John Raymond Travers

Although only 18, police believed that John Travers was responsible for the rape of at least a dozen men and women. He had been in and out of institutions since he was 12, when he was arrested for using marijuana. He was an alcoholic at 14 and did as he pleased. His parents had no control over him at all.

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The eldest of seven children, John Travers was raised in the working class suburb of Mount Druitt in Sydney's outer west. There are many hard-working families living at Mt Druitt, but the suburb also has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the state. It is also among the top five suburbs for house break-ins and drug abuse.

When his bus-driver father, Ken, walked out, his mother, Sharon, couldn't cope. She stacked weight onto her once slim figure until she was in excess of 120 kilograms and couldn't even properly perform normal functions such as going to the toilet or taking a shower. As she got older and fatter, Sharon Travers spent more and more time in hospital being treated for a variety of ailments directly related to her eating habits. It was left to John to feed the family, and as he spent his welfare check on alcohol, he did this by stealing. The Travers' household was filled with doom and despair.

One thing John Travers liked doing was killing animals. He would butcher the chickens and pigs that he stole and dress them for his family's table. He had learned how to do this when he worked for a time at the local meat plant. He also liked having sex with animals. Many people had been witness to John Travers having intercourse with sheep, pigs, goats, chickens and lambs. They claimed to have witnessed Travers sodomize a sheep, and as he was about to have an orgasm, he would pull the unfortunate animal's head back and cut its throat.

John Raymond Travers was covered in tattoos. He even had them on his penis. But the most noticeable tattoo was that of a teardrop under his left eye, which he thought made him look like a tough guy. But he was only tough when his gang, who would bash and rape women and homosexuals at railway stations and public toilets, surrounded him.

On his own, Travers was a coward. But to his half-witted followers, he was a fearless leader who instigated the sexual assaults and beatings. They got away with it time after time because their victims were terrified of the reprisals should they go to police.

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