Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / The Thornbury Bookshop Killer | Phil Cleary

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The Thornbury Bookshop Killer | Phil Cleary · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Appod Jay production.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: This episode contains discussion of violent crime, including murder and
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Real Crime
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: with Adam Shand. I'm your host, Adam Shand. If you
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: like our content, please consider subscribing, liking, and sharing the podcast.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: The brutal murder of Melbourne bookstore owner Maria James in
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: June nineteen eighty is one of Australia's best known cold cases.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Police are investigating the stabbing murder of a Thornberry woman
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: found dead inside her bookstore this afternoon.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: The thirty eight year old mother of two was viciously
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: attacked by a knife wielding killer who has never been
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: brought to justice.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Pop Side detectives say the attack was sustained and brutal.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: No arrests have been made.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: An award winning podcast led investigators to consider the local
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: parish priest, father Anthony Bonjoorno, as a possible suspect.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: The investigation has focused on a Catholic priest who ministered
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: in the area at the time of the killing.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: The motives seemed to fit.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Bonjorno was alleged to have sexually assaulted one of James's
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: sons and Maria was planning to confront him on the
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: day of her murder. These fresh leads led the coroner
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: to hold another inquest, and Bonjorno was expected to be
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: endorsed as the culprit.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: It didn't work out like.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: That because another suspect emerged with a clear history of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: misogyny and violence against women.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: A Melbourne man has been found guilty of the knife
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: murder of his former girlfriend outside a Northcote kindergarten in.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty seven. Peter Keo murdered his ex girlfriend, Vicky
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Cleary with a knife.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: The victim, Vicky Cleary, was attacked in front of witnesses.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Vicky's brother Phil Cleary. He's always been sure that Peter
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Keo also killed Maria James, and he explained why in
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: a recent interview with Real Crime. Feel clear. It's good
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: to talk to you again. Last week spoke. We're talking
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: about the murder of your sister, VICKI yes, by Peter Keo.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I didn't think it was appropriate to deal with the
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: whole Maria James killing within that because of a very
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: specific topic we talked about around separation. But it's become
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: increasingly clear that Peter Keo, who killed your sister is
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: really the leading suspect.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say leading suspect in.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: The killing of Maria James in nineteen eighty what's your view.
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  Speaker 4: I knew nothing about Keo's history when he was with
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: my sister from about eighty three to eighty seven. I
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: only met him about three times, which is clearly the
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: case that he didn't want to be in my company
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: because I might have discovered things about him. After the
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: verdict in nineteen eighty nine, a woman rang my mother.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: A woman from East Coburg rang my mother and said,
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: do you know Keo was interviewed over the Thornburry bookshop
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: murder of nineteen eighty Mum told me I was stunned.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: We'd never heard that story. I rang the police.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: They said, oh, yes, he kind of was, but he
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: had an alibi. I didn't think much of it. After that,
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: I went into Parliament. I kept researching the violence question,
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: but eventually, in the late nineties I went in and
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: looked at the Maria James file under the guidance of Ronidles.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Detective Ronidoles, who was in the homicide squad, invited me
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: in and said you can read the file well. Adam
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: When I read the file, I was in a state
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: almost of disbelief. I discovered that Keo had been interviewed
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: by Ronidoles, who was a young detective at the time.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: This was his first case.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: Yees and Brian McCarthy, a more senior detective, correct why
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: did they interview him Because Keo's parole officer, Margaret Hobbes,
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: had told them that he was the killer through another person,
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: A professional colleague of hers had run the police to
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  Speaker 4: say Margaret believes he killed Maria.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: James, that he knew her.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: And then I discovered that Keo had been given an
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: alibi by a woman by the name of Judy McNulty.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Judy MacNulty had run my mother after Keo's trial and
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: said words of the effect.
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  Speaker 1: That she believed he'd killed Maria James.
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  Speaker 4: Eventually, eventually she got to the point of saying, she
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: didn't tell Mum she'd given him an alibi, but she
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: was implicating in him in the murder. So it's cut
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: along the story short and you'll come back with another question.
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  Speaker 4: Then I discovered that Judy McNaughty had not only given
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: him an alibi, she rescinded the alibi by way of
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  Speaker 4: her two sisters. In nineteen eighty two, a year and
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  Speaker 4: a bit after the murder, her sisters rang homicide and
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: told them that Keo was the murderer. One of her
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: sisters rang homicide with Judy sitting alongside her. So Judy's
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: given her imprimata to her sister, saying Kio killed Maria Jones.
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  Speaker 1: Well, what was the alibi versus clear that out of
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  Speaker 1: the word.
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  Speaker 4: They didn't take a proper police statement from Judy McNulty.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: It was just a verbal It went something like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: he was probably with me, probably with me. They were
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: working nightshift at a local factory, nightshift, which meant he
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: was free during the day and Maria James was murdered
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: in the middle.
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  Speaker 1: Correct.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we're looking at seventeenth of June nineteen eighty Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it's about eleven thirty in the mornings.
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  Speaker 1: She's at her Thornberry bookstore.
