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Buried Secrets: The Crimes NSW Forgot | Jeremy Buckingham MP · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Appote production.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime at Adam shand I'm your host
0:16
Speaker 2: Adam Shann. There's powerful evidence that at least one or
0:20
Speaker 2: more unknown serial killers operated in New South Wales from
0:23
Speaker 2: the late nineteen sixties through to twenty ten. More than
0:27
Speaker 2: sixty women who were found dead or who have vanished
0:31
Speaker 2: in northern New South Wales between nineteen ninety seven and
0:33
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine. There are too many unsolved murders
0:37
Speaker 2: and disappearances, particularly of young women, for that not to
0:41
Speaker 2: be the case. They often disappeared in pairs, while hitchhiking
0:46
Speaker 2: on nights out or simply going about their business.
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Speaker 3: Police have renewed appeals for information into the disappearance of
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Speaker 3: two young women in nineteen seventeen ninety.
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Speaker 2: There are clusters of cases in four New South Wales regions,
1:00
Speaker 2: the Southern Highlands, Inner Sydney, Newcastle and the North Coast.
1:06
Speaker 3: Where it appears there are links.
1:08
Speaker 2: For instance, six young women disappeared in the one year
1:13
Speaker 2: between nineteen seventy eight and seventy nine in the Newcastle area.
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Speaker 4: Police have renewed appeals for information into the disappearance of
1:21
Speaker 4: two young women in Newcastle, last seen hitchhiking on the
1:24
Speaker 4: Pacific Highway.
1:26
Speaker 2: Each year, these cases grow colder and harder to solve,
1:31
Speaker 2: despite reinvestigations and rewards being posted by New South Wales Police.
1:37
Speaker 2: Each year, the loved ones of the missing and the
1:39
Speaker 2: murdered grow older and their hopes of closure grow ever dimmer. Now,
1:44
Speaker 2: a member of New South Wales Parliament, Jeremy Buckingham of
1:47
Speaker 2: the Legalized Cannabis Party, has succeeded in having a parliamentary
1:51
Speaker 2: inquiry set up to look at these cases and the
1:54
Speaker 2: possible links between them. There is new pressure for a
1:58
Speaker 2: parliamentary inquiry into serial killer Ivan the Last. The inquiry
2:03
Speaker 2: will look at the current and merging developments in policy,
2:06
Speaker 2: practice and technology in relation to these crimes, and whether
2:11
Speaker 2: there are impediments in the criminal justice system that have
2:14
Speaker 2: forwarded the delivery of justice to victims and their families.
2:19
Speaker 2: This is long overdue and hopefully will bring accountability where
2:24
Speaker 2: there has been none.
2:26
Speaker 3: And Jeremy is my guest today, can I Jeremy?
2:29
Speaker 1: Good day, Adam.
2:30
Speaker 3: Great to be with you, absolute pleasure to have you on.
2:33
Speaker 3: You're quite courageous. A lot of politicians have let this go.
2:37
Speaker 2: You can see the length of time these cold cases
2:39
Speaker 2: have remained unsolved.
2:41
Speaker 3: What is motivating you, Well, it's.
2:44
Speaker 1: A good question.
2:45
Speaker 4: Sometimes I wonder, but I think it's purely just justice.
2:49
Speaker 4: I just imagine being in the circumstance of not knowing
2:55
Speaker 4: what happened to my child, my sister, my brother, or
3:00
Speaker 4: knowing that they had met an incredibly grizzly end at
3:04
Speaker 4: the hands of a murderer who abducted them and tortured
3:08
Speaker 4: and raped them and murdered them, and not having justice.
3:11
Speaker 4: And I just think it is just an utterly untenable
3:13
Speaker 4: and egregious circumstance that, as an MP, where we're talking
3:18
Speaker 4: about doing better for the community, creating laws that protect
3:23
Speaker 4: the community, to have a situation where justice has.
3:26
Speaker 1: Not been served.
3:27
Speaker 4: And I think that it's a reasonable use of taxpayer resources.
3:32
Speaker 4: I'm on the taxpayer dime to look at these murdered
3:36
Speaker 4: and missing cases, these unsolved homicides, And the more I
3:40
Speaker 4: do so, the more I realize that there's been a
3:43
Speaker 4: pressing need in the community for a long time. People
3:46
Speaker 4: for decades have been saying what happened to my loved one?
3:50
Speaker 4: What happened in our society that this was able to occur,
3:54
Speaker 4: And once you start to pull up that thread, it
3:57
Speaker 4: turns into a great big tapestry of woe as sadness.
4:02
Speaker 4: And once you know, you can't not know and you
4:04
Speaker 4: can't earn your back, and so you know, justice delayed
4:07
Speaker 4: is justice denied.
4:09
Speaker 1: And that's the business I'm in.
4:11
Speaker 2: Yes, he used a metaphor about pulling the thread on
4:13
Speaker 2: the tapestry, and I think what we may well see here,
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Speaker 2: and the critics of the police will say this, that
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Speaker 2: you pull on that thread and you'll see decades of inaction,
4:24
Speaker 2: in competence and failure to get results from your South
4:29
Speaker 2: Wales police.
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Speaker 3: I guess it's implicit.
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Speaker 2: And the fact that you're going into Parliament to do
4:35
Speaker 2: this rather than saying to the police or the coroner,
4:38
Speaker 2: those bodies just to get.
4:39
Speaker 3: On with it.
4:41
Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
4:42
Speaker 4: There's a certain point where you say, you haven't got
4:44
Speaker 4: a result for fifty years?
4:47
Speaker 1: What went wrong? How could that possibly be?
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Speaker 4: And once you start learning how many of these cases
4:54
Speaker 4: that there are, once you start learning what happened in
4:58
Speaker 4: those early days or of a disappearance or murder, you
5:02
Speaker 4: realize lot invariably there are couple of good cops doing
5:06
Speaker 4: some work, but it just peeded out really quickly. Or
5:09
Speaker 4: in some instances, no one did anything. Someone disappeared, they
5:14
Speaker 4: were abducted, they just disappeared into the night or from
5:18
Speaker 4: a bus stop or hitch hiking, and there's no evidence
5:21
Speaker 4: that anyone did anything for decades. And you say that
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Speaker 4: and people say, oh, that can't be the case, or
5:27
Speaker 4: that must be an isolated incident. Well it was systemic.
