The murder of Ebony Jane Simpson occurred in Bargo, New South Wales on 19 August 1992. Ebony was nine years old. Andrew Peter Garforth (born 8 August 1963) later pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release on parole.
''''' On 19 August 1992, Ebony disembarked from her school bus and walked past a parked Mazda 808 owned by Garforth. Garforth abducted her, put her in the boot ("trunk") and drove to a remote location near Wirrimbirra Sanctuary. He raped her repeatedly, bound her, weighted her schoolbag and threw her into a dam where she drowned.
A team of over 200 volunteers and 100 police searched for Ebony. The killer also participated in this effort. Garforth confessed to the crime after police detained him, showing no remorse for his actions during the confession and court sessions. He pleaded guilty to the murder of Ebony Simpson and was sentenced in 1993 to life imprisonment. Justice Peter Newman refused to fix a non-parole period and ordered that his papers were to be marked "never to be released".
In discussing the meaning of life imprisonment in this case when the sentence was appealed, Garforth's judges said, "[T]he community interest in retribution, deterrence, protection of the community in such situations may so strongly outweigh any regard for rehabilitation that that's when a life sentence becomes a real option."[1]
In 1995, Garforth lodged several claims for victims' compensation via his lawyers, Brezniak Neil-Smith & Co., relating to alleged assaults which occurred in prison. The claims were later withdrawn after public outrage.
Garforth appealed to the High Court of Australia, but he was refused special leave. It is one of two similar cases which have been refused special leave.[1]
Garforth is also suspected in the unsolved murder of West Australian teenager Felicia Marie Wilson, 19, of Kwinana, Perth. Wilson, a former Miss West Coast finalist, was stripped naked and slashed before her killer smashed her skull with a 27 kg block of limestone as she walked home from work at the Kwinana Community Health Centre about 4.30pm on 10 January 1979. The manhunt went cold until the early 1990s, when WA detectives received information from New South Wales police about a man who had reportedly had nightmares about the victim. By 1994, NSW police had further information about Wilson's death that linked Garforth - who lived in the area at the time - to the unsolved crime. The investigation is ongoing.