Peter Dupas Gets a Beating in Prison
SERIAL killer Peter Dupas was taken to hospital by paramedics after a jailhouse beating 06/05/11.
Dupas suffered head injuries after being attacked at the maximum security Barwon Prison, near Geelong.
It is believed Dupas is being held in a protection section. Corrections authorities have assessed that he is at risk of being attacked in mainstream sections of the prison because of the nature of his crimes.
It is unclear what sparked yesterday’s violence. A Corrections Victoria spokesman yesterday declined to comment on the identity of the attack victim.
“A 58-year-old prisoner was treated in hospital for minor injuries following an incident at Barwon Prison. He has since been returned to the prison,” the spokesman said.
Dupas is currently appealing his conviction over the murder of Mersina Halvagis at Fawkner Cemetery on November 1, 1997.
This one has a story and a video. Both articles report that he is back in his cell so it was not a very severe beating.
Convicted killer Peter Dupas has been beaten up in jail, according to newspaper reports.
Dupas suffered head injuries after being attacked at the maximum security Barwon Prison, near Geelong, on Sunday and was taken to hospital but was now back in his cell, News Ltd papers report on Monday.
Dupas, 58, was convicted for the murder of Mersina Halvagis at Fawkner Cemetery on November 1, 1997
I have a hard time feeling bad for him. Crime Library begins their story on him like this:
Peter Dupas was a predatory sex monster of the worst kind: A cruel and calculating fiend who meticulously went about his depravity and could then melt into a crowd in a heartbeat. A man so ordinary and inconspicuous that it was almost impossible to believe that he could commit such atrocities. That is the way his victims saw him and, time and again, they allowed him into their company.
He left those who survived so traumatized that some could never again go to sleep with the light off or walk down their own hallway unaccompanied. No sooner was Peter Dupas out of jail than he would re-offend, each time worse than the last, until he killed and was finally locked away, where he would never be allowed to hurt anyone again.
He was born into a loving family but was still a criminal by age 15.
On October 3, 1968, while wearing his school uniform, Dupas went to the house next door and asked his friendly 27-year-old neighbor, who was nursing her five-week-old baby, if he could borrow a sharp knife so he could peel some potatoes. As the woman commented on what a good boy he was for helping his mother with the cooking, he lunged at her with the knife and stabbed her in the stomach without saying a word.
“He knocked me down onto the floor and fell on top of me,” the woman told the police. “He kept on stabbing me with the knife and I kept trying to ward him off. I felt the knife cut into my hands, mainly my right hand, my face and my neck.
He was given probation.
He went on to rape, rob, and murder.
This is from Wikipedia’s Article on Dupas:
Chronology
- 6 July 1953 born
- 3 October 1968 at age fifteen he stabbed his female neighbour and received eighteen months probation
- 25 July 1974 sentenced to 5 to 9 years imprisonment for rape aged 21
- 1979 approximately two months after his release from prison, Dupas again molested women in four separate attacks over a ten day period.
- 28 February 1980 Dupas received a five year minimum prison sentence for three charges of assault with intent to rape, malicious wounding, assault with intent to rob, and indecent assault.
- 1985 February released from prison
- 28 June 1985 Dupas was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment for rape that was committed four days after his release from prison.
- Less than two years after his release from prison, Dupas was arrested on charges of false imprisonment over an incident at Lake Eppalock during January 1994
- 18 August 1994 after entering a guilty plea to one count of false imprisonment, Dupas was sentenced to three years and nine months imprisonment, with a minimum period of two years and nine months.
- 1996 September Dupas released from prison
- 4 October 1997 The murdered body of Margaret Josephine Maher was discovered.
- 1 November 1997 Mersina Halvagis murdered. Body discovered the next day.
- 19 April 1999 The murdered body of Nicole Amanda Patterson was discovered.
- 22 April 1999 police arrested Dupas
- 22 August 2000 Sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Nicole Patterson with no minimum period.
- 16 August 2004 Dupas was convicted of the murder of Maher and sentenced to a second term of life imprisonment.
- 11 September 2006 police charged Dupas with the murder of Mersina Halvagis
- 9 August 2007 Dupas was convicted of the murder of Mersina Halvagis.
- 27 August 2007 Dupas sentenced to serve life imprisonment for the murder of Mersina Halvagis.
