Greenough family massacre

Common card · No. 484321

The Greenough family massacre was the axe murders of Karen MacKenzie and her three children, Daniel, Amara, and Katrina, at their rural property in Greenough, Western Australia, on 22 February 1993. They were killed by farmhand William Patrick "Bill" Mitchell, an acquaintance of MacKenzie, who confessed to the crimes after he was charged with murder on 27 March. Mitchell pleaded guilty to wilful murder, indecently interfering with a corpse and sexual penetration of a child under 13, and was sentenced to strict security life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 20 years. Details of the murders were withheld from the public as they were considered too horrific. In 1994, the Criminal Court of Appeal ordered that Mitchell not be eligible for parole and to never be released from jail, but it was overturned by the High Court on appeal in 1996. The case led to calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty. After being incarcerated for 20 years, Mitchell became eligible for parole in 2013...

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