Speaker 1: First of all, we were just seeing the car park
Speaker 1: by itself. We must have heard something because David's turned
Speaker 1: off the car and we listen. Then we heard screaming.
Speaker 1: My name is Wayne Nielsen, or was a policeman for
Speaker 1: close on twenty years.
Speaker 2: Wayne is taking us back in time to a Saturday
Speaker 2: night in May nineteen eighty three. It's just past midnight
Speaker 2: and he's patrolling the streets of Liverpool in Sydney Southwest
Speaker 2: with Constable Dave Stephenson.
Speaker 1: Turn the truck around to face the vehicle. I met
Speaker 1: the young woman running from the vehicle, extremely distressed, clutching
Speaker 1: her dress and saying that the guy's got a gun.
Speaker 3: He's threatened to killer.
Speaker 1: Immediately, we drew our revolvers and told him to get
Speaker 1: out of the vehicle with his hands so we could
Speaker 1: see them so that he was an armed He got
Speaker 1: out of the vehicle and as he did so with
Speaker 1: his hands up, his pants came down and then got
Speaker 1: him to go against the vehicle. At that stage he
Speaker 1: still got his hands up. After he's got his pants
Speaker 1: up and with searched him looking for this gun. Dave
Speaker 1: went back to speak to her while I was guarding
Speaker 1: the fender Dave's then come back and said to the
Speaker 1: fender that the victim has complained that you sexually assaulted her.
Speaker 2: And what did the alleged offenders say.
Speaker 1: Well, he said something in relation to she deserved it
Speaker 1: or something like that she was only a mole That's
Speaker 1: how he was behaving towards her at the time. At
Speaker 1: some stage with searched the vehicle. Well, Dave searched the
Speaker 1: vehicle was still with the truck and the victim Dave
Speaker 1: didn't come up with anything under the seat. She lledged
Speaker 1: that the weapon was under a sept that he reached
Speaker 1: for it a couple of times during the assault.
Speaker 2: Was a weapon foul? So did you take this man
Speaker 2: back to the police station and did he identify himself
Speaker 2: to you?
Speaker 1: Yes, we found out his identity.
Speaker 2: What did he say?
Speaker 1: His name was Kevin Cornwall.
Speaker 2: I'm Ashley Hanson and you're listening to episode ten of
Speaker 2: Dear Rochelle, a podcast by True Crime Australia. This is
Speaker 2: the untold story of Rochelle Charles, a twenty three year
Speaker 2: old who was brutally murdered. Her killer has never been caught.
Speaker 2: In your experience, how common is it to make an
Speaker 2: arrest during an alleged attack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not very often. You get people in the act
Speaker 1: of it, you know, breaking an as you do and
Speaker 1: things like that, but certainly not sexual assaults. I can't
Speaker 1: think of any other ones which happened at the time
Speaker 1: we actually wrestled them. Basically in the act.
Speaker 2: Wayne is recalling his arrest of Kevin Stephen Cornwall more
Speaker 2: than four decades ago. Kevin, who later changed his surname
Speaker 2: to Correll, became the key suspect in Rochelle's murder. You've
Speaker 2: already heard about two other sexually motivated attacks in which
Speaker 2: Kevin was charged but later acquitted. Wayne is talking about
Speaker 2: a third case, in which Kevin was also acquitted. The
Speaker 2: alleged victim is a young woman whose identity is protected.
Speaker 2: She'd met Kevin at a popular Liverpool nightclub called Scaramouge.
Speaker 2: We think it's important to tell you about this case
Speaker 2: and allowed you to decide if you think it's relevant
Speaker 2: to Rochelle's case. At the heart of it is he's
Speaker 2: a young woman who found herself alone in a car
Speaker 2: with Kevin. That's not in dispute. What was contested is
Speaker 2: what happened inside Kevin's car. This is part of what
Speaker 2: the alleged victim told a Sydney court when Kevin went
Speaker 2: a trial. This is not her voice, but these are
Speaker 2: her words.
Speaker 4: Well, first he leant over and started trying to kiss
Speaker 4: me and that, and that's when I said to him,
Speaker 4: I've got a husband. And he said, you're nothing better.
Speaker 4: He called me a lesbian, a tramp, and all those
Speaker 4: sorts of things. And he said, one minute you've told
Speaker 4: me you're engaged, next thing, you told me you're married.
Speaker 2: I said you better leave me.
Speaker 4: Alone, and he moved back and then started undoing his
Speaker 4: pants and then he grabbed me by the hair and
Speaker 4: I just started crying. And the more I cried, the
Speaker 4: angrier he got. And he started slapping me in the
Speaker 4: face and said stop crying. And then I got back
Speaker 4: up and I was just sitting there, and then he
Speaker 4: leant over again and grabbed me by the neck and
Speaker 4: he says, I've got a gun underneath the front seat
Speaker 4: if you don't come across. And all I kept on
Speaker 4: thinking was this couldn't be happening.
Speaker 5: I just kept.
Speaker 4: Crying, and he got worse and worse, and he started
Speaker 4: bending my neck right back and I was just sitting
Speaker 4: there and then his eyes sort of lit up. I
Speaker 4: tried to get out of the door, but it was locked,
Speaker 4: so I unlocked it and I got out of the car.
Speaker 4: I went to get out of the car. I was
Speaker 4: screaming in everything, and he tried to start the car
Speaker 4: to get away, and then I went running over to
Speaker 4: the police truck screaming and like he pulled all the
Speaker 4: straps down on my dress down, and then I told
Speaker 4: the police he had a gun, and so they went
Speaker 4: straight over to him. And then one of the policemen
Speaker 4: came back over to me and I sat down in
Speaker 4: the police van and he said to me, what happened,
Speaker 4: and I said, he tried to kill me.
Speaker 2: Walk began as a standard night for Constable Wayne Nielsen
Speaker 2: more than forty years ago patrolling Sydney's Southwest, has stayed
Speaker 2: with him to this day.
Speaker 1: Well, sure, wholly upset. I mean, she just went through
Speaker 1: a very traumatic time where she obviously felt her life
Speaker 1: was threatened. She was violently sexually assaulted.