- 17 September 2009 Dupas’ appeal upheld against conviction for the murder of Mersina Halvagis, verdict set aside.
- 25 October 2010 second trial for the murder of Mersina Halvagis begins.
- 19 November 2010 Dupas is convicted for a second time of the Halvagis murder.
- 26 November 2010 sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Mersina Halvagis, with no minimum term.
Real Life Monsters 
…Opening the Crown case today prosecutor Michele Williams SC said that Peter Norris Dupas was also placed at the scene of the stabbing murder by a number of witnesses who were at the cemetery that day.Defence barrister Graham Thomas SC in his opening address told the jury that Dupas did not expect or deserve sympathy but he did deserve a fair trial.Ms Williams told the Supreme Court jury that Dupas became friends with solicitor Andrew Fraser who had been jailed on serious drug matters.The pair were housed together at the Sirius East Unit at Port Phillip Prison between 2002 and 2003 and did gardening and watched TV together.Ms Williams said that one day in the exercise yard a young Greek man began berating Dupas saying that he knew he had killed Mersina described him as an animal and said he would kill him if he got the opportunity……….Start of sidebar. …The prosecutorsaid the man was a cousin of Ms Halvagis and Mr Fraser would say that Dupas was shaken by the confrontation.Dupas said to Fraser How did that c–t know I did it?That is we say an admission to Andrew Fraser Ms Williams said.The prosecutor said that on the day she died Ms Halvagis had gone toFawkner Cemetery to visit her grandmothers grave and her fiance became worried later when she had not returnedand could not be found.Ms Halvagis 25 was stabbed to death at Fawkner on November 1 1997 and Dupas 57 has pleaded not guilty to her murder.The jury has been told that Dupas was convicted in 2000 of the murder of Nicole Patterson and in 2004 of the murder of Margaret Maher.Defence barrister Graham Thomas SC told the jury a major issue in the trial would be the very significant publicity Dupas has had in newspapers books and on television.Dupas had been convicted of two murders and he urged the jury not to adopt the reasoning if it happened once it could happen again.By reason of that background Peter Dupas cant expect sympathy.
…..PETER Dupass lawyer told a Supreme Court judge last month his client had reached the status of some infamous icon of evil…… …Dupas a paunchy bespectacled little man with lank hair no conscience and no apparent personality has become notorious worldwide.David Drake his publicly funded barrister in the trial that ended yesterday told the judge during a pre-trial hearing that when he typed Dupass name into his Internet search engine it showed 78 000 hits.Mr Drakes junior counsel Mark Regan quoted a US website that described Dupas as a predatory sex monster of the worst kind a cruel and calculating fiend who meticulously went about his depravity and could then melt into a crowd in a heartbeat .Mr Regan told Justice Philip Cummins the Wikipedia entry on Dupas was breathtakingly detailed and included a list of his convictions……….Start of sidebar. …The two lawyers argued Dupas had reached such a level of infamy he could not get a fair trial over the murder of Mersina Halvagis.Justice Cummins disagreed and after almost 10 years of torment and delay a grieving family yesterday finally heard the verdict that will hopefully bring them some peace.It was the third time a jury has found Dupas guilty of stabbing a woman to death.Police believe he is guilty of murdering at least another three women and all three cases will be reviewed despite yesterdays conviction.Andrew Fraser the disgraced criminal lawyer who became a key witness against Dupas in the Halvagis trial described him to police as probably the most dangerous and unpredictable person I have ever met .Fraser said Dupas was quite spooky very quiet and you have no idea what he is thinking .That was certainly the case throughout Dupass four-week trial.The serial killer never showed a flicker of emotion.When the crime-scene video recorded at Fawkner Cemetery the morning after the murder was shown to the jury with Ms Halvagiss lifeless body still lying near her grandmothers grave his eyes never left the screen.But he didnt watch a video replay of his prison cell confession as described by Fraser.Twice the Halvagis family was subjected to the macabre pantomime starring Fraser as he played the roles of both victim and villain.The first time without a jury during the pre-trial hearing the family had little warning as Fraser stepped out of the witness box and removed his pin-striped suit jacket to demonstrate how Dupas plunged a knife into Ms Halvagis in 1997.Ms Halvagiss parents sister and two brothers then saw the same display during Frasers evidence at the trial.Dupass razor-sharp killing knife has