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Raymond EDMUNDS
Edmunds was dubbed "Mr Stinky" by a sub-editor
from Melbourne's Sunday Press newspaper due to his
offensive body odour which was believed to have been caused by a
mixture of milk, manure and chemicals from his work as a share-cropping
farmer on dairy properties.
Edmunds was convicted of the 1966 double murder
and rape of 18-year-old panel beater Garry Charles Heywood and 16-year-old
Abina Margaret Madill on
10 February
1966 at Shepparton, Victoria. Heywood was shot through the
head with a .22 Mossberg self-loading rifle and Madill was raped
and then bludgeoned to death.
Edmunds had allegedly previously raped and
beaten his first wife and sexually abused his three-year-old
daughter. Edmunds was also convicted of a series of rapes in the
1970s and early 80s that led the police to dub the then-unknown
offender, "The Donvale Rapist".
On
16 March 1985,
Edmunds was arrested on unrelated charges of indecent exposure
while parked in his station wagon in Albury, New South Wales.
After his arrest, Edmunds was fingerprinted and the prints were
matched with those found at the Shepparton crime scene. He was
convicted and is now serving two life sentences with no minimum
term for the murders and a total of 30 years for five rape
convictions in Greensborough and Donvale.
It has been alleged that Edmunds committed
other murders and more than 32 rapes, however, he has maintained
his innocence. Police are seeking to utilise new legislation that
allows them to compel convicted prisoners to provide a blood
sample for DNA testing.
Admit Your
Evil Deeds
Geoff Wilkinson - Herald Sun
July 27, 1998
A
woman raped
by convicted killer Raymond "Mr Stinky" Edmunds yesterday begged
him to confess all his evil crimes.
The woman
challenged the serial rapist to show he had "some sort of a soul
and a conscience" by admitting his guilt and ending the
suffering of other victims.
"If he's got
any kind of conscience he could help ease the grief of so many
families by telling what he knows," she said.
The woman is
convinced Edmunds could have raped more than 100 women before he
was finally arrested in 1985.
The Herald Sun
revealed last Friday that Edmunds is being investigated for the
brutal murder of Melbourne mother Elaine Jones, at Tocumwal in
1980.
New South Wales
homicide squad detectives reopened the investigation after
receiving new information linking Edmunds to the killing.
Edmunds, 54, is
serving a life sentence with no minimum term for the murders of
Shepparton teenagers Abina Madill and Garry Heywood in 1966.
But the woman
believes Edmunds is responsible for many more crimes, including
other murders.
A lot of his
rape victims only came forward after he was arrested and we set
up support groups," she said.
"Many of his
victims felt ignored by the system because no charges were ever
laid.
I'm convinced
he did other murders, I honestly believe his murder victims
could be in double figures.
"But he's got
nothing to lose by telling what he knows, because he can't get a
longer sentence. I'd plead with him to tell the police and clear
up a lot of this stuff.
"It's not going
to bring people back, but it could end the pain and agony for a
lot of people," she said.
The woman said
she hoped Edmunds' guilty plea last week to carnal knowledge
charges indicated he might be finally feeling some remorse.
"He originally
pleaded not guilty to my rape, but apparently changed his mind
because he didn't want people to think he was a monster if the
circumstances came out in court," she said.
Ms McDonald was
threatened and raped by Edmunds in front of her five-year-old
son.
Edmunds, 54, is
suspected of at least 30 rapes in Melbourne's north-eastern,
eastern and south-eastern suburbs during the 1970s and early
1880s.
He was
convicted of three rapes and two attempted rapes. But limits on
police detention time under legislation at the time of his
arrest meant he was never questioned about many other offences.
A court order
will soon be sought under new legislation, which can compel
serving prisoners to provide a blood sample for DNA testing.
Police hope a
DNA com- parison will link Edmunds to some of the unsolved rapes
and other crimes.