Sharpe Family Murders

The Sharpe family murders was a March 2004 Australian double murder, in which John Sharpe killed his pregnant wife, Anna, and his nineteen-month old daughter Gracie, in the Melbourne suburb of Mornington. For his part in the crime, he became generally known as the 'Speargun killer' or the 'Mornington Monster'.

Sharpe repeatedly fired a spear gun into the heads of his victims, and would later exhume the body of his wife, dismember her, then dispose of her body in a landfill. Claiming his innocence, he would later appear on national television in emotional interviews seeking information on his family's whereabouts. Sharpe eventually confessed to the murders and was sentenced in 2005 to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 33 years. He will be eligible for parole in 2037.

Read more about Sharpe Family Murders:  Background, Arrest and Conviction, Media Coverage, Related Pages

Famous quotes containing the words sharpe, family and/or murders:

    Reprehension is a kind of middle thing betwixt admonition and correction: it is sharpe admonition, but a milde correction. It is rather to be used because it may be a meanes to prevent strokes and blowes, especially in ingenuous and good natured children. [Blows are] the last remedy which a parent can use: a remedy which may doe good when nothing else can.
    William Gouge, Puritan writer. As quoted in The Rise and Fall of Childhood by C. John Sommerville, ch. 11 (rev. 1990)

    If it had not been for storytelling, the black family would not have survived. It was the responsibility of the Uncle Remus types to transfer philosophies, attitudes, values, and advice, by way of storytelling using creatures in the woods as symbols.
    Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)

    Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
    John Adams (1735–1826)