Speaker 2: Wayne was struck by how Kevin, who was twenty seven
Speaker 2: at the time, was acting towards the young woman.
Speaker 1: Well, he was pretty offensive towards the female in his
Speaker 1: language and his demeanor, and how he related to her.
Speaker 1: It seems like that was a very common attitude of his,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And would it be fair to call him an extreme
Speaker 2: misogynist the way that he was describing her behavior.
Speaker 1: I mean a total disregard for respect of a female.
Speaker 2: Kevin claims the alleged victim agreed to go for a
Speaker 2: drive after she was denied entry to the nightclub, but
Speaker 2: she claims he'd offered to give her a lift home.
Speaker 2: Kevin says inside the cup the pair got into an
Speaker 2: argument and she became upset. Kevin took the stand to
Speaker 2: defend him. Here's part of what he told the court,
Speaker 2: voiced by an actor.
Speaker 6: I stopped the car at Woodward Park and told her
Speaker 6: to settle down. She was crying by then, upset, and
Speaker 6: we took from maybe five minutes, and she seemed to
Speaker 6: appear to me to settle down a little bit. Then
Speaker 6: I put my arm around her, and I first kissed
Speaker 6: her on the cheek, and then I started kissing her
Speaker 6: on the lips. She responded to that, she seemed to
Speaker 6: settle down a little bit again, and I again put
Speaker 6: my arm around her and kissed her. The response was
Speaker 6: more this time that she was kissing me back. We
Speaker 6: kissed for a while and I undone my top button
Speaker 6: and my fly. She said, you fucking guys are all
Speaker 6: the same, and we started an argument. She said I'm married,
Speaker 6: I've got a husband at home something to that, and
Speaker 6: I replied to that, you told me earlier on in
Speaker 6: the evening that you'd just broken off your engagement. She
Speaker 6: called me names, and then I called her a slut.
Speaker 6: I think I called her a mole and teaser or something.
Speaker 6: I think she said again to take her home. I
Speaker 6: told her I'll drop her back up at Scaramouge. She
Speaker 6: said I want to go home, and I said.
Speaker 7: She said, you told me you'd said a while ago
Speaker 7: that you'd take me home. I said that was before
Speaker 7: you started carrying on like an idiot, and I said,
Speaker 7: I'm going to drop you back up to Scaramouge. We
Speaker 7: were arguing, as I said, and a light came up
Speaker 7: the driveway. As it got closer, I was sewing the
Speaker 7: police light on top of the truck and I said
Speaker 7: something like it's the bloody copper is not to worry,
Speaker 7: they'll go straight past.
Speaker 8: And the police stopped and she started screaming.
Speaker 2: Kevin denies having a gun in his car and no
Speaker 2: weapons were found. A jury later found not guilty of
Speaker 2: the attack. Let's return to Wayne Nielsen. I asked him,
Speaker 2: generally speaking, how vulnerable is a woman in a car
Speaker 2: with a dangerous man?
Speaker 1: Extremely vulnerable? I think a lot of times females may
Speaker 1: not realize how dangerous a male can be, how strong
Speaker 1: and driven.
Speaker 2: Let's bring in retired detective Damien Loon to get his
Speaker 2: thoughts on this third sexual assault case.
Speaker 9: Well, when do you look at the circumstances of how
Speaker 9: he's arrested a gunpoint? It's a smoking gun brief, as
Speaker 9: I say, you know, here he gets out of a car.
Speaker 9: He's been accused of a sexual and motivated attack against
Speaker 9: a young intoxicated woman, and he gets out of the
Speaker 9: current and the cops pull him out a current gunpoint
Speaker 9: in his pants fall down around his ankles. You know,
Speaker 9: you couldn't get a better evidence. Police had enough evidence
Speaker 9: to charge him. They would have obtained a statement from
Speaker 9: the victim, and it would have gone up to the
Speaker 9: district court for trial. And yet yet again, as I say,
Speaker 9: this is the course of just just that he went under.
Speaker 9: He was acquitted of most.
Speaker 2: Matters, and now it's probably the time to tell you
Speaker 2: about the first rape allegation leveled against Kevin. The year
Speaker 2: was nineteen eighty and Kevin was twenty four DJing in
Speaker 2: Sydney's Southwest. On this occasion, a seventeen year old told
Speaker 2: police Kevin had offered to drive her home from a
Speaker 2: Liverpool nightclub. She alleges he pulled a knife on her,
Speaker 2: ordering her into the back seat, where he allegedly raped
Speaker 2: her before dropping her home. Kevin was charged with rape
Speaker 2: and two counts of indecent assault. He was committed to
Speaker 2: stand trial and later acquitted of all charges for anyone
Speaker 2: keeping count. That's four acquittals for sexually motivated attacks on
Speaker 2: young women in the space of three years. How could
Speaker 2: one man be so unlucky to be wrongly accused by
Speaker 2: four different women? Not guilty and Kevin Carle were quite
Speaker 2: a recurring scene in the nineteen eighties. In this investigation,
Speaker 2: we've been trying to fill in the missing nine hours
Speaker 2: from when Rochelle was last seen leaving Camden Holden to
Speaker 2: when her burning body was found just after two am
Speaker 2: on Friday, June eighth, two thousand and one. One of
Speaker 2: the last people to see Rochelle alive was her final customer,
Speaker 2: Kathy Thelander.
Speaker 5: I had gone in to see Rochelle about purchasing a
Speaker 5: vehicle off the lot, and she was her usual beautiful self,
Speaker 5: and we spoke about it. I think I was trading
Speaker 5: in a vehicle as well, which she loved, so we
Speaker 5: spoke about that. My daughters were with me and my
Speaker 5: sister was with me. I think also, you know, we
Speaker 5: would have got there about three pooty five, and Rochelle
Speaker 5: had to leave in the afternoon. She apologized, She said
Speaker 5: she had to be somewhere and she had to leave
Speaker 5: a little bit earlier than what she thought she would.
Speaker 2: Did she give you any reason as to why she
Speaker 2: had to leave early that day?
