Aussie Beheading Case

(Queensland, Australia) In March 2005, 17-year-old Morgan Jay Shepherd was stabbed 133 times and decapitated. Then his head was used as a bowling ball and a puppet.

James Patrick Roughan, 27, and Chjristopher Clark Jones, 23, were convicted (twice) of Shepherd's murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Roughan appealed his conviction separately on the basis that no evidence tied him to the actual murder, rather he was just guilty of mutilating and disposing of Shepherd's corpse and using his head as a bowling ball. Roughan's lawyer contended that he was merely a passive bystander who bowled with the dead teenager's head.

This month, the Court of Appeal in Brisbane denied Roughan's appeal.

Justice Patrick Keane indicated that Roughan's assertion that he was a passive onlooker was debunked by a secretly recorded conversation between Roughan and Jones in a prison van. The tape recording indicated that Roughan was an aggressive participant in Shepherd's murder.