Casefile True Crime - Case 06: Roger Dean

Episode Date: February 13, 2016

"You won't believe it, but it was like, satan saying to me that it's the right thing to do." In the early hours of the 18th of November 2011 a fire was deliberately lit at the Quakers Hill Nursing Home. The nursing home housed 89 residents, a lot of whom were highly dependent patients who were immobile, suffering dementia and Alzheimer's disease. For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-06-roger-dean

In the early hours of the 18th of November 2011, a fire was deliberately lit at the Quakershill nursing home in Sydney's northwest. The nursing home housed 89 residents, a lot were high dependent patients who were immobile, suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia. The fire killed 11 residents. A further eight residents were seriously injured from burns and smoke inhalation but survived. The case is one of Australia's worst ever mass murders, committed by a registered nurse, Roger Dean, the person who was in charge of the nursing home that night, the person who was supposed to be caring for the residents. But he didn't care about anyone but himself. He was trying to cover up another crime that he had

committed. Quakershill nursing home is an aged care facility caring for up to 100 residents that require a high need of care and full assistance with daily living activities. The home has 35 separate rooms each containing a number of beds. The nursing home is built into a large H shape and is divided into four wings. Wing A1, Wing A2, Wing B1 and Wing B2. Wing A1 contained eight rooms, Wing A2 had eight rooms and two double rooms, Wing B1 contained six rooms, Wing B2 had six rooms with one double room and each room contained four beds. The external doors including the main entrance to the nursing home were kept locked. Entry required a pin number on a keypad. There

was a different code for day and night. The day code was available to staff and to some relatives but at 8 p.m. each night the code changed and that night time code was only available to staff members. The nursing home contained 16 CCTV cameras in total. Cameras were located both internally and externally. The cameras were motion activated and each time the camera was activated the time was recorded. There were 89 residents living in the nursing home at the time of the fire. Many of the residents were bedridden and suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Many needed assistance with day-to-day living. In early September 2011 a new nurse commenced employment at the Quakers Hill nursing home

to work the night shift on Wednesday and Thursday nights. That nurse was Roger Dean. Roger Dean was 35 years old. He was born in Vietnam and arrived in Australia as an infant with his mother and three other siblings. They arrived to Australia as refugees. Their father died whilst trying to flee Vietnam at a later date. Roger was homosexual and he recognised and identified with his sexual orientation from an early age. This resulted in him being socially isolated at school and the victim of excessive bullying. In his mid teens he was actually physically and sexually assaulted by two adult men. He had an open homosexual relationship by the age of 18 and this ignited a rift between Roger and

his family. He had little to no contact with his siblings throughout his adult life and his relationship with his mother has been strained. They did not approve of Roger's homosexual lifestyle. Roger graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Nursing degree in 1996. He worked as a nurse at both the St George Hospital south of Sydney and the St John of God Hospital in Burwood which is in Sydney's west. In 2004 he started a law degree at Macquarie University while still working as a nurse. This had an adverse effect on his in-work relationships and resulted in numerous arguments with fellow staff members. The law degree combined with his employment and shift work was having an adverse effect on his sleeping patterns.

Not long after this Roger was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome and was prescribed benzodiazepines. This drug is like a tranquiliser which is prescribed for anxiety and sleeping problems. By 2007 he was no longer using the drug for what it was prescribed for, he was abusing it, using it for recreational purposes. In 2008 one of Roger's close friends committed suicide which escalated his misuse of prescription drugs. Roger used to go doctor shopping and stockpiled a list of prescription medications, not just benzos but also sleeping tablets, painkillers, any depressants, any psychotic medication, antibiotics and penicillin, nausea medication, high blood meds, asthma meds, the list went on and on. He used to store the

medications in his kitchen pantry in two separate Tupperware containers. At the time of his arrest he had about 43 different prescription drugs at his home and he was taking about 15 tablets per day. Roger resided in Walker Street Quakers Hill within walking distance to the nursing home. He lived there with his former partner, a Mr. French. There's differing reports as to whether or not they were still partners or they were ex-partners and now just flatmates but regardless they live there together. Roger had a serious problem with prescription medication. In June 2011, only three months before commencing employment at Quakers Hill nursing home, Roger was found drug affected whilst on duty at the St. John of God hospital. He couldn't

