Speaker 1: Podcast Unite Our Voices. This is Curtain, a podcast where
Speaker 1: we expose the disappearances of Aboriginal people across this country.
Speaker 1: Shining a light on the darkest parts of our justice system.
Speaker 1: We ask who are the victims?
Speaker 2: I'm Amy mcquaire and I'm Martin Hodgson, Senior advocate at
Speaker 2: the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this series
Speaker 2: contains the names of deceased people and includes distressing content
Speaker 2: that may upset some listeners. Welcome to Season two, Episode
Speaker 2: nine of Curtain the podcast. This week, we're going to
Speaker 2: discuss the case we've spoken about previously, and that's the
Speaker 2: case of Constance May wat Show, whose in quest we've
Speaker 2: previously reported on. Two weeks ago in Brisbane, the coronial
Speaker 2: in quest findings were finally handed down by the state
Speaker 2: coroner and my co host Amy maguire was there that day. Amy,
Speaker 2: I was just wondering if you can tell the audience
Speaker 2: what it was like when you were there and what
Speaker 2: the reaction was to the findings, which we will discuss shortly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this had been seven long years of waiting
Speaker 1: for answers as to what had happened to Constance naywatch
Speaker 1: her and just for our listener's knowledge. Constance had been
Speaker 1: disappeared in November twenty seventeen, so November twenty seventeen was
Speaker 1: the last time anyone had heard from her, the last
Speaker 1: time there was any proof of life. And in the
Speaker 1: months following November twenty seventeen, her family, who were from Sherburg,
Speaker 1: had become increasingly worried and they'd actually gone down to
Speaker 1: Brisbane in order to search for her. So two of
Speaker 1: her brothers, part of her large extended family, had gone
Speaker 1: down and inquiring about her whereabouts in Brisbane because that's
Speaker 1: where they knew that she was staying. And they went
Speaker 1: around to specifically the suburb of Kangaroo Point, West End
Speaker 1: and Roma Street, which are all suburbs and inner city Brisbane,
Speaker 1: and when they couldn't find her, they grew even more worried,
Speaker 1: and they knew that this was deeply out of character
Speaker 1: for Constance to disappear and not tell her family where
Speaker 1: she was or not come back to Sherburg, so they
Speaker 1: actually filed them as in person's report after that, and
Speaker 1: there's no really follow up on the police end until
Speaker 1: ten months later when her remains were found in really
Speaker 1: horrific and brutal circumstances at the base of cliffs in
Speaker 1: Kangaroo Point, which is for our listeners benefit, a very
Speaker 1: affluent suburb in Brisbane now found by a cliff where
Speaker 1: it's a very busy area where on Saturday's children learn
Speaker 1: how to rock climb, meet us away and where passes
Speaker 1: by passed by frequently, so it's quite a busy area.
Speaker 1: And Constance was actually found two minutes from the unit
Speaker 1: in which she'd been staying. Since then, there had been
Speaker 1: no charges laid in relation to her murder. The police
Speaker 1: had announced a reward of two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for any information to do with her murder, so
Speaker 1: they'd very explicitly called it a murder. And yet five
Speaker 1: years later the family were not at the steps of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, were actually in the Coroner's court for
Speaker 1: a coronial inquest into her death and disappearance. And what
Speaker 1: happened was the family had all come down again from
Speaker 1: Sherberg on June sixth and they packed out the courtroom.
Speaker 1: So it's quite a long journey for them to make.
Speaker 1: Two and a half hours they've packed out the courtroom
Speaker 1: and basically heard the Coroner's finding. Deputy State Coroner Stephanie
Speaker 1: Gallagher deliver her finding within six minutes. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't even know if you can call it a finding,
Speaker 1: because the coroner didn't really deliver anything even close to justice.
Speaker 1: She basically left it open and said that Constance's cause
Speaker 1: of death would remain unknown, and even in relation to that,
Speaker 1: she said that there was a possibility that Constance died
Speaker 1: from some other unknown caused. She also said the identity
Speaker 1: of the person's responsible for interfering with Constance's body was
Speaker 1: also unknown based on the evidence she had heard, and
Speaker 1: so it really felt like with an absence of evidence
Speaker 1: came an absence of a perpetrator. So, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the family felt incredibly traumatized from hearing after seven
Speaker 1: years that sort of finding delivered within six minutes, and
Speaker 1: there were cries of no justice, no justice in the
Speaker 1: public gallery, and then the family had moved shortly after
Speaker 1: outside the courthouse where they gave a press conference. So
Speaker 1: it was a severe feeling of let down. And yet
Speaker 1: I think the families knew that there probably wasn't much
Speaker 1: hope in this inquest process, which is quite the devastating
Speaker 1: thing because they'd actually sat on it for a week
Speaker 1: in September twenty twenty two, and even in sitting in
Speaker 1: that in that process, there weren't a lot of answers
Speaker 1: that came out.
