VIC: Child killer dies hitch hiking on freeway, court told

AAP General News (Australia)
04-09-1999
VIC: Child killer dies hitch hiking on freeway, court told

MELBOURNE, April 9 AAP - A notorious child killer contributed to his own death when struck
by a car while hitch-hiking in darkness on a Melbourne freeway, a coroner found today.

Melbourne Coroner's Court heard Barry Gordon Harding, 42, had been convicted in 1982 of the
murder of three-year-old Kim Anh Ho, whose body was found in a shaft in a Housing Commission
high-rise building in suburban Richmond in 1981.

He was jailed for life but a minimum non-parole term of 14 years was set in 1988 by a judge
who described the killing as "pitiless and inexcusable".

There was evidence the girl had been sexually assaulted by Harding, who apparently panicked
and threw the girl head first, possibly still alive, three storeys down the shaft.

Coroner Elizabeth Lambden heard that Harding, released on parole in 1995, had been
hitch-hiking along the Western Freeway about 6.15am on August 2 last year when he was struck
by a car travelling about 100kph which had just entered a freeway onramp.

The court heard that Harding, who had a blood-alcohol reading of 0.11 per cent, may have
been trying to cross the freeway onramp at the time of the fatal collision.

The driver, Andrew Krein, a payroll officer at Telstra, gave evidence he saw Harding just a
split-second before he hit him, and that Harding's body smashed through the middle of the
windscreen, ending up inside the car.

Both Mr Krein and his wife, Lisa, suffered minor injuries. Ms Krein, a nurse, later tried
unsuccessfully to revive Harding, the court heard.

Harding's final act left the couple's 22-month-old daughter Chloe unscathed.

Ms Lambden found that Harding contributed to his own death, and she made no adverse finding
against Mr Krein.

AAP gf/er/bm

KEYWORD: HARDING

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