Speaker 5: No, she didn't. I've thought about this. No, she didn't
Speaker 5: give me any reason. She was very happy though, but
Speaker 5: every time I saw Rachelle she was happy.
Speaker 2: Did she take a car for a test drive with you?
Speaker 2: What car were you looking at? And who else was
Speaker 2: there with you that day?
Speaker 5: Because I had a familiarity with Campden Hold and my
Speaker 5: husband at the time had worked there for many years,
Speaker 5: and although he had left, we still remained in close
Speaker 5: contact with some of the people that worked there, so
Speaker 5: I was well known to the dealership. So usually if
Speaker 5: I liked a car, I was just allowed to take
Speaker 5: it out myself drive it around. No, she didn't come
Speaker 5: with me. There was Kevin Carell. He was there. He
Speaker 5: wasn't too far away at any point of in the background,
Speaker 5: a few met us away. He was listening to Rochelle,
Speaker 5: listening to what was happening. He did seem particularly interested
Speaker 5: in hearing everything that Rachelle and I were talking about,
Speaker 5: and he wasn't too far away. And when we went
Speaker 5: into the office to discuss the finance, he was definitely there,
Speaker 5: not too far away, so he was sort of not
Speaker 5: too far away, maybe a meter, sort of behind her
Speaker 5: desk and around. Truly just think he was evesdropping.
Speaker 2: Do you have any recollections about doing any paperwork with
Speaker 2: Rochelle in terms of buying the car I did.
Speaker 5: I builed out paperwork might have been done the day
Speaker 5: before or the day before that. They said the paperwork
Speaker 5: had gone missing, And I remember sitting there with Rochelle
Speaker 5: and she couldn't find our paperwork, She couldn't find our
Speaker 5: own application. She was asking Kevin if he'd seen them,
Speaker 5: because they were definitely on her desk. They would have
Speaker 5: been in a file, I'm sure, And he said no,
Speaker 5: he hadn't seen them. No, they're just there. And she said, well,
Speaker 5: they're not just there, they're gone and they were here
Speaker 5: and he said, no, no, and they're just there. And
Speaker 5: she looked at us and rolled her eyes as if
Speaker 5: he was no help at all. That was when he
Speaker 5: was sort of lingering. He wasn't too far away.
Speaker 2: What was your impression of Rochelle's reaction to that?
Speaker 5: She was frustrated, and I think that it made her
Speaker 5: look unprofessional, which she didn't like because she was very professional.
Speaker 2: Did you ever wonder what had happened to that paperwork
Speaker 2: that you'd filled out?
Speaker 5: So when I rang back early the next week for
Speaker 5: the application to be processed and lodged, and that's when
Speaker 5: they told me that I asked to speak to Rachelle,
Speaker 5: and that's when they told me that Rachelle had passed away.
Speaker 5: I think I was so shocked to hear that. I
Speaker 5: did wonder why I had to basically apply for this
Speaker 5: loan twice. A few weeks after Rochelle had passed, I
Speaker 5: did a credit reference check on myself because it was
Speaker 5: just it was nagging at me in my mind, and
Speaker 5: that loan for that statesman had been applied for a
Speaker 5: couple of times at least and then not gone ahead.
Speaker 5: And I thought that was very strange. So the paperwork
Speaker 5: hadn't been lost, It had actually been been lodged.
Speaker 2: Do you think that Rochelle had anything to do with
Speaker 2: that paperwork being lost?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: Why are you so confident of that?
Speaker 5: I really don't think.
Speaker 10: So.
Speaker 5: She seemed exasperated that she couldn't find it. Kevin was
Speaker 5: lase a that it couldn't be found, and no, look,
Speaker 5: that's just a gut feeling. I doubt it very much.
Speaker 5: And when we were out on a lot, I could
Speaker 5: see he was watching her again, and I thought to
Speaker 5: myself at the time, I think he had a little
Speaker 5: crash on her. And the way he did used to
Speaker 5: watch Rochelle, I can picture him now, just sort of
Speaker 5: like leering at her at the corner of his eye.
Speaker 5: I didn't like it, and she seemed quite oblivious.
Speaker 2: Both Rochelle and her boss Kevin were last sighted at
Speaker 2: Camden Holden on the night in question. It's June seven,
Speaker 2: a winter's night in the historic Australian country town of Camden.
Speaker 2: This time of year, the sun begins to set just
Speaker 2: before five pm, so it's getting dark and chilly.
Speaker 8: We know.
Speaker 2: Rochelle leaves work just after five and heads towards her
Speaker 2: home in Bargo, that's a thirty minute drive south. On
Speaker 2: the way, she calls Christie, who was staying at their parents'
Speaker 2: place in Glenfield, a suburb in Campbelltown. So Rochelle is
Speaker 2: home alone.
Speaker 11: I remember she called me on her way home from work.
Speaker 11: I was on you know when you used to have
Speaker 11: like the second line on the landline. I was on
Speaker 11: the phone to my best mate from school and I
Speaker 11: heard the call come through, and I said, I'll just
Speaker 11: answer this quickly. So I jumped over to the other
Speaker 11: line and it was Rochelle and she was driving.
Speaker 8: Because she always spoke so far.
Speaker 11: She just said hey, Chris, Michelle, and I said, hey,
Speaker 11: I'm on the other line. Erin and she went, oh,
Speaker 11: right here, call me back. I said, okay, bye, and
Speaker 11: that was it.
Speaker 5: I hung up.
Speaker 11: That was the last time I spoke to her.
Speaker 2: That's Rochelle's last known phone contact with anyone on the evening.
Speaker 2: She was murdered a minute later. Her blue hold and
Speaker 2: Commodore was spotted by a council ranger driving through Camden
Speaker 2: at five sixteen pm. A friend who knows Rochelle from
Speaker 2: work later tells police she flicked her headlights at him
Speaker 2: as they drove past each other through Camden. All clues
Speaker 2: to this point tell us she's heading home, and it's
Speaker 2: believed she had somewhere to go. We're pretty sure she
Speaker 2: made it home to Bargo. If she went straight home,
Speaker 2: she would have got there just before six pm. Her
Speaker 2: friend Fiona remembers going to Bargo the following day.
