Speaker 1: M all right, Okay, we've just pulled up.
Speaker 2: We have Okay, Nina and I have spent too long together.
Speaker 3: Well, I was going to say, what's on the sign?
Speaker 1: Certainly helps you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we are for the recording audience.
Speaker 2: We've started to bicker at each other. I'm waiting for
Speaker 2: you to say, so, Dan, where are we?
Speaker 3: I was gonna, you know, for once, I was going
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 2: Where we were, but we hadn't pulled up with Should
Speaker 2: we not bicker anymore?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: But in fairness, we're two years in to working on
Speaker 2: this podcast, months past where we expected to finish, and
Speaker 2: we're both tired. Can we do a piece of microphone?
Speaker 2: Just talk? I'll talk, you record what talk. We're also
Speaker 2: still driving right now. We're near the small town of
Speaker 2: Old Bar on the mid north coast of New South Wales,
Speaker 2: which is a out three quarters of an hour south
Speaker 2: of Kendall, the town where William Tirell was reported missing.
Speaker 2: Driving this dirt road, we passed between two walls of forest,
Speaker 2: the trees seeming to crowd closer in upon us. Then
Speaker 2: suddenly the country opens to our right. There are long
Speaker 2: empty beaches, the blue sky, the sun's sparkling in the water.
Speaker 2: Oh fuck, it's gorgeous, or it would be gorgeous if
Speaker 2: this wasn't the likely sight of another unsolved murder and
Speaker 2: getting out of the car the wind wasn't whipping in
Speaker 2: as sharp as knives across the ocean. This is a
Speaker 2: place called mud Bishop's Point Reserve. You can hear the
Speaker 2: trees and just over there's the water coming down from
Speaker 2: the Manning River, and it's a beautiful place. Out to
Speaker 2: our right there's just these golden beaches. But back in
Speaker 2: December nineteen ninety six, a thirty eight year old mum
Speaker 2: called Margaret Cox. She had three kids. She was last
Speaker 2: in on a Thursday night in Taree, which is about
Speaker 2: twenty kilometers away from here, and a couple of days
Speaker 2: later her body was found in the water near here.
Speaker 2: Margaret's underwear, carrying the DNA of four other people, was
Speaker 2: found at the picnic reserve near where Nina and I
Speaker 2: are standing. Like Helen Harrison whose death we looked at
Speaker 2: in the last episode, Margaret's killing is still unsolved, meaning
Speaker 2: her family don't have any answers, except that a coroner
Speaker 2: found she had been raped, was killed by blunt force
Speaker 2: injuries to her head, and that it wasn't possible to
Speaker 2: say if Margaret was still alive when her body was
Speaker 2: put in the water. And the other thing the coroner
Speaker 2: found was that it was most likely a local who
Speaker 2: was involved in whatever happened to Margaret, because this area's
Speaker 2: a long way out of town, at the end of
Speaker 2: a long dirt road. There's no street lights, so you
Speaker 2: come here at nights and it would be pitch dark.
Speaker 2: The only light would be your car headlights, and you'd
Speaker 2: have to be a local to even know this place existed.
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Box and from news dot com dot Au.
Speaker 2: This is Witness William Tyrrell, Episode fourteen, Margaret.
Speaker 3: Thank you, gentlemen. Stop recording.
Speaker 2: To get a sense of why Margaret's case is still unsolved.
Speaker 2: Almost thirty years later, Nina and I sit down again
Speaker 2: with Gary Jubilin, the former detective who once led the
Speaker 2: investigation into William Tyrrel's disappearance. All right, hey, listen, what
Speaker 2: we're going to do is talk you through these two
Speaker 2: unrelated cases. So we talked to you through Helen Harrison before,
Speaker 2: and we're just trying to get your sense on anything
Speaker 2: that comes to mind, particularly about the investigation.
Speaker 3: So It's December of nineteen ninety six. It's the nineteenth
Speaker 3: of December. It's a Thursday before Christmas. Margaret Cox was
Speaker 3: a thirty eight year old single mom. She had three children,
Speaker 3: and on that Thursday, Margaret had spent the day with
Speaker 3: family and friends that had been consuming some alcohol from marijuana.
Speaker 3: Then the group went out in the evening and they
Speaker 3: decided to walk from Kendletown to Tarre in order to
Speaker 3: go to a nightclub.
Speaker 2: It's about five kilometers straight down the road. Tarree itself
Speaker 2: is the big city on this stretch of the mid
Speaker 2: North Coast, but it's not that big. With just over
Speaker 2: twenty thousand people living there, it shouldn't be that easy
Speaker 2: for someone to get lost.
Speaker 3: Around midnight, they stopped at a service station, which was
Speaker 3: where the Big Oyster was at the time.
Speaker 2: Yep, the Big Oyster is just that, a big sculpture
Speaker 2: of an oyster. It's meant, I think, to celebrate the
Speaker 2: local oyster farming industry, and it's kind of why. It's
Speaker 2: enormous and kind of goofy and kind of impressive and
Speaker 2: also so kind of ugly.
Speaker 3: Big ways to steal. Their service station has moved and
Speaker 3: somehow during this point, Margaret gets separated from the group,
Speaker 3: and no one's really sure what happened at that point.
Speaker 3: The theory is that she either gets into someone's car
Speaker 3: or a lift, or is taken in someone's car.
Speaker 2: Essentially, she's not seen after this point at that service station.
