My flatmate moved a gay couple, Paul and Stefan, into our spare bedroom back in 1991. Stefan was gentle and okay to live with, but Paul was 6’8” tall with a menacing undertone. While he and I didn’t have any issues personally, there was something not quite right about him, something unsettling.
Paul and Stefan broke up while still living with us in 1992, with Stefan moving out. I came home soon after to find Paul’s belongings all packed up and him about to leave. He told me he’d taken his rent money back, having gone into my drawers to find it. We started having an argument about needing to give notice. I phoned my flatmate to do something about it, but he said unequivocally, “Don’t argue with him. Just let him go.”
So Paul moved out and I never saw either of them again.
Fifteen years later the police called me and asked if I knew a Paul Armstrong. I said not for a long time. They asked questions about the kind of car he drove when we lived with him. I replied that I had no idea as they parked it in the underground car park and I didn’t socialise with them.
I asked why they were asking me these questions – the police said they had arrested Paul for the murder of Felipe Flores, a man from Ecuador who had been living in Sydney. Paul had bashed him to death in a small park back in 1991….then moved in with us less than three weeks later.
It turned out the police had been reviewing a cold case, using blood found beneath the fingernails of Felipe Flores. The DNA led to Paul, who by then was also a convicted rapist. He was sentenced in 2014 for murder.
Paul Armstrong, my former flatmate and, it turns out, convicted killer and rapist
Felipe Flores, the man bashed by Paul in a park, who was then dragged unconscious under a bush where he died.