Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters.
Speaker 2: This podcast was recorded on It's November twenty ten and
Speaker 2: Christopher Rowe and his girlfriend Coralianne are on holidays in Queensland,
Speaker 2: enjoying the spring sun and some downtime ahead of the
Speaker 2: busy Christmas period. He reads something online from his hometown
Speaker 2: of Capunda, South Australia. Three people have been found dead.
Speaker 2: He notices a photo attached to the article is of
Speaker 2: his street, so he jumps on Facebook. My family live
Speaker 2: on that street, he writes, can somebody check on my parents?
Speaker 2: Pretty quickly he gets a reply, all's good, someone writes, Relieved.
Speaker 2: Chris gets back to his holiday, but it doesn't take
Speaker 2: long for the truth to come out for that well
Speaker 2: meaning and misinformed locals comment to be proven wrong. As
Speaker 2: Chris answers a phone call from a detective, he can
Speaker 2: hardly believe what he is hearing. His mum, Rose, dad Andrew,
Speaker 2: and little sister Chantelle have all been stabbed to death
Speaker 2: in his family home. Now, an eighteen year old man
Speaker 2: will face court today over the murder of a family
Speaker 2: in the South Australian town of Capunda. Andrew and Rose
Speaker 2: Rowe and their sixteen year old daughter, Chantelle were found
Speaker 2: stabbed to death in their home last week. A large
Speaker 2: crowd of locals gathered outside the police stations who hear
Speaker 2: from detectives. The crime will be described in the media
Speaker 2: as a blood bath, disturbing confronting all three victims stabbed
Speaker 2: multiple times. The brutality of the crime shocks the local community,
Speaker 2: which is thrown into the global media headlines. To this day,
Speaker 2: it's described as one of the state's most savage crimes
Speaker 2: and resulted in one of the harshest penalties handed down
Speaker 2: in South Australian history. Kapunda is a rural Australian town
Speaker 2: which at the time of the murders had a population
Speaker 2: of about three thousand. It sits on the edge of
Speaker 2: the Barossa Valley, an hour north of Vdelaide and is
Speaker 2: what you might call a low level tourist destination. It's
Speaker 2: home to Australia's first commercial metal mine, which you can
Speaker 2: now tour. It's a stereotypical Ossie town in that everyone
Speaker 2: knows everyone and many of the locals live there their
Speaker 2: entire lives. At the time of this crime in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: There were only two police officers stationed there permanently. The
Speaker 2: last thing they expected to find inside the Harriet Street
Speaker 2: home in the early hours of November eighth was this.
Speaker 2: The victims had more than one hundred wounds between them.
Speaker 2: The man responsible was someone no one would have expected
Speaker 2: capable of such a horrific triple murder. Brian Littley is
Speaker 2: a journalist who covered this case extensive for the Advertiser.
Speaker 2: He knew Kapunda well and captain touch with the sole survivor,
Speaker 2: Chris for many years after the crime. Brian joins us. Now, Brian,
Speaker 2: tell me about the Roe family. Who were they and
Speaker 2: what did their life in Kapunda, South Australia look like?
Speaker 1: I think the Roe family there was Andrew the father,
Speaker 1: and rose Mary or Rose that she went by, typical
Speaker 1: country family, two children, Christopher who had moved out of
Speaker 1: home and was living with his girlfriend but nearby and
Speaker 1: that'd have their weekend catch ups. And then of course
Speaker 1: Chantell sixteen year old in the midst of us schooling
Speaker 1: but also looking to branch out and do some work,
Speaker 1: casual work around in the community or in the towns,
Speaker 1: getting those cafe jobs or little jobs to earn some
Speaker 1: pocket money and getting around seeing her high school friends.
Speaker 1: They were your typical country family, had been living in
Speaker 1: Capunda for some time. Not born and bred through Capunda,
Speaker 1: but had set up and were established in the town
Speaker 1: and known around the town as good, friendly, kind people
Speaker 1: and nice members of the community.
Speaker 2: Do we know anything about the weekend before the murders
Speaker 2: what the family was up to. I know Chris was
Speaker 2: out of town, wasn't he.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, Chris was with his girlfriend Cora Lee on
Speaker 1: the Gold Coast, had gone there for a holiday and
Speaker 1: I think he'd been there for close to a week
Speaker 1: away Andrew and Rose. There's not much known about what
Speaker 1: they had been up to across that week. And we
Speaker 1: know that the week before Bill O'Brien, who was at
Speaker 1: that stage running to be mayor and went on to
Speaker 1: become the mayor and has been a long standing mayor,
Speaker 1: is still mayor or closely associated with the local government
Speaker 1: council there at the moment. Bill's a lovely bloke ran
Speaker 1: the supermarket, but he'd said that he'd run into Rose
Speaker 1: the week before and had a chat with her in
Speaker 1: his supermarket in the main street of Kapunda. So they
Speaker 1: were moving around doing their normal thing, but not standing out. Chantell,
Speaker 1: we know that she had been across that weekend in
Speaker 1: a few little places or speaking to a few people.
Speaker 1: A party at the neighboring town of Freeling. We think
Speaker 1: there's also other parties in Kapunda and bits and pieces.
Speaker 1: So moving around with friends groups and catching up with
Speaker 1: friends groups is how it played out, what we learned
Speaker 1: about Chantelle's movements, and that's critical going on later on.
Speaker 2: The bodies of Rose, Andrew, and Chantell, who was only sixteen,
Speaker 2: were found on a Monday in November twenty ten. Do
Speaker 2: we know if anyone raised the alarm or how that
Speaker 2: crime scene was discovered?
