Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / A Brother's Quest for Justice | David Cunningham

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A Brother's Quest for Justice | David Cunningham · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Appoche Production.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I am your
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: host Adam Shand. July nineteen seventy two, two young women,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoyneville Bartram, set off from Melbourne
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: to hitchhike to Robin's family home in Bowen, North Queensland.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Two bright young design students leaves to hitchhike up the
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: East Coast. They were never seen alive again. In November
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: of that year, Robin's body was found under a bridge
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: at Sensible Creek near Charters Towers, with two bullet holes
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: in the back of her head in a way that
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: she was killed two bullets in the back of the
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: head two months loger execution. Anita has never been found.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It's one of Australia's most baffling unsolved murders.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: The worst thing that you could possibly imagine happened to
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: this family.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: The Cunningham family continues to seek answers, and I'm joined
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: by Nita's brother David, who keeps the flame of the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: investigation alive.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: We were actually deliberately kept in the dark. Such a tragedy.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: What happened to them? You know, you want to do
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: something good for as the years and the decades have
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: gone by, the hope of that is just dissolved into nothing,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: not that there was much hope of that in the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: first place.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Welcome David, Hello Adam, it's great to see you again.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks for the opportunity.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: You and I have travelsome roads on this story. And
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I've got three or four of these long term missing
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: persons cases that I vow to solve or at least
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: follow through to the end of my career. Yours is
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: one of them. It's on a yellow post it note
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: on my wall, completion. It needs to be completed.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Well, let's hope we're getting closer to it every day.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tell me who was Anita.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Anita was a delightful, strong, very gregarious, happy girl. She
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: was full of promise and she was a keen horse rider.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: She rode in the Royal Melbourne Show. She was an
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: art student. She had the whole world going for her.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: She was a beautiful girl. You know she was your
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: young sister. She was. Yeah, she was a year and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a half younger than I.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: You're a wild boy back in your day. Ye're off
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: doing your things at the time. Remember what you were
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: doing in July nineteen seventy two.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: July nineteen seventy two. I was young and stupid, following
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the hippie trail and living a life of self discovery
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and partying basically, I think you'd call it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: And so Anita goes away for what was going to
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: be a two or three week trip. What are your
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: memories of what was going on? Happened?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I was away, really I had seen Anita a bit
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: before they left, and I'd struck up a little bit
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of a relationship with Robin. But like in those days,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: life was sort of fancy free and there was nothing
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: sort of permanent. Were just sort of had a bit
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of a fling. And then next thing I heard they
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: were heading That was the school holidays and they were
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: heading up north, and my parents contacted me and said
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that they were really worried and they were trying the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: hardest to convince the girls to accept a free airline ticket,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: but they were determined to take off hitchhiking and sort
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of have a happy, go lucky hippie life kind of thing.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: We were all very naive then, and you know, sort
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: of middle class kids from a middle class background and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: middle class school and zero experience of life so she
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: she fell in with the wrong crowd. That was the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: end of it.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Do you have any any evidence or clues to that?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the evidence and the clues are set out
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: in Gern's book which was published recently called Here Our Cry.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: It's published by Ingrin Spark and it's by Michael Gern
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and he sets out all his evidence. He believes it
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: was a gang of local hooligans, perhaps assisted by Ivan Mullatt.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: That's a big name in true crime. Ivan Malatt.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Mick mcgern, I should say, is a retired Queensland Police officer.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: He's now in his nineties. I believe he is.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: He's ninety two. He's an ex senior detective. He used
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to have his own department in the Queensland Police and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: he's got a pretty good reputation in the police.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Of course he does. And I think he's incredibly selfless
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: what he's done. And the love for your family and
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the love of finding an answer is still driving him.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: His health has a bit infirmed these days, but he
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: doesn't give up.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: He's so tenacious and he's powers of investigation and his
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: ability to get people to talk and interview people, and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: he is just incredible. He's a born detective really.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: And mixed efforts stand in stark contrast to the general