Speaker 2: So just to re establish the findings of the coroner
Speaker 2: were that the precise circumstances of the death or unknow.
Speaker 2: The place of death is listed as unknown, the cause
Speaker 2: of death is listed as unknown, and the date of
Speaker 2: death is listed as unknown. Between the twenty seventh of
Speaker 2: November twenty seventeen, which is when Constance was last seen,
Speaker 2: and tenth of September twenty eighteen, so nearly a year
Speaker 2: later is the time of death and when it could
Speaker 2: have taken place. But even despite the lack of a
Speaker 2: proper police investigation, there is still plenty of evidence to
Speaker 2: point to the people who were involved and gave the
Speaker 2: coroner a lot to work with, which made this finding
Speaker 2: even more ridiculous. So we're just going to go back
Speaker 2: through some of those details and a warning to listeners
Speaker 2: that there is confronting commentary in this process. As we've
Speaker 2: previously explained, Constance's body was found in a bag that
Speaker 2: was black and white, described as urban style, as Amy
Speaker 2: said in Kangaroo Point, near a cliff. Now, one of
Speaker 2: the key pieces of evidence was that the bag had
Speaker 2: pink paint splattered on the top sides of it, and
Speaker 2: there was a pink tube with a white lid on
Speaker 2: it as well. The Queensland Police Service located an open
Speaker 2: bottle of pink paint in the unit where Constance was
Speaker 2: last seen at the apartment blocks in Kangaroo Point. That
Speaker 2: paint was seized and tested and it matched the color
Speaker 2: of pink paint that was located on the bag and
Speaker 2: on items inside the bag. So to suggest that there
Speaker 2: wasn't direct evidence that linked Constance to a certain location
Speaker 2: prior to her death was of course absurd. There was
Speaker 2: also curtains found alongside constance remains, and those two were
Speaker 2: a direct match for curtains that were found hanging in
Speaker 2: the kitchen in that same unit at the River Terrace
Speaker 2: unit complex. And not only that, but the man who
Speaker 2: was living in that apartment confirmed that the curtains appeared
Speaker 2: to be from the unit. So this is also a
Speaker 2: man who was one of the last people to see
Speaker 2: Constance alive, and that just begins some of the evidence
Speaker 2: that places Constance with these three men that we will
Speaker 2: speak of in this episode. There was also a white
Speaker 2: floral pillowcase that matched the same pattern as a sheet
Speaker 2: located both in the unit and with Constance's remains. Amy,
Speaker 2: based on just some of that evidence, what else to
Speaker 2: these three men that we're speaking of to Constance's disappearance?
Speaker 1: Yeah, as well as that during the coronial inquest, there
Speaker 1: are a number of people who also had their identity
Speaker 1: and their evidence suppressed by the coroner. But there are
Speaker 1: things that are still on the public record, And what
Speaker 1: is known is that, as you've pointed out, is that
Speaker 1: Constance was staying in a unit that was effectively a
Speaker 1: two minute walk from where she was found. Her remains
Speaker 1: were actually found by one of those non Indigenous men
Speaker 1: who lived in that same apartment, and he knew Constance
Speaker 1: and was also the last to see her alive. And
Speaker 1: so we can't discuss his identity, and we can't discuss
Speaker 1: some of the evidence. But I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that shook the family at the outset, and which
Speaker 1: was known at the outset by the police and in
Speaker 1: the media, was that it seemed like a really unbelievable
Speaker 1: coincidence that the person to find her remains would also
Speaker 1: be one of the last to see her alive. But yes,
Speaker 1: there was these really shocking moments within the inquest where,
Speaker 1: for example, one of the men whose name was Dallas
Speaker 1: Bandman and who didn't have his evidence suppressed, actually agreed
Speaker 1: that yes, that was the curtain and that was the
Speaker 1: bag that he believed he gave to Sam and Constance
Speaker 1: when he supposedly last saw them. The other thing to
Speaker 1: point out is that another one of the men who
Speaker 1: was named Sam's subject and also gave evidence that the
Speaker 1: inquest had actually been Constance's ex partner. And in the
