A life of crime: chilling confessions of a cold-blooded killer

EXCLUSIVE: He wanted maximum damage when he pulled the trigger.

Using a hacksaw, he calmly shaved down the barrel of the sixteen-gauge shotgun his stepfather had bought the year before to kill vermin on their Chinchilla farm.

Sometime on the afternoon of September 9, 1987, between walking home from school and playing with the family dog, Phillip Graeme Abell had decided to shoot his parents.

The 15-year-old was in his bedroom of the family’s Gold Coast home preparing to execute his plan as his parents returned from a walk. His mother showered while his stepfather settled on the couch to read a book. His 11-year-old sister sat across from her father.

He loaded the gun with three cartridges and cocked it. Abell walked out to the lounge and from two metres away, shot his stepfather in the head. He ran out to the back stairs, reloaded and then stood at the door as he turned the gun on his mother who was tending to her husband in the lounge. She was shot in the chest and upper-arm. His sister, who was standing behind her mother, was sprayed with the pellets. His family was lucky to survive the attack.

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Abell ran out of the house, threw the gun into the yard and fled. He went to a friend’s house asking her mother to give him a lift to Surfers Paradise. To convince the woman to drive him, Abell concocted a story that a gunman had forced him to shoot his parents. Police arrested him at Nerang.

The teenager who so coldly shot his parents because they stopped him going out with his friends was today jailed for the murder of Gold Coast Detective Senior Constable Damian Leeding.

During the trial, part of Abell’s argument was that he shot back at the police officer in self-defence. Detective Leeding and his partner Detective Nicole Jackson were responding to an armed robbery in progress at the Pacific Pines Tavern on May 29, 2011. However Abell’s criminal career for the past 22 years tells a different story of a remorseless man whose propensity for violence leaves no doubt he uses whatever means to achieve his end. Police and prison officers described Abell as the type of criminal destined to be a “lifer” behind bars from the time he was a child. He was a suspect in two jailhouse murders.

In 1995 during an armed robbery, he shot over the head of a National Australia Bank teller because she was too slow emptying the cash drawer. He and two accomplices fled. After a manhunt, shots were exchanged between the robbers and police. Abell was arrested and found with a handgun.

Three years ago, he shoved his gun into the belly of a pregnant woman during a home invasion on Brisbane’s south side. Police cannot rule out the possibility it was the same used to shoot Detective Leeding.

But nothing was so revealing of Abell”s true character than the chilling 1987 record of interview with Detective Sergeant Robert Guteridge over the shooting of his parents.

"I got home that afternoon Mum said they were going for a walk to take the dogs. I just said 'OK'. While they were gone I got the gun out. Sawed it off with the hacksaw and I also got the cartridge out and when they come home I was mucking around with the dogs for a while and then Mum got into the shower. Dad was sitting in the lounge room reading a book. I got the gun out then I shot my Dad. I raced out the back door and down the stairs, loaded the gun again and then I raced back and shot my Mum," Abell said in the interview obtained exclusively by 7News.

Detective Guteridge asked Abell what had happened at home to "make you do this".

"Mum and Dad just wouldn’t let me go to my friend’s place on the weekends. I couldn’t stand being inside all the time with them," he said frankly.

Abell then said he and his parents were always arguing. His stepdad later told investigators in an interview Phillip was "quiet and never any trouble".

Abell said there was nothing in particular that had upset him on the day of the shooting.

"It’s been coming for a long time … they never let me go to my friend’s places or anywhere."

Detective Guteridge asked the teenager why he cut down the barrel of the gun.

"So it would spread more ... the bullets would spread out more," he said.

The detective asked Abell why he wanted that to happen.

"Just so I would be sure of a hit."

Abell told police he was a "little bit" familiar with firearms and had only fired a shotgun once prior to shooting his parents. It was the same gun he used to shoot them.

Abell claimed that while he knew shooting his parents could have killed them, it was "not really" his intention.

He was not aiming at a particular part of their bodies or thinking about anything in particular when he shot them.

"I didn’t like the way they were treating me ... that’s all," he said.