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: performance of the Queensland Police Service over all the years
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: of this mystery.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm aware that back in those days, just
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: far north out back, Queensland was like a foreign country.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: It was just it was nowhere and dirt roads, and
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you know, the superintendent of police there at that time
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: was well known to be the biggest criminal in the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: district and policing wasn't what really we expect it to be.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It was a different time, and so I always thought
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: put the police performance down to that general sort of
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: neglect of the time, because it was like cowboy country
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and so on. But recently I've learned that actually, I
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: think there's more to it than that. I think there
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: was that deliberate cover up by the police, and more
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: evidence to support that is coming out all the time,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and so that's what we're pursuing at the moment, that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: we were actually deliberately kept in the dark by the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: police and we were steered in the wrong direction. Now,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: whether that was because they've got something to hide and
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: they're trying to protect somebody, or whether it was just
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a sort of an accident of fate. I don't know,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: but our investigations coming up, I think we'll shed a
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: bit of light on that. We'll see how go.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I think you've got some new leads. And that's what
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I find amazing about you, Davi, is you've not given up,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: and you think with these cold cases to give when
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: they're so you get to the point where you think
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: to yourself, there's about two or three people in the
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: entire world who were thinking about this case and working
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: hard on it, because they just move on and unless you,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: as a family continue to agitate, continue to ask questions,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: it will just disappear. And I've seen this in other
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: cases that I cover, where when the last family member
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: passes away, there's virtually no chance of resolution. So you've
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: got a real urgency about what you're doing.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Well. The reason is because, for you know, forty five
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: years we were told only two things are known, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that is the date, time and place the girl's left
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and the date, time and place Robin's body was found.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Nothing else is known. Nobody saw anything, nobody knew anything.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: There is no hope of anything being known, So you
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: might as well give up and go home. That was
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: what we were told basically, But it's only since Mick
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: gern has just pulled the whole thing together and just
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: found witnesses, and it's only since then that we have
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: a chance to maybe find Anita's remains and give her
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a decent burial that she deserves.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: How important is that to you? I mean it's self evident,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: but I think if you've never been in this position
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: where you've lost a loved one and you've not got
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: the remains to bury, what does that represent to you
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: and your family?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Well, you can imagine what it represents, but especially when
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: they've been treated so badly, you know, when it's such
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: a such a tragedy, what happened to them, You know
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you want to do something good.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: For because I think missing person's detectives have always told
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: me that without a body to bury, there's always that
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: glimmer of hope that one day they're going to walk
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: down the driveway and say, well, I've been off somewhere
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: else for forty plus years. But as terrible as it
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: is to discover, and I'm sure for Robin Hoynevil Bartram's
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: family that was a difficult discovery, finding those remains is
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: some form of closure for you.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, in early days we perhaps had
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that hope that Anita might turn up, but she was
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: not the sort of girl who would just disappear. You know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: we were a strong family. She just wouldn't do that.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: But you know, as the years and the decades have
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: gone by, the hope of that is just dissolved into nothing.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Not that there was much hope of that in the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: first place. I think we pretty well knew that something
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: bad must have happened to them, you know, fairly soon
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: after they left because other you know, no money was spent,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: they didn't have much hash with them, and their bank
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: accounts weren't touched and they never made any phone calls.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: So you know, whatever happened took place fairly soon after
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: they went missing. I think.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: So you think it might have as mixed theory is
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: that they fell in with a group of crooks or
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: hooligans as you put it, This might have happened days
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: after they left Melbourne, do you think, Well.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Either that or they were somehow not kidnapped but certainly
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: misled and led astray pretty strongly. And then I don't
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: know a matter of days, matter of weeks, but it
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: couldn't have been more than more than months, because I'm