Speaker 1: days leading up to constance disappearing, which were only four
Speaker 1: days so Constants had just been released from a very
Speaker 1: short term of imprisonment at the Brisbane Correctional Center. She
Speaker 1: had been heavily surveiled by police when she had been
Speaker 1: released in those four days, but she'd also seen a
Speaker 1: lot of her friends and a lot of her family
Speaker 1: in Brisbane, and many witnesses had reported that she had
Speaker 1: bruises on her body. Her ex partner had actually seen
Speaker 1: her and said that she had complained that Sam Subject
Speaker 1: was stalking her, and so people were really concerned when
Speaker 1: they didn't see her after November twenty seventh or twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: you know that this was really uncharacteristic, that something may
Speaker 1: have happened to her. And when we were sitting in
Speaker 1: the inquest, this evidence came out connecting where Constance was
Speaker 1: found to this particular unit. There was evidence suggesting foul play,
Speaker 1: and yet there was also this really strange lack of
Speaker 1: evidence which didn't fit the gravity of the situation. You know,
Speaker 1: the way Constance was found, the fact that she had
Speaker 1: been brutally murdered, and that really came out in the
Speaker 1: inquest finding by the coroner when she claimed that she
Speaker 1: left it open for something else to have happened to
Speaker 1: cause Constance's death. And this came up when the forensic
Speaker 1: pathologist gave evidence the pathologists who had conducted an autopsy
Speaker 1: on Constance, and the coroner had actually questioned the forensic
Speaker 1: pathologist about whether injuries or certain injuries could have been
Speaker 1: perpetrated in relation to hanging. So underlying this really you know,
Speaker 1: brutal process was this assumption again which we've seen with
Speaker 1: many cases of disappeared Aboriginal women, is that they've somehow
Speaker 1: caused their own death, and that to me was absolutely shocking.
Speaker 1: So I think there was evidence and yet there also
Speaker 1: seemed to be a lack of evidence. And the other
Speaker 1: thing I would point out as well is that during
Speaker 1: the inquest, as I previously said, the police were first
Speaker 1: looking at Constance's death as a murder. During the inquest,
Speaker 1: the lead investigator at Dad and Park's CIB, which had
Speaker 1: carriage of the investigation, had basically said he didn't consider
Speaker 1: it a homicide investigation. It was still just a suspicious death.
Speaker 1: And he was questioned quite a couple of times by
Speaker 1: Constance's children's legal representative about how that even made sense,
Speaker 1: how that was even logical, and he can still continued
Speaker 1: to say we had no evidence to suggest a homicide,
Speaker 1: and that to me was again unbelievable given the gravity
Speaker 1: of what had obviously happened to Constance, and also reperpetrated
Speaker 1: a lot of hurt and pain on her family who
Speaker 1: had to sit through this evidence and could see that
Speaker 1: this is obviously foul play and yet to have their
Speaker 1: own questions repeatedly ignored by the investigators. MANA, did you
Speaker 1: want to add to that in relation to the autopsy?
Speaker 2: I think most troubling to me about the suggestion that,
Speaker 2: or even the underlying implication that suicide could have been
Speaker 2: a cause of death is absurd when you know and
Speaker 2: remember that Constance's body was found as the coroner was
Speaker 2: told by doctor Reid, the forensic pathologist, that her body
Speaker 2: had been dismembered and dismantled, and he said particularly that
Speaker 2: a reasonable degree of care had been exercised to disarticulate
Speaker 2: the limbs. Now, to be really blunt about it, how
Speaker 2: can a person possibly commit suicide? And the suggestion was
Speaker 2: potentially by hanging. It really is absurd. And given that
Speaker 2: the confronting nature of how Constance was found and what
Speaker 2: had been done to her body, it was very clear
Speaker 2: that this was not just a murder, but something that
Speaker 2: had been done very very deliberately and potentially, as doctor
Speaker 2: Reed explained, by someone who wasn't in a rush and
Speaker 2: knew what they were doing. This should really worry not
Speaker 2: just anyone who cares about Constance, but anyone in the public.
