Michael Guider is an Australian pedophile who has been imprisoned on charges of pedophilia

Pedophilia

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...

 and manslaughter

Manslaughter

Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...

.

Early life

Michael Guider was born on 20 October 1950, in the city of Melbourne, Victoria. He and his mother moved to Sydney in 1952. His mother had an unstable relationship with an army cook who was an alcoholic. A brother, Tim, was born in 1953. The two boys spent time in institutions because their mother was unstable and unable to look after them. In the 1970s, Guider was charged with various offences after setting fire to a shop owned by a woman he had had a relationship with.

Guider had worked as a gardener at the Royal North Shore Hospital, and over the years and also had developed a keen interest in Aboriginal culture and sites around Sydney. He had even earned some respect as an amateur expert on the subject and his material had been used and acknowledged in at least one published book.

Imprisonment

By late 1995, Guider had been arrested on charges of child molesting. In September, 1996, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on sixty charges of offences against children. His usual modus operandi had been to babysit the children of women he knew and knock them out with the sleeping drug Normasin. He would then molest and photograph them while they were asleep.

Samantha Knight

Guider eventually attracted the attention of police who were investigating the disappearance of a nine year-old girl named Samantha Knight. The latter had disappeared from her home in the Sydney suburb of Bondi

Bondi, New South Wales

Bondi is an eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Bondi is located seven kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Waverley Council. The postcode is 2026.-Location:...

 on 19th August, 1986. She had never been found, but police had reasons to turn their attention to the convicted pedophile Michael Guider. After a lengthy investigation, he was arrested and charged with Samantha's murder on 22 February, 2001. On 7 June 2001, he pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Samantha Knight. He claimed that he had drugged her the way he had always drugged his victims, but that he had accidentally given her an overdose that killed her. On 28 August, 2002, he was sentenced to 12–17 years for manslaughter. Samantha's body has never been found; Guider said he could not remember what he did with the body. He showed no remorse.

Guider was placed in conditions of strict protection in Goulburn

Goulburn, New South Wales

Goulburn is a provincial city in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia in Goulburn Mulwaree Council Local Government Area. It is located south-west of Sydney on the Hume Highway and above sea-level. On Census night 2006, Goulburn had a population of 20,127 people...

prison.

External links

• Clippings on Michael Guider and Samantha Knight