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: sure she would have I don't know anyway. Look, it's
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: all just supposition, really, who knows that's right.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: But what's not supposition is that at least Robin made
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: it to Sensible Creek near Pentland there, just near Chater's
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Towers where her remains were found. And when you and
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I walked those streets talked to people up there, more
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: information came out and you start to see the shithouse
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: investigation that was conducted by Queensland Police. I've got mates
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: up in Queensland Police, so I'm not characterizing all of
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: them this way, but the way that they failed to
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: follow up local leads. Let's look at some of those things.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: We know.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: A lady called Merle White saw the girls at the
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Pentland Hotel when there was a music night on there,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: and she was absolutely adamant that she'd seen them, and
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: that they had taken a ride with a guy in
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: a cowboy hat who may have even called himself cowboy,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: who bore a striking resemblance to Ivan Mulatt. Police never
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: told you that, did they No? And then later that
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: night Merle and her mother are driving back to Charter's
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Towers and they're getting near the area Sensible Creek and
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: they see in the headlights in the distance a car
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: parked on the side of the road, a group of men,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: one man jumping up and down on something. And Merle's
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: mother said, this is not right, keep going, Merle, let's go.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: The following day, they're back in Charter's Towers. Merle sees
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the same man that she saw in the Pentland Hotel.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Now he's got a big scratch down his face. How
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: does this happen? And she was menaced or threatened by
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: that individual, who she believed to be Ivan Malatt. Did
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: the police tell you any of this? No, the police
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: spoke to Merle White, she tried to give her evidence.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: What happened to it?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Well, the particular policeman who I won't name, who was
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: tasked with getting Merle's story and taking her out to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the scene of the crime, made Merle very very suspicious
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and very uneasy. He was very creepy and was sort
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of trying to it seemed like he was trying to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: put the hard word on her. And then as she
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: got close to her Sensible Creek, she started to think
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that this is according to Merle's daughter, she started to
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: think that she better not say too much because he
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: might try to implicate her in the crime and make
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: her seem like she's one of the guilty party. Because
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: he was acting so suspicious himself, she didn't trust him
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: at all, so she threw him off the scent and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: just refused to cooperate and nominated at a different place
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: just to get out of the situation. Really, And then
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: after that police refused to take her seriously or refuse
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to have anything to do with her, and refuse to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: take her dying declaration and threatened her daughter to leave
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the whole thing alone, and you know, not have anything
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to do with it anymore.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we make no allegations. Usually in my career, when
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I got the choice between a conspiracy and a fuck up,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: I always go for the fuck upright, But there may
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: indeed be a conspiracy in this case. And the idea
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: that Merle's testimony was not reliable or somehow motivated by
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: malice or something. You have to look at that in
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: relation to what she told her husband John on her deathbed,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: that she told him he has to pursue this story.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: And we interviewed John and his story was crystal clear
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the way that I've related it to you, and he
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: was thumping the table and in tears trying to get
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: people to understand what Merle said was correct and should
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: be followed up.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm like you, I have no grudge against police
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: in general. In fact, you know, we've had really good
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: policeman members of the family. You know, I've got the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: greatest admiration for some of the individuals and for the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: difficult job. But you know, it's a job that does
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: attract the sort of people who you wouldn't really want
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in that job. And maybe some of those people were involved,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but certainly the performance of the police
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: in this case has been shabby.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: When we are on the ground in Pentland talking to
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: locals who had been there for a long time, the
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: first thing they said was look at corrupt police. They
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: mentioned a guy called MERV Stevenson who was the former
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: head of the Stocks and I'm going to do a
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: whole other episode on him because there's a lot of
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: murky doings around his career and his possible involvement in
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: murders or cover up the murders. And you also get
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: back to this attitude that was taken to hitchhikers generally
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: that silly girls. They shouldn't have been hitchhiking. They almost
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: deserved what they got.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, one of the local residents said, oh, hitchhiker
