WEBVTT - Helen |13

0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:09.319
<v Speaker 1>You are about to receive a film call from the

0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.600
<v Speaker 1>correctional facility. The conversation will be.

0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:18.040
<v Speaker 2>Recorded after the inquest into William Tirel's disappearance finishes hearing

0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:19.160
<v Speaker 2>evidence in public.

0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.520
<v Speaker 1>If you do not wish to receive this call, please

0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:22.280
<v Speaker 1>hang up now.

0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.640
<v Speaker 2>A lawyer for the New South Wales State Coroner sends

0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:26.320
<v Speaker 2>me an email.

0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.920
<v Speaker 1>This call is originating from the Shortland Correctional Center.

0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.760
<v Speaker 2>With a link to dozens and dozens of exhibits that

0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:40.320
<v Speaker 2>were tendered at the inquest, including witness statements, photographs, things

0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:51.080
<v Speaker 2>we've never seen before and these recordings of Frank Abbott

0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.920
<v Speaker 2>inside prison in November twenty nineteen, where Frank is serving

0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:01.520
<v Speaker 2>time for sexually abusing children and here he's talking on

0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.080
<v Speaker 2>the phone to a Christian pastor, Martin Parrish and his

0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:05.959
<v Speaker 2>wife Jeannette.

0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:07.800
<v Speaker 1>I'm really good, thank you.

0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:08.240
<v Speaker 3>How are you.

0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.960
<v Speaker 4>Days? It's not funny really, it's the.

0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.360
<v Speaker 2>First time we've heard these recordings, which have never previously

0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:25.440
<v Speaker 2>been made public, and listening to them, the first thing

0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:32.039
<v Speaker 2>that strikes me, why yesterday, is that Frank who and

0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.680
<v Speaker 2>I'll stress this, Frank's in prison for sexually and indecently

0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.600
<v Speaker 2>assaulting children. Frank is winging.

0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:47.680
<v Speaker 4>We had four full days and two days locking in

0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:48.600
<v Speaker 4>the last couple of weeks.

0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.240
<v Speaker 1>Ah, that's very good.

0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.560
<v Speaker 2>Frank says, he's been locked up for too long. Inside

0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:57.560
<v Speaker 2>his prison cell.

0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.960
<v Speaker 4>Breakfast and they brought at luncher it.

0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:10.440
<v Speaker 2>Frank complains the prison breakfast was late coming and lunch

0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:15.840
<v Speaker 2>was too early. I mean Didham's.

0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:19.560
<v Speaker 4>A few days ago now.

0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.600
<v Speaker 2>But then Frank says he's spoken to his two surviving brothers,

0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:29.720
<v Speaker 2>Les and David. He says the police investigating William's disappearance

0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:31.359
<v Speaker 2>have been up to see them.

0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:35.800
<v Speaker 4>They're in the place.

0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:44.160
<v Speaker 2>Frank says the cops asked his brothers about a murder murder,

0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.520
<v Speaker 2>a murder Frank was charged with and where he was

0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:52.960
<v Speaker 2>found not guilty.

0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.919
<v Speaker 4>And the second to half the fall half during the

0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.399
<v Speaker 4>twelve months later, at another four and a half weeks.

0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:04.640
<v Speaker 2>In, the cops are still bringing it up. Frank, sis

0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:11.839
<v Speaker 2>have done this one, saying oh, he's done this, and

0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.840
<v Speaker 2>he's done that. We think he might have done this one.

0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:23.120
<v Speaker 2>The priest answers, well, that's that's that's fair thinking, and

0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.400
<v Speaker 2>Jeanette Parish chips in not fair.

0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:26.880
<v Speaker 5>I'm not guilty.

0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:28.680
<v Speaker 6>You should be able to say I'm not guilty.

0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.680
<v Speaker 2>But what exactly do the police mean by saying we

0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.280
<v Speaker 2>think he might have done this one? Were they talking

0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:50.440
<v Speaker 2>about William? If so, Frank denies it. That beat means

0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.680
<v Speaker 2>the conversation has to end soon. You only get a

0:03:53.680 --> 0:04:03.480
<v Speaker 2>few minutes on a prison phone call. In the rush

0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.200
<v Speaker 2>to end the call, nobody seems to ask Frank who

0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:18.080
<v Speaker 2>was it? He was found not guilty of murdering. I'm

0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.280
<v Speaker 2>Dan box and from news dot com dot Au. This

0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:34.400
<v Speaker 2>is witness William Tyrrell Episode thirteen. Helen Helen Mary Harrison

0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.040
<v Speaker 2>was a teenager with dark hair and a bright smile,

0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.200
<v Speaker 2>and she was all of seventeen years old, but looked

0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.000
<v Speaker 2>younger as she left work at the local store in

0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:50.640
<v Speaker 2>Pitttown in Western Sydney on Saturday, the sixteenth of March

0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:57.320
<v Speaker 2>nineteen sixty eight. It was hot that afternoon, early autumn,

0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.680
<v Speaker 2>and a storm was building up as Helen set out

0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:05.040
<v Speaker 2>to cycle the few kilometers through farmland and scattered houses

0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:11.200
<v Speaker 2>to her home and her family. Only she never got there.

0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.600
<v Speaker 2>Today few people remember Helen, but among them is her

0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.080
<v Speaker 2>brother Peter. I meet him in a cafe in a

0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.640
<v Speaker 2>built up part of Western Sydney, where Peter brings his

0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:31.800
<v Speaker 2>old handwritten notes from decades ago and fading newspaper clippings.

0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:37.400
<v Speaker 2>Peter was fourteen when it happened, but today he's an

0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:42.560
<v Speaker 2>old man and sitting together, it feels like he's wrapped

0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:49.279
<v Speaker 2>up in grief or silence or something. He's hesitant his

0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:57.200
<v Speaker 2>words stop and start or trail away. Later, we sit

0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:00.520
<v Speaker 2>in the sunlight coming through a small window in his home,

0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.960
<v Speaker 2>and I asked him to tell me about his sister.

0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:17.680
<v Speaker 7>Well, being older than us, she was working, had more

0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:22.320
<v Speaker 7>of her own life than her cellphone, my brother.

0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:22.320
<v Speaker 5>And.

0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:29.919
<v Speaker 2>What kind of person was she? Looking back? How do

0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.640
<v Speaker 2>you think of her?

0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.760
<v Speaker 7>Well, she enjoyed. She actually had to cycle to work

0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:42.360
<v Speaker 7>at Pittown, which is quite a distance, four or five

0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:47.800
<v Speaker 7>kilometers to Pittown. But apparently she used to sing on

0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:54.880
<v Speaker 7>the bike other people who told us, and just worked

0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:55.719
<v Speaker 7>in the general store.

0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.159
<v Speaker 2>So she used to sing on the bike she cycled

0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:02.040
<v Speaker 2>to and from work.

0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:07.960
<v Speaker 7>Yes, and more of a social life than my brother

0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:08.279
<v Speaker 7>and I.

0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.800
<v Speaker 2>How would you describe her physically as you remember her?

0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:25.400
<v Speaker 7>Oh? Maybe quite good looking and more matures than than us.

0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:29.200
<v Speaker 7>That's about how as much I.

0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:35.680
<v Speaker 2>Can can I and I'm sorry to do this, can

0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:40.360
<v Speaker 2>I ask what you remember of what happened to her?

0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:48.600
<v Speaker 7>Oh, certainly remember it all on the day where there

0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:56.880
<v Speaker 7>was a big storm in Pittown, fairly hot weekend, when

0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:03.000
<v Speaker 7>a hot day turns into a storm. And we believe

0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.520
<v Speaker 7>this is maybe part of the reason she accepted a

0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:06.680
<v Speaker 7>lift because of the rain.

0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:11.680
<v Speaker 2>And what came next.

0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:23.760
<v Speaker 7>Oh, we're waiting and waiting on the afternoon, but she

0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.880
<v Speaker 7>didn't come out. Excuse me.

0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.360
<v Speaker 2>Peter takes a moment looking out the window as his

0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.199
<v Speaker 2>memory reaches back across the decades.

0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.680
<v Speaker 7>But it was later in the day, I think four

0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.040
<v Speaker 7>or five, and my father, he was driving around looking

0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:48.079
<v Speaker 7>all through the night. Really we didn't know.

0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:53.959
<v Speaker 2>What had happened, and the police became involved. And can

0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.280
<v Speaker 2>you remember much of their investigation at the time.

0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:03.240
<v Speaker 7>The police, I think only for in the beginning. They

0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.320
<v Speaker 7>didn't think anything had happened to her. They thought she

0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:10.599
<v Speaker 7>may have run off, left home, shot through somewhere, but

0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.600
<v Speaker 7>she was happy to her no reason to do that.

0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:22.160
<v Speaker 7>And they didn't try and look at all for the

0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.439
<v Speaker 7>first early days.

0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:27.520
<v Speaker 2>And how did that feel?

0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:30.600
<v Speaker 7>Well, it was a bit hopeless for everyone. We didn't

0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:38.960
<v Speaker 7>just kept on just driving around and talking to people

0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.480
<v Speaker 7>and asking if they and local people told us that's

0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:49.720
<v Speaker 7>any blue utility and three people in it. I think

0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:56.200
<v Speaker 7>it was three or Helen in the middle. Some of

0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.560
<v Speaker 7>had seen a bike in the back of a blue utility.

0:09:58.880 --> 0:09:59.680
<v Speaker 7>That was the rumor.

0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.160
<v Speaker 2>But this was your family doing the looking at this point.

0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:06.800
<v Speaker 2>The police weren't looking.

0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:14.760
<v Speaker 7>I don't think they were until the basket was discovered.

0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:17.200
<v Speaker 2>That was Helen's basket.

0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:25.240
<v Speaker 7>I think it was about a week later, and that

0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:30.560
<v Speaker 7>was the first clue of where wish you might have been.

0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:33.559
<v Speaker 2>And then they started to look.

0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.320
<v Speaker 7>Yes, and then they found in the bush land there

0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.360
<v Speaker 7>the shallow grove off the side of the road there.

0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.920
<v Speaker 2>Can I ask how that was for you as a

0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.000
<v Speaker 2>child and for your parents.

0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:58.400
<v Speaker 7>Well, very traumatic of course then, but it was worse

0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:03.520
<v Speaker 7>for mother anybody. There was a big loss in a

0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:03.840
<v Speaker 7>lot of.

0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:10.959
<v Speaker 2>Ways, and that loss is something you've lived with. Imagine

0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.959
<v Speaker 2>your parents lived with for the whold of their lives

0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:19.559
<v Speaker 2>without ever maybe being given an answer as to exactly

0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.040
<v Speaker 2>what happened by the police and the courts.

0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:29.040
<v Speaker 7>Yes, that is true. There's been no firm result about habbit,

0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.200
<v Speaker 7>although it's been We've had two trials and a lot

0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:42.080
<v Speaker 7>of do you say evidence and some stronger evidence, which

0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.200
<v Speaker 7>is all amounted to nothing in the end as far

0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:50.760
<v Speaker 7>as finding out the truth.

0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.679
<v Speaker 2>And watching all of that over the years, and it

0:11:55.840 --> 0:12:02.360
<v Speaker 2>was decades, what do you think looking back at that now.

0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:11.319
<v Speaker 7>It seemed to be that this type of murder case

0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:17.720
<v Speaker 7>as it was, was unknown well there anyone had heard

0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:25.079
<v Speaker 7>of before in Maria district, town district, and it was.

0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:29.280
<v Speaker 2>It was just.

0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:39.520
<v Speaker 7>More hard to deal with, I suppose. And yes, even

0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:46.920
<v Speaker 7>with a lot of evidence of some degree and opinions

0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:54.040
<v Speaker 7>from other people and a missing watch which Habit had

0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.480
<v Speaker 7>boasted about. He's told other people that he's got they've

0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:03.440
<v Speaker 7>seen watching the club box of the car.

0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:09.440
<v Speaker 2>Did Helen wear a watch? Oh yes, We'll come back

0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:10.720
<v Speaker 2>to that watch later.

0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.680
<v Speaker 7>And we thought the police would have been taking more

0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:19.920
<v Speaker 7>action and were dividing more people that type of thing.

0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:26.240
<v Speaker 2>And later when Abbott was eventually charged and taken to court,

0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:33.160
<v Speaker 2>when we met, you said you had doubts about the

0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.040
<v Speaker 2>jury system based on what you've been through.

0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:43.000
<v Speaker 7>The whole thing is just hanging on a jury, and

0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.760
<v Speaker 7>it only takes one person not to agree with it,

0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:55.760
<v Speaker 7>because and then the whole jury can file. And some

0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:00.200
<v Speaker 7>people possibly weren't happy with the decision and just said I.

0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:07.160
<v Speaker 2>And you would have seen Frank in the courtroom.

0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.800
<v Speaker 7>Yes, I saw him in the court and going him,

0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:13.199
<v Speaker 7>but I never saw him coming out.

0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.760
<v Speaker 2>Could you describe him now?

0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:20.000
<v Speaker 7>He's a stand over me. Yeah, literally, that's what people

0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.240
<v Speaker 7>used to say. That's a word of her. It's written

0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.400
<v Speaker 7>them from what other people say. But he did look

0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:32.280
<v Speaker 7>a bit fearsome. I suppose.

0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.240
<v Speaker 2>Frank looked fearsome enough that even his own lawyer described

0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.080
<v Speaker 2>him in court as someone who stands over people to

0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.320
<v Speaker 2>get his way. But that doesn't make him a murderer,

0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:52.760
<v Speaker 2>the lawyer argued. And as the jury found, looking back

0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.120
<v Speaker 2>at what happened, what are your regrets?

0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:03.800
<v Speaker 7>Oh, the time factor well landor in sixty eight, natrial

0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:10.160
<v Speaker 7>wasn't until ninety one or two. That's ridicuous, twenty three

0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:16.760
<v Speaker 7>or four years and literally that's that's terrible.

0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.880
<v Speaker 2>And what have you heard from the police since that trial?

0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:29.760
<v Speaker 7>Very little, if any that I can remember.

0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.600
<v Speaker 2>It's now fifty years or more since Helen went missing,

0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:45.040
<v Speaker 2>and we've heard Frank's name in the years since. In

0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:49.720
<v Speaker 2>relation to the William Tyrell investigation. You said the police

0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:55.240
<v Speaker 2>haven't contacted you since the trial. Do you still have

0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.520
<v Speaker 2>any hopes that what happened to your so that can

0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.960
<v Speaker 2>be resolved? What do you hope for now?

0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:10.200
<v Speaker 7>I would like to see a resolution, But there's because

0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.480
<v Speaker 7>there has been a lot of evidence over the years,

0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:21.160
<v Speaker 7>a lot of people interviewed and provided their thoughts and

0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:26.720
<v Speaker 7>some facts, and it's all come to nothing in spite

0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:36.160
<v Speaker 7>of two court cases after all this time, and we

0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.360
<v Speaker 7>know Abbott is a bad person, and the sheer amount

0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:47.240
<v Speaker 7>of stories, really, it's got to be there's got to

0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:48.640
<v Speaker 7>be more interest put in Abbot.

0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.520
<v Speaker 2>You'd like to see the police pay more attention to

0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:54.240
<v Speaker 2>Frank Abbott.

0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:01.800
<v Speaker 7>Certainly. Yes, it's a very old case, but is not

0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:14.160
<v Speaker 7>of unsold answers questions.

0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:21.879
<v Speaker 2>After walking outside, Peter's bicycle is standing up against his

0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.840
<v Speaker 2>garage wall. He says he cycles like his sister Helen,

0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.720
<v Speaker 2>and I think of her cycling home from work on

0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:34.720
<v Speaker 2>that day singing. It's an image that I can't shake,

0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.280
<v Speaker 2>and nor can Nina, the producer.

0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.560
<v Speaker 8>On this series, All right, thank you both.