5:32
Speaker 4: It was systemic. And that's the case that I've been
5:35
Speaker 4: making with the community for the last few years, and
5:40
Speaker 4: I've been able to carry the day in the Parliament
5:43
Speaker 4: and convince the Parliament that this is a necessary use
5:46
Speaker 4: of the Parliament's time and that this is something that
5:49
Speaker 4: the community demands answers to. And yes, there is an
5:53
Speaker 4: explicit criticism of the police in this.
5:56
Speaker 1: How could this happen? How can we do better?
5:59
Speaker 4: And what were the impediments to actually getting a result
6:02
Speaker 4: in these areas? Was it incompetent, was it negligence or
6:07
Speaker 4: was it something more sinister? People turned a blind eye
6:10
Speaker 4: to some of these crimes.
6:13
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, and I think in a number of
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Speaker 2: the cases that you've looked at, and you've included in
6:18
Speaker 2: this list for the inquiry cases where Ivan Malatt was
6:23
Speaker 2: potentially a suspect, And I guess from the point of
6:27
Speaker 2: view of a policeman that doesn't want to do too
6:28
Speaker 2: much work, you've already got him in custody, he's now dead. Anyway,
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Speaker 2: Is there much point I'm just trying to rationalize their
6:37
Speaker 2: motivation here. Is there much point in expanding energy on
6:40
Speaker 2: those cases when there's no one to bring before the court?
6:44
Speaker 1: Well, the answer that is absolutely yes.
6:47
Speaker 4: How could it be that you would say, look, we
6:49
Speaker 4: don't want to pursue someone who's a murderer for all
6:52
Speaker 4: their crimes. I don't care if it was seven or
6:55
Speaker 4: seventeen or seventy or seven hundred, and I think that
6:59
Speaker 4: there are scores And I'm joined in that view by
7:02
Speaker 4: senior police who worked on the task force, that he
7:06
Speaker 4: was responsible for so many more murders, abductions, rapes, and
7:11
Speaker 4: probably wasn't on his own. The justice that sentenced Malat
7:17
Speaker 4: to seven life terms plus a period of time for
7:21
Speaker 4: the abduction of Paul Onions said that he was a
7:23
Speaker 4: participant with others in a criminal enterprise. So who are
7:29
Speaker 4: those other people and what was that enterprise? What were
7:32
Speaker 4: they actually doing? Why were they so readily able to
7:36
Speaker 4: go out there abduct people murder them and almost do
7:41
Speaker 4: it with an indifference. They didn't really care about the
7:45
Speaker 4: bodies being found. They almost acted like they felt like
7:48
Speaker 4: they had impunity. And so I want to look at
7:52
Speaker 4: the relationship that Ivan Malatt and his associates, his family,
7:57
Speaker 4: his friends, some of his powerful friends had and whether
8:02
Speaker 4: or not that was cause for him not to be pursued.
8:06
Speaker 4: Because the story we're told about Ivan Malatt, who was
8:09
Speaker 4: this suburban bloke, this hard working ocker, sort of lone
8:13
Speaker 4: wolf road worker, very familiar type with his family, controlling
8:18
Speaker 4: in coercive relationship with his wife surprise in the sixties,
8:23
Speaker 4: but really hadn't been in any trouble since then. And
8:26
Speaker 4: then just in the end of the nineteen eighties nineteen nineties,
8:30
Speaker 4: he decides that, well, one of his favorite pastimes is
8:35
Speaker 4: abducting hitchhikers from the side of the Hume Highway and viciously.
8:40
Speaker 1: Murdering them in the forest over three or four years. Now.
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Speaker 4: I don't accept that that's the truth. I do believe
8:46
Speaker 4: that he did that, and he was convicted of that,
8:49
Speaker 4: but I believe he was involved in that with other people.
8:53
Speaker 4: The judge found that he was involved in a criminal
8:56
Speaker 4: enterprise with others. And I think that that sort of proclivity,
9:00
Speaker 4: that sort of behavior, that pathology and psychopathic violent statistic behavior,
9:07
Speaker 4: has got to have a big run up, that he's.
9:09
Speaker 1: Highly likely to have done other things.
9:11
Speaker 4: And if you look at his prize in nineteen seventy one,
9:15
Speaker 4: he's charged for a double rape down on the Hume Highway.
9:19
Speaker 4: He's also charged over an armed robbery, two armed robberies
9:24
Speaker 4: with wounding and beats all those charges, beats them in
9:28
Speaker 4: a four day period in nineteen seventy four, after having
9:31
Speaker 4: been on the run for three years, dodging the chargers,
9:34
Speaker 4: and that he doesn't get a parking ticket. He works
9:37
Speaker 4: for the DMR and he's a perfectly good boy for
9:40
Speaker 4: twenty years until he's arrested as Australia's worst serial killer.
9:43
Speaker 1: I just don't accept that.
9:45
Speaker 4: And the story we're told about Malat, just in that
9:48
Speaker 4: key story about him praying on hitchhikers, well that's not
9:52
Speaker 4: true either, because only one of the seven backpackers was
9:57
Speaker 4: ever seen on the Hume Highway, Simone Schmiedel. The other
10:01
Speaker 4: six were all last seen alive in Paddington and Darlinghurst,
10:06
Speaker 4: and in particular Gubore Neugebauer and Anya Hubshi left the
10:10
Speaker 4: backpackers saying that they had already organized.
10:14
Speaker 1: The lift with a man.
10:16
Speaker 4: So it makes me wonder whether or not Ivan Malatt
10:20
Speaker 4: was hunting people at the source in in the Sydney
10:23
Speaker 4: and other places and had been doing so for a
10:26
Speaker 4: long time. Other senior police Paul Gordon Nevil Scullion, they
10:31
Speaker 4: thought that Ivan Malatt could be responsible for eighty murders.
10:34
Speaker 4: Plus the information I've had out of the Parliament says
10:39
Speaker 4: that Task Force Fenwick, which our inquiry is looking into,
10:42
Speaker 4: had twenty murders that clearly had Ivan's mo and Task
10:48
Speaker 4: Force Air the Backpacker task Force had a short list
10:51
Speaker 4: of fifty murders around Australia that looked similar to this.
10:55
Speaker 4: And how many of all of those was Ivan charged
10:59
Speaker 4: with or pursued over none? Zero And I just don't
11:02
Speaker 4: accept that that's good enough.
11:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's several in your list the police have previously
11:09
Speaker 2: said have the hallmarks of Arden and Malatt, people like
11:12
Speaker 2: Debra Balkan, Gillian Jamison disappeared in nineteen eighty from a
11:16
Speaker 2: Paramatta hotel. Peter Letcher nineteen eighty eighty was stabbed and
11:20
Speaker 2: shot and buried in a very similar way. Diane Pinaccio,
11:25
Speaker 2: who was found decomposed in Teleganda.
