For 30 years, the families and friends of victims have lived in the shadow of the Frankston Serial Killer.

Now, as parole becomes a real possibility, they tell The Weekly why they believe Paul Denyer's life sentence should be for life, and a dangerous murderer should not walk free.

- MEGAN NORRIS

Winter arrived early in Victoria in 1993, bringing biting winds and a hard frost, which cast a chilly grey spectre over the Melbourne skyline and its sprawling outer suburbs. Tragically, it was not the cold snap that sent the people of Frankston hurrying home before dark that year, but the terrifying realisation that a sadistic serial killer was on the loose in their tight-knit community.

From early June, the thriving beachside suburb in the city’s southeast became a ghost town, as police stepped up the search for the killer responsible for the vicious stabbing murder of Frankston TAFE student Elizabeth Stevens, 18, whose body had been discovered in a park at Langwarrin on June 12.

The investigation took a more alarming turn after another body was found on July 12, bearing similar stab wounds, in an isolated paddock in neighbouring Carrum Downs.

The body was that of missing Seaford mother Debbie Fream, 22, who had disappeared four days earlier, after leaving her newborn son with a friend while she picked up some milk from the shops. Like the first victim, the new mum had also been strangled.

The grim discovery sent shockwaves around Frankston, prompting speculation about a possible connection between the two murders and other unsolved homicides in the area – including the abduction and suspected murder of another local woman, Sarah MacDiarmid, 23, who had disappeared in 1990 from Kananook railway station.

The community rallied around the murdered mother’s stricken partner, Garry Blair, and his 12-day-old baby, who became the tiny human face of the tragedy. Locals packed into public meetings held by police, who were in a race against the clock to catch the killer before he struck again.