0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.920
<v Speaker 2>Nina has spent months now trying to find out more

0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.040
<v Speaker 2>about Helen's death and what happened after.

0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.479
<v Speaker 8>So what I want to do today is take you

0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.399
<v Speaker 8>through what I've found out about this afternoon.

0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.199
<v Speaker 2>She's asked me and Gary Jubilin to join her in

0:17:59.240 --> 0:17:59.840
<v Speaker 2>the studio.

0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.160
<v Speaker 8>And this information is based on court documents that I've

0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:08.000
<v Speaker 8>been able to find and newspaper articles that were written

0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:08.680
<v Speaker 8>at the time.

0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.760
<v Speaker 2>Gary is one of the detectives who led the investigation

0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:17.480
<v Speaker 2>into William Tyrrel's disappearance. He's got a checkered history with

0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.520
<v Speaker 2>the case, which we've talked about a lot earlier in

0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:26.600
<v Speaker 2>this series. But nobody disputes Gary knows police work. He

0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.159
<v Speaker 2>spent thirty four years in the New South Wales Police Force,

0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.800
<v Speaker 2>most of them investigating homicides.

0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:36.160
<v Speaker 8>And what I'm going to try and do is present

0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.040
<v Speaker 8>it to you in a way that's not my opinion.

0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.000
<v Speaker 8>You know, I'm trying to color it. So if you

0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.600
<v Speaker 8>think I am doing that, speak up let me know.

0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:46.720
<v Speaker 9>Okay, just affects me.

0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.760
<v Speaker 8>Just the facts, all right. Shall we get started, Okay,

0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.440
<v Speaker 8>So it's nineteen sixty eight. Let's start with Frank Abbott

0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.879
<v Speaker 8>and what he was doing in nineteen sixty eight. So

0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.560
<v Speaker 8>Frank's in his twenties and he's living with his parents

0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.720
<v Speaker 8>in Kingswood, which is a suburb in the west of Sydney.

0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:05.040
<v Speaker 8>It's not too far from Penrith.

0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:06.919
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so it's far west of Sydney.

0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.960
<v Speaker 8>Yeah. Frank's from a big family, has got lots of

0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.720
<v Speaker 8>brothers and sisters. And he's also I guess what you'd

0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:18.720
<v Speaker 8>call like a petty criminal, so car theft, burglary, break

0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:20.560
<v Speaker 8>and enter, that kind of level of criminal.

0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:20.880
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:22.080
<v Speaker 2>How old is he?

0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.840
<v Speaker 8>Roughly in his sort of mid to late late twenties. Yeah, yeah,

0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.120
<v Speaker 8>so that's Frank at that point. About half an hour

0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:35.800
<v Speaker 8>from Kingswood is pitt Town and that is where Helen Harrison,

0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:37.760
<v Speaker 8>who's seventeen at the time, is working.

0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.000
<v Speaker 9>I do Pittown then, what are we talking? Sixty eight?

0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.399
<v Speaker 9>That would a ban A very small place, small place.

0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.400
<v Speaker 2>It's right on the fringe of Sydney bush than.

0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.040
<v Speaker 9>Yeah, acres and farmland and all that. Pit Town.

0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:52.720
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.

0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.920
<v Speaker 8>Helen at the time, she was really reliable, go to work,

0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.320
<v Speaker 8>come home. On the sixteenth of March nineteen sixty eight,

0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.760
<v Speaker 8>she left work about twelve forty five pm and she

0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.040
<v Speaker 8>hopped on her bike to ride home, as she always did.

0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.639
<v Speaker 8>People saw her leave, but she never made it home.

0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:11.520
<v Speaker 8>She was not the kind of teenager who would just

0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.119
<v Speaker 8>go off without telling her parents, so they raised the

0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.640
<v Speaker 8>alarm pretty quickly, there's a search and they just can't

0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:18.120
<v Speaker 8>find her.

0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.000
<v Speaker 2>How good would a search have been from the police

0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.280
<v Speaker 2>at that time, Gary sixty eight.

0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.120
<v Speaker 9>It would literally be driving around on the roads and

0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:32.320
<v Speaker 9>they wouldn't have the communication seventeen year old girl leaving

0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.480
<v Speaker 9>the store riding on a country road. I dare say

0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.080
<v Speaker 9>that the search would be that she hasn't been involved

0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.399
<v Speaker 9>in an accident or whatever. So I think it'd be

0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.400
<v Speaker 9>a cursory drive along the roadways on the most likely

0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:46.560
<v Speaker 9>path that she would have taken.

0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:48.840
<v Speaker 2>So it's not flooding the area like we saw were William.

0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.640
<v Speaker 9>I wouldn't imagine seventeen year girl on the bike sixty eight,

0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:54.880
<v Speaker 9>So I think that's what the search would have been.

0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.760
<v Speaker 8>So it's about a week later they find Helen's body.

0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:03.520
<v Speaker 8>She's in a shallow grave in East Courageong, which is

0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:08.080
<v Speaker 8>around the area she was murdered, and she was found

0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.600
<v Speaker 8>naked from the waist down. I don't think that they

0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:11.760
<v Speaker 8>have a cause of death.

0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.960
<v Speaker 2>Do you know anything about You said it was a

0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.360
<v Speaker 2>shallow grave, but where it was it.

0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.199
<v Speaker 9>Was in the Carrageng Yeah, you've got pitt Town in

0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.680
<v Speaker 9>the plains windsor planes Richmond East Carriageong is as you're

0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.280
<v Speaker 9>starting to go up into the Blue Mountains, so that

0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:32.399
<v Speaker 9>would have been Yeah, it's a bit wild, so that

0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:34.560
<v Speaker 9>would be a place you'd take someone.

0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.120
<v Speaker 2>It's even further out of Sydney, it's more remote. You've

0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.520
<v Speaker 2>gone through this kind of idylic country edge and now

0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.959
<v Speaker 2>you're getting into the mountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.

0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:49.000
<v Speaker 8>They found the body and she had been paid at

0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.040
<v Speaker 8>her job about twenty dollars that was missing, her watch

0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.679
<v Speaker 8>was missing, her underwear was missing, and her bike was

0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.439
<v Speaker 8>missing at that time. But they did find that a

0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:00.000
<v Speaker 8>few months later.

0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.720
<v Speaker 2>Gary, can I ask a question which isn't a pleasant question,

0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:09.919
<v Speaker 2>or none of this is pleasant. If you find a

0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:15.240
<v Speaker 2>teenager's body roughly a week after she's died in sixty eight,

0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:17.919
<v Speaker 2>how do you tell she's been sexually assaulted?

0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:23.960
<v Speaker 9>Could be damage around the round, the vagina or the

0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:27.240
<v Speaker 9>anus that might have been because of the flesh. Potentially

0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:28.480
<v Speaker 9>that the flesh is still there.

0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:32.000
<v Speaker 2>So, because there's not going to be modern day forensics,

0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:32.800
<v Speaker 2>there's no DNA.

0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.119
<v Speaker 9>Maybe they'd swab for blood back then, but it's not DNA.

0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:37.960
<v Speaker 8>So she was naked from the waist down.

0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:39.800
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So that yeah, Okay, there's that.

0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.080
<v Speaker 8>So there's no immediate obvious suspect for the police. So

0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:47.520
<v Speaker 8>I wanted to ask you, Gary, I imagine this kind

0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:52.920
<v Speaker 8>of seemingly random attack where you don't have that obvious suspect.

0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:55.119
<v Speaker 8>That's got to be one of the hardest kind of

0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:56.280
<v Speaker 8>crimes to solve, the most.

0:22:56.320 --> 0:23:00.399
<v Speaker 9>Stranger murders are what we consider most difficult ones.

0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:02.320
<v Speaker 2>But would you assume it was a stranger murder?

0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.679
<v Speaker 9>I'm just answering them. Stranger murders are the most difficult ones.

0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:09.480
<v Speaker 9>But you'd be thinking, okay, a strange murder if someone

0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:11.720
<v Speaker 9>was just driving along the road, but you'd be looking

0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.760
<v Speaker 9>at all the local people around there who knew who

0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.240
<v Speaker 9>knew she rode that route. You're looking at people that

0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:23.280
<v Speaker 9>victimology is the early part of the murder investigation, finding

0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.359
<v Speaker 9>out what her lifestyle is, what the patterns were. The

0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.320
<v Speaker 9>fact that the local community all knew she rode home

0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:31.720
<v Speaker 9>that way, well, that would open up suspects to everyone

0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:33.679
<v Speaker 9>in the community, or potential suspects.

0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:35.720
<v Speaker 2>So it's a cop you'd actually on the basis, so

0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:38.120
<v Speaker 2>that'll almost be walking into town and looking at potentially

0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:39.760
<v Speaker 2>anybody there.

0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.119
<v Speaker 9>And then line of a questioning. You'd speak to a

0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.640
<v Speaker 9>family and friends, anyone that's been paying particular attention to her,

0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:48.920
<v Speaker 9>anyone that stands out in the community that's a little

0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:51.679
<v Speaker 9>bit strange in the behavior, So that would be the

0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:53.160
<v Speaker 9>way you work the community.

0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:57.320
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, and that's exactly what the police did. So they

0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:00.680
<v Speaker 8>cast a pretty wide net, the following up every possible lead.

0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:04.399
<v Speaker 8>By the time the case goes to trial decades later,

0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:07.879
<v Speaker 8>the court hears that the police have spoken two thousands

0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:09.520
<v Speaker 8>of people in relations.

0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:13.560
<v Speaker 2>Thousands, thousands in sixty eight. The cops said that much

0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:14.320
<v Speaker 2>work into.

0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:18.200
<v Speaker 9>It, you'd be astounded. Like some of the old school investigations,

0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:22.200
<v Speaker 9>they were fascinating the amount of detail. We didn't have computers.

0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:25.520
<v Speaker 9>It wasn't electronic, but there was a card system in place,

0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:28.520
<v Speaker 9>and you'd have boxes of cards and a bit of

0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:32.000
<v Speaker 9>information be stored alphabetically in the system.

0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:33.400
<v Speaker 2>Like cross reference between cards.

0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:35.560
<v Speaker 9>Yeah, there was a lot of collating to be done.

0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:38.200
<v Speaker 9>But yeah, they were thorough because they didn't have the

0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:41.760
<v Speaker 9>benefits that we've got currently, like we've CCTV for the

0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:44.520
<v Speaker 9>phone records all that. So it was just that legwork.

0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:46.159
<v Speaker 9>You had to go out and speak to people and

0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:47.960
<v Speaker 9>that was the thing that solved cases.

0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:51.240
<v Speaker 8>Well, that's definitely what they were doing. And as far

0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:52.800
<v Speaker 8>as I can tell from the court records that I

0:24:52.800 --> 0:24:55.879
<v Speaker 8>have access to, Frank Abbott first comes onto their radar

0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:58.359
<v Speaker 8>when a sixteen year old boy goes to the police

0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:00.719
<v Speaker 8>in the weeks after Helen's murder and he tells them

0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:04.159
<v Speaker 8>that about two weeks before Helen's disappearance, he'd spoken to

0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:08.160
<v Speaker 8>a passenger in an old white Courtina sedan who expressed

0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:10.360
<v Speaker 8>an interest in Helen and her whereabouts.

0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:12.280
<v Speaker 2>And so that's all from court records.

0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:12.560
<v Speaker 5>Yeap.

0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:15.160
<v Speaker 8>So a teenager goes to the police and said, hey,

0:25:15.680 --> 0:25:17.800
<v Speaker 8>saw this guy in this car and he asked me

0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:18.439
<v Speaker 8>about Helen.

0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:21.680
<v Speaker 9>When he asked him about Helen. That was prior to

0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:25.680
<v Speaker 9>helen disappearance. Okay, yeah, okay, Well that's definitely a line

0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:28.200
<v Speaker 9>of inquiry that you'd be wanting to follow up.

0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:31.360
<v Speaker 8>So they do, and they go to Frank and they

0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:34.200
<v Speaker 8>ask him about it in April of nineteen sixty eight,

0:25:34.240 --> 0:25:36.280
<v Speaker 8>so it's about a month after the murder, and he

0:25:36.359 --> 0:25:38.960
<v Speaker 8>confirms that, yes, he was a passenger in that white

0:25:39.000 --> 0:25:42.399
<v Speaker 8>Courtina and he says his friend Trevor was driving, but

0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:45.520
<v Speaker 8>he says he doesn't remember asking about Helen, he tells

0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:47.800
<v Speaker 8>the police that he had met Helen a few months

0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:50.960
<v Speaker 8>earlier at a dance and he'd seen her around since then.

0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:54.199
<v Speaker 8>So when the police then asking about his whereabouts on

0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:56.199
<v Speaker 8>the day that Helen went missing, he said that he

0:25:56.280 --> 0:25:59.359
<v Speaker 8>and his brother John visited a hotel in Penrith about

0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:02.520
<v Speaker 8>ten thirty am, had a couple of beers left. By

0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:06.280
<v Speaker 8>twelve thirty pm, John drove Frank to his home in Kingswood,

0:26:06.320 --> 0:26:09.000
<v Speaker 8>where he stayed until about four thirty when his other

0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:10.200
<v Speaker 8>brother came and picked him up.

0:26:11.080 --> 0:26:13.080
<v Speaker 2>So that's again court records.

0:26:12.760 --> 0:26:16.000
<v Speaker 9>That's all in break that down at ten thirty am

0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:19.560
<v Speaker 9>to twelve thirty pm at the pub, at the pub

0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:22.040
<v Speaker 9>and then his brother dropped him home.

0:26:22.320 --> 0:26:24.160
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, so he's at the pub with his brother John.

0:26:25.000 --> 0:26:28.320
<v Speaker 8>John drove him back to Kingswood and then another brother

0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:29.159
<v Speaker 8>came and picked him up.

0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:32.000
<v Speaker 9>She disappeared. What time she's sat at twelve forty five

0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:36.000
<v Speaker 9>she's riding the bike came, so he's given basically he's

0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:38.560
<v Speaker 9>with his brother John at the critical stage.

0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:40.840
<v Speaker 2>So what time was she last seen?

0:26:40.960 --> 0:26:41.880
<v Speaker 9>Twelve forty five?

0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:45.399
<v Speaker 2>Twelve forty five, so he's left the pub just before

0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:50.480
<v Speaker 2>then with his brother so the only alibi witness at

0:26:50.520 --> 0:26:52.000
<v Speaker 2>the crucial time would be his brother.

0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:55.119
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, so that's my next question. Gary, you get that

0:26:55.720 --> 0:26:58.920
<v Speaker 8>alibi given to you from a person of interest, who

0:26:58.920 --> 0:26:59.600
<v Speaker 8>do you speak to?

0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:02.960
<v Speaker 9>Go to the pub see if they were together. That

0:27:03.000 --> 0:27:06.719
<v Speaker 9>would be the first thing. And then I would be

0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:09.920
<v Speaker 9>grabbing the brother as quickly as I could and lock

0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:13.720
<v Speaker 9>him in and then speaking to other people, say, say

0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:16.000
<v Speaker 9>with the brother and associated with Frank, to see if

0:27:16.000 --> 0:27:16.840
<v Speaker 9>they corroborate it.

0:27:17.119 --> 0:27:19.880
<v Speaker 8>So the police don't speak to John, which is Frank's brother,

0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:23.720
<v Speaker 8>don't speak to John. In fact, no one speaks to

0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:26.720
<v Speaker 8>John until decades later when it goes to trial, and

0:27:26.760 --> 0:27:29.199
<v Speaker 8>at that point John has no memory of any of it.

0:27:29.359 --> 0:27:33.440
<v Speaker 2>So again it's court records saying absolutely the cops do

0:27:33.600 --> 0:27:37.919
<v Speaker 2>not speak to the person Frank nominates as his alibi witness.

