Leslie Camilleri

Leslie Alfred Camilleri (born 31 May 1969) was born to a family of six children in Liverpool, New South Wales.

He did not meet his natural father until he was 13 years of age.

Lindsay Hoani Beckett (born 27 March 1974) was born in New Zealand and lived in the Bay of Plenty town of Ōpōtiki before moving to Australia.

At the time of the murders, Beckett lived in Yass and had come to associate with Camilleri, five years his senior, in criminal pursuits.

It would be Beckett who would eventually break and confess to police about the Bega murders, leading them to the bodies of the victims.

It was claimed Camilleri exerted a strong influence over Beckett.

In sentencing Beckett to life imprisonment, Justice Vincent described him as having "quite a low IQ" and as someone "who had fallen under the influence of an older individual of much stronger personality".

A psychiatric report prepared in 1993 spoke of Camilleri's deprived childhood, and "a pattern of theft and vandalism which have been his reaction to social ostracism, leading to frustration, which because of poor impulse control has ended in explosive outbursts of destructive behaviour".

Camilleri was considered "uncontrollable" as a child and spent a large part of his childhood in juvenile detention.

He escaped the institution and, between the ages of 10 and 12, lived as a street kid in King's Cross, Sydney.

Camilleri was eventually taken before the children's court by police and ordered to return to the institution, where he remained until he was 15.

Four days prior to the abduction of Rosamari Gandarias in Canberra, and three weeks prior to the Bega murders, Camilleri appeared in the District Court of New South Wales on trial for charges relating to sexual offences against his de facto daughter.

After two days the trial was aborted and Camilleri was released from custody on bail.

Camilleri had 146 prior convictions for offences such as dishonesty, theft and wilful damage.

At the time of the murders, he lived in.

Camilleri had known Beckett for a period of two to three years and would often associate with him to steal cars.

The Bega schoolgirl murders refer to the abduction, rape and murder of two Australian schoolgirls; 14-year-old Lauren Margaret Barry and 16-year-old Nichole Emma Collins of Bega, New South Wales, Australia on 6 October 1997.

They were abducted by Leslie Camilleri and Lindsay Beckett, both from the New South Wales town of Yass.

The men subjected the girls to repeated rapes and sexual assaults on five or more separate occasions, while driving them to remote locations throughout rural New South Wales and Victoria.

Over a twelve-hour period, the girls had been driven several hundred kilometres from Bega to Fiddler's Green Creek in Victoria, where they were stabbed to death by Beckett under the order of Camilleri.

The girls were reported missing on the day of their disappearance, and a massive manhunt consisting of family, friends, police and community volunteers searched the area but failed to locate any sign of them.

Police investigations lasting several weeks eventually led to Camilleri and Beckett, career criminals with over 200 criminal convictions between them.

Camilleri, who claimed he was innocent of any crime and insisted Beckett acted alone, was facing existing charges relating to other sexual assaults against minors at the time of the murders.

On 3 October 1997, a campsite was set up by the father of Nichole Collins at White Rock, near Bega, for his teenage daughter to invite friends over for the coming Labour Day weekend.

The camp site was located 3 km from the Collins home.

The girls would regularly call at the house while camping to change clothing, shower and eat.

Collins's father regularly called at the camp site to check on the children and did so on the day the girls disappeared.

About 9:00 p.m. on 5 October, Collins, wearing her high school jacket, and her younger friend Barry, left the camp site and walked off for a nearby party.

Nearby, Camilleri and Beckett were riding in a Ford Telstar belonging to Camilleri's de facto partner.

Camilleri had an argument hours earlier with his partner and talked to Beckett about his feelings of depression.

The two men were consuming beer and injecting each other with crystal meth and heroin while driving aimlessly.

According to Beckett, Camilleri spotted the girls walking single file along the Bega-Tathra Road in Evan's Hill and stopped to offer them a lift.

At approximately 10:00 p.m., after a brief discussion, the girls entered the car willingly.

A pink portable television, which had earlier been taken by Camilleri and Beckett from a friend in lieu of a drug-related debt, was removed from the back seat of the vehicle and discarded at the side of the road to provide room for the girls to sit.

In 2010, Beckett was moved to another jail after love letters from a former security guard were discovered in his cell.

Beckett was 23 at the time of the murders.

He will be 59 when eligible for parole in 2033.

In 2012, Camilleri appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court via videolink from HM Prison Barwon to be charged with murdering 13-year-old schoolgirl Prudence "Prue" Bird, who disappeared from her home in February 1992.

Camilleri had made admissions in a police interview, but there was a dispute over the alleged motive and how the murder was effected.

On 5 December 2013, Camilleri was sentenced to an extra 28 years' imprisonment for the murder of Bird.