He told police he wanted to hand himself in but a friend’s parent rang them before he had a chance

"I wanted to put myself in. I didn’t want to keep on running," he said.

Abell admitted he knew shooting his parents was wrong.

"Because you’re not supposed to do it ... it is against the law," he said.

"I just wish I’d never done it."

Abell was subsequently charged with two counts of attempted murder and unlawful wounding.

However those charges were later withdrawn.

In March 1988, he was jailed for 15months at Toowoomba's Westbrook Boys Home after he was found guilty of the unlawful grievous bodily harm of his parents.

During his time at Westbrook he was charged with assaulting a fellow inmate.

By 1990, Abell was jailed for armed robbery and drugs. Several stints in prison would follow for armed robbery, assault occasioning bodily harm and drugs.

While incarcerated at Sir David Longland jail (SDL), Abell spent time in B Block, a high security unit which was home to the notorious Angry Gang. The jail was considered to be the toughest in Queensland and B-block the most dangerous.

Abell had a connection with fellow armed robbers Shane "Budgie" Barlow and Steve Alexanderson – two of the six inmates who formed the gang after they murdered Hans Bart Vosmaer in 1993.

A 1999 prison intelligence report identified "that inmates within correctional centres aspire to join this "gang" either by respect for these individuals, fear or notoriety associated with being a member of the "Angry Gang",".

The "Angries" were a mix of white supremacists, rapists, murderers, and standover merchants - a convict cult which created its own dialect to disguise their crimes behind bars. The language was a play on Aussie slang using rhymes. Police and prison sources said Abell has named his son Christian after the Angries’ code for gun, "Christian – Christian Nun – gun".

Abell joined the gang as a "soldier" in the 1990s. He is listed as a member in several confidential prison intelligence reports obtained by 7News. He was nicknamed "Munster" because his receding hairline resembled the hairstyles of the characters from the popular 1960s television show of the same name.

A prison officer, who worked for several years at SDL including B Block, described Abell as someone destined to spend life behind bars.

"He was arrogant, he was just a grub. He was someone who was incapable of any sort of decent conversation with an officer because he was so anti-authority," the officer said.

"Abell was someone who could never be rehabilitated. He would do his full time and wouldn’t seek parole because he did not want to be answerable to anyone," said the officer who asked not to be identified.

"He was definitely old school – never roll, never give up a mate and stood staunch. Abell was among the group that hated police all their life," he said.

Documents from an unsuccessful 2001 court challenge by Abell about being held at the Woodford Maximum Security Unit (MSU) reveal his bad behaviour did not stop behind bars.

He was placed in the toughest unit after authorities discovered him in the roof cavity of the visitors section at SDL. The MSU had been built in response to the 1997 mass escape from SDL led by Postcard Bandit Brendan Abbott. Abell had also escaped from Wacol prison in 1992 and was at large for three days.

In their response, Corrective Services said Abell had been placed in the MSU as a result of repeated physical attacks or disruptive behaviour against staff and fellow inmates. Prison authorities also took seriously Abell following through on threats of violence against staff and prisoners. He also had frequent "outbursts of intense anger" which included violence as well as repeated and serious escapes or attempted escapes from secure custody.

"You have demonstrated a propensity for behaving violently and aggressively both in the community and within the correctional system," Corrective Services outlined in their statement of reasons.

The court documents also include a 1998 psychological assessment on Abell, which found that while his offences were violent in nature, they were not motivated by anger.

"He has committed a number of armed robberies and property offences, all of which are primarily instrumental violence," the senior psychologist wrote.

During his second stint at SDL in 1994, prisoner David Smith was murdered in his cell in B Block – stabbed 41 times in a frenzied attack. Abell, along with three other prisoners, were charged in connection with Smith’s murder. The prisoners were committed for trial, however in 1997 the charges were dropped when a key prosecution witness refused to testify. (Andrew Kranz, one of the four inmates originally charged, later pleaded guilty to murdering Smith)

Abell and the activities of the Angry Gang again came under the microscope in 2000 when police and prison authorities launched an investigation into a series of jailhouse deaths, including that of David Smith and Marco Pernich.