Speaker 4: And that's twelve midnight service station. Yeah, okay, how many
Speaker 4: people wash you with?
Speaker 2: We don't know the number. Two people who worked at
Speaker 2: the service station told police they saw Margaret with either
Speaker 2: another man or two men who bought a cigarette lighter
Speaker 2: and then left. But someone else told the police that
Speaker 2: he saw Margaret at the service station surrounded by a
Speaker 2: group of men and screaming. So it's all confusing.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll say up front that we did apply
Speaker 3: for the coronial inquest files for this case, and even
Speaker 3: though I applied in October, I haven't received them. Dan,
Speaker 3: you've also applied.
Speaker 2: Yep, my got sent the findings, which is a single page.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not much help.
Speaker 2: The inquest into Margaret's death was held in twenty ten,
Speaker 2: fourteen years after she was murdered, and the coroner's findings
Speaker 2: say the cause of her death was blunt force injuries
Speaker 2: to her head inflicted on her by person or persons
Speaker 2: unknown and the evidence available does not enable me to
Speaker 2: make a finding as to the place of death.
Speaker 3: So it's that was a Thursday night. The following Saturday morning,
Speaker 3: Margaret's body was found floating in the Manning River.
Speaker 2: So, if you don't know Tarre, Tarre's on the Manning
Speaker 2: River and then that flows down to the coast, and
Speaker 2: it kind of it splits in two and goes around
Speaker 2: this big island and then hits the.
Speaker 3: Coast yep, and some of her clothing was found in
Speaker 3: a picnic area called mud Bishop's Reserve, where the police
Speaker 3: and later the coroner theorized that she was sexually assaulted
Speaker 3: multiple times. The police pretty quickly formed the opinion that
Speaker 3: they thought the killer was local, mainly because it's not
Speaker 3: an area that you'd likely find and access late at
Speaker 3: night if you weren't already aware of that area. Dan
Speaker 3: and I actually went to this area. Yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 3: It's pretty hard.
Speaker 2: There's no way you'd know about it unless you knew
Speaker 2: the area.
Speaker 4: And that assumption is a reasonable assumption if we're looking
Speaker 4: at an area that if you're from out of the town,
Speaker 4: you don't even know about it. So I think that's
Speaker 4: a reasonable assumption.
Speaker 2: And the other point is it's not in Tire, so
Speaker 2: she's last seen in Tire and then mud Bishop's Reserve
Speaker 2: where her clothes are found and the coroner and the
Speaker 2: police think that she was assaulted. That's a decent drive,
Speaker 2: maybe ten to fifteen minutes, but it's out a tarre
Speaker 2: down following the river, you hit another little town called
Speaker 2: Old Bar and then from there it's not easy to
Speaker 2: find your way up to this reserve. People fish there,
Speaker 2: people might go there for I don't know, teenagers might
Speaker 2: drink there. It's not an obvious place to go at all.
Speaker 2: So the police first they looked at the ex boyfriend.
Speaker 2: He was a truck driver and he'd actually driven from
Speaker 2: Grafton I think to Taree and he'd signed in at
Speaker 2: a nearby sailing club on the Thursday night that Margaret
Speaker 2: went missing, so he's an obvious person to talk to.
Speaker 2: They spoke to him. He said the relationship ended weeks
Speaker 2: before and he had an alibi, so they kind of
Speaker 2: scratched him. Police interviewed everyone they could find who'd been
Speaker 2: on the highway that day, so thousands of inquiries. They
Speaker 2: spoke to fishermen who'd been near where the clothing was recovered,
Speaker 2: and they treated some of those as potential suspects. At first,
Speaker 2: police learned that upstream at a bridge, some people had
Speaker 2: heard screaming on the night that Margaret went missing, But
Speaker 2: the investigation started to feel like it was getting bogged down.
Speaker 2: Three homicide detectives from Newcastle came up, spent several months
Speaker 2: in Tare. Another couple of detectives came up and took
Speaker 2: the lead from the local cops. So at this point,
Speaker 2: does that sound like a comprehensive police response.
Speaker 4: Well, they're treating seriously if they know the fight homicide,
Speaker 4: So you'd send a team of three. That seems normal
Speaker 4: with the family who was with her? Was anyone from
Speaker 4: the family with her at the time of her disappearance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that day and that night she was with
Speaker 2: family and friends.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, my instinct from a homicide detective, the answer
Speaker 4: lies in at the service station, which pretty much stayed
Speaker 4: in the obvious, saying it was the last place she
Speaker 4: was seen alive. But yeah, how she wandered off from
Speaker 4: a group with no one in the group knowing.
Speaker 2: The answer to how Margaret got separated from the group
Speaker 2: might be in old newspaper reports, which Nina found in
Speaker 2: the State library. These say that Margaret was one of
Speaker 2: four people drinking together that night. They say the group
Speaker 2: drank two bottles of Jim Beam and a four liter
Speaker 2: cask of wine. One other group later described Margaret saying
Speaker 2: she could stand up, but if you asked her to
Speaker 2: walk in a straight line, it would have never happened.
Speaker 2: So pretty drunk. About eleven or eleven thirty that night,
Speaker 2: the group somehow drove from Tai to nearby Condletown to
Speaker 2: keep drinking. Only they ran out of drink in Condletown,
Speaker 2: so three of them, including Margaret, walked back. Then that
Speaker 2: group split. Margaret wanted to get a cigarette lighter, so
Speaker 2: she went to the service station and the other two
Speaker 2: walked onto a caravan park to call on a friend.
