Outrage over child-killer’s release after 15 years in mental facility

Chloe Hoson was just five years old when she was strangled, suffocated and dumped in a creek, and now her killer has been let back on to the streets.

Tim Kosowicz has been released from a prison mental facility where he was detained for the past 15 years to his parent’s home in Victoria, News.com.au reported, after being found not guilty of Chloe’s murder on the grounds of mental illness.

Peter Rolfe, president of victims group Support After Murder told Starts at 60 that it would be understandable for Chloe’s family to feel “absolutely horrified” that Kosowicz has been allowed back into the community after such a relatively short time, saying “he hasn’t been punished for his crimes”. “We also feel that it’s not right that the police weren’t notified [of Kosowicz’ release],” he added. 

Kosowicz, a diagnosed schizophrenic, told police in 2003 that he strangled Chloe after she followed him to his cabin at the caravan park where they both lived to play with his cat. According to an AAP report in the Sydney Morning Herald at the time of his 2005 trial, he “lost the plot” when she knocked over his bowl of cannabis.

Kosowicz told police at the time: “Then I blacked out and next thing I was strangling her in my bedroom.” Chloe didn’t die immediately so Kosowicz covered hear head in plastic bags then sexually assaulted her before dumping her body in a nearby creek.

Despite admitting to the murder, the New South Wales Supreme Court found Kosowicz not guilty of murder on the grounds of mental illness. The judge said he believed Kosowicz’s cannabis use triggered his psychotic episodes. Kosowicz was then sent to a prison psychiatric hospital in 2005, where he stayed until the NSW Health Review Tribunal decided he was fit for release this month.

After Kosowicz’s trial ended, Chloe’s father expressed her family’s disappointment at the judges decision. “They (should) change the system for starters regardless of whether you’re sane, insane, whatever, you do the crime you do the time,” he said. 

Upon his release, Kosowicz was placed under the supervision of his mother Colleen, a fact Rolfe says is “concerning”.  However, Colleen told 7 News, which first covered her son’s release, that she was confident things were under control, with special phone numbers saved to her phone in case he becomes violent again. 

“If I can’t get to the phone in time, I can knock him out myself,” she said. 

Mental Health Review Tribunal told Starts at 60 it do not comment on individual forensic patients, as patients such as Kosowicz are known. 

Seven News will air an exclusive interview with Chloe’s mother on Tuesday night.

What do you think? Should Tim Kosowicz be allowed to walk free after 15 years in a prison hospital Or, if considered fit for release, should he have been forced to spend more time in the prison itself?