11:28
Speaker 3: State Forest near bil Angelo, and the list goes on.
11:31
Speaker 3: You could probably point to more.
11:33
Speaker 4: Those two are really interesting that and I'm glad you've
11:35
Speaker 4: picked up on those at them. Diane Pinaccio and Peter
11:38
Speaker 4: Letcher were killed in the same way, at the same time,
11:42
Speaker 4: with the same In Peter Letcher's case, there was a
11:45
Speaker 4: twenty two rifle, the same type of gun that Ivan
11:48
Speaker 4: Malatt used. So two murders at the same time, in
11:52
Speaker 4: the same place, in the same.
11:54
Speaker 1: Way, and they're not pursued.
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Speaker 4: And what's alarming about the Diane Pinaccio case in particular
12:01
Speaker 4: was that the task force that was looking at Malat
12:05
Speaker 4: had identified her and Peter and those other cases, but
12:09
Speaker 4: they ruled out a link with Diane Pinaccio. They put
12:12
Speaker 4: out a press statement ruling out Ivan Malatt as a
12:16
Speaker 4: potential suspect in that the day they arrested him on
12:20
Speaker 4: the twenty second of May nineteen ninety four, they put
12:24
Speaker 4: out a press release saying the eighth potential victim is
12:28
Speaker 4: not linked and with no reason. Despite police saying there
12:32
Speaker 4: were remarkable similarities between the cases, and I just think,
12:37
Speaker 4: how can that possibly be?
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Speaker 1: And I work and I'm not being paranoid or a
12:41
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist. What is it the case that the police
12:45
Speaker 1: did not want to go back and look thoroughly at
12:49
Speaker 1: how many people he and his associates could have possibly killed.
12:54
Speaker 1: Was it in their interest to do that?
12:55
Speaker 4: And was it in the interest of other people, politicians
12:58
Speaker 4: and others to go back and say, well, hold on,
13:01
Speaker 4: this guy might have been killing people for decades across
13:04
Speaker 4: the country and the death toll could be staggering in
13:08
Speaker 4: a national scandal.
13:10
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, and it's a damning indictment on Usipbal's
13:13
Speaker 2: police if they've decided not to look at cases that
13:16
Speaker 2: clearly have hallmarks. I mean, I'm not Mlat's defense counsel here,
13:19
Speaker 2: but I've got to say that a twenty two rifle
13:22
Speaker 2: is extremely common around the country, So that alone doesn't
13:27
Speaker 2: for me make compelling evidence.
13:28
Speaker 3: But I think there's so much in the timing where
13:31
Speaker 3: we can't account for Malat.
13:33
Speaker 2: I even look into Queensland, the Murder Highway issues up there,
13:37
Speaker 2: and Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoyneville Bartram in the early
13:41
Speaker 2: seventies in North Queensland, and in that case people So no, no, no,
13:46
Speaker 2: Malat wasn't in Queensland. He was in New Zealand at
13:49
Speaker 2: the time. But I think it's been proven by some
13:51
Speaker 2: pretty good ex detectives up there. But yes, he could
13:53
Speaker 2: have been up there then. So there is a lot
13:57
Speaker 2: of cases that could be linked to.
13:59
Speaker 4: Malat, absolutely, And in terms of the Peter Letcher case,
14:03
Speaker 4: it wasn't just that there was a twin. It was
14:06
Speaker 4: the way his body was disposed of. It was jammed
14:08
Speaker 4: up under a log, exactly the same as Diane Pinaccio.
14:12
Speaker 4: The murder had the similar like m It looked like
14:16
Speaker 4: there'd been a degree of torture and potentially rape involved.
14:21
Speaker 4: And Malatt had the opportunity. He was working on the
14:24
Speaker 4: Jenolan Caves Road for the DMR at the time. He
14:29
Speaker 4: was traveling to that area, the same with Diane Pinaccio.
14:32
Speaker 4: He had the opportunity, he had the MOO. How was
14:36
Speaker 4: he ruled out? Even Clive Small who ran Task Force here,
14:40
Speaker 4: who was the superintendent, the most senior police officer in
14:44
Speaker 4: charge of the Bolangelo task Force, he says curious things.
14:48
Speaker 1: He says, oh, I think he was involved in.
14:51
Speaker 4: Definitely Peter Letcher and possibly Diane Panaccio, and maybe Karen
14:56
Speaker 4: Roland the abduction and murder of Karen Roland all the
14:59
Speaker 4: way back in nineteen seventy one in the act. But
15:02
Speaker 4: why wasn't he pursued. There's no reason that he's not pursued.
15:06
Speaker 4: He's not. They don't do an investigation, they don't seek
15:08
Speaker 4: DNA evidence, interview him length, find out what's going on.
15:13
Speaker 4: And then those cases too, search those areas for other
15:17
Speaker 4: bodies and see if there's other people buried there. Because
15:21
Speaker 4: these serial killers had killing grounds, they feel comfortable in
15:24
Speaker 4: an area at a certain time. Malac clearly felt that
15:27
Speaker 4: about Blangelo. Alex Malatt, who put the Malats in, actually
15:31
Speaker 4: called crime stoppers and said there's some guys, you know,
15:34
Speaker 4: taking girls up into the bush in cars, and actually
15:38
Speaker 4: made them aware that the Malats were involved and interested
15:42
Speaker 4: in this case. In the early days of the task force,
15:44
Speaker 4: said you should search Janolan Caves. So why have they
15:49
Speaker 4: not searched Taligander. Why have they not searched Jenolan Caves
15:54
Speaker 4: or the Malat's property at Wombian Caves thoroughly? Because there
15:58
Speaker 4: was only a cursory search done of their five hundred
16:02
Speaker 4: hectare property down at Wombian came, which they'd owned since
16:06
Speaker 4: the early eighties. And again and again and again you say,
16:10
Speaker 4: how come he so quickly ruled out In the case
16:13
Speaker 4: of the Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoynville Bartram, there's evidence
16:18
Speaker 4: emerging that someone was up in that area who wore
16:21
Speaker 4: a big black hat, was picking up women. He went
16:24
Speaker 4: by the name Cowboy and used the name Richard and
16:27
Speaker 4: was hanging out with other people. And Malatt wasn't in
16:31
Speaker 4: New Zealand. He was in New Zealand for about eight
16:33
Speaker 4: months from about the end of nineteen seventy one into
16:37
Speaker 4: seventy two, which gives him the opportunity to be in
16:40
Speaker 4: that area.