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  Speaker 2: She rings her a strange husband, John at the Fitzroy
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  Speaker 2: Town Hall and says, listen, I've got some bother with somebody,
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  Speaker 2: can please come. He goes down there, sees the doors
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: are all locked, manages to get in through a window
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: at the back there. When he gets in, he realizes
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the front door is now open, so the killer has disappeared,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: and he finds Maria there in a pool of blood.
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  Speaker 2: Sixty eight stab wounds. Very very nasty, brutal. Personal. I
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: mean some murders have an air of professionalism about.
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  Speaker 1: Them or something detack.
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  Speaker 2: This is a highly personal I'm going to teach you
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  Speaker 2: a final lesson kind of murder.
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  Speaker 4: And I read into that. What we know is you've
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: talked about the door being open. Whoever was in the
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: bookshop ran across the street, across High Street and was
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: nearly run over by a woman driving north. That woman
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: years later, in about two thousand and one, after Kio died,
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: was shown a photo board and who did she pick
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: out on that photo board as the man she had
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: seen running across the road who she nearly ran over,
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  Speaker 4: Peter Raymond Keo.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Them's the facts, and.
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  Speaker 2: There were two witnesses because both claim to have seen
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: a man with a receding hairline looked a lot like
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Keo and was picked out as he walked.
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  Speaker 4: Down the local street towards the railway line, and it
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: seemed to be holding something in his pocket. This replicated
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: what Keo did when he murdered Vicki in nineteen eighty seven,
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: he was seen holding the knife in his pocket.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So I say this similarities here.
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  Speaker 4: Now, Keo did he have a motive for Maria James,
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  Speaker 4: I'd say he knew she was there. He might have
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: had a connection with her. He might have gone out
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: with her or seen her sexually. I don't want to
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: go through all of those possibilities. But even if he didn't,
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: he would have walked in off the street looking for
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: a rape. And when Maria fought back, he went the
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: whole way with his knife.
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  Speaker 1: And he killed her.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: Or else he killed her because she said no to
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: any relationship further with him. There's those two possibilities. But
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: when people say motive, Keyo didn't need a motive. Conquest
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: was his motive, and any woman who he went after
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: who said no was in danger.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And the problem with all.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: The suspects that we've seen, including the other prime suspect,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: father Anthony Bonjorno, motive is the problem. It doesn't seem
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: to amount to anything. But if you've got a misogynistic,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: brutal killer like Keo, the motive is his dysfunction, his
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: need to dominate and conquer women. But some other aspects
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: are important to deal with in the background. Here police
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: come there, they find two cups of tea. Because the
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: residence actually adjoins the bookstore, so she can go from
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: the bookstore into the residence.
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  Speaker 1: There are two cups of tea.
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  Speaker 2: It appears that a potato masher was used at one
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: stage to hold her down.
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  Speaker 1: That's been dispute, has it okay?
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  Speaker 2: And the murder weapon is likely to have been a
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: knife that was already on the premises.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not sure that that's necessarily true, may or may
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: not have been. Roniddles later said they did not find
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: a potato masher.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: They speculated on that.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: Another detective, former detective who gave evidence at the inquest,
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: said it looked like the scraping of a coat across
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: Maria James's face that had caused the bruising or the
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: rash on her face.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And when you look back.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: To nineteen eighty seven when Peter Keo murdered our sister Vicki,
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  Speaker 4: he was seen with his arm around her head, her
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  Speaker 4: face and scraping her face with his arm as he
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: tried to subdue her. So you know, I see in
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: those two moments, I see Peter Keo at work.
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  Speaker 2: The bottom line is the coroner in the fresh inquest,
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  Speaker 2: which is now a couple of years old, came to
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: an open finding, and we're left with Father bon Juno
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  Speaker 2: and Peter Keyo.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: And I wonder, how.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Do you react to this because for years Roniddles and
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: the ABC Rachel Brown have pushed very hard towards Father
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: bon Jorno, and the motive being that Bonjorno had allegedly
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: tampered with Maria's son Adam and others. And there was
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: another priest, O'Keefe who seems to have done the same thing.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: But to me, it doesn't make much.
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  Speaker 2: Sense because the story is Maria had confronted Bonjorno and
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: was going to do something about it.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: But killing her.
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  Speaker 2: Doesn't stop the fact that Adam knows he was molested,
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  Speaker 2: So killing her, I mean, murder doesn't always have to
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: make sense.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: But that was always a problem for me.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And yet bon Jorno was left as the main suspect
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: for many, many years. And as you say, you knew
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: for years Keo was in the frame. Why do they
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: overlook Keo all those years?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think it just became very trendy to condemn
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: the Catholic Church. It was a time when the church
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: was under assault for the molesting of boys everywhere in schools,
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: I mean my school. Saint Jose pasco Vo was another example,
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: Brother Weston, they're in the sea everywhere. Look, there are
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: all these stories being on earth. So it was very
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: trendy and fashionable to say, of course it's a pedophile priest.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: But you know, the pedophile priest run around killing women.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: And as you say, if he wanted to kill Maria James,
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: why not just murder her? Why stab her multiple times
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: in the way that the fanatical Keios killed, the way
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: that he had done or attacked women. And at the
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: inquest it was pointed out he'd attacked the woman in
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Coburg a few years earlier, Sharise. She gave evidence saying
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: he had a knife, he had rope to tie her up.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: You know, people saw that and got this bloke. He
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: is clearly the kind of person that could kill Maria Jones.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: He raped a nine year old girl in nineteen seventy
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: four in his own street in Richmond, nine years of age.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: This was Keo at work. You know, he was so
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: misogynistic and so much into conquest of women.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: He could be that person.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: But come to bon Joorno, it just became fashionable to
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: blame bon Jorno when Kio was such a likely suspect,
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: and go a step further, Judy Noughty gave him an alibi.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Judy McNulty's sister told the Inquest which you've read, Adam,
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: that they went to Keo's flat to get a change
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: of clothes for him.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Why would you do that?