Speaker 12: When I arrived at her house, the lights were all
Speaker 12: on and the telly was still on, and the windows.
Speaker 8: Were like the blinds were open.
Speaker 12: I could see it looked like she'd literally just left,
Speaker 12: gotten changed and left.
Speaker 2: We don't know where she went, with who, or if
Speaker 2: she went willingly. This is where we lose any trace
Speaker 2: of Rochelle. Now we're going to explore Kevin's alibi in
Speaker 2: close detail. Kevin voluntarily participated in three interviews with police
Speaker 2: in relation to Rochelle's murder, and we've gathered the following
Speaker 2: timeline from his evidence as well as police evidence, including
Speaker 2: mobile phone data. I want to foreshadow two points. Kevin
Speaker 2: wasn't immediately forthcoming with police about his address at the
Speaker 2: time and a curious phone call. Okay, let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Kevin tells detectives he leaves Camden Holden after a shell
Speaker 2: between five thirty and five forty. It's his son's birthday
Speaker 2: that day, the Thursday leading into the June Long weekend.
Speaker 2: He tells police he drives about twenty minutes east to
Speaker 2: Campbelltown Mall looking for a wallet as a present. Kevin
Speaker 2: says he arrives at Campbelltown Parks and walks around for
Speaker 2: about ten minutes, but doesn't buy anything. Next, he drives
Speaker 2: to a leather good shop and a shopping center a
Speaker 2: few minutes away at Macasa Square. He drives there, but
Speaker 2: there's a queue to get into the car park. Kevin
Speaker 2: says that's when he changes his mind, realizing he won't
Speaker 2: be seeing his son that evening, and decides to buy
Speaker 2: him an HSV jacket from Camden Holden instead. Now this
Speaker 2: is a critical moment in Kevin's alibi. According to the
Speaker 2: timings in his statement, he was in the Campbelltown area's
Speaker 2: shopping until at least ten past six at the earliest,
Speaker 2: possibly later if he left work closer to five point forty,
Speaker 2: but mobile phone data places him in another location about
Speaker 2: twenty five kilometers away from Campbelltown at exactly six oh
Speaker 2: eight pm. That call peinged off a cell tower on
Speaker 2: the southern side of Picton, which is much closer to
Speaker 2: Bargo than Campbelltown. Council assisting the coroner, Peter Singleton, explored
Speaker 2: the six to eight phone call in thorough detail of
Speaker 2: Rochelle's inquest.
Speaker 13: We had his phone being used south of Picton at
Speaker 13: a time when he said that he was on the
Speaker 13: other side of the Razorback Mountain range in Campbelltown or
Speaker 13: MacArthur Square. Whilst not conclusive, tended to suggest that his
Speaker 13: alibi was not truthful. And my recollection is there was
Speaker 13: no supporting evidence for his shopping trip and that the
Speaker 13: independent evidence tended to suggest he was gained towards Bargo
Speaker 13: when he denied it. So it was obviously a matter
Speaker 13: of great interest and importance to explore it as much
Speaker 13: as we could. The phone pings in a particular location,
Speaker 13: cell tower's point in certain directions, it's a vague indication,
Speaker 13: but the cell tower can give you an indication if
Speaker 13: the direction the person is relative to the cell tower.
Speaker 13: The topography is also important. You can be pinging on
Speaker 13: a cell tower far away. If it's all flat in
Speaker 13: between you and the cell tower. If it's all mountainous
Speaker 13: in between you and the cell tower, then it's not
Speaker 13: likely to ping. It's not conclusive, but as a matter
Speaker 13: of probability, you generally ping on a cell tower it
Speaker 13: is close to you and not obscured.
Speaker 2: By a mountain. He's retired to teaket if Damien Loon
Speaker 2: unpacking what we know so far.
Speaker 9: Some of the most baffling questions in Rochelle's case are
Speaker 9: where did she meet a killer? When? And where was
Speaker 9: the fatal encounter? Did it happen in Bargo or down
Speaker 9: around Giroua.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to our analysis of Kevin's alibi.
Speaker 9: That six o eight pm phone call is important, and
Speaker 9: when you look at Kevin's shopping trip, there's no proof
Speaker 9: of it. He's gone to a couple of shops but
Speaker 9: never bought anything.
Speaker 2: For a closer look at the topography of the area
Speaker 2: we're referring to, there's an animated map with key locations
Speaker 2: on our website. Go to Dear Rochelle dot com dot au.
Speaker 2: That phone call Kevin made at six oh eight pm
Speaker 2: is a great significance. The number he dialed is almost
Speaker 2: identical to Rochelle's mobile number, but with two of the
Speaker 2: digits switched around, as if he going to type the
Speaker 2: number and mix them up. Here's Damien again.
Speaker 9: There's two digits that have been swapped around at the
Speaker 9: end of the phone number. So that number Kevin called
Speaker 9: went to someone in Queensland and it was a wrong number.
Speaker 9: Now I firmly believe that Kevin was trying to ring Michelle,
Speaker 9: but why when Kevin was first questioned by homicide detectives
Speaker 9: he didn't mention this phone call. He had to be
Speaker 9: reminded of it in his police interview.
Speaker 7: I obviously didn't get through and never bothered it again.
Speaker 7: So obviously the reason I rang was just was something
Speaker 7: to do with work relation. There was no answer, he
Speaker 7: was engaged or something. I don't know if I spoke
Speaker 7: to anyone. I don't recall anyone saying you've got the
Speaker 7: wrong number. I obviously didn't try again, and if it's
Speaker 7: if you've got the phone records there, so I obviously
Speaker 7: would have been discussing it with her the next day.
Speaker 7: But you know, whether it is a sale or whether
Speaker 7: it wasn't a sale, or whether the people were coming back.
Speaker 7: I can't recall, so it wasn't relevant.
Speaker 8: I don't think.
Speaker 9: So.
Speaker 2: To recap Kevin's last verified sighting is around five point
Speaker 2: thirty PM, when he leaves work. His phone then pings
Speaker 2: south have Picton, yet he says he was in the
Speaker 2: Campbelltown area. After leaving Campbelltown, Kevin says he drives to
Speaker 2: Picton to visit his partner, Alice. That's about a half
Speaker 2: hour drive southwest. He says he arrives at Picton wanting
Speaker 2: to stay the night, but Alice isn't home. Kevin makes
Speaker 2: a further two phone calls from his mobile that evening.
