A Sydney woman whose father was murdered by notorious killer Richard Leonard says she is haunted by the fact her father could still be alive if it weren’t for the girlfriend who helped him hide his first victim.
“There is a man in the fridge.”
Those were the words Leonard told his surprisingly unperturbed girlfriend Denise Shipley back in August 1994.
Leonard was speaking of the dismembered corpse of Stephen Dempsey, who he fatally shot through the heart with a bow and arrow after the pair crossed paths near a popular gay beat in Deep Creek in Sydney’s east.
Had Shipley gone to police with this information, taxi driver and loving father-of-six Exxedine Bahmad may not have fallen prey to the psychopathic 22-year-old ex-abattoir worker.
Instead she chose to do nothing, and three-and-half months later would sit in the taxi when Leonard stabbed Bahmad 37 times.
“He (Leonard) showed his girlfriend the body of Stephen and she didn’t run away, she stayed there and that was before my dad died,” Mr Bahmad’s daughter, Diane Barrera, says in an upcoming episode of Nine’s Murder Calls, to be aired on Wednesday night.
“There was another person in the car that day, there was another person that contributed to my dad’s murder and she only got eight years.”
Shipley has since been released from prison, but Leonard is serving life behind bars.
A Sydney woman whose father was murdered by notorious killer Richard Leonard says she is haunted by the fact her father could still be alive if it weren’t for the girlfriend who helped him hide his first victim.
“There is a man in the fridge.”
Those were the words Leonard told his surprisingly unperturbed girlfriend Denise Shipley back in August 1994.
Leonard was speaking of the dismembered corpse of Stephen Dempsey, who he fatally shot through the heart with a bow and arrow after the pair crossed paths near a popular gay beat in Deep Creek in Sydney’s east.
Had Shipley gone to police with this information, taxi driver and loving father-of-six Exxedine Bahmad may not have fallen prey to the psychopathic 22-year-old ex-abattoir worker.
Instead she chose to do nothing, and three-and-half months later would sit in the taxi when Leonard stabbed Bahmad 37 times.
“He (Leonard) showed his girlfriend the body of Stephen and she didn’t run away, she stayed there and that was before my dad died,” Mr Bahmad’s daughter, Diane Barrera, says in an upcoming episode of Nine’s Murder Calls, to be aired on Wednesday night.
“There was another person in the car that day, there was another person that contributed to my dad’s murder and she only got eight years.”
Shipley has since been released from prison, but Leonard is serving life behind bars.