16:40
Speaker 2: And I believe he also might have used a false
16:42
Speaker 2: passport to get back into Australia at that time, which
16:45
Speaker 2: gives him the opportunity. And I think also there's a
16:48
Speaker 2: retired detective up in Queensland mcgern, who has established that
16:54
Speaker 2: he was working on the mines at that time. And
16:56
Speaker 2: apparently there are pace looks available if people want to
16:58
Speaker 2: go and find them, that could actually put Malatt in
17:01
Speaker 2: Queensland at the relevant time.
17:03
Speaker 4: Exactly and wherever malap may have been. And this is
17:07
Speaker 4: the thing. This is one of the core concerns I
17:10
Speaker 4: have As a parliamentarian in New South Wales. I can
17:13
Speaker 4: ask for information, the House can vote on a proposition
17:18
Speaker 4: that had various an agency provide the information to the House,
17:23
Speaker 4: sometimes under privilege, and so I did that. Regarding Ivan
17:28
Speaker 4: Malatt's work records, I wanted to see because I've read
17:31
Speaker 4: the transcript of Ivan's court case and his work records
17:37
Speaker 4: are referred to in granular detail.
17:39
Speaker 1: They knew he was working at.
17:41
Speaker 4: Hazel Brook in the Blue Mountains on a day from
17:45
Speaker 4: a certain time from eight till two, and in particular,
17:48
Speaker 4: he was photographed there with his handlebar mustache. It's how
17:52
Speaker 4: they established that he had a handlebar mustache at the
17:55
Speaker 4: time he was abducting other people.
17:57
Speaker 1: But they had his work records.
17:59
Speaker 4: I asked for those work records and I got essentially nothing.
18:03
Speaker 4: I asked for his prison and records and they are
18:06
Speaker 4: confused and incomplete. And I asked for his entire police
18:10
Speaker 4: records and was told no. As a member of parliament
18:14
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty five, I could not have or they
18:17
Speaker 4: said they did not have those things. And yet they
18:20
Speaker 4: know where Ivan Malatt was working. In terms of the
18:23
Speaker 4: DMR from nineteen seventy four on. And who was he
18:27
Speaker 4: working for. He's got to be paying tax or he's
18:30
Speaker 4: got to be working for someone or telling someone where
18:32
Speaker 4: he's working and wherever.
18:34
Speaker 1: We are beginning to establish he.
18:35
Speaker 4: Was working Central Queensland, Southeast Queensland, driving his truck down
18:41
Speaker 4: to Victoria, to Wa and the rest you know what,
18:44
Speaker 4: we find murders, murders, murders, murders. There's an article I've
18:49
Speaker 4: got from a former police commissioner in Queensland saying, well,
18:52
Speaker 4: there was a concerning number of murders in Southeast Queensland
18:56
Speaker 4: in the period around nineteen seventy six, a number of
19:00
Speaker 4: incredibly violent and vicious murders of young women backpacking, hiking,
19:05
Speaker 4: just walking home from the pub. And the cop says, oh,
19:09
Speaker 4: but we know that Ivan Malap was in New Zealand,
19:11
Speaker 4: when we know he wasn't, and we know he was
19:14
Speaker 4: incredibly mobile. Ivan Mulatt loved cars, He loves trucks, and
19:18
Speaker 4: he would get on the road and he could put
19:21
Speaker 4: a lot of caves underneath him really quickly. He drove
19:25
Speaker 4: trucks to Wa, He drove trucks to Queensland. Where was
19:29
Speaker 4: Ivan Malatt who was he with what we was up to?
19:32
Speaker 1: And incredibly adam like, it's a mystery.
19:35
Speaker 4: How is it that who Ivan Mulat was and what
19:39
Speaker 4: he was doing in the nineteen seventies and eighties is
19:43
Speaker 4: a mystery?
19:45
Speaker 2: You raise all these questions and the parliamentary inquiry is
19:49
Speaker 2: the moment for accountability?
19:51
Speaker 3: What's it going to look like?
19:52
Speaker 2: Are you going to a hall of senior police in there
19:53
Speaker 2: and ask these questions, ask for records?
19:55
Speaker 3: Are we going to get something solid out of this?
19:58
Speaker 1: I hope.
19:58
Speaker 4: So I'm guided by the Gay Hate Crimes Inquiry. So
20:02
Speaker 4: we had two parliamentary cries into gay hate crimes in
20:05
Speaker 4: the seventies and eighties and nineties in New South Wales,
20:08
Speaker 4: and I think there's some overlap with this and what
20:10
Speaker 4: happened there, But certainly that process is what I'm guide by,
20:14
Speaker 4: and that process was a parliamentary inquiry that led to
20:17
Speaker 4: a Special Commission of Inquiry that then led to a
20:20
Speaker 4: prosecution in a particular case. What I want to do
20:24
Speaker 4: is go to the community and say to them, tell
20:26
Speaker 4: us what you know. The criticism that's made of me is, oh,
20:29
Speaker 4: you're producing on the police's turf.
20:32
Speaker 5: You're making it difficult for them to do the work
20:34
Speaker 5: that they're doing when I know and the families know
20:38
Speaker 5: that there's just a huge number scores of these unsold
20:42
Speaker 5: homicide cases that are just sitting there, going nowhere, that
20:45
Speaker 5: nothing's being done.
20:46
Speaker 4: There might be a review, but they're certainly not gathering
20:49
Speaker 4: new evidence. And my key point is it's with the
20:53
Speaker 4: community working with the police that we solve these crimes.
20:58
Speaker 4: If you look at how Ivan Malap was caught, it's
21:01
Speaker 4: because of the work and the observation and the witnesses
21:04
Speaker 4: that came forward from the community. People saw something, they
21:09
Speaker 4: said something. Paul Onions, he reports a crime, he comes forward,
21:14
Speaker 4: he's the witness. It's the police working with the community
21:18
Speaker 4: to get this done. So I'm hoping that the inquiry
21:21
Speaker 4: will give people who know something, who've been scared to
21:25
Speaker 4: say something, the opportunity to say make a submission to
21:28
Speaker 4: the inquiry that can be confidential, that can be anonymous,
21:32
Speaker 4: that can come forward and say I saw this. I'm
21:36
Speaker 4: already getting scores of them as we speak. The inbox
21:39
Speaker 4: that's just been pinging away is being hit up with
21:41
Speaker 4: people saying I saw this, then I saw this guy
21:45
Speaker 4: standing here on this date at this time, this guy
21:48
Speaker 4: tried to abduct me. All of this information comes in
21:52
Speaker 4: and then we assess it and we say, right, we
21:55
Speaker 4: want to hear from the police, these police on this matter.