Speaker 2: Both are to Alice and exactly an hour apart. It's
Speaker 2: unclear precisely where Kevin was at the time of these
Speaker 2: last two calls, but his evidence tends to suggest he
Speaker 2: was in the area he told police he was in
Speaker 2: for those calls. Phone records show at six point thirty
Speaker 2: eight PM, Kevin rings Alice, but she doesn't answer. That
Speaker 2: call pings off a Picton cell tower, putting him in
Speaker 2: that area. He says Alice wasn't home. He drives ten
Speaker 2: minutes further south to Tarmore to get takeaway from a
Speaker 2: shop called either tarm Or Gourmet Foods or Tarmol Takeaway,
Speaker 2: where he orders fish.
Speaker 8: Cake, bat it sav a bag of chips and a cake.
Speaker 2: And a quick note. Tamil is in the opposite direction
Speaker 2: to Kevin's home. There's also takeaway options in Picton. Now.
Speaker 2: Remember in nineteen eighty three when Kevin was questioned and
Speaker 2: later acquitted over the attempted sexual assault of a young
Speaker 2: mum at Darlinghurst. This was his alibi. This is not
Speaker 2: his voice.
Speaker 7: Well, stop to take away food bar in Terminus Street, Liverpool,
Speaker 7: where I purchased about it save a piece of fish,
Speaker 7: a bag of chips and a loaf of bread.
Speaker 2: Detectives questioned Kevin about the similarities between his alibis eighteen
Speaker 2: years apart.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I love fish and chips.
Speaker 7: Once I'll change that and get a fish cake and
Speaker 7: a battered savon chips.
Speaker 8: I've done it twice this week.
Speaker 2: When Detective Inspector Mick Ashwood was in charge of reviewing
Speaker 2: Rochelle's case in two thousand and three, he re examined
Speaker 2: Kevin's alibi alongside his mobile phone data.
Speaker 3: Just swapping the cantercoat full the loaf of bread.
Speaker 14: But to pull those exact words out on a recording interview,
Speaker 14: what's in a statement from the I think it was
Speaker 14: the eighties, he's quite well. It stands out to you
Speaker 14: that it could be a manufactured account of where they were,
Speaker 14: because we do know that independent evidence he was down
Speaker 14: towards Pargo. We don't know exactly where he was, but
Speaker 14: this is important. It's independent evidence that puts him down there.
Speaker 2: And he's paid a singleton. Again.
Speaker 13: It is not unknown for criminals to fall back upon
Speaker 13: a comfortable alibi that's worked for them before. In this case,
Speaker 13: one possibility is that mister Carrell fell back upon an
Speaker 13: alibi that had worked for him before and decided to
Speaker 13: use it again. Not because it was true, but because
Speaker 13: he was comfortable with it. He would be able to
Speaker 13: sustain it, not change his story, not forget not the possibilities.
Speaker 13: It was true and it's just a coincidence that he
Speaker 13: had the same alibi twenty years apart. My view was
Speaker 13: that it was a proper thing to explore to see
Speaker 13: what came of it. Any One thing in isolation doesn't
Speaker 13: in a circumstantial case such as this would have been,
Speaker 13: doesn't amount to much. It is the accumulated weight. Of
Speaker 13: all the circumstances, one coincidence of similar alibis doesn't prove all,
Speaker 13: but you had it at all the rest.
Speaker 2: According to Kevin, after he gets fish and chips from Tarmil,
Speaker 2: he heads back to Picton to see if Alice is
Speaker 2: home yet, but she's not. His phone records show a
Speaker 2: call to Alice from his mobile at seven thirty eight pm,
Speaker 2: which pings off a Norellan cell tower, which police belief
Speaker 2: suggests he was somewhere near Camden at that point in time. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a vital detail to highlight. At the time
Speaker 2: of that phone call, Kevin says he was at his
Speaker 2: unit in Camden. It was news to police that he
Speaker 2: was even living at Camden. In Kevin's first police interview,
Speaker 2: he didn't disclose his Camden address. He told investigators at
Speaker 2: the time of Rochelle's murder he was residing with Alice
Speaker 2: at Picton. For context, that unit of Kevin's directly overlooks
Speaker 2: Camden Holden. Let's get Damien's thoughts on this.
Speaker 9: I don't know why he would have withheld that information
Speaker 9: from police. It was important, I don't know, And that's
Speaker 9: one of the mysteries of the brain.
Speaker 2: Do you think he could have withheld that information because
Speaker 2: he was trying to hide that he could have been
Speaker 2: watching Rochelle.
Speaker 9: Look, it also could have been a crime, saying, that's
Speaker 9: what disturbs me. And obviously the police didn't know about
Speaker 9: the location of that unit near Camden Holden and for
Speaker 9: me that would be very worrying now knowing that happened,
Speaker 9: and I know that the investigators at the time would
Speaker 9: have been looking for something like that. But for him
Speaker 9: to withhold that information and sometimes you can do that,
Speaker 9: it's easy to do and I could have been possibly
Speaker 9: have been a crime, say his.
Speaker 2: Former partner told the inquest he had not a lot
Speaker 2: of furniture in that unit, but there were binoculars. Does
Speaker 2: that concern you at all?
Speaker 9: A sparsely furnished flat overlooking the car with a pair
Speaker 9: of binoculars here, that does concern me.
Speaker 2: One more thing about that Camden unit that Kevin rented
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, we managed to track down
Speaker 2: the owner, David. Our picture editor Jeff dar mannin caught
Speaker 2: up with David at the property, where he says he
Speaker 2: made a bizarre discovery hidden inside the unit. After Kevin
Speaker 2: moved out.
Speaker 15: Do you have any memories when Kevin rented the unit?
Speaker 16: He rented the unit, he worked next door and it
Speaker 16: was very convenient being in that location. That and I
Speaker 16: did meet him a few times which it would run
Speaker 16: into him, and that we always struck me as being
Speaker 16: quite a red rolled sort of a person.