Speaker 2: Where you have a coroner hearing this evidence from an
Speaker 2: expert in their field and then opining about other theories
Speaker 2: that really do not fit the evidence. And then there
Speaker 2: was something else that points to foul play. The unit
Speaker 2: at the River Terrace Complex in Kangaroo Point was set
Speaker 2: on fire and a witness at the inquest, and I'll
Speaker 2: just give his first name, Cameron told him that Dallas
Speaker 2: had admitted to him that he'd set his own unit
Speaker 2: on fire because Sam, that's Constance's ex partner, had told
Speaker 2: him to do so. Another witness also suggested that Dallas
Speaker 2: had set his unit on fire. And given that there
Speaker 2: was substantial evidence like the curtains, the floral bed sheets
Speaker 2: and pillow case, the pink paint, who knows what else
Speaker 2: was there that the police were yet to find. And
Speaker 2: then that unit is burnt to the ground. Again, none
Speaker 2: of this points to the fact that Constance had harmed herself,
Speaker 2: and everything points to the fact that these men were
Speaker 2: involved in Constance's disappearance. And on the day it is
Speaker 2: believed that Constance was murdered, Dallas banman had actually called
Speaker 2: Triple zero from that unit and he he said to
Speaker 2: the operator and I quote, some guy pushed his way
Speaker 2: into our house and won't let us leave. He's robbing
Speaker 2: us and bashing us. A Bosnian looking dude named Sam,
Speaker 2: again referring to Constance's ex partner. So now you also
Speaker 2: have this man Sam, who is seen with Constance by eyewitnesses,
Speaker 2: who is seen by the other men at the unit
Speaker 2: with Constance, who then returns the next day to that
Speaker 2: unit where there is endless forensic evidence linking that unit
Speaker 2: back to Constance's body, and this guy is breaking in
Speaker 2: and trying to rob and bash the people who live
Speaker 2: in that unit. This surely points to the fact that
Speaker 2: this gentleman was absolutely involved, and yet there is nothing
Speaker 2: that comes out of this inquest that he was ever
Speaker 2: subjected to much of a police investigation at all. Again,
Speaker 2: as I said before, how the broader public read any
Speaker 2: of this and aren't concerned that a potential killer is
Speaker 2: just allowed to walk free. How police, politicians, and especially
Speaker 2: the coroner themselves knows this information and yet doesn't recommend anything,
Speaker 2: simply states unknown, unknown, undetermined, and displays a lack of
Speaker 2: care towards the family knowing all of this evidence. That
Speaker 2: is simply indescribable. And I think that takes us to
Speaker 2: what we wish to discuss, which is do these coronial
Speaker 2: in quests serve a purpose at all for Aboriginal interrestraight
Speaker 2: islander families. I mean, you were there on that day
Speaker 2: when the findings were handed down. Do you think this
Speaker 2: inquest actually harmed the family.
Speaker 1: More, I think it shouldn't have even got into an
Speaker 1: inquest at this point because I think what has happened
Speaker 1: is that there's this degree of finality to the proceedings,
Speaker 1: and also the inquest sort of justifies itself, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. It didn't seem to be focused towards finding
Speaker 1: the truth of what had happened to Constance, even though
Speaker 1: that was in the terms of reference. It seemed to
Speaker 1: be almost like a ticker box exercise. And one of
Speaker 1: the really disturbing things to come out of the inquest
Speaker 1: is that the coroner had determined that the police investigation
Speaker 1: itself was not something that she was going to critique
Speaker 1: or look into or examine. So there's very fundamental question
Speaker 1: is that the family had around why haven't people been
Speaker 1: charged in the relation to the murder of Constance? Was
Speaker 1: not answered because the police investigation was not part of
Speaker 1: the inquest. And I've sat through a number of these inquests,
Speaker 1: I've never sat through an inquest like this in which
Speaker 1: no police officers have really been called to give answers
Speaker 1: in relation to that. Usually you have a few officers
Speaker 1: who are witnesses. In this case, there was only one.
Speaker 1: The lead investigator at Dunda Park's CIB and the police
Speaker 1: officer who was there to find Constance's remains. There was
Speaker 1: no testimony given by a missing person's unit about what
Speaker 1: they had done when Constance was disappeared in those ten months,
Speaker 1: and there was no testimony given by the state homicide
Speaker 1: squad about why they had left the investigation effectively nearly
Speaker 1: a year after Constance was found and what their role is,
Speaker 1: why they didn't take over carriage of this investigation at
Speaker 1: every stage it was at Dunham Park's CIB. No questions
Speaker 1: about whether there would be extra resources if homicide had
Speaker 1: taken over, but at every point they just had a
Speaker 1: level two roll and then effectively disengaged from the investigation
Speaker 1: within a year. So there were no questions raised about