talk properly, could hardly walk, he was uncoordinated, he was spitting, couldn't understand basic requests. He was sent home from work and immediately suspended. In the review over that incident he claimed to suffer from bipolar and depression and he blamed the incident at work on his GP who had recently changed his medication. He obtained a signed note from his GP confirming he suffered bipolar and depression and recently had the medication change, explaining his behaviour. The GP declared him fit and well to return to work. Shortly after this Roger Deane was informed by a supervisor at St. John of God hospital that he was to be taken off night shifts and placed on day shifts so he could be properly supervised. They didn't trust him. They also believed he

had a poor ability to communicate and to manage relationships with others which aren't good qualities for a registered nurse. Roger resigned from St. John of God hospital in September and as he only lived nearby to Quakers Hill nursing home he walked down there and asked if they had any work going and they said they did. They needed a registered nurse to cover Wednesday and Thursday night shifts. Roger gave them his resume but he never made mention of his employment at St. John of God hospital. He said his last employment as a nurse was at St. George Hospital in 2007 and since that time he had worked in a cheesecake shop. He also produced the no recent references but it didn't really matter anyway because no one at Quakers Hill nursing home

contacted any of his references or previous employers. He was hired based on his resume which was misleading and a quick interview so they had no idea about his poor recent history at St. John of God hospital and the fact that they didn't trust him there. So he got his start at Quakers Hill nursing home in early September 2011 to work Wednesday and Thursday nights when if there were better systems in place he should never have been given the job. He should never have been allowed anywhere near the residence of the Quakers Hill nursing home or anywhere else for that matter. On the 6th of September 2011 only days after commencing employment a local fire station officer delivered a training course at the

nursing home titled fire safety in healthcare facilities. Roger attended that course. The course included a walk around the nursing home indicating the location of all installed firefighting equipment and the location of the fire and smoke doors as well as the differences between them and how they function. The fire doors were designed to automatically close upon activation of the fire alarm to contain a fire within the wing that it had started. The fire officer also explained the purpose of the fire indicator panel and the emergency warning system. As well as doctor shopping Roger Dean developed another method of obtaining prescription medication by stealing it from the nursing home. All of the Schedulate drugs were stored and dispensed under

strict protocols. There were regular audits to ensure all were accounted for. Schedulate drugs are prescription based drugs that have a recognized therapeutic need but also a higher risk of misuse, abuse and dependence. So we're talking about things like oxy, endone, codeine, methadone and a lot more. Basically a lot of the stuff Roger Dean was addicted to. The Schedulate drugs were stored in a treatment room in the central part of B wing between section B1 and section B2. Despite being a treatment room it was never used to treat patients, it was just the drug room. The drugs were stored in a lock cupboard within that room and the door to the room itself was always kept locked. The door to the treatment room could only be opened

by a key on a blue lanyard and the locked cupboard that housed the Schedulate drugs inside could only be opened by a key on a red lanyard. The night shift registered nurse was always in possession of both lanyards and whenever he was at work Roger Dean was the night shift registered nurse meaning he had both lanyards and both keys. But the nursing home had a strict protocol that required both the registered nurse and an assistant nurse to be present in order to access the drugs. So each time a Schedulate drug was dispensed there was a drug register that had to be filled out. This included the patient's name, the date and time, the type of drug and how much, then both the registered nurse and the assistant nurse would sign the register.

An audit was conducted every day by the two registered nurses that worked the afternoon shift. So at 8 p.m. on the 16th of November 2011 an audit of the Schedulate drugs was carried out by the afternoon registered nurses and all were accounted for. Later that night at 10 30 p.m. the 16th of November Roger Dean commenced his shift. Being the registered nurse on night shift means Roger was basically in charge of the place. Roger finished his shift at 7 a.m. on the 17th of November and during that time he stole 237 endone tablets and one cappernold tablet from the treatment room. Although there is no CCTV footage inside the treatment room there is a camera that shows entry to it and Roger Dean was captured on that footage entering and leaving the room many times.

He would spend a considerable amount of time inside the room removing the endone tablets from their blister packs. He tried to cover this up by placing sticky tape around the blister packs but that fooled nobody. At 7 30 p.m. the 17th of November the afternoon shift registered nurses completed an audit of the Schedulate drugs as per their daily protocol. They noticed the 237 endone tablets missing and the one cappernold tablet missing. They immediately contacted the clinical manager Leneda Matteo who wasn't on duty at the time but she immediately travelled to the nursing home to double check the order. This was a pretty serious thing. Leneda Matteo confirmed the drugs were missing and at 10 p.m. she contacted Quakers Hill police to make a report.