Speaker 4: My focus, if I was looking at an investigation being
Speaker 4: called out the bet would be focusing very much on
Speaker 4: everyone's movements. Was anyone showing the particular interest in that night?
Speaker 4: A group going for a drink, kicking on a nightclub.
Speaker 4: Invariably people are starting the pair up or someone that's
Speaker 4: shown an interest in her that night, thinking that he
Speaker 4: might be their man.
Speaker 3: Up until at least we get to, like the ten
Speaker 3: year anniversary of the crime. The police are still saying
Speaker 3: in the media, you know, this can be solved. They
Speaker 3: don't seem like they've given up.
Speaker 2: They also don't seem to have had much success for
Speaker 2: different reasons. Different police officers were put in charge of
Speaker 2: the case over the years, and none of them was
Speaker 2: able to be certain where exactly Margaret died. There was
Speaker 2: no blood or sign of a struggle, meaning they didn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of evidence.
Speaker 3: There's at least three or four persons of interests that
Speaker 3: were named the inquest. So early on the police released
Speaker 3: a photo fit of a man that they believed had
Speaker 3: been camping in the mud Bishop's Reserve area, and they
Speaker 3: released an image of him and the description of his car,
Speaker 3: which was a white four wheel drive Land Rover, and
Speaker 3: as a result of that, a number of people identified
Speaker 3: the same man as being the man from that photo.
Speaker 2: That man was not Frank Cabot.
Speaker 4: Mud Bishop Reserve was where her clothing was found. There
Speaker 4: I see the primary crime scene, I would suggest as
Speaker 4: a service station. I didn't get overly excited about the
Speaker 4: secondary crime scene. Someone in the area and again, this
Speaker 4: is just what's going through her mind in that why
Speaker 4: did she get to that location? She didn't have a car.
Speaker 4: How did she get to the picnic area where a clothing.
Speaker 3: Was found, because she's got to get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's who meets the service station and takes
Speaker 2: her there.
Speaker 4: That's where I'd be looking. I wouldn't be overly concerned
Speaker 4: who was around where her clothes were dumped.
Speaker 3: But the coroner ultimately ruled there was not enough evidence
Speaker 3: to point to a likely killer or to charge anyone.
Speaker 3: They also mentioned DNA, so the coroner mentioned that there
Speaker 3: was a DNA of four people on Margaret's underwear. Ye,
Speaker 3: three of those people have been identified and one hasn't.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, Certainly, if her clothes have been dumped, her
Speaker 4: body has been dumped in the river, and it looks
Speaker 4: like she's being sexually assaulted, the DNA on the underwear
Speaker 4: would be of vital interest.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But presumably if they've identified three of those people, they
Speaker 3: aren't suspects. They must have been ruled out.
Speaker 2: Again, the media reports are confusing, but it looks like
Speaker 2: three of those DNA profiles were identified and two of
Speaker 2: them ruled out as suspects at the inquest, leaving one
Speaker 2: other identified person and a fourth DNA profile that's never
Speaker 2: been identified. But one thing does stand out from the
Speaker 2: media reports, and that is that Margaret had a bandage
Speaker 2: on her left arm. The newspaper report says she suffered
Speaker 2: a very extensive laceration on her left arm shortly before
Speaker 2: her death. Another report is different, that one says that
Speaker 2: she'd had what it called certain surgery earlier that December.
Speaker 4: So I keep coming back to if you're looking at
Speaker 4: the person of interest, you're looking at someone that was
Speaker 4: in the.
Speaker 2: Group or who met the group at that service.
Speaker 4: Station, potentially met the group at the service station. But
Speaker 4: the game then you've got that random meeting of a
Speaker 4: predator and the victim at a location where you wouldn't
Speaker 4: expect to find the victim.
Speaker 2: Yeah. OK, So that's all that was known at the
Speaker 2: time and since then essentially nothing until the William Tyrrell
Speaker 2: inquest as we go, hang you, This is Iris Northam.
Speaker 2: She's a kind face and slightly plump and smiling, older woman.
Speaker 2: She looks like a grandma out of Central Casting. And
Speaker 2: this is Nina. Iris and her husband Dooley live in
Speaker 2: a little single story brick house surrounded by bright flowers
Speaker 2: in old bar, the tiny town just down the dirt
Speaker 2: road from where Margaret's clothing was discovered. Nina and I
Speaker 2: have come to visit them because of a witness statement
Speaker 2: which we found among dozens of other exhibits released to
Speaker 2: us by the coroner from the inquest into William Tyrrel's disappearance.
Speaker 2: That witness statement is from Iris, and it sets out
Speaker 2: the evidence that she'd be prepared to give as a
Speaker 2: witness in court. That statement is also the first time
Speaker 2: the story of Margaret Cox's disappearance and her murder intersects
Speaker 2: with our story about Frank Abbot, and its full contents
Speaker 2: have never been made public before.
Speaker 5: Now, so you're doing a follow up on this.
Speaker 2: In her witness statement to the William Tyrrell Inquest, Iris
Speaker 2: explains how she first met Frank Abbott.
Speaker 5: His father.
Speaker 6: Was a customer of it US. We hit the script
Speaker 6: medically out and his father used to bring a bit
Speaker 6: of script medal in Andy and one day just come
Speaker 6: in he stole.
Speaker 1: My son.
Speaker 6: Frank's looking for a job. He can do anything that
Speaker 6: he's been in jail done.
