The Mashed Potato Murder
How a tragic love affair led to potatoes hiding a deadly secret.
In July 2013 the death of Alois Rez captured the attention of Dubbo, Australia residents and is still just as chilling today. 33-year-old Alois Rez lived with his long term girlfriend of ten years, 24-year-old Sarah Tarrant. She was only 15 when she met Alois who was almost a decade older than her, he was 24 when they met in Newcastle, Australia. As a single parent Sarah’s mother was extremely overprotective of her, thus the thought of her being in a relationship with someone nine years her senior caused tensions to rise. Countless arguments were started regarding the relationship, not only the anxiety towards his age but he was associated with a motorcycle gang called The Rebels, which would frighten any parent. It had gotten so bad between Sarah and her mother that when Sarah was in year 10, she ran away to live with Alois and his mother Zonia.
A New Start With Old Friends
Two years later the pair started a family together, Sarah gave birth to their first child when she was 16 years old. During the next few years, they had three more children, so their family had grown to six. On the surface, the family looked great but things were not as they appeared. Alois’s association with the outlaw motorcycle gang The Rebels created a grievous situation for the family, the gang was extremely dangerous and Alois wanted to leave.
You might be thinking the same thing he was at the time, leaving a gang is not going to be easy. However, he longed to start a new life with his family and not live in constant fear that his family could be harmed. Understandably, Alois was concerned as not many people leave and live to tell the story. Gang secrets he knew increased the probability of him becoming a target so the family grew fearful and moved around frequently. Eventually, in June 2012 they settled down in Dubbo, Zonia’s home town and Alois’s birthplace which was 400-miles away from Newcastle.
Raymond Roff, aged 51, was an old family friend who went to school with Zonia, he was so happy to see Alois back with his four children and girlfriend. The family stayed with him whilst they looked at houses and got more familiar with the area. Alois and Raymond spent a lot of time together playing football and going out on the weekends. Raymond’s wife had passed away from cancer in May that year so he was happy about the company as he was quite lonely at this point in his life.
After 10 days of living with Raymond, the family purchased a home on Alfred Street, which they began renovating with Raymond’s assistance. As the house began to flourish so did the relationship between Sarah and Raymond. The regular visits led to an intimate bond developing between the pair. Sarah confided in him about her unhappiness in regards to her relationship with Alois, how she felt he was lazy and overly demanding.
Romance on the Horizon
The romance began to blossom, platonic feelings turned into sexual remarks and implications on Sarah’s behalf that she wanted to sleep with Raymond. Meanwhile, in December 2012, an old school friend of Alois’s, Hamish was struggling financially so his son and himself moved in with the family making this crowded home of six now the home of eight. This increased tensions between Alois and Sarah and she turned even closer to Raymond. The flirting continued and explicit pictures were shared between the pair. It even escalated to Sarah exposing/flashing herself to Raymond whilst her children were in the house. They loved the rush, in March 2013 they began sleeping with each other behind Alois’s back, meeting up every day sometimes twice a day outside the house or under the bridge by a nearby riverbank to ensure their relationship could remain a secret.
By late March Sarah started writing him long love letters which stated their relationship had given her “a new meaning to life and something to live for” and ending the letter promising to be his bride. These letters were reciprocated, Raymond would write back to her claiming he would be a great husband to her and a good father to her children. This relationship was no longer merely fueled by lust, as their affections grew so did their plans for the future, but there was one thing standing in their way. Reality.
In June 2013, Sarah Tarrant discovered she was pregnant and knew in her heart the father of the baby was not Alois. She told Raymond and he was elated but he gave her an ultimatum, informing her she had a 3-week deadline to leave the man she had built a life with for the last 10 years. For Sarah knowing the position she was currently in this was an easy decision. She had longed to be with Raymond for so long and this was her way out however it was not as simple as she had hoped.
Raymond began to spend more time at the Alfred Street home and one day in July after he had left Alois became enraged, accusing Sarah of having an affair with the older family friend. The altercation turned physical rapidly, Alois pushed and dragged Sarah by her hair through the hallway of their home. Amid the attack, Sarah was able to text Raymond and instructed him to call the police. Once the police arrived Sarah, like many abuse victims in fear, denied to the police anything was wrong to avoid making the situation worse. Raymond was extremely frustrated that Sarah refused to take this chance to get rid of Alois from their lives and give them a chance to start their life together. He reintroduced the ultimatum but with an idea of how to get rid of Alois from their life for good.
Murder at Alfred Street
With that, Raymond handed Sarah a bag of crushed up sleeping pills which he had kept since his wife passed away. He instructed Sarah to drug Alois whilst he was eating/drinking that night, then once he was knocked out Raymond would come over and “take care of it”. So, that night Sarah thought of a meal that would be easy to hide the crushed up pills in. What better than mashed potatoes. She successfully drugged his meal, gave it to Alois and he ate the whole thing so now it was just a matter of waiting for him to fall into a deep sleep and then she could text Raymond. He still had not told Sarah what “take care of it” implied but presumably she understood the connotations.
After Alois had ingested the mashed potatoes he started to become drowsy and his friend Hamish was becoming concerned, but Alois gushed that it was nothing to worry about and probably just a result of the painkillers he was taking for his back. Meanwhile, Sarah was texting Raymond in the other room saying “I’m hoping he drops off I’m sick of waiting now I’ve had enough”. Alois’s drowsiness increased so he told Hamish he was going to go upstairs to sleep it off, that was the last time the two friends spoke.