Roger Dean arrived at work at 10 23 p.m. that night. He conducted a changeover with the afternoon shift staff and they informed him about the missing drugs and that the police were on their way to take a report. Roger starts to panic. Not only is his nursing career in jeopardy but the law degree he is studying and nearly finished will be worthless if he gets a criminal conviction so he is on edge. Police arrived just after midnight. They'll met at the door by Roger who allowed them inside. The police started to take a report and ask a few questions of Roger and Leneda Matteo. However after 17 minutes of being on scene they received an urgent call and they had to leave. They said they'll be back as soon as they could.

Whilst writing for the police to return Leneda Matteo started reviewing the CCTV footage covering the treatment room and that's when she saw the only person coming and going was Roger. At 3.43 a.m. Leneda left the nursing home. The police still hadn't arrived back and she was unable to wait any longer. Leneda had compiled all the evidence of the test together. She had the audit documents and computer records, the CCTV footage and the empty blister packs for finger printing. She kept them in her office and locked the door. There were only two keys available to her office. She had one and the facility manager had the other. The manager's office wouldn't be opened again until after the fire when it was opened by police. Once Leneda had left

Roger had come up with his plan to avoid getting in trouble for the drug theft. At 4.35 a.m. Roger Deane requested two assistant nurses in B-Wing who were near the treatment room to take a break. They declined stating they had already had their break. So Roger Deane then approached two other assistant nurses over in A-Wing and told them to take a break, which they did and this left Roger alone on the ward. At 4.51 a.m. Roger entered Wing A2 where there were no CCTV cameras. About 4.53 a.m. Roger set fire to a bed in Room 19 of Wing A2. He used a cigarette lighter that had been left in the kitchen by another staff member. This is how he describes it. I took the lighter for the purpose of

lighting. I didn't expect to light a bed. I just wanted to light something. I just wanted to set a light to something. It just so happens that there was an empty bed and I just did it to that. The fire sensors detected the fire almost immediately and the fire alarm activated. The alarm caused the loud siren to activate and this sent an automatic message to the fire brigade. All the fire doors throughout the nursing home closed and the fire alarm panel in the fire was activated. Of course Roger was well aware of all this because he had recently attended

the fire safety and healthcare facilities course. As the fire door closed Roger walked from Wing A2 towards Wing A1. Roger then lit a second fire on the sheet of an unoccupied bed in Room 3 of Wing A1. He used the same cigarette lighter which he then threw into a sanitary bin in the Wing A1 bathroom. This is how he describes it. It started just as a small flame and I thought that that's okay. Like that's containable. I didn't expect it to be so big. It was just something stupid and

something that I wish I'd never done. At 4.59 a.m. the first fire brigade officers arrived. Other staff members directed them straight to the first fire in Room 19 in Wing A2. They were able to extinguish that fire but they were unaware of the second fire. There was no second alarm alerting them to the second fire. The alarm had already gone off so as far as they were aware Room 19 was the only fire. While this fire was being put out Roger Dean started to try and play hero. He grabbed a resident Helen from Room 4 in Wing A1 the room next door to the second fire. He said come on darling we've got to get out we've got to evacuate. He started to walk her out of the room up the hallway to the

front door. As they passed Room 3 Helen looked in and saw the second fire. By this stage the bed was well alight. Helen broke free from Roger and ran into the room yelling we've got to get them out we've got to get them out. What Roger had done was lit the second fire on an unoccupied bed but there were two residents in that room on other beds Dorothy Sterling and Dorothy Wu. Both suffered Alzheimer's disease amongst other health problems. Both were immobile and were unable to move without assistance. Roger would have been well aware of this but he just left them to die. He callously said don't worry Helen just leave them we've got to get out people are on their way to get them. Roger grabbed Helen and forced her out of the room. Roger got Helen out and

then divided his time between Wing A and Wing B assisting some of the residents to get out but at no time did he tell anyone about the second fire. As far as the fire brigade officers and other staff members could tell there was still only the one fire and that had been put out. At 5 0 4 a.m fire brigade officers made their way into Wing A1 and it became clear to them at this point that there was actually a second fire but at this stage the fire was out of control the heat was intense and there were excessive amounts of black smoke everywhere. For this reason it was difficult for them to determine where the fire was exactly they could hear a number of residents screaming out for help.