21:59
Speaker 4: We want to know what happened in these cases. We
22:01
Speaker 4: want to talk to the coroners, we want to talk
22:04
Speaker 4: to the various agencies, and incredibly importantly, we want to
22:08
Speaker 4: hear from the families. So where the families get to
22:12
Speaker 4: come in and under oath, under privilege, free to say
22:16
Speaker 4: what they want without being prosecuted or.
22:20
Speaker 1: Being done for defamation.
22:22
Speaker 4: They can say what happened to them, what their experience
22:26
Speaker 4: of the investigation was. I'm guided by the Kotski family,
22:30
Speaker 4: who one of the key cases we're looking into, and
22:33
Speaker 4: even though we've mentioned twenty, we're going to look at
22:35
Speaker 4: all the cold cases in that period because it's any
22:38
Speaker 4: other related matter is one of the terms of reference.
22:41
Speaker 4: There's some key ones that are well known, but the
22:43
Speaker 4: Kotski family, the mother of Gordana Kotski, said that when
22:47
Speaker 4: she reported her daughter missing, they reported her missing within
22:52
Speaker 4: like five minutes of her being abducted. They literally heard
22:56
Speaker 4: her being abducted from the end of their driveway. They
23:00
Speaker 4: said they felt like they were reporting a missing cat,
23:04
Speaker 4: and they had people that had seen the car, people
23:07
Speaker 4: that could seen the.
23:08
Speaker 1: Person abducting it. All hands to the pump.
23:11
Speaker 4: This girl's been abducted now and yet nothing was done.
23:15
Speaker 4: What fomal drive groups are out there looking for? And
23:18
Speaker 4: so that's what motivates me. How appalling that is the situation.
23:23
Speaker 2: Yes, Jordana Cottesse's case I think is a very important
23:27
Speaker 2: one because as you say, there were witnesses who saw
23:30
Speaker 2: her being forced into a car at Charlestown shopping Center. Yeah,
23:34
Speaker 2: and as you say, hopefully there are other witnesses who
23:37
Speaker 2: might say, yes, I saw it as well. I saw
23:38
Speaker 2: it down the track a bit and there's more proactivity.
23:41
Speaker 2: The problem you've gotten that the families and critics of
23:43
Speaker 2: yourself I's police say that they have been stonewalling. The
23:47
Speaker 2: gay hate inquiry was a good example. It took Scott Johnson,
23:50
Speaker 2: his brother, to spend a lot of money on getting
23:54
Speaker 2: the police to investigate his case properly. You've got a
23:57
Speaker 2: situation where the coroner complains the police don't follow their
24:01
Speaker 2: directives from the coroner. What gives you confidence that the
24:05
Speaker 2: Parliament can do anymore than all these combined efforts so far.
24:11
Speaker 4: Hope which is blind hope and optimism. I suppose, Adam,
24:14
Speaker 4: I like, I don't know. I don't know if it
24:17
Speaker 4: could end up being a massive waste of time, but
24:19
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I don't think so, because already
24:22
Speaker 4: we're having people come forward, family members come forward and
24:25
Speaker 4: say we appreciate the opportunity to say what happened, for
24:29
Speaker 4: it to be recorded, for there just to be a
24:32
Speaker 4: truth telling, and that's important to me. And so straight
24:35
Speaker 4: away like I worry that it could be a waste
24:38
Speaker 4: of time, But within days I've got family members ringing
24:41
Speaker 4: up and say, at least now I get the opportunity
24:44
Speaker 4: to put on the record for all time, recorded by handsard,
24:48
Speaker 4: what happened to my sister on this day, what the
24:51
Speaker 4: police didn't do.
24:53
Speaker 1: Here's some other information I know.
24:56
Speaker 4: And for us to then start to put the pieces together,
25:00
Speaker 4: and what you quickly find is that there was a
25:03
Speaker 4: systemic issue in New South Wales just with the gay
25:07
Speaker 4: hate crimes. There was a willful indifference and almost definitely
25:10
Speaker 4: a victim blame.
25:11
Speaker 1: Oh this is what you get.
25:13
Speaker 4: If you're a gay guy on a beat, you can
25:15
Speaker 4: be bashed to death by a gang who want to
25:17
Speaker 4: go out there and bash gay people, or in a
25:20
Speaker 4: lot of these cases, young men and women who were
25:23
Speaker 4: free spirits. They might have been from lower socio economic hippies, punks,
25:29
Speaker 4: they might have been, you know, drug users, they were
25:32
Speaker 4: hitch hiking, they were backpackers. They were people who were vulnerable,
25:37
Speaker 4: probably at the margins of society, a lot of them
25:40
Speaker 4: regional or like out of suburban these types of things,
25:44
Speaker 4: or operating in around the cross vulnerable people who disappear
25:48
Speaker 4: and the cops go, well, that's just what you get.
25:51
Speaker 1: And I've actually got.
25:52
Speaker 4: An article where the police say they warn young women, well,
25:56
Speaker 4: this is what you get if you walk home.
25:59
Speaker 1: At night on your own.
26:01
Speaker 4: And so like today would stagger you to think that
26:05
Speaker 4: police officer could go out there and say that, but
26:07
Speaker 4: that was the attitude in the late nineteen seventies. If
26:10
Speaker 4: you walk out on your own late at night, you
26:13
Speaker 4: can expect to be abducted and raped and stabbed to death.
26:18
Speaker 2: And the same could be said the attitude towards women
26:21
Speaker 2: who were hitchhiking in this period. That was an accepted
26:24
Speaker 2: form of transport back in the day, and we had
26:27
Speaker 2: this attitude of police, not just in New south Fast
26:29
Speaker 2: with elsewhere that women when missing were flighty females who've
26:35
Speaker 2: got off with a boyfriend or trying to conceal some
26:37
Speaker 2: affair or something, so their disappearance became almost a moral
26:41
Speaker 2: failing rather than a crime, and it took days or
26:45
Speaker 2: weeks for police to actually take this seriously. I think
26:48
Speaker 2: the same as is of the gay hate murders. Then
26:51
Speaker 2: we looked at a number of these for our show
26:53
Speaker 2: The Hunters with Steve Van Apron that went to aur
26:56
Speaker 2: A Channel seven.
26:56
Speaker 6: You can find them on the website still seven plus.
26:59
Speaker 6: But there's been an absence of dash. There's been a
27:02
Speaker 6: failure to search and a failure to find. I mean,
27:05
Speaker 6: with the gay hate murther as you've got, there was
27:07
Speaker 6: a gangs of.