Speaker 5: He just got out of something.
Speaker 2: That noise you can hear in the background is me
Speaker 2: talking to Iris's husband, Dooley. Dooley's getting on these days.
Speaker 2: He stooped over. He struggles to walk and it's hard
Speaker 2: to break away from the conversation.
Speaker 6: And my husband said, bring him in if you can
Speaker 6: do the work whatever I want done.
Speaker 5: And then when he came in, he just talk like
Speaker 5: a normal person. He didn't put yeah yeah.
Speaker 6: And then when he started work, you know, you just
Speaker 6: ask him to do something, you go, I'll do no
Speaker 6: back chattle anything. He didn't talk that much, but if
Speaker 6: you talk to him, it's sort of pretty insurance whatever.
Speaker 6: But well, he only worked for us fur Book months.
Speaker 5: I suppose it might have been that.
Speaker 2: One the reason Frank stopped working for them was that
Speaker 2: he got arrested in nineteen ninety one over the murder
Speaker 2: of Helen Harrison, which we talked about in the last episode.
Speaker 6: One day, one of the policemen come to wear a
Speaker 6: place and he said, oh, Frank Abbott's not going to
Speaker 6: be working for you anymore. He said, we just arrested
Speaker 6: him for murder.
Speaker 2: And I said, what, Frank was found not guilty.
Speaker 5: He just said that everything was cleared. I said that
Speaker 5: he was not guildy by now.
Speaker 2: Dooley and I are both sitting at the kitchen table
Speaker 2: listening to Iris. I asked her, did it ever worry
Speaker 2: you that Frank was put on trial for murder?
Speaker 6: It's sort of sort of did, but yeah, he sort
Speaker 6: of didn't.
Speaker 5: Didn't sport the press on it too much.
Speaker 2: Instead, they stayed friend. Iris says, Frank and Dooley used
Speaker 2: to gamble together on the horses.
Speaker 6: They are planters, of course, they bring up the sounds
Speaker 6: has writing today And anyway, Frank moved to John's River
Speaker 6: and hittering happens. What do you fancy for race number
Speaker 6: six or something? And they'd be talking away there for
Speaker 6: half an hour, think oh, yeah.
Speaker 5: This one's a good one. That wrong, And you know
Speaker 5: they just chatter on, just mates, just.
Speaker 2: Mates for years. An Iris doesn't seem to bear Frank
Speaker 2: any malice today. Did you ever hear any other stories
Speaker 2: about him? People saying things about that?
Speaker 5: Since? Yes, since quite a lot.
Speaker 2: Then we start talking about Margaret and what Iris says
Speaker 2: in her statement to the William Tyrell inquest.
Speaker 6: When Margaret Cox went miss she went missing on a
Speaker 6: Thursday night. On the Saturday morning they found a body
Speaker 6: in the river, and on the Sunday we went to
Speaker 6: an auction.
Speaker 5: It was a film I had yet to have an
Speaker 5: auction every month, and the yaid, there's Frank, we've got
Speaker 5: a few minutes before you know, we've got to be there.
Speaker 5: So when out and we're talking Frank and anyway, Burley
Speaker 5: said to him, Frank, what did you do to you arm?
Speaker 5: Because he had all these gaut marks on his arm,
Speaker 5: and Frank just said, oysters. That was it.
Speaker 2: Oysters from the local oyster beds around Tyree, the ones
Speaker 2: that inspired the big Oyster in the wild. Oysters have
Speaker 2: really sharp shells. They scratch. In her statement, Iris says
Speaker 2: Frank had about seven or eight gouge marks between in
Speaker 2: his left wrist and his elbow.
Speaker 6: Always just don't do that. I fell on the oysters
Speaker 6: once and they don't do that. They just slash.
Speaker 2: So what was the difference with these?
Speaker 6: They were gouge marks, like someone had gouged skin it
Speaker 6: with the actual flesh out with.
Speaker 2: Their fingernails, and so these weren't Did you think anything of.
Speaker 5: That at the time, Well, I did and I didn't.
Speaker 2: Speaking to Gary Jubilin, Nina reads out this section from
Speaker 2: Iris's statement to the Inquest.
Speaker 3: The gouge marks were long and straight, and they looked
Speaker 3: to be a couple of days old, as they had
Speaker 3: that kind of festy look that wounds get before they
Speaker 3: start to heal.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: I remember thinking that the marks on his arm really
Speaker 3: didn't match what he was telling us.
Speaker 2: As a former homicide detective, I asked, Gary, do you
Speaker 2: read into that it.
Speaker 4: Is concerning There's been a lot of murders solved by
Speaker 4: someone carrying injuries that obviously what appear to be wounds
Speaker 4: with someone struggling if they're being attacked, oyster marks as
Speaker 4: distinct from straight scratches. Yeah, I offer a concern there.
Speaker 4: I worry with contamination of Frank Abbott because his reputation
Speaker 4: is so well known that people what we know about
Speaker 4: Frank Abbott is a grub. You're testing memories from what
Speaker 4: ninety six, if it was at the inquest, We're looking
Speaker 4: at thirty years down the track. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 4: trying to think thirty years back. Can I recall specific
Speaker 4: injury or how it looks? Memory can do some funny things,
Speaker 4: so I wouldn't get overly excited, but I'd be curious
Speaker 4: where Frank is. Certainly opportunity motive capability, as I always
Speaker 4: talk about he would have the motivation, because he seems
Speaker 4: to be, in my understanding, the sexual predator capability, the opportunity.