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: And Judy McNulty's sister believes it was on the day
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: of the murder that they drove to the flat, picked
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: up a set of clothes, drove back to judiem Noldy's house,
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: and her sister drove home. And where was Keo? Was
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: he in the backyard of her house? We're covered in blood?
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: Where was he? This is a fact that they went
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: to the flat to get a change of clothing.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: That is a fact. That is a fact. Was it
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: on the day of the murder?
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: Judy's sister says, Dot says she believes it was. And
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: you know the last bit of the story. Peter Keyo
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: said to Vicki a few weeks before he murdered her,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: I do to you what I did to the woman
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: in the bookshop.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: How do I know that?
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Because Vicky told her then boyfriend Chris Wheeler, who eventually
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: told the police.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: He didn't say it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: At the time, and I say, he was so traumatized,
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: He's not thinking about Maria James and what Ko's harassment
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: to Vicky. He didn't even have They talked about that
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: in his police statement, but years later he put it
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: in a statement. Keyo said to Vicky, I'll do to
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: you what I did to the woman in the bookshop.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I've got to ask you, though, Phil, that murder was
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: well known at the time. We're not a million miles
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: from that area in Thornbury. Why wasn't anything said back
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: then if he said this chilling thing to her?
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Well, the fellow Chris Wheeler, he didn't know anything about
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: the murder. He wasn't from the area. It was not
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: a thing he had a semblance of understanding of nothing.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: It was just some story out there. He wasn't in
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: a position where it was going to have traction in
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: his consciousness or the Maria James that famous. He didn't
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: know anything about it. So I think that explains it.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: But it's interesting, Adam. I went searching after I read
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: the police file of Maria James. I went up to
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: the Northern suburbs. I went and walked past the bookshop.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I went up to the Junction Hotel where Keo used
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: to drink. I walked around, I looked at places. I
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: made contact with a bloke who used to drink at
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: the Junction Hotel, a couple of hundred meters north of
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: the Thornbury book Shop.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I met him. I met him up in North.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: Coburg and he said to me at the pub, the
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: gossip was Maria James was Keo's missus. That's the term
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: he used. And we know that's working class idiom for girlfriend. Yeah, sure,
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: his missus, as in he was going out with her.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's true, but I'm telling you
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: what is true, that that fellow that I met around
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: the two thousand mark told me that that was the
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: gossip in the Junction Hotel, about two hundred meters.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: North of the Thornbury book Shop.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: Then I spoke to Peter Keo's son Damien on the phone.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: He was very polite with me.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: I said, I'm sorry to be wringing you about your
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: father after his father had committed suicide. I spoke to him, Damien,
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: and I said, do you know anything about this? No?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I don't, but he said, I can tell you.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: My dad said he was going out with a girl
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: from a shop somewhere near there.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: And Damien was a small kid at this time.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, he would have been about seven at the
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: time of the murder round about.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: So Damien is telling.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: Me that his father told him he went out with
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: a girl from a shop he thought I think, he said,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I think it was a pizza shop, and I thought
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: a shop a shop. And he's recalling this years after
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: the event, twenty years later. This is around two thousand
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: years recalling what his father had said to him in
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: nineteen eighty that he went out with a girl from
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: a shop near the Junction hotel.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And you can start to put circumstancil pieces together based
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: on that. You've also got the telecom worker who was
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: supposed to be in relationship with Marie. I think he
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: actually denied that, but he had been there and lo
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: and behold, three days after he's interviewed, he kills himself,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: so that avenue closes.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, you can imagine.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: A situation where Keyo, if he thinks he's got ownership
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: over Maria, discovers some other bloke there or some other indication,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: and suddenly his rage rises up, and you've got a
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: deadly situation.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Absolutely true. And this is Peter Keo at work. These
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: kind of men who have this ownership view of women
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: and conquest of women imbedded misogyny at work.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: That's Peter Keyo work.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: And a woman rang John Sylvester from the Age, from
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: the age and told him that she had been in
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: the bookshop on the morning of the murder, and she
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: saw a man who resembled Keo looking through books in
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: the bookshop. Is it a true story, Adam, I don't know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: but I don't know what is true that John Sylvester
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: told me that a woman rang him and told him
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: that she had seen a bloke looking through books who
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: looked like Keo.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: On the morning of the Maria James murder.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, let's roll back a step or two. Who was
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Peter Keyo.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Keo grew up in Westgarth.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: His father was Melbourn, Melbourne, up in northgot For those
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: who am not sure, say northern suburbs of Melbourne. You know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: you go north of Collingwood and you come to north Westgarth.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: His father was a factory worker down in Port Melbourne
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: with Dunlops. His father had a first marriage. His father
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: was violent to his first wife and cruel to her.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: Then he married a younger woman and Keyo's a product
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: of that second family. Born in nineteen forty eight. He
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: had an older brother born in forty one. Around about
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: forty forty one, his older brother was found guilty of rape.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: And was charged at the house in Westgarth.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: In about nineteen fifty nine, his older brother, found guilty
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: of rape, went to jail. Keo was found guilty of
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: molesting a girl in the family court. He was found
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: guilty of molesting girl, probably at his school. He had
