The serial paedophile who abducted, drugged and killed schoolgirl Samantha Knight has died in custody.
A Department of Correctives NSW spokesperson confirmed Michael Guider, 73, died at the Prince of Wales hospital on Saturday morning about 7.25am.
‘As a matter of protocol, Corrective Services NSW and NSW Police investigate all deaths in custody regardless of the circumstances,’ the spokesperson said.
Guider kidnapped Sydney schoolgirl Samantha Knight from her Bondi home in 1986 and drugged her, which resulted in a later conviction of manslaughter.
He also preyed upon other children across two decades and has shown no remorse for Samantha’s manslaughter, which he once claimed was accidental and recently said he had not committed.
Guider was let out of jail in 2019 but re-arrested in 2022 for breaching conditions relating to his five-year extended supervision order.
He has never said where he left schoolgirl’s body – with her location unlikely to ever be revealed with his death.
Michael Guider (pictured in 2022) has died in hospital while in custody in Long Bay Jail
Michael Guider kidnapped, drugged and killed nine-year-old school girl Samantha Knight in 1986. She was snatched from near her home at Bondi and her remains have never been found
Another of Guider’s victims Lisa Giles said she was relieved at his death.
‘This morning I got the phone call I’ve been waiting for for many years,’ Ms Giles told Daily Mail Australia.
‘It doesn’t feel they way I thought it would… I can probably rest, but how?’
Ms Giles said she had lived in fear he would offend again when he was released from prison.
‘I had been trying to outsmart the whole system. To build documents to send to the DPP, to write my own story, to appeal to the courts to increase the intensity of his conditions.’
For the first six months of his freedom in 2019, Guider was holed-up in a secure facility attached to the Long Bay prison complex along with other offenders too problematic to return to society.
But in March 2020 the loathed paedophile was quietly moved out of the Nunyara Community Offender Support Program centre at Malabar and placed in new permanent accommodation.
That angered and frustrated some of Guider’s surviving victims, who said at the time authorities had refused to reveal where their tormentor was now living.
Guider’s younger brother Tim had previously warned his sibling would have used his time in Nunyara preparing himself to commit sex crimes on prepubescent girls again.
After his initial release Guider refused to receive letters, phone calls or visits from anyone, including Tim.
‘His minders have said to me he doesn’t want contact with anybody from the outside world,’ Tim said in 2019.
Guider served 17 years for the manslaughter of schoolgirl Samantha Knight
‘He’s trying to keep his secrets basically. He doesn’t want anyone to know where he is or what he’s doing.’
Tim predicted Guider would have altered his appearance before he left Nunyara, including removing the long grey beard he grew in 2019.
Samantha’s body has never been found and Guider has shown no remorse for her manslaughter, which he once claimed was accidental and most recently said he had not committed.
Guider had previously been jailed for sexually assaulting 13 children from 1980 to 1996. Police are aware of other victims still too traumatised to come forward.
Michael Guider is pictured left on Christmas Day, 1986, four months after he killed Samantha. He is pictured right clutching a Kodak film packet and developed photographs in 1984, the year he began molesting Samantha
His brother believed Michael would find a way to return to his old ways once he was back in the community.
In September 2022, Guider was arrested again for allegedly possessing child abuse material on his mobile phone, violating the terms of his extended supervision order.
The Daily Telegraph reported that during a routine check on an address at Fairfield Heights in Sydney’s south-west police discovered he had allegedly been looking up material on his phone in contravention of those conditions.
The alleged offences occurred over seven months between February 23 and September 25.
After a brief appearance at Fairfield Local Court the child killer was returned to prison.
He was subsequently sentenced to a maximum of three years imprisonment.
More to follow.