Speaker 1: From what we understand it was actually Christopher's boss had
Speaker 1: gone to check. I'm not sure about the details of
Speaker 1: him and why he would have gone to check, but
Speaker 1: he'd gone to call in on the family home somewhere
Speaker 1: around eleven o'clock on Monday the eighth November, maybe to
Speaker 1: drop something in, just to say get a something like that,
Speaker 1: and he discovered the bodies of Andrew and or discovered
Speaker 1: the scene I should say, with Andrew, Rose and Chantel,
Speaker 1: as we know now brutally brutally murdered and stabbed. It's
Speaker 1: a seasoned police call it now the most horrific scene
Speaker 1: that they've ever seen.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to go, you know, into too
Speaker 2: much detail that you're uncomfortable with, but to help us
Speaker 2: set the scene. What happened to that family in that house?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know. I've had this explained to
Speaker 1: me by some police who were in there, who were
Speaker 1: first on the scene, and as I said, they talk
Speaker 1: about up being the most brutal and horrific scene that
Speaker 1: they'd ever ever seen. We know that he came out
Speaker 1: and caught at the details about that scene read out
Speaker 1: by Judge Sulan when they were finally prosecuting and sentencing
Speaker 1: the killer, Jason Downey, that Chantel had been stabbed thirty
Speaker 1: three times and raped to the point where she'd been
Speaker 1: stabbed and wasn't killed, and then raped and then stabbed again.
Speaker 1: Andrew was stabbed twenty four times in the back, and
Speaker 1: from what police have described to me or some people
Speaker 1: I've heard through those channels in those investigations, Andrew didn't
Speaker 1: have a chance of even getting out of the bed
Speaker 1: and was rendered incapable of being able to defend his family.
Speaker 1: I guess for me, I think as horrific as both
Speaker 1: of those ends are, I think it's a description of
Speaker 1: what happened to Rose, who was stabbed more than fifty times,
Speaker 1: which which really impacts me and would impact anyone. She
Speaker 1: was said to be crawling on the ground trying to
Speaker 1: escape the madness that was happening in and around her
Speaker 1: when she was stabbed again and again. You know, the
Speaker 1: efforts by the killer to clean up the mess, and
Speaker 1: then only to go back and stab people again, for
Speaker 1: blood to fall over that mess again again. So it's
Speaker 1: it was a frenzied, crazy attack, which is just mind
Speaker 1: boggling to think that someone could even continue to be
Speaker 1: in such a rage or such a out of control state.
Speaker 2: Well that's more than one hundred stab wounds alone, and
Speaker 2: you know, any murder is horrific. But you know that
Speaker 2: visceral language that you describe the police officers using, you
Speaker 2: disturbing confront a blood bath, a massacre like it's It
Speaker 2: doesn't get more brutal and horrible than this.
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't. And I've got to say that you
Speaker 1: know those details it took, they went put up early
Speaker 1: on in the piece. It's only over time that those
Speaker 1: details really started to come out, I guess after the
Speaker 1: after the court case as well, and they started to
Speaker 1: flow out, and we heard more murmurs of what police
Speaker 1: had been confronted with when they were the first into
Speaker 1: the scene. And I've got to assume that, you know,
Speaker 1: those police officers, hardened police officers who've seen a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, were and still are probably struggle to cope
Speaker 1: with what they saw in that house, so very disturbing.
Speaker 2: I've read reports that a neighbor actually heard some screaming
Speaker 2: that night but didn't end up reporting it. Were there
Speaker 2: many other kind of witness reports that came out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was one the things that had very early
Speaker 1: in the police investigation that at about one am in
Speaker 1: the morning, a neighbor had heard I think Andrew's loudly
Speaker 1: loud voice, some screams from one of the ladies, one
Speaker 1: of the girls, And that is in the police sort
Speaker 1: of investigation from the very outset that that was something
Speaker 1: that had triggered. Other than that, there was very little
Speaker 1: from that night that would alert anyone to a crime
Speaker 1: being a crime happening in that town. I think the
Speaker 1: person they have thought it was a domestic dispute and
Speaker 1: nothing more. But it wasn't an ongoing, ongoing cries for
Speaker 1: help or scenes. It was you could just imagine a
Speaker 1: father rendered incapable of protecting his family, whether he was
Speaker 1: already dead, a terrified young teenage girl she was hiding
Speaker 1: under the bed. He pulled her out from underneath the
Speaker 1: bed and stabbed her again. And a mum who was
Speaker 1: unable to escape this madman. What was going on inside
Speaker 1: that house, whether they couldn't scream in fear and shock,
Speaker 1: incapable of doing that at that time.
Speaker 2: My mind immediately goes to Chris, who wasn't there, and
Speaker 2: he was on holiday with his girlfriend. I'm assuming he
Speaker 2: got a call. Do we know how he found out
Speaker 2: how quickly he was able to make it back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we know that he did get a call. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously got a call and was alerted to it, and
Speaker 1: I believe he was able to get back by that
Speaker 1: Monday afternoon or evening. He was raced back there, raced
Speaker 1: back to what his whole family had been murdered. And
Speaker 1: you know, I spent a bit of time with Chris
Speaker 1: as in the years after. It was three years after
Speaker 1: that I I spent time with Chris and Coraly, and
Speaker 1: it was the last real touch point I had on
Speaker 1: this story was to do an interview with the pair
Speaker 1: as they awaited the birth of their child, and it
Speaker 1: was lovely to be sitting there and doing that. I'd
Speaker 1: had a little bit of contact with Chris throughout that time,
Speaker 1: but obviously family and friends, community police, all of those
Speaker 1: people you'd expect were very protective of him, and I'd
Speaker 1: like to think that I respected that, and our coverage
Speaker 1: respected that as well. We did a lot of our
Speaker 1: liaison with the family through Chris's cousin, Kylie Duffield, and
Speaker 1: she became a real powerful and strong and fantastic spokesperson
Speaker 1: for the family. The torment that Chris went through, you know,
Speaker 1: even even to the point of well, he had a
Speaker 1: absolute alibi and the Gold Coast had he organized the
Speaker 1: killing of his family and what or had he led?
