Convicted killer and rapist free to live in community after 30 years in jail | 60 Minutes Australia

the crimes jamie curtis committed couldn't have been more brutal or cruel he abducted an innocent young couple tortured and murdered the 22 year old man and repeatedly raped his 17-year-old fiancee curtis spent 32 years in prison for one of tasmania's most sadistic attacks but in 2018 was granted his freedom within weeks though he'd breached the conditions of his release and was back behind bars now the parole board has given jamie curtis another chance outraging the community and terrifying his surviving victim who argues this devil of a man has long given up any right to be free convicted rapist and murderer jamie curtis is a man who divides the community on one side are those who believe he should never be released for what he did to tamika ridgeway and her fiance dean ali 35 years ago jamie curtis took delight in terrorising and torturing us do you know he's never once shown any remorse he's never once apologized what frightens tamika most is that he has no respect for the law immediately breaching his strict parole conditions at his very first taste of freedom does someone like him deserve a second chance he got his second chance and he blew it but on his side jamie curtis has staunch defenders his spirited partner sharon he paid 33 years for what he did i do believe he's rehabilitated yes i do would i be living with him and chairman of the prisoners legal service in tasmania greg barnes says it's time for the punishment to stop when a man commits a crime as he has done one so heinous does he truly deserve a second chance well in my view yes because tari served his sentence the justice system is not about an eye for an it's tooth for tooth i'm certainly satisfied that this was the right decision certainly jamie curtis sees no need in reassuring the community he has earned the right to be free mr curtis mr curtis mr curtis just give us the opportunity to have a chat mr curtis tara brown from 60 minutes can you please reassure the community that you're safe that you deserve this chance to understand the horror of curtis's crimes you need to travel back in time forced his way into a hobart home for the brutal murder of a young man and the rape of his girlfriend in february in 1986 jamie curtis earned the label of tasmania's most sadistic killer abducting and torturing dean and tamika he taunted us with comments like have you ever felt a chainsaw blade on your bare skin and then he started up a chainsaw finally fatally stabbing 22 year old dean ali and repeatedly raping tamika ridgeway i spent 12 hours with this psychopath and he is a psychopath and i think that i got a pretty good idea of how he operates he's just such a despicable human being [Music] it was the early hours of february 15 1986 and 30 year old jamie curtis was on a bender he and his 16 year old accomplice who can't be named for legal reasons were prowling the streets of hobart looking for young girls to rape at knifepoint they abducted a 15 year old schoolgirl on her newspaper run and shoved her in their boot incredibly she escaped but that was not the end of their hunt their next target was 17 year old tamika who with her fiance dean just happened to live next door to jamie curtis dean had opened the door and as soon as he opened the door the two set upon him so dean was on the floor just completely covered in blood and jamie curtis was kicking him in the head and the next thing i remember i had a hand over my mouth and a knife at my throat and what did you think they wanted what were they there i had no idea absolutely no idea none but it all became clear in the following half an hour or so that they were there for me they wanted me they wanted a female to rape for the next 12 hours tamika and dean were subjected to a demeaning and terrifying attack what happens next so they raped me multiple times one after another it went on for hours and it was so degrading they tied dean up and put him in the bathroom they bound his hands together and he got them free and managed to try and get out the bathroom window but they heard him and went in and just punched and kicked him and put boiling water on him in the shower i just remember being in sheer terror i was very compliant and just did exactly what they told me to do because i wanted it to end for both you and for both of us we just we just wanted to feel safe again we just wanted them to leave they said they would leave we just want them to leave but that promise was a lie instead of leaving them alone curtis and his accomplice abducted the couple for a road trip that tamika feared could only end badly they got us in our car with knives at our throats and my heart just sunk because i thought i think today's the day that i'm going to die [Music] jamie curtis knew exactly where he was taking tamika and dean it was chillingly isolated bushland more than an hour from their home a hideaway where he'd go to cut wood this place represents hell for me like the worst memories of my entire life are here so no wonder after 35 years this is the first time tamika has found the strength to come back further the years may have changed the landscape so you're looking for a gully yeah but tamika immediately knows the spot when she sees it just here here you think this looks very familiar this looks very familiar [Music] gonna be okay yep the anguish tameka feels coming back here is not so much for what she suffered but for what dean endured in his final moments they asked me to get into the boot of the car and while i was in there i could hear him begging for his life it's the last time i saw him it was the last time i heard his voice as peaceful and pristine as this tasmanian setting is what happened here 35 years ago is beyond imagination for its depravity and lack of mercy we're standing in the very place where my life changed forever just 17 at the time over many hours tamika ridgeway had been repeatedly raped and her 22 year old fiance dean ali kicked and bashed by small-time crim jamie curtis and his 16 year old accomplice they then abducted the young couple to bring them to remote bush where the torment continued for hours more