Aaron Bunch Journalist with Australian Associated Press | Collection of published work | + 61 484 008 119 | abunch@aap.com.au

Aaron Bunch
Qld teen’s murderer jailed for life

The Queensland man convicted of murdering pregnant teen sex worker Tiffany Taylor in 2015 murdered his elderly neighbour about 40 years earlier.

March 20, 2020

The Queensland man who killed pregnant teen prostitute Tiffany Taylor previously spent 15 years in jail for murder and will now likely die in prison.

Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, has been found guilty of murdering the 16-year-old after meeting her on the Oasis dating website in July 2015.

His Brisbane Supreme Court trial heard the pair drove from a Logan motel to an isolated industrial area where “something happened”.

Traces of Tiffany’s blood were found in Williams’ Hyundai sedan, prosecutor Philip McCarthy QC told the jury during the three-and a-half-week trial.

“On the glove box, on the headrest of the passenger seat … on the front passenger seat, on the gear stick,” he said.

Williams told police Tiffany had suffered a nose bleed.

He denied having sex with the teen and said he simply gave her a lift to Redbank Plains, where she jumped out of his car at an intersection.

He later changed that story, saying he dropped Tiffany off at a truck stop on the Warrego Highway west of Brisbane, which was the last time he saw her.

But a witness told the jury she had seen Williams’ car on the same day near Esk, about 100km north of Logan, where police have searched bushland for Tiffany’s body without success.

Later in the day, Williams set about laying a false trail of communication with the teen on the Oasis website.

One message read: “Sorry I didn’t turn up, decided I wasn’t going to pay for it.”

Williams also attempted to flee to Darwin after officers searched his car and called him for another interview.

But detectives were watching and he was arrested at the Roma Street Station in Brisbane.

Williams’ sentencing hearing was told the father-of-three was convicted for murder in 1978 after he stabbed an elderly neighbour in the back during a robbery.

He was sentenced to life in prison but released on parole after 15 years in jail.

In 1994, he was also convicted of two counts of indecent assault of a 14-year-old girl he was trusted to care for.

Justice Anne Lyons said Williams had committed a dreadful crime as she sentenced him on Friday to life in prison with a non-parole period of 30 years.

“Your conduct has breached our society’s basic code of values enshrined in our criminal law,” she said

“You will forever be serving that sentence.”

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