In the vast silence of outback Queensland, where neighbours are few and oversight is thin, a cattle grazier named Darryl Young turned a routine property meeting into a killing ground, shooting four people at his gate in August 2022. Three died — a husband, his wife, and their son — while a fourth escaped carrying a bullet he will never be rid of. After a trial in which forensic patience dismantled a carefully constructed alibi, Young was sentenced to life imprisonment, ineligible for parole until he is 99. The case reminds us that remoteness does not only describe geography — it can also descr
Court releases trial photos showing grazier's failed alibi in triple murder case
Three people killed and one survivor left with permanent injury from gunshot wounds during the August 2022 attack.
He will not be eligible for parole until he is 99
Mark
Why does the court releasing these photos matter now, after the conviction?
Mimi
Because they show the physical reality of what Young did in those hours after the shooting—the hand sanitiser, the rifle case, the removed cameras. It's the evidence that proved his alibi was constructed, not genuine.
Luke
But we should be clear: the photos themselves don't prove guilt. They're evidence that was tested and cross-examined during the trial. The conviction came from the totality of it—the forensics, the witness accounts, the timeline.
Mark
What was Young's actual defence? Did he deny being there?
Mimi
He admitted being on the property but said he was seven kilometres away with the wind farm workers when the shooting happened. He said the cameras malfunctioned, the rifle cartridges were old, the hand sanitiser was just for hygiene.
Luke
And the court rejected that. But it's worth noting the rifle was never recovered, so some of the prosecution's case relied on inference—that he disposed of it down a mine shaft. That's logical, but it's not direct evidence.
Mark
What about the survivors? Ross Tighe—is there any sense of what his life is like now?
Mimi
The reporting tells us he has a deformed bullet lodged in his hip. That's permanent. He lived through something most people can't imagine, and he carries it literally in his body.
Luke
We don't have his voice in this story, though. We know he was shot and survived, but we don't know how he's coping, what he's said about the verdict, whether he feels justice was served. That's a gap.
Mark
The isolation of the place—does that matter to understanding what happened?
Mimi
Absolutely. Bogie station is two hours from the nearest town. Young lived there with his stepmother and son in a farmhouse damaged by a cyclone. It's remote enough that he could commit this crime and have time to stage an alibi before anyone arrived. The wind farm workers were his only potential witnesses.
Luke
But we should be careful not to blame the remoteness. Plenty of people live in isolated places without committing murder. The isolation is context, not cause.
Der Puls
- Three people were shot dead at a remote property gate two hours from the nearest town, with a fourth left permanently injured — the scale of violence in such an isolated setting sent a shock through Queensland's rural communities.
- Young moved quickly after the killings, driving across rough terrain to plant himself seven kilometres away with wind farm workers, while hand sanitiser, a discarded work shirt, and an open rifle case in his vehicle quietly told a different story.
- Forensic investigators matched a cartridge casing hidden inside a box of long-life milk cartons in Young's kitchen to casings recovered from the murder scene — a microscopic detail that collapsed his alibi entirely.
- The removal of security cameras from his property the day before the shooting, cameras that would have recorded the fatal meeting, persuaded the court that the killings were planned, not impulsive.
- Young now faces a sentence that is, in practical terms, permanent — life imprisonment with parole not possible until age 99 — while survivor Ross Tighe continues his life with a deformed bullet lodged in his hip.
In the vast silence of outback Queensland, where neighbours are few and oversight is thin, a cattle grazier named Darryl Young turned a routine property meeting into a killing ground, shooting four people at his gate in August 2022. Three died — a husband, his wife, and their son — while a fourth escaped carrying a bullet he will never be rid of. After a trial in which forensic patience dismantled a carefully constructed alibi, Young was sentenced to life imprisonment, ineligible for parole until he is 99. The case reminds us that remoteness does not only describe geography — it can also describe the distance between a community's trust and the violence concealed within it.
In August 2022, Darryl Young shot four of his neighbours at the gate of his Bogie cattle station in remote Queensland — a property so isolated it sits a two-hour drive from the nearest town of Collinsville. Mervyn Schwarz, 71, his wife Maree, 59, and their son Graham Tighe, 35, were killed. A fourth man, Ross Tighe, was struck but survived, escaping with a bullet permanently lodged in his hip. Young, now 36, used an unregistered .30-30-calibre rifle that was never recovered — prosecutors believe it was disposed of down one of the old gold mine shafts on his land.
