Peter Norris Dupas: The Ordinary Monster

The Evidence Points to Dupas

Patterson was naked from the waist down. Her clothes had been ripped and cut. "I saw Nicky arranged naked and there was blood near her, not actually on her," Hoffman told police. "She seemed cleaned up or something."

An autopsy revealed that 28-year-old Nicole Patterson had been dead since that morning. She had been stabbed 27 times. There were numerous defensive wounds to both her hands. It was impossible to say if she had been raped. Both of Patterson's breasts had been sliced off and were nowhere to be found at the murder scene. Patterson's mutilations were similar to those of Margaret Maher, who was murdered on October 4, 1997.

Margaret Maher

Patterson's neighbor heard a woman scream at 9:30 a.m. and another witness heard two shouts around about the same time. Another neighbor said he heard "a scream of pain, not fear" and about 10 minutes later, he saw a man walking with "a sort of intentness" from the direction of Patterson's house.

The killer had been thorough. He had cleaned up after himself. There were no fingerprints or footprints. It looked as though the house had been wiped down and it appeared as if the killer had scoured the premises to see if he had left any clues. He had even taken Patterson's purse containing her driver's license and her mobile phone.

But the killer had missed the most incriminating piece of evidence. Under clothing on the lounge, detectives found Patterson's appointment book. It contained a 9 a.m. appointment for a "Malcolm" that morning and a mobile phone number written next to it.

"Malcolm" turned out to be a student who had no idea who Patterson was. "Had he given out his phone number to anyone recently?" the police asked. He had, and gave police a list. One of the names he was doing a bit of handy work for, Peter Dupas, came up on the computer.

Police put what they had together. Patterson advertised her business for clients in the local papers, so it wouldn't be hard to get into her house. Her killer had made an appointment under a false name for that morning using a false mobile phone number to avoid detection. What he didn't count on was police finding the appointment book.

Peter Norris Dupas

When police raided Dupas' home — which was less than 30 minutes from where Patterson was murdered — three days after the murder, Dupas had a fingernail scratch on his face. A search of the premises uncovered a bloodstained green jacket in a bundle of clothing in a workshop cupboard. DNA testing showed that there was less than one in a 6.5 billion chance that the blood in 13 of the 14 drops on the jacket did not belong to Patterson. The other drop was Dupas' blood mixed with Patterson's.

Investigators found a black balaclava and a page out of the Herald Sun with a report of the murder on it. The photo of Nicole Patterson in the article had been slashed. In Dupas' garbage bin, police found torn-up pieces of newspaper and when the pieces were put together, they formed a handwritten note with the words "nine o'clock Nicci," and "Malcolm" written on it. Police also confirmed that on the day of the killing, Dupas was caught on video buying gas near Patterson's home.