Speaker 1: Was he up to something that led them to be attacked,
Speaker 1: It would have been so tormenting. And you know, he
Speaker 1: was a really strong and powerful young man at the
Speaker 1: time to be able to even cope with that and
Speaker 1: get through Yeah. Yeah, he raced back and I know
Speaker 1: that he was a pillar of strength for the people
Speaker 1: around him, and he had a lot of people around
Speaker 1: him to support him as well, though he was pretty
Speaker 1: stood fairly strong in the circumstances.
Speaker 2: Was Coapunda you know regularly in the news. You know,
Speaker 2: as far as I can see, a bit more of
Speaker 2: a sleepy rural town, a little bit of a tourist location.
Speaker 2: But this would have kind of really put it on
Speaker 2: the map.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like for the wrong reasons. Yeah. No, Copanda is
Speaker 1: a fabulous place. It's a lovely sleepy country hamlet. Really.
Speaker 1: It has a really rich history and probably quite a
Speaker 1: I imagine it's had a fair share of trouble and strife,
Speaker 1: but nothing like this. So you know, it's part of
Speaker 1: the Copper Triangle with the Cornish miners and so had
Speaker 1: the copper mine there, and at one stage I think
Speaker 1: had the number of pubs in Capunda. There was somewhere
Speaker 1: around thirty pubs in Kapunda, and even at this stage
Speaker 1: in twenty ten, there's still a lot of little pubs
Speaker 1: in there. So you can imagine the rough and tumble.
Speaker 1: It is a rough and tumble town. It's got a
Speaker 1: rich Catholic history. It's also got a number of tunnels
Speaker 1: that run below the town, very intriguing township, but nothing
Speaker 1: like this.
Speaker 2: You said you were tasked with, you know, chatting to
Speaker 2: the locals as part of your team's investigation. What was
Speaker 2: their reaction like to something like this happening in the town.
Speaker 2: At the start, as you mentioned, we didn't know the details,
Speaker 2: but they did know that three members of a family
Speaker 2: had been killed in the one house.
Speaker 1: I had a shock at that devastation that a family
Speaker 1: from their community had been so horrifically murdered. And as
Speaker 1: it filtered out, of course there's that immediate grief and outrage.
Speaker 1: Then the fear really set in because and it was
Speaker 1: within a few days I think that the township of
Speaker 1: Capanda started to sort of work out that hey, this
Speaker 1: isn't likely to be well, they thought it was someone
Speaker 1: from outside of town. It'd have to be, wouldn't it,
Speaker 1: because no one in their town, that the people that
Speaker 1: they lived with, their neighbors, isn't going to do anything
Speaker 1: like this. But within a few days, the efforts of
Speaker 1: the police were starting to see it that way that
Speaker 1: we think this could be one of your own, and
Speaker 1: that level of fear really rose, so they were quite scared.
Speaker 1: They I think walking around the town people did try
Speaker 1: to go about their lives as usual and try to
Speaker 1: keep that face of you know, we're still we're getting
Speaker 1: along with things. We're supportive of every effort that the
Speaker 1: police make. But then you've got media from everywhere. All
Speaker 1: the eyes are on it. So everyone was on tenterhooks
Speaker 1: and they were scared. So even I found myself knowing
Speaker 1: a lot of people there, they were reserved in what
Speaker 1: they might come forward with and a bit frightened about
Speaker 1: talking with you, And so it made it pretty hard.
Speaker 2: Were the police sharing any clues in those early days
Speaker 2: or were they kind of keeping things pretty under wraps.
Speaker 2: I know that there was a really widespread search, you know,
Speaker 2: underwater land everything.
Speaker 1: I know that over time I've been critical of police,
Speaker 1: and at the time I was critical of police because
Speaker 1: not about keeping things under wraps. I understand that that's
Speaker 1: the way that things need to be. And something that
Speaker 1: was quite of interest to me was the head of
Speaker 1: Major Crime and Grant Moyle. He'd been in the job
Speaker 1: for two days before this murder happened. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'd no Grant Moyle from He's a few years older
Speaker 1: than me, but he grew up in the same township
Speaker 1: as me and my mum used to babysitting. There was
Speaker 1: this journo cop battle like, you're the investigative editor, Brian,
Speaker 1: but I'm the investigator, say, there's always been that with police.
Speaker 1: I think that police did a good job from the
Speaker 1: outset in putting together a plan to try to that
Speaker 1: would likely capture the suspect or the lightly suspect. It's
Speaker 1: just that this crime was different. So I think what
Speaker 1: they would normally go into trying to capture a person
Speaker 1: that they looked in the wrong spots to start with early,
Speaker 1: but arether the wrong spots probably not, That's how you'd
Speaker 1: approach it. I don't think anyone believed that it was
Speaker 1: someone from Capunda that would have that, so certainly not
Speaker 1: the person it turned out to be. But police went
Speaker 1: doing the things that you might expect him to do
Speaker 1: from the start. So there was a security guard security
Speaker 1: patrol who patrolled Kapunda and would have been the most
Speaker 1: likely person to go to to ask for had you
Speaker 1: seen anything. He'd been out that Sunday night. In fact,
Speaker 1: he responded to an alarm at the Compunda Primary School
Speaker 1: at around ten o'clock on the Sunday night. It turns
Speaker 1: out that that primary school's a couple of blocks shy
Speaker 1: of where Jason Downey lived at the time. The police
Speaker 1: hadn't even been to the local security patrol guy to
Speaker 1: say did you see anything the one person who had
Speaker 1: reason to be driving around Kapunda late at night on
Speaker 1: a Sunday night. They didn't particularly go to the people
Speaker 1: that Chantelle had had contact with over that weekend. So
Speaker 1: Chantelle was the only person that you could closely track
Speaker 1: where she went from place to place and what she
Speaker 1: was doing. So I made a discovery some three or
Speaker 1: four days into that investigation that they hadn't spoken to
Speaker 1: Chantelle's boss, who she'd messaged not more than two hours
Speaker 1: before she was murdered to say that she wouldn't be
Speaker 1: at work the next day. Was in a neighboring town
Speaker 1: in Urutpa place that I know, Cafe Divine. She'd worked
Speaker 1: there for a week. But even the cafe operator, the boss,
Speaker 1: who had the message on her phone from Chantelle saying
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be in tomorrow. I feel crooked,
Speaker 1: police hadn't spoken to her, and she was flabbergasted at that.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they speak to her if you're going to
Speaker 1: try to track these movements. So yeah, police did a
Speaker 1: good job in the circumstances. I think they'd do a
Speaker 1: lot better job knowing that this is the crime that
Speaker 1: happened and what had happened, So the debrief would have
Speaker 1: set some new parameters. I think.
