Australian Medic Jailed for Murder; Wife Blames Job

QUEENSLAND'S second convicted serial killer -- a former ambulance officer who stabbed two prostitutes to death in brutal bayonet attacks -- will spend at least 25 years in jail.

Judge Margaret White set the 25-year non-parole limit in the Brisbane Supreme Court yesterday as she sentenced Francis Michael Fahey, 53, to life imprisonment. A jury in September found Fahey guilty of the murders of Jasmin Crathern 41, on August 8, 2002, and Julie Louise McColl, 42, on February 26, 2003.

In an unfortunate twist, it was revealed Fahey should have been in jail for WorkCover fraud the night he killed McColl, but was free at the time because of a legal loophole, since closed.

The Queensland Government initially applied to have Fahey jailed indefinitely for the two murders, but the application was withdrawn because of legal uncertainty over the measure caused by a recent High Court decision. Justice White told Fahey yesterday that both victims were street prostitutes working in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley and were likely to have been drug addicts. ''For both of those reasons, they were probably very vulnerable to harm.''

The body of Crathern was found in a vacant lot near a police station in the northern Brisbane suburb of Hendra. She had been stabbed 14 times.

Six months later, the bound and blindfolded body of McColl was found in a car park at Bald Hills on Brisbane's northern outskirts. She had been stabbed 24 times.

''The knowledge of what you had done to your first victim did not sufficiently appall you to prevent you from trawling through the Valley for someone else,'' Justice White said.

Fahey, a father of three who spent 11 years as an ambulance officer, confessed to the murders in police interviews. ''I spent all my (expletive) life saving lives,'' he told police. ''Now I'm taking them and I don't know why.''

Fahey has been diagnosed with depression and adjustment disorder, but Justice White said it was uncertain whether his mental problems stemmed from the horrific scenes he would have witnessed as an ambulance officer. Outside court, Fahey's wife, Beth, said: ''I think (his ambulance career) played a major part in why we're here today.''

Queensland's first serial killer, Leonard John Fraser, was found guilty in May 2003 of the murders of three Rockhampton women.

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