0:27:38.280 --> 0:27:41.000
<v Speaker 8>Yes, and just as Slattery will later say in court,

0:27:41.320 --> 0:27:44.119
<v Speaker 8>such an interview might have been expected after the applicant

0:27:44.160 --> 0:27:46.520
<v Speaker 8>told police here and his brother John had visited a

0:27:46.520 --> 0:27:50.119
<v Speaker 8>hotel in Paris for several hours up to twelve thirty pm.

0:27:51.160 --> 0:27:53.960
<v Speaker 9>An understatement is it definitely should have been spoken to

0:27:54.119 --> 0:27:56.800
<v Speaker 9>and you'd be checking his hourbie like that.

0:27:57.680 --> 0:27:59.760
<v Speaker 2>Does that make any sense to you. If the cops

0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:02.120
<v Speaker 2>are working this hard enough that they speak to thousands

0:28:02.119 --> 0:28:05.520
<v Speaker 2>of people, but they don't speak to the brother who

0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:08.879
<v Speaker 2>Frank says he was with at the time, why are

0:28:08.920 --> 0:28:10.000
<v Speaker 2>you with that?

0:28:10.000 --> 0:28:13.320
<v Speaker 9>It comes down to I think leadership sometimes directions and

0:28:13.440 --> 0:28:16.679
<v Speaker 9>sheer volume of information comes in and like, we're looking

0:28:17.440 --> 0:28:19.720
<v Speaker 9>at it now, knowing what we know about Frank and

0:28:19.760 --> 0:28:22.080
<v Speaker 9>the type of person he is at that point in time.

0:28:22.160 --> 0:28:26.399
<v Speaker 9>He was in his mid twenties, might have the criminal history. Okay, well,

0:28:26.440 --> 0:28:29.280
<v Speaker 9>two blokes they go for a drink at the pub

0:28:29.440 --> 0:28:31.000
<v Speaker 9>that might have had that urgency.

0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:33.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, so he's a potentially just someone who's come

0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:36.000
<v Speaker 2>up just okay, we've checked what he says he was doing.

0:28:36.119 --> 0:28:38.200
<v Speaker 2>We ticked that box. Move on, because they might have

0:28:38.240 --> 0:28:40.200
<v Speaker 2>been looking at someone they might have had.

0:28:40.320 --> 0:28:43.680
<v Speaker 9>So I'm always cautious when we're looking at old investigations

0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:46.320
<v Speaker 9>at what the information did they have at the time.

0:28:52.800 --> 0:28:57.080
<v Speaker 8>We're not done with the allibis. So the police do

0:28:57.240 --> 0:28:59.680
<v Speaker 8>speak to Trevor, who was the driver of the Courtena

0:29:00.120 --> 0:29:01.840
<v Speaker 8>hang on, So this is the guy who was in

0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:04.920
<v Speaker 8>the car with Frank when they spoke to that teenager who.

0:29:04.760 --> 0:29:06.760
<v Speaker 2>Said Frank was asking about Helen.

0:29:07.160 --> 0:29:11.240
<v Speaker 8>So Trevor said that he did remember Frank asking the

0:29:11.280 --> 0:29:14.000
<v Speaker 8>teenager about a girl who lived nearby.

0:29:14.640 --> 0:29:17.000
<v Speaker 9>Okay, so you're ramping Frank up a little.

0:29:16.760 --> 0:29:17.720
<v Speaker 7>Bit there, a little bit.

0:29:17.920 --> 0:29:20.360
<v Speaker 8>And then they speak to another of Frank's brothers, So

0:29:20.440 --> 0:29:22.080
<v Speaker 8>not John, who said he said he was at the

0:29:22.080 --> 0:29:25.840
<v Speaker 8>pub with but Ted. Ted is the brother that Frank's

0:29:25.920 --> 0:29:28.000
<v Speaker 8>said came by in the afternoon and picked him up.

0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:31.080
<v Speaker 8>So Ted says that he was at work from six

0:29:31.160 --> 0:29:33.760
<v Speaker 8>thirty am until four pm in Penrith, and then he

0:29:33.800 --> 0:29:36.280
<v Speaker 8>went to his mum's place in Kingswood, which is where

0:29:36.840 --> 0:29:39.640
<v Speaker 8>Frank was living at four point fifteen pm, and he

0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:42.000
<v Speaker 8>said Frank was there with his parents and a friend

0:29:42.160 --> 0:29:46.040
<v Speaker 8>named Rodney. They also speak to Frank's mum and so

0:29:46.040 --> 0:29:48.200
<v Speaker 8>there's a record that she told police that Frank was

0:29:48.240 --> 0:29:49.400
<v Speaker 8>home with her that afternoon.

0:29:49.880 --> 0:29:51.840
<v Speaker 2>Well that might be why they don't speak to the

0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:53.680
<v Speaker 2>brother who Frank actually says he was with.

0:29:53.880 --> 0:29:58.680
<v Speaker 8>But you'll notice that Ted has said that Frank was

0:29:58.720 --> 0:30:01.680
<v Speaker 8>at home with a friend named Rodney. Yeah, Frank didn't

0:30:01.720 --> 0:30:03.680
<v Speaker 8>mention that in his first alibi.

0:30:04.760 --> 0:30:08.960
<v Speaker 9>So the problem is if they've not spoken to John,

0:30:09.040 --> 0:30:11.200
<v Speaker 9>but they've spoken the ted so that they have got

0:30:11.200 --> 0:30:15.000
<v Speaker 9>interest in him. Yeah, and then so that they've missed John.

0:30:15.720 --> 0:30:19.920
<v Speaker 2>John's the crucial And you're right, you've spotted a contradiction

0:30:20.840 --> 0:30:22.840
<v Speaker 2>in Frank's own account of what he was doing.

0:30:23.200 --> 0:30:23.400
<v Speaker 5>Yep.

0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:29.880
<v Speaker 8>So at this point the alibi is a little bit muddy.

0:30:30.760 --> 0:30:34.880
<v Speaker 9>Well it's not it's not confirmed. That's non alibi all

0:30:34.920 --> 0:30:35.480
<v Speaker 9>over the place.

0:30:35.560 --> 0:30:38.320
<v Speaker 2>And just to stress, everything that you're saying is coming

0:30:38.360 --> 0:30:40.680
<v Speaker 2>from court records that you've got, that you've been through.

0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:44.040
<v Speaker 2>So this is evidence the court has heard. Because yeah,

0:30:44.040 --> 0:30:45.760
<v Speaker 2>it does sound like if I was a cop working

0:30:45.840 --> 0:30:48.720
<v Speaker 2>that one, I'd want to go back to Frank again and.

0:30:48.600 --> 0:30:53.120
<v Speaker 8>Say, yeah, I was looking at that, going gee, if

0:30:53.160 --> 0:30:54.760
<v Speaker 8>I was a cop, I think maybe I would have

0:30:55.080 --> 0:30:58.520
<v Speaker 8>confirmed this. They didn't. At this point, what.

0:30:58.440 --> 0:30:59.240
<v Speaker 2>Do you reckon to that?

0:31:00.880 --> 0:31:04.080
<v Speaker 9>Again? Who knows what was operating on their minds. But

0:31:04.120 --> 0:31:07.320
<v Speaker 9>if you're looking at the gold class, Yeah, let's do

0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:09.920
<v Speaker 9>it right. Obviously you speak to John. And the moment

0:31:09.960 --> 0:31:13.760
<v Speaker 9>if Frank was a suspect, the moment Frank nominated John,

0:31:14.200 --> 0:31:17.120
<v Speaker 9>I would be prioritizing getting someone to speak to John

0:31:17.200 --> 0:31:19.000
<v Speaker 9>before Frank has an opportunity.

0:31:19.160 --> 0:31:21.880
<v Speaker 2>And the moment you notice the contradiction between what his

0:31:21.960 --> 0:31:23.680
<v Speaker 2>other brother says and what Frank said.

0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:25.880
<v Speaker 9>You want to go back, Yeah, but you'd be getting

0:31:25.880 --> 0:31:27.800
<v Speaker 9>to that person straight away, and don't let them be

0:31:27.800 --> 0:31:29.920
<v Speaker 9>able to I wonder.

0:31:29.760 --> 0:31:31.960
<v Speaker 8>If you're speaking to thousands of people, if you just

0:31:32.040 --> 0:31:34.719
<v Speaker 8>have this running list of these are things we have

0:31:34.760 --> 0:31:36.880
<v Speaker 8>to get to, you've got to confirm that person's well.

0:31:37.840 --> 0:31:42.000
<v Speaker 9>Literally up until the electronic systems come in. We'd have

0:31:42.040 --> 0:31:45.720
<v Speaker 9>a job book and a book and task number one,

0:31:45.960 --> 0:31:49.680
<v Speaker 9>go speak to Dan, box number two, go speak to Nana.

0:31:49.720 --> 0:31:51.960
<v Speaker 9>And you just have to keep that the whole time.

0:31:52.040 --> 0:31:56.920
<v Speaker 2>And if all of these little contradictions or missing persons

0:31:56.920 --> 0:31:59.800
<v Speaker 2>that you haven't spoken to, we're all in a card index,

0:32:00.360 --> 0:32:02.320
<v Speaker 2>and there's going to be shelves of those cards, isn't

0:32:02.320 --> 0:32:04.080
<v Speaker 2>there quickly? If you're speaking to a thousand people, you're

0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:06.400
<v Speaker 2>going to have boxes of cards and cross references. Stuff

0:32:06.440 --> 0:32:07.320
<v Speaker 2>is going to get lost.

0:32:07.480 --> 0:32:12.040
<v Speaker 9>It's not fool proof, but you can't justify not speaking

0:32:12.040 --> 0:32:14.360
<v Speaker 9>to John if Frank was a suspect and said he

0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:15.200
<v Speaker 9>was driving.

0:32:15.760 --> 0:32:18.520
<v Speaker 8>So the investigation continues. They haven't given up. They're still

0:32:18.520 --> 0:32:21.360
<v Speaker 8>casting this really wide net. They're still speaking to people

0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:24.680
<v Speaker 8>all around the area. They find Helen's bike in September

0:32:24.720 --> 0:32:27.840
<v Speaker 8>of nineteen sixty eight in Berkshire, which is not where

0:32:27.840 --> 0:32:28.760
<v Speaker 8>her body was found.

0:32:28.920 --> 0:32:33.240
<v Speaker 2>Berkshire Parks half an hour's drive from East Korea. It's

0:32:33.280 --> 0:32:37.479
<v Speaker 2>a fair way away and you'd have to have a

0:32:37.520 --> 0:32:41.400
<v Speaker 2>car to move a bike that distance.

0:32:42.640 --> 0:32:45.160
<v Speaker 8>They keep doing interviews. One of the people that they

0:32:45.240 --> 0:32:48.400
<v Speaker 8>interview is a man named Gary Grimson, who will come

0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:51.600
<v Speaker 8>relevant later on. Gary gives a statement to the police

0:32:51.640 --> 0:32:54.160
<v Speaker 8>and I can tell you, according to court records, that

0:32:54.200 --> 0:32:56.800
<v Speaker 8>in nineteen sixty eight, when Gary Grimson spoke to the police,

0:32:57.200 --> 0:33:00.960
<v Speaker 8>he did not say anything to implicate Frank. They're thinking

0:33:01.000 --> 0:33:03.400
<v Speaker 8>at that point is that the offender is a local person.

0:33:03.760 --> 0:33:06.080
<v Speaker 8>And they also in an article of a time flagged

0:33:06.080 --> 0:33:08.880
<v Speaker 8>their interest in a pale blue hold and utility vehicle

0:33:09.280 --> 0:33:12.000
<v Speaker 8>that was seen in the area of Helen's disappearance at

0:33:12.000 --> 0:33:14.640
<v Speaker 8>the time. But I can tell you that they speak

0:33:14.640 --> 0:33:17.160
<v Speaker 8>to Frank again in September, so a few months later,

0:33:18.440 --> 0:33:21.480
<v Speaker 8>so this is nineteen sixty nine by this point, and

0:33:21.720 --> 0:33:24.640
<v Speaker 8>in that interview Frank finally corrects his alibi.

0:33:25.800 --> 0:33:29.520
<v Speaker 2>This is a quote Nina reads from Frank's own evidence

0:33:29.800 --> 0:33:32.160
<v Speaker 2>read out and court by the judge.

0:33:33.120 --> 0:33:35.600
<v Speaker 8>I made a mistake. What I'd done on that day,

0:33:36.000 --> 0:33:39.000
<v Speaker 8>sixteenth of March is as follows. On that morning, I

0:33:39.000 --> 0:33:41.720
<v Speaker 8>got up about eight or eight thirty am, went out

0:33:41.760 --> 0:33:44.440
<v Speaker 8>and helped my friends Brian and Rodney and my father

0:33:44.560 --> 0:33:47.640
<v Speaker 8>in the backyard. We were pulling Brian's car to pieces.

0:33:48.840 --> 0:33:51.000
<v Speaker 8>He said. He stayed in the backyard attending to the

0:33:51.040 --> 0:33:54.400
<v Speaker 8>vehicle until about eleven thirty am. And then this is

0:33:54.440 --> 0:33:56.200
<v Speaker 8>another quote, the four of us went up to the

0:33:56.200 --> 0:33:59.400
<v Speaker 8>shell station at Penrith to get some parts. On the

0:33:59.440 --> 0:34:01.560
<v Speaker 8>way back, we went to Woodruf Street to see my

0:34:01.600 --> 0:34:04.440
<v Speaker 8>brother Ted, and I stayed there until about twelve thirty

0:34:04.480 --> 0:34:06.840
<v Speaker 8>or a bit after. Then went home for lunch. And

0:34:06.880 --> 0:34:09.319
<v Speaker 8>I stayed at home with my father, brother, mother and

0:34:09.400 --> 0:34:13.200
<v Speaker 8>fixed the car. And later Brian and Rodney left. And

0:34:13.239 --> 0:34:15.080
<v Speaker 8>he said he thought that was about two PM. And

0:34:15.120 --> 0:34:17.880
<v Speaker 8>then he stayed at home and worked around the shed

0:34:17.880 --> 0:34:20.600
<v Speaker 8>with his father and his brother until about six thirty

0:34:20.680 --> 0:34:21.560
<v Speaker 8>or seven pm.

0:34:22.200 --> 0:34:25.160
<v Speaker 9>Yeah, and he's nominated how many people that he was

0:34:25.200 --> 0:34:25.840
<v Speaker 9>hanging out.

0:34:25.719 --> 0:34:31.360
<v Speaker 8>With his father, his mother, his brother, Rodney and Brian

0:34:31.440 --> 0:34:35.480
<v Speaker 8>he said were there. They left about two pm.

0:34:35.960 --> 0:34:40.520
<v Speaker 9>Okay, the crucial time twelve forty five to one forty five,

0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:45.879
<v Speaker 9>however long. So that's yeah, whether whoever he's claiming he

0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:48.560
<v Speaker 9>was with, that's a crucial time of the alibi.

0:34:48.760 --> 0:34:50.280
<v Speaker 2>What do you make of the fact that he's changed

0:34:50.320 --> 0:34:53.560
<v Speaker 2>his version of events completely? So within weeks of her

0:34:53.600 --> 0:34:58.800
<v Speaker 2>disappearance he gives one version of events, but months later

0:34:59.400 --> 0:35:01.640
<v Speaker 2>he changes his version of events completely. Do you read

0:35:01.640 --> 0:35:02.480
<v Speaker 2>anything into that.

0:35:03.040 --> 0:35:05.399
<v Speaker 9>For anyone that changes an alibi? But to come out

0:35:05.440 --> 0:35:07.800
<v Speaker 9>strongly and say I was at this pub ten thirty

0:35:07.800 --> 0:35:09.880
<v Speaker 9>to twelve thirty and then driving with my brother.

0:35:09.880 --> 0:35:12.160
<v Speaker 2>Because that's the thing is precise that the first.