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: a history of abuse of women and threats towards women.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: In nineteen sixty three he was involved he got shot
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: by a detective at the Preston railway station. He was
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: wielding a knife, he was drunk. He went at the
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: police when he got shot in the knee. This is
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: September nineteen sixty three. And he had a history of
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: he was knocking around. He was violent, but women were
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: always in danger with him and the woman in Coburg
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: in around nineteen seventy and then the young girl in
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: nineteen seventy four and on, it goes he was a
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: violent man, covered in tattoos, an ordinary, awful human being,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: really who I met only the three or four times,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: And I said this, what was the most memorable moment
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: I had with him? In nineteen eighty six, I think
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Vicky brought him to the Coburg football ground to a game,
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: and he sat at a table littered with empty glasses,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: and he was kind of almost drooling, and I thought, oh,
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: I like this bloke. And I spoke to him for
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: a few minutes, and it was enough for me to
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: tell Mum we had to get him out of Vicky's life.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Well, lo and Behold.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Vicky ended the relationship, so I didn't have to go
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: there with my sister. All I can say is what
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: I thought that day and at the Coburg football ground
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: turned out to be right, that he was no good,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: but Vicky had left him.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I thought we were all good.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: I met her on my two hundredth game at Coburg
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty seven. Everything seemed fine. She'd separated and
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: lo and Behold. Eleven weeks later she was dead. So
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: we lived to regret the fact that we didn't know
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: about his history. If I'd known that he'd been interviewed
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: over the Maria James bookshop in nineteen eighty. Do you
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: think he would have been knocking around with our sister.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, do you think.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Seeing you some of his background or was he very
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: good concealing.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: I think he's a good liar. He kept saying to
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: her the police were always after him. He would have
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: been telling her that he was victimized, and VICKI was sympathetic.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: She'd grown up in an old working class setting with
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: a strong sense of justice, and she would have looked
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: at him as they yeah, he's been a bit victimized
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: here and there, and her sympathies would have been played
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: out and he would have exploited them.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And he had a certain charisma bo because people without
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: charisma can't get to these sort of places.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: But I don't know what it was, but yeah, I
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: just think he was a bluff merchant and a wannabe warlord,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: a big notor. And look the irony there is when
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: he said to VICKI illl do to you what I
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: did to the woman in the bookshop.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: That could just be bluff.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: You'd be right to say that doesn't mean that he
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: definitely killed Marie James. It does not It could have
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: just been bluff, but it just throws another fact in
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: there for consideration. But as for Keo, the person, he
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: was pretty ordinary, semi literate, you know, Jesus, he was violent.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Semi literate, not a guy who would normally frequent bookshops.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: No, and the person said in the bookshop, a haha,
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: what was he looking at? Probably books on cars or something,
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: you know, pictures of cars, and he's not there to
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: read Jane Austen, is he No, exactly, And it's.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Quite possible that he became fixated on Maria James.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: Well, what I know about Keyo, he'd come to know
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: that Maria James was alone in that bookshop. He sees
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: her as a conquest. No one can just bet that
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: based on Kea's history, doesn't mean he killed her, doesn't
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: mean he is the killer. But all I know is
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: all the circumstantial facts do support the proposition that Peter Keo.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Killed Marie Jo.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: He lived in the area, he knew the area like
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: the back of his hand.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: It was his patch, Adam. Yeah.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: And what I don't understand though, is the tunnel vision
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: that took over this investigation. You're saying that before two thousand,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Keo was in the you saw his name in the file,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: and yet we roll around twenty fourteen, twenty thirteen and
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: there's only one suspect left as the bon I think
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: even today ron Itidles would tell you that he doesn't
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: think Keo did it, and that he thinks it's Bono
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: who did it, based on the fact that Maria had
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: confronted Bono about his molesting of Adam her son.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: Roniddles is so wrong in his assessment as to why
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: it can't be Keo. It's mad. Of course it can
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: be Keyo. Of course there's a high probability it's Keyo.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: That's what the coroner said, Adam. People could say, don't
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: worry what Phil Cleary says, asked the coroner she named
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: Keyo as one of two major suspects. She had the
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: name Bonjiorno. They would have mocked her if she hadn't.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: But I say, people close to the case believe it's
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: Peter Keyo.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: And also the DNA.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: If you read the inquest, you will see that the
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: coroner acknowledges that the DNA is not inconsistent with kio small.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Connection to Kia.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: If it was at odds with Ko, then she would
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: have said so, but she acknowledges that it is a
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: potential connection to Kia.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: On it, it's not so good.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the DNA because it's a really important
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: part of this story, and it actually means that the
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: case is really at square one now because of the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: DNA bungles. They lose the pillow cases which had Maria's
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: blood on it and potentially DNA from the offender. They
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: then find another pillow case from another case and they
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: transpose that and put it into evidence, and they.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Use that to eliminate.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: The Keo and then so explain the other DNA just
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: for clarity.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Well, well, they've just discovered that the real DNA does
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: have a link to Keo. But the problem is the
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: paucity of the DNA. The quality of the DNA is
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: not so great.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And where was that found. That's in the bookshop on
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a quilt. I believe, yes, that's right.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: So all I could say is the coroner says that
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: the DNA doesn't exclude Ko and it is there's partial