27:07
Speaker 2: Teenage boys who were either participating or witnessing these events,
27:13
Speaker 2: gay men being pushed off cliffs or bashed and so forth,
27:16
Speaker 2: and yet they haven't come forward and the police don't
27:19
Speaker 2: seem to be particularly interested in chasing them.
27:21
Speaker 3: We haven't seen any further arrests.
27:23
Speaker 2: In some cases they know exactly who the perpetrator was,
27:26
Speaker 2: he's appeared exactly.
27:28
Speaker 4: And in some of these cases, girls disappeared and they
27:32
Speaker 4: might have been hitch hiking or hanging out at a
27:34
Speaker 4: pinball arcade or going to a caravan park or whatever
27:37
Speaker 4: they were doing walking home with their friends from blue
27:41
Speaker 4: Light disco or whatever it was, and.
27:43
Speaker 1: The police haven't interviewed anyone ever.
27:46
Speaker 4: Like one of the first cases I started looking at
27:49
Speaker 4: was a disappearance in my hometown in the north coast
27:51
Speaker 4: of Susan Kyley. Now she put her daughter on the
27:55
Speaker 4: bus off to school, then later on hitchhiked into town,
27:59
Speaker 4: got some money, we saw some friends, got some money
28:01
Speaker 4: out of the atm, and then was never seen again.
28:04
Speaker 4: Her daughter gets home from school, Mum's not there. She
28:08
Speaker 4: stays up all night, then she ends up walking over
28:10
Speaker 4: to a friend's place and learning people Susan Kylie never
28:13
Speaker 4: seen again. At the coronial inquest, which happens decades later,
28:18
Speaker 4: like twenty years later, there's no evidence the police can
28:22
Speaker 4: provide of them having done anything at all at the time,
28:26
Speaker 4: and it's not an isolated event. And in some cases
28:30
Speaker 4: there were witnesses who were saying, we saw a car
28:33
Speaker 4: that looked like this, we saw a man that looked
28:35
Speaker 4: like this. There was a guy who'd been traveling up
28:38
Speaker 4: and down looking like this. In the disappearance of Ka
28:40
Speaker 4: Doherty and Tony Kavana down in Wollongong. There were people
28:45
Speaker 4: at the time who were saying there was a guy
28:48
Speaker 4: working down the road on the roads who was abducting people.
28:52
Speaker 4: Later on those people have come forward and said we
28:55
Speaker 4: now think that guy looked like Ivan Malatt, and Ivan
28:58
Speaker 4: Malatt had been working in that area, and yet did
29:01
Speaker 4: the police pursue it.
29:03
Speaker 1: No, I'll tee you were a key era that.
29:05
Speaker 4: I hope we can get some movement from the police,
29:08
Speaker 4: and that is in DNA.
29:10
Speaker 1: Properly looking for all.
29:13
Speaker 4: Of the DNA in these cases. And in particular I'm
29:17
Speaker 4: guided by the fact that we know with Ivan Malatt,
29:20
Speaker 4: he kept a lot of really good cars, and he
29:23
Speaker 4: kept them immaculate and he handed them on in good shape.
29:26
Speaker 4: And they're cars that may still be around VJ Valiant chargers,
29:32
Speaker 4: Monaros Tarana's four wheel drives, and we should be going back,
29:38
Speaker 4: and why we haven't go back and do a thorough
29:41
Speaker 4: DNA analysis of all those cars, like I'm not even
29:46
Speaker 4: sure I've asked the police whether or not they did
29:48
Speaker 4: a DNA analysis of the car that he adducted Paul
29:52
Speaker 4: Onions in Nis and patrol and they say they won't
29:55
Speaker 4: tell me, and that's a car that they found a
29:58
Speaker 4: bullet hole in where they think he'd shot Gabor Neugebar
30:02
Speaker 4: in the car. Yet we don't know about the d
30:05
Speaker 4: So in terms of pursuit, I think that as you say,
30:09
Speaker 4: we should be pursuing these things, there's new technologies DNA
30:14
Speaker 4: AI and I hope that the end of this we
30:17
Speaker 4: can properly map where all these people disappeared, when they disappeared,
30:22
Speaker 4: how they disappeared, and where the bloody hell was Ivan
30:26
Speaker 4: Malatt and potentially some of these mates or other.
30:29
Speaker 1: People that emerges people of interest at that time.
30:33
Speaker 2: I think it's also incumbent upon members of the community
30:36
Speaker 2: to come put their DNA on databases because you've got
30:39
Speaker 2: several hundred sets of unidentified human remains in New South
30:42
Speaker 2: Wales that could indeed be belonging to some of the
30:45
Speaker 2: individuals that we are now presuming as lost. Now, the
30:50
Speaker 2: case that you're really putting a lot of effort into
30:53
Speaker 2: separate to this an inquiry is Sheryl Grimmer from nineteen seventy.
30:57
Speaker 2: We know that Mercury, we can't name him for legal reasons,
31:01
Speaker 2: is the red Hot suspect. He confessed in nineteen seventy one.
31:04
Speaker 2: Detectives and twenty sixteen twenty seventeen corroborated much of that confession.
31:10
Speaker 3: He's red hot for it.
31:12
Speaker 2: Yet we can't go forward because the confession was not
31:15
Speaker 2: witnessed by an adult. Retrospective legislation meant that it was
31:18
Speaker 2: inadmissible in his court proceeding. You're now going to the
31:22
Speaker 2: extent of threatening to use parliamentary privilege to name Mercury
31:27
Speaker 2: in the parliament?
31:28
Speaker 3: Are you going to go ahead with it?
31:30
Speaker 1: That depends on the family.
31:32
Speaker 4: I've given that assurance to the family that if they
31:34
Speaker 4: asked me to, I will do it.
31:36
Speaker 1: Parliamentary privilege is there to protect.