0:35:12.120 --> 0:35:15.279
<v Speaker 9>By that to me, something jumps out. I'm not sure

0:35:15.280 --> 0:35:17.200
<v Speaker 9>if it's just the way it's been recorded, because at

0:35:17.200 --> 0:35:20.600
<v Speaker 9>the pub ten thirty to twelve thirty, and then with

0:35:20.640 --> 0:35:21.080
<v Speaker 9>my brother.

0:35:21.520 --> 0:35:25.000
<v Speaker 8>So this correction of Frank's alibi is in nineteen sixty.

0:35:24.760 --> 0:35:27.120
<v Speaker 2>Nine, the year after how goes messing.

0:35:27.239 --> 0:35:30.319
<v Speaker 8>So going back to Ted's statement, he doesn't mention Frank

0:35:30.400 --> 0:35:34.520
<v Speaker 8>visiting him that day. In the statement that Frank gave

0:35:34.560 --> 0:35:39.360
<v Speaker 8>in nineteen sixty nine, he said that about eleven thirty am,

0:35:39.440 --> 0:35:41.239
<v Speaker 8>the four of us went to the shell station at

0:35:41.239 --> 0:35:43.520
<v Speaker 8>Penrith and got some parts. On the way back we

0:35:43.600 --> 0:35:45.759
<v Speaker 8>went to Woodruff Street to see my brother Ted, and

0:35:45.800 --> 0:35:49.440
<v Speaker 8>I stayed there until about twelve thirty. So Ted had

0:35:49.440 --> 0:35:52.400
<v Speaker 8>said he went to work at six thirty am and

0:35:52.480 --> 0:35:54.839
<v Speaker 8>worked all day till four pm, didn't mention Frank coming

0:35:54.840 --> 0:35:55.479
<v Speaker 8>to visit him.

0:35:55.560 --> 0:35:59.640
<v Speaker 2>So Frank gives one version of events, which is essentially

0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:03.880
<v Speaker 2>contra addicted by his brother Ted. Then Frank gives a

0:36:03.920 --> 0:36:07.240
<v Speaker 2>different version of events, which also contradicts what his brother

0:36:07.320 --> 0:36:08.640
<v Speaker 2>has previously said.

0:36:08.920 --> 0:36:16.200
<v Speaker 8>Yep, yep. So again you would think you checked the alibi.

0:36:16.520 --> 0:36:16.960
<v Speaker 9>Yeah.

0:36:17.320 --> 0:36:17.440
<v Speaker 5>One.

0:36:18.160 --> 0:36:20.239
<v Speaker 9>The only way you can prove or disprove it is

0:36:21.040 --> 0:36:22.920
<v Speaker 9>other people's accounts that can support it.

0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:23.919
<v Speaker 2>Do they do that?

0:36:24.400 --> 0:36:29.720
<v Speaker 8>Frank's father, Frank's brother John that we mentioned, Rodney Plackett,

0:36:29.719 --> 0:36:31.480
<v Speaker 8>who was the man that he said he was with,

0:36:31.960 --> 0:36:35.200
<v Speaker 8>Brian Stockman, who I think was another person who was

0:36:35.200 --> 0:36:35.680
<v Speaker 8>at the house.

0:36:35.760 --> 0:36:35.920
<v Speaker 2>Yep.

0:36:36.400 --> 0:36:38.000
<v Speaker 8>They were never interviewed by the police.

0:36:38.719 --> 0:36:42.680
<v Speaker 2>Kidding. So the again, that's all from the court.

0:36:42.840 --> 0:36:43.759
<v Speaker 8>Yep, this is all court.

0:36:43.840 --> 0:36:46.520
<v Speaker 2>Right, So those are people that Frank said he was with,

0:36:48.360 --> 0:36:50.000
<v Speaker 2>They're never interviewed by police.

0:36:51.040 --> 0:36:53.319
<v Speaker 8>I'm not speculating or offering opinions here this, No.

0:36:53.360 --> 0:36:55.840
<v Speaker 2>I'm offering opinion. That's really bad. I don't know, I

0:36:56.320 --> 0:36:57.879
<v Speaker 2>not got anything to say about Frank, but in terms

0:36:57.920 --> 0:36:59.799
<v Speaker 2>of the police investigation, that's really bad.

0:36:59.840 --> 0:37:03.000
<v Speaker 8>And this was criticized in court, and this was used

0:37:03.280 --> 0:37:06.520
<v Speaker 8>as to form part of the defense in court. So

0:37:06.880 --> 0:37:10.000
<v Speaker 8>decades later in court, Frank's lawyer will assert that at

0:37:10.000 --> 0:37:12.959
<v Speaker 8>that point in the investigation, so say nineteen sixty nine,

0:37:13.600 --> 0:37:17.440
<v Speaker 8>on the available material, there was no forensic evidence linking

0:37:17.440 --> 0:37:20.800
<v Speaker 8>the applicant to the crime. There was no identification evidence

0:37:20.800 --> 0:37:24.520
<v Speaker 8>and no eyewitness evidence. So at this point the police

0:37:25.200 --> 0:37:26.480
<v Speaker 8>he didn't have anything solid.

0:37:26.560 --> 0:37:31.080
<v Speaker 2>Well, that's fair enough. There is actually no evidence linking

0:37:31.120 --> 0:37:34.680
<v Speaker 2>Frank to the murder at this point at all. Yeah, okay.

0:37:34.800 --> 0:37:38.600
<v Speaker 8>At this point Frank seems to be out of the investigation.

0:37:39.680 --> 0:37:42.040
<v Speaker 8>Over the next few years, he gets married to a

0:37:42.080 --> 0:37:44.879
<v Speaker 8>woman named Katrina. He's also in and out of jail

0:37:44.920 --> 0:37:49.319
<v Speaker 8>for various crimes, none of them violent crimes, minor crimes. Yeah,

0:37:49.480 --> 0:37:55.040
<v Speaker 8>so again break and enter, stealing cars. So he and Katrina,

0:37:55.200 --> 0:37:57.600
<v Speaker 8>they seem to have a bit of a tumultuous marriage

0:37:57.640 --> 0:38:01.520
<v Speaker 8>in that various reports from that time seemed to say

0:38:01.520 --> 0:38:05.640
<v Speaker 8>they're together. Then they're not together. They have two children together,

0:38:05.680 --> 0:38:08.279
<v Speaker 8>I believe, But again, on and off he's in and

0:38:08.320 --> 0:38:12.560
<v Speaker 8>out of jail too in nineteen seventy seven, So we're skipping.

0:38:12.239 --> 0:38:14.279
<v Speaker 2>Ahead here almost ten years now.

0:38:14.400 --> 0:38:17.680
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, okay, two women related to Katrina Abbott go to

0:38:17.719 --> 0:38:18.200
<v Speaker 8>the police.

0:38:18.560 --> 0:38:22.520
<v Speaker 2>So two women related to Frank's wife. Yeah, okay, go

0:38:22.600 --> 0:38:23.120
<v Speaker 2>to the place.

0:38:23.680 --> 0:38:27.600
<v Speaker 8>So one is Katrina's cousin. And what she tells the police,

0:38:27.640 --> 0:38:30.799
<v Speaker 8>and this is from court records, is that Frank took

0:38:30.840 --> 0:38:34.560
<v Speaker 8>her and Katrina, his wife, to the bush site where

0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:37.760
<v Speaker 8>Helen Harrison was found. And she said along that drive,

0:38:38.760 --> 0:38:41.759
<v Speaker 8>Frank was beating his wife, Katrina as they drove.

0:38:42.120 --> 0:38:44.880
<v Speaker 2>So as he's driving out to the site where Helen

0:38:44.920 --> 0:38:48.319
<v Speaker 2>Harrison's body is found, with at least two women in

0:38:48.360 --> 0:38:50.680
<v Speaker 2>the car with him, he is beating his wife.

0:38:50.800 --> 0:38:52.560
<v Speaker 8>That's what she said in her statement.

0:38:52.320 --> 0:38:53.520
<v Speaker 2>Which was hurt in court.

0:38:53.800 --> 0:38:57.160
<v Speaker 7>Yeah.

0:38:57.480 --> 0:39:00.600
<v Speaker 2>This evidence was heard in court during an part of

0:39:00.640 --> 0:39:04.520
<v Speaker 2>the legal process called a committal hearing, and it was

0:39:04.560 --> 0:39:08.800
<v Speaker 2>heard again during the trial where Frank was found not guilty.

0:39:10.400 --> 0:39:14.120
<v Speaker 8>And she said he bragged about the killing, talked about

0:39:14.160 --> 0:39:15.960
<v Speaker 8>it as if it was a big joke, and said

0:39:15.960 --> 0:39:19.200
<v Speaker 8>that he'd scruffed the girl and he'd raped her. And

0:39:19.640 --> 0:39:21.880
<v Speaker 8>she also says he showed them a watch in his

0:39:21.960 --> 0:39:26.080
<v Speaker 8>glove compartment that he said was Helen's watch. She says

0:39:26.160 --> 0:39:29.840
<v Speaker 8>that Abbot told her that he tried to date Helen

0:39:29.880 --> 0:39:32.399
<v Speaker 8>Harrison at the shop where she worked in Pitttown and

0:39:32.760 --> 0:39:37.000
<v Speaker 8>Helen had refused him. Abbot also allegedly boasted to his

0:39:37.080 --> 0:39:40.799
<v Speaker 8>wife about how the girl had not stopped screaming while

0:39:40.800 --> 0:39:42.880
<v Speaker 8>being driven away from her home into the bush.

0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:46.040
<v Speaker 2>That's what that's what I caught, would lay her hair, yes, yeah.

0:39:45.680 --> 0:39:47.600
<v Speaker 8>Where he grabbed her by the throat and strangled her.

0:39:47.640 --> 0:39:53.600
<v Speaker 8>So all of this was what Katrina's cousin told the police.

0:39:54.600 --> 0:39:57.440
<v Speaker 8>She also said that Abbot had told her he had

0:39:57.480 --> 0:39:59.960
<v Speaker 8>sex with the girl before killing her, and again when

0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:02.399
<v Speaker 8>she was dead, and she said, I thought he must

0:40:02.480 --> 0:40:03.320
<v Speaker 8>be sick in the head.

0:40:10.600 --> 0:40:12.799
<v Speaker 2>You said there were two women, Yeah.

0:40:12.560 --> 0:40:14.880
<v Speaker 8>So that's the first woman. So the other woman that

0:40:14.920 --> 0:40:17.560
<v Speaker 8>went to the police in January of nineteen seventy seven

0:40:17.680 --> 0:40:22.640
<v Speaker 8>was Katrina's sister, and she told the police that Abbot

0:40:22.640 --> 0:40:25.480
<v Speaker 8>had lured her into his car where he made a

0:40:25.520 --> 0:40:30.920
<v Speaker 8>move on her, and she'd refused his advances and was

0:40:31.000 --> 0:40:33.440
<v Speaker 8>crying and she was pleading him to let her go.

0:40:34.760 --> 0:40:38.439
<v Speaker 2>Again. This evidence was heard in Frank's committal hearing and

0:40:38.560 --> 0:40:39.200
<v Speaker 2>his trial.

0:40:40.600 --> 0:40:45.000
<v Speaker 8>But he took her out into the bush and he said,

0:40:45.320 --> 0:40:48.319
<v Speaker 8>you're like that other stupid bitch. I took her out

0:40:48.320 --> 0:40:52.080
<v Speaker 8>to the bush and I soon shut her up. So

0:40:52.640 --> 0:40:54.680
<v Speaker 8>she pleaded to be allowed to go home to attend

0:40:54.680 --> 0:40:56.719
<v Speaker 8>to her young baby. But Abbot took her out into

0:40:56.719 --> 0:41:00.000
<v Speaker 8>the bush, and she says in her statement to play

0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:03.520
<v Speaker 8>at knife point. It was a night long ordeal where

0:41:03.560 --> 0:41:06.000
<v Speaker 8>she was savagely rapped four times.

0:41:07.200 --> 0:41:15.960
<v Speaker 9>Okay, okay, bragging about crimes, I carry a little bit

0:41:16.000 --> 0:41:19.759
<v Speaker 9>of weight to it, but not It's not a deal

0:41:19.800 --> 0:41:23.200
<v Speaker 9>clincher for me. Someone bragging about a crime, he gets

0:41:23.239 --> 0:41:26.120
<v Speaker 9>off on terrorizing people. It might be part of his fantasy.

0:41:26.520 --> 0:41:29.640
<v Speaker 9>What interests me that he does know her and newer

0:41:29.719 --> 0:41:31.960
<v Speaker 9>in the area, it would have been a very small community.

0:41:33.160 --> 0:41:36.719
<v Speaker 9>Knowing that he knows her disappeared, he's alibi. And then

0:41:37.080 --> 0:41:39.600
<v Speaker 9>if we accept we're seeing the type of person he is.

0:41:39.640 --> 0:41:41.040
<v Speaker 9>He's a predator. He's a rapist.

0:41:41.120 --> 0:41:44.160
<v Speaker 2>And again, look he's not convicted of that, but that

0:41:44.280 --> 0:41:46.320
<v Speaker 2>as a detective, if you were looking at that, that

0:41:46.360 --> 0:41:47.440
<v Speaker 2>would be what this is.

0:41:47.440 --> 0:41:50.480
<v Speaker 9>How I'd be talking as a briefing. Okay, So whether

0:41:50.560 --> 0:41:52.799
<v Speaker 9>we got we've got a blake that newer. His names

0:41:52.840 --> 0:41:55.640
<v Speaker 9>come up early in the investigation. His alibi hasn't been

0:41:55.640 --> 0:41:59.720
<v Speaker 9>fully tested. We're now getting information that hasn't been improved

0:41:59.719 --> 0:42:02.280
<v Speaker 9>to care. But we've got the statement from the victim.

0:42:02.320 --> 0:42:04.040
<v Speaker 9>He is saying she was raped at knife point.

0:42:04.520 --> 0:42:06.920
<v Speaker 2>He'd be someone you would want to pursue.

0:42:08.000 --> 0:42:09.839
<v Speaker 8>She also said in a statement that he showed her.

0:42:09.719 --> 0:42:12.799
<v Speaker 9>The watch, that's the thing, and that we said that

0:42:12.840 --> 0:42:16.400
<v Speaker 9>the watch, the clothing was watch was money taking. Ye.

0:42:16.560 --> 0:42:19.200
<v Speaker 2>That suggests he has got physical evidence that would link him,

0:42:19.200 --> 0:42:20.480
<v Speaker 2>because that would be a clincher.

0:42:20.719 --> 0:42:23.680
<v Speaker 9>Yeah, on that information, you could execute a search.

0:42:23.440 --> 0:42:26.440
<v Speaker 2>Warrant and if you got the watch, you'd almost be looking.

0:42:26.280 --> 0:42:29.400
<v Speaker 9>At your watch. I'd say you've got circumstantial, but the

0:42:29.480 --> 0:42:31.200
<v Speaker 9>strong circumstantial brief.

0:42:31.000 --> 0:42:32.400
<v Speaker 2>So you'd be potentially charging.

0:42:32.440 --> 0:42:34.120
<v Speaker 9>At that point, you've got him linked to the crime.

0:42:34.480 --> 0:42:35.680
<v Speaker 2>Did they find the watch?

0:42:36.480 --> 0:42:38.919
<v Speaker 8>So this is a quote from one of the court

0:42:38.920 --> 0:42:42.480
<v Speaker 8>records I found after the women came forward. It seems

0:42:42.480 --> 0:42:46.000
<v Speaker 8>that the police did not initiate any further investigation into

0:42:46.000 --> 0:42:46.440
<v Speaker 8>the matter.

0:42:47.280 --> 0:42:49.719
<v Speaker 9>I can't pinpoint who I would criticize over that.