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: connection to Kiyo's partially.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: There was an important writer on that.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Then the coroner said that it could also match to
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: fifty percent of the population.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, okay, but what we do know is it doesn't
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: exclude Kio. It doesn't and we know it's not substantial DNA,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: so it's going to be harder to work with. I
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: would think, I think that's what they were saying. But
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: all I'd say is it doesn't exclude Peter Keyo. All
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: the circumstantial evidence, in my opinion, leads to Peter Keo
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: more so to Kio than it does to bond Joorno
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: and bomb Juno is photographed outside the bookshop. I mean,
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: why would you if you were the man who ran
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: across the road nearly run over in high Street, So
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: you're in plane sight and you know that the person
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: who nearly rang you over is going to be a
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: witness and is going to look at your face and
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: see it on a photo board or to a photo board,
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: and I pick you out. Why would you go to
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: the bookshop in the early afternoon and stand there.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Sure he wanted to go inside.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: The police say, oh, well, that's because he wanted to
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: put his DNA in there, which would then camouflage the
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: fact that he'd been there.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Ee. In nineteen eighty, we weren't talking about DNA. No
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: one was. It wasn't a thing.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, there were some smart coppers who were looking at
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: the future, but someone like Montjohn.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: He wasn't thinking about it. Of course he wasn't. He
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: wasn't a thing.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: But he was an arrogant, pompous bloke. He was demanding
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: to go inside. He clained he wanted to perform the last.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: One, last rights. Didn't that make sense?
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: It does make sense, And I think I think his
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: behavior of suspect but it doesn't. And I think there's
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: a fair amount of stereotype being being, as you pointed out,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: loaded onto him as a Catholic priest. And I think
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: the ABC, you know, with all due respect to my
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: journalistic colleagues, they got the same tunnel vision that ron Le's.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Well, And this is a really important point.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: The murder of women was not properly under stood in
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: policing and the public narrative, but in over the campaigning
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: over the past thirty years has pointed to a better
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: understanding of who the killers are, and we now know
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: their men, who are misogynistic, who treat the killing as
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: a conquest, a rape and a conquest. That's Peter Keo
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: to a t it's not been the history of pedophile priests.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: We're not not defending pedophile priests of Catholic Church is
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: so guilty of horrific covers up.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: But this points to Keo.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: For Ron, it's to say, tell me, Ron, how can
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: you say Kio is not a genuine suspect?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Are you?
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: Do you not support what the coroner said? Ron, I'd say, Ron,
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: do you not agree with what the coroner said that
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: he is one of two major suspects?
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you'd have to say, And I might
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: approach Ron and also the ABC to give their view
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: on this, maybe Rachael Brown, who did that wonderful podcast.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I think it was great that they got another inquest
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: out of this, by the way, because it was dying
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: a death because everyone was dead. I mean Keyo died
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: in what two thousand and one? I think yes, and
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: bon Jo shortly after the other priest. I think he's
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: dead too. The telecom worker's dead. I mean a lot
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: of people are dying off here. So I think it
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: was great to get another inquest there. But I think
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I think what they were expecting in that inquest was
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: to rubber stamp the idea that bon John. I was
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: the only suspect. He was very inconvenient, philm.
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: And look, I think the boys weren't impressed with the
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: evidence I gave. And I don't want to upset Maria's sons,
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: And I don't want to make this a story about Ko.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: It's a story about the murder of a woman and
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: uncovering the killer. And I can't help the facts, Adam,
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: that the facts, the circumstantial facts, do support the proposition
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: that it is Peter Keo.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And I've got an interest in.
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: This, of course, because if Keo had been identified properly
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty and found guilty, For example, how different
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: would my life be?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: You know, my sister would be alive, Like Keo would
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: have been up there in bright lights.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Even if he wasn't found guilty, if he'd been properly investigated,
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: his name would be out there, would have flown across
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: the Northern suburbs. We'd all have known that he had
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: been interviewed over the Maria James murder. But I did
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: not know until a couple of days after the verdict
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty nine that he'd been interviewed.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Well, tell me, how did his name come up and why.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Was the interview.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Because his parole officer, Margaret Hobbs, got her colleague to
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: ring the police and tell them that she believed he
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: was the killer.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: She described him as a woman hater.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: And believed he had a connection to Maria James, her
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: colleague who rang the police. I interviewed some years later,
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: around the two thousand and max. He told me, he said,
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: Margaret Hobbs told me that Keo had been going out.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: With Maria James and she believed he killed her.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Now, so you wouldn't have divulge this to Margaret Hobbs,
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: who was his therapist parole officer.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Did he divulge it? I don't know. It's not out
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of the question.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: And so they go along with him as a pretty
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: good suspect with a profile of misogynism.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: But it didn't seem to explore that they did a
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: brief interview with him, they didn't take a police statement.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: The coroner says this was wrong. Why did they not.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Do a proper police statement? And his judimate not he
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: his alibi, didn't do a proper police statement. There is
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: no police statement. She was just asked and she said
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: he was probably with me words to that effect, and
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: a year and a bit later, she's sitting with her
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: sister and her sister's ringing homicide to say, Peter Keo
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: is the killer?
