A notorious serial killer who preyed on vulnerable women has died after being transferred from his prison cell to a Sydney hospital.
Rodney Francis Cameron, dubbed ‘The Lonely Hearts Killer’ after he met a woman on a radio matchmaking contest before luring her to her death was pronounced dead in Prince of Wales Hospital, in Sydney’s east, about 11.30 on Saturday night.
It is understood he had been in a palliative care ward at the Randwick hospital after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The 72-year-old had been serving a life sentence at Lithgow maximum security prison for the June 1990 murder of Maria Goellner.
Cameron, who also went by the alias of Rodney Mallard, met the 44-year-old through a Melbourne radio show dating competition.
He then invited her for a romantic stay at the Sky Rider Motor Inn at Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, before bashing her and strangling her to death in their room.
The brutal slaying came just seven months after Cameron was released from prison for two murdered he had committed within weeks of each other in 1974.
He was convicted of raping and murdering a former colleague, Florence Edith Jackson, 49, in January 1974, in Katoomba.
Cameron had turned to Ms Jackson for support after losing his job as a trainee nurse, only to kill her.
After fleeing the Blue Mountains and cross the border into Victoria, Cameron picked up a 19-year-old hitchhiker Francesco Ciliberto before murdering her too.
He served nine years in prison in NSW for Ms Jackson’s murder, before being extradited to Victoria where he was locked up for a further seven years for killing Ms Ciliberto.
He was released from prison in November 1989 before going on to murder Ms Goellner the following.
While behind bars for Ms Goellner’s murder, Cameron confessed to a third murdering a fourth woman, elderly war widow Sarah McKenzie at Milsons Point.
Mrs McKenzie had been found dead inside her home suffering from more than 30 stab wounds in 1974, but he was never tried for her murder.