0:42:50.480 --> 0:42:52.799
<v Speaker 2>Now you might say you don't want to criticize, but

0:42:52.840 --> 0:42:55.279
<v Speaker 2>there's a witness saying there might be physical evidence that

0:42:55.320 --> 0:42:57.879
<v Speaker 2>would directly link him to the crime, which you said

0:42:57.920 --> 0:42:59.759
<v Speaker 2>just on her account, you could get a search warrant.

0:42:59.800 --> 0:43:00.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:43:00.120 --> 0:43:03.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so the cops would be able to within honestly

0:43:03.960 --> 0:43:08.160
<v Speaker 2>hours maybe day, get a search warrant. Yeah, get his

0:43:08.200 --> 0:43:10.439
<v Speaker 2>car and see if that watch is there.

0:43:10.600 --> 0:43:14.399
<v Speaker 9>And where I think potentially you're failing just knowing the organization.

0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:18.120
<v Speaker 9>Everyone's operating in silos. That might be information passed on

0:43:18.160 --> 0:43:21.600
<v Speaker 9>to a local detective. You then got homicide squad station

0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:25.320
<v Speaker 9>somewhere else and information like that because of the manner

0:43:25.320 --> 0:43:27.360
<v Speaker 9>in which it was stored, like it's not you can't

0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:29.960
<v Speaker 9>access a computer. It would have been the old card system.

0:43:30.000 --> 0:43:32.879
<v Speaker 9>So to be me picking up speaking to pitt Town

0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:35.799
<v Speaker 9>Police station is a detective on can you get him

0:43:35.840 --> 0:43:36.520
<v Speaker 9>to check that?

0:43:37.120 --> 0:43:39.879
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, I will flag that the two women that came

0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:41.560
<v Speaker 8>forward to the police were Aboriginal women.

0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:42.719
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.

0:43:42.760 --> 0:43:46.400
<v Speaker 9>Well that's the make you think, Well, you'd like to

0:43:46.400 --> 0:43:49.400
<v Speaker 9>think it doesn't count, but victims get judged, whether we

0:43:49.480 --> 0:43:52.040
<v Speaker 9>say or not. And I don't want to tarnish the

0:43:52.080 --> 0:43:53.960
<v Speaker 9>police that they dismissed him. I'd like to think it

0:43:54.160 --> 0:43:56.960
<v Speaker 9>wouldn't happen but I've got to say, in my experience,

0:43:57.120 --> 0:43:58.560
<v Speaker 9>I've seen things like that happen.

0:43:58.680 --> 0:44:01.960
<v Speaker 2>You've worked cases well, witnesses have been dismissed or not

0:44:02.080 --> 0:44:07.000
<v Speaker 2>listened to who happened to be Aboriginal. And I've reported

0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:12.920
<v Speaker 2>on cases murders, serial killings where Indigenous women have come forward,

0:44:13.080 --> 0:44:17.360
<v Speaker 2>and in fact, there was a government inquiry two years

0:44:17.360 --> 0:44:21.080
<v Speaker 2>ago into the murders of Indigenous women and children in

0:44:21.120 --> 0:44:21.720
<v Speaker 2>this country.

0:44:21.960 --> 0:44:26.080
<v Speaker 9>It gave evidence that the inquiry, well, I can tell

0:44:26.080 --> 0:44:30.480
<v Speaker 9>you that they don't really know why it wasn't followed up.

0:44:32.080 --> 0:44:34.160
<v Speaker 8>By the time the case did go to trial in

0:44:34.160 --> 0:44:37.279
<v Speaker 8>the mid nineties, one of the two officers involved had

0:44:37.320 --> 0:44:41.200
<v Speaker 8>died and the other officer said that the one who

0:44:41.239 --> 0:44:43.879
<v Speaker 8>was now dead was the one that had been left

0:44:43.880 --> 0:44:46.200
<v Speaker 8>to handle everything post interview, and he didn't.

0:44:45.960 --> 0:44:49.160
<v Speaker 2>Know what happened, so we can't ask him.

0:44:49.440 --> 0:44:53.200
<v Speaker 8>We do know Frank wasn't interviewed or even informed about

0:44:53.239 --> 0:44:55.480
<v Speaker 8>those allegations.

0:44:55.160 --> 0:44:57.400
<v Speaker 2>So that's again the court records records.

0:44:57.480 --> 0:45:00.000
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, he wasn't charged. We know at the time everybody

0:45:00.040 --> 0:45:04.839
<v Speaker 8>of those allegations. Frank's wife also wasn't interviewed at that time.

0:45:04.640 --> 0:45:07.759
<v Speaker 2>Because she was a witness. According to her cousin. She

0:45:07.920 --> 0:45:11.640
<v Speaker 2>was in the car when Frank being beat up. When Frank,

0:45:12.560 --> 0:45:16.520
<v Speaker 2>So the cops have an interviewed Frank or the other witness. Okay,

0:45:16.600 --> 0:45:19.920
<v Speaker 2>so we can't say that those two witnesses have come

0:45:20.000 --> 0:45:24.320
<v Speaker 2>forward were telling the truth because Frank hasn't been convicted

0:45:24.360 --> 0:45:26.040
<v Speaker 2>of those offenses or charged.

0:45:26.280 --> 0:45:26.600
<v Speaker 5>Gary.

0:45:27.320 --> 0:45:29.920
<v Speaker 9>Oh, look, if you're asking you plain and simple, shouldn't

0:45:29.960 --> 0:45:32.360
<v Speaker 9>have been followed up? The clear answer is yes, should

0:45:32.360 --> 0:45:33.120
<v Speaker 9>have been followed up.

0:45:33.239 --> 0:45:34.600
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.

0:45:34.960 --> 0:45:38.720
<v Speaker 2>Years later in court, Frank's lawyer would argue the women

0:45:38.920 --> 0:45:42.600
<v Speaker 2>had an axe to grind due to an ongoing family dispute,

0:45:43.160 --> 0:45:48.400
<v Speaker 2>though the women themselves denied this. Either way, nothing happened.

0:45:49.960 --> 0:45:55.719
<v Speaker 8>So again things go quiet at this point, and that

0:45:55.800 --> 0:45:59.280
<v Speaker 8>next decade is pretty similar to the decade before for Frank.

0:45:59.280 --> 0:46:01.840
<v Speaker 8>He's in and out of for minor crimes. He's on

0:46:01.880 --> 0:46:02.840
<v Speaker 8>and off with his wife.

0:46:03.080 --> 0:46:06.840
<v Speaker 2>So that's twenty years when Helen's family are just waiting

0:46:07.560 --> 0:46:08.680
<v Speaker 2>no answers.

0:46:09.400 --> 0:46:13.120
<v Speaker 8>By nineteen ninety, Frank's definitely separated from his wife and

0:46:13.760 --> 0:46:16.440
<v Speaker 8>is living in Tari with his teenage daughter, and he's

0:46:16.440 --> 0:46:20.000
<v Speaker 8>doing odd jobs for work. And that's when the next

0:46:20.000 --> 0:46:22.400
<v Speaker 8>thing happens that pushes Frank back into the spotlight of

0:46:22.400 --> 0:46:27.320
<v Speaker 8>the investigation. So that thing is a man named Gary Grimson,

0:46:27.400 --> 0:46:30.480
<v Speaker 8>and you may remember I told you earlier to remember

0:46:30.480 --> 0:46:35.600
<v Speaker 8>that name. Gary is in jail. I think he's in

0:46:35.680 --> 0:46:39.320
<v Speaker 8>jail for break and enter. And he makes a confession.

0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:43.560
<v Speaker 8>He tells police that prior to Helen's murder, he went

0:46:43.600 --> 0:46:46.400
<v Speaker 8>to Frank's home in Londonderry with the intention of going

0:46:46.400 --> 0:46:48.760
<v Speaker 8>with him and his brother Les to steal a car.

0:46:50.000 --> 0:46:52.920
<v Speaker 8>He says that before the car theft, he, Frank and

0:46:52.960 --> 0:46:55.759
<v Speaker 8>Frank's brother Les drove to the dog track and picked

0:46:55.840 --> 0:46:57.040
<v Speaker 8>up a blue green.

0:46:57.080 --> 0:46:59.959
<v Speaker 2>FJ holden ute, as in they stop.

0:47:00.480 --> 0:47:03.319
<v Speaker 8>Well, he doesn't say that the statement they picked one

0:47:03.360 --> 0:47:04.239
<v Speaker 8>up before they.

0:47:04.200 --> 0:47:06.240
<v Speaker 2>Went to So this is the day when Helen goes missing.

0:47:06.360 --> 0:47:08.439
<v Speaker 8>No, this is prior to it, prior.

0:47:08.080 --> 0:47:11.760
<v Speaker 2>To Helen goes missing. He says that he and Frank

0:47:12.239 --> 0:47:15.400
<v Speaker 2>picked up a pale blue potentially holding.

0:47:15.560 --> 0:47:20.600
<v Speaker 8>Blue green FJ holding ute which Frank and he drove

0:47:20.640 --> 0:47:24.560
<v Speaker 8>into the bush and covered with a tar poland then

0:47:24.600 --> 0:47:28.240
<v Speaker 8>they went to a dance and Frank apparently went, according

0:47:28.280 --> 0:47:30.799
<v Speaker 8>to this statement, went outside with a blonde woman age

0:47:30.840 --> 0:47:33.840
<v Speaker 8>at eighteen to twenty. Gary says five minutes later he

0:47:33.840 --> 0:47:36.160
<v Speaker 8>heard a commotion outside and he went outside and saw

0:47:36.239 --> 0:47:39.240
<v Speaker 8>Frank with this woman on the ground near a wall,

0:47:39.360 --> 0:47:40.480
<v Speaker 8>pulling at her clothes.

0:47:40.880 --> 0:47:42.120
<v Speaker 2>And this is all heard in court.

0:47:42.239 --> 0:47:44.640
<v Speaker 8>This is all heard in court and in Gary Grimson's statement,

0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:48.680
<v Speaker 8>so that's prior to the murder. He says that in

0:47:48.719 --> 0:47:53.919
<v Speaker 8>the days after Helen was murdered, Frank's brother Les came

0:47:53.960 --> 0:47:56.879
<v Speaker 8>to Gary and told him that police would be coming

0:47:56.920 --> 0:47:58.840
<v Speaker 8>to talk to him about a girl that had been killed,

0:47:59.520 --> 0:48:01.919
<v Speaker 8>and if he mentioned the Holdute he said he would

0:48:02.000 --> 0:48:06.560
<v Speaker 8>fire bomb his parents' home. So, according to Gary, Lairs

0:48:06.680 --> 0:48:07.840
<v Speaker 8>is saying this to him, not Frank.

0:48:10.000 --> 0:48:13.160
<v Speaker 2>Again, it's worth knowing that all this evidence from Gary

0:48:13.200 --> 0:48:16.440
<v Speaker 2>Grimson and his statement is what he said in court

0:48:16.960 --> 0:48:21.200
<v Speaker 2>during Frank's committal, and it's right there in the transcript

0:48:21.320 --> 0:48:24.000
<v Speaker 2>of the hearing which was released to Nina by the

0:48:24.040 --> 0:48:25.880
<v Speaker 2>New South Wales Supreme Court.

0:48:27.160 --> 0:48:29.720
<v Speaker 8>Gary then says in his statement that he was taken

0:48:29.760 --> 0:48:33.160
<v Speaker 8>by Frank and Lairs at gunpoint and it had a

0:48:33.200 --> 0:48:35.640
<v Speaker 8>twenty two caliber rifle held against him and he was

0:48:35.640 --> 0:48:38.920
<v Speaker 8>taken into the bush in East Curajeong where he was

0:48:38.960 --> 0:48:42.239
<v Speaker 8>forced to push the Holden Newt the same hold and

0:48:42.360 --> 0:48:43.960
<v Speaker 8>ut that they had taken and put in the bush

0:48:44.440 --> 0:48:50.120
<v Speaker 8>into the Hawksbury River, and Frank told Gary, according to

0:48:50.160 --> 0:48:52.840
<v Speaker 8>a statement, that he was now involved in a murder,

0:48:53.120 --> 0:48:56.719
<v Speaker 8>and when Gary says which murder, Frank apparently replied, the

0:48:56.719 --> 0:49:00.760
<v Speaker 8>girl I knocked. He then tells him that he followed

0:49:00.760 --> 0:49:03.439
<v Speaker 8>Helen home from work on her bike, grabbed her, drove

0:49:03.480 --> 0:49:05.360
<v Speaker 8>her into the bush, raped her, and buried her in

0:49:05.400 --> 0:49:08.720
<v Speaker 8>that location where they were standing. Gary says that Frank

0:49:08.800 --> 0:49:11.640
<v Speaker 8>also showed him a pair of blue underwear that belonged

0:49:11.640 --> 0:49:16.600
<v Speaker 8>to Helen, so in the end, Frank lets him go.

0:49:19.040 --> 0:49:22.520
<v Speaker 2>We've tried to speak to Frank and to Les about this.

0:49:23.200 --> 0:49:26.480
<v Speaker 2>We've written to Frank and driven hours to reach an

0:49:26.520 --> 0:49:31.799
<v Speaker 2>empty property registered in Les's name. He wasn't there, and

0:49:31.800 --> 0:49:36.239
<v Speaker 2>we've passed messages to both men through their sister and

0:49:36.360 --> 0:49:38.000
<v Speaker 2>been told they don't want to talk.

0:49:42.080 --> 0:49:44.560
<v Speaker 9>What year was this that Gary provided this information?

0:49:45.239 --> 0:49:47.600
<v Speaker 8>Nineteen ninety and he claims that he had waited so

0:49:47.680 --> 0:49:49.920
<v Speaker 8>long to tell the truth because he was afraid of Frank.

0:49:50.520 --> 0:49:52.760
<v Speaker 8>So again he's talking about things that happened in nineteen

0:49:52.800 --> 0:49:57.640
<v Speaker 8>sixty eight. It's nineteen ninety at this point, So that's

0:49:57.640 --> 0:50:00.239
<v Speaker 8>a big accusation right.

0:50:01.600 --> 0:50:01.759
<v Speaker 5>There.

0:50:01.760 --> 0:50:04.839
<v Speaker 8>Are some issues with that statement, and all of those

0:50:04.880 --> 0:50:06.520
<v Speaker 8>issues will be later raised in court.

0:50:06.800 --> 0:50:08.640
<v Speaker 2>So all of this evidence is heard in court and

0:50:08.680 --> 0:50:09.640
<v Speaker 2>it's interrogated.

0:50:10.840 --> 0:50:12.759
<v Speaker 8>I mean the first issue that comes up again and

0:50:12.800 --> 0:50:16.040
<v Speaker 8>again Gary I mentioned, is in jail when he makes

0:50:16.040 --> 0:50:19.120
<v Speaker 8>that statement. Yeah, he's an informant and he's.

0:50:18.960 --> 0:50:22.759
<v Speaker 9>About what they're not looked at very reliable, and there's

0:50:22.760 --> 0:50:24.439
<v Speaker 9>some professional ones in.

0:50:24.360 --> 0:50:26.440
<v Speaker 2>The professional informant.

0:50:26.600 --> 0:50:28.800
<v Speaker 9>Don't trust anything they say because.

0:50:28.600 --> 0:50:31.880
<v Speaker 2>They're trying to get something in return for informant. Yeah.

0:50:31.640 --> 0:50:34.960
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, And at this point when he makes this statement,

0:50:35.000 --> 0:50:37.040
<v Speaker 8>he's about to be moved to another prison. He doesn't

0:50:37.040 --> 0:50:39.840
<v Speaker 8>want to be transferred because he says he has enemies

0:50:39.880 --> 0:50:42.200
<v Speaker 8>at the other prison, and a court heard that as

0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:44.920
<v Speaker 8>a result of him giving this information, he avoids that transfer.