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: What I mean, knock me over with a feather. There
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: were so many mistakes in this investigation.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: The very first one which shocked me really, and it
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: happened again with the Carmen Chan investigation, the mister Crule link.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: There was the police set up at the crime scene,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: They set up within the crime scene, so whatever trace
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: ever that was left there was always going to be contaminated.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Why because the police were tramping in and out of
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: that bookstore and the residence for weeks after it. And
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: the same thing happened with Carmen Chan. They set up
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the command post within the Chan household where young Carmen
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: was taken from. Therefore, any evidence that remained there was
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: going to be contaminated. And then the DNA was so
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: shockingly mishandled. Like my question first off would be what
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: happened to the two teacups? What happened to those that
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: should be something that should be somewhere inevidence Some.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Dispute as to whether the two were used or not.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: I read it carefully, but well, there was so much
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: that went wrong. A woman Janette, who was driving up
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: High Street. She was interviewed I think in the caravan
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: outside the bookshop.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: You know how traumatic for her.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: She's seen the likely killer of Maria James and they
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: take her back to the caravan to interview her.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: But also on that, wouldn't you think if.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: You'd interviewed Peter keoh, and he's got this history of misogyny,
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: wouldn't you have had his photo out there and shown
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: it to the woman who drove up the street? I mean,
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: would you go, oh, no, he's got an alibi. Well, really,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: it's mad. You surely had to seize photo.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: And again I'm speculating here, but I think the missing
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: part of the whole thing is misogyny, right, because they're
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: looking for a motive that makes sense. You've got the
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: guy trying to sell the parade magazine who comes there.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: It's a questionable publication. It's got sex, murders and things covered.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Maria doesn't like it. They have an argument, he leaves.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: That's a motive. You've got the telecom worker who he
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: may or may not have a relationship with Maria. He's
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: a suspect, even her estranged husband, John James, he's summoned
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: down there. They have to eliminate him, but I think
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: they've used a higher evidentiary bar than what they used
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: for Peter Keo, who, as it turned out, was much
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: more likely in his psychological profile to be the killer
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: than any of those people, roam through the.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: Northern suburbs plucking women at will whenever he could. And Sharie,
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: who gave evidence at the inquest about his attack on
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: her in Cobourg some years earlier. Is it just a
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: prime exit that well, she was at the Croxton Park hotel.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: I think it was around nineteen seventy. He struck up
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: the conversation with her at the bar and said something
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: about a car, and she said, oh, yeah, I'm looking
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: for a car or smashed my car or it was
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: either the other way around. Anyway, you managed to get
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: her address out of her to come around and look
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: at a car. He went around there, discovered that there
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: was no one home, and he put his foot through
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: the door and he attacked her.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: He attacked her.
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: And she saw the knife, glistening knife, and he had
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: rope in his pocket. But she managed to get up
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: and run away out of the place and she found
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: safety sanctuary. Unbelievable that she survived. But anyway, but he
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: go to the police. He goes and tells them that
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: he drove down to Sydney Road with her in the car,
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: and so.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: He lies about it all and they just took it in.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: He should have gone to jail for attempted rape and attack.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: He got a.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: One pound fine I think for this attack on a
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: woman when you read it, they did it in a paragraph.
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: But when Shari gave her evidence at the inquest, and
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: it's horrific, it's an horrific attempted rape, assault, threatening to.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Kill her with a knife.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: He should have gone to jail, but they didn't even
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: prosecute himrobably, and he got was a minor assault charge.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: And as I said, a mya vine. So this was
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: this was his modus operandi. This was how he behaved
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: throughout the Northern suburbs. And there were other women he assaulted,
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: you know, it wouldn't come forward.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: And years later I've had women tell.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: Me about him assaulting them, attacking them, raping them, kidnapping them,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: you know. Again and again people have contacted me. So
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: there you have it, and the police missed a trick,
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: and yet he was in there from They didn't have
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: to go looking for him on a database. His parole
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: officer told them, so just go on plants possible. Let's
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: have a little bit to show the photo to the
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: woman who nearly ran over the keller.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: It So the emergence of Keo after all these years
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: as the potential killer is inconvenient to the narrative.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: That's whether that's been established.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: And I do feel for the James family, her sons
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: having to deal now with the fact that there was
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: tunnel vision and you came and gave evidence, and you've
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: said that you feel unhappy that it made them unhammed.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: What was your evidence?
