Killer convicted over 1987 rape
A sex attacker who broke into a teenager’s Kalgoorlie home and raped the 16-year-old 27 years ago before fleeing the State and committing a murder has this week been convicted over the historic sex assault.
Six months after Paul James Carr fled WA in March 1987 he cut the throat of another man in a “brutal, savage and unprovoked attack” in New South Wales.
Carr was initially sentenced to life behind bars for the murder but won an appeal which substituted that penalty for a total fixed term of 19 years and six months.
After Carr’s NSW sentence was served, WA Police extradited the 45-year-old over the cold case. A warrant was issued for his arrest in October 2008 after DNA comparisons matched him to evidence, including a t-shirt and pillow case, recovered from the scene of the 1987 attack in Kalgoorlie.
This week, a District Court jury convicted Carr of two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count each of breaking and entering a dwelling with intent and deprivation of liberty.
Carr has been remanded in custody to be sentenced in December.
The woman had managed to flee her house after Carr, a stranger, attacked her in her bed but he caught her and dragged her back inside.
Carr was soon identified as a suspect and police chased him across WA to Canberra. But he managed to elude Australian Federal Police officers who went to interview him.
He then went to NSW where he killed a man who he had earlier been jailed for wounding.
Former police deputy commissioner Murray Lampard has welcomed the conviction after 27 years.
Retired deputy commissioner Murray Lampard, the case officer for the original investigation, said he was pleased to help bring the victim justice after 27 years.
“She showed great courage in providing evidence and facing her attacker again,” he said.
“The police often talk about a case never being closed and here is a great example of where we kept to the task and eventually caught Carr.”