so this was where they had a chainsaw and started it up and threatened to cut us up with the chainsaw they suggested going to get a gun and they would give us a five minute head start before they came after us in the bush and they just taunted us all day but then the threats became real what you're about to hear from tamika is heartbreaking they got to a point where jamie curtis said to dean get in the boot and dean said to them no please don't make me get in there and this play is on my mind because i think they wanted to put dean in the boot so they could kill me but dean wouldn't do it so they put me in the boot so the last thing i heard was dean crying and saying please no and then they turned the music up in the car extremely loud so i couldn't hear anything else that was happening and they matched him down over the bank and stabbed him to death they came back to the car and one of them let me out and i just looked around and i said where's jane and jamie curtis pulled a knife out of his back pocket covered in blood and bent and he said come on i'll show you so as we walked down the bank jamie was saying things like have you ever seen a dead body before have you ever touched a dead body before and i thought he's just trying to scare me and then we got to the spot where jane was and he wasn't lying what did you do just broke down into tears i couldn't believe that that killed dean i couldn't believe that they'd chosen us but things like this don't happen to people like us but it's become real now he's dead and all these thoughts were going through my mind and then all of a sudden i realized i was going to be next but for the men who'd been drinking all day before dealing with tamika they first wanted to buy more grog and meat pies thirsty and hungry but otherwise unaffected by what they'd just done made to go with them tamika with nothing left to lose came up with a plan they obviously were buying alcohol and food and i thought this is my one and only chance to escape they drove tamika to the only pub in the nearby town of gretna i edged over closer to the door in readiness to just jump and i waited until he looked the other direction and i opened the door and made a run for it unfortunately for me at that time the younger of the two was returning back to the car and saw me half out with jamie curtis pulling me back in by my hair and ran to the car and just shoved me in shut the door and they took off flat out out of the carpet what did you think was going to happen to you if they've caught you you didn't get away i was just i was just gutted i was in sheer horror i knew that i'd blown it and that was it he kept saying to me that's it you [ __ ] you've had it now that's the end of you and so my heart was racing and i knew that i was just being driven back to where they'd just killed dean and i was going to suffer the same thing but first curtis wanted more jamie curtis decided that he needed to drink more and he thought that he would rape me once again but i had just had enough i was just exhausted and i was drained so when he tried i fought back and i bit him and the last thing that i remember is him punching me tamika is knocked unconscious and with their bender catching up with them the other two pass out none aware that help was finally on its way help that so easily could have ended in further disaster the next thing i remember is waking up to the farmer who owned the property poking me with a stick just describe that scene what would the farmer have seen he would have seen me half naked and he would have seen jamie curtis and his accomplice passed out in the car and the ground around the car was littered in empty beer cans he just thought we were having a party and i was trying to tell him just be quiet they've just killed somebody we have to get out of here and he said don't be stupid they haven't and talking in a very loud voice and i thought man you are going to wake them up you're on your own and i saw his car and i just made a run for it and when i did that he said alright i'll drive you so he drove me to his house and he took me inside and rang the place tamika was safe but there was more pain to come [Music] 27th of january this year and convicted rapist and murderer jamie curtis is once again a free man but for many he will always be one of tasmania's most notorious and dangerous criminals for the brutal crimes he and his sixteen-year-old accomplice committed in 1986. murdered tamika's fiancee and repeatedly raped her at gretna curtis pleaded guilty to murdering 22 year old dean ali and raping his 17-year-old fiancee to make a rich way both he and his young accomplice were sent to jail for life a lot of people said that it wasn't enough that they should reintroduce the death penalty i think a far worse fate than death is to be in prison life behind bars was certainly too much for jamie curtis to contemplate eight months after being sent to tasmania's risdon maximum security prison he escaped sneaking out in a laundry cart manhunt is underway in tasmania for a convicted murderer police fear he might try to take hostages i don't think anything like that had ever happened in tasmania before would be the most dangerous prisoner to have at large he was australia's most wanted fugitive on the run for nine days forcing the state into a panicked lockdown tell me your reaction when you learn that he escaped from prison i was terrified not just for me but for whoever got in his way because he would stop at nothing to get what he wants when he was recaptured curtis got another five years jail time on top of his life sentence but in 2002 under truth in sentencing laws curtis was able to apply for a fixed jail term so instead of life he was given a non-parole period of 30 years which meant with time already served he could apply for parole in 2016. he was knocked back the first time he tried a psychological assessment at that time found curtis had an incurable personality disorder with a high number of psychopathic traits but in 2018 the parole board decided jamie curtis was a changed man and granted him his freedom in 2016 jamie curtis applied for parole and was knocked back in 2018 he applied and it was granted what changed