Speaker 2: Well, it did take, you know, eight days or so
Speaker 2: to arrest their suspect. Was Jason Downey's name floating around?
Speaker 2: Do we know now from the start was he an
Speaker 2: early person of interest?
Speaker 1: I was certainly not in the police eye, as you know.
Speaker 1: I think if he was a person of interest, they
Speaker 1: would have had him in there earlier to speak with
Speaker 1: him at least, And the circumstances of him being brought
Speaker 1: in even suggests that, you know, even then they weren't
Speaker 1: too short that he was the right person. They were
Speaker 1: just going on a bit of a hunch. But I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, his actions, certainly to go and put flowers
Speaker 1: at the gravesite and move around and go back to
Speaker 1: work normally and work each day activities that he didn't
Speaker 1: stand him out as a person of interest. No one
Speaker 1: was jumping up and down and saying we think it's him,
Speaker 1: we think it's him. But I think there was one
Speaker 1: event in that week in the eight days that certainly
Speaker 1: some eyes had started to turn towards him as if
Speaker 1: he might be the person that had some involvement in it.
Speaker 1: There was a Christmas party that he went to with
Speaker 1: his workplace and they looked at him. One of the girls,
Speaker 1: their partner of one of his fellow mechanics at this
Speaker 1: Christmas party, took a photograph of him because they thought
Speaker 1: that he was acting oddly and strangely. And she sent
Speaker 1: this photograph to us in the days shortly after Jason
Speaker 1: Downey's arrest, and we obviously we couldn't run it for
Speaker 1: some months until he appeared in court. But you know
Speaker 1: the explanation from the girl who made contact and sent
Speaker 1: that photograph to me, she said, I took it because
Speaker 1: I thought that he'd killed those people.
Speaker 2: That's kind of creepy, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's really creepy. And the photograph, you know, it didn't
Speaker 1: help Jason Downey's cause to look any anything of innocent.
Speaker 1: It's because it was a days when you didn't have
Speaker 1: the red eye flash reducer. So you know, this photograph
Speaker 1: that's striking. He's got these devil eyes in it as well.
Speaker 1: So when we did run that photograph eventually after he'd
Speaker 1: appeared and the suppressions on his identity were lifted. You know,
Speaker 1: it was a face of unmasking, a face of evil,
Speaker 1: and it certainly the photo did sit there appropriately to
Speaker 1: paint the picture of an evil person.
Speaker 2: You mentioned something briefly that I wanted to bring back
Speaker 2: up the fact that he visited the flowers the shrine
Speaker 2: that was kind of caught on Like you could watch that.
Speaker 2: It's on video, It's on news camera footage, and it's
Speaker 2: kind of it's very eerie to look at in retrospect.
Speaker 2: He visits and stands there for ages and gives a gift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and wrote something I can't recall exactly what he
Speaker 1: wrote on that note, but yeah, As I said that,
Speaker 1: the media pack was there day and day twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven, pretty much inca punda and going to different locations,
Speaker 1: going to the lake that they had searched, the police
Speaker 1: had searched, and going for press conferences there. So there's
Speaker 1: always cameras on that house and cameras on the locations
Speaker 1: where police were searching, the cameras on people in the
Speaker 1: streets as the police moves through there. So it's not
Speaker 1: surprising that they captured that footage, but obviously that became
Speaker 1: quite a piece of valued footage across newsrooms. And I
Speaker 1: think also for police when they were trying to get
Speaker 1: an understanding of who they were dealing with once they
Speaker 1: had finally caught Jason Downey, what type of person they
Speaker 1: were dealing with, someone who could act so blase, And
Speaker 1: I guess it probably supports the fact that police didn't
Speaker 1: have any leads on It didn't seem outrightly as someone
Speaker 1: that they should be focusing on, because to be able
Speaker 1: to move through the community like that in a time
Speaker 1: of grief and purport to be grieving. And he'd gone
Speaker 1: and visited the boyfriend of Chantelle rote that the person
Speaker 1: that one of only a few friends that Jason Downey had,
Speaker 1: he went and visited him within two days of the
Speaker 1: murder and act as if you know, he grieved with him.
Speaker 1: Was quiet and reserved. Described by Dylan Pratt that boyfriend
Speaker 1: as you know, typical of Jason, a bit quieter than normal.
Speaker 1: But wow, I mean the guy cold hearted.
Speaker 2: M So that's the connection, isn't it. Can you tell
Speaker 2: us a bit about Jason because he is friends with
Speaker 2: Dylan and Chantelle is Dylan's girlfriend. That's the kind of link.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Jason Downey he didn't have any friends through
Speaker 1: high school, and you know, he was doing this apprenticeship
Speaker 1: and he did one day a week at tafe, so
Speaker 1: I do think he'd sort of finished his schooling before
Speaker 1: matriculation and had gone into this trade. But he, you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't have a great life in Capunda. He'd emigrated
Speaker 1: there in two thousand and six with his mother Lorna,
Speaker 1: from Kilmarnock, and had a brother Jamie, who also lived
Speaker 1: there with a family or close by and worked close
Speaker 1: by down at gawler In I think as a stable
Speaker 1: hand or track work writer, a jockey if you like.