0:50:45.000 --> 0:50:46.799
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so he does get something that does get.

0:50:50.040 --> 0:50:52.160
<v Speaker 8>So this all becomes a bit of an issue in court.

0:50:52.239 --> 0:50:54.120
<v Speaker 8>The other thing that gets brought up was that Gary

0:50:54.160 --> 0:50:56.839
<v Speaker 8>was interviewed by police in nineteen sixty eight. Didn't say

0:50:56.840 --> 0:50:58.239
<v Speaker 8>any of this at the time.

0:50:58.239 --> 0:51:02.040
<v Speaker 2>But he's of explained that before being asked the question,

0:51:02.080 --> 0:51:04.480
<v Speaker 2>because he said, Frank said, if you say anything on

0:51:04.600 --> 0:51:05.879
<v Speaker 2>fire bomb your and.

0:51:05.800 --> 0:51:08.839
<v Speaker 8>What his response to that in court was that he's

0:51:08.880 --> 0:51:13.040
<v Speaker 8>been afraid of Frank for twenty years. The other issues

0:51:13.080 --> 0:51:15.360
<v Speaker 8>that's brought up is that the other friends that Gary

0:51:15.400 --> 0:51:18.239
<v Speaker 8>mentioned as potentially knowing about the crime, they'd also been

0:51:18.239 --> 0:51:21.520
<v Speaker 8>interviewed by police back in nineteen sixty eight, sixty nine

0:51:21.840 --> 0:51:25.000
<v Speaker 8>and they hadn't mentioned any of this. And then number

0:51:25.080 --> 0:51:27.960
<v Speaker 8>four was kind of the most damning one for the prosecution,

0:51:28.160 --> 0:51:30.840
<v Speaker 8>which was his statement said that he went to Frank's

0:51:30.840 --> 0:51:35.799
<v Speaker 8>house in Londonderry. Frank didn't live in Londonderry. He lived

0:51:35.840 --> 0:51:38.279
<v Speaker 8>in Kingswood, which is really close by, but it's not

0:51:38.320 --> 0:51:40.759
<v Speaker 8>the same suburb. So, I mean, the police are three

0:51:40.800 --> 0:51:44.799
<v Speaker 8>witnesses at that point claiming that Frank had confessed to them.

0:51:44.560 --> 0:51:46.560
<v Speaker 9>And if they are looking at and I'm not sure

0:51:46.600 --> 0:51:48.640
<v Speaker 9>if it came out in the court, are they independent

0:51:48.640 --> 0:51:50.319
<v Speaker 9>of each other? So they're not.

0:51:50.480 --> 0:51:52.680
<v Speaker 2>No, two of two of them aren't because they're related

0:51:52.719 --> 0:51:54.759
<v Speaker 2>to Frank's right wife and.

0:51:54.719 --> 0:51:56.759
<v Speaker 8>They went to the police at the same time place

0:51:56.800 --> 0:51:57.480
<v Speaker 8>at the same times.

0:51:57.480 --> 0:51:59.759
<v Speaker 2>But Gary is potentially independent.

0:52:00.239 --> 0:52:01.279
<v Speaker 9>You'd look at that.

0:52:01.719 --> 0:52:04.280
<v Speaker 8>So they had three witnesses claiming that Frank had confessed.

0:52:04.800 --> 0:52:09.000
<v Speaker 8>They reinterviewed the relatives and the police were pretty confident,

0:52:09.040 --> 0:52:11.879
<v Speaker 8>and they made the arrest of Frank in nineteen ninety.

0:52:11.880 --> 0:52:13.959
<v Speaker 2>So they do arrest Frank, and they do charge him.

0:52:15.719 --> 0:52:19.719
<v Speaker 8>It gets delayed because Frank's lawyers immediately apply for a

0:52:19.760 --> 0:52:22.879
<v Speaker 8>permanent stay. You can probably explain what that is better

0:52:22.920 --> 0:52:23.120
<v Speaker 8>than me.

0:52:23.320 --> 0:52:25.800
<v Speaker 2>That's just where they stop charging him with murder.

0:52:25.920 --> 0:52:29.359
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, please don't do the trial, right, Okay, Well, on

0:52:29.400 --> 0:52:31.680
<v Speaker 8>the basis that there'd been an extreme delay on the

0:52:31.719 --> 0:52:35.120
<v Speaker 8>part of the prosecuting authorities in taking proceedings against Frank.

0:52:35.400 --> 0:52:39.400
<v Speaker 2>That's interesting. The reason the defense are saying don't charge

0:52:39.440 --> 0:52:43.000
<v Speaker 2>Frank with murder is they're saying the prosecution took so

0:52:43.360 --> 0:52:46.160
<v Speaker 2>long to do its job and there.

0:52:46.040 --> 0:52:49.480
<v Speaker 8>Was an incurable prejudice which would make a fair trial impossible.

0:52:49.560 --> 0:52:52.360
<v Speaker 2>So that's their argument, is that it's impossible for Frank

0:52:52.960 --> 0:52:55.759
<v Speaker 2>to mount a defense because so much time has gone

0:52:55.800 --> 0:52:59.080
<v Speaker 2>past that he might not be able to find the witnesses.

0:52:59.120 --> 0:53:01.520
<v Speaker 8>They might have died, and those allegations there weren't put

0:53:01.520 --> 0:53:03.160
<v Speaker 8>to him in nineteen seventies.

0:53:02.760 --> 0:53:03.319
<v Speaker 2>And all of that.

0:53:03.480 --> 0:53:05.160
<v Speaker 9>I can hear that argument.

0:53:05.120 --> 0:53:10.279
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I can hear that. But if they had interviewed

0:53:10.520 --> 0:53:13.560
<v Speaker 2>Frank's brother, who Frank said was in the car with

0:53:13.640 --> 0:53:18.080
<v Speaker 2>him at the time, in the weeks after the murder happened,

0:53:18.120 --> 0:53:20.279
<v Speaker 2>then you might not end up in nineteen ninety one

0:53:20.719 --> 0:53:22.840
<v Speaker 2>saying this thing has been delayed for so long it

0:53:22.880 --> 0:53:23.520
<v Speaker 2>can't go ahead.

0:53:24.360 --> 0:53:27.480
<v Speaker 8>And there's also mention of records and evidence being lost

0:53:27.560 --> 0:53:31.680
<v Speaker 8>or destroyed. I don't know what that is precisely. So

0:53:31.880 --> 0:53:42.960
<v Speaker 8>in nineteen ninety three the case did go ahead. So

0:53:43.080 --> 0:53:44.000
<v Speaker 8>Frank's mother had.

0:53:43.880 --> 0:53:45.720
<v Speaker 2>Died, so that's his alibi witness.

0:53:45.840 --> 0:53:48.719
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, Frank's wife died in November of nineteen ninety one,

0:53:48.760 --> 0:53:52.160
<v Speaker 8>so she couldn't testify at the trial. Are the witnesses

0:53:52.200 --> 0:53:55.760
<v Speaker 8>who hadn't been interviewed at the time of Helen's murder

0:53:56.000 --> 0:54:00.200
<v Speaker 8>now didn't have any recollection of things others like Frank's.

0:54:00.360 --> 0:54:04.640
<v Speaker 2>Less Garry is frowning, and your frown is getting deeper

0:54:04.680 --> 0:54:06.200
<v Speaker 2>and deeper as this goes on.

0:54:06.200 --> 0:54:07.759
<v Speaker 8>And I've got to finish this sentence because you're going

0:54:07.760 --> 0:54:12.640
<v Speaker 8>to found more evidence was missing. And the two women

0:54:12.680 --> 0:54:16.839
<v Speaker 8>who went to the police, the relatives of Katrina, what

0:54:16.920 --> 0:54:18.640
<v Speaker 8>I got from the records, and this is a bit

0:54:18.680 --> 0:54:21.440
<v Speaker 8>of interpretation, was that they had some trouble on the stand.

0:54:21.760 --> 0:54:23.719
<v Speaker 8>There was a reference in the court records to them

0:54:23.760 --> 0:54:27.720
<v Speaker 8>having memory issues and the defense having issues with cross

0:54:27.800 --> 0:54:30.360
<v Speaker 8>examination and being able to do it properly because of

0:54:30.400 --> 0:54:34.840
<v Speaker 8>those memory issues. So it sounds like they didn't do

0:54:34.880 --> 0:54:35.840
<v Speaker 8>that well in court.

0:54:36.280 --> 0:54:40.080
<v Speaker 9>No, and I've got to be fair, it's a weak

0:54:40.160 --> 0:54:42.200
<v Speaker 9>case at the start of it. And then if those

0:54:42.239 --> 0:54:44.600
<v Speaker 9>issues that you're saying arose at court, I could see

0:54:44.600 --> 0:54:48.480
<v Speaker 9>it going against the frustrating parties that the police investigation

0:54:48.680 --> 0:54:51.200
<v Speaker 9>is the thing that used against the prosecution.

0:54:51.480 --> 0:54:54.080
<v Speaker 8>Yeah, Frank's lawyer said that the two women who went

0:54:54.080 --> 0:54:56.920
<v Speaker 8>to the police were potentially out to get Frank. So

0:54:57.280 --> 0:55:00.000
<v Speaker 8>that trial ends the jury can't come to a verdict.

0:55:01.080 --> 0:55:03.839
<v Speaker 8>A second trial is held in nineteen ninety five and

0:55:03.960 --> 0:55:06.840
<v Speaker 8>Frank was eventually found not guilty of Helen's murder. Right

0:55:07.480 --> 0:55:09.799
<v Speaker 8>so to date, Helen's murder remains.

0:55:09.520 --> 0:55:19.720
<v Speaker 2>Unsolved, meaning nobody has been brought to justice decades later,

0:55:20.560 --> 0:55:26.239
<v Speaker 2>and Helen's parents died without getting any answers except that

0:55:26.360 --> 0:55:29.520
<v Speaker 2>Frank Abbott, as you heard in the prison calls at

0:55:29.560 --> 0:55:35.520
<v Speaker 2>the start of this episode, he denies any involvement Helen's

0:55:35.560 --> 0:55:38.759
<v Speaker 2>brother Peter, who I visited at his house and who

0:55:39.000 --> 0:55:43.760
<v Speaker 2>stood beside his bicycle waving sadly when I left him.

0:55:44.160 --> 0:55:48.160
<v Speaker 2>Peter also has had no answers about what happened to

0:55:48.239 --> 0:55:53.240
<v Speaker 2>his sister, and he fears he may never get them,

0:55:53.680 --> 0:55:57.960
<v Speaker 2>although I think he still hopes that one day he

0:55:58.080 --> 0:55:58.440
<v Speaker 2>might do.

0:55:59.520 --> 0:56:02.319
<v Speaker 9>If you had fresh and compelling evidence, now under the

0:56:02.320 --> 0:56:04.880
<v Speaker 9>double jeopardy legislation, you could have him really tried.

0:56:05.000 --> 0:56:08.520
<v Speaker 8>But could you, even though it's gone through two trials. Yeah,

0:56:08.600 --> 0:56:09.280
<v Speaker 8>that's interesting.

0:56:10.719 --> 0:56:15.200
<v Speaker 2>It's interesting partly because Gary knows what he's talking about.

0:56:15.960 --> 0:56:19.160
<v Speaker 2>As a detective, Gary tried to take a man who'd

0:56:19.200 --> 0:56:24.360
<v Speaker 2>previously been found not guilty back to court for murder,

0:56:25.040 --> 0:56:29.720
<v Speaker 2>arguing there was now new evidence against him. That story

0:56:30.480 --> 0:56:34.759
<v Speaker 2>is a whole other podcast. What matters is that it

0:56:34.920 --> 0:56:40.480
<v Speaker 2>proved it could happen. That could be done. Though Gary

0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:43.759
<v Speaker 2>is the only cop to date who's tried.

0:56:43.480 --> 0:56:46.920
<v Speaker 9>It, it's going to be fresh and compelling evidence.

0:56:47.160 --> 0:56:48.680
<v Speaker 8>What would count is that DNA.

0:56:49.040 --> 0:56:53.640
<v Speaker 9>If let's say Frank was arrested for something and found

0:56:53.640 --> 0:56:57.000
<v Speaker 9>the watch in DNA, which wasn't the viiable at the time,

0:56:57.239 --> 0:57:01.800
<v Speaker 9>DNA approves that was Helen's property, that would be compelling

0:57:02.000 --> 0:57:03.279
<v Speaker 9>and they'll be fresh.

0:57:03.840 --> 0:57:07.640
<v Speaker 2>Gary speaking hypothetically, at this point, there is no new

0:57:07.760 --> 0:57:12.919
<v Speaker 2>DNA evidence, But if there was, then hypothetically that could

0:57:13.000 --> 0:57:17.720
<v Speaker 2>be fresh and compelling. So someone's been found not guilty murder,

0:57:17.720 --> 0:57:21.040
<v Speaker 2>they can be charged again. You need fresh and compelling evidence,

0:57:21.040 --> 0:57:23.960
<v Speaker 2>so fresh is something that hasn't been heard in court

0:57:24.520 --> 0:57:29.880
<v Speaker 2>before and compelling speak spelling. Yeah, how much do you

0:57:30.040 --> 0:57:34.920
<v Speaker 2>need do you think as a homicide cop to and

0:57:34.960 --> 0:57:37.600
<v Speaker 2>this We're not saying that Frank is guilty. He's been

0:57:37.640 --> 0:57:41.600
<v Speaker 2>found not guilty, but theoretically, how much do you think

0:57:41.680 --> 0:57:44.240
<v Speaker 2>you would need in terms of new evidence to overturn

0:57:44.280 --> 0:57:44.960
<v Speaker 2>and not guilty.

0:57:44.960 --> 0:57:48.640
<v Speaker 9>I think my instinct of pushing this and really taking

0:57:48.680 --> 0:57:50.960
<v Speaker 9>it to the next level. If you got Frank confessing

0:57:51.000 --> 0:57:53.880
<v Speaker 9>to someone and you captured that on tape, I think

0:57:53.920 --> 0:57:55.760
<v Speaker 9>that would warrant an application.

0:57:55.840 --> 0:58:00.520
<v Speaker 2>At the very last we don't have Frank confessing on tape,

0:58:01.880 --> 0:58:04.440
<v Speaker 2>but there is something.

0:58:16.200 --> 0:58:19.680
<v Speaker 5>M h m hm.

0:58:24.040 --> 0:58:28.960
<v Speaker 2>Hi is that Brian? Yeah, Brian Collier is one of

0:58:29.000 --> 0:58:31.800
<v Speaker 2>the first people I speak to in John's River, the

0:58:31.880 --> 0:58:35.080
<v Speaker 2>little town where Frank once lived and where we were

0:58:35.120 --> 0:58:39.280
<v Speaker 2>in the last episode. Brian, my name is Dan Box.

0:58:41.400 --> 0:58:41.640
<v Speaker 5>Frank.

0:58:42.800 --> 0:58:44.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly that.

0:58:45.000 --> 0:58:49.120
<v Speaker 5>Yes, Frank, I knew it well, Frank. It was very

0:58:49.440 --> 0:58:51.919
<v Speaker 5>very handy A doing things he could.

0:58:52.080 --> 0:58:56.120
<v Speaker 6>He could like electrician, plumber, anything and the favorite of

0:58:56.200 --> 0:59:00.960
<v Speaker 6>work at my face. But he was a blake you

0:59:01.000 --> 0:59:04.080
<v Speaker 6>couldn't trust if there was kids around.

0:59:04.320 --> 0:59:05.280
<v Speaker 2>What makes you say that?

0:59:06.520 --> 0:59:11.440
<v Speaker 6>Well, me granddaughter when Vowel living here. According it was

0:59:11.520 --> 0:59:14.959
<v Speaker 6>just getting starting to get dark, and she was walking

0:59:15.040 --> 0:59:16.000
<v Speaker 6>up straight coming out.

