Robert Lowe
The Murder of Sheree
(Mandile) Beasley
June 29th
1991
Sheree
Beasley was born on February 25th 1985.
Her short life ended brutally on June 29th 1991 age six years.
Robert
Arthur Selby Lowe was born in England in 1937.
His godfather was the Minister of Edinburgh’s Presbyterian Church and
fuure Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II. He
attended boarding schools both in England and in NewZealand.
Robert
Lowe was not only a well –spoken, well -respected salesman, but a Presbyterian
Church Elder, Junior Cricket Coach and Sunday school Teacher.
He was well liked and admired among his peers, and by his family.
What
was to be revealed, not through a swift process by any means, was that Lowe was
also a Pathological Liar, Exhibitionist, Kidnapper, Paedophile, Rapist and
Murderer.
Looking
back on Lowe’s criminal history, it is clear to the observer that he was a
human time bomb destined to go off at some point.
How the various courts both in Australia and NewZealand failed to see
this is beyond understanding.
LOWE’S
CRIMINAL “HISTORY”
·
In
1956 Robert, then 19, stole a car in England and tried to run down a policeman.
He was fined 21 pounds.
·
Between
1959 and 1965 Lowe was arrested and charged in NewZealand on counts of Indecent
Assault on a male, and Theft. For
these he received fines.
·
Also
between 1959 and 1965 he faced two charges (three and a half years apart) in
NewZealand with wilful and obscene exposure for which he served a six month
prison sentence.
·
In
1964, he was branded “rogue and vagabond” by the courts of NewZealand.
·
After
moving to Australia, and more peculiarly since he married, he had been
interviewed on more than a dozen occasions and has appeared in court on charges
of indecent behaviour, loitering for sexual purposes, wilful and obscene
exposure and theft.
Lowe’s
wife Lorraine (nee Sangster) had herself, an extremely religious upbringing,
only escaping the confines of the “The Exclusive Brethren” at twenty-nine.
Alone and friendless, she prayed in 1970 for a friend for Christmas.
She met Robert Lowe after the service, and thought her prayer had been
answered. How could she possibly
know that she had just stepped into her worst nightmare?
Lorraine knew little of her husband’s activities, and nothing of his
past, until the brutal murder of Sheree Beasley made them so glaringly clear
that she could ignore them no longer. The
most experienced detective on the working to find Sheree’s killer said that he
had never understood the concept of evil until he met Robert Arthur Selby Lowe.
June 29th
1991
On
June 29th 1991 a neighbour reported to Shane and Kerrie Ludlow that
she had found Kerrie’s daughter Sheree’s bicycle abandoned.
Sheree had been out several times that day on her bike to the local milk
bar, and to check to see if the mini golf was open.
Shane ran out into the street………
This was the beginning of a long haul for not only Sheree’s family, but
for Lorraine Lowe, her teenage sons Benjamin and Jonathan, and a huge police
contingent.
Neighbours
and police alike suggested that perhaps Sheree had meandered off to play with
one of her friends. All were sure
she’d bound through the door at any moment.
What in fact had happened (and what took literally years to corroborate),
was that Robert Arthur Selby Lowe had forced Sheree into his Blue Toyota Corolla
Hatchback (a company car), and driven off.
He first asked her if she wanted to go with him, but as her response was
“no way”; he got out and piled her into the car himself.
She was still wearing her pink “stack hat”.
Because
Lowe was a habitual liar, it was difficult for the police to piece together the
course of events, which had led to the discovery of Sheree’s badly decomposed
body much later.
*
At first, Lowe denied any involvement whatsoever.
He went on several times to change his story and to hypothesise on what
the course of events could have been if
he had been involved.
·
On
tape, Lowe described how he had driven up and asked the girl if she wanted a
ride home and how she had come willingly with him.
She appeared upset and incoherent and told him he was going the wrong way
when he tried to find where she lived. Lowe
said that Sheree became more upset when he said he couldn’t get off the
freeway and would have to drive a little further.
He says he pulled up on the side of the road and tried to calm her down,
but she started to choke. He says
he tried to help her but he was unable to.