Speaker 17: In two thousand and one, could you see Camden Holden
Speaker 17: from where the unit was?
Speaker 3: Yes, you could from that unit.
Speaker 16: You can see it from both the bedroom window and
Speaker 16: the landroom window. But they have since built a silo
Speaker 16: there on the adjoining block.
Speaker 17: Can you describe the view from the unit into cant
Speaker 17: and Holding itself?
Speaker 3: You saw into the parking lot and some of the building.
Speaker 16: Actually saw a fair bit of the place, really of
Speaker 16: the exposed place.
Speaker 15: And could you see the red train carriage?
Speaker 3: You see the red train carriage from me?
Speaker 15: Yet? And when did you discover police and search Captain's unit?
Speaker 16: Well, it wasn't a discovery more so than they arrived
Speaker 16: forensic squad and went through the place and top to
Speaker 16: bottom marked the walls with paint and not paint but
Speaker 16: stuff to see fingerprints and all the stuff they used
Speaker 16: in for its forensic investigations.
Speaker 15: How long after Rachelle's murder. Did Kevin move out?
Speaker 16: Look, I can't honestly remember. To be Quotles, I can't remember,
Speaker 16: but I know he did leave.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 16: The state the flat was left in was Yes, we
Speaker 16: had to do the paint the walls because of the
Speaker 16: stuff and the marks on for a the forensic people
Speaker 16: had been through. There was marks on the carpet and
Speaker 16: everything else. So he then decided to do up the
Speaker 16: place and strip it and paint it and get it
Speaker 16: ready for the next tenant.
Speaker 15: And while you were doing that, did you discover anything?
Speaker 3: This?
Speaker 16: Well, this, it's just it. We went pulling up the carpet,
Speaker 16: the carpet went into the wardrobe and tucked in where
Speaker 16: it lifted in the wardrobe, found a lot of newspaper clippings,
Speaker 16: all directly associated with the murder. I took them home
Speaker 16: and said to my wife, I found these, and she
Speaker 16: said take it to the police, which I did the
Speaker 16: very next day and gave it to the detective and
Speaker 16: all of it was and I said, this is.
Speaker 3: What I've found. He's moved out, and this is what
Speaker 3: I found.
Speaker 17: And where they were. What was the detective's reaction when
Speaker 17: you showed him that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they took it on board and that was about it.
Speaker 3: And basically that's the last I heard of it for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 17: And when you look through those clippings, was there any
Speaker 17: handwriting on anything any just straight straight clippings.
Speaker 16: Look from memory, it was the page of fold pages
Speaker 16: of the stuff. Whatever was on the page was on
Speaker 16: that newspaper page.
Speaker 17: And when Kevin had left the apartment and he had
Speaker 17: cleaned up, how did everything finalize?
Speaker 16: Well, Kevin left there in a bit of a hurry,
Speaker 16: obviously rent and left it. And like I said, the
Speaker 16: place probably not accordingly, but the police had left it,
Speaker 16: you know, as they would find a forensic place afterwards.
Speaker 16: It was in need of a bit of TLC.
Speaker 17: And did you have to chase Kevin for any money
Speaker 17: or anything else there?
Speaker 3: Since you said?
Speaker 16: I did, And ironically I had a couple of because
Speaker 16: he disappeared. I had a couple of mates that are
Speaker 16: in the car industry and I just rang them and said, look,
Speaker 16: if you ever know where this bloke is, can you
Speaker 16: just let me know. I want to collect some rent
Speaker 16: and I can't find him anywhere. Well, I think now
Speaker 16: from memory it was in within days.
Speaker 3: One of the blakes.
Speaker 16: He said no problems dated he's working at time down
Speaker 16: at Narah, So I fronted down there and to his
Speaker 16: credit or anything at the time, I got paid straight away.
Speaker 16: The check was there. Assuming they'd be going on with
Speaker 16: a check that abounds. It didn't and and that was
Speaker 16: my last doelings. But ironically I was in marellin shopping
Speaker 16: center and I ran into the detective that I got
Speaker 16: to know from the case, and I said, were are
Speaker 16: you up to with that? And he said, oh, we
Speaker 16: can't find him. I said, he got to be choking.
Speaker 16: I said he had me money. I soon found him
Speaker 16: and I told him where there was Now. After that point,
Speaker 16: that's the last I heard of anything. I didn't see
Speaker 16: the detective again, didn't hear what was going on.
Speaker 3: And it was just he was a suspect. That was
Speaker 3: all it was to it.
Speaker 2: Getting back into Kevin's alibi. On the night in question,
Speaker 2: at seven forty three pm, Alice calls Kevin. They speak
Speaker 2: for exactly fifteen minutes and twenty seven seconds. Kevin says
Speaker 2: he asked Alice if he come over to her place,
Speaker 2: but she says she's tired and going to bed. Kevin
Speaker 2: claims he then heads out. He jumps in his car
Speaker 2: and drives past Camden Holden because it's right behind his unit.
Speaker 2: He claims he sees the cleaner and stops to speak
Speaker 2: with him, asking.
Speaker 8: Him, is everything okay? You're the cleaner. The cleaner says, yeah,
Speaker 8: everything he's okay.
Speaker 2: But when the cleaner, Raymond Kusheba, is interviewed by police, he.
Speaker 5: Says, whilst I was carrying out my cleaning outside, no
Speaker 5: person approached me at any stage.