0:59:16.680 --> 0:59:18.960
<v Speaker 5>He was coming the other way and he'd go behind

0:59:19.040 --> 0:59:22.440
<v Speaker 5>my car. Yeah, what do you do? I said, I

0:59:22.600 --> 0:59:25.880
<v Speaker 5>just kind of scare her. I thought, yeah, it'd been

0:59:25.920 --> 0:59:26.400
<v Speaker 5>more than that.

0:59:27.600 --> 0:59:29.320
<v Speaker 2>What makes you said it would have been more than that?

0:59:30.640 --> 0:59:30.920
<v Speaker 5>Well?

0:59:30.920 --> 0:59:33.840
<v Speaker 6>He virtually admitted to me that he did kill that

0:59:33.960 --> 0:59:36.480
<v Speaker 6>girl that after Windsor.

0:59:37.040 --> 0:59:40.320
<v Speaker 2>Helen Harrison was last seen about a ten minute drive

0:59:40.360 --> 0:59:41.040
<v Speaker 2>from Windsor.

0:59:41.480 --> 0:59:43.080
<v Speaker 5>I fink she's at fourteen.

0:59:43.400 --> 0:59:45.280
<v Speaker 2>She was seventeen, not fourteen.

0:59:45.600 --> 0:59:48.160
<v Speaker 6>He went to court for that, but the Jerry on

0:59:48.240 --> 0:59:49.959
<v Speaker 6>three occasions, I think it was.

0:59:50.000 --> 0:59:52.919
<v Speaker 2>And there were only two trials, not three of them.

0:59:53.360 --> 0:59:54.640
<v Speaker 5>They couldn't reach a verdict.

0:59:55.120 --> 0:59:58.000
<v Speaker 2>But I've spoken to Brian on a couple of occasions

0:59:58.000 --> 1:00:02.360
<v Speaker 2>now about this, and I'm sure it's Helen he's talking about.

1:00:03.320 --> 1:00:05.000
<v Speaker 2>I think it was Helen Harrison.

1:00:06.720 --> 1:00:09.240
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I can't remember the name, but I know he

1:00:10.120 --> 1:00:14.440
<v Speaker 6>because frankly used he was an alcoholic apparently, but he

1:00:14.520 --> 1:00:19.160
<v Speaker 6>stopped drinking and he was he was, Mamie Lords, actually

1:00:19.360 --> 1:00:22.720
<v Speaker 6>is a stinking hot day. And I told him in

1:00:22.760 --> 1:00:28.280
<v Speaker 6>the having a couple of beers, and he started loosen

1:00:28.400 --> 1:00:33.480
<v Speaker 6>up a bit and he and he mostly admitted to

1:00:33.520 --> 1:00:34.640
<v Speaker 6>me that he did kill her.

1:00:34.600 --> 1:00:35.440
<v Speaker 5>The shadow up.

1:00:35.920 --> 1:00:37.120
<v Speaker 2>What did he what did he say?

1:00:37.760 --> 1:00:41.960
<v Speaker 6>Well, he did have sex with her, and then he

1:00:42.120 --> 1:00:46.800
<v Speaker 6>was she was going to tell on him, so he there.

1:00:47.040 --> 1:00:50.720
<v Speaker 2>And so what did he say he did, Well.

1:00:50.480 --> 1:00:54.800
<v Speaker 6>He was around about way the way had come out,

1:00:54.640 --> 1:00:57.840
<v Speaker 6>and then he just cleaned up then because I think

1:00:57.880 --> 1:01:00.560
<v Speaker 6>he realized he said.

1:01:00.320 --> 1:01:00.920
<v Speaker 5>A fair bit.

1:01:01.880 --> 1:01:03.520
<v Speaker 2>Can you remember what words he used?

1:01:04.400 --> 1:01:07.080
<v Speaker 6>I'm but I think he did say that he had

1:01:07.280 --> 1:01:10.880
<v Speaker 6>he had sex with her a few times, okay, and

1:01:11.040 --> 1:01:13.520
<v Speaker 6>he was she was riding a pushbike I think it was,

1:01:14.200 --> 1:01:18.480
<v Speaker 6>I think she said at the time, and and he

1:01:18.560 --> 1:01:20.280
<v Speaker 6>picked her up and through I think he said he

1:01:20.360 --> 1:01:21.080
<v Speaker 6>had a ute.

1:01:21.280 --> 1:01:23.200
<v Speaker 2>And what did he say he did with the pushbike?

1:01:24.520 --> 1:01:27.240
<v Speaker 6>I think he did damp it.

1:01:27.320 --> 1:01:31.000
<v Speaker 2>So he picked her up with her bike maybe put

1:01:31.000 --> 1:01:34.520
<v Speaker 2>the bike in the back of the ute apparently, And

1:01:34.560 --> 1:01:36.200
<v Speaker 2>then did you tell you what happened next?

1:01:37.040 --> 1:01:40.800
<v Speaker 5>That now he cleaned up, okay.

1:01:41.040 --> 1:01:42.800
<v Speaker 2>And what did you think when you heard him say that?

1:01:43.960 --> 1:01:47.960
<v Speaker 6>Well, nothing he could do because he had three trials

1:01:48.320 --> 1:01:53.120
<v Speaker 6>and they well, they couldn't try him again. So yeah,

1:01:53.160 --> 1:01:55.520
<v Speaker 6>that's why I was. I was very careful with Frank.

1:01:56.520 --> 1:01:59.960
<v Speaker 6>He was He often used to wander around John's River.

1:02:00.000 --> 1:02:04.320
<v Speaker 6>I heard early ails of the morning and he wasn't

1:02:04.440 --> 1:02:05.640
<v Speaker 6>very well liked over.

1:02:06.640 --> 1:02:09.280
<v Speaker 2>And did the police ever talk to you about what

1:02:09.400 --> 1:02:10.919
<v Speaker 2>he said about this young girl?

1:02:12.560 --> 1:02:13.080
<v Speaker 5>Nah?

1:02:13.240 --> 1:02:16.120
<v Speaker 6>Well, I didn't say think about it because he had

1:02:16.200 --> 1:02:19.960
<v Speaker 6>free trials, so that was it. They couldn't roy arrestling

1:02:20.440 --> 1:02:20.880
<v Speaker 6>after that.

1:02:22.560 --> 1:02:26.240
<v Speaker 2>Brian is right about that point. At the time Frank

1:02:26.360 --> 1:02:29.520
<v Speaker 2>was found not guilty of Helen's murder, the law said

1:02:29.600 --> 1:02:33.040
<v Speaker 2>you couldn't be put on trial again for the same crime.

1:02:34.040 --> 1:02:37.440
<v Speaker 2>So at that time the police could not rearrest Frank,

1:02:37.960 --> 1:02:43.439
<v Speaker 2>even if Brian had come forward. But the law has

1:02:43.560 --> 1:02:47.560
<v Speaker 2>been changed since. That's what Gary Jubilin was talking about.

1:02:47.920 --> 1:02:52.680
<v Speaker 2>If you have fresh and compelling evidence, they can do

1:02:52.800 --> 1:02:57.080
<v Speaker 2>if they have new evidence, so something they hadn't heard before.

1:02:57.440 --> 1:02:59.880
<v Speaker 5>Now thought I didn't think they could roy arrest.

1:03:01.360 --> 1:03:02.600
<v Speaker 2>How would you describe Frank?

1:03:04.440 --> 1:03:07.160
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, well, don't know.

1:03:07.280 --> 1:03:09.280
<v Speaker 5>I got on good with him in one way.

1:03:09.360 --> 1:03:13.640
<v Speaker 6>But I was careful of him also because see, look

1:03:13.680 --> 1:03:17.520
<v Speaker 6>he was a bit of a day with kids, So I.

1:03:17.440 --> 1:03:21.120
<v Speaker 2>Know that you'd heard that from other people or no.

1:03:21.960 --> 1:03:25.280
<v Speaker 6>My grandson was another girl here she was for then

1:03:26.440 --> 1:03:28.800
<v Speaker 6>Frank try to grab her.

1:03:30.200 --> 1:03:34.560
<v Speaker 2>Did he ever talk about any other you know, any

1:03:34.600 --> 1:03:36.840
<v Speaker 2>other crimes he might have committed anything like that.

1:03:37.920 --> 1:03:42.160
<v Speaker 6>Nah, No, there was just luck. I think that the

1:03:42.360 --> 1:03:44.640
<v Speaker 6>things he said to me about the girl at winter

1:03:45.560 --> 1:03:47.479
<v Speaker 6>and then he shut up pretty quick.

1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:55.160
<v Speaker 2>Frank did not completely shut up. In fact, he's allegedly

1:03:55.200 --> 1:03:59.760
<v Speaker 2>been telling other people similar stories. At the inquest into

1:03:59.800 --> 1:04:04.080
<v Speaker 2>will Tull's disappearance, there was another witness who can't be identified,

1:04:04.520 --> 1:04:07.560
<v Speaker 2>who was asked if Frank Abbott ever told him about

1:04:07.560 --> 1:04:11.280
<v Speaker 2>a murder back in nineteen sixty eight, the year Helen

1:04:11.320 --> 1:04:16.240
<v Speaker 2>Harrison went missing and died. This witness gave evidence saying

1:04:16.320 --> 1:04:21.880
<v Speaker 2>Frank told him quote borrowed his car, raped a girl

1:04:22.200 --> 1:04:26.400
<v Speaker 2>and she had an electic fit and died. The same

1:04:26.440 --> 1:04:29.640
<v Speaker 2>witness later said the same thing in a TV interview

1:04:29.680 --> 1:04:31.640
<v Speaker 2>broadcast by seven News.

1:04:31.520 --> 1:04:33.439
<v Speaker 7>And he told me he was charged with the murder

1:04:33.480 --> 1:04:33.800
<v Speaker 7>over that.

1:04:35.240 --> 1:04:38.520
<v Speaker 2>This witness has since died, so we can't ask him

1:04:38.640 --> 1:04:44.440
<v Speaker 2>any questions. But here's the key thing. Listening back to

1:04:44.520 --> 1:04:48.760
<v Speaker 2>what he says and what Brian Collier told me, I

1:04:48.840 --> 1:04:52.680
<v Speaker 2>realized neither of them is actually saying Frank told them

1:04:53.200 --> 1:04:59.960
<v Speaker 2>he murdered Helen. Brian claims Frank virtually admitted that he killed.

1:04:59.720 --> 1:05:04.120
<v Speaker 5>Her, and he mostly matter to me that he did

1:05:04.240 --> 1:05:05.440
<v Speaker 5>kill and the shadow up.

1:05:06.960 --> 1:05:11.400
<v Speaker 2>But that's Brian's opinion, and actually Frank doesn't say that.

1:05:12.440 --> 1:05:15.800
<v Speaker 2>In Brian's version, Frank says only that he had sex

1:05:15.960 --> 1:05:16.520
<v Speaker 2>with Helen.

1:05:16.840 --> 1:05:18.760
<v Speaker 5>Well, he did have sex, brother.

1:05:19.560 --> 1:05:21.840
<v Speaker 2>Frank doesn't say anything else.

1:05:22.520 --> 1:05:25.120
<v Speaker 6>He just claimed that then because I think he realized

1:05:26.240 --> 1:05:27.280
<v Speaker 6>he said a fair bit.

1:05:28.920 --> 1:05:32.680
<v Speaker 2>And the unidentified witness at the inquest his evidence is

1:05:32.760 --> 1:05:36.760
<v Speaker 2>not that Frank killed Helen, just that Frank told him

1:05:37.240 --> 1:05:40.480
<v Speaker 2>a couple of blokes borrowed his car, raped a girl

1:05:40.880 --> 1:05:45.800
<v Speaker 2>and she had an epileptic fit and died. So this

1:05:46.400 --> 1:05:51.040
<v Speaker 2>new evidence is only that at most Frank did have

1:05:51.160 --> 1:05:55.840
<v Speaker 2>sex with Helen. Not sure what to make of this.

1:05:56.280 --> 1:06:10.720
<v Speaker 2>Nina and I keep on talking to people, speaking to

1:06:10.800 --> 1:06:12.560
<v Speaker 2>people who know Frank Abbot.

1:06:13.120 --> 1:06:15.160
<v Speaker 7>Hello, Dora speaking Hide.

1:06:15.280 --> 1:06:18.200
<v Speaker 2>My name is Dan Box. I'm sorry to call you

1:06:18.240 --> 1:06:23.400
<v Speaker 2>about the Blue his friends and family. I'm a reporter

1:06:23.560 --> 1:06:25.640
<v Speaker 2>and I'm trying to get in touch with the daughter

1:06:25.720 --> 1:06:30.000
<v Speaker 2>of a man called David Abbott. That is you, oh

1:06:30.080 --> 1:06:36.200
<v Speaker 2>fucking hell, including this woman who is Frank's niece, the

1:06:36.320 --> 1:06:41.720
<v Speaker 2>daughter of one of Frank's few surviving brothers. It was

1:06:41.760 --> 1:06:44.280
<v Speaker 2>specifically to do with with his brother.

1:06:45.280 --> 1:06:51.680
<v Speaker 3>Ah, where do you start anyway?

1:06:51.720 --> 1:06:52.440
<v Speaker 7>What would your love to?

1:06:52.520 --> 1:06:52.720
<v Speaker 3>Now?

1:06:53.200 --> 1:06:55.280
<v Speaker 2>What can you tell me about Frank?

1:06:57.680 --> 1:06:58.160
<v Speaker 5>Creepy?

1:06:58.320 --> 1:07:00.960
<v Speaker 3>But he never touched me, He never did anything to

1:07:01.000 --> 1:07:04.600
<v Speaker 3>me that I know of. Bo can remember he was

1:07:04.720 --> 1:07:08.200
<v Speaker 3>in Windsor. This is another thing. My father told me

1:07:08.280 --> 1:07:10.040
<v Speaker 3>he's a kid, which I was waiting for the police

1:07:10.040 --> 1:07:13.320
<v Speaker 3>to do more interviews, and I've tried to tell Queensland Police.

1:07:14.000 --> 1:07:17.680
<v Speaker 3>But years ago, down in Penrith, Windsor area, there was

1:07:17.720 --> 1:07:18.600
<v Speaker 3>a young girl.

1:07:18.920 --> 1:07:20.720
<v Speaker 5>This is going back years and years.

1:07:21.080 --> 1:07:23.760
<v Speaker 3>There was a young girl. They found her dead and

1:07:23.800 --> 1:07:28.600
<v Speaker 3>she had a pushbike ye and she wrote out and

1:07:28.640 --> 1:07:32.760
<v Speaker 3>they found her in the scrub years ago when I

1:07:32.800 --> 1:07:36.920
<v Speaker 3>was a kid. My father, now, I don't know why

1:07:36.960 --> 1:07:40.640
<v Speaker 3>he would tell me this, but he told me that

1:07:40.800 --> 1:07:43.720
<v Speaker 3>his brothers took her out into the scrub and they

1:07:43.720 --> 1:07:46.160
<v Speaker 3>all had sex with her and that she ended up dead.

1:07:46.160 --> 1:07:51.440
<v Speaker 3>But no one knows how And I've been trying to

1:07:51.480 --> 1:07:54.720
<v Speaker 3>get that looked into because if he dies, no one's

1:07:54.720 --> 1:07:56.919
<v Speaker 3>ever going to know the full story, Like why would

1:07:56.960 --> 1:07:57.760
<v Speaker 3>you tell your kid that?

1:07:58.400 --> 1:08:00.680
<v Speaker 2>And you've told police this.

1:08:01.840 --> 1:08:04.240
<v Speaker 3>Well, I've tried to Yeah, yes.

1:08:03.920 --> 1:08:05.680
<v Speaker 2>Police in New South Wales or queen.

