A Deadly Cell Mate !

Prisons are dangerous places but we believe that when someone serves their sentence there is the expectation that they will eventually walk to freedom - alive !    That expectation didn't eventuate for Frank Townsend when his cell mate wrapped a sandwich press in a pillow case and deliberately crashed it down on the head of his unsuspecting fellow prisoner.

All this happened in Sydney's Long Bay prison when both the murderer and his victim were contained in the aged care unit for  elderly and frail offenders in early January, 2017.  The killer was John Walsh (79) and in the NSW Supreme court he pleaded guilty to the killing.  Walsh has the expectation of dieing in prison because he is serving life sentences for murdering his wife and two grand children in June 2008.

These were senseless but chilling murders.  Walsh stabbed his wife and drowned one of his grand daughters in the bath.  He bludgeoned the other with a hammer, and when the mother returned to collect her daughters he attacked her with an axe. He is now serving another life sentence for the murder of Frank Townsend.

John Walsh shows no remorse for any of these killings. He can not give an explanation beyond the comment that " I don't work in anger.  I work in tactical - cold rage ".  He could be described as a psychopath and it seems logical that he must be kept isolated for the remainder of his life.  That could be a problem in the overcrowded state prison system.

One of the options would be to send him to the Supermax at Goulburn.  To preserve the life of other prisoners he would need to endure maximum security and the Supermax lacks a special unit for the frail aged.  The world seems to have turned its back on the death penalty but we would probably be delivering a mercy should we choose to painlessly end John Walsh's life.

One of the arguments used against the death penalty is the possibility that we might execute an innocent person.  People awaiting execution on death row have been exonerated by the discovering of fresh evidence but that argument holds no sway when the murderer freely admits his crime and the evidence is overwhelming.  There is now the expectation that John Walsh will kill again, if he gets the chance.

If nothing else, the special containment of John Walsh is going to cost the state a lot of money.  He will die in prison and that could be a decade or more in the future.  It would be interesting to see how public opinion would divide on the return of the death penalty for this sort of repeated murder. Perhaps the families of those in prison would welcome the removal of a source of harm that could  be a threat to their loved ones.