Speaker 1: But he had very few friends. Jason Downey, he wasn't
Speaker 1: one who made friends. He did try to act the
Speaker 1: cool guy from all accounts. He was trying to purport
Speaker 1: himself as the you know, a bit of a basketball
Speaker 1: star and a gun mechanic and popular, but he really
Speaker 1: he'd had an infatuation with his only real his best
Speaker 1: mate's girlfriend, and you know, she Chantelle didn't shut that down,
Speaker 1: particularly because you know she she didn't want to upset
Speaker 1: her boyfriend either, and the boyfriend, you know, I sat
Speaker 1: with Dylan, you know, years after the case was so
Speaker 1: when we're putting together some material and and he was
Speaker 1: talking about Jason Downey actually quite you know, friendly and
Speaker 1: jovial about it, saying that this guy wouldn't hurt a fly,
Speaker 1: and he never had any suspicions about him, and he
Speaker 1: didn't have any concerns about his girlfriend being interested in
Speaker 1: Jason Downey. But in Jason Downey's mind, you know, his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Chantell Rowe was interested in him, and it was reciprocated.
Speaker 1: And that's that volcano or that firestor and that built
Speaker 1: up and you know, he was he was there to
Speaker 1: take what he thought was his So.
Speaker 2: Really, at the end of the day, this was a
Speaker 2: sexual obsession or an infatuation with Chantelle and.
Speaker 1: Z I for I guess, affection and attention, a cry
Speaker 1: for help. He he a cry for help. I guess
Speaker 1: he was. He felt quite alone. And you know, it
Speaker 1: has been suggested that, you know, Chantell had continued to
Speaker 1: message him and be polite to him and things like that,
Speaker 1: and he took that as she's interested in me and
Speaker 1: built that up in his own mind, I think, and
Speaker 1: we don't really know what happened behind those closed doors
Speaker 1: and what sparked that frenzy. But you know it would
Speaker 1: appear that rejection and being told that this isn't happening,
Speaker 1: He snapped.
Speaker 2: You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Jemma Bass.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking with journalist Brian Littley about the Kapunda triple murder.
Speaker 2: Up next, Brian tells us about how the arrest of
Speaker 2: Jason Downey unfolded. How did his arrest go down in
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: So we know that it had been eight days or
Speaker 1: so since that murder three people stabbed more than a
Speaker 1: hundred times violently like one of the most violent murders
Speaker 1: and scenes that police have seen. Jason Downey had throughout
Speaker 1: that time been working at the Tarnanda Mechanics as an apprentice,
Speaker 1: where he was a lowly apprentice. Each day he ride
Speaker 1: shared with someone else, another young person from Kapunda who
Speaker 1: worked at the same mechanics, and they'd ride share and
Speaker 1: go across the thirty odd kilometers from Capunda to Tnanda,
Speaker 1: and Jason had continued to as he normally would catch
Speaker 1: a lift with his work colleague and catch a lift
Speaker 1: back with his work colleague, and police having acted on
Speaker 1: a hunch about information that Sergeant John Keen had picked
Speaker 1: up in when interviewing Jason Downey. He'd made a point
Speaker 1: that he he tried to make an alibi for where
Speaker 1: he was. He wasn't at this party on the Saturday night.
Speaker 1: Yes he knew Chantell, but you know, he kept making
Speaker 1: the point that he wasn't at this party. And I
Speaker 1: went to McDonald's down in Gawla and got some food,
Speaker 1: so on Sunday that's where I was. So he made
Speaker 1: this alibi and he was insistent on it, and John
Speaker 1: Keen had picked up going it's odd, you know, he
Speaker 1: keeps offering up this alibi. If he hasn't got anything
Speaker 1: to hide, why would he be volunteering this information. So
Speaker 1: they did start to check him out, and they were
Speaker 1: closing in on him obviously, and they knew that they
Speaker 1: had someone who was a suspect here. By matching shoe
Speaker 1: prints and doing some actual detective work matching fingerprints, they
Speaker 1: started to think that this could be the guy. So
Speaker 1: they got the colleague who was working with Jason that
Speaker 1: time in to Nanda. They said, we'll get you to
Speaker 1: bring him in to come in and sign his would
Speaker 1: just tell him he's going to sign the statement, and
Speaker 1: you know it's it's played out since in the weeks
Speaker 1: after that, you know, these mechanics in the workshop at
Speaker 1: lunch time, we're sort of joking with Jason Downey. They're going, oh,
Speaker 1: they're going to arrest you for those murders. And these
Speaker 1: are the same colleagues that just a few days before
Speaker 1: we're thinking, hey, this guy's acting a bit dodgy. He's
Speaker 1: got cuts on his hands as well. He's trying to
Speaker 1: explain some things that had happened, and you know, enough
Speaker 1: to take a photograph of him at their Christmas dinner
Speaker 1: to say we suspect this guy has done this, and
Speaker 1: they were joking with him. I can't imagine how nerve
Speaker 1: racking that drive for that young person he was driving
Speaker 1: to deliver him directly to the police station. Must have
Speaker 1: been knowing that, you know, I'm driving a person back
Speaker 1: to the police station that we all suspect has done it,
Speaker 1: and we've been joking around with it. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, Jason Downey knows what he's done, doesn't.
Speaker 2: He You've shown how dangerous that he is, so to
Speaker 2: put that person in that position, that's right.
Speaker 1: And there was no suggestion at the time, and there's
Speaker 1: no suggestion that they were being followed by police patrol
Speaker 1: on marked the car or anything like tracktor. That was
Speaker 1: just I thought that was bizarre that police did that,
Speaker 1: but it did work out for them. He went there
Speaker 1: and he and they got their man. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think it'd be the number one way of
Speaker 1: bringing in a suspect who's committed that sort of crime.
