The Dreadful Case Of The Sharpe Family | John Sharpe

The cowardly man murdered his wife and 20-month-old daughter with a speargun after he “lost the plot”.

Through work at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the New Zealand-born Anna Kemp met her future husband and killer, John Sharpe. They married in October 1994, living in various places around the Mornington Peninsula area of South Melbourne.

They would settle down when their first and only child was born. Gracie Louise Sharpe came in August 2002; she was born with hip dysplasia, a condition where the acetabulum (the socket in the pelvis) is too shallow to support the femoral head (ball-shaped bone at the top of the femur). Her disability required that Gracie wear a corrective harness for the first months of her life. She often cried, no comfort soothing her, and Gracie struggled to sleep. Her sleeping problems continued even after no longer medically requiring the harness, but with the removal, Gracie began to struggle with feeding. Anna sought out professional assistance for everything.

Understandably, all of this, on top of readjusting to having a newborn in the household, would strain the relationship between Anna and Sharpe. It is unclear if the couple ever sought out help for themselves, but it’s safe to assume that it is unlikely.

In early 2003, Sharpe purchased a high-powered speargun and an additional spear from a Sport Philip Marine in Morningtion. Never in his life had Sharpe shown an interest in spearfishing before. He would spend hours practising firing the weapon in the backyard, learning and familiarizing himself with how the weapon worked.

Later through the year, the family made one final move into a home on Prince Street in Mornington, which would be the place where Anna and Gracie took their last breaths.

In November 2003, Anna discovered she was pregnant with her second child; Gracie was fifteen months old at the time. What was meant to be a joyous addition only made Sharpe resent the family he had helped create. According to him, he had decided that he didn’t want another child as the one they had was enough of a burden. Rather than bringing this up with Anna, he began to resent her and the unborn child.

On the 21st of March, 2004, the Sharpe family attended a nephew’s birthday party. Party-goers didn’t notice any tension or arguing between the couple, and all seemed. This was the last time that Anna was seen alive.

According to Sharpe, two days after the party, the couple had a heated argument before they went to bed at around 9 or 10 pm. Anna supposedly fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow while Sharpe lay awake, brooding about the argument and the state of the marriage. He left the bed after a while, heading to the backyard garage; he got the speargun that still hadn’t been used for anything other than target practice.

Sharpe returned to the bedroom where Anna still slept, levelling the loaded speargun with her left temple. He fired once; Anna continued to breathe. Sharpe loaded the second bolt and shot again, killing Anna and her unborn son.
Sharpe covered Anna with towels before going downstairs to the sofabed; he slept the rest of the night.

The following morning, Sharpe attempted to take Anna’s body from the bed but failed. He removed the shafts of the bolts by unscrewing them from the heads. After removing the projectiles from Anna’s head, Sharpe took Gracie to her childcare centre. A TV serviceman arrived at the household but was turned away by Sharpe since Anna was still lying dead in their bed.

That night Sharpe buried Anna in a shallow grave in their backyard.

Over the following three days, Sharpe took Gracie back to the Sport Philip Marine to purchase another spear. This would be the ammo he intended to kill the toddler with. These actions were described during his hearing as “circumstances of unspeakable callousness”.
He also told Gracie’s childcare centre that Anna had left him, and he said he didn’t know where she was but would be there to collect Gracie in a few days. Sharpe told a similar story to Anna’s mother back in New Zealand, except he added that Anna had left him for the man she was having an affair with.

On the 27th of March, Sharpe put Gracie into her cot for the night before he went and drank several glasses of whiskey and cola; he confessed that he did this to “numb his senses”. After his drinks, Sharpe went to the garage and retrieved the speargun and the new spear he had recently bought.

Just as he had with Anna, Sharpe levelled the speargun with Gracie’s head before he fired. Gracie didn’t die and began wailing in pain. Sharpe got the two spear shafts he had removed from the bolts used to kill Anna and returned to Gracie’s crib, shooting her with those. Gracie still wasn’t dead, so Sharpe pulled one of the spears and re-shot it into her head.

