After his court appearance Walsh was expected to be transported from the holding cells at Surry Hills police station to the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre at Silverwater. It is understood Walsh had never complained about his cellmate before the alleged murder.<\/p>\n

A NSW Corrective Services spokeswoman said officers heard loud noises coming from the cell and they discovered Townsend bloodied on the floor with severe head injuries. Townsend was taken by ambulance to St Vincent\u2019s Hospital in a critical condition and later died.\u00a0 Correctives Services issued a statement which said: \u201cThere were no association issues between the two \u00adinmates and nothing to indicate that such an incident would occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is standard practice to have two inmates in a cell at the Kevin Waller Unit, which is for the frail and elderly, and the home of convicted killer and former police officer Roger Rogerson.\u00a0 Prisoners are allowed to buy and keep sandwich makers in cells to make toasted sandwiches and warm up food. The items are considered a luxury and can be purchased by inmates only if friends or family put money in their account.<\/p>\n

Corrective Services Minister David Elliott said there were three separate investigations into the death, and that he would be speaking to the Corrective Services commissioner to make sure everything was being done to ensure prisoner safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrisons are bad places where bad people go, and because we have to manage them in the most appropriate, safe and certainly tax-effective way, sometimes prisoners have to share cells,\u201d he said yesterday.<\/p>\n

Walsh\u2019s case is expected to be mentioned at Central Local Court on January 17.<\/p>\n

WICKED IN THE EXTREME<\/strong><\/h3>\n

WALSH is serving a life sentence after he pleaded guilty in July 2009 to the murders of his wife and two grandchildren and the attempted murder of his daughter \u2014 who was a NSW Police officer at the time.<\/p>\n

The mother of the children made the horrific discovery of her murdered family when she returned home to her parents\u2019 Cowra home in June 2008. She had left her parents to care for her two children while she working an overnight shift at Parkes police station. At the time of the discovery, Walsh tried to attack his daughter with an axe and said, \u201cI am doing this because I love you. When I am done with you lot I am going to Newcastle to kill your ex-husband. We are all better off this way. This is the way it has to be\u201d.<\/p>\n

Walsh later confessed to police that he killed his wife by hitting her on the head about three times with a hammer shaft he called \u201cFred\u201d, before stabbing her with a knife and hitting her on the back of the head with a lump hammer.\u00a0 He also told detective he drowned his granddaughter in the bath, before putting her back in bed.\u00a0 Next he woke up his grandson and hit him on the back of a head with a hammer shaft before assaulting him with a lump hammer. To make sure he was dead he placed him under the water in the bath before putting him back in the bottom bunk bed.\u00a0 His last sickening act was drowning the family dog in the bath and wrapping it in plastic before positioning it under the children\u2019s bed.\u00a0 When handing Walsh a life sentence in 2009 Justice Lucy McCallum said a \u201cdisturbing feature\u201d of the case was that Walsh had never offered an explanation for the murders.<\/p>\n

At the time Justice McCallum said the murders of his grandchildren fell within the worst case category and said \u201chis acts were wicked in the extreme\u201d.<\/div>\n

\u201cThe offender killed his young grandchildren when they had been entrusted to his care. He intended to kill them and planned their murders with grim attention,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew their mother was many miles away, trusting that her children were in safe hands. He abused the children\u2019s trust in him by coaxing them out of their beds.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the children suffered \u201ca level of terror no child should know\u201d.<\/p>\n

EMMA PARTRIDGE and SARAH CRAWFORD, The Daily Telegraph<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0 dailytelegraph.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Walsh, a 77-year-old prisoner allegedly stuffed a Breville sandwich press into a pillow case before swinging the makeshift weapon repeatedly into the head of a similarly elderly cellmate who later died from his horrific […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":4800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[350,2],"tags":[2546],"class_list":{"0":"post-4798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"category-news","9":"tag-sandwich-press-murder","10":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4798"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4803,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798\/revisions\/4803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}