After the killing of Cox, the gang members returned to the McCafferty unit where they drank beer and watched TV. But Archie could still hear the voices telling him to ‘Kill seven’ and he instructed two of his disciples to go and find him another victim. In the early hours of the following morning 24-year-old driving instructor Evangelos Kollias picked up Julie Todd and Dick Whittington as they hitchhiked along Enmore Road. Once in the car, Whittington produced a .22 rifle from under his coat. They forced Kollias into the back seat and told him to lie on the floor while Julie drove the car back to the flat.

McCafferty then took over. With Archie driving, the gang set off for Liverpool on the pretext of looking for a factory to rob. But they knew different. They knew that Archie had murder on his mind. Kollias was told to lie low as they did not want him to see where they were going. Assured that he would come to no harm, Kollias lay on the back floor and went to sleep.

Archie’s plan was to kill Evangelos Kollias then drive his car to Blacktown and kill Janice McCafferty, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. That would make six. The seventh victim was to be one of his own gang, Rick Webster. Archie felt that Webster was going to betray him to the police.

McCafferty told Whittington to kill Kollias. Whittington wasn’t sure that he could but as Kollias woke from his nap in the back of the car Whittington held the sawn off .22 rifle to his head and pulled the trigger. Evangelos Kollias died instantly.

‘Shoot him again urged McCafferty. Whittington put another bullet into the dead man’s  head. They dumped the body in a deserted street nearby.

When he realised that Kollias’ car didn’t have enough petrol to get him to his wife’s house, Archie abandoned the plan to murder Janice and her family. For that night at least. He still intended to make them the next three victims. And if Rick Webster hadn’t lived up to Archie’s suspicions and gone to the police, there is no doubt that Archie would have killed them. The voice kept telling him to.

When detectives arrested him, Archie told them: ‘I was going to Blacktown to kill three people ... I was going to go into the house and just start blasting away until they were all dead. They are very lucky people that the car didn’t have enough petrol.’

Then Archie had intended to cut off his wife’s head and send it in a box to the chief of the Criminal Investigation Bureau.

When one of the gang members told Rick Webster that he was on Archie’s hit list, Webster decided to tell what he knew to the police. McCafferty, Whittington and Meredith followed Webster to the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper building where he worked as an apprentice compositor. They sat in a stolen van out the front of the Herald building with loaded rifles, ready to kill Webster when he came out.

Webster saw them waiting and had a reporter call police. Detectives arrived at the Herald, where Webster told them he was too terrified to leave the building. When they heard his story about the three murders they called for reinforcements and the area was sealed off. Heavily armed detectives surrounded the vehicle while Detective Sergeant K. Aldridge approached it and pointed his revolver at Michael Meredith. Other detectives rushed the vehicle and apprehended McCafferty and Whittington. They took possession of two loaded and cocked rifles.

On the way to the police station, McCafferty told police: ‘All right, I knocked the bloke at Canterbury. I knocked the bloke at Leppington. And I knocked the bloke at Merrylands. I knocked all three of them.’ He made no less a secret of the fact that he would kill again.

"I'd Like To Cut Your Head Off"

At his sensational committal hearing leading up to his trial in February 1974, McCafferty pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder on the grounds of insanity. His five co-accused - Todd, Howe, Meredith, Whittington and Webster - all pleaded not guilty to the same charges.

The press had labelled the murders as ‘thrill killings’ and everyone wanted to know about the Charles Manson-like cult figure who had led his followers into an orgy of senseless killings. Archie didn’t let the packed courthouse down.

On the fourth morning of the committal hearing Archie asked the judge if he could make a statement. Although it was an unusual request, the judge allowed it.

McCafferty said: ‘Excuse me your worship, before the court starts, for the last four days I’ve sat here and listened to Mr Bannon criticising me on things that I’ve done. Now I've been wanting to say this for a long time, and I’m going to say it this morning. Mr Bannon, if you’re listening, Id like to cut your head off.’

It was not so much what McCafferty said that put a chill through the courtroom. It was the cold, methodical way in which he said it. McCafferty had already murdered three innocent people. The voice from the grave of his dead infant son had told him to kill seven. Then his boy would come back to him. Archie McCafferty had four to go, and the decapitation of Mr Bannon would put him one closer to his target.

The Mr Bannon in question was a barrister acting for one of McCafferty’s five co-accused. The shaken Mr Bannon proceeded with his case, safe in the knowledge that McCafferty was handcuffed and heavily guarded as he glared down from the dock. Archie McCafferty was also heavily drugged. Before the start of the committal hearings each morning and throughout his following trial at the Central Criminal Court he was given a heavy dose of tranquillisers to subdue his uncontrollable outbreaks of violence. The dosage was enough to bring a race-horse to its knees, yet in Archie’s drug-soaked system it barely pacified him.

