Triple murder in north Queensland village led by man with prior cattle theft jail term
Darryl Valroy Young, convicted of shooting dead three of his new neighbours in north Queensland, had previously been jailed for cattle theft. The detail adds
Darryl Valroy Young, convicted of shooting dead three of his new neighbours in north Queensland, had previously been jailed for cattle theft. The detail adds a rougher edge to a case that has already stunned the small Bogie district and left a rural station gate as a grim crime scene.
The killings happened on an August morning in 2022 outside Shannonvale Station, at the end of a corrugated dirt road through eucalypt and hardwood forest. There, in front of the gates, police found the bodies of Mervyn Schwarz, 71, his wife Maree Schwarz, 59, and her son Graham Tighe, 35.
A gate, a sign, and a shooting
The property entrance sits beyond cattle grids and a steep dip into a creek bed, then up a hill. Three padlocks hang on a thick chain. A large no-trespassing sign warns visitors away, while a legal notice posted nearby uses language from the sovereign citizen movement and claims an exclusion notice applies to council officers, police, sheriffs and bailiffs, with a minimum financial penalty of $10,000.
A fading yellow sign saying “smile you’re on camera” stands beside two trail cameras tied to the fence. It is a stark setting, but the violence happened right there, at the gates.
The three victims were shot in the head with a .30-30 calibre rifle. Casings were found in the dirt.
The neighbours Young met
Young had only recently moved next door to the Schwarz family and Tighe. The relationship quickly turned deadly. Another neighbour was nearly killed in the same attack, according to the source material, deepening the fear around a property already marked by isolation and distrust.
For locals, the scene sits in a landscape that can appear sealed off from the wider world. Long roads. Locked gates. Cameras watching the fence line. And then the killings. The case has drawn attention not just because of the deaths, but because of the suspect’s past.
Why the prior offence matters
Young’s earlier jail term for cattle theft is a reminder of how often rural crime and violence in remote Australia can overlap. In places where livestock, land access and neighbour disputes can define daily life, a person’s history can shape how a community reads a threat — and how quickly fear spreads after a shooting.
That wider rural context matters well beyond Bogie. Across Australia’s agricultural regions, cattle theft and property crime can carry heavy weight because distance makes enforcement harder and trust between neighbours matters so much. In this case, a man once jailed over stolen cattle later stood at the centre of a triple killing.
The victims were found at the station gate. Young’s earlier conviction for cattle theft now sits in the background of a case that has already left three people dead and another almost killed.