Operation Cashbox was launched to investigate 12 murders and suspicious deaths at SDL and Woodford prisons between 1994 and 1998.

"It has been established that of the twelve deaths under investigation, nine of them were similar insofar as the victim died either by way of asphyxiation caused by strangulation, this was identified as the primary cause of death," a confidential prison report found.

Investigators learned that a group of prisoners had honed the art of committing the almost-perfect murder. Many of the deaths had been deemed suicides or overdoses. The so-called suicides would always happen outside of the night lockdown with the prisoner being found hanging by a bedsheet and the cell would be locked. Several prison informants told Cashbox investigators at least two offenders were involved in the deaths being investigated.

"It has been identified that members of this group will practice a method of a sleeper hold on each other," according to an intelligence report.

The victim’s arms would be restrained to reduce any chance of the offenders being scratched and leaving traces of DNA.

Prisoners learned the technique from an American medical book, according to a prison intelligence report.

"Inmates will place their forearm around the throat of another inmate and place pressure on the Carotid artery thus rendering the other person unconscious for a short period of time," the report said.

The injuries sustained around the neck from the noose could hide injuries caused by the sleep or choke hold.

During Cashbox, prison informants told investigators that Pernich – whose death was originally deemed a suicide – had been murdered for being a police informant. They claimed a group of inmates had strangled him and made it look like he had hanged himself.

Pernich was found dead in his cell in unit 6B at SDL in November 1996.

At least three inmates – including Abell – were nominated as suspects in relation to Pernich’s suspicious death.

One of the prison intelligence reports into the deaths found, "It has been identified that members of the Angry Gang have been the common factor or nexus regarding these and other deaths in custody."

When Abell was released from his eight-year sentence for the 1995 National Australia Bank robbery, police and prison sources said he had several scores to settle.

Prison authorities received a tip-off about a secret meeting between Abell and several other offenders at the Brisbane home of a notorious drug trafficker.

The men wanted to bust prison killer and Angry Gang enforcer Jason Nixon out of jail. The group also discussed killing the prison officer who was attached to Operation Cashox and had brought too much "heat" on the Angries. They had discussed shooting the prison officer dead in front of his wife and family. While the officer and his family were forced to relocate, neither of the group’s plans eventuated.

Around the same time, police received information that Abell had threatened to kill members of the arrest team involved in the NAB robbery.

Their plan was to kill two detectives who were chosen on the basis they were married – Abell wanted to shoot them dead in front of their wife and children.

Abell was supposedly travelling to Bundaberg to source a gun to kill one detective.

It was a close call for the other detective when Abell, who was armed with a loaded shotgun, was arrested metres from his Brisbane home. Abell was returned to custody.

It was unclear how Abell obtained the detective's address.

A former armed robbery squad detective told 7News Abell was one of a generation of heroin-addicted armed robbers who treated the crime as a profession.

"They would kill people, use firearms … they would target banks in the days when they carried cash," said the detective, "They used to commit crime 24-7 and we had to put as much commitment into catching them as they were to committing crimes."

Part of the police commitment was the armed robbery squad turning up the pressure on the criminals.

"We targeted their families, friends, associates and heroin dealers. We kept the pressure up until someone rolled or the crims reacted and we would arrest them," the detective said.

"We made it personal and it turned back on us. They would threaten to come to our homes."

Today Abell was sentenced in the Brisbane Supreme Court to a minimum of 20 years jail for the murder of Detective Leeding.

Justice James Douglas sentenced Abell to 18 years jail for armed robbery in company with personal violence and to three years each on seven counts of deprivation of liberty after the bungled robbery at the Pacific Pines Tavern on May 29, 2011. The sentences will be served concurrently.

He is also under investigation for a series of armed robberies on the Gold Coast.

Assistant Commissioner Paul Wilson who oversaw the Gold Coast region at the time of Detective Leeding's murder said Abell was a career criminal who had a disregard for life and order.

"Damian's murder was a callous act. Once you put up his (criminal) history it will show his absolute disregard for the law, life, the courts and judiciary," Mr Wilson said.