A MAN police are searching for in relation to the killing of Bacchus Marsh
woman Sarah Cafferkey was jailed for stabbing a schoolgirl to death in 1986, and
later tried to escape from Pentridge Prison.
Police have described Steven James Hunter, 46, as a ”person of interest” in
the investigation into the death of 22-year-old Ms Cafferkey, whose body was
found at a Point Cook home on Saturday night, eight days after she went missing
from Bacchus Marsh. They have urged Hunter to come forward and speak to
them.
It is understood that the house on Fongeo Drive is owned or rented by a
friend of Hunter’s – who Fairfax has decided not to name – and that Hunter knew
Ms Cafferkey and exchanged Facebook messages with her in the weeks leading up to
her death.
On November 4, Hunter complimented Ms Cafferkey on some photographs of
herself she posted on Facebook, and the two of them talked about catching up for
a drink.
Hunter has also posted a number of photographs of his small dog on Facebook,
and a neighbour of the Point Cook house referred to a man staying there as
having a small dog. The neighbour said she had not seen anybody at the house in
the past week.
In 1986, Hunter was sentenced to a maximum of 16 years’ jail for stabbing
18-year-old schoolgirl Jacqueline Cecilia Mathews seven times in the throat and
heart, before burning her body in a car under the Arundel Road bridge in
Keilor.
Reports at the time said the body was found slumped in the back seat of the
car, with a petrol container nearby.
Hunter worked with Ms Mathews as the assistant manager at a Gladstone Park
supermarket, and murdered her on April 19, 1986, after she resisted advances
from him.
Hunter – who was living in a Westmeadows caravan park at the time and had
previous convictions for assault and carrying an offensive weapon – tried to
claim at his 1988 trial that he had rebuffed advances from Ms Mathews, and that
they had struggled, before he accidentally stabbed her with a small knife.
The judge described his version of events as ”patently absurd”, saying ”it
only needs stating to have its ridiculousness revealed”. Hunter went back to
work after the killing and told his workmates what had happened, before
returning to the scene and setting fire to the car.
The judge said Hunter had shown no signs of guilt or contrition over his
killing of a ”attractive, vivacious and outward-going young woman”.
It is believed Hunter served only 12 years of his sentence, and that he has
subsequently been convicted of other crimes, including kidnapping and sex
offences.
At a 1987 inquest into Ms Mathews’ death, friends and relatives of the dead
girl attempted to attack Hunter as he sat in the court room.
A newspaper report from the time said the trouble began after Ms Mathews’
mother, Audrey, rose to give evidence.
”Clutching the handkerchief and trembling with emotion, she turned to Hunter
and said: ‘You bastard, you got my daughter!’ Immediately about three people
sitting behind Hunter in the packed courtroom rose and tried to grab him,” the
report said.
Hunter then tried to run, before police stepped in to save him from the
enraged attackers.
”Calm was restored after about five minutes – with Hunter sobbing in a
corner as police held back attackers,” the newspaper said.
Two years after his murder conviction, Hunter was one of three inmates –
including another murderer – who tried to escape from Pentridge Prison.
The three men tore timber from the wall of a prison gym to make ladders and
then used knotted-together sheets to get over the outside wall.
Fellow escapee David McInness was caught outside the jail, while Hunter made
it into a nearby house, where an elderly woman found him washing his wounds in a
sink.
Hunter fled the house, tried to commandeer a ute driven by a former
Collingwood footballer, and was finally caught by police hiding under a
trampoline in a street near the prison.
Hunter recently posted on his Facebook page that a relationship with a woman
he called V had ended, but he said he wished the woman well.
”Got the Dear John/It’s not you but me letter today,” he wrote.
”It’s soul destroying that we are over V, tomorrow’s a new day and you won’t
be there. Wish you well for where ever your journey leads and thanks for the
many memories I take with me.”
The post was tagged with the location ‘Alamanda Estate Point Cook’.
He also said he was training for a licence to drive excavators, bobcats and
front-end loaders, and that: ”I’m really happy I’ve turned my life
around.”