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Everything I've told you what Keo said to VICKI that's
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: a statement of fact. I mean, Chris Wheeler, who was
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: Vicky's boyfriend at the time's not going to make that up.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: He didn't know anything about the Thornbry bookshop, didn't know
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: a thing about it.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: So there you have that.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: F the fact that Margaret Hobbes, his parole officer, named him,
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: the fact that his alibi, Judy McNulty, named him and
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: had her sister's ring homicide a year and a bit
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: after the murder to say he was the killer.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: The fact that they was in the alibi.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: She rescinded the alibi for sure, and they weren't interviewed
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: by the police.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: If the police had gone round.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: To those two women who rang that night, who rang homicide,
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: they'd have been told that these two women were the
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: sisters of the alibi. So the sisters of the alibi
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: would have been interviewed, and that would have meant the
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: alibi would have been interviewed, and Judy mcnoley would have
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: been interviewed, and she would have said it was a lie.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Or I'm not sure or or whatever she was going
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to say. She was terrified of Kio. She was frightened.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: That's why she got her sisters to ring. She was frightened.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: So there's are all the bits and pieces of the evidence.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: Keo tells my sister, Keo's alibi is rescinded, and Judy
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: and her sister drives flat Dot says on the day
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: of the murder, to get him a change of clothes.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Why, Adam, why why?
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the change of clothes thing is comes up
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: in three come three guys to see Bonno is seen
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: by the electrician working at the presbytery covered in blood supposed.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: To supposedly, yeah, you do you believe that? No, it's
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: years and years later, and it's after the man reads
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: a Facebook post and he never said anything at the time.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: It's a big story in the Northern suburbs.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: But he doesn't go to the police and say, I
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: saw the parish priest who's one hundred meters from the
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: bookshop covered in blood.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Explanation for that might be.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: I'd never imagine that it'd be a priest who'd be
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: the suspect, But it doesn't make sense. Years later, and
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: then there's story is that, you know, we heard the
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Italian housekeeper yelling at bon Jorno and they say there
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: wasn't an Italian housekeeper and no one speaking in Italian,
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: And again bon Jiorno appearing outside the bookshop after the
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: murder do not make sense.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, also, he had an alibi.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: O'Connor, the priest from the parish, priest from Coburg, said.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: They had a lunch. Now that's disputed.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: It could be a lie, but I'm inclined to think
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: o connor was probably telling the truth about the meeting.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: But anyway. Yeah.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So this all winds up to the fact that
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of the very strong evidence that was used
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: is not so strong anymore when it's really back at
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: square one that's investigating, and you wonder where it goes
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: through from here.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I don't know what else you can unearth. I don't
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: know what else. Someone maybe knows something. Does Keo's ex
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: partner knows something? The mother of his son, does she
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: know something? Damien's mother. I can't be sure, except that
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: so many people think he did it. People closer to
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Keo reckon that he divulged things and talked about not
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: wanting to go near the bookshop for fear that, you know,
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: someone ha'd be hounding him about the murder. But it's
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: just got his name all over. It doesn't mean it's him.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's frustrating. There's still a million dollars on offer
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: from Victoria, and the mistakes that were made in the
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: DNA and the crime scene and so forth probably mean
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: this can't be sold. But as you say, there's probably
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: someone out there with some information that can still you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: I think parole Ron it'll he'll probably go to his
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: grave thinking it's Monjno But if you've brought the.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Narrative felt well, why did Keo say to Vicky, I'll
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: do to you what I did to the woman in
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: the bookshop.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Why did he need to say that?
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: Vicky already knew that he had some form I think
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: in that he would have bragged. He would have bragged
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: about his rough and tumble background, and he'd already been
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: violent to her. He didn't need to add this layer
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: about the bookshop. Why did his parole officer, Margaret Hobbs
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: name him as the killer? Why did the sisters drive
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: to the flat to get a change of clothing. Why
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: did people at the Junction hotel say Maria James was
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: his missus? Maria James's hairdresser cut Peter Keo's mother's hair.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: There were links, you could put them on the board.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: There were little strings and pins and flags.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: But I'll tell you one thing's for sure. Keo knew
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Maria James. He knew the shop, he knew she worked there.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: He knew what her hours would have been, he knew
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: she would have been alone. Was ke the man that
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: the woman saw in the shop that morning, the woman
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: who rang John Sylvester? Every chance it's him he'd be
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: staking the place, you know, casing the place.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: One final question for you, Phil Keo ends up killing himself.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: Why Keo had a girlfriend and he went down to
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: Gippsland Way to live. The woman eventually rang me, and
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: her friends rang me to say they were worried she'd
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: been with Peter Kyo, she'd separated from him. He was
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: threatening her, I said, read my nineteen ninety eight book
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: Clearing Independent, read the chapter on Ko and you'll see
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: that he's a dangerous man. He did murder my sister ruthlessly.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: Kio had told her the story that it was all accidental,
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: that he'd gone to see Vicki at the kindergarten and
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: they'd had a fight and she was accidentally stabbed. Accidentally,
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: that's what he told her. So she was believing that
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: how many times was his dad? Ah? Yeah, multiple like
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: a dozen acid half a dozen really serious wounds, you know,
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: at least six seven to her liver and her face
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: multiple times, and he tried to stab her multiple times.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: More times.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: He would have tried to stab her twenty to thirty times,
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: but he landed at least six seven eight serious wounds.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: But so the woman I speak to who's been Keo's
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: ex girlfriend is separated from him.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I get the Herald's son to go down.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: I wring them and I say you should go down.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: She's in the magistrate's court intervention order. So they go down.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: They snap a photo of him. He's livid about it.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: He is so outraged that they photographed him. He wrings
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: the Herald's son and he gets through to the photographer
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: and he beerates her and it's terrifying for her.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Anyway, a little while later, what do you reckon? Happens?
