By Hannah Wilcox For Daily Mail Australia
15:05 27 May 2023, updated 15:26 27 May 2023
- William Harold Matheson released on Saturday
- He served 19 years of his 25-year jail sentence
- Murdered ex-girlfriend, hid body in bag in 2003
A man who brutally strangled his ex-girlfriend to death and stuffed her body in a cricket bag 19 years ago has been released from jail after being granted parole.
William Harold Matheson was released on Saturday six years before finishing his 25 year sentence after his second parole application was successful.
The convicted killer murdered Lyndsay Van Blanken, 18, before dumping her body in a unit block garage in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs in 2003.
Ms van Blanken’s body was only discovered six weeks later after residents complained of a foul smell coming from the Coogee apartment complex.
Matheson was sentenced in 2006 with non-parole period of 18 years.
His initial application was refused last year but he reapplied and was approved earlier this month after being designated as being at low risk of reoffending.
While on parole, Matheson will be monitored 24 hours a day while living in his parents’ Randwick home in Sydney’s east.
He is banned from contacting the victim’s family in any form, and is prohibited from visiting several local government areas including the Nambucca Shire, Hills Shire and Coffs Harbour.
The skilled cellist become obsessed with Ms van Blanken and started to stalk her after she broke off their relationship and got engaged to another man.
Matheson was described as controlling, with police saying he killed her in a jealous rage.
‘He decided if he couldn’t have her no one else could,’ the victim’s mother Cynthia said.
Cynthia said the way she would describe him was as a ‘monster’, having previously said she believes he will reoffend if he was to be released.
‘I think he’s completely evil,’ she told 9News.
‘He has no conscious, he has no feelings and he’s so smart.’
The pair first met when Matheson was performing at the victim’s mother’s wedding two years earlier.