Speaker 4: Let's set missing ingredient.
Speaker 2: Meaning can you prove Frank had the opportunity to do
Speaker 2: anything to Margaret? So far, the answer is no. We
Speaker 2: can't even say Frank ever met her. Although there is
Speaker 2: a line in Iris's witness statement about.
Speaker 5: Ken Ben bowling.
Speaker 2: She says Frank used to bowl in Tarree on a
Speaker 2: Thursday night. It was a Thursday night that Margaret was
Speaker 2: last seen in Tiree.
Speaker 3: And so the bowling alley and I've confirmed it is
Speaker 3: the same bowlier alien hasn't moved, is five minutes away
Speaker 3: from that service station. We went to the bowling alley
Speaker 3: and I said, can you tell me who was bowling
Speaker 3: here thirty years ago? No, they can't, but they gave
Speaker 3: me the name of someone who did bowl there thirty
Speaker 3: years ago, and I tracked that guy down. Unfortunately, he
Speaker 3: is a Tuesday Wednesday bowler, not a Thursday.
Speaker 2: Which at least corroborates that there was bowling on a Thursday.
Speaker 2: And the other thing we heard is that bowling was
Speaker 2: big then and people would bowl late into the night,
Speaker 2: which proves nothing. We don't know if Frank was bowling
Speaker 2: on that Thursday, or what time the bowling finished, or
Speaker 2: if that was the same time Margaret was last seen
Speaker 2: at the service station.
Speaker 3: I tried to be a detective, Gary, I'd.
Speaker 2: Tried to be a detective too.
Speaker 4: That didn't work out.
Speaker 2: But there is one other thing. In Iris's statement to
Speaker 2: the William Tyrrell inquest, she says Frank had another mate.
Speaker 6: Yes, no, no, Santa, Yeah, could you tell us a
Speaker 6: bit more about what Noel told you about faith.
Speaker 2: In her witness statement, Iris says she and her husband
Speaker 2: told Noel about seeing Frank with oyster scratches after Margaret
Speaker 2: was murdered.
Speaker 5: Duley sort of mentioned it to him, and Narl said,
Speaker 5: he said, I'm sure that's the woman that I saw
Speaker 5: at Frank's with Frank.
Speaker 6: He said she had a bandage or something on her arm, and.
Speaker 5: I said, I don't know whether she had any bandages
Speaker 5: or anything.
Speaker 2: So when Noel told you this that he'd seen Margaret
Speaker 2: at Frank's place with the bandage on her arm, did
Speaker 2: he say when that.
Speaker 5: Was a few days before?
Speaker 2: A few days before?
Speaker 5: Ye might have been a week, but it was only
Speaker 5: a few days.
Speaker 2: So Frank's mate Noel says he saw Margaret at Frank's
Speaker 2: house sometime before she was murdered, and Noel recognized her
Speaker 2: from the bandage, which we know she did have on
Speaker 2: her left arm. As far as we can tell, this
Speaker 2: claim that Nol saw Margaret at Frank's house has never
Speaker 2: been made public, not at the inquest into Margaret's death
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, nor at the inquest into William's disappearance
Speaker 2: that ended last year.
Speaker 6: Shortly after Narl had told us it was only probably
Speaker 6: four or five days.
Speaker 2: Iris says her husband Dooley and Nol did try to
Speaker 2: tell police about seeing Margaret at Frank's place.
Speaker 6: Narl had been doing something for us. I'm not sure
Speaker 6: what it was now, but anyway, Dearly was taking him
Speaker 6: home because he lived at John's River near pretty near
Speaker 6: over the Eye, and there was a police block.
Speaker 2: Idea there'd been some kind of traffic incident, and.
Speaker 6: They said, oh, we're just stopping peguin Dulian.
Speaker 5: Nill tried to tell him about Margaret been.
Speaker 2: There, but the cop didn't seem interested.
Speaker 5: No, No, we've got someone for there.
Speaker 2: I see, as in the cops already had a suspect.
Speaker 6: They had three or four different people, and all sort of,
Speaker 6: you know, sort of gone through what could have been,
Speaker 6: what might have.
Speaker 2: Happened, meaning what might have happened if the cop that
Speaker 2: day had listened when they tried to tell him about Margaret.
Speaker 2: So what did happen? To answer that, Nina tracks down
Speaker 2: the detective who first led the investigation into Margaret's death.
Speaker 2: His name is Dave Wilno, and we drive out to
Speaker 2: meet him and sit with Dave and his wife at
Speaker 2: the table in their cozy kitchen, reading out Iris Northam's
Speaker 2: witness statement while Dave sits there without moving, his eyes closed,
Speaker 2: chin on his hands because he's never heard any of
Speaker 2: this before. Now, and Dave, I think, is a good
Speaker 2: man who did his best with the investigation and who
Speaker 2: deeply regrets not being able to give Margaret's family an
Speaker 2: answer as to who killed her. We keep talking. After
Speaker 2: more than two hours together, Nina and I finally stand,
Speaker 2: shake hands and leave. So that I wasn't expecting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: We've just been talking to a cop, Dave Wilno, and
Speaker 2: he led the investigation into Margaret Cox's murder back in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six. In tire and at the moment he
Speaker 2: doesn't want to be recorded, but I think we can
Speaker 2: say what we said to each other. And well, the
Speaker 2: first thing I didn't expect is that, as well as Dave,
Speaker 2: we met his wife, June. And while Dave was the
Speaker 2: cop who led the investigation into Margaret's murder, June was
Speaker 2: the nurse who treated Margaret in the week before she
Speaker 2: went missing.
