{"id":89969,"date":"2026-09-07T07:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T07:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/89969\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T07:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T07:45:13","slug":"darryl-young-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-bogie-triple-murder-and-attempted-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/89969\/","title":{"rendered":"Darryl Young sentenced to life in prison for Bogie triple murder and attempted murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who gunned down his cattle station neighbours, killing three and wounding a fourth, has been sentenced to life in prison with a 40-year non parole period.<\/p>\n

Darryl Valroy Young, 63, was convicted of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder by a Supreme Court jury in Townsville last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justice Christopher Johnstone handed down three life sentences for the murders today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He described Young’s offending as the worst category and extended the 30-year non-parole period by a further decade.<\/p>\n

During a nearly four-week trial, the court heard that Young invited his neighbours to the gate of his Bogie cattle station and accused them of cattle theft, before shooting them with a rifle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Maree<\/p>\n

Maree and Mervyn Schwarz, and their son Graham, were fatally shot by Darryl Young at Bogie in 2022. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Mervyn Schwarz, 71, was shot in the head, and Maree Schwarz, 59, was shot in the head and back, as was her son, Graham Tighe, 35.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Graham Tighe’s brother, Ross Tighe, who is now 36, was shot in the abdomen and ran away from the scene on the remote cattle station near Bowen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Graham<\/p>\n

Graham Tighe was murdered by Darryl Young at Bogie in 2022. (Supplied: Facebook)<\/p>\n

Young argued during his trial that he was never at the shooting and rifle cartridges in his home were not his.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Conniving and manipulative’<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Monique Sheppared had asked the court to delay the standard 30-year non-parole period by a further decade, which Young’s lawyer argued against.<\/p>\n

“It was, in the truest sense, an execution-style killing,” the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n

“That he tried to establish a false alibi paints him as particularly conniving and manipulative.”<\/p>\n

Justice Christopher Johnstone said Young had a complete disregard for human life.<\/p>\n

“You killed three members of one family and attempted to kill a fourth as if you were killing feral animals,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They were humans, they were your neighbours.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Prosecutors called Young conniving and manipulative.\u00a0 (ABC News: Carole Howlett)<\/p>\n

Justice Johnstone said Young, a convicted cattle thief, made baseless accusations of cattle theft towards his victims.<\/p>\n

“Graham sent you messages about stray cattle of yours that he had collected for you,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There was no evidence, ever, of him stealing your cattle.<\/p>\n

“The great irony about your accusation is that you were the only cattle thief there.”<\/p>\n

\"Darryl<\/p>\n

A photo of Darryl Young from 2006. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

He condemned Young for instructing his lawyers to accuse Ross Tighe of being responsible for the murders.<\/p>\n

“To give such an instruction to your counsel was particularly heinous,” he said.<\/p>\n

40-year non-parole period<\/p>\n

Justice Johnstone sentenced Young to 16 years in jail for the attempted murder of Ross Tighe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Young was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of Mervyn and Maree Schwarz and Graham Tighe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those sentences will be served concurrently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Justice Christopher Johnstone imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison. (ABC News: Carole Howlett)<\/p>\n

“Having concluded the three murders you committed fall into the worst category, I will set your parole eligibility date at 40 years from the time you were first taken into custody,” Justice Johnstone said.<\/p>\n

“You will be 99 years of age, if you are still alive, when you become eligible.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tighe and Schwarz family members attended each day of the nearly four-week trial. (ABC News: Chloe Chomicki)<\/p>\n

Family’s grief<\/p>\n

Seven victim impact statements were read to the Supreme Court in Townsville during Young’s sentencing hearing today.<\/p>\n

Lucy Ahern told the court she was left to parent her two young children alone when her fiance Graham Tighe was murdered.<\/p>\n

“I was trying to survive something I never could have imagined while trying to care for a newborn and a toddler,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Our son was just three weeks old when we lost our family.”\"A<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kim Gibson read a victim impact statement to the court. (ABC News: Chloe Chomicki)<\/p>\n

Maree’s daughter and Graham’s sister, Kim Gibson, addressed Young directly.<\/p>\n

“The loss of my family has impacted me in ways that I cannot fully explain,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It makes it even more incomprehensible that they were taken in such a cruel way.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ross Tighe escaped the shooting with a bullet wound. (ABC News: Carole Howlett)<\/p>\n

The prosecutor read a statement by the Schwarz and Tighe families which said Ross Tighe remained traumatised.<\/p>\n

“Ross carries memories that cannot be erased,” the prosecutor read.<\/p>\n

“Surviving does not mean escaping it means living with trauma.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who gunned down his cattle station neighbours, killing three and wounding a fourth, has been sentenced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,91602,1109,91513,154396,8851,212,12364,31895,22572,10478],"class_list":["post-89969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-bogie","tag-court","tag-darryl-young","tag-life-inprisonment","tag-prison","tag-queensland","tag-sentence","tag-supreme","tag-townsville","tag-triple-murder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}