Ashley Coulston

Ashley Mervyn Coulston is an Australian triple murderer serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment for a 1992 triple murder in Burwood in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. He also attempted to abduct and rob a couple on St Kilda Road in inner Melbourne several months later. The failed abduction attempt led police to his involvement in the triple murder.

Early life Coulston grew up on his family's dairy farm in Tangambalanga. His family were described as law abiding. On 19 April 1971, Coulston, aged 14 years and armed with a .22 rifle, abducted two female school teachers from a house next to the Tangambalanga school. He had planned the abduction in advance, keeping the teachers, Halinka Watson (20) and Carol Scott (21), under surveillance prior to the abduction. however he ran into troubles following Cyclone Bola and on 12 March 1988, activated his vessel's emergency beacon. He was rescued by a passing tanker just north of New Zealand's North Island after spending 46 days at sea in stormy weather. The remains of his vessel washed up on the New Zealand shore several months later. He was dubbed "Captain Bathtub".

Kerryn Henstridge, 22, Anne Smerdon, 22, and Peter Dempsey, 27, the brother-in-law of one of the women, were forced into separate rooms and hogtied using cable ties before Coulston shot them execution style in the back of the head with a sawn-off .22 rifle fitted with a home-made silencer made from an oil filter.

Prison life Detained at HM Prison Barwon, in 2005 it was reported that Coulston had collected fifteen television images of the assault of a fully clothed woman. The images were stored on his personal computer.

Suspect in other crimes In 2000, the Australian Police Journal published an article on Coulston regarding the forthcoming creation of the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database (NCIDD) and that the Queensland Police Service and the New South Wales Police Force were seeking to recover DNA samples from the "Balaclava Killer" and the "Sutherland Rapist" cases to compare with Coulston's DNA. Coulston shared the same rare blood type of group A secretor with the "Balaclava Killer" and the "Sutherland Rapist". In February 1980, an attack occurred at Tweed Heads, a male partner Jeffrey Parkinson fought back and was shot dead allowing his unharmed female companion to flee. Coulston had lived with his family in nearby Brisbane since 1979 and in late 1980 Coulston moved from Brisbane to southern Sydney in Cronulla and at times lived in Bexley, Kingsgrove and Oatley between 1980 and 1987. One of whom had the blood type of group A secretor who committed offences between 1985 and 1987 in the Sutherland Shire and Hurstville including targeting couples in lovers' lanes bounding their male partners armed with a sawn-off shotgun wearing several disguises. In 1986, Coulston was sacked from the company he had worked for since 1980 and he spent most of 1987 and his savings of $10,000 constructing the yacht, G'day 88, in a backyard in southern Sydney.