Ex-detective says triple murderer one of the worst people he has ever dealt with

A triple murderer who gunned down a Queensland cattle grazing family had terrorised the community for decades, stealing livestock and threatening a police officer, according to his former neighbours and an ex-detective.

Darryl Young is serving three life sentences with a non-parole period of 40 years, a sentence believed to be the longest ever handed down in Queensland, for killing his neighbours Mervyn and Maree Schwarz, and her son Graham Tighe, after he demanded the family meet him at the gate of his Bogie property in 2022.

Young is appealing against his conviction and sentence.

The 63-year-old had wrongly accused the family of cattle theft before fatally shooting three of them and shooting Ross Tighe, the sole survivor.

But it was Young who was convicted of cattle theft in 2006 after he pleaded guilty to stealing 147 head of cattle with his mother, Janelle.

Fred Swift, a former detective in Queensland's stock squad, has never spoken publicly about his dealings with Young before now.

Mr Swift described meeting Young in 1994 and revealed he was the main suspect for cattle theft in the Bowen area in north Queensland.

"Darryl was one of the worst people I ever dealt with … I did call him the spawn of the devil, I said it to his face," Mr Swift told the ABC.

"People were fearful of him and that fear was justified."

Mr Swift said Young threatened him on multiple occasions.

"He was always very aggressive. He just told me, 'Watch what you're doing,'" Mr Swift said.

Young was vindictive and would react when people reported him for cattle stealing, according to Mr Swift.

"It wasn't always him stealing cattle, but it often was."

Mr Swift said after one particular complaint, Young pushed a man's cattle yards into a heap with a bulldozer and sat the machine on top of the wreckage as a warning sign.

Another time, Young drained a tank of molasses down the creek at the same man's property, Mr Swift said.

Neighbour's decades-long fight

Also speaking publicly for the first time, Steve Norman, a former neighbour of the Young family's property in Bowen, said he was among the cattle owners whose stock Young and his mother stole. 

Mr Norman revealed he had been trying to get a conviction since 1986.

"You wouldn't believe what the property next to me was called when his mother owned it. Sneaky Hills. It's a great name for cattle duffers, isn't it?" Mr Norman told the ABC.

Mr Norman alleges Young cut his fences and threatened his daughters after he made reports to the stock squad.

"Every time we'd get the stock squad onto them, I'd have windmills broken, I'd have pumps pinched."

Another time, Mr Norman said a jet pump was cut out of a bore and the 6-metre hole filled with rocks, so it was unusable.

The stock squad had received multiple reports about Darryl Young over many years, but it did not have enough concrete evidence to charge him, Mr Swift said.

But one day in 2003, Mr Swift was wandering around the Gracemere cattle yards in central Queensland, about a six and a half hour drive from Bowen, when he saw dodgy-looking brands on cattle and Darryl Young's name.

"That's when it all came tumbling down," the ex-detective said. 

"[He and his mother] were changing brands, registering brands very close to their neighbours' brands and putting their brand over the old brand."

Later, Mr Swift was searching for a woman's missing cattle when he pulled into a paddock in Bowen.

"I was eating my ham and salad sandwich on wholemeal bread, and it suddenly dawned on me I was looking at stolen cattle," he said.

"They had been agisted to the farm that was there by Darryl Young. I don't think anyone else knew that they were stolen.

"It was fairly major. The number of complaints and the history and time that went by."

Young was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, to be released after serving six months, for the cattle theft conviction in 2006.

His mother Janelle Young's two-year sentence was wholly suspended.

During the 2006 case, Judge Bob Pack said the scheme was "somewhat sophisticated" because the Gracemere cattle yard was "well away from the Bowen district", meaning there were fewer chances of the cattle being identified by their real owners. 

"An under-resourced stock squad, which has been the position for many years, of course to some extent facilitates offending of this nature," Judge Pack said at the time.

Mr Norman said things quietened down after Young's conviction, until the morning of the Bogie shooting in 2022. 

"The police rang me up wondering where I was. I said, 'I'm in Charters Towers' and they said, 'Thank Christ for that, because Darryl Young is up here shooting people,'" Mr Norman said.

"[The police officer] was worried [about me]."

Young maintained his innocence throughout the trial this year, claiming he was never at the scene of the shooting.

'The whole system is broken'

Another of Young's former neighbours, Robert Kohler, told the ABC he never would have met him unarmed, for his own safety.

"I was fully aware of what Young was capable of," he said.

Mr Kohler lived at Sutherland Station in Bogie, a rural town about 55 kilometres from Bowen in Queensland's Whitsunday Region, from 2011 to 2018.

The Schwarz and Tighe family later bought the property and moved in, about a year before the 2022 tragedy.

Mr Kohler said he had near-daily issues with Young, whose home at Shannonvale Station bordered the property.

"When he moved here [in 2012], I had a cup of tea with him, and I told him he had a reputation as long as the Bruce Highway, but I'd treat him like he treated me," Mr Kohler said.

Mr Kohler said a few years later he called Queensland police's stock squad after Young was seen mustering with dogs on his property, and he later found horse and dog tracks.

But he said the stock squad did not take it seriously.

"The stock squad said, 'Oh, go up and have a look and see if you put any cattle through the gate,'" he said. 

"I said, 'Isn't that your job?' and they said they were a bit busy.

"The whole system's broken mate, people take it for a joke."

Mr Kohler said he also rang the stock squad after Young was seen driving with a tarp over his truck at 2am, which he suspected had stolen cattle inside.

"They could've gone down to his yard the next day and checked to see what he had in the yard, and DNA tested [the cattle]," he said.

"He was just stealing blindly, and the police didn't want nothing to do with it at all."

Mr Kohler wants stock theft to be taken more seriously.

"[When Darryl was jailed for stock theft], he was out in six months," he said. 

"All that led to where we are: three people losing their lives and one getting wounded."

Katter's Australian Party leader Robbie Katter has called for better resourcing of the unit that deals with cattle theft, now known as the Rural and Stock Crime Squad.

Mr Katter said investigations needed proper support with mustering costs, DNA testing, and specialist police who knew the bush.

"At Bogie … I think that's the wake-up call the government needed to demonstrate that this needs to be adequately resourced," Mr Katter told the ABC.

"It would certainly be good value for the government to nip these things in the bud before they blow up or signal to others that it's easy to get away with."

Mr Swift joined the stock squad in 1984 and the Young investigation was his last job in the department. He was offered a promotion out of the unit, which he declined. 

"I saw people struggling and working hard. All their efforts to no avail," he said. 

"I always say, if you want to make money, you go into politics, start a religion, or steal cattle." 

A Queensland Police (QPS) spokesperson did not comment on allegations that Young stole cattle or on how the stock squad handled the reports.

The spokesperson said Rural and Stock Crime Squad detectives had specialist expertise in rural and stock crime investigations, including major and organised crimes, drug offences, firearms theft and trafficking.

Investigations could be complex and protracted, often spanning large geographical areas, the QPS spokesperson said.

"The Rural and Stock Crime Squad encourages rural communities to remain vigilant by reporting suspicious activity or stock theft, securing firearms appropriately, and considering crime prevention measures such as security cameras, signage and secure property access."