Notorious child killer Derek Percy – once linked to the 1966 murder of Canberra boy Allen Redston - has died after a long battle with lung cancer.
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Derek Ernest Percy, a suspect in the September 1966 murder of Redston, died at St Vincent's Hospital at 2am on Wednesday.
Percy refused to admit to any crimes on his deathbed, although he remained "chatty" with police in his final days.
Linked to the deaths and disappearance of eight other children in Victoria, NSW, and South Australia, Percy was interviewed by police in Melbourne in 2005 over the death of Redston.
The interview shed little light on the death of the blond-haired six-year-old, and authorities consistently said the case remained open to review should new evidence come forward.
Redston, a pupil at the then South Curtin Primary School, disappeared from outside a friend's house in Holman Street, Curtin, sparking a huge police search.
His body was discovered the next day among long reeds in the Yarralumla Creek bed.
With hands and feet bound, the boy was wrapped in a green floral dressing gown and several pieces of carpet and had rope looped around his neck. He was badly beaten and died from strangulation.
Detectives visited 64-year-old Percy after he was diagnosed with cancer in the hope he would make a deathbed confession. But while not denying any of the crimes, he did not implicate himself.
''He just says it might have been him, he just doesn't remember,'' an investigator said.
It has been Percy's consistent line since he was first arrested 44 years ago as a young naval rating.
Percy tried to avoid giving evidence at the inquest into the case of Linda Stilwell, who was last seen playing on the St Kilda foreshore in Melbourne on August 10, 1968. He has been in custody since his arrest hours after the murder of Yvonne Elizabeth Tuohy, 12, who was abducted from the beach at Warneet, Victoria, on July 27, 1969. Percy was found not guilty on the grounds of insanity and remained in custody for the rest of his life.
Last Saturday, Percy was visited again and questioned in a bedside hearing of the Coroner’s Court about whether he knew what had happened to Linda Stilwell but he denied he was the killer.
A woman who saw Linda Stilwell on that day said she had seen a man wearing a dark spray jacket near to her. He was photographed wearing the same style jacket when he was arrested for Yvonne Tuohy’s murder in 1969. Police also found maps, one with a line drawn through the spot Linda was last seen.
When he grabbed Yvonne Tuohy, he also tried to abduct her friend, Shane Spiller, 12, but the boy escaped by threatening Percy with a tomahawk.
At the time of his arrest, he was in the navy and based at Cerberus Naval Base, near Hastings. Mr Spiller described Percy’s car, a Datsun, and pointed him out in a police line-up. When he was arrested inside Cerberus he was still washing blood from his hands.
Mr Spiller never recovered from the trauma and disappeared in 2002.
Police used a young constable who had gone to school with Percy to interview him about other unsolved child abductions after his arrest.
Of Linda Stilwell, he said: ‘‘Yes, I drove through St Kilda that day. I had been at Cerberus in the afternoon and was driving along The Esplanade on the way to the White Ensign Club for some drinks.’’
Asked if he killed her, he said: ‘‘Possibly, I don’t remember a thing about it.’’
In 2007, police uncovered a storage depot filled with material from Percy. It included clippings on sex crimes, stories on child abductions and items that appeared to implicate him in unsolved murders.
In 2011, ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell said he would consider requests from investigators studying any unsolved murders.