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: The house of the.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: Woman that he'd been with is burnt down. It's an
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: arson attack. The police established that it is an arson
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: attack on her house, burnt to the ground. I hassle
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: the arson squad about Ko. I said, you've got to
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: stop this bloke. He's dangerous. He's going to kill And
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: someone in a police headquarters said, oh, well, you know,
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: we have to be sure that it is him, and
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: he has to be making threats for us to intervene.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: I said, well, I'll take this conversation down. I'm telling you,
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: if he does something, I'll be on public on this. Anyway,
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: Keo knows he's in trouble. The homicide squad told me
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: that all the facts pointed to him. The investigation Jack Jacobs,
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: who'd been the detective who told me that Keo had
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: an alibi back in eighty nine, had now become an
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: insurance investigator. Jack Jacobs he tells me that Keo is
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: the only suspect in the arson attack on the house.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: Keo knows he's going to go to jail. There's my take.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: He knows I've cornered him. He knows I've put him
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: in the frame. He's howling to the coppers about me.
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: He's telling the coppers, Oh, this is all because Bill
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: Cleary used to be in Parliament. He's hassling me here.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: I was hassling him. I was putting him in the frame.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: I was telling them, you've got to catch him this time.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: He's gotten away with this before. Anyway, he commits suicide
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: in Mansfield Street. Did I drive him into a state
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: of panic? Yes, because what he did and I was
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: protecting me, my family. I was living here in Brunswick
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: worried about that man. I'm worried about my family because
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: I've been going after him for years.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: I'm looking out. I went searching for him.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: I searched around around Preston at night, drove around to
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: just check to see if I could find where he was,
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: so I at least.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Knew if he was in my patch. I wanted to know.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I wanted to be sure he wasn't going to get
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: away with it again anyway.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I put the pressure.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: I rang the Junction Hotel because he'd been drinking there,
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: and I said to the barman, Oh, you've had Keo
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: in there drinking, haven't you? And he said, what do
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: you mean? I said, what's it like? Poor and beer
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: for a murderer? Said that Blake murdered my sister and
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: now he's torched a house. I said, you know, give
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: him my regards, lo and behold well, after the house
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: has burnt, he commits suicide.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Why you asked me? Why?
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: Because he knew he was going to get pinned. And
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: arson is a serious offense, Adam, isn't it? You get
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: a big jail sentence.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Well, And also, I mean, what else has he done?
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Maria James one of the things.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: And I think he was certainly worried about Maria James.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: I think he believed I was onto that because I
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: had I had said things and he knew that I
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: was tracking him, and I'd written about him previously, you know,
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: and in articles and in my book in nineteen ninety eight,
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: and of course I put a new book out. Just
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: another little murder came out after he committed suicide. But
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: he knew I was tracking him. He told the coppers
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: I was tracking him. So he committed suicide because he
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: knew he was going to be in the frame for
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: Arson and Maria James and other matters.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Phil, thank you very much. You've done an amazing job.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: One man am an investigation here, that's really and I
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: think that's what the community would expect. That if there
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: is tunnel vision and there was around Bonjoorno, that other
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: possibilities that put out and that's what the family would want.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Obviously this has not been convenient for them, but I
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: thank you for doing it.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, we want the right person in the frame,
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: don't we.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: We don't want the wrong.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: Person in the frame. We want to condemn bond Jorno,
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: but condemn him for the right things. What he was
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: doing to young kids elsewhere. You know, that's all some
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: of a ledge, but there's no doubt he was no good.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Was he a killer? Was he a killer, and we
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: know Keo was a killer, so that's interesting. Phil, thanks
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: for tome mate you Adam. Great to talk with you.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: As always, as always we can find more things. We're
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: talking again. I love the way. I love the way
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: you operate.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: That's Phil Cleary on the murder of Maria James and
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: the fact that Peter Raymond Keo should have been in
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: the frame early on and he wasn't.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I think the one.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Thing that provides hope for this case is that somewhere
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: in the bowels and the archives and the cold case
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: freezers of Victoria Police, there is DNA evidence. The pillow slips,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: the teacups, the other things, if they weren't contaminated by
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: the police walking all around the crime scene, they still exist.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: And I think we're also seeing incredible advances in DNA
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: where even partial DNA being examined with the benefit of
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: artificial intelligence, is.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Now yielding usable profile. That's the one hope.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: But also there could be someone out there who's never
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: given their evidence. Maybe you waited all these years because
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: you wait to wait for someone to die. Don't keep waiting.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Phil's nodding here, don't keep waiting. Get in, Get in,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: touch with crime Stoppers one one hundred, Triple three, triple zero.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Give the evidence that you have and.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Maybe a fragment, but could be that little missing piece
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: that makes a difference. If you're scared of the cops
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: or you don't want to talk to them, please give
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: to me an email Adam Shanner writer at gmail dot
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: com and I will definitely follow it up.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: This has been Adam shan for Real Crime. Thanks for listening.
• 46:46
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• 46:50
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