Speaker 2: And Jason's name was suppressed for a while, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: Why was that because he was eighteen at the time
Speaker 2: of his arrest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I can't really explain the legal reasons
Speaker 1: why it was suppressed, but I think it was matching up.
Speaker 1: You know that there were things that hadn't been found,
Speaker 1: like so Chantelle's phone was missing, and we know that
Speaker 1: there was a message sent from that phone that sort
Speaker 1: of they apparently never found the phone, They hadn't found
Speaker 1: a murder weapon. There was suggestions that, I guess his
Speaker 1: identity suppressed. There's still a lot of talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that this could one person do this. It's you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't a very strong guy, wasn't a big guy.
Speaker 1: It's quite a weedy week looking in sip a eighteen
Speaker 1: year old, he's managed to overpower Andrew and and you
Speaker 1: know that was no mean feat. So there was still
Speaker 1: this talk was there another person about did he have
Speaker 1: an accomplice? And things like that? So plus small town,
Speaker 1: you want to control the narrative. I want to control
Speaker 1: the information that's coming out. So my only thinking is
Speaker 1: that that's why it was suppressed. They're also chasing guilty
Speaker 1: please from him, so that would be the hope to
Speaker 1: I guess, limit the amount of pain for Christopher and
Speaker 1: that community of Capunda.
Speaker 2: The appearance of Downey really did kind of shock people,
Speaker 2: didn't it when he was eventually kind of revealed to
Speaker 2: be this killer because of the brutality and yeah, like
Speaker 2: it just goes to show that you know, anyone can
Speaker 2: be a killer.
Speaker 1: Well, it really does, because you know, he wasn't the
Speaker 1: obvious choice, or was he? If you have a look
Speaker 1: at that footage of him placing those flowers's he's a
Speaker 1: weak looking eighteen year old boy. And to have that
Speaker 1: brutality in someone so young as well, to have that
Speaker 1: amount of rage that must have taken like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: it doesn't match the persona doesn't match the person at
Speaker 1: all the crime.
Speaker 2: Tell me about the strange rumor that was kind of
Speaker 2: circulating once his name did come out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I guess that is probably what we're touching
Speaker 1: on this. You know, the crime doesn't match. People are
Speaker 1: looking for answers as to how this young man could
Speaker 1: possibly responsible for such a brutal crime. And so the
Speaker 1: rumors started coming out and we're flowing that he matched
Speaker 1: the identity of the James Bolger killers. So he'd come
Speaker 1: from Kilmarnock. And if you know the story of James Boulger,
Speaker 1: two year old boy in the UK in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: taken off in a shopping center by two ten year olds.
Speaker 1: He tortured him, held him hostage and then murdered him.
Speaker 1: Robert Thompson and John Vannables. Now in two thousand and
Speaker 1: one they were released with new identities, and there was
Speaker 1: quite a bit of talk that Robert Thompson, who disappeared
Speaker 1: off the face of the planet, really there was taught
Speaker 1: that he'd been relocated to Australia. Now, in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, Jason Downey and his mum and the family
Speaker 1: landed in Capunda, emigrated to Capunda, and there was a
Speaker 1: bit of a. I guess a resemblance in just general
Speaker 1: sort of if you looked at them and the ages
Speaker 1: were matching up, and that reomor went around and was
Speaker 1: thoroughly checked out by media organizations and proven to not
Speaker 1: be the case, obviously, but it probably the speculation about
Speaker 1: all the consideration that how could someone have so much
Speaker 1: rage they went to match it to someone who'd done
Speaker 1: something so violent and vulgar in the past.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about the evidence that was gathered against Downey?
Speaker 2: You mentioned DNA, So they had, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of blood, they had fingerprints, they had footprints, seamen, what
Speaker 2: else did they have against him?
Speaker 1: Going through police reports on what they did gather and yeah,
Speaker 1: a fingerprint that was almost accidentally gathered. They were dusting
Speaker 1: one space on the inside of Chantell's bedroom door location
Speaker 1: that they looking at, and a bit of the dust
Speaker 1: the fingerprint dust was missed place that was sort of
Speaker 1: drifted off somewhere else and it landed on a fingerprint,
Speaker 1: which was a fantastic thumb print. I think that they're
Speaker 1: able to lift. So they had that there an they
Speaker 1: had that fairly early on, but of course Jason Downey
Speaker 1: had never I didn't have a criminal record or anything,
Speaker 1: so they had nothing. You know, they had a fingerprint
Speaker 1: eventually was going to prove vital, crucial. There was also
Speaker 1: the shoeprints that were left around in the blood that
Speaker 1: you know, he'd tried to cover up at one stage
Speaker 1: and he'd walked out, and he was so calcul well
Speaker 1: not calculated, but working to in that scene, such an
Speaker 1: odd thing. He'd tried to clean up some blood. Then
Speaker 1: he went back and stabbed people. He took his shoes
Speaker 1: off at one start and walked around in bare feet,
Speaker 1: in socks, i should say, and put these different sock
Speaker 1: covered prints around the place, and he left there with
Speaker 1: his shoes off, and they've never been found. So they
Speaker 1: managed to his mum had revealed that, you know, he
Speaker 1: only had three pairs of shoes, so they matched shoe
Speaker 1: prints from a pair that was missing, like one of
Speaker 1: those pairs was missing. But all of that stuff was
Speaker 1: what ultimately got him secured that conviction and all that
Speaker 1: evidence against him. But the one thing that they didn't
Speaker 1: find was the knife, and it was a kitchen knife
Speaker 1: taken from the Row family's house, so he didn't go
Speaker 1: there with a weapon. From everything we know, he took it,
Speaker 1: and this sort of I guess raises the point that
Speaker 1: this was a snap. He didn't go there with the
Speaker 1: intent to kill them, but that's how it happened. The
Speaker 1: police line on that is that they never found that knife,
Speaker 1: they never found the murder weapon. But I'd questioned that
Speaker 1: as well. Those months later and happened to be on
Speaker 1: a day that Jason Downey was facing court, and from
Speaker 1: my memory, it was a day that he entered his plea.