Speaker 3: Yes, which is non information that I had from media reports.
Speaker 2: I didn't know either. And this is the bit that
Speaker 2: got me was we talked about the investigation, and we
Speaker 2: talked about different things, and we were there for a
Speaker 2: good long time, a couple of hours. But then un
Speaker 2: said that Margaret was in the hospital right up until
Speaker 2: just before she went missing. In fact, June said she
Speaker 2: was working the night shift and she worked the Thursday night.
Speaker 2: Margaret went missing on the Thursday night, and June said
Speaker 2: she came into the hospital and Margaret was gone. But
Speaker 2: she also said something that got your attention, didn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So she said that Margaret was being treated for
Speaker 3: an infection, yeah, and that she had left hospital. She
Speaker 3: had just had she had a pick line in treating
Speaker 3: this infectation.
Speaker 2: Yes, an intravenous line going into her arm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that caught my attention because of Irish Northam's statement.
Speaker 3: And in that statement she said that Noel Sunter, who
Speaker 3: was a friend of hers and a friend of Frank's,
Speaker 3: said that he had seen Margaret Cox at Frank's house
Speaker 3: shortly before the murder and that she had a bandage
Speaker 3: on her arm.
Speaker 2: And this this is the thing that when I read
Speaker 2: that in Iris Northham statement, I thought, it kind of
Speaker 2: doesn't mean anything. You've got a secondhand account that somebody
Speaker 2: saw Margaret at Frank's house kind of so what until
Speaker 2: June told us that Margaret was in hospital until the
Speaker 2: day she went missing and she was discharged with a
Speaker 2: bandage on her arm.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And Iris then says, a couple of days after Margaret
Speaker 2: goes missing, she sees Frank with those scratch marks down
Speaker 2: his arm. Suddenly, all of that seems much much more
Speaker 2: important than it did before.
Speaker 3: And it gives a frame of reference as well, because
Speaker 3: her statement says shortly before the murder, yeah, which could
Speaker 3: mean days, weeks, hours, but the fact that she had
Speaker 3: the bentage on her arm, and we've got the nurse
Speaker 3: that discharged her saying she was discharged that day with.
Speaker 2: The bet, Yeah, so that puts it at Frank's house
Speaker 2: the day she went missing. Have the police followed this
Speaker 2: up when they got Iris's statement. Well, we know they
Speaker 2: haven't spoken to June who was the treating nurse, but
Speaker 2: maybe they wouldn't. And we know they haven't spoken to
Speaker 2: the cop we just met Dave who led the investigation,
Speaker 2: but maybe they wouldn't. But have the police followed up
Speaker 2: with anyone about that statement that Frank might actually have
Speaker 2: been with Margaret on the day she went missing. Before
Speaker 2: she disappeared, Everyone around the table in that kitchen today
Speaker 2: was a little bit shocked by that.
Speaker 4: You've got me more interested in the effect if Frank
Speaker 4: Ebbertt knew her, that sort of changes the dynamics a bit.
Speaker 2: We go back and ask Gary Jubilin as a four,
Speaker 2: if this evidence about Margaret being at Frank's house changes anything.
Speaker 4: I'd be looking if I was looking at this investigation fresh,
Speaker 4: like in the actual time period you got Frank if
Speaker 4: he knows the victim. To me, it feels like a
Speaker 4: local type crime. If I was looking at it, I'd
Speaker 4: be looking for someone in the area.
Speaker 2: It might also mean that Frank knew she was going
Speaker 2: out that night, if she was the woman with a
Speaker 2: bandage on her arm seen at Frank's house.
Speaker 4: And if she was seen at Frank's house, if we're
Speaker 4: linking the bandage on the arm to being discharged from hospital.
Speaker 4: So it's contemporary, it's not I saw in the house
Speaker 4: ten years before. So it was Frank Abbott's reputation out
Speaker 4: and about at that stage.
Speaker 3: No, So it's interesting we asked about this because Frank
Speaker 3: was arrested in ninety ninety one in tire and then
Speaker 3: he goes through both of his trials whereas found not
Speaker 3: guilty over the murder of Helen Harrison. That all wraps
Speaker 3: up in ninety four, ninety five. So I did ask
Speaker 3: the investigator who was leading the investigation to Margaret's death,
Speaker 3: were you aware of Frank in the community and that
Speaker 3: he'd been charged with a crime like that, and would
Speaker 3: that make you more likely to look at him? And
Speaker 3: he kind of said no, that they weren't really aware.
Speaker 2: So they didn't know that Frank was living in the
Speaker 2: area and had just been acquitted of abducting, sexually assaulting
Speaker 2: and murdering a teenage girl.
Speaker 4: It shouldn't happen. I'm not saying that that couldn't happen
Speaker 4: that police would miss that. I'm thinking back to ninety six.
Speaker 4: I was in homicide and they operate. A person's name
Speaker 4: comes up in the investigation and you'd be looking at
Speaker 4: their past history, and it certainly flagged that if he
Speaker 4: was charged then acquitted of a murder.
Speaker 3: Well, Frank's name didn't come up in an investigation.
Speaker 4: So this information about knowing the victim, Margaret has come up.
