By Sarah McPhee
Warning: Graphic content
Kevin James Pettiford was sitting at the back of a bus, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and sunglasses, with a tattoo visible on his forearm, as detectives boarded.
He was on his way to Sydney, and had mapped a plan to kill multiple homeless people, moving from street to street in the hope of going unnoticed, he would later tell police.
Before boarding the Premier coach in Surfers Paradise, Pettiford was captured on CCTV at a post office buying stamps. On the back of a letter, later recovered from a postbox by Queensland police, Pettiford had written “THOD” for “The Hand of Death”. It was the name he gave his “inner monster”.
By the time he began his southbound journey, Pettiford had already killed two men – David Collin, 53, in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, and Andrew Whyte Murray, 56, at Tweed Heads.
Pettiford was found guilty by a jury this week of murdering Murray on or about November 22, 2019, and wounding with intent to murder after he slashed the throat of inmate Nathan Mellows while in custody five weeks later.
Kevin James Pettiford, pictured in a post office in Surfers Paradise on November 26, 2019, days after he murdered Andrew Whyte Murray at Tweed Heads.
Following a month-long trial in Parramatta, at times involving dense psychiatric evidence, the jury of 10 women and two men rejected Pettiford’s defence of mental health impairment, and determined he was criminally responsible for the two acts of brutal violence.
He is yet to face trial in Queensland over Collin’s death in September 2019, but made admissions about that killing in interviews with police shown to the NSW jury.
Murray and Collin were both homeless and fitted in to what Pettiford described as his “code” to kill men he thought “wouldn’t be missed”.
But his plan to become “Australia’s most prolific serial killer” came undone at 4.15pm on November 26, 2019.
In bodycam footage of his arrest that day, released on Friday by the NSW Supreme Court, Pettiford was cornered by NSW police regarding an interstate arrest warrant as his bus stopped in Tweed Heads.
“Kevin Pettiford, put your hands up on your head,” Detective Sergeant Matt Woods said.
Pettiford’s response was nonchalant: “No dramas.”
He then stood and was handcuffed. As other bus passengers looked on, Woods told them: “Sorry, guys, we’ll be back on the road in a second.”
Kevin James Pettiford, who referred to himself as the Hand of Death, is arrested on a bus as it stops in Tweed Heads on November 26, 2019.Credit: NSW Supreme Court/Supplied
Once off the bus, Pettiford was reminded he was being recorded, and it may be used as evidence.
“Yeah, no dramas,” he repeated.
He was asked by police about an outstanding matter in Victoria. He said he used to like to get into “a bit of fisticuffs” and “punch-ons” and “was supposed to go to court, didn’t go to court”.
“Were you aware of the warrant?” he is asked.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Pettiford replied. “No dramas.”
Asked where he had been headed, he said he was going to Sydney to “go fishing and get f---ed up”.
“When you say f---ed up, what do you mean?” one officer asked.
“Drunk as a skunk,” Pettiford replied. He said he had two jugs of beer in Surfers Paradise that day, and bought a six-pack before boarding.
By 6.07pm, Pettiford was seated inside the police station and told he was a person suspected to have information regarding the death of Andrew Murray less than a week earlier, as he slept in Jack Evans Boat Harbour park along the Tweed River. Police asked Pettiford to consent to forensic procedures including clippings of his fingernails, mouth swabs and his DNA.
Kevin Pettiford speaks to Detective Sergeant Matt Woods after being handcuffed on a bus.Credit: NSW Supreme Court/Supplied
“Yeah, no dramas,” he said again.
He was given the opportunity to get legal advice, and said he wanted a lawyer. Asked if he had any questions, he replied: “You know, I actually thought about this. I did it. It was me.”
“I killed him … who you’re talking about … bashed his head in,” he said.
Asked “When?” he said “F---, I dunno.” Asked “How?” he said, “Let’s just leave it at that for now.”
Pettiford was then arrested over Murray’s murder.
“I just thought, ‘F---, should I lie?’ And then I’m like, ‘F--- that,’” he said.
In response to a second inquiry about getting legal advice, he said, “Nah, f--- it.”
Told by police that the allegations were very serious, he said: “I’m well aware, very well aware. It’s just like, you think, ah, yeah, ‘I’m just going to lie’. I sit here, and I’m like, ‘I can’t lie.’ I did it, that’s it.”
He talked through the killing in graphic detail, saying the first time he hit Murray with a rock, he “knew he was f---ed”, as the victim was making a snoring sound.
“The body’s just barely kicking it, barely hanging on,” Pettiford said.
He said he had aimed for the temple because it was the “softest part to kill someone”.
“Everyone knows that, man, never touch a baby by its temple.”
Pettiford said he saw a couple of people in the distance and thought, “I’ve gotta get out of here”.
“Fifty per cent of me didn’t want to get caught, fifty per cent of me did.”
Pettiford showered and disposed of his clothes, and travelled over the border to Queensland.
His movements on the day of his arrest were also captured on camera, including footage of him eating at McDonald’s, looking at his computer tablet and writing on a notepad. Then he got on the bus.
In a letter addressed to police and found in his prison cell, he wrote: “You didn’t know at the time when you arrested me, but you stopped me from becoming Australia’s most prolific serial killer.”
Pettiford made it to Sydney, but not as he had planned. He will face a sentence hearing in February.
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