Survivor of Mack truck mass murder says killer Douglas John Edwin Crabbe should die in prison

One of the survivors of one of Australia’s most notorious mass murders says the killer has “forfeited his right to walk among us” and should be left to take his last breath in his prison cell as she begs authorities to keep him locked up. Her emotional plea comes as Douglas John Edwin Crabbe’s son said he believed his father should be given the chance to show society he was a “changed man” when he is reviewed for parole by the WA Prisoners Review Board on Friday. Crabbe is currently in Acacia Prison serving five life sentences for driving his 25-tonne Mack truck into a crowded Uluru pub in 1983. After being transferred to WA in 2005, he finished serving his minimum 30 years behind bars in 2013. Adrian Durnin, 21, David Seng, 24, Helen Fuller, 22, Patricia Slinn, 45 and Leslie McKay-Ramsay, 35 were all killed. Bernadette Schiller was 20 years old and was at the pub that night enjoying a drink after work. She miraculously survived. But she said there has not been a night without nightmares ever since. And speaking to The West Australian from her home on the Gold Coast, Ms Schiller said those nightmares have only intensified as the time draws closer for the parole board to review the killer. The final decision to release Crabbe ultimately rests with Attorney-General John Quigley. “I can’t even describe the stress this causes,” Ms Schiller said. Ms Schiller said until Martin Bryant, Crabbe’s were the “biggest mass killing in Australia”. “He’s never, ever taken responsibility for what he did,” Ms Schiller said. “I can relive that whole night in slow-motion. It just never goes away.” Ms Schiller, who had been working at the Uluru Hotel, had closed up early to head to the nearby Inland Hotel with friends when the horror unfolded. She said Crabbe’s behaviour that night was “quite disgusting” before he jumped over the bar and started pouring himself a drink before he was kicked out. In a fit of blind rage, Crabbe, then 36, walked back to his truck and then drove straight into the pub. “There was no warning, no anything,” Ms Schiller said. “I was at the jukebox when it happened, and I heard a really loud revving of a truck. He just drove straight through the place.” Ms Schiller described the immediate aftermath as “awful, really awful”. “There was screaming everywhere and the dining room of the Inland Hotel was made into a makeshift hospital for the injured,” she said. “I don’t think that I even registered that I was hurt because there were clearly people who were dead. “There was one couple who I had been speaking to earlier in the night ... (the husband) had a really bad cut on his forehead. “I had a pad in my bag and I put that on his forehead and I said ‘what can I do to help Patricia?’ and he just looked and me and said ‘she’s dead’. “My friends David and Adrian, they were both dead. It was horrible. I can’t even describe how horrible it was. It never leaves you, you never forget, try as you may it just never goes away.” Crabbe’s son Anthony was just 13 years old when his father went on his murderous rampage. Mr Crabbe, who also lives in Queensland, told The West that while he was “not taking anything away from what happened in the past”, it was “time for him to show the rest of society what sort of man he is”. “I understand (families of the victims) lost loved ones and if I could turn back time I would change it, I really would,” he said. “They always have a side of my heart because I’ve lost people as well. “My dad is different to when he was younger. He’s matured in his age. He doesn’t look at life like he used to, he’s a very loving grandfather to all his grandkids and us kids. “I think it’s time for him to have a chance to get on with his life.” Mr Crabbe revealed if he was released, his father intended to live in WA and help care for his ageing mother. He said his father had “privately” shown remorse and had “cried to me in jail”. “Dad and I have had long discussions about it,” he said. “At the end of the day, nothing he says, no one is going to listen to him and believe him anyway.” He added “I need the Attorney-General to take into account what dad has done, the victims, the loved ones that have been lost — but also on the other side of the coin, he needs to look at dad now. It’s like chalk, and cheese — they are two different people.” But Ms Schiller — who has spent the past three decades grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder — hit back at Mr Crabbe’s comments, claiming his father must have had “crocodile tears”. “He’s never shown any remorse to any of the families of those he killed, and he’s certainly never shown any remorse to any of the survivors,” she said. “So I don’t believe his crocodile tears, he’s probably crying because he wants to get out and do whatever he wants to do, but I don’t care, he certainly does not deserve to walk amongst us.” Ms Schiller says she has voiced her opposition to Crabbe’s release in letters to Mr Quigley and Premier Mark McGowan, as well as a string of other politicians, the parole board and the Australian band Hunters and Collectors — who penned a song about the tragedy. “I still can’t listen to that song,” Ms Schiller said. Under McGowan Government rules imposed in 2018, Crabbe is on a short list of serial killers and mass murderers — which includes Catherine Birnie and Greenough axe murderer William Patrick Mitchell — who are reviewed for parole only every six years. The parole board has recommended Crabbe for release twice before, in 2013 and 2016, but was overruled by former attorney-general Michael Mischin and then Mr Quigley. Crabbe was originally reviewed by the board in August, but adjourned preparing its report “pending receipt of further information from the Corrective Services division of the Department of Justice”. Asked if she would like to see Crabbe die in prison, the mother of three said: “Yes. That would make me happy.” “He stole five people’s futures from them and destroyed a lot of lives. Even to this day I have physical injuries that seem to get worse as I get older,” she said. “I’ve never slept a full night since the 18th of August 1983 without waking up with nightmares. “So anyone who says time heals — it doesn’t.” And she said if Crabbe was to be released, “I think I will totally fall to pieces”. “I keep thinking to myself ‘what will you do?’, but I honestly don’t know, but it won’t be a good day, it honestly won’t,” she said. “Would you let people like Martin Bryant out? I wouldn’t think so. Crabbe is no different as far as I’m concerned, he just used a different weapon. “He had a road train instead of a gun.”