Speaker 2: Basically, it's come up as there was up with the
Speaker 2: William Towell inquest.
Speaker 3: Right it has.
Speaker 4: But yeah, there's a lot of a lot of missing pieces.
Speaker 2: That's one question I wanted to ask you is if
Speaker 2: you were in unsolved handling this so it'd come to
Speaker 2: the police as a result of IRIS giving this statement
Speaker 2: in the William towol inquest, would you be getting in
Speaker 2: touch with Margaret Cox's family to say we've got some information.
Speaker 4: If I was in the unsolved homicide, which I have
Speaker 4: been in the unsolved homicides, I'd want to have a
Speaker 4: look at what's gone on, speak to the family, maybe
Speaker 4: get access to the brief and answer all the questions
Speaker 4: that I'm asking.
Speaker 2: How would you go.
Speaker 3: Back to IRIS after that statement.
Speaker 4: Was made, Iris been the.
Speaker 3: Woman who made this statement for the inquest.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, that would be an obvious, obvious one.
Speaker 2: And would you go back to Nils onto the guy
Speaker 2: who apparently said he saw Margaret at Franks Out.
Speaker 4: I'd be going back to them, armed with all the
Speaker 4: information that you've provided now, to sit down and potentially
Speaker 4: get additional information based on the information that you've forecoming.
Speaker 2: So what if I told you that IRIS gave that
Speaker 2: statement in twenty nineteen, So we're five years on and
Speaker 2: they've not heard anything from the police.
Speaker 4: I'd be disappointed that I'm used to being disappointed.
Speaker 2: Gary isn't the only one who's disappointed that the police
Speaker 2: haven't followed up with IRIS about Margaret Cox's murder.
Speaker 5: Well, that's it, it is.
Speaker 2: This is Iris.
Speaker 6: When the coroner come here and he was asking questions
Speaker 6: and things, and I'll mentioned.
Speaker 2: That IRIS says someone from the coronial team investigating William
Speaker 2: Toole's disappearance came to her house to take her statement
Speaker 2: and sat where Nina and I are now sitting.
Speaker 5: One of these was with him said, we'll mention that
Speaker 5: the cold case Detectives, the.
Speaker 2: Cold Case Detectives is the unsolved homicide team David Laidlaw,
Speaker 2: who's running the police investigation into William's disappearance, is one
Speaker 2: of that team's commanders.
Speaker 5: But whether she did or not, I don't know.
Speaker 2: So you've never heard that.
Speaker 5: That was two thousand.
Speaker 2: Cons lawyers came here and you obviously told them. They
Speaker 2: said they'd tell, and you've never heard.
Speaker 6: Anything, never heard, so I don't know whether they said
Speaker 6: anything or just completely forgot about it all.
Speaker 2: And did you hear back from the police since the inquest.
Speaker 2: Iris did give evidence in person at William's inquest, but
Speaker 2: that in quest wasn't looking at Margaret's murder, and Iris
Speaker 2: was only asked about part of what's in her statement
Speaker 2: and the rest hasn't been made public before now talking
Speaker 2: to US, Iris says it was one of who she
Speaker 2: calls the girls who interviewed her at home to get
Speaker 2: her statement, who said they passed the information on to
Speaker 2: the cold case unit. We don't know who that person was,
Speaker 2: though Iris's statement is signed by a female police detective
Speaker 2: who was on the strikeforce investigating William's disappearance, so we
Speaker 2: know at least that she was in the room, and
Speaker 2: we know no one has gone back since to talk
Speaker 2: to Iris.
Speaker 6: Well, I could probably Seisafi good?
Speaker 5: But yeah, I just think I want to fly. I'm
Speaker 5: an idiot.
Speaker 2: Do you think they should talk to you?
Speaker 5: WHOA?
Speaker 6: At times I think, oh, I've got you know, I've
Speaker 6: got to say something, even if if it's just to
Speaker 6: ring Nicole case mob up on Friday out with the
Speaker 6: other said anything about it?
Speaker 5: They got your information. Yeah, I do want to say.
Speaker 5: I think you're holding you're feeling a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 5: Oh yes, yes.
Speaker 3: You have told someone and you have done your part.
Speaker 5: You should know that. Well, yes, but I didn't follow
Speaker 5: it up. I haven't followed it up.
Speaker 6: That's not really but I would like to know whether
Speaker 6: she did see someone down there or mentioned it to someone.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. We asked New South Wales Police
Speaker 2: if this evidence about Frank and Margaret was passed on
Speaker 2: to the Unsolved Homicide Team in twenty nineteen, and if
Speaker 2: they had done anything to investigate it. The police declined
Speaker 2: to answer.
Speaker 6: On getting older, Narl's getting older, whether it's sulam to
Speaker 6: give any sort.
Speaker 2: Of evidence, Iris is right to say she's getting older.
Speaker 2: Her husband Dooley, who knew Frank well, is no longer
Speaker 2: really up to being interviewed or giving evidence. And what
Speaker 2: about Frank's other mate, Noel Sunter, the man who apparently
Speaker 2: saw Margaret at Frank's house with a bandage on her
Speaker 2: left arm shortly before she was murdered. Hello, Hi, is
Speaker 2: that Utah?
Speaker 1: Yes it is.