31:39
Speaker 4: The public interest and in this case potentially protect public
31:43
Speaker 4: safety and make sure that justice is done. So I've
31:47
Speaker 4: sent to the family, after availing myself of the facts
31:51
Speaker 4: regarding Sheryl's disappearance, abduction and murder, the confession made by Mercury,
31:58
Speaker 4: the police reports of the time of the confession, of
32:02
Speaker 4: the walk through this fellow's behavior after that, with making
32:07
Speaker 4: essentially more confessions, and any reasonable person would read that
32:12
Speaker 4: confession and say that confession must have been made by
32:17
Speaker 4: someone who was there at the site, at the exact
32:21
Speaker 4: site and at the exact time that Eryl disappeared. You
32:25
Speaker 4: could not know the things that are in this comprehensive
32:29
Speaker 4: confession if you were not there the granular detail, and
32:33
Speaker 4: it was good enough for the police to seek to
32:36
Speaker 4: charge him, to extradite him, and to put him on
32:38
Speaker 4: remand in twenty sixteen, seventeen and through to twenty nineteen
32:43
Speaker 4: when it came before the courts, and then it was
32:45
Speaker 4: the confession which was the key piece of evidence, and
32:48
Speaker 4: of course it would be apart from a body and
32:51
Speaker 4: some other material evidence that didn't exist was ruled inadmissible
32:55
Speaker 4: on a legal technicality, a retrospective application of law, which
33:01
Speaker 4: wasn't really about whether or not the confession was legitimate
33:04
Speaker 4: or holes in the confession. It was really about whether
33:07
Speaker 4: or not you were allowed to make a confession in
33:10
Speaker 4: a particular way at that time, which was the confession
33:14
Speaker 4: was made. And we're not even sure this is true
33:17
Speaker 4: without a guardian or a parent.
33:19
Speaker 1: There there's a possibility that there was one there.
33:21
Speaker 4: It's just not reported in the confession, and so that
33:25
Speaker 4: is just not acceptable. And it's not only the fact
33:29
Speaker 4: that Cheryl's potential murderer has walked three. They've walked three
33:33
Speaker 4: into the community, and you're talking about someone who was
33:36
Speaker 4: potentially abducting a three year old to rape and then murder.
33:41
Speaker 4: If someone's capable of that at a young age, what
33:44
Speaker 4: else have they been doing? What else could they do?
33:47
Speaker 4: And there's a public safety public risk issue for me
33:50
Speaker 4: to consider as well.
33:52
Speaker 2: The point you raise about that confession is very well made.
33:55
Speaker 2: And when I looked at this and you hear that
33:58
Speaker 2: Mercury speaks to one of the managers in the boys home,
34:03
Speaker 2: mister Leckey, who then invites the police to come. It's
34:06
Speaker 2: just not recorded whether mister Lecky remained there. But this
34:10
Speaker 2: is a public institution. Surely there are records. Surely someone
34:14
Speaker 2: there are also other boys there at the time. I
34:16
Speaker 2: just think there was a failure to go a little
34:18
Speaker 2: bit further in the investigation, and there were many opportunities
34:21
Speaker 2: to do so, and there could still be today. So
34:24
Speaker 2: I hope your inquiry could focus in on what possible
34:27
Speaker 2: other records, because I don't think you're going to move
34:30
Speaker 2: that retrospective law.
34:31
Speaker 3: It's going to remain there. It's there for good reason.
34:34
Speaker 3: These serious and doubtable offenses rely.
34:37
Speaker 2: Upon when you are charged, not when a confession may
34:41
Speaker 2: have taken place of other evidence. So without that extra evidence,
34:43
Speaker 2: it's going to be very difficult, which leaves you in
34:45
Speaker 2: the position of having to name Mercury in parliament. It's
34:49
Speaker 2: a high risk strategy. Some would say that it might
34:51
Speaker 2: jeopardize his chance of a fair trial. How do you
34:53
Speaker 2: respond to that, Well.
34:55
Speaker 4: There's a couple of things. First, I'm going to put
34:57
Speaker 4: on the record, and why he wasn't charged at the
35:00
Speaker 4: time is beyond belief.
35:01
Speaker 1: It beggars belief.
35:02
Speaker 4: I just don't understand after making that conferee doing the walkthrough, Okay,
35:06
Speaker 4: they didn't find the body at the time, which was
35:09
Speaker 4: a year or so after the induction, he wasn't charged,
35:13
Speaker 4: And for the file note from the police to just
35:15
Speaker 4: say it is not desirable, that's what it says, not
35:18
Speaker 4: desirable at this time to lay charges. I don't understand that.
35:22
Speaker 4: The fact that then the courts considering the law as.
35:26
Speaker 1: It is now rather than as it was there.
35:29
Speaker 4: It's a fair point, that's how the law works, but
35:31
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean that we have to accept that as
35:34
Speaker 4: the end of the story.
35:36
Speaker 1: And so people who might.
35:37
Speaker 4: Say, well, you're burning the opportunity for a future conviction
35:41
Speaker 4: based on this confession.
35:43
Speaker 1: That's run its.
35:43
Speaker 4: Course the rope. We're at a dead end. There will
35:46
Speaker 4: be no more charges laid on the basis of that confession.
35:50
Speaker 4: The police have said that it's inadmissible, so we have
35:53
Speaker 4: no other evidence. We have no other evidence to rely on.
35:56
Speaker 4: This person Mercury is likely to remain free in the community,
36:01
Speaker 4: live out their life free from ever facing the truth,
36:05
Speaker 4: the true consequences of what they have done.
36:08
Speaker 1: And that's just not acceptable.
36:09
Speaker 4: So I say, look, I'm not going into this without
36:12
Speaker 4: a lot of consideration, without the support of the family.
36:16
Speaker 1: I've had advice from the clerks of the Parliament.
36:19
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if this has ever been done before
36:21
Speaker 4: that someone names a murderer. But politicians get up and
36:25
Speaker 4: say all kinds of things under parliamentary privilege. Most of
36:29
Speaker 4: them just absolute garbage about each other. And they certainly
36:33
Speaker 4: have alleged crimes before that go on to be before
36:37
Speaker 4: the courts, or have been before the courts, or are
36:39
Speaker 4: investigated at center and so forth. But this is a
36:42
Speaker 4: unique case and it's about delivering justice for Cheryl and
36:46
Speaker 4: her family who have been tormented by this for fifty
36:51
Speaker 4: more years, and I just think it's a situation that
36:55
Speaker 4: cannot be allowed to stand and people may judge me
36:59
Speaker 4: on it. People in the legal profession would say, oh, well,
37:01
Speaker 4: the separation of powers for a reason. But we have
37:04
Speaker 4: parliament privilege for a reason, and that privilege is so
37:08
Speaker 4: you can stand up and say something is not right.
37:11
Speaker 4: This didn't work and for whatever reason, we went through
37:15
Speaker 4: the whole process and the end result was a disaster.
37:20
Speaker 1: It's got to be put on the record.
37:22
Speaker 2: Okay, how can people get in touch with you and
37:25
Speaker 2: make submissions and provide other evidence.
37:29
Speaker 4: Well, I've got an email address at the moment, it's
37:31
Speaker 4: Jeremy dot Buckingham at Parliament do sw dot gov dot au.
37:35
Speaker 1: They can fire in if you.