in that two-year period what generally changes uh tara is that a person's conduct improves within the prison system barrister greg barnes is the chairman of the prisoner's legal service in tasmania and believes having served his time curtis is entitled to freedom the parole board noted that this is a man who has personality disorder that cannot be cured why take the chance just because you have certain personality traits doesn't mean you're going to commit offences it's about balancing and managing the risk and you have to trust the parole authorities they have the expertise the parole board gets it wrong how sure can you be that this won't happen again well no system is perfect tara and parole authorities do get it wrong but by and large parole authorities do get it right but it's how quickly jamie curtis breached his parole conditions when he was released in 2018 that make people question if the authorities really got it right in this case against strict prohibitions he joined multiple dating sites using false names to hide his identity well the the breaches were not criminal offending but they were breaches of the conditions of his parole the second point i'd make is he's not alone in uh finding it difficult going back into the community in in breaching conditions of parole but what worries tamika most is when he was last out police felt compelled to seek a restraining order against curtis on behalf of his partner sharon within weeks of meeting her online sharon's adult children reported to police that curtis had beaten their mother which she vehemently denies even so a 12-month restraining order was granted after the court heard police feared curtis was likely to further assault cause serious injury or death to sharon an avo he repeatedly defied for his breaches he went back to jail and lost his parole for nearly two years before being released again in january i've tried to make sense or reason of it and i just can't i don't think anybody can he got his second chance and he blew it do you think someone like jamie curtis has any chance of being rehabilitated no but as much as tomeka fears curtis will hurt others as he hurt her his behavior over many years while on work release shows otherwise the fact that jamie curtis has been out of prison on work release since around 2015 2016 and has not committed murder has not attacked anyone in the way that you were attacked does that make him safe today no i don't think it does because prior to what he did to me he'd not committed any crime anywhere near as horrendous as that but he just snapped one day and he can do it again it's not something jamie curtis wants to talk about mr curtis mr curtis mr curtis mr curtis just give us the opportunity to have a chat mr curtis i just want to ask you can you please reassure the community that you're safe that you deserve this chance mr curtis you know your victims just want to see some remorse if you have some remorse could you not tell them that he leaves an angry sharon to do his talking what do you say to those people who are worried about him worried about what about the fact that he's breached his parole but he didn't well he did actually he was putting james do you not understand because that the police reckoned he hit him but he didn't your own children said he hit you my own children i think you'd better go and ask them okay i will thank you do you want to listen away from me leave me alone no you go away or do you understand go away speak to mr curtis he don't want to do you understand why this time around the parole board has taken unprecedented steps to minimise the risk of curtis reoffending he has to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for the rest of his life the first parolee in tasmania to do so and in further safeguards curtis has been imposed a curfew banned from drinking and will be on parole until his dying day none of those things will stop him i think it was one of the most stupid decisions that they've made he paid 33 years for what he did i do believe he's rehabilitated yes i do would i be living with him honestly it's used people that are to blame boy everyone gets so [ __ ] mad and angry when jamie curtis reappears he's bought a new coat ditched the sunnies and cap but his silence remains the same mr curtis mr curtis we just want to ask you to let the community know that you are safe that they're not at risk that's all we want to ask you mr curtis and with that he leaves with sharon left to make her own way home how vividly do you remember those images as though they happened yesterday [Music] and you don't sit down and reflect on it but something as horrific as that stays in your mind until the day you die it's just something that will never go away for 35 years tamika has been haunted by a horror she should never have suffered but her memories are not only filled with her own pain her former fiancee dean alley beaten and stabbed to death at just 22 will never be forgotten how do you feel and think about him i just feel really sad that so much was taken away from him he had so much to live for he was so young it's just not fair i didn't suffer very much in comparison to what dean went through i got to stay alive and do things with my life that he never got the opportunity to do it seemed that both you and he were looking for mercy that day yes yes but that was never an option at the hands of jamie curtis hello i'm tara brown thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minutes segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on nine now dot com dot a u and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 671,703

Rating: 4.6880965 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Tara Brown, 60Mins, #60Mins, tasmania, tassie devil, jamie curtis, jamie john curtis, tameka ridgeway, dean allie, dean ally, breached parole, killer on the loose, escape from prison, tasmania murder, Australia true crime, true crime, australia murder, convicted, released into community, 30 years in jail, locked up, greg barns, tara brown confrontation, should he be free, evil crime, rehabilitation, can rapists be rehabilitated

Id: XB1fPTNc1Bc

Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021