Then, he said, in a state of panic, he ruled out taking her to the
hospital, as they would undoubtedly need to know the circumstances under which
she arrived there. Sheree died. He knew he had no time to “muck around”, so he drove to
the back of “Arthur’s Seat”,
near Rosebud where he and his wife had gone pineconing recently, and laid poor
little Sheree to rest in a filthy drain. Her
helmet and clothing he removed as he said he could not fit her in without doing
so. “I tried to see if she would
fit there and it looked very tight. I
had her clothes off and I said a prayer. I
put her there gently…. Very gently, slid her in, pushed her with my hands.
Pushed her in a bit further then covered the whole drain.”
Much
of Lowe’s story was proven to be fiction.
Sheree’s friend, with whom she was riding, testified that a man had
forced her into the car. She had
not gone willingly.
·
Although
Lowe had said he had left Sheree wearing her underwear, she was found without
underpants on.
·
Lowe
had confessed to two other prisoners that he had abducted Sheree.
He told them that Sheree’s pink tracksuit had been dumped in a rubbish
bin at the Mt Waverley Shopping Centre as it had been covered in sperm.
The clothing was never found.
·
Fellow
prisoner, Peter Reid said Lowe had proudly boasted that he had cleaned the
driveway under the car after cleaning up Sheree’s blood.
He said also that he had learned his lesson this time, and next time he
would use Valium.
·
Reid
also testified, that Lowe had told him that Sheree had in fact choked while
being forced to perform oral sex on him. He
avoided these words however, calling them “dirty acts”.
In
court, Lorraine Lowe testified that her husband was obsessed with the details of
the Karmein Chan murder, and had prayed for her both at church and at home.
He was similarly obsessed with the Azaria Chaimberlain case and had often
claimed the police were “always going after good church-going people”.
It was later discovered that Lowe had in fact written to Michael
Chaimberlain, who in turn wrote to Lowe’s Psychologist Margaret Hobbs and
asked her to advise her client not to write again.
He also tried to visit the Chaimberlains while on a trip, but found them
not home.
Robert
Lowe had been in “therapy” with Margaret Hobbs, Psychotherapist, for several
years. Margaret had been successful
in treating exhibitionists who displayed similar traits to those that Lowe had
been unable to suppress most of his life. Margaret suggested at one point to
Lowe himself, that he had modelled “this” on the Chaimberlain case.
She said he had the missing child, the missing clothes and the religious
background. Lowe’s response to
this was “yeah but Michael and Lindy stuck together”.
Against
her ethical status, she felt compelled to assist the police in bringing Lowe to
justice. (Her ethics were in fact questioned several times throughout
Lowe’s trial). She had seen or
spoken with the police at least once a month since being approached in August of
1991. She had made an anonymous
phone call to Crimestoppers after a discussion with Robert that made her think
he was involved in Sheree’s murder.
It
was Margaret who finally gave the police what they had been after.
Robert had left with her a copy of his “confession”.
She did not believe she had a choice in handing over the written
document. However her need to do so
was circumvented, when Lowe was caught the same day, shoplifting a packet of
M&M’s with his copy of the document in his possession.
On
the last day of his committal hearing, Robert Arthur Selby Lowe pleaded not
guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Sheree Beasley.
He was committed to stand trial. On
October 27th, 1994, three years and four months after Sheree was
murdered, six men and six women were empanelled to sit in Judgement of him.
On
November 30th 1994, the jury brought in a unanimous verdict.
Lowe was found guilty of kidnapping Sheree and was sentenced to fifteen
years imprisonment. He was then
charged guilty with the murder of Sheree Beazley (Mandile) and was sentenced to
life imprisonment, his files were marked never to be released, the harshest
penalty available in Australia.
The
judge passed the sentences with the emphatic statement “and Mr Lowe, Life
means life!”
Bibliography: News articles from time of the trial
Written by Kalmar
Copyright © 2002 by [The Crime Web].
Except
as provided by the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means without the prior permission of the author.
Original Written: February
3, 2002
Updated: February 4, 2002