Evil ‘Lonely Hearts’ serial killer who murdered women including one he lured to death with matchmaking show dies at 72
A SICK serial killer and rapist dubbed the 'Lonely Hearts Killer' has died aged 72.
Rodney Francis Cameron – also known as Rodney Mallard – was pronounced dead at a hospital in Sydney after spending decades behind bars for a string of vile acts against women.
The depraved Australian was serving a life sentence for the murder of a woman he met through a dating show on the radio in June 1990.
Innocent 44-year-old Maria Goellner was beaten and strangled to death inside the Sky Rider Motor Inn at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.
He was convicted of the heinous crime and sent to Lithgow maximum security prison.
Cameron used the alias Rodney Mallard when he appeared on the dating show due to his disturbed past.
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This earned him the chilling nickname the “Lonely Hearts Killer”.
He was released from prison only seven months earlier after serving more than a decade in jail for two other twisted murders.
Both deadly attacks came within weeks of each other in 1974.
He was convicted of raping and murdering former colleague, Florence Edith Jackson, 49, in January.
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Cameron - who was just 19 at the time - had lured in Jackson by asking for her help after he lost his job as a trainee nurse.
As the pair grew close, he assaulted her and killed her in Katoomba.
He fled the murder scene and escaped across the Victoria border before picking up his second victim.
Young 19-year-old hitchhiker Francesco Ciliberto was killed by Cameron just after the pair met and he offered to give her a lift.
He was caught shortly after the two murders in Queensland after he abducted a mum and daughter.
He was convicted of Jackson's murder and served nine years in a New South Wales prison.
After, he was extradited to Victoria over the killing of Ciliberto and made to serve an additional seven years.
During his first sentence he is said to have confessed to a third murder also in 1974.
He told officers he stabbed elderly war widow Sarah McKenzie to death inside her home at Milsons Point.
McKenzie was found dead inside her home with over 30 stab wounds.
Despite his admission of guilt, Cameron was never tried for her murder.
He went on to be released in November 1989 but killed Goellner in the following June.
His file was then marked “never to be released".
The convicted serial killer died at the Prince of Wales Hospital at around 11.30pm on Saturday, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Cameron had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was being treated in a palliative care ward at the Randwick hospital for some time.
His crimes have been well documented across Australia with Foxtel’s Crime Investigation Australia TV series reporting on his past back in 2009.
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The program’s press release read: “Cameron’s psychopathic tendencies appeared very early in life when, at the age of just ten, he tried to strangle his first victim – a young girl.
“He then attempted to strangle two other women, and moved onto a life of alcohol and drug abuse, including experimenting with hallucinogenic chemicals and Satanism."
