Where is Tiffany?
Again and again convicted murderer Rodney Wayne Williams was asked the heartbreaking question by his latest victim’s devastated family on Monday.
For the second time in two years, the 68-year-old was found guilty of murdering pregnant teen Tiffany Taylor by a Brisbane Supreme Court jury.
Williams had also killed before, back in 1978.
Tiffany, 16, was last seen leaving a motel south of Brisbane in July 2015 after Williams – then 60 – organised to pay for sex on a dating website.
Williams picked up Tiffany near a Waterford West motel before driving to a remote industrial area where he killed her then disposed of the body in the Fernvale region, 100km southwest of Logan.
Her body has never been found.
“Where is Tiffany? I have waited for seven years now,” Tiffany’s mother Leanne Dillon asked Williams as she tearfully read her victim impact statement.
“Bring her back Rodney Williams. Do the right thing – my daughter does not deserve this ending.”
Williams sat silently with his eyes closed.
Ms Dillon finally broke down, prompting her daughter Chloe to finish the heart wrenching statement before reading her own.
“Where is Tiffany Taylor? Please don’t take this secret with you. Give us our answer,” Tiffany’s older sister said.
But Justice Peter Applegarth was not confident Williams would provide one.
“I do not expect you to have the ounce of decency required to disclose where you disposed of Ms Taylor’s body … but I’d be delighted to proven wrong,” he said.
Williams had previously been found guilty of Tiffany’s murder and sentenced to life in prison in March 2020.
But he won an appeal in June 2021 and was granted a retrial.
Williams had also been convicted for murder in Tasmania 44 years ago.
He stabbed an elderly neighbour during a 1978 robbery and was sentenced to life in prison, but was released on parole after 15 years.
“Tiffany Taylor will be remembered as a beautiful young woman,” Justice Applegarth said.
“You will be remembered as a brutal murderer.”
At the retrial the court heard Tiffany’s blood and DNA were found in Williams’ car.
Williams told police Tiffany had a nose bleed.
Justice Applegarth described it as a “feeble explanation”, saying it was most likely from Williams assaulting her before he “strangled or suffocated” Tiffany.
“The mechanism of her death could not be proven because you concealed it by disposing of her body – that also was a way of concealing your murderous intent,” he said.
Williams told police that he had given her a lift to Redbank Plains but changed his story, saying he dropped her off at a truck stop west of Brisbane.
He denied having sex with her, telling police he told Tiffany he didn’t have any money but she insisted on meeting because she thought he was interesting after reading his dating website profile.
“It shows a staggering narcissism on your part. No 16-year-old girl would have found you interesting … the only ones who did would be forensic psychiatrists,” Justice Applegarth said.
Williams created a false trail of communication with Tiffany on the dating website after killing her, with his last message saying: “Sorry I didn’t turn up, decided I wasn’t going to pay for it.”
He tried to flee a day before police had organised to interview him in August 2015, with officers intercepting him at a Brisbane train station with a bag of clothes.
Williams on Monday received a life sentence and is not to be released for 30 years, after the jury deliberated for almost five hours and found him guilty at his three week retrial.
“You should expect to die in jail,” Justice Applegarth said.
© AAP 2022