In the meantime Roger Dean was outside safe he helped move residents away from the building as they made their way outside. At 5 15 a.m fire brigade officers found the second fire in room 3 by this stage the fire was reaching the roof it was well alight they got to work on putting it out. They could still hear residents crying out for help the smoke and the heat were so intense they had to crawl around on their hands and knees to try and find the residents they couldn't say anything they were getting around more by way of touch than anything else it was a horrific scene. The residents that could move by themselves were crawling on their hands and knees to get out with the roof burning above them but then there were those residents who couldn't move

without help frail and vulnerable just lying there waiting for someone to come and save them with the building burning down around them. It's hard to imagine anyone experiencing more terror in some cases they were able to wheel patients out but in other cases they had to make do just by dragging them along the floor they had to do whatever they could to get the residents out as quickly as possible and once they got some residents to safety they ran straight back into danger to get more fire brigade officers did their best to get everyone out but not everyone could be saved. The fire resulted in three residents dying at the scene another eight residents died later in hospital and another three died in the weeks and months after the fire. Outside was a horrible

horrible sight elderly vulnerable patients everywhere lying in beds lying on the ground being attended to by ambulance officers beds were stacked up outside everywhere there were police everywhere fire brigade everywhere onlookers everywhere it was estimated there were about a hundred firefighters on scene a hundred ambulance officers on scene and about 75 police on scene when you add in all of the residents and all of the onlookers and the media the place looked more like a war zone and in amongst it all was roger dean standing amongst the chaos safely outside he remained outside for a while but between 5 30 a.m. and 6 10 a.m. he made three separate attempts to re-enter the nursing home through the front doors

he was blocked by police and fire officers the first two times but the third time he got lucky he said to a firefighter i need to go inside to get the drug books i'll need to get in there roger showed the firefighter the two lanyards with the keys for the Schedulate Drug Room and the drug cupboard the firefighter allowed roger to enter but he also went with him roger went with the firefighter towards the treatment room but roger stopped sure to where the cctv cameras capture he handed the keys to the firefighter and told him the location of the drug books inside the treatment room while he waited off camera but the firefighter couldn't open the door so he called roger over roger didn't go at first he was reluctant he was trying to call

out the instructions but eventually he had no choice he had to walk on camera to unlock the room he walked in the room unlocked the drug cabinet and removed the drug order registers put them into his shoulder bag and then left the building as he was leaving he said i need to go home i need to get ventalin i live close by and i really need my ventalin but as roger left the nursing home he ran straight into the path of a tv reporter and camera crew and he made time for a quick interview this is what he had to say i'm roger i'm one of the nurses and just there was a fire and i just quickly just did what i can get everyone out and the smoke is just overwhelming but you know we got a lot of people out so that's

the main thing he gave that interview whilst the drug registers were still in his bag the reason he caused the whole tragedy afterwards roger walked home where he tore up the pages of the drug order register he put the pages into a plastic shopping bag and then got his flatmate mr french to drive him to a shop in douglas road quakers hill where he disposed of the bag in a dumpster bin roger then got dropped off back at the nursing home he was looked over by ambulance officers and was taken to mount droot hospital his condition was recorded as presented with sooty residue on his face and clothes pale skin and generally distressed about 2 p.m he was released from hospital and was taken to mount droot police station where he made a statement he made no

admissions in that statement he just accounted for his actions on the night minus the part about lighting the fires shortly after making the statement he was told by police he was a suspect it's hard to understand what roger was hoping to achieve by starting this fire we know it was done to try and cover up the fact he stole the drugs but it covered up nothing lanetta the clinical manager had already reviewed the cctv footage and had all the evidence stored in her locked office roger was the only one with keys the night the drugs were stolen and he was the only one entering the room on the cctv footage the footage was still intact it wasn't damaged by the fire at all so not only did it show him stealing the drugs it also showed the far more serious

offence of him being responsible for lighting the fires the actual act themselves when captured they were off camera but it wasn't hard to work out who was responsible he was the only one on camera going to the locations of the fires police had their man pretty much straight away there was no long drawn out investigation in fact when he was told by police he was a suspect they already had his telephone tapped and he made a call straight away to mr french he told him what was going on he then called two friends mr and mrs reid who attended the police station to speak with him in private and while speaking to them he came clean and made full admissions to lighting the fires roger dean was arrested at 7 50 p.m a lot of the residents killed were unable to move

independently a worse fate is difficult to imagine knowing a fire is raging and not being able to move or do anything about it just lying there waiting to be either burnt alive or to be suffocated by smoke all the victims were vulnerable and were under roger's direct care he was the registered nurse in charge of the night shift he knew those patients in that room where he lit the second fire were immobile and he refused to help them telling helen don't worry someone else is coming but he knew no one else was coming because they didn't know about the second fire and he didn't tell anyone about it despite this he claims that he never intended to hurt anybody he didn't think the fires would get out of control he thought they would be contained but his actions tell a different

