Albany care home murder: Horrific details of murder of Monica Stockdale revealed

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT. The teenager who was supposed to be looking after an elderly, vulnerable woman in an Albany care home instead murdered her in a sustained, brutally violent attack — using the cord of an alarm bell to strangle her in her bed. Horrific details surrounding the death of Monica Stockdale were revealed for the first time on Monday, as her killer Jacob Hoysted was jailed for life. WA’s Supreme Court was told Hoysted — who had a history of macabre fascination with serial killers and death — had somehow got a job at the Bethel Care Home. On the night of November 28, 2022, Hoysted was in charge of an entire floor of residents, including 70-year-old Ms Stockdale. She was there to receive care for her early-onset dementia, while she recovered from a fall in which she had broken her hip. Instead of delivering the care she needed Hoysted decided instead that her “suffering” needed to end. After suggesting to her she needed to “go home to Mum and Dad”, he went into her room and embarked on a callous killing. The court was told Hoysted first attempted to suffocate the pensioner with a plastic pillow, before he wrapped the cord of an alarm bell around her neck to try and strangle her. Alerts from the bell went off ten separate times over more than 20 minutes, but no other staff came to investigate. Ultimately, Hoysted used the cord from another piece of equipment in the rooms to kill Ms Stockdale and embarked on a clean-up intended to hide his crime. He then told a nurse on staff that Ms Stockdale had stopped breathing. He appeared upset. He then took a picture of a picture of Ms Stockdale, which was left in her room after her body had been removed. Initially, staff believed she had died in her sleep, as Hoysted had claimed. However, a doctor refused to sign a death certificate and ordered post-mortem examinations, which eventually revealed the injuries suffered by the 70-year-old, including broken ribs, and broken bones in her neck. When confronted with those injuries in interviews with police a month later, Hoysted twice denied having anything to do with her death. He later confessed in grisly detail. He told police he believed the elderly woman was suffering, and “five minutes of suffering was better than three months of agony”. But a friend who visited her the day before the murder said she had been in high spirits and good health. And a nurse on the same ward said she, too, had seen Ms Stockdale happy and content. There were no other underlying health issues, apart from the injuries from her fall. In a bizarre postscript to the killing, Hoysted also formulated a plan to further try and hide his crime — collecting a crowbar, an axe, a mask and gloves. They were found in a bag in his home by police. When they quizzed him about the contents, he confessed he had considered attempting to find out where Ms Stockdale’s body was being kept, break in and use the axe to “hack up” her remains to hide his actions. During the sentencing hearing, victim impact statements from Ms Stockdale’s sister and niece were tendered, revealing their despair, anger and horror at how her life had ended. And Hoysted’s barrister Simon Freitag told the court of the teenager’s troubled background — which he said raised questions about how he was able to attain work caring for very vulnerable people. Hoysted was diagnosed with ADHD aged four and autism when he was 11. And his aggression towards others — including his own mother and sister — had led them to ultimately take restraining orders out against him. He had also strangled the family cat. More recently he was said to have a fascination with death, serial killers and psychopaths — and had spoken of his interest in emulating them. He had also used drugs throughout his adolescence, and had a conviction for drug possession. Through NDIS funding, he was living with a carer in Albany, and had been working at the care home for several months. His colleagues largely described him as a good worker. Justice Natalie Whitby described Hoysted’s crime as “deliberate, persistent, violent and cruel”. She jailed him for life, with a minimum of 22 years to serve before being eligible for parole. Speaking after the sentencing, Ms Stockdale’s son Matthew said he would now request explanations as to how Hoysted was able to be employed at the home given his history. “With the whole employing of people — how that slipped . . . we have no idea. They’ll have to look into that and we’ll inquire about it,” he said. Ms Stockdale’s niece Leeanne Smith said her aunt should be remembered for who she was in life, not how she met her death. “(She should be remembered for) the amazing woman she was. She loved kids. She loved animals. She was happy. laughing — she was just the bubble of the room. You people would have loved her — you would have seen this wonderful woman. “But you don’t ever move past it. You just learn to live with that finding a way forward ... so it never happens again.”