Speaker 2: Eventually we track Noel down. This is his wife. I
Speaker 2: tell her what we're doing. I'm a reporter and for
Speaker 2: the past couple of years I've been working on a
Speaker 2: podcast series about the investigation into the disappearance of that
Speaker 2: little lad, William Tyrell, who went missing ten years ago. Now,
Speaker 2: Utter explains Nol is also getting older and also no
Speaker 2: longer really up for being interviewed, but he is with
Speaker 2: her in the room as she and I are talking.
Speaker 2: Reason to speak to yourself is that in one of
Speaker 2: the exhibits that came out of the inquest, there was
Speaker 2: a witness statement given by a woman called Iris Northam
Speaker 2: whose yes yes. In her statement, Iris is talking about
Speaker 2: this woman who went missing in Tiree and was subsequently
Speaker 2: found dead, a woman called Margaret Cox. She was the
Speaker 2: mum of three who was found the old Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 7: My personal opinion is I don't think they've investigated Frank
Speaker 7: Abbott enough.
Speaker 1: But that's just my opinion.
Speaker 2: Iris gave this statement to the inquest which mentions Nol
Speaker 2: seeing my Margaret and Frank together. She gave this statement
Speaker 2: four or five years ago, roughly have you heard from
Speaker 2: the police in that time.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to think, we're already in this house, and
Speaker 7: we've been in this house now for when it were
Speaker 7: moving six just over six years. It mustn't be about
Speaker 7: five years ago, I'd say. When we got the message
Speaker 7: from the police. Never heard from them again. It was
Speaker 7: a woman and she said she'd call back, and that's the.
Speaker 1: Last I heard.
Speaker 2: So you've never heard from the police about Margaret Corks.
Speaker 2: Has he ever mentioned Margaret to you?
Speaker 7: I remember Noel saying that he saw a woman in
Speaker 7: Frank's house. She had an arm in a sling or something. Noel,
Speaker 7: you said, Nol doesn't talk so well anymore, wrapped up
Speaker 7: in a bandage in Frank's house.
Speaker 2: And did he say who he thought that woman was?
Speaker 1: No, you don't remember who that was to you?
Speaker 2: No? No, okay, So Noel today, five years on from
Speaker 2: when Iris gave her statement about Margaret, Nol doesn't remember
Speaker 2: or can't say if he remembers who the woman was
Speaker 2: that he saw in Frank's house, just that she was
Speaker 2: wearing a bandage, And as it stands, that's not evidence
Speaker 2: of anything, and maybe Noel was mistaken about who was
Speaker 2: with Frank. Too many years have passed since Margaret died
Speaker 2: and since Iris gave her evidence to the inquest. But
Speaker 2: you do think the police could have been asking these
Speaker 2: questions back in twenty nineteen when Iris first up, and
Speaker 2: they haven't.
Speaker 7: We've all said all along that the police never investigated
Speaker 7: Frank enough.
Speaker 2: What makes you say that he was just there was.
Speaker 1: Just something about Frank.
Speaker 7: I didn't like him, and I never liked him, but
Speaker 7: it was, you know, Noah's friend and whatnot.
Speaker 1: I think it was just creepy. That's the way I
Speaker 1: didn't describe it. Really.
Speaker 2: Did he do anything in particular made you think he
Speaker 2: was creepy?
Speaker 7: Just he'd brush up against you, just yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: he was just.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 7: I tried to stay away from him, and because we
Speaker 7: lived so close, he used to call in quite readily.
Speaker 1: So it's a bit.
Speaker 6: Just.
Speaker 7: I think anybody who you talk to about Frank would
Speaker 7: probably tell you the same thing. You know, he had
Speaker 7: a beautiful door atmember's daughter's names.
Speaker 1: She was gorgeous. She was really lovely.
Speaker 2: You know, do you have any idea what happened to her?
Speaker 1: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: We haven't been able to contact Frank's daughter either, and
Speaker 2: if you're out there and you want to talk, there's
Speaker 2: an email address in the show notes. We've written to
Speaker 2: Frank Abbott in prison where he's serving time for child
Speaker 2: sex offenses, about Margaret Cox and whether he ever met her.
Speaker 2: He hasn't responded to our questions. So this is what
Speaker 2: we do know. We know the police and the inquest
Speaker 2: team investigating William's disappearance were told back in twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: about one of their persons of interest and his alleged
Speaker 2: links to a young woman who was murdered. We know
Speaker 2: the woman who gave that evidence was told it would
Speaker 2: be passed on to the Unsolved Homicide team, but no
Speaker 2: one from the police has contacted her since, nor have
Speaker 2: the police contacted the other alleged witness she mentioned, nol Santer.
Speaker 2: And as we learn more about Margaret's death, that begins
Speaker 2: to seem completely inexplicable, because we learned there was once
Speaker 2: a dedicated police task force called Task Force METS, who
Speaker 2: reportedly looked for any links between Margaret's killing and three
Speaker 2: other unsolved murders. So Nina and I start looking at
Speaker 2: those three killings and we find there are others other
Speaker 2: unsolved murders here on the New South Wales North Coast
Speaker 2: and the Irish Northam. Statement to the inquest into William's
Speaker 2: disappearance links Frank to yet another of those cold cases,
Speaker 2: but that has never been made public until now. That's
Speaker 2: Next Time on Witness William Tyrrell. A lot of different
Speaker 2: people have been involved in making this series. Among them,
Speaker 2: the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design was
Speaker 2: by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar,
Speaker 2: Phoebe Zakowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Aden Patrick,
Speaker 2: original music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs.
Speaker 2: The editor at news dot com dot Au is Kerry
Speaker 2: Warren and Box