Australian Killer Seeks Transfer To Women’s Prison After Beginning To “Identify” As Female

A convicted double-murderer in Australia is demanding transfer to a women’s prison after beginning to identify as transgender. Terry Donai was found guilty of murdering a married couple in their Glen Alpine home, and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison for the gruesome crime.

On January 8, 2000, the bodies of Bill and Pamela Weightman were discovered in their crashed car at the base of an embankment outside Sydney. Early police reports suggested the couple had simply veered off the road and lost their lives in a tragic car accident. But not long after, a forensic specialist revisited the Weightman’s autopsies and discovered significant errors in the investigation that cast doubt on their cause of death.

As the case was re-opened, suspicion turned on David Weightman, the couple’s adopted son. David’s aunt and uncle, Margaret and Alan Urwin, began questioning him relentlessly, suspicious of his lack of emotion about the tragedy.

David had also moved with unusual speed to take advantage of his substantial inheritance, which included the family’s life insurance payout and their home in the affluent Sydney suburb of Glen Alpine – a property he listed for sale almost immediately.

Under the weight of mounting family pressure, David broke down in 2004 and admitted that he had been involved in the murder of his parents.

On the night of the killing, he had drugged his parents’ tea with sleeping pills and, once they were unconscious, invited his friend Terry Donai into the home to kill them. Donai proceeded to suffocate the couple with a pillow, murdering Pamela before turning his attention to Bill. The two men then staged the scene to resemble an accident, placing the bodies in the couple’s car and pushing it off a cliff.

The pair had collaborated in an effort to split David’s inheritance, with Donai having promised to take part in the plot in exchange for $17,000.

Donai, described by prosecutors as the primary killer, was sentenced in 2008 to two concurrent life sentences. David Weightman received a lesser sentence due to his cooperation and role in exposing the crime.

Donai later appealed his conviction, and in a surprising turn, the New South Wales (NSW) Court of Criminal Appeal overturned it on procedural grounds, ordering a retrial. In 2012, a jury once again found Donai guilty, sentencing him to 30 years in prison with a non-parole period extending until 2039.

In 2023, Donai began self-identifying as a “woman” and using the name “McKenzie.” He then submitted an application to Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) to be transferred from a men’s prison to a women’s facility. CSNSW then initiated a first-of-its-kind internal review, referring the case to a multidisciplinary panel including psychologists and Justice Health NSW. The process evaluated factors such as Donai’s mental health, behavior in custody, the nature of his offense, and overall security risk.

The NSW Ombudsman intervened to investigate the unusually long, 18-month delay in reviewing the case, explicitly questioning CSNSW’s slow handling of the request. After the lengthy wait and growing media attention, the Acting Premier, Ryan Park, and Acting Corrections Minister, Jihad Dib, publicly rejected the possibility of transfer, though no formal decision has yet been filed.

Transgender inmate policies in Australia are governed at the state and territory level. This means that each jurisdiction develops and enforces its own policies for how transgender inmates are housed, treated, and managed in custody.

New South Wales, the state where Donai is incarcerated, has a strong emphasis in policy for placing inmates in a facility matching their self‑identified gender, unless “overriding security concerns” necessitate otherwise.

While CSNSW may be hesitating to transfer Donai to a women’s facility, they have previously allowed violent male inmates to be housed in female prisons.

One of those inmates was Evie Amati, previously known as Karl Amati, who walked into a 7-11 in Sydney and indiscriminately assaulted two customers with an axe in 2017. After being convicted, Amati served a portion of his sentence at the all-female Mary Wade Women’s Correctional Centre. During his time there, it was revealed that he and a female inmate had a physical altercation after the woman told Amati he belonged in a male prison.

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