The murder of Ebony Jane Simpson occurred in Bargo, New South Wales on 19 August 1992. Simpson was nine years old. Andrew Peter Garforth (born 8 August 1963) later pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release on parole.

Abduction and murder

On 19 August 1992, Simpson disembarked from her schoolbus and walked past a parked Mazda 808 vehicle owned by Garforth. Garforth abducted her, put her in the boot, and drove to a remote location near Wirrimbirra Sanctuary. He sexually assaulted her repeatedly, bound her, weighted her schoolbag and threw her into a dam where she drowned.

A team of over 200 volunteers and 100 police searched for Simpson, including her killer. Garforth confessed to the crime after police detained him; during the confession and court sessions, Garforth showed no remorse for his actions. He pleaded gulity to the murder of Ebony Simpson and was sentenced in 1993 to life imprisonment; Justice Peter Newman refused to fix a non-parole period and ordered that his papers were to be marked "never to be released".

In discussion of the meaning of life imprisonment in relation to this case, the judges in the case of Garforth when that was appealed, said "the community interest in retribution, deterrence, protection of the community in such situations may so strongly outweigh any regard for rehabilitation that that's when a life sentence becomes a real option."

In 1995, Garforth lodged several claims for victims' compensation via his lawyers, Brezniak Neil-Smith and Co., relating to alleged assaults which occurred in prison. The claims were later withdrawn after public outrage.

Garforth appealed to the High Court of Australia, but he was refused special leave. It is one of two similar cases, both of which have been refused special leave.

Andrew Peter Garforth is also suspected of the unsolved 1979 murder of West Australian teenager Felicia Marie Wilson, 19, of Kwinana, Perth. Miss Wilson, a former Miss West Coast finalist, was stripped naked and slashed before her killer smashed her skull with a 27 kg block of limestone as she walked home from work at the Kwinana Community Health Centre about 4.30pm on January 10, 1979. The manhunt went cold until the early 1990s when WA detectives received information from NSW police about a man who reportedly had nightmares about Miss Wilson. By 1994, NSW police had further information about Miss Wilson's death that linked Garforth, who lived in the area at the time, to the unsolved crime. The investigation is ongoing.

Wikipedia.org

Australia has had a few murders that have touched the hearts of the nation. The murder of Ebony Simpson was one that did. It is a story of a pretty young girl walking home from school but never arrived and her brutalised body found a few days later. Her killer was one of the search team.

I can remember the case so well. Ebony lived in Bargo with her two brothers and mother and father. Bargo is a country town on the outskirts of Sydney, again like many of the stories here it close to the area where I grew up.Around the same time of Ebony's abduction a horse in Bargo was also featured on the news. The horse had gotten stuck in a tar pit, it is weird that I remember the horse as well. But the two stories were both on the news, one as a lifestyle little side piece to fill in time the other an Australian Tragedy that echoed the murders of Anita Cobby and Janine Balding in years gone by.

The story began at 4.05pm on Wednesday 19 August, 1992, pretty nine-year old Ebony Simpson got off the school bus as she did every afternoon, her hair was back in a pony tail with whispy ends flying about. She had had a good day at school but she was looking forward to getting home and dumping her school bag.. Her mind was thinking about a drink and something to eat. She alighted the bus at her normal stop, at the corner of Bargo and Arina Roads. She was the only one who got off at the stop but that also was not unusual.

In a little country town like Bargo you did not need to lock your doors at night. It was a safe town with a tiny population of nearly 3000. Ebony looked towards her home only 400 metres away along Arina Road. Little did she know but that walk that should only take her a few minutes would never be complete. She was being watched.

Ebony was unaware that anything was wrong as she walked past the Mazda 808 sedan parked on the side of the road. A man was looking over his car that had both the bonnet and boot opened. Ebony noticed the man but took no real notice of him. She assumed that he had merely broken down. It happens. But Ebony also knew that she was not allowed to speak to him.

She remembered the "Stranger Danger" program they were taught continuously at school. Do not talk to strangers; do not get into a stranger's car. Do not take anything offered to you. So Ebony hugged herself and continued quickly past the man. As Ebony got to the rear of the car, the man quickly grabbed her and threw her roughly into the boot. He closed the boot and the hood of the car and drove away. The plan had worked.

The abductor, his pulse racing, drove away at high speed along a dirt track and towards a damn seven kilometres away from the bus stop that Ebony used every day. The abductor drove frantically to the dam. He was already excited and could not wait to expend his filthy lust on the girl. At the dam, the man opened the boot of the car and dragged the young girl out.

Ebony was crying and begging the man to let her go back to her mum. She was scared and hysterical, but her abductor did not care. He turned off to the pretty girl's cries and tore the clothes off her tiny body. The man tied the girl's arms behind her back with the spare speaker wire he had brought with him.

The man proceeded to rape the young girl as she cried for mercy. But her pleas fell on deaf ears. The man was doing exactly what he wanted to. As the girl lay there weeping in pain and fear the man grabbed her school bag and filled it with rocks from the bank of the dam. The cruel man tied the girl's feet together also and with the weight of her school bag attached to her he threw her face down in to the dam. Ebony fought as hard as she could to keep her mouth above the water as it flowed around her, she tried to roll over and move towards the bank of the river, but with her arms and legs tied and her heavy-laden bag she was unable to help herself.

