Cross-dressing serial killer Reginald Arthurell remains behind bars because he doesn’t want to be released into an aged care home. The State Parole Authority was due to discuss his released on parole today but is waiting for an aged care assessment report before deciding on the conditions of his release. Arthurell, 75, who has previously served time for two counts of manslaughter and is currently in jail for murdering a woman who befriended him, did not appear before the authority when it sat in Parramatta today. He was jailed for 24 years with a minimum of 18 for bludgeoning Venet Raylee Mulhall, 54, to death in her Coonabarabran home in February 1995 and his total sentence runs out in May next year. He has already been out on a day release a number of times but that has stopped because of the COVID-19 lockdown. SPA chair Judge David Frearson today adjourned Arthurell’s parole hearing to September 10 so the report on his assessment for aged care can be completed. When he is released on parole, he will have to live in SPA-approved accommodation whether an aged care home or a halfway house. He had served time for the manslaughter of a teenage sailor in the Northern Territory and for the manslaughter of his stepfather in NSW before Ms Mullhall, a devout Christian, met him during her prison visits. He had been released to live with Ms Mulhall after his minimum term of four and half years ended for the manslaughter of his stepfather. The Supreme Court judge who had sentenced him to the minimum term said he had been impressed by evidence that Arthurell had become a Christian which had “liberated him from the mindset and oppression of the past so that he is growing into a more caring, gentle and loving person”. Four years after his release he bashed Ms Mulhall over the head with a piece of wood when she would not give him her car. He also dressed up in her clothes and took photographs of himself obtained by Ms Mulhall’s grieving brother Peter Quinn and has since asked to be recognised as a woman although he is in a male jail.