The text messages continued to go back and forth, Raymond asked her if she was prepared and told her to switch off the sensor lights, security cameras outside the house, leave the front door open and put towels where Alois slept. Once he was in a deep sleep she texted Raymond to come at around 2 am. When he entered the bedroom he killed Alois, in a way that is still unknown to the police, and dragged his body out to his car whilst Sarah kept watch. Bear in mind all the children were still in the house at this time, at one point Hamish had woken up and Sarah was just staring at him in the doorway strangely but he went back to sleep. Raymond had taken all of Alois’s phone and tobacco with him so it did not look suspicious. He required assistance in lifting Alois’s body into the car, so Sarah came to the aid of her new boyfriend to load the dead body of her old boyfriend and watched him drive away. Raymond disposed of his body, to this day police still have not found it.
Secrets and Lies
The next morning, Sarah woke up and went out to buy new bedding and got on with her day as usual. It was not unusual for Alois to be away from home for a long period so this did not raise any red flags to his loved ones. Nonetheless, after a few days, Hamish grew extremely concerned and began texting and calling Alois’s phone in which he was left with no response.
Sarah and Raymond had agreed they would not report Alois as a missing person to give them the time to create a solid story to leave no grounds for suspicion. After five days more people started to notice something was wrong, Alois’s mother and aunt grew concerned and went to speak to the police. As a result, Sarah and Raymond decided to go to the police so that Sarah could make the appearance of the worried spouse.
The police asked numerous questions, whether Alois was the type to go away for long periods, whether he had any grievances with people, was there anything going on in his personal life. Sarah told the police he had issues with a motorcycle gang and maybe they had found him and abducted him. She went on to inform them about the threatening messages he had received. The police knew what the gang was capable of so this was plausible, however, this did not line up with the previous circumstances he had with the gang. Alois had no contact with the gang for a long time and he now lived hundreds of miles away from them. Also, he had previously contacted the police regarding threatening messages so he was not the type to shy away from going to the police. If he was abducted in the middle of the night like Sarah believes how did nobody hear or see anything?
The Investigation
First, the police went to the house to see if there were any clues, they found his wallet and concluded it was unlikely that he would not have taken it with him. Three people of interest appeared to be involved Hamish, Sarah and Raymond. They were all bought in for questioning and seemed oblivious. During the questioning police uncovered the affair between Raymond and Sarah, at one point Raymond admitted to saving Sarah in his phone as ‘hot sexy yummy mummy’. In the eyes of the police, there was now a motive for the pair to want to get rid of Alois, as he was the only thing standing in the way of their relationship. So, they were taken in for questioning again but as suspects.
Both of their phones were seized and searched through whilst the questioning was taking place and a forensics team was sent out to the home. The search team looked at the drive first because they knew security cameras had been turned off. They looked at every square inch of the drive and found in a crack in the cement a blood droplet which was an exact match to Alois, which indicated this was not an abduction but a murder. The police have had difficulty trying to find Alois’s body, they had attempted to look at security cameras but Raymond’s car was found in numerous places, which did not give police a specific search area.
Around this time a fisherman was out in the river and noticed a huge bed sheet floating in the river. This was taken in for testing and they found dog hairs that belonged to Raymond’s dog on the bedsheet. Accordingly, his car was taken in for forensic testing as they knew there would be more evidence. The police were correct, they found a lot of evidence including a great deal of Alois’s blood in the boot of the car and sleeping pills that were prescribed to Raymond’s wife. As well as the physical evidence they had text messages confirming Alois was passed out.
Whilst Raymond is denying everything during the questioning Sarah cracks. Police printed out the transcripts and asked her to explain what she meant by the messages such as “I can’t wait for the pills to kick in” she responded to the police saying “I know you read those messages, Raymond gave me the pills and I gave them to Alois to put him to sleep”. She went on to tell the police she put the sleeping pills in the mashed potatoes, after he ate them she did not know what to expect later. She contended she only wanted to scare him not hurt him. Both suspects were now contradicting each other with Raymond denying involvement whilst Sarah was laying it all on the table. To that end, the police had enough to arrest them both. There has been no autopsy to find out how he was killed but it is suggested that this was a very bloody ordeal. Sarah claims she does not know how he was killed because she was not in the room.
The Trial and Aftermath
At trial, the courts accepted Sarah did not kill Alois and ascertain she was not in the room. Her involvement was concerning the planning and preparation but they are not convinced she was completely clueless in regards to what was going to happen. She was just as much involved as Raymond the only difference is she did not physically kill him.
Raymond was found guilty of premeditated murder, given 32 years in prison with a minimum of 24 years, he appealed his sentence saying it was too excessive. Surprisingly, the courts agreed his sentence was lowered to 25 years with a minimum of 18. Sarah was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds that she was mentally unstable and did not fully understand what was going on. She was given an insanity plea and sentenced to 10 years and 8 months in jail with a minimum of 8 years.
Sarah gave birth to the unborn child in custody. This child is currently being looked after by Sarah’s mother.
To this day Alois’s body has not been found, but it has been speculated the cause of death was something to draw blood due to the blood found in the car boot and on the sheet. Raymond still denies involvement so Alois’s family will never know where his body is and what truly happened that night.