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: is a fair game, aren't they.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: And they also told us that there was a number
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of people in that area passing through working at the
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: meat works on the way to mining jobs and so forth,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: and under assumed names. And these two young attractive girls,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: quite naive, quite suggestible, up for fun adventures, might have
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: been gold into a full sense of security. And I
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: can see that scenario happening, and it's such a tragedy.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: And when we went to Sensible Creek and we looked
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: at the location where Robin's remains were found, my sense
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: was that there hadn't been a big enough search upstream.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: And there's an assumption that Robin must have been killed
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: under that bridge, and I don't think that there's sufficient
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: evidence to confirm that. When I looked at the rainfall
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: records at that time in seventy t there were big floods,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: it was quite possible that they might have been killed
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: further away from the road, which would make sense. And
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: therefore another search out on that floodplain might reveal something new.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Yep. And there's a lot of confusion about exactly where
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Robin's body was found too, because in the newspaper of
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the date when they were found, the text of the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: article says that they were found near or under the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: railway bridge, but the photo of the police digging is
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: under the road bridge. When we talked to one of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the crew who found the body, well, he seemed to
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: indicate that it was somewhere in between the railway bridge
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: and the road bridge. But I've got to get back
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: up there and get a more accurate idea from him.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're talking about Shorty who he found at home,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: knocked on his door. He was in the middle of
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: a couple of libations in the afternoon when we spoke
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: to him, and he had been there that day wet weather,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: it was thirsty weather indeed, So her body was found there,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: badly decomposed, virtually a skeleton. And that was in November
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy two. Another suspect was in the area
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: very soon before that, John Andrew Stuart. We know he
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: was in Pentland because he actually robbed a local man
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: called Randall Wilson of some items and a suitcase and
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: a transistor and so forth that he also pitched into
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Sensible Creek. So I think John Andrew Stewart is a
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: reasonable suspect to considering what a callous, nasty individual he was.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: He went on to murder multiple people in the fire
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: bombing of the Whiskey A Go Go in nineteen seventy three.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: But the problem is, if we believe the rate of decomposition,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: which the police suggested Robin had been killed up to
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: three months earlier, that doesn't work for Stuart.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not the only one who suspects Stuart, But
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: to me, there's a couple of things working against it.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: One is the rate of decomposition. And I know the
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: decomposition is much faster up there in the hot, humid conditions,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: but not that much faster, you know. I mean the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: body was found in November. He was up there in November.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: You know, I couldn't have got like that in just
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: two weeks, even if the pigs had been worrying the body,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and you know, the wild pigs and all that. It
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: just to me that it doesn't add up on that count.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is I just put myself in
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: John Andrews Stewart's shoes, and think if I had buried
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: a body under a bridge and tried to conceal it,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be throwing somebody's stolen goods on top of it,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: which could lead straight back to me, because I would
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: be trying to dissociate myself from from the whole thing.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing though, when we were there, the
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: creek was virtually dry, and then a huge thunderstorm came
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: through and suddenly it was running a banker while we
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: were there, And I can see a situation where Anita
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: and Robin could have been murdered upstream and then floodwaters
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: carry them down. True, And then it kind of makes
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: sense because I don't believe this idea that wild pigs
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: could have attacked Robin's body and not left it completely scattered,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: because the skeleton was not disarticulated. She was whole, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: there was clothes with her still and so forth.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: So we have to consider the decomposition rate, and I
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: just can't conceivably see how it can get into that
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: state in two weeks. You know, If John Andrew Stuart
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: was there early in November, the body was found I
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: think on the fifteenth of November, so that leaves no
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: time for decomposition to happen, you know.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my personal view is that that wasn't the murder site,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: that it was further upstream. And unfortunately we don't have
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Robin's remains to refer to either, because in a flood
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy four, the forensic headquarters in Brisbane was
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: flooded and her remains were carried away for a second
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: time in a cruel irony, which also hampers any reinvestigation
