Now theHerald can reveal the secret recordings that helped convict two men who ended the life of a talented young woman simply because she “knew too much” about their drug game.
Benjamin Parkes,the drug dealer who helped kill Najma Carroll,speaks to police six months after her death.Supplied
Earlier this year 46-year-old former bikie Benjamin Parkes faced trial for the callous murder in July 2020.
Parkes hoped the jury would believe he had driven out to a quarry on Sydney’s southern fringe late one winter evening,because he thought Carroll was going to be “taught a lesson”.
Najma Carroll,33,was killed in bushland in July 2020.Supplied
The jury were never told his “lieutenant” Robert Sloan pleaded guilty to murder before the trial began. Parkes wanted to pin it all on Sloan.
He had rehearsed his story on his cellmate in Silverwater prison – sitting in his car,he could only watch in shock as Sloan bludgeoned Carroll with an aluminium baseball bat.
A microphone in the cell picked up the scratchy sounds of Parkes rehearsing his story against the backdrop of daytime TV.
Sloan and Parkes were “one-percenter” drug dealers,bikie associates,who bounced between shady hotels,drug dens and pokies pubs in Sydney’s west.
It was there they met Carroll,a gifted HSC student and rising sports star in her younger years who had developed a drug addiction.
Her mother Anne Carroll told the court last week Najma meant “star” in Arabic,and she shone with a humanitarian spirit.
“Never did I imagine that after 33 short years,I would need to explain to the funeral director that,no,I did not have special clothes for Najma to be cremated in,” she said.
“I knew that instead Najma’s bludgeoned,charred and decomposed remains would need to be swaddled in white cloth before being placed into her coffin.”
Najma Carroll had been emotionally abused as a child,her mother learnt years later,and struggled with addiction. But she checked herself in and out of rehabs and had plans for the future. Parkes and Sloan cut them short.
Police at the quarry,south of Sydney,where Najma Carroll’s body was found.Dominic Lorrimer
“Najma put her trust in the wrong men,” her mother said.
Five months after Najma’s death,in December 2020,Parkes sat down with police in a prison interview room. It was his first chance to talk his way out of trouble.
Parkes told police Carroll was “down on her luck” and had used pandemic-era changes to superannuation to withdraw $8000. She invested it in their drug business.
“She saw an opportunity to make a dollar without doing f--- all for it to be honest,” Parkes told police.
“I was an eyewitness to murder.”
Parkes told police the same story he had told his cellmate – Sloan had turned against Carroll over money.
“That old school bikie just turned,just changed towards her,” Parkes said.
“I didn’t see anything from her that would make me change towards her. I just saw a bubbly girl.”
Parkes repeated what he had told his cellmate about sitting in the car,watching as Sloan killed Carroll in the glare of his headlights.
The jury heard Carroll had met Benjamin Parkes and Robert Sloan while living in motels around Liverpool.Supplied
“He came around that way with a bat ... and he bludgeoned her to death,” Parkes said in the interview. “He would’ve hit her 20 times,mate. I was absolutely frozen.”
Parkes told police Sloan was a killer and a “bastard” towards Carroll. He had told his cellmate the same thing.
Important evidence contradicted Parkes’ claim,however,and police knew it.
Cigarette butts at the scene had tested positive for Carroll’s DNA – she had time for a smoke at the remote quarry.
Police also knew forensic evidence showed Carroll was struck three times in the head,not 20 as Parkes claimed.
Prosecutors never believed Parkes and proceeded to trial.
They told the jury he and Sloan worried Carroll “knew too much” about their drug business and formed a pact to kill her.
The jury,the only audience that mattered,listened to the recordings,interviews with police and agreed – Parkes was guilty.
Carroll’s mother was stoic as she faced each man at his sentence hearing. She read a statement about her daughter and they listened.
“Najma would want us all to continue with love and hope in our hearts,hope for an end to violence against women,” she said.
Parkes was given a maximum sentence of 31 years with a non-parole period of 21 years and six months on Friday. Sloan will be sentenced on August 2.
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