Speaker 1: It'd been horrific for the family members, in the community,
Speaker 1: and of course the legal system, the prosecutors were all
Speaker 1: hoping for that day to end that, you know, get
Speaker 1: a guilty plea and try to stem that flow of
Speaker 1: pain for that community.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that he entered a plea. It ended up being,
Speaker 2: you know, a year later after the murders. So before
Speaker 2: that he was kind of maintaining his innocence, wasn't He
Speaker 2: even had kind of a strange story about why there
Speaker 2: might have been his fingerprint there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there was. There was a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of that, and I think that's when it did
Speaker 1: come out. It's not real clear what his story was,
Speaker 1: and I certainly say myself I didn't closely follow those
Speaker 1: back and forth, so it got out of my hands,
Speaker 1: the investigative guy on the ground, and it was really
Speaker 1: in our court reporter's hands. He was trying to give
Speaker 1: reason for not being there. So I think the police
Speaker 1: probably explain it better. And I've heard that that you know,
Speaker 1: he was. They were keenly getting those fingerprints and keenly
Speaker 1: getting these bits and pieces, and they wanted to really
Speaker 1: make sure they had that forensic stuff. Having the shoe
Speaker 1: prints and having the fingerprint, having multiple bits of forensic
Speaker 1: evidence meant that they could shut down if he did
Speaker 1: want to say, hey, but I've been there in the past,
Speaker 1: and the police made it quite clear that. And Dylan
Speaker 1: Pratt has also said that he rarely had gone inside
Speaker 1: that house to see Chantell. He wasn't welcome there. Jason
Speaker 1: Downey had met Christopher Rowe once a few weeks before
Speaker 1: the murder, and Christopher, who has shared that he would normally,
Speaker 1: you know, shake someone's hand, he obviously had a bit
Speaker 1: of a feeling about Jason Downey because he didn't shake
Speaker 1: his hand, he said, so I think they stacked up
Speaker 1: the storyline that there was no great possibility that Jason
Speaker 1: Downey had been a regular person inside that Harriet Street house.
Speaker 1: So his alibis or his whatever story he made up
Speaker 1: wasn't really going to sit tight.
Speaker 2: So he did plead guilty, which obviously saves Chris and
Speaker 2: the other family members from having to go through the ordeal.
Speaker 1: Of a trial.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about Jason's apology letter, if you
Speaker 2: can talk to that, because I've seen it described as
Speaker 2: a childlike reaction to a horrendous crime, which I think
Speaker 2: is a very fitting description.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. He called it my recent actions, was
Speaker 1: the way he described killing three people. So it was
Speaker 1: not an apology. It was there's no trition, there's no
Speaker 1: remorse in it. I mean, it was the writings of
Speaker 1: a child and a person who had no comprehension of
Speaker 1: what he did. Now, I'm sure Jason Downey did comprehend
Speaker 1: what he'd done. He knew what he'd done, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure he didn't get advice on how to write that letter.
Speaker 1: Because the apology letter, because it just it didn't hit.
Speaker 1: It only hurt that family. You know, he was upset,
Speaker 1: he wrote him there before this, before my recent actions,
Speaker 1: I had a good job, I had a good car,
Speaker 1: and had a good social life, and I've lost all
Speaker 1: of that because of my recent actions, so he didn't get.
Speaker 2: It so down. He ended up getting thirty five years,
Speaker 2: which to me, knowing what he did and knowing how
Speaker 2: many people he killed, doesn't sound like a lotch but
Speaker 2: it is actually a very significant penalty in South Australia,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is There's only been one higher I believe,
Speaker 1: and that's Michael Barry Fife, the bird Man of Yatler
Speaker 1: they call him. I think he got a total of
Speaker 1: thirty eight years, but that's thirty five years before he
Speaker 1: has any chance of parole. Doesn't mean that he's necessarily
Speaker 1: going to get out.
Speaker 2: After the break, we find out where Christopher Rowe is
Speaker 2: now and whether he's been able to move on from
Speaker 2: the murder of his family. Back to Chris again, because
Speaker 2: you know, you were the one of the only, or
Speaker 2: if only, the only journo to kind of have extensive
Speaker 2: chats with him, and another kind of insight he gave
Speaker 2: you was the amount of debt that these murders left
Speaker 2: him in and the kind of lack of help he
Speaker 2: was given.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to think back to it, but I
Speaker 1: do think so the victims of crime levee is you know,
Speaker 1: is there to pick up help pick up some of
Speaker 1: those pieces. But you can imagine Christopher couldn't work for
Speaker 1: two years, really like it couldn't have a normal life.
Speaker 1: And even after the you know, the the sentencing and everything,
Speaker 1: there's there's no normally, it's hard to get back to
Speaker 1: any normal life there and the trauma trying to deal
Speaker 1: with it with counseling and trying to just make day
Speaker 1: to day happen and get around is going to cost
Speaker 1: you a great deal of money. The I think there's
Speaker 1: hold ups with the states as well. That's going to
Speaker 1: happen in situations like that. So he's really back against
Speaker 1: the wall type stuff. And the victims of crime levee
Speaker 1: that was paid out to I guess the family. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even paid out to Chris. He wasn't considered a
Speaker 1: victim of crime because he wasn't there. He wasn't a
Speaker 1: victim of a They lost his whole family. And I
Speaker 1: think the total amount was twenty three thousand dollars from
Speaker 1: Victims of crime Levy, which has got millions of dollars
Speaker 1: in that. Mind you, every time you break the law,
Speaker 1: obviously there's that levy you're paying on top of your fine.
Speaker 1: It was seven thousand dollars per life taken and then
Speaker 1: some money to clean up the crimes and the house
Speaker 1: for sale or for yeah, also it could later be sold.