Speaker 2: Kevin's next unverified stop is at the service station at
Speaker 2: the end of the street, where he says he buys
Speaker 2: a bottle of milk and he engages in some small
Speaker 2: talk with the service station's staff member, who he knows
Speaker 2: is David. During his statement to police, the staff member
Speaker 2: said while Kevin Correll was a familiar customer, he could
Speaker 2: not recall whether or not Kevin had come into the
Speaker 2: service station that night. From there, Kevin says he drives
Speaker 2: another one hundred meters or so and pops into the
Speaker 2: Marino Hotel, where he puts five dollars in the pokies
Speaker 2: and drinks a Scotch and coke. This stop isn't verified
Speaker 2: by any witnesses or evidence, but it's possible police didn't
Speaker 2: canvas the hotel early enough to prove it or disprove
Speaker 2: his visit. Kevin says he then goes straight home. It
Speaker 2: arrives at his Camden unit between nine and ten past
Speaker 2: nine pm, where he has a cup of coffee, owns
Speaker 2: a shirt for work, and watches Big Brother on the TV,
Speaker 2: then falls asleep on the couch. He wakes up to
Speaker 2: the cricket playing on TV, turns the TV off, and
Speaker 2: falls back asleep until he wakes up. Friday morning at
Speaker 2: seven am. Kevin goes to work, even though he's not
Speaker 2: rostered on to work the Friday ahead of the June
Speaker 2: Long weekend.
Speaker 12: Looking back, when he came to work on that Friday morning,
Speaker 12: he was late and he looked like shit.
Speaker 2: He looked really crappy, really like he hadn't slapped.
Speaker 12: And he left early on that Friday afternoon and saying
Speaker 12: he had a doctor's appointment too.
Speaker 2: Another colleague, Kerrie Thorpe, also noticed Kevin's appearance on Friday.
Speaker 2: This is her evidence, but not her voice.
Speaker 18: I recall upon seeing him that day that he looked
Speaker 18: like death. By that, I mean that he looked unwell,
Speaker 18: He looked tired and like he hadn't been to bed
Speaker 18: I remember that although he looked that way, his clothing
Speaker 18: appeared normal and not disheveled, and he was wearing a
Speaker 18: long black coat.
Speaker 2: Kevin denies any involvement in Rochelle's death, and the coroner
Speaker 2: delivered an open finding after conducting a coronial inquest. Rochelle's
Speaker 2: initial investigation was dogged by police bungles, including lost CCTV
Speaker 2: and misstop tunities. Potential witnesses when interviewed early enough, and
Speaker 2: will never know exactly what forensic evidence was overlooked, but
Speaker 2: a major misstep centers around DNA. In two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: police held a mass DNA screening in the local area
Speaker 2: with no strong leads. Police, in an Australian first, are
Speaker 2: sixty men to volunteer DNA samples.
Speaker 14: The testing is not compulsory, but probably say they can
Speaker 14: still rely on conventional methods of investigation.
Speaker 2: Investigators had identified an unknown male DNA profile through their
Speaker 2: sampling of exhibits, including a bedsheet. At the time, detectives
Speaker 2: thought this was a major breakthrough in the case, but
Speaker 2: it turned out to be another blow to police and
Speaker 2: Rochelle's family.
Speaker 8: Here's Mick Ashwood unfortunate.
Speaker 14: What didn't come through before that operation was the results
Speaker 14: of an internal.
Speaker 3: Searching of DNA.
Speaker 14: Police don't hold their own officers with DNA database, but
Speaker 14: it was established at an officer at seoel Haven. It
Speaker 14: was their DNA when they were processing the exhibits that
Speaker 14: got on to each of the items. Now by this
Speaker 14: stage you'd.
Speaker 15: Come around, would come around to an inquest.
Speaker 14: So were now a few years into the case. So
Speaker 14: that leads to some fundamental problems. And I'm talking here
Speaker 14: from outside the investigation. Besides, no longer part of the
Speaker 14: investigation at that time, apart from coordinating the DNA database.
Speaker 14: But when the information came through that the DNA belonged
Speaker 14: to an officer, first thing you do is eliminate the officer,
Speaker 14: which was done. Then you look at the procedural mistake
Speaker 14: in the handling of the exhibits, which is what occurred
Speaker 14: on this occasion. You had to say that distracted the
Speaker 14: investigation for a time. That it wasn't the DNA of
Speaker 14: a person's of interest any of them, meant that we
Speaker 14: weren't looking at those people anymore. When I say we
Speaker 14: the Charlovan detective's leading the case.
Speaker 2: I also asked FBI trained criminal profile at Chris Sillingsworth
Speaker 2: her reaction to the DNA mix up.
Speaker 19: Yeah, it's unfortunate that that happened because it was turned
Speaker 19: out being being reherring in itself. But you know, he
Speaker 19: may well have had the gloves on and wiped his
Speaker 19: brow and then it's contemporated when he's touched the next exhibit.
Speaker 19: So procedurally it wasn't the right thing, but on a
Speaker 19: human level, you can understand how it would happen.
Speaker 11: I remember just not being surprised. I think I would
Speaker 11: imagine that Dad would have told me, because everything went
Speaker 11: through Dad first, and then Dad told me and Mum. Yeah,
Speaker 11: I imagine that he would have told me. And I
Speaker 11: don't remember being surprised a because the DNA profile hadn't
Speaker 11: matched anybody, and we tested everybody. You know, they stuffed
Speaker 11: up a lot of things. And I'm not running the
Speaker 11: police down. They worked really hard, but there were a
Speaker 11: number of things that were yeah, stuffed up, things lost,
Speaker 11: So I wasn't surprised. And yeah, as I've said to
Speaker 11: you before, it's full of hope up and letdowns the
Speaker 11: whole way through. So just another letdown that.
Speaker 9: Would have been a gut wrenching kicking. The guts are
Speaker 9: let down because you're on the verge of saying, well,
Speaker 9: this may break, well, this may break the case. We
Speaker 9: may find the offender or offenders, and yet then to
Speaker 9: only to find that because there was poor crime scene
Speaker 9: examination without being properly kidded up with your personal protective equipment,
Speaker 9: and you've left your own DNA behind. It's somewhat not
Speaker 9: any terrible and gut riching from the investigators, but an embarrassment.
Speaker 2: In the course of this investigation, we've discovered Kevin Stephen
Speaker 2: Carrell has had quite a lot of different jobs over
Speaker 2: the years, or at least he claims he's had them.