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: of her remains.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Now, yes, it is sad, but there are still witnesses
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: alive so pursuing that avenue, and there may be some
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: other avenues which may yet still prove fruitful, so we
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: still plug away at it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Which I really admire you for. And you've dealt with
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: some absolutely bizarre, insulting, awful scenarios. For instance, when a
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: psychic came up with the idea that your ex partner,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the mother of your daughter, was Anita somehow, that she
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: had decided to take on this new identity and not
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: alert the family and then become your partner. I mean,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: you're involved in the conspiracy.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's supposed to have come down from Queensland, had
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: an incestuous relationship with me which produced a daughter, and
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: then she's gone back up to Queensland and she's living
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: there under a false identity. Yeah, the whole thing seems bizarre,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: but it would have taken the police five minutes on
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the computer to look on the Internet, and they would
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: have seen that Anita and Jody were two totally different
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: looking people, and they could see Jody's family background on
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the computer too. I mean, it's like there's been other,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: much more solid seeming leads which they've discounted out of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: hand and haven't even bothered to follow up, and yet
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: this sort of crazy psychic pops up and produces a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: totally unbelievable story which they don't bother it's and they
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: do this Dawn raid. You know, it's just laughable.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: It is laughable. It is laughable. And I've been doing
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: a running survey of detectives over my career to ask them,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: has a psychic ever actually assisted you to resolve a crime?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: But I'm still zero after all these years. Despite the
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: fact that some of these psychics do purport to be successful,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I'd love to hear from a psychic. If you do
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: have evidence that you can solve crimes, you can also
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: find my car keys that I lost last week. So
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: your parents went to their graves not finding out, that's right.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: How do you deal with the idea that you may
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: never find out either?
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, it's nothing new. I mean I've been resigned
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to the fact that I would never find anything out
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: for forty odd years until Mick Gern actually did some
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: first class detective work and found witnesses, evidence and so forth.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And the book it's called Here Our Crime. It gives
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: all the steps, all the evidence, So if anybody wants
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to follow it up, that's what I recommend. We're actually
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: trying to call for a Commission of Inquiry to try
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and get witnesses onto the witness stand to testify under oath,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: because it's the only way we really get people to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: open up. You know, people who I know had firsthand
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: knowledge of the girl's disappearance said to me, oh, I
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: don't remember anything from that time. Sorry, I just can't remember.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Whereas everybody else in the town, everybody else we talked to,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: had really strong memories of.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: It, that's right, And we found new evidence just walking
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: around last year. So you wonder what the police could
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: do with their compelling powers, if you like, with these witnesses,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: because I think Pentland in particular is a small town
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: with a big secret.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting town, Pentland, and we met some love
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: people there and I think somehow we've got to get
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the secrets to open up. You know, a lot of
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: those people seem to know more than they were letting on.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I certainly hope that this will come to some
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: kind of resolution. We're going to keep fighting. I'll never
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: stop trying to get this story back in the media,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: trying to see if some new evidence can come to light,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: because you deserve it. I Needa deserves it, and Robin
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Jynvill Bartram deserves it as well.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Well. I really appreciate your help with his Adam, and
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: you know you've really you've put in a lot of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: effort too, I've got to say, and it's greatly appreciated you.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Not as much as you, mate, but I'm proud and
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: pleased to be alongside to do it again here in
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: this podcast. So thanks for you time today, mate.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: It was David Cunningham, the brother of Anita Cunningham, missing
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: since July nineteen seventy two. There are people out there
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: who know what happened, and if you're listening, it's time
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: to come forward. If not to me, you can send
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: me an email on Adam shannded writer at gmail dot com,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: or if you're not comfortable talking to the media, call
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: crime stoppers one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero. There's
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: somebody out there who knows someone who knows something. It's
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: time to resolve this mystery and to bring Anita home.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: This has been real crime with Adam Shanned. Thanks for listening.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
• 26:35
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• 26:38
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• 26:41
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• 26:45
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