In Australia, there exists a history of violent individuals who transition to women while incarcerated.
Geoffrey Ian Websdale carried out a deadly spree on a rural sheep station, killing the girl who spurned him, taking the lives of two others, and leaving another young man a quadriplegic.
Years later, while imprisoned in NSW, he began identifying as Michelle and adopted makeup.
Noel Crompton Hall forced a sawn-off shotgun into a man’s mouth, resulting in his murder during a botched drug deal.
During his prison term, he successfully received state funding for a sex reassignment procedure.
Leslie “Krista” Richards underwent an orchiectomy (testicle removal) in an Adelaide jail following arrests for undisclosed offenses. Richards then expressed frustration over prison officials’ refusal to allow him to wear feminine attire in the yard.
Paul Luckman committed one of the most heinous child murders in Australian history alongside his army partner, Robin Reid.
In prison, he transformed into Nicole Louise Pearce and currently lives as a woman in Victoria.
While American audiences are captivated by the case of Kosilek, who murdered his wife in Massachusetts and is now seeking gender reassignment surgery through legal means, it has come to light that there are similarly strange yet true accounts of Australian murderers who change their gender in prison.
Maddison Hall, a tattooed 26-year-old drug dealer known as Noel Crompton Hall, was living with his wife in south-western Sydney when he went on a drug-delivery road trip. He subsequently gave a ride to Lyn Saunders, a 28-year-old man from South Australia.
After an argument, Hall shot Saunders in the back and then again in the mouth.
With a 22-year sentence, Hall began presenting as a woman in jail, claiming he was a woman confined in a male body and self-harming.
Some transgender inmates are able to remain in male prisons, where they may assume the role of “girlfriends” to other inmates, whereas others are relocated to women’s prisons even while still identifying as male.
Maddison Hall asserted his need to be housed in a women’s prison, and he was consequently transferred to an all-female maximum-security facility where he gained a reputation as a sexual predator and faced charges for raping his cellmate.
Upon being sent back to a men’s correctional facility, Hall initiated a lawsuit against the NSW Department of Corrective Services, alleging psychological trauma. He won a $25,000 settlement, which financed his complete sex change surgery in 2003.
Even after having her parole revoked for appearing on a prison video link with a bleached blonde hairstyle, Hall ultimately secured her release in 2010.
Nicole Louise Pearce, formerly known as Paul Luckman, enlisted in the army at 17 and was based at the Brisbane army barracks in Enoggera.
It was there that he met Robin Reid, with whom he shared an interest in weapons, violence, sexual torture fantasies, Satanism, and homosexuality.
On May 4, 1982, the couple drove a 4WD vehicle along the Pacific highway into NSW, where they picked up two 13-year-old schoolboys, Peter Aston and Terry Ryan, who were hitchhiking.
The boys were handcuffed and transported 60km to a secluded beach near Kingscliff in northern NSW.
Peter was subjected to kicking, punching, and having his hair forcibly cut from his head and pubic area.
Terry was coerced into eating Peter’s hair and performing an indecent act on him, while Peter endured blunt force trauma from a shovel and rifle, torture with lit cigarettes, and an aerosol spray ignited near his face.
Peter was repeatedly stabbed while pleading for mercy, had sand shoveled onto his face, and was ultimately buried in a shallow grave.
After receiving a 24-year sentence, Luckman and Reid were separated in different NSW prisons.
Luckman sought female hormone treatment while incarcerated and legally changed his name to Nicole Louise Pearce.
He was released from prison.On parole since October 1999, Michelle Websdale now lives as a woman in Victoria.
The fury of Michelle Websdale was ignited by a rejection of his advances, which took place on a property known as Carrathool, situated near the NSW/Victorian border.
At that time, Geoffrey Ian Websdale was a 21-year-old rouseabout living in accommodations shared with other young workers and a team of eight shearers.
A one-night encounter with 19-year-old Deborah Astill ended in rejection when she rebuffed any further advances from him.
On the night of November 7, 1989, after a night of drinking beer with the shearers, Websdale forcefully kicked down the door of a cottage where another couple was resting.
In an act of violence, he shot and killed Karen Deacon, 20, and Ian Hutchinson, 24.
He then shot Darryl Lamb in the back, rendering him a quadriplegic due to his injuries. Deborah Astill was left with bullet wounds in her back and arm but survived.
While in prison, Websdale picked up the guitar. Around 2005, he began to transform his prison attire into skirts and allowed his curly hair to grow long.
He requested the jail authorities to change his name card to “Michelle”.
Other transformative stories from jail include:
Donald Geoffrey McPherson, who was convicted of murder in 1978 and received a 50-year sentence. During his time in a NSW prison, he began to identify as a woman and adopted the name Kimmie McPherson.
Paul Denyer, a serial killer from Victoria serving three consecutive life sentences for the murders of three young women in Frankston, Victoria, in 1993, is currently in a legal battle with prison authorities to be permitted to wear makeup and female clothing while incarcerated.
Transgender inmate Lyralisa Stevens, who was born male and is based in San Francisco, California, has filed a lawsuit requesting that the state fund the removal of her male genitalia to protect her from potential rape and attacks by male inmates.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Chris Lennings noted that inmates undergoing a gender change often create a new identity, distancing themselves from aspects they despised, including violent behaviors and associations with other violent individuals.
“There’s a fairly complex set of factors regarding identity during a transgender operation,” he stated.
“A person who feels trapped in a male body may exhibit anger, nastiness, and aggression. Once they successfully achieve their gender transformation, they often find relief in their new identity.
“The biochemical changes accompanying gender transitions, such as the suppression of male hormones (androgens), can trigger significant transformations.
“Often, individuals entirely reject their past selves, the person they once were, in an effort to escape the violent period of their lives.
“They tend to develop entirely new associations, make new friends, adopt a new name, and seek out a more acceptable living environment.”
by Jeff Millins