Speaker 2: Car salesman, DJ detective of laborer, security guard, psychologist, garage
Speaker 2: door salesman, private investigator and lifeline counselor. Now we can
Speaker 2: exclusively reveal his latest job. A tip off led us
Speaker 2: to the New South Wales Central Coast, where Kevin was
Speaker 2: said to be working as an RSA marshal that's the
Speaker 2: guy who monitors the welfare of patrons when it comes
Speaker 2: to alcohol. On June seven, twenty twenty four, the twenty
Speaker 2: third anniversary of Rochelle's murder. A tight crew headed to
Speaker 2: the New South Wales Central Coast, myself, Christie's best friend,
Speaker 2: Mindy Wicks, and Mindy's husband dropped in for a drink
Speaker 2: at the league's club.
Speaker 19: So sign in, We have to sign in normal?
Speaker 8: Good?
Speaker 6: Thanks?
Speaker 10: Yes?
Speaker 18: Please?
Speaker 8: Giving you a hard time?
Speaker 3: Is that.
Speaker 2: We come face to face with Kevin at the club's
Speaker 2: entrance within seconds of arriving.
Speaker 8: Oh it always does.
Speaker 18: No entire.
Speaker 20: Is there any entertain No, that's die, have love evening,
Speaker 20: Thank you?
Speaker 15: What are the fucking chances?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 21: I literally was putting in my address wrong because I
Speaker 21: saw him and I started typing and then I saw
Speaker 21: him and I was like fuck, and I was pressing
Speaker 21: spaces where I couldn't and I couldn't fucking remember where
Speaker 21: I live.
Speaker 19: And then he come over.
Speaker 2: I was My heart was racing, like that's you, that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what do you make of seeing him to Yeah?
Speaker 8: Do you know?
Speaker 20: And this is probably gonna sound silly, but seeing him
Speaker 20: in the flash, face to face, having him literally inches
Speaker 20: from me, it makes it even more fucking important to
Speaker 20: figure this out.
Speaker 8: It's like a power thing.
Speaker 10: I feel like he he needs, like he needs to
Speaker 10: control the room. He and to a degree. He kind
Speaker 10: of does because he's in and around everything, like he's
Speaker 10: just there, you know, literally walking the place, and very
Speaker 10: he's standing right next to me.
Speaker 2: It was confronting, Yeah, I was. My heart was racing.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind, early on, when I was investigating Rochelle's
Speaker 2: case as a solo freelance journalist, I'd been warned to
Speaker 2: tread very carefully. And the more I uncovered, the more
Speaker 2: I understood.
Speaker 7: Why what you were suggesting you were going to do,
Speaker 7: I wouldn't carry that out.
Speaker 8: I fear for you.
Speaker 3: I thought that you should be aware of what you
Speaker 3: were doing. Sometimes you get lost in.
Speaker 13: Your work and you don't realize what you've done until
Speaker 13: it's too late.
Speaker 15: Well, as I said to you before, you're poking a beer.
Speaker 2: Now, more than a year into the investigation, with news
Speaker 2: Corps backing and so much fresh evidence, it's time for
Speaker 2: us to approach Kevin Carrell. Since the inquest more than
Speaker 2: seven ten years ago, Kevin's moved on with his life
Speaker 2: out of the media spotlight, but Rochelle's family deserves answers
Speaker 2: and Kevin deserves the chance to speak. We have a
Speaker 2: lot of questions for him, so we wanted to approach
Speaker 2: him out in the open, and you're behind him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, turning left onto a whale road which is still
Speaker 1: heading in your direction.
Speaker 10: You're hitting a lot when he gets.
Speaker 15: There, aren't you.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I'm right behind him, roughly eight a.
Speaker 15: Couple of minutes.
Speaker 3: Okay, he's just jumped a red light to turn the left.
Speaker 15: I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 5: No, do you think he'll be turning into the village road?
Speaker 3: Really soon?
Speaker 2: Coming soon?
Speaker 19: On Dear Rochelle, who was in an envelope, who was
Speaker 19: basically accousing her of Rochelle's murder.
Speaker 18: He has a hatred for all this, other than the
Speaker 18: fact he wants the truth to come out.
Speaker 13: The person who killed Rochelle Childs would have a similar
Speaker 13: motive towards you, also hatred if you actually managed to
Speaker 13: expose him schizophrenic.
Speaker 2: I've never seen a man treated a woman like that.
Speaker 3: I felt fear for my life.
Speaker 13: I'm sure there is something out there or someone who
Speaker 13: knows something that will bring essentially a monster to be arrested.
Speaker 10: Watch your dad.
Speaker 9: Get out of like that other way.
Speaker 2: Dear Rochelle is a multi media production from True Crime Australia.
Speaker 2: If you want to be one of the first to
Speaker 2: find out what happens next, go to Dear Rochelle dot
Speaker 2: com dot a you. That's where eligible Digital News Corp
Speaker 2: Australia subscribers get early access to podcast episodes and breaking
Speaker 2: news in our live in investigation and you will also
Speaker 2: find exclusive videos, interactive evidence, feature articles and more. That's
Speaker 2: de Roschhell dot com dot au. If you have any
Speaker 2: tips or confidential information to share with me, Ashley Hanson,
Speaker 2: please send an email to de Rochelle at News dot
Speaker 2: com dot a you. Our supervising producer and audio editor
Speaker 2: is Rehys Gunter Rachel Fountain. His executive producer and audio director.
Speaker 2: Our executive editor is Sarah Blake. Our senior journalist is
Speaker 2: Patrick Carline. Video editors are Jillian McNally, Owen Yang and
Speaker 2: Stephen Woods. Picture editors are Jeff dr Mannen and Christy
Speaker 2: Miller Sidney. Camera operators are Daniel Andrews and Oscar Viera.
Speaker 2: We sound designed by Martin Perolta, thanks also to Greg
Speaker 2: Thompson and Lenni Panerz, Show Burreo Fayguld, Vanessa Graham, Hailey Goddard,
Speaker 2: Stephen Grise, Charlotte Carp, Tina Coggins and Harry Hughes, special
Speaker 2: thanks to the Daily Telegraph editor Ben English and dear Rochelle.
Speaker 2: Would not be possible without the help, and I'm wavering
Speaker 2: support of Christy and Anne Childs, Mindy Wick's Damien Loon
Speaker 2: and Rochelle's friends. This podcast series is hosted and investigated
Speaker 2: by me Ashley Hanson