37:36
Speaker 4: Have information about unsolved homicides matters caught by the terms
37:41
Speaker 4: of reference, they can do that. Now I'm collating all
37:45
Speaker 4: of this information.
37:46
Speaker 1: I'm in.
37:46
Speaker 4: My office is absolutely stacked floor to ceiling with it.
37:50
Speaker 4: It's coming in thick and fast. But there will be
37:53
Speaker 4: a more formal process once the inquiry is fully up
37:58
Speaker 4: and running, and that is we will seek submissions from
38:01
Speaker 4: the community. We'll go out to the community and say
38:03
Speaker 4: make a submission. We will then call witnesses that we
38:07
Speaker 4: want that to merge from the submissions that will be
38:10
Speaker 4: heard and either an open hearing or in what's called
38:14
Speaker 4: an in camera hearing a confidential hearing. But importantly those
38:17
Speaker 4: hearings will be in the Southern Highlands, in Parliament House,
38:21
Speaker 4: in Sydney, in Newcastle, in Grafton, in Lizmre in the
38:25
Speaker 4: areas where the community can come along and under parliamentary
38:29
Speaker 4: privilege there's sworn they cannot be prosecuted, they cannot be
38:33
Speaker 4: pursued in terms of civil action and a defamation for
38:37
Speaker 4: saying what they know, and they can put on the
38:39
Speaker 4: record what they know. And at the moment, look, it's
38:43
Speaker 4: we get a few crazies and some of the information
38:46
Speaker 4: is not useful, there's no doubt about that, but a
38:49
Speaker 4: lot of it is. A lot of it really is,
38:51
Speaker 4: and I think the majority is. And like with all
38:55
Speaker 4: of these investigations, you start off with a bit of
38:58
Speaker 4: an outline, a case theory, and you start filling it in,
39:02
Speaker 4: and that is filling in quickly. And that story is
39:05
Speaker 4: that for whatever reason, for whatever reason, a horrendous group
39:11
Speaker 4: of serial killers were preying on this state and the
39:16
Speaker 4: East Coast, particularly of Australia for decades with impunity, and
39:21
Speaker 4: they got away with it. They got away with it
39:23
Speaker 4: because the numbers are staggering. We're talking we're well over
39:28
Speaker 4: one hundred unsolved homicides of young women, hundreds and hundreds
39:32
Speaker 4: of young men at this stage, we haven't even been
39:34
Speaker 4: told the names of the children. That they don't release
39:38
Speaker 4: the names of the children anyone under seventeen. We will
39:41
Speaker 4: be redressing that situation. We want to know the full picture.
39:45
Speaker 4: And if you don't accept there's a serial killer out there,
39:48
Speaker 4: well then there's hundreds of individual murderers and both are ghastling.
39:52
Speaker 4: And it's probably the case that we've got some prolific
39:55
Speaker 4: serial killers or killer out there that have escaped justice
40:00
Speaker 4: that Ivan and.
40:01
Speaker 1: His cohort probably did a lot more.
40:03
Speaker 4: And in particular cases people murdered one or two people
40:07
Speaker 4: and got away with it as well. So all of
40:10
Speaker 4: those things are absolutely an abysmal outcome and one that
40:14
Speaker 4: we are going to flip every rock over on to
40:17
Speaker 4: see how it could be to come to pass and
40:19
Speaker 4: whether or not is that we can do anything about it.
40:22
Speaker 2: Jeremy, I wish you the best of luck and I'm
40:25
Speaker 2: mightily impressed I've got gend me a lot of scorn.
40:28
Speaker 3: For politicians and the political process, but you're using it
40:31
Speaker 3: the way it should be. Desperate times, desperate measures.
40:34
Speaker 2: So thank you for your dash and this and advocating
40:37
Speaker 2: on behalf of all those families who currently do not
40:39
Speaker 2: have a voice for their loved ones.
40:40
Speaker 3: Thanks for your tom.
40:42
Speaker 4: I really appreciate it, and i'd like to say too,
40:44
Speaker 4: And I said this in when I gave the speech
40:45
Speaker 4: in Parliament going this It is because of campaigning, journalists
40:49
Speaker 4: and podcastism and authors that these matters remain unforgotten, So
40:55
Speaker 4: a lot to reciprocate. I really appreciate the work you
40:58
Speaker 4: do in getting the information out and keeping these stories
41:01
Speaker 4: alive because we just can't. You know, there's that movement
41:04
Speaker 4: to keep the lyfe On foundation. We can't forget these people,
41:09
Speaker 4: and who knows what we will turn up. We won't
41:11
Speaker 4: turn up anything if we stop looking and stop talking
41:14
Speaker 4: about it. So I appreciate your interest too.
41:20
Speaker 2: Update since any view, Jeremy. He has gone ahead and
41:23
Speaker 2: named Mercury in the new South Wales Parliament under parliamentary privilege.
41:28
Speaker 2: He's also read out Mercury's nineteen seventy one confession there
41:32
Speaker 2: is still a suppression order that stops me and other
41:35
Speaker 2: media from naming him, and we could face a year
41:38
Speaker 2: in jail if we breach that order. But at least
41:41
Speaker 2: this individual will feel his cloak of anonymity has been
41:45
Speaker 2: lifted ever so slightly. If Mercury didn't kill Eryl Grimmer,
41:50
Speaker 2: then he should come out and explain why he confessed
41:53
Speaker 2: in such compelling detail that he committed the crime. So
41:57
Speaker 2: father silence has been deafening and unacceptable. People should not
42:01
Speaker 2: be able to hide behind technical loopholes to avoid scrutiny.
42:06
Speaker 3: I'll keep you.
42:06
Speaker 2: Posted on that one, but if you have any information
42:09
Speaker 2: on Cheryl's case or any other crime, you can call
42:12
Speaker 2: Crime Stoppers on one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero.
42:15
Speaker 2: If you don't trust the cops, you can send me
42:17
Speaker 2: an email on Adam Shann writer at gmail dot com
42:20
Speaker 2: and also get in touch with the parliamentary inquiry. Thank
42:23
Speaker 2: you for listening. This has been Adam shanned for real crime.
42:42
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
42:46
Speaker 2: Independent storytelling that shapes the world is what pod Shape
42:48
Speaker 2: really cares about. Right now, there's thousands of people listening
42:52
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42:54
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42:58
Speaker 2: each week. If you've ever thought about advertising your business
43:01
Speaker 2: in a podcast, there's a link to reach out in
43:03
Speaker 2: the show notes.
43:05
Speaker 3: Head to podshape dot com to book a free call.