never been found.Nor has a pathologists knife used to mutilate the bodies of two elderly women in a hospital mortuary in 1969.Dupas was only 16 at the time but had already used a knife on his first known victim a year earlier.The removal of the elderly womens breasts was a feature that was to be seen again almost 30 years later in two murders committed by Dupas.Expert evidence in those trials over the deaths of Margaret Maher and Nicole Patterson was that there were no other known cases in Australia where breasts had been removed.Dupass killing jacket – the one he wore when he stabbed Ms Patterson in her Northcote home in 1999 was an exhibit in the Halvagis trial.The jury was invited to study the ripped right pocket which was mentioned to police by a woman who said she saw Dupas at the cemetery the day Ms Halvagis was killed.Jurors were told that the 20 or 30 holes cut out of the jacket had been removed for chemical testing – not that they had been spattered with Ms Pattersons blood.Nor were they told about phone calls that could have been a clue to Dupass motives but were considered not relevant enough to be admitted as evidence in any of his murder trials.While Dupass de facto was away overseas between September 1997 and January 1998 he rang 29 numbers for escort agencies massage parlours and personal contact ads.The night before Ms Halvagis was killed the phone at Dupass Pascoe Vale home was used to call three escort agencies.The day she died Dupass number contacted a phone sex service at 12.45pm.At 5.14pm – little more than an hour after Ms Halvagis was slaughtered – there was another call from his phone to the sex service.Both calls lasted only 13 seconds and were probably not answered but they may provide an insight into Dupass state of mind.Ms Halvagis was murdered four weeks after the death of Margaret Maher a sex worker whose mutilated body was found in long grass at Somerton on October 4 1997.None of Dupass three trials heard the phone sex service operators account of a call she received in 1997 from a scary man who referred to his mother as the bitch .She told police the man talked about pressing on a womans neck and sounded sexually aroused when he said he cut down and around the breast and across the nipple – injuries almost identical to those suffered by Ms Maher.Police are almost certain Dupass depravity during his partners absence was not restricted to the slaying of Ms Maher and Ms Halvagis.They believe eight weeks after he killed Ms Halvagis Dupas stabbed Kathleen Downes 95 in the neck at a Brunswick nursing home.Circumstantial evidence linking Dupas to the crime includes unexplained phone calls from his Pascoe Vale home to the nursing home just before the murder.Mrs Downes was killed on New Years Eve the same day several years earlier that Dupas was dumped by his wife- an older woman who worked in a nursing home.Chillingly Dupass 1997 series of killings could have been even worse.In between killing Ms Maher and Ms Halvagis the name Peter Dupas was recorded in the sign-in book at the Glenroy-Broadmeadows branch of Parents Without Partners….
I went to school with Peter (Pugsly) Dupas. He was a bit of a loner really
In the 70’s, my Mother was working at General Electric, (then in Notting Hill), I think Peter’s brother may have worked there also, as I believe he arranged for Peter to work there also.
After work, Peter would give my mother a lift to Oakleigh for her shopping. Mum used to say he is “A lovely boy”! On hot days he would place a towell on the car seat, so mum wouldn’t get burnt. I now firmly believe that mum could have been his next victom.
Thank goodness he was arrested for a previous crime, or we probably wouldn’t have had mum for as long as we did.!
I cannot comprehend how such a quiet lad at school (and he offended during that time), could turn out to be such a sick MONSTER!!!
I am surprised that he is still alive, prisoners do not like his type!
Thank you so much for the background information.
Many serial killers are described as ‘loners’ as young adults and even as children. It makes me wonder if there aren’t some signs that kids and young adults pick up on about their peers that they never even realize are there.
Also, most serial killer are known as ‘nice’ by casual acquaintances and co-workers when they are adults. It is part of why they can get away with what they do for so long. Ted Bundy used to work at a suicide hotline and was highly regarded by his co-workers. Ann Rule wrote about her time working with him.
I am glad that your mother was not hurt by him.
As far as comprehending how the person you knew was able to hide the dark monster inside him I wish that I could give a proper explanation but people with much more experience and knowledge have been trying to do that for years with only limited success.
There have been assaults against him just none that ended his life.