The man watched her for a moment before getting back into his car and driving away. The pleas of the drowning broken girl floating away behind him. He felt neither remorse nor guilt for the attack and probable murder that followed. He went home to his family his de facto wife and his two young sons. Where is Ebony? By the next morning the news was everywhere that Ebony Simpson was missing. The police and emergency services along with the town's residents were all out looking for Ebony. At the insistence of his wife, twenty-nine-year-old Andrew Garforth joined the search for the missing girl. She had been last seen getting off the bus and an eyewitness remembers seeing a light-coloured Mazda near the bus stop that day.

The police seemed to have known the car well. It had smoke stains across the back of the car from poor exhaust and a few teachers from the schools in the area had seen it lurking near the students every so often and on other occasions followed the school buses on their routes. One person tried to memorise the details of the driver. He was described as about 177cm tall with shoulder-length dirty blonde-brown hair. He was quite thin and wore black clothes. The details were sketchy and did not provide an immediate suspect until the police spotted a car matching the description they had. Behind the wheel was Andrew Garforth who matched the physical description exactly.

Garforth instantly told police he had abducted Ebony and had taken her to the dam where he assumed she drowned. At 12.45am on Friday 21 August, 1992 Garforth directed police to the body of Ebony. Police could not believe the man's confession, he chillingly told them how he had raped her then threw her in the dam and left her to drown.

A death that takes an agonising four minutes. At the station he was asked to recall the events that took place two days earlier. Garforth's confession was told with little emotion. The officers recording his confession were chilled by the way the murderer spoke about the horrific crime. He told police how Ebony called for him to help her.

But he fooled nobody. Everyone knew he planned to leave her to die so she could not tell anyone. Later the same day Garforth was charged in Picton Courthouse with the murder of Ebony Simpson. The local residents and others from neighbouring towns yelled abuse and screamed at Garforth as he was ushered into and from the courthouse. It was a similar scene to the trial of Anita Cobby's murderers and Janine Balding's killers. After his court appearance Garforth had to be shielded from the crowd by police. People yelled at him to show his face that was shrouded in a towel. But he was quickly moved to the waiting prison van and taken away. Garforth is jailed for ever Murders like Ebony Simpson, Anita Cobby and Janine Balding were a catalyst for a victim's family support group.

After the murder of Anita Cobby, Gary and Grace Lynch found that they were alone. Not many people knew how to handle the family's grieving and therefore were pretty much left alone, except for a few police officers who would come by to make sure they were coping considering the circumstances. Gary and Grace Lynch offered the Simpson family their own counselling. Coming from a family who had been through a similar heart-rending situation. The Simpson family, mother Christine, father Peter and Ebony's two older brothers Zackery and Tasman were lost. Christine Simpson was understandably unable to function for months after Ebony's death. The comfort they received from the Lynch's helped them immensely and together they realised that an organised group needed to be formed. As time went by the families combined forces and soon the Homicide Victims Support Group was born.

The families would later help others who found themselves in the same situation, but for now the Simpsons continued to grieve for Ebony. Garforth was committed to stand trial in July 1993 only a few days before the trial was to begin; Garforth entered a plea of guilty. It meant the Simpson family was spared the added grief of a long and dragged out high profile trial. Garforth's sentencing was handed down on July 9, 1993.

The media and public were indeed interested to hear if the murderer's sentence would fit the crime. Australia does not have the death penalty which some say is unfortunate when faced with crimes as horrific as Ebony's.

However the judge at the sentencing did the next best thing. Justice Newman stated that the crimes committed by Andrew Garforth "Fall squarely into the category of the worst type of case, (his) comments about what he expected the girl to do after he threw her, tied up, in the dam, was chilling in the extreme the indifference to the fate of his victim by the prisoner would appal any civilised human being his intention was not to cause grievous bodily harm his intention was to kill" With that told Andrew Garforth he serves life imprisonment and his file was marked 'never to be released'.

The harshest sentence available in Australia. No parole date would ever be given. He will now die in jail as is stated in the 'truth-in-sentencing' laws governing NSW. While in prison Garforth was attacked by fellow inmates in August 1992 while exercising in a locked yard. He was meant to alone at the time, but was somehow attacked. Being a child rapist and murderer Garforth was not liked by others inside prison. Before too long though in protective custody fellow inmates again attacked Garforth in October 1993.

On December 7, 1994 Garforth appealed his sentence in front of the High Court stating that he was young at age 29 when he killed Ebony meaning he would spend an estimated 42 years behind bars.

The defence also claimed: "there was no finding that this applicant would remain dangerous for the rest of his life, there was no finding that he was beyond reform and this was not a case involving mass murder." The case was dismissed.

Garforth is to spend the rest of his natural life behind bars. The Simpson family have become well known throughout NSW for their tireless work with the Homicide Victim Support Group (HVSG). Over the years hundreds of families have sought the counselling of the group and their members.

In 1996, the Premier of NSW officially opened Ebony House. A house where the families of victims such as the international families of the Belanglo Forest Serial Murders are able to stay while attending court.

Andrew Peter Garforth

The victim
 

9-year-old schoolgirl Ebony Simpson