A Perth man found guilty of murdering his wife and the mother of his four children four decades ago has been sentenced to life in prison, meaning he will most likely die behind bars as he battles cancer and other health issues.
Raymond Reddington, previously known as Robert Fulton and Maxwell Fulton, was found guilty in February of the murder of Sharon Fulton, who disappeared without a trace in 1986.
Fulton was 39 years old and a devoted mother when she disappeared, but Reddington told police and her family and friends that she had run off with another man after he dropped her at a train station in Perth.
Instead, a jury accepted the prosecution’s case that he murdered her in their Duncraig home after he learned she was planning to leave him and would have received a significant portion of the couple’s assets in the divorce settlement.
State prosecutors told the Supreme Court jury that Reddington planned Fulton’s death and took out an insurance policy in the lead up that made him the sole beneficiary in the event that she died.
He was cheating on her with other women. Fulton found out, and had wanted out of the relationship.
As police investigated her disappearance, Reddington tried to implicate others, pointing the finger at two separate men and even writing a fake letter to Coroner Sarah Linton in 2021 ahead of an inquest into Fulton’s disappearance.
The letter, which was found to contain DNA matching Reddington’s, purported to be from the husband of a friend of Fulton’s and claimed he had “got her pregnant and that he killed her and then hid her under a concrete patio”.
During the trial, the court heard Reddington had become privy to the fact that Fulton had consulted a solicitor in the months leading up to her disappearance and filed for divorce, before being advised she would likely be awarded their four-bedroom Duncraig home, their Queensland investment properties, spousal maintenance payments and custody of their four children as part of the settlement.
Prosecutors told the jury that Reddington “most likely” attacked Fulton in their home on March 18, 1986, and that “either on that day or in the days following, disposed of her body in a way that meant it has never been found”.
He reported her missing three days later and gave police differing accounts of her last known movements.
Fulton’s body has never been found, and her disappearance has been the subject of two police investigations – one in 2007 and another in 2017 – as well as the coroner’s inquest in 2022.
Despite extensive inquiries by police and family and comprehensive media coverage, there has been no information regarding her whereabouts since.
At the time of her death, Fulton’s children were aged 15, 10, seven and three.
After Reddington was found guilty of Fulton’s murder last month, her sons Derek and Heath said they would never give up looking for her.
“He lived a full life, he travelled, he prospered, he rebuilt, he changed his name,” Heath Fulton said of his father.
“He had the privilege of time. My mother did not. She did not get to see her children grow up. She did not get to watch milestones. She did not get decades.
“I have lived with him. I have experienced the control, the deflection, the blame. Silence gave him space. Today, that silence ends.
“Mum, you are not forgotten. You are not erased. You are not just a case file.
“You are our mother, and I promise you and my siblings that I will not stop searching for you and for the full truth of what happened to you for the rest of my life.”
In a statement released after Reddington’s sentencing on Monday afternoon, WA Police Acting Inspector Jessica Securo, from the major crime division, said those who believed time had protected them were mistaken, and called for the public’s help in tracking down Fulton’s body.
“Western Australia Police will continue to pursue offenders, no matter how long it takes,” Securo said.
“Mrs Fulton’s family deserve answers and that’s why we are appealing for the public’s assistance.
“You could hold the key piece of vital information detectives need to bring this to a resolution.”
Reddington was sentenced to a minimum non-parole period of 20 years, backdated to when he was arrested and extradited to WA in 2023.
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