Prison killers battle to the death

News.com.au ^ | 09Oct03 | By Duncan Macfarlane

[aculeus]

ONE of the nation's most vicious killers was bludgeoned to death in a Brisbane prison yesterday, allegedly by a former accomplice of Postcard Bandit Brendan Abbott.

Convicted double-murderer and homosexual rapist Mark Walter Day, 30, died in the maximum security unit of the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre after being bashed with a heavy object sheathed in a prison-issue sock.

Police were last night interviewing Jason John Nixon, 31, a huge and heavily tattooed armed robber and murderer who in 1993 used a 20kg weightlifter's dumbbell to beat a fellow prisoner to death.

In 1997, Nixon, Abbott and three other convicted murderers made a spectacular escape from the jail protected by gunfire provided by outside collaborators. Nixon was recaptured 15 days later at a luxury Noosa resort.

Nixon and Day went on a jail hunger-strike together in 2001 demanding access to punching bags, but yesterday, shortly after 11am and alone in the prison exercise yard, they fought to the death.

Police locked down all maximum security prisoners at the jail yesterday as they conducted an investigation of the crime scene.

Corrective Services Minister Tony McGrady said he would consider tightening security in the unit, which is supposed to be the safest in the country.

"I am concerned by any incident which results in the death of a prisoner," Mr McGrady said.

"I will be expecting a full explanation with regard to the security which was in place when this incident took place."

Day spent most of his adult life in jail, moving from burglaries as a juvenile to violent robberies in his late teens.

He first killed in 1994 when he and a fellow inmate stabbed convicted rapist Dung Van Nguyen a dozen times with a screwdriver and a pitchfork blade at the Lotus Glen Correctional Centre at Mareeba, in far north Queensland.

Dung had failed to pay a gambling debt of nine packets of tobacco. Day was sentenced to life.

In 1997, Day received a further three years for the unlawful wounding of yet another prisoner, and the following year he was convicted of strangling 22-year-old traffic fine defaulter Scott Laurence Topping with a video recorder cord.

The court heard that Day and five other prisoners had raped Topping on an almost daily basis after he was sent to the maximum security division of the Woodford prison.

Nixon has a criminal record scarcely less appalling.

In 1991, while on remand for drug possession and harbouring an escapee, Nixon and three others used a garbage truck to smash their way to freedom through steel gates and two heavy doors. A year later he was sentenced to seven years' jail for armed robbery.

In 1993 Nixon led a gang of six inmates who beat fellow prisoner Bart Vosmaer to death in the prison gymnasium.

Police are expected to lay charges today.

[aculeus]

Nixon top, Day bottom.

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[MikeJ]

... the following year he was convicted of strangling 22-year-old traffic fine defaulter Scott Laurence Topping with a video recorder cord. The court heard that Day and five other prisoners had raped Topping on an almost daily basis after he was sent to the maximum security division of the Woodford prison.

Traffic fine defaulter? And they sent him to maximum security?

Wow. I will never, ever pay a bill late again.

[Bob]

It sounds as if the Aussies don't have the death penalty in their legal system.

How utterly civilized of them. </sarcasm>

[putupon]

Convicted double-murderer and homosexual rapist Mark Walter Day, 30, died in the maximum security unit of the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre after being bashed with a heavy object sheathed in a prison-issue sock.

Heading for the land down under, eh mate?

[First Amendment]

This is a poster-story (is there such a thing?) for the death penalty. I say get rid of jails. Have stocks, public canings, executions and exile to remote uninhabitated islands be punishments instead. Cheaper and more effective.

Why the he** would a traffic fine defaulter be put in a max prison? Horrible.

[Nov3]

WTF is the use? It sounds like this is a problem that is solving itself.

[ExSoldier]

Bring back the gladiatorial games. Thumbs UP/Thumbs DOWN.

"What we do in life, echoes in eternity."

Make 'em all a deal (but lie)...last one standing gets a full pardon. Then kill that last one as he is obviously the most dangerous criminal of all.

[fishbabe]

don't you just love it????a traffic fine nets you hard time and gang rapes on a daily basis but go out and kill 20 or 30 people and the aussies make sure you stay alive and taken care of for fifty or so years.....

[BlackVeil]

I say get rid of jails. Have stocks, public canings, executions and exile to remote uninhabitated islands ... I agree. I especially feel that there should be corporal punishment for juvenile offenders - canings and floggings like in Singapore. It teaches the offender a lesson, without exiling him from society to live among criminals at an impressionable age.

[First Amendment]

I bet a lot of people secretly feel the same way, only are afraid to say so for fear of being thought medieval. But these punishments make total sense. What they're doing now costs huge bucks and doesn't do any good. Although keeping the bad guys away from the rest of us is good.
Lawyer are a huge reason for most of the law and order problems...
Public shame and public pain would be much better at changing character than jails.