Vincent O’Dempsey has been sentenced to life in prison over the murders of Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters, Vicki and Leanne, in 1974.
The 78-year-old had been convicted on Friday last week of all three killings after a four-week trial in the Brisbane supreme court.
His accomplice, Garry “Shorty” Dubois, now 70, has also been given a life sentence. Dubois was last year found guilty of raping and murdering the sisters as well as McCulkin’s manslaughter. Both men’s downfall came from their confessions to people they thought they could trust.
Justice Peter Applegarth said he expected both men to die in jail.
McCulkin and her children, Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11, were taken from their Highgate Hill home on the night of 16 January 1974. The trio was tied up and driven to bushland near Warwick where O’Dempsey is believed to have strangled the 34-year-old mother before killing the girls and burying their bodies.
Their bodies have never been found.
Barbara McCulkin’s brother gave a victim impact statement to the Brisbane supreme court on Thursday, in which he remembered her as a kind and bubbly person and a great mother to Vicki and Leanne.
Graham Ogden said: “I have mourned the loss of my sister and nieces for 43 years”.
“I often thought that there must be those out there who knew what had happened and asked the question, why wouldn’t they have come forward.”
“She often spoke of her daughters’ many achievements with such maternal pride,” he said. “Vicki and Leanne were happy, well-behaved and respectful children, a credit to their mother.”
He said the McCulkins should “still be with us, leading rich and vibrant lives”, adding: “These things have been brutally denied to my sister and nieces”.
Ogden said he was hopeful their remains would be found so the family could finally lay them to rest.
Barbara McCulkin’s eldest daughter, known only as Jocelyn, also gave a victim impact statement to the court that was not made public.
On Thursday, O’Dempsey’s solicitor, Terry O’Gorman, criticised the Queensland legal system. Speaking outside the Brisbane supreme court he acknowledged the grief and angst of the McCulkin family before criticising the evidence of three crucial prosecution witnesses and reporting of the trial.
But he said he was not being critical of Applegarth or the court.
O’Dempsey was convicted following a month-long trial, during which the jury heard he had confessed to the McCulkin murders to three people.
The first witness, Warren McDonald, said O’Dempsey had in 1997 boasted about the murders and that he would never be caught.
O’Dempsey’s former girlfriend Kerri Scully also told the jury he had bragged to her about the murders and a remand prisoner, who cannot be identified, secretly recorded a confession this year, the court heard.
The defence has two weeks to decide if it will appeal against the sentences.