Gracie survived three spear bolts to the head before a fourth was fired, and her father murdered her.

The following morning, Sharpe went to Gracie’s body and removed the bolts from her head before wrapping her in garbage bags and a tarpaulin. He dumped her body in the Mornington Refuse Transfer Station. During the same trip, Sharpe also discarded the speargun, bolts and some of Gracie’s clothes and toys.

On the 29th, Sharpe went to a local Bunnings Warehouse hardware store in Frankston, where he bought a roll of duct tape, two tarpaulins and an electric chainsaw.

The next day, Sharpe exhumed Anna’s body from the backyard and proceeded to use the chainsaw to cut her into three pieces. He wrapped the remains in the two tarps and disposed of them along with the chainsaw in waste collection bins at Mornington Transfer Station.

Back home, Sharpe forged an e-mail from Anna to her family in New Zealand, trying to create the impression that she was still alive and well. This e-mail raised more concerns about Anna’s radio silence. To further the rouse, he arranged for flowers in Anna’s name to be delivered to her mother on her birthday.

Anna’s mother reported her missing to the police in Dunedin, who then contacted the police in Mornington. Sharpe told the officers who came to get a statement from him claimed that Anna had moved to a nearby suburb of Chelsea with their daughter. he denied knowledge or involvement in her disappearance.

During May 2004, Sharpe gave several media interviews, appearing on national TV to speak about his missing wife and daughter. His behaviour came across as odd, which attracted further attention and questions about his involvement.

In one of many appeals, Sharpe said, “Anna, our marriage may be over but I still love you and your are the mother of our beautiful daughter Gracie, whom we both adore more than anyone else”. In the same appeal, Sharpe used past tense as he spoke about his family, indicating that he already knew they were gone despite claiming to have spoken to Anna a week earlier. He begged anyone with information to come forward but also maintained the story Anna had willingly run away with another man.

Sharpe’s use of past tense aroused the police’s suspicions.

Anna’s family were appalled by his assertion that Anna, a devout Catholic, would have an affair. They were sceptical when he said she hadn’t immediately taken Gracie with her when she left, something close loved ones said Anna wouldn’t dream of doing.

Further suspicions arose within Anna’s family when they received the e-mail and flowers in her name without any phone contact. All their fears were directed at Sharpe.

Trying to throw off police, Sharpe used Anna’s phone and ATM card on several occasions throughout the southeast suburbs of Victoria to create the impression she was travelling.

On the 10th of June, Sharpe was interviewed by the police again; he still maintained the story that Anna left voluntarily on the 23rd of March. Investigators were unconvinced by the story and his lack of emotion towards his wife leaving him for her affair and then taking his daughter with her.

After he left the station, the police kept Sharpe under heavy surveillance and witnessed him retrieving Anna’s phone and ATM card from a hiding place in a public bathroom in Mornington. They also watched him dumping potential evidence in a bin in Mount Martha.

On the 22nd of June, Sharpe was arrested by the police and interviewed twice. In the first interview, he maintained the story and denied knowledge of either Anna or Gracie’s whereabouts. After talking to his family, Sharpe was interviewed for a second time, in which he confessed to murdering Anna and Gracie.

Sharpe told the police that he killed Anna because she was “controlling and moody”, and their marriage was unhappy. He claimed to have been considering “taking care of Gracie by myself and just amongst all this madness… That’s when I lost the plot.”.

According to some sources, the family think that Sharpe killed Anna after she discovered he was abusing Gracie, but no evidence supports this. But, just because there isn’t evidence doesn’t mean it couldn’t be truthful.

Sharpe pleaded guilty to both murders and was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of thirty-three years.

Officers spent three weeks searching a Mornington landfill, where they found both bodies. Anna and Gracie were buried in the Green Park Cemetery in Dunedin under Anna’s maiden name Kemp; there is also mention of Anna’s unborn son, Francis.