1:08:05.520 --> 1:08:08.439
<v Speaker 3>No police in Queensland. When I've said, oh, yeah, there's

1:08:08.440 --> 1:08:10.280
<v Speaker 3>some girl on a bike years ago, and.

1:08:10.960 --> 1:08:12.840
<v Speaker 2>You know.

1:08:14.800 --> 1:08:18.760
<v Speaker 3>It was back in the nineteen sixties. I think I

1:08:18.800 --> 1:08:20.960
<v Speaker 3>think she was only sixteen or seventeen.

1:08:21.439 --> 1:08:24.840
<v Speaker 7>Frank was tried, Yes, he was, that's the one.

1:08:24.960 --> 1:08:26.840
<v Speaker 3>Yes, they tried to get him for it.

1:08:26.960 --> 1:08:29.759
<v Speaker 2>It was the murder of a girl called Helen Harrison.

1:08:30.400 --> 1:08:30.800
<v Speaker 5>That's it.

1:08:30.880 --> 1:08:31.559
<v Speaker 7>That's her name.

1:08:31.880 --> 1:08:32.599
<v Speaker 3>That's the name.

1:08:34.320 --> 1:08:36.040
<v Speaker 2>And I think it might be quite important that we

1:08:36.080 --> 1:08:37.560
<v Speaker 2>look at that because.

1:08:37.320 --> 1:08:41.720
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, because my father, I can just see where I

1:08:41.760 --> 1:08:44.920
<v Speaker 3>am right now in the shed within there telling me

1:08:45.120 --> 1:08:48.519
<v Speaker 3>this story of this young girl that they picked up

1:08:49.560 --> 1:08:51.519
<v Speaker 3>who was on a push bike. They put the bike

1:08:51.560 --> 1:08:54.559
<v Speaker 3>in the back of the you and they his brothers

1:08:54.600 --> 1:08:57.360
<v Speaker 3>took her out the bush and yeah, all had sex

1:08:57.400 --> 1:08:58.360
<v Speaker 3>with her.

1:08:59.160 --> 1:09:03.200
<v Speaker 2>Day's memory is that her father, David told her that

1:09:03.280 --> 1:09:06.880
<v Speaker 2>his brothers picked up a young girl with a pushbike

1:09:07.240 --> 1:09:10.800
<v Speaker 2>and had sex with her and that she ended up dead,

1:09:11.479 --> 1:09:15.559
<v Speaker 2>but no one knows how. I've seen a version of

1:09:15.600 --> 1:09:19.920
<v Speaker 2>that same allegation included in a witness statement Day gave

1:09:20.000 --> 1:09:24.519
<v Speaker 2>to the police in November twenty twenty two. That statement

1:09:24.640 --> 1:09:29.839
<v Speaker 2>describes Frank's brother David, showing off Playboy magazines and talking

1:09:30.000 --> 1:09:34.839
<v Speaker 2>about the girl that went missing, but again not talking

1:09:35.320 --> 1:09:51.120
<v Speaker 2>about murder. We try talking to David Abbott about Helen.

1:09:51.320 --> 1:09:54.240
<v Speaker 2>I did want to ask you about the murder of

1:09:54.280 --> 1:10:11.400
<v Speaker 2>Helen Brothers someone he doesn't want to talk. Hello, Hi,

1:10:11.600 --> 1:10:14.680
<v Speaker 2>my name's Dan Box. Instead, I speak to some of

1:10:14.680 --> 1:10:18.519
<v Speaker 2>those who were involved in Frank's trials over Helen's murder,

1:10:19.360 --> 1:10:22.840
<v Speaker 2>and they say one thing that really stood out is

1:10:22.880 --> 1:10:26.400
<v Speaker 2>that no one knew the actual cause of Helen's death.

1:10:27.479 --> 1:10:30.960
<v Speaker 2>They couldn't work it out during the autopsy or on

1:10:31.000 --> 1:10:36.400
<v Speaker 2>the evidence she was found with, which was strange. But

1:10:37.040 --> 1:10:40.639
<v Speaker 2>because Helen's body was found buried in a shallow grave,

1:10:41.439 --> 1:10:46.920
<v Speaker 2>everyone just thought that she'd been murdered. I speak to

1:10:47.000 --> 1:10:51.000
<v Speaker 2>Frank Abbot's sister, Elaine Harding, who will be eighty seven

1:10:51.120 --> 1:10:56.960
<v Speaker 2>this year, but remembers Helen's disappearance almost sixty years ago. Now,

1:10:57.200 --> 1:11:00.000
<v Speaker 2>Elaine doesn't want to be recorded, so I make sure

1:11:00.240 --> 1:11:04.400
<v Speaker 2>hand notes of our conversation. She says Frank would buy

1:11:04.520 --> 1:11:08.439
<v Speaker 2>lunch from the local store in Pitttown that Helen worked at.

1:11:09.479 --> 1:11:13.479
<v Speaker 2>She says Frank always used to chat to Helen. When

1:11:13.520 --> 1:11:17.439
<v Speaker 2>I asked Elaine to describe her brother, she says Frank

1:11:17.560 --> 1:11:20.360
<v Speaker 2>was a thief, that he could pick the eye out

1:11:20.439 --> 1:11:24.000
<v Speaker 2>of a needle, but she never knew him to hurt

1:11:24.120 --> 1:11:28.960
<v Speaker 2>a child or a woman. Elaine says she does remember

1:11:29.200 --> 1:11:33.720
<v Speaker 2>her brother's saying something about a car and telling her

1:11:33.720 --> 1:11:36.799
<v Speaker 2>the police were trying to pin Helen's murder on Frank,

1:11:37.840 --> 1:11:41.200
<v Speaker 2>just like they did with William Tyrell's disappearance, she says,

1:11:41.880 --> 1:11:48.280
<v Speaker 2>and Frank has told her that that is definitely not true. Later,

1:11:49.000 --> 1:11:52.720
<v Speaker 2>reading back over my shorthand notes of our conversation, I

1:11:52.840 --> 1:11:57.519
<v Speaker 2>stopped looking at something Elaine said about Helen when talking

1:11:57.560 --> 1:12:01.920
<v Speaker 2>about how Frank would chat to her while buying, she said,

1:12:02.880 --> 1:12:05.439
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if she was an epileptic or something,

1:12:05.960 --> 1:12:11.080
<v Speaker 2>meaning if Helen was epileptic. I didn't mention epilepsy, but

1:12:11.200 --> 1:12:14.519
<v Speaker 2>she's the second person now to do so, after the

1:12:14.560 --> 1:12:19.559
<v Speaker 2>witness at the inquest into William's disappearance, who says Frank

1:12:19.640 --> 1:12:20.360
<v Speaker 2>told him.

1:12:20.479 --> 1:12:22.479
<v Speaker 7>Apparently she had an eteleptic fit and died.

1:12:24.080 --> 1:12:28.040
<v Speaker 2>Nina, who's the producer on this podcast, spends weeks going

1:12:28.080 --> 1:12:30.679
<v Speaker 2>back and forth with the New South Wales Supreme Court

1:12:31.120 --> 1:12:33.800
<v Speaker 2>trying to get access to the thirty year old court

1:12:33.880 --> 1:12:39.200
<v Speaker 2>records of Frank's prosecution over Helen's murder. Nina then spends

1:12:39.240 --> 1:12:43.360
<v Speaker 2>two days reading through these yellowing pages and finds a

1:12:43.360 --> 1:12:47.880
<v Speaker 2>page of transcript from Frank's committal hearing where Helen's old

1:12:47.920 --> 1:12:51.040
<v Speaker 2>boss at the store says in court that she was

1:12:51.080 --> 1:12:52.840
<v Speaker 2>taking epilepsy tablets.

1:12:54.560 --> 1:12:59.280
<v Speaker 7>Well, I remember being surprised when I first heard about it.

1:13:00.520 --> 1:13:03.960
<v Speaker 2>I call Helen's brother Peter and ask him if Helen

1:13:04.040 --> 1:13:05.439
<v Speaker 2>was epileptic.

1:13:05.720 --> 1:13:10.719
<v Speaker 7>Waiting just a child. I wasn't aware she had anything

1:13:10.840 --> 1:13:11.240
<v Speaker 7>like that.

1:13:12.360 --> 1:13:15.080
<v Speaker 2>He says he was only fourteen or fifteen when his

1:13:15.160 --> 1:13:18.719
<v Speaker 2>sister first went missing, and he didn't know anything about

1:13:18.800 --> 1:13:23.040
<v Speaker 2>epilepsy until after Helen's body was recovered and.

1:13:23.400 --> 1:13:31.240
<v Speaker 7>During the police investigations. Okay, later on, I think I

1:13:31.360 --> 1:13:41.120
<v Speaker 7>just heard mark parents discussing it. Yeah, brought color because

1:13:41.160 --> 1:13:48.640
<v Speaker 7>my personal reaction was I just thought, in a shock situation,

1:13:50.040 --> 1:13:51.280
<v Speaker 7>maybe that's how she died.

1:13:52.160 --> 1:13:54.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it was just.

1:13:54.160 --> 1:14:00.520
<v Speaker 7>My went through my mind. If she had a sickness.

1:14:00.120 --> 1:14:07.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Helen being epileptic could explain why no one at

1:14:07.080 --> 1:14:14.520
<v Speaker 2>Frank's trial knew how she died. I call a forensic pathologist,

1:14:14.840 --> 1:14:19.160
<v Speaker 2>someone who's done thousands of different autopsies, and who tells

1:14:19.240 --> 1:14:23.160
<v Speaker 2>me that if someone died with epilepsy and their body

1:14:23.280 --> 1:14:27.800
<v Speaker 2>was not discovered for a week like Helen's, that fact

1:14:28.200 --> 1:14:31.960
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't be something you could see during an autopsy conducted

1:14:32.000 --> 1:14:36.040
<v Speaker 2>in nineteen sixty eight, and maybe not something you could

1:14:36.040 --> 1:14:41.479
<v Speaker 2>see even with today's technology. Meaning I don't think you

1:14:41.760 --> 1:14:47.400
<v Speaker 2>can say for sure that Helen was murdered. I keep

1:14:47.479 --> 1:14:51.320
<v Speaker 2>talking to her brother Peter, telling him about the people

1:14:51.479 --> 1:14:56.280
<v Speaker 2>we've spoken to about this, like Brian Collier in John's River.

1:14:56.920 --> 1:14:59.519
<v Speaker 2>This one guy who said that he'd spoken to Frank

1:14:59.600 --> 1:15:02.600
<v Speaker 2>and Frank had said that maybe he was involved. And

1:15:02.760 --> 1:15:08.840
<v Speaker 2>this woman, so she's Frank's niece, and she told me

1:15:09.479 --> 1:15:13.240
<v Speaker 2>and Frank's sister is a woman called Elaine, and she

1:15:13.439 --> 1:15:20.200
<v Speaker 2>says she doesn't think Frank was involved, but she does

1:15:20.280 --> 1:15:24.280
<v Speaker 2>remember her brothers at the time talking about what happened

1:15:24.320 --> 1:15:29.880
<v Speaker 2>to your sister. And the witness at the inquest who

1:15:29.920 --> 1:15:33.719
<v Speaker 2>said Frank told him about a girl who was raped

1:15:33.880 --> 1:15:38.400
<v Speaker 2>and had an epileptic fit and died because Helen's death

1:15:38.479 --> 1:15:41.960
<v Speaker 2>came up at the inquest into William's disappearance. So I

1:15:42.040 --> 1:15:46.759
<v Speaker 2>tell Peter I can't prove anything, and that doesn't change

1:15:47.320 --> 1:15:49.400
<v Speaker 2>the fact that what happened to her was awful and

1:15:49.439 --> 1:15:53.200
<v Speaker 2>should never have happened, and that the people involved shouldn't

1:15:53.200 --> 1:15:55.400
<v Speaker 2>have been brought to justice. It doesn't change any of that.

1:15:57.120 --> 1:16:02.599
<v Speaker 2>Even if Helen died from epileps whoever was there didn't

1:16:02.640 --> 1:16:09.240
<v Speaker 2>call for help or for an ambulance. Instead, they buried her.

1:16:09.840 --> 1:16:13.840
<v Speaker 2>And there are now three more people. On top of

1:16:13.880 --> 1:16:17.520
<v Speaker 2>those who gave evidence at Frank's trial in the nineteen nineties,

1:16:18.280 --> 1:16:21.479
<v Speaker 2>there are now the two I've spoken to, Frank's niece

1:16:21.640 --> 1:16:25.920
<v Speaker 2>and Brian Collier, as well as the unidentified witness at

1:16:25.960 --> 1:16:32.000
<v Speaker 2>the inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance. I asked Peter if

1:16:32.040 --> 1:16:36.960
<v Speaker 2>he's heard anything from the police or the coroner since

1:16:37.040 --> 1:16:44.479
<v Speaker 2>that evidence about his sister came up at the inquest, nah,

1:16:45.200 --> 1:16:49.240
<v Speaker 2>which I find shocking that the cops and the coroner

1:16:49.600 --> 1:16:52.799
<v Speaker 2>would not want to contact Helen's family.

1:16:53.760 --> 1:16:57.160
<v Speaker 7>I've just been just last night thinking a lot but

1:16:59.040 --> 1:17:02.880
<v Speaker 7>the stage in my life and trying to recall the

1:17:02.960 --> 1:17:06.000
<v Speaker 7>rest of where a laws were up to, you know,

1:17:06.280 --> 1:17:10.080
<v Speaker 7>to jog my memory about things. Yeah, it's still just

1:17:10.200 --> 1:17:14.080
<v Speaker 7>unsolved and should be got nowhere with the whole thing.

1:17:15.640 --> 1:17:21.040
<v Speaker 2>And I guess you'd like that to change, yes, hm, hm,

1:17:33.520 --> 1:17:38.360
<v Speaker 2>to change things. Peter knows that the police and the

1:17:38.400 --> 1:17:44.320
<v Speaker 2>courts can only act on evidence, but he also expects

1:17:44.520 --> 1:17:50.559
<v Speaker 2>that when they do have evidence, they do act. So

1:17:50.640 --> 1:17:55.320
<v Speaker 2>Peter's surprised to hear about the other evidence we've found

1:17:55.720 --> 1:18:00.439
<v Speaker 2>about Frank Abbott, evidence that was tendered at the quest

1:18:00.520 --> 1:18:07.680
<v Speaker 2>into William Tyrol's disappearance, including a witness statement that nobody

1:18:08.080 --> 1:18:12.439
<v Speaker 2>has mentioned to Peter and which Nina and I find

1:18:12.960 --> 1:18:18.000
<v Speaker 2>among the stack of exhibits released only after the inquest

1:18:18.160 --> 1:18:25.040
<v Speaker 2>hearings ended. Reading through that witness statement, we discover it

1:18:25.200 --> 1:18:32.519
<v Speaker 2>links Frank to another cold case. In fact, it links

1:18:32.560 --> 1:18:34.479
<v Speaker 2>Frank to two more.

1:18:41.560 --> 1:18:45.800
<v Speaker 3>They were gouge Max like that someone had gouged.

1:18:46.840 --> 1:18:47.320
<v Speaker 7>Skin it.

1:18:49.360 --> 1:18:59.120
<v Speaker 2>That's next time on Witness William Tyrol. A lot of

1:18:59.200 --> 1:19:02.840
<v Speaker 2>different people have been involved in making this series. Among them,

1:19:02.840 --> 1:19:06.360
<v Speaker 2>the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design was

1:19:06.400 --> 1:19:11.719
<v Speaker 2>by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar,

1:19:12.160 --> 1:19:16.919
<v Speaker 2>phoebe Zakowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick,

1:19:17.200 --> 1:19:21.320
<v Speaker 2>original music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs.

1:19:21.880 --> 1:19:25.080
<v Speaker 2>The editor at news dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren.

1:19:25.760 --> 1:19:26.679
<v Speaker 2>I'm Dan Box