But the drugs did have some of the desired effects. During the twelve-day trial Archie McCafferty had been alert and attentive. He listened closely to the evidence and made notes. He certainly didn’t look like the deranged murderer who had been labeled “Australia's Charles Manson”.

In fact McCafferty often winked at the court reporters and joked with his co-accused. He fingered the bench in the dock as though it were a keyboard and played tunes for the gallery. When the proceedings became tiresome, he deep-etched his name in the bench with a pen. Archie was having a ball. But without his medicinal straitjacket, the 25-year-old Scotsman was a violent man who could kill without question.

The Trial

While awaiting trial in Long Bay’s remand section Archie had nearly killed another prisoner with his slops bucket. The only way to calm Archie down was with sedatives. At first, normal doses had no effect. So prison doctors kept increasing the dosage until they took effect. His daily dosage of 1500 milligrams of the potent tranquilliser Largactil was almost four times the normal dose of 400 milligrams. Prison psychiatrists agreed that McCafferty’s incredible tolerance to massive doses of tranquillisers was in itself evidence that he was insane.

At the trial, three psychiatrists gave their opinions of Archie’s mental state. Dr William Metcalf, a Macquarie Street specialist, was called to give evidence on behalf of the defence. He said that in his opinion McCafferty was insane at the time of the killings because he did not know what he was doing was wrong. Dr Metcalf pointed out that Archie was mentally ill and his mind was not in tune with reality. He was a paranoid schizophrenic at the time of the killings.

A completely different opinion was given by the prosecution’s psychiatric adviser, Dr Oscar Schmalzbach, also a Macquarie Street specialist and consultant psychiatrist to the state government. Dr Schmalzbach said; “In my view McCafferty knew at the time that what he was doing was wrong. He may have had an isolated schizophrenic reaction at the time of the second killing but this did not make him a paranoid schizophrenic. Such an illness does not exist one day and disappear another day and come back the third day.”

A third psychiatrist who examined McCafferty after the killings did not give evidence. He took the middle view that McCafferty was insane but he knew what he was doing at the time of the killings.

Although they could not agree on Archie’s sanity, the three psychiatrists were united in the opinion that, no matter what, Archie McCafferty could never again be set free. They all agreed that he was an extreme danger to the community.

Then it was Archie’s turn and the hushed courtroom was captivated as he told of the voice from the grave and how he had been told that seven must die if he wanted to see his son again. He maintained that he was completely insane at the time of the murders. The press lapped it up and Archie didn’t disappoint them. At last he was getting the recognition that he so desperately craved. Even if he had to kill three people to get it. And in true trouper fashion, Archie saved the best bit until last, his statement, which he read from the dock:

“Your Honour and gentlemen of the jury. Firstly, I would like to say that at the time of these crimes I was completely insane. The reason why I done this is for the revenge of my son’s death. That is what made me do it.

“Before this I had stated to a doctor that I felt like killing people, but up until my son’s death I had not killed anyone.

“My son's death was the biggest thing that ever happened to me, because I loved him so much - and he meant the world to me and after his death I just seemed to go to the pack.

“I feel no wrong for what I have done because at the time that I did it I didn't think it was wrong. But after my son was killed I tried to kill my wife and I was admitted into Parramatta Psychiatric Home because I knew I needed treatment. So I signed myself in and I was there for a number of weeks.

“I think, if given the chance, I will kill again, for the simple reason that I have to kill seven people, and I have only killed three, which means I have four to go, and this is how I feel in my mind, and I just can't say that I am not going to kill anyone else, because in my mind I am.

“Whether you think I am sane or insane is up to youse [sic] but I would say that I was definitely insane at the night of these murders. The day of my son’s inquest at the Coroner’s Court happened to be the day that I stabbed Mr Anson. The reason why I killed this man was because I heard my son’s voice tell me to do so. The same with the second and third person.

“Each time I went to the graveyard to visit my son’s grave a violent streak would come over me and I wanted to be so violent I wanted to kill people. I kept hearing voices, not only my son’s voice, but other voices as well, which I don’t know whose they are.

“On the Thursday that I was apprehended I had every intention of killing Rick Webster as I heard the voices to tell me to do so and anyone else that the voices tell me to kill I would kill until I reached the figure seven.

“I still say I felt no wrong in what I have done and I am still willing to kill anyone else that I am told to kill. At the time of my son’s death I took it pretty hard and since then I have not been the same because I loved him so much and I believe in my own mind that my wife murdered him on purpose and that is why I killed these men, for the revenge of my son's death.

“And this is the honest truth. So I hope that the jury and Your Honour will believe what I said. That’s it.”

Mick Meredith and Dick Whittington were found guilty of the murders of Ronald Cox and Evangelos Kollias and each sentenced to 18 years in prison. Richard Webster was found guilty of the manslaughter of Cox and sentenced to four years in prison.

Julie Todd was found guilty of murdering Cox and Kollias and sent to prison for ten years. On May 20, 1974 she was found hanged in a bathroom at Silverwater Detention Centre. She had just turned 17.

Carol Howes was found not guilty on all counts. Eight months pregnant with McCafferty’s child when the verdict was handed down Howes made a passionate promise from the dock to McCafferty. “I’ll wait for you Archie,” she sobbed. “No matter what, I’ll always be waiting for you with our child.” She immediately moved into the Blacktown house of Archie McCafferty’s parents to have their grandchild.

The jury chose to believe that Archie was not crazy and returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. Nobody shed a tear for the remorseless killer as the judge handed down the three life sentences. As he was led back to prison, McCafferty swore he would kill again. And there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that given the chance, he would.

There was no such lenient sentence for Archibald Beattie McCafferty. He was sentenced to three terms of life imprisonment. Even as he was being led from the courtroom he shouted that he would kill four more to avenge the death of his son.
 

Australia's Worst Prisoner

Archie proved to be a handful for the authorities and he was shuffled around to the toughest gaols in the state. Prison officers and psychiatrists regarded him as extremely dangerous. His one consistent and predominant thought was the killing of four more people.

A television crew allowed into the notorious Katingal section at Long Bay Jail interviewed Archie who told a stunned audience that there was nothing that anyone could do to stop him from murdering another four people should he be let out.

Placed on massive doses of tranquillisers to keep him under control, by 1978 Archie had done time in almost every maximum security prison in the state and was considered to be a gaol ‘heavy’ and an associate of the hardest criminals in the penal system. In April 1980 warders foiled an escape attempt by Archie at Grafton gaol. He had loosened bricks in his cell before prison officers were tipped off and his escape route was discovered. At the time prison officers said McCafferty was probably the worst criminal in the state’s gaols.

Police believe that Archie McCafferty was a member of the secret ‘murder squad’ that was judge, jury and executioner behind the walls of Parramatta Jail in 1981. They believe that the group was responsible for four murders within the prison. In September 1981 Archie was charged with the murder of Edward James Lloyd, who was stabbed to death in his cell. Archie’s co-accused, Kevin Michael Gallagher, was eventually found guilty of the murder.

It was proved that McCafferty was present while the murder took place and, though he strenuously denied the charges, McCafferty was found guilty of manslaughter and given a further fourteen years.

Archie protested vehemently against the sentence, claiming that he had been framed. To prove it he named those who were responsible to the authorities. Archie McCafferty automatically became an outcast within the system that had been his home for the best part of his life.

He was now the biggest headache within the New South Wales penal system. For his own protection he was transferred from one jail to the next in search of a permanent home. In November 1981 Archie was caught-red-handed in his cell with 10 foil-wrapped packages containing heroin. The judge sentenced him to another three years imprisonment.

During 1983 and 1984 Archie was moved repeatedly between Maitland, Long Bay and Parklea prisons under the unofficial, but reprehensible practice called ‘Shanghaiing’ whereby senior prison staff were able to pass the responsibility for dealing with difficult prisoners on to others.

It was noted in official records that Archie suffered fits of mental disturbance during this period and he was said to be ‘off his rocker’. After giving further information to authorities about serious criminal conduct by various prison officers within the prison system, Archie was eventually moved to the Long Bay Witness Protection Unit in 1987.

By now a price had been placed on his head and he was classified as a ‘supergrass’. It was in the Witness Protection Unit that Archie was revisited by delusions concerning his dead son. Prison psychiatrists put it down to the fact that he had been sniffing solvents and petroleum and was extremely depressed by the lack of prospects for his future release.

As no parole period had been given it was clear to Archie that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. But he kept applying for parole. In October 1991 Archie McCafferty’s application for parole was heard before Mr Justice Wood. The judge granted him a 20-year parole period dating from 30 August 1973. Archie became eligible for release on parole on 29 August 1993.

Over the years Archie’s anger subsided until he was considered safe enough to be placed at the Berrima minimum security prison south of Sydney. But each year when he applied to be released on parole it was rejected.