Society Murders

On 4 April 2002, Margaret Mary Wales-King, 69, and her second husband, Paul Aloysius King, 75, visited the Glen Iris, Melbourne, home of Wales-King's youngest son, Matthew Robert Wales, and his wife Maritza Wales for dinner. Matthew Wales drugged the couple's vegetable soup with crushed tablets taken from his mother to make them drowsy, then killed his mother and stepfather as they left the house by clubbing them to the back of the neck. He hid the bodies in the front yard, abandoned the couple's car in Middle Park, and rented a trailer using his credit card. The bodies were wrapped in doona covers and concealed in his garage for two days while he searched for a burial site, purchasing a map and petrol with his credit card.

Wales-King and King were reported missing to Malvern Police by Wales-King's daughter on 8 April 2002, and their vehicle was located on 10 April. On 29 April 2002, park rangers discovered a shallow grave in bushland near Marysville, Victoria, where the two had been buried one on top of the other, with King's body placed above Wales-King's. Autopsies indicated the couple had been clubbed and strangled.

Matthew Wales's behaviour after the disappearance drew scrutiny from both family members and investigators, particularly because he had not told his family that the couple had visited him on the night they vanished. He confessed to police and was charged with the murders on 11 May 2002. He told police he buried his mother beneath his stepfather in order to diminish what he described as her domineering character, and said King was killed because he "blamed him for his parents' separation." His wife, Maritza Wales, was charged with being an accessory after the fact. Matthew Wales had attended the couple's funeral three days before his arrest, seated apart from his four older siblings.

At the Victorian Supreme Court, Matthew Wales pleaded guilty and was convicted of both murders. He was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of 24 years. The trial judge found that Wales, partly due to his low IQ, killed the couple out of resentment toward his mother, particularly over her use of wealth to manipulate him. Maritza Wales pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice and received a two-year suspended sentence; she was found not to have participated in the murders themselves.

The case, dubbed the "Society Murders" in Australian media, was the subject of a 2003 book by Melbourne barrister Hilary Bonney, written without the Wales-King family's cooperation, and a 2006 television film for Network Ten based on the book. It was also covered in an episode of the documentary series Behind Mansion Walls.