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Sick couple abducted girl, 12, raped her and killed her as she rode home on her bike

WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT: An Australlian 12-year-old was cycling home after shopping with her mum when she was kidnapped with her life cut short by a sick and twisted couple

[Sian King, arms spread, smiling]

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The last time Sian saw her mother was shopping after school(Image: Handout)

A beautiful 12-year-old girl went shopping with her mother and was last seen riding her bike before she was abducted, brutally raped and then killed by a sick couple.

Sian Kingi was beloved by her classmates and family who could never have foreseen the awful twist of fate that rocked their lives in the winter of 1987.

A former classmate of Sians said life should life as she called on people to remember all the beautiful things about Sian, according to ABC News.

Tragically, Sian was last seen riding her yellow 10-speed bike home near the park near her school when she decided to take her regular route through the park and meet her mother back at home. At around 4:30 p.m. on Friday, 27 November 1987, the girl from Queensland, was seen near Noosa Heads.

When her mother arrived home to find she was not there - she assumed Sian had met friends from school. However, a painfully stressful retracing of their daughter's steps left them to find her abandoned bicycle at the park before they reported Sian missing to police.

Police issued a missing persons report and began speaking to anyone who might have seen the youngster. Then her parents worst nightmare came true when her body was found on 3 December 1987, 15 kilometres away in a dry creek bed in the Tinbeerwah Mountain State Forest.

[Sian was just 12-years-old when she went missing]

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Sian was just 12-years-old when she went missing(Image: Handout)

Police turned their attention to an unidentified white 1973 Holden Kingswood station wagon with a number plate that had been spotted in the general area. Police gathered evidence linked to the vehicle including the suspicious behaviour of the driver and three other assault incidents.

Ultimately, the owner of the vehicle was found to be Valmae Beck. Beck, 44, and her husband Barrie Watts, 34, had married a year earlier and rented a property in the area. Both were on bail and had extensive criminal records.

Police found the couple had been at the Lowood property on 4 December, when Sians body was found. The pair had dyed their hair to try and change their appearance. Plain-clothes police were then able to locate and arrest the couple on 12 December.

The couple were charged on 15 December with the abduction, rape and murder of Sian. Watts refused to speak, but Beck gave the police information with police piecing together the story from their comments and secret recordings from their cells.

Beck said Watts was unsatisfied with her and fantasised about raping a young virgin. They had made previous attempts at kidnapping a child, but managed to lure Sian inside their car under the guise of looking for a lost poodle.

[Watts fantasised about raping a virgin]

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Watts fantasised about raping a virgin(Image: Handout)

Sian was forced into the back of their car, raped after being driven back to Tinbeerwah, strangled, stabbed and abandoned.

At a committal hearing in April 1988, Beck pleaded guilty to the abduction and rape, and not guilty to the murder, while Watts pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The couple were tried separately at the Noosa Magistrates Court primarily on Beck's testimony.

Beck was found guilty on 20 October 1988, and given three years, five years, and life imprisonment for the three charges.

Watts, who remained unresponsive during trial, was found guilty on 28 February 1990, and given three years, fifteen years, and life imprisonment for the three charges. Beck would have been eligible for parole after 14.5 years, but she died in prison.

Watts was an orphan with a long criminal record who had met Beck in 1983 and married her in 1986 in Perth. In 1995 he was tried for the murder of Helen Mary Feeney who was last seen a month before Sians murder.

[Watts was helped by his wife]

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Watts was helped by his wife(Image: Handout)

Marys case failed due to a lack of evidence. In 2007, in an unsuccessful effort to promote his parole chances, Watts finally confessed to his crime.

Valmae Beck had three older brothers, and as a twelve-year-old, began working in a clothing factory. By 15 she was in care and spent much of her time in and out of jail in the 1960s.

Beck had six children from two previous marriages. In prison, Beck was attacked by inmates.

She divorced Watts in 1990, saying she regretted everything she had ever done with him. In 1993, she began a romance with Robert John Fardon, a convicted rapist.

In 2008, she had heart surgery and was placed in an induced coma. Police hoped to get deathbed confessions to three other murders, but she died without ever waking up.

In 2021, when the possibility of Watts parole arose, 61,000 people signed a petition demanding he stay behind bars.

[Sian was stabbed and strangled]

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Sian was stabbed and strangled(Image: Handout)

Sian was a friend and a class mate. Sians family and friends should not have to relive this every time Barrie Watts wants parole, Emma Forsythe posted on the petition.

Queensland LNP MP Dan Purdie said Watts was the worst of the worst. Parole was rejected then, and rejected again in 2024, according to News.com.au.

He said: "I don't want to politicise the petition, but I am happy to rattle cages at Parliament. Laws which stop child murderers and the worst of the worst offenders [from being granted parole], would spare families like the Kingi family the trauma and burden of putting up submissions of why Barrie Watts shouldn't be released,''

Mr Purdie, the state MP whose electorate Sian Kingi's parents live in, will table the petition in state Parliament. Sunshine Coast resident Vanessa Skoglund said the thought of Watts being released on parole was "terrifying".

She said: "It is very difficult to write to this letter as I weep uncontrollably for the memories that come flooding back, the pain and the loss we suffered, not to mention the daily fear I have lived through for many years, that this could happen again any time or any place."

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