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A career criminal who was facing the rest of his life behind bars after multiple failed attempts to be released back into the community is the subject of a coronial inquest this week following his death in a prison cell two years ago.
Kingsley Pickett’s crimes included killing a pregnant woman and her young son and raping a woman inside her house. But he won the right to be released in March 2024 after the Court of Appeal overturned an indefinite imprisonment order.
But two months after his release on a long list of strict conditions, Pickett was back behind bars and struggling. He had self-harmed, swallowed glass, and was grieving over the death of his aunt.
Whether prison psychiatrists did enough to stop Pickett from taking his own life will form part of the two-day inquest that began on Thursday, but his family also have their own questions.
“I do not believe he would do this when he had so much to look forward to,” Pickett’s wife wrote in a statement that was read to Perth Magistrates Court on the first day of the inquest.
“I find it so hard to believe he would not have left a suicide note knowing the impact his death would have on me.”
Pickett married the woman in 2008 after striking up a friendship with her via a fellow inmate. The pair were married for 16 years, but Pickett was not allowed to live with her when he was released in 2024, which she claimed would have helped him adjust to life on the outside.
By the time he died at 46 years old, he had spent no more than a few months outside of prison since he was 14.
His criminal history included two counts of manslaughter for killing Margaret Blurton and her one-year-old son Shane on Christmas night in 1991, when he crashed into their car while driving a stolen vehicle and trying to evade police.
He was given a custodial sentence for the deaths, but after his release in 1998 at the age of 21, he went on a five-day crime spree that included breaking into a Cloverdale home and sexually assaulting the 27-year-old woman inside.
A short time later, he was involved in a riot at Casuarina Prison.
Pickett was sentenced to 14 years jail for the offences, but shortly before his release the state successfully applied for him to remain behind bars indefinitely as a “high risk serious offender”.
Numerous applications for Pickett to be released from jail failed, but he was granted his freedom in February 2024, subject to 45 strict conditions including GPS monitoring, a curfew and regular reporting to police.
In her statement read to the court, Pickett’s wife said those conditions were so onerous they made it impossible for him to integrate back into society after spending more than three decades behind bars – 25 of those years continuously from the age of 21.
“It seemed people supervising him had a lack of compassion for his mental health,” she wrote.
“The ankle bracelet seemed unnecessary. They were setting him up to fail.”
The judge who released Pickett described him as being “institutionalised”.
Just 79 days after his release, he was back behind bars having allegedly breached some of the conditions and committed further criminal offences.
He spent the next 125 days at the notoriously crowded and Hakea Prison.
Log notes presented to the inquest state that Pickett at one point told counsellors he was displaying “frustration at excessive lockdowns and belief that he was being treated like a caged dog”.
During that time, he intermittently displayed signs of self harm and made two attempts. At other times he denied any suicidal thoughts or intent.
On September 26, he was transferred to Casuarina Prison. A few weeks later he was sentenced to 12 months in prison, and was then informed his aunt had died.
Two days later he made a phone call to a friend where he disclosed that he had been self-harming.
“Mr Pickett told her that he was in pain and had been doing it hard in prison,” the inquest heard on Thursday.
Late that night he was found unconscious in his cell by prison staff who called an ambulance and attempted CPR, but he was declared dead a short time later.
“He was a smart and intelligent man,” his wife wrote in a statement to the coroner.
“Our love was powerful and strong. I find it really hard to believe Kingsley would have committed suicide.”
The inquest will hear from eight witnesses, including prison counsellor Mallory Webb, who gave evidence about not believing Pickett was at risk of a self harm incident.
He died weeks after she last assessed him as not being at risk.
Other witnesses will include the deputy commissioner of male prisons.
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