story there was premeditation and planning he asked the two assistant nurses to leave the wing he had planned this with one main objective to deflect the tension away from the stolen drugs it's been thought since that roger was mistreating patients before the fire doing things like giving them no-days tablets or generic over-the-counter paracetamol tablets instead of their prescribed pain medication which he would instead keep for himself other staff members had already complained about roger dean's behavior at the nursing home but nothing had been done roger tried to shift accountability away from himself by placing the blame on prescription drugs and a psychiatric illness and even the devil you won't believe it

but it was like satan saying to me that it's the right thing to do the grounds of placing blame on the prescription drug addiction a psych illness satan or whatever else were rejected roger displayed no obvious impairment to his reasoning communication skills or physical function during his television interview just after the incident or during his police interview later that night doctors rejected any notion of a psychiatric illness after an evaluation roger was determined to show narcissistic personality traits with an unusually strong desire to please people he also was found to have a strong sense of entitlement an assumption of superiority he disregarded the needs of others dismissed criticism and refused to take advice and instruction

the very fact he committed the crime to cover up the drug theft shows he was of sound mind he had no impaired capacity from drugs or a psych illness and he didn't receive instructions from satan the reason to light the fires was out of pure self-interest he knew his career in nursing and any future career in law would be gone if he was convicted of stealing drugs Roger initially elected to have the charges go to trial and he requested to have them at a trial in front of a judge only no jury but this application was thrown out and as a result roger elected not to go to trial instead on the 27th of May 2013 in the New South Wales Supreme Court he played guilty to 11 counts of murder he also played guilty to eight counts of recklessly

cause grief spotterly harm he also played a guilty to stealing the Schedule 8 drugs the 11 lives he took that night were Dorothy Sterling, Dorothy Woo, Alma Smith, Lola Bennett, Ella Wood, Urbana Alepio, Cesar Gali, Doris Beck, Reginald William Green, Verna Webeck, and Nils J. Valquet Roger was also responsible for the deaths of three other people that he was never charged with murder for they couldn't exactly pin the deaths directly to him they lost their lives a bit later on but I think you can say he was responsible Esther Newman's death was deemed to be due to age and natural causes however she suffered smoke inhalation that night and was in hospital Joan Joy's death was ruled due to age and natural

causes however she suffered stress as she had to be disconnected from her dialysis machine during the evacuation Immanuel Katia died from an infection acquired in hospital after being admitted as she was suffering from smoke inhalation it was found that the late guilty pleas were made out of a realization on Roger's part that there was overwhelming and damning evidence of his guilt and overwhelming and damning evidence he committed to crimes whilst in a lucid and rational state he didn't plead guilty due to any remorse on the 1st of August 2013 in the New South Wales Supreme Court Roger Dean was sentenced to life in prison for each murder charge he was also given jail time for the eight counts of recklessly inflicted grievous bodily harm and for stealing

the drugs but by the time those sentences expire he was still being custody on the murder charges he's never getting out Roger shared no emotion at all when his life sentence was read out he just stared blankly straight ahead before being taken away to spend the rest of his life behind bars victims family members in the court yelled out and applauded at the sentence it was fitting he was giving a life sentence not only did he take 11 lives he handed all the family members a life sentence as well they thought they were doing the right thing sending their family members to a nursing home it was supposed to be a safe place a place where

they'll be well cared for and well looked after not a place where they were supposed to be put in danger by a complete psychopath the fact that so many residents required assistance with day-to-day living and just moving around in general and the fact many suffered dementia and Alzheimer's significantly complicated the rescue effort and was a factor in the scale of the disaster no one knew just how vulnerable the residents were better than Roger Dean whilst in jail Roger has suffered degrading and distressing behavior at the hands of other inmates his reputation has required the need for him to be put into protective custody Roger later appealed life sentences saying they were excessive and that he could not have foreseen

the extent of the damage and loss of life that occurred when he lit the fires he also argued that his long-term addiction to prescription medication and his alleged personality disorder slash psychiatric illness and the effect that those had on his decision-making were not taken into account during the sentencing thankfully this appeal was rejected the court of criminal appeal found that his actions were deliberate for the purpose of covering up theft of the prescription drugs and that he had several opportunities to alert firefighters as to where the second fire was but he didn't instead electing to try and work out how to retrieve the drug order registers

Roger Dean will thankfully spend the rest of his life in jail he never even really showed any remorse just trying to shift the blame on the devil and the evil thoughts I love the residents very much and I have a really good rapport with them so I feel extremely bad and I just feel evil that I'm just corrupted with evil thoughts that have made me do that you