What followed the shooting was a hurried attempt to build a false alibi. Young drove to find two wind farm workers on his property, positioning himself seven kilometres from the scene. But the evidence he left behind undermined him at every turn: an open rifle case and an orange work shirt — matching what the survivor said Young wore — were found in his vehicle, along with an open bottle of hand sanitiser prosecutors argued he used to clean himself in transit.
Inside his home, the forensic picture grew clearer. Open packets of matching rifle cartridges sat in his bedroom. Cleaning kits for the same calibre were found in a truck on the property. Most critically, a single aging cartridge casing hidden inside a box of long-life milk cartons in his kitchen bore microscopic markings that matched casings recovered from the murder scene.
Young had also removed security cameras from his property, claiming they had been malfunctioning the day before the shooting. The court was not persuaded. The cameras — found in his kitchen alongside SD cards — would have recorded the meeting with his neighbours, and their removal pointed to premeditation rather than coincidence.
On Monday, Young was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 40 years, meaning he cannot seek parole until he is 99 years old. He received three life sentences for the murders and a further 16 years for the attempted murder of Ross Tighe. The survivor continues to carry the physical mark of that day — a deformed bullet that remains in his hip, a permanent record of what happened at a remote gate in the Queensland outback.
On a remote cattle station in outback Queensland, Darryl Young shot four of his neighbours in August 2022. Three died at his gate. The fourth, Ross Tighe, was hit but managed to escape with a bullet lodged permanently in his hip. Young is now 36 years old and will spend the rest of his life in prison.
The victims were Mervyn Schwarz, 71, his wife Maree, 59, and their son Graham Tighe, 35. They had come to Young's Bogie property, a two-hour drive from the nearest town of Collinsville, for what should have been a routine meeting. Young used a .30-30-calibre rifle. He was not registered to carry one, nor was his son. The rifle was never found, though prosecutors believe he disposed of it down one of the old gold mine shafts scattered across his isolated land.
What emerged during the trial, through photographs and physical evidence, was Young's frantic attempt to construct an alibi after the shooting. He drove his dark grey Nissan Navara ute to and from the scene. Police found an open rifle case in the back seat and an orange work shirt—the same colour Ross Tighe said Young wore during the attack. On the driver's seat sat an open bottle of hand sanitiser, which prosecutors argued Young used to clean himself while rushing to establish a false account of his whereabouts.
Young's strategy was to claim he had been seven kilometres away, meeting with wind farm workers on his property at the time of the shooting. He and his stepmother drove an all-terrain vehicle to find Liam Parnell and Matthew Garbutt, the workers who had been on the station since before the killings. The workers later provided photos to police. Young traversed seven kilometres of rough, unsealed roads across arid terrain to reach them—a journey that would have taken time, yet he insisted he could not have been at the murder scene.
The physical evidence told a different story. Inside Young's bedroom, police found open packets of .30-30-calibre rifle cartridges. Two cleaning kits for the same calibre rifle were discovered in a truck on his property. In the kitchen, inside a box of long-life milk cartons, officers found an aging rifle cartridge casing. The Queensland Police forensics unit used a microscope to examine the impressions on that casing. They matched the markings on the casings recovered from the murder scene.
Young had also removed security cameras from his property—he told the court they had been malfunctioning and he took them down the day before the shooting. Prosecutors and the judge were unconvinced. The cameras, they argued, would have captured the meeting with his neighbours. Two of those cameras were found in his kitchen, along with SD cards Young claimed he used for motion detection. The removal of the cameras suggested premeditation, not mechanical failure.
On Monday, Young was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 40 years. He will serve three life sentences for the murders and an additional 16 years for the attempted murder of Ross Tighe. At 36 now, he will not be eligible for parole until he is 99 years old—a sentence that amounts to life without meaningful possibility of release. Ross Tighe, the survivor, carries the deformed bullet in his hip as a permanent reminder of what happened that day at the gate of a remote cattle station.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
Young claimed the security cameras had been malfunctioning, but prosecutors and the judge said he removed them because he did not want the meeting with his neighbours captured— Trial evidence and judicial findings
Möchten Sie die ganze Geschichte?
Das Original lesen bei ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) ↗
Crime & Justice