Speaker 1: And that was a compensation that the Row family got
Speaker 1: that Christopher Roe got. So there was no compensation for
Speaker 1: Christopher for losing his family.
Speaker 2: You did say that there was, you know, somewhat of
Speaker 2: a happy ending for Chris. He and his partner had
Speaker 2: a little baby boy together and as far as you know,
Speaker 2: they're living a happy life now.
Speaker 1: Look, I know that it was very up and down
Speaker 1: for the and I know that they did have a
Speaker 1: little baby and that was wonderful. And I do believe
Speaker 1: they had a second child together, but I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, but I don't believe that they
Speaker 1: continued in a partnership. But I think they've always continued
Speaker 1: to support each other. So I don't know that they're
Speaker 1: together anymore, but certainly my last contact with them, which
Speaker 1: was some years ago, was that they're still very supportive
Speaker 1: and you know, they have a huge amount of support,
Speaker 1: still ongoing support from that Compunda community, and you know,
Speaker 1: they wrapped their arms around Christopher and Cora Lee and
Speaker 1: their family and each other as well, because there's so
Speaker 1: many people that were very, very much hurt within that
Speaker 1: community for a whole myriad of reasons, not just because
Speaker 1: they lost friends, but because the impact that such a
Speaker 1: crime would have on a community.
Speaker 2: He isn't an Australian citizen. He's originally from Scotland, as
Speaker 2: we've mentioned. If and when he does get out, will
Speaker 2: he stay here, will he be able to settle in Australia,
Speaker 2: or does he get kind of kicked out of the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he would be extradited. Was at the point of
Speaker 1: him being sentenced and going to jail, that was the
Speaker 1: status then that you know, if ever he did get
Speaker 1: out or was released parole after thirty five years, it
Speaker 1: would be extradition for him, right.
Speaker 2: And I believe that there was a bit of media
Speaker 2: public resistance kind of happening at the thought of that
Speaker 2: as well from Scotland who said they didn't want him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there seemed to be that coming from across
Speaker 1: the way there that no, you can keep him. He's
Speaker 1: been there since he was a child. He did this,
Speaker 1: he's one of yours. He's not one of ours. So
Speaker 1: I think from memory that's where there was plenty of resistance. Well,
Speaker 1: I had a bit to do with chasing. He's got
Speaker 1: a half sister back in Scotland, Jodie was a half sister.
Speaker 1: Jason Downey's father is not even on his birth certificate,
Speaker 1: so I'm not sure that he doesn't know the identity
Speaker 1: of his father. So kil Marnut was a pretty tough,
Speaker 1: rough and tumble place as well. So there's no doubt
Speaker 1: that this lad had a pretty tough upbringing and or
Speaker 1: hard life. You know, he was uprooted and emigrated to Australia,
Speaker 1: didn't like Capunda and things like that, but you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't really have a place these places in jarl
Speaker 1: Atte moment.
Speaker 2: Has the stain of this crime affected Kapunda long term,
Speaker 2: you know, like unfortunately still to this day it's kind
Speaker 2: of referred to as the Kapunda triple murder. It's got
Speaker 2: the town's name and it's kind of title. Has it
Speaker 2: affected the town?
Speaker 1: I would say it certainly had some impact on it.
Speaker 1: But they're pretty good people and I able to pick up
Speaker 1: the pieces pretty well.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It was in twenty ten and for that first decade, Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: I think that they've done a really good job of
Speaker 1: filtering that out and washing cleansing themselves of that. But
Speaker 1: you're right, it's still the Companda triple murder. If someone
Speaker 1: asked me about the road founder Mesa, it's the Companda murders.
Speaker 1: It's not unlike Snowtown Truro. Truro is just down the road.
Speaker 1: You know, Truro, a town with a secret. Capunda hasn't
Speaker 1: earned that sort of title. The murders are always going
Speaker 1: to be known as the Capunda Copunda triple murders.
Speaker 2: How do you reflect on your time investigating this story.
Speaker 2: Did it have a big impact on you at the time,
Speaker 2: and do you think about it often or is it
Speaker 2: one of those ones that you've been able to let go?
Speaker 1: H No, I don't think I let go of any
Speaker 1: of the crimes that I have investigated, and there's been
Speaker 1: some horrific ones, which does take an impact, and Kampanda
Speaker 1: certainly does. I think doing this now is a great reminder.
Speaker 1: I've got a fifteen year old daughter, and you know,
Speaker 1: I reflect at the time, you know, she was just
Speaker 1: a child, and and I'd softened a fair of bit
Speaker 1: because I, you know, had been the pretty hard nosed
Speaker 1: journo out to get the scoop all the time out there,
Speaker 1: and I'd actually soften and I really felt this violence
Speaker 1: against a young girl that that hurt me. It made
Speaker 1: me hungry to find out what happened as well. So,
Speaker 1: you know a bit of a mix of being the
Speaker 1: journal and the dad, I guess, and the community member,
Speaker 1: and I felt that I had that strong connection to
Speaker 1: the community out there as well. I felt that I
Speaker 1: was in my role serving that community and my state
Speaker 1: to be able to try to tell this story in
Speaker 1: a way that was you know, accurate and foolsome and
Speaker 1: also carry some compassion with it. So it does stick
Speaker 1: with me quite a bit as one of the cases
Speaker 1: that you know, I'll never forget it and the emotions
Speaker 1: I had around it while I was doing it, and
Speaker 1: there was some times where you're just blown away and
Speaker 1: you do want to go off and have a bit
Speaker 1: of a cry as well, and that you know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how tough a bloke you think you are,
Speaker 1: that's okay.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Brian for helping us to tell this story.
Speaker 2: True Crime Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and
Speaker 2: produced by me Jemma Bass and Tarlie Blackman, with audio
Speaker 2: design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll
Speaker 2: be back next week with another true crime conversation.