Ashley Coulston

Ashley Mervyn Coulston is an Australian sailor and triple murderer currently serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment plus seven years without any probability of parole for the 1992 murders of three people in Burwood, Victoria and the attempted abduction and robbery of a couple in St Kilda Road several months later.

It would be the abduction attempt that would lead police to his involvement in the triple murder which had previously remained unsolved.

Trans-Tasman voyages

In 1988, Coulston came to media attention when he attempted to sail his custom built 8 foot vessel which he named G'Day 88 from Australia to New Zealand across the Tasman Sea.

On 26 January 1988, Coulston left Port Stephens in G'Day 88, a vessel he designed and built himself^[1] however he ran into troubles and on 12 March 1988, activated his vessel's emergency beacon.

He was rescued by a passing tanker just north of New Zealand's North Island after spending 46 days at sea in stormy weather. The remains of his vessel washed up on the New Zealand shore several months later.^[2]

On 25 October 1988, Coulston attempted his voyage once again sailing from New Zealand to Australia, successfully arriving in Brisbane on 6 January 1989.

Triple murder

On 29 July 1992,^[3] two students advertised in the Herald Sun newspaper for a tenant to share their home after a housemate decided to leave the premises and return home to live with their parents.

Kerryn Henstridge, 22, Anne Smerdon, 22, and Peter Dempsey, 27, the brother-in-law of one of the women, were forced into separate rooms and hogtied using cable ties before Coulston shot them execution style in the back of the head.^[3] No motive has ever been offered for the killings.^[4]

Attempted abduction

On 1 September 1992, Coulston armed himself with the same weapon used to commit the earlier murders and some cable ties, then drove to St Kilda Road and parked his car near the National Gallery of Victoria.^[3]

He then approached a couple and attempted to abduct them. The couple offered Coulston their money, which he took. He then proceeded to restrain the couple using the cable ties. Whilst attempting to restrain one he was overpowered by the other allowing the couple to escape and raise the alarm with nearby security guards.^[3]

The security guards gave chase however Coulston fired at the guards, hitting one in the hip.^[3] Coulston was eventually arrested by police at the scene and taken into custody. The gun used in the abduction attempt would later link Coulston to the triple murders in Burwood several months earlier.^[3]

He was originally sentenced to three consecutive life sentences with a non-parole period of 30 years, but was granted a retrial on the murder charges after appeal; he was re-sentenced to seven years on appeal, increased from four years six months, by the Crown on the remaining nine charges.

Coulston did not speak at all during either trial, and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences, to be served cumulatively with the seven-year sentence for the remaining offences; Justice Norman O'Bryan refused to fix a non-parole period, calling the murders "cold-blooded", "heinous" and "wicked", and telling Coulston that "you have forfeited forever your entitlement to live outside the confines of a prison".

Balaclava Killer suspect

Coulston is a suspect in the case of the Balaclava Killer, who stalked, raped and killed victims in Queensland over a 10-month period during 1979 and 1980. The killings stopped abruptly in 1980, coinciding with the time Coulston moved to Sydney, working as a mascot and living on a boat at Cronulla. He may have raped girls there. He owned a black Kawasaki motor bike and went back to Tweed Heads and his parents farm most weekends at that time, not long after that is when he travelled to Melbourne. Coulston also shares a rare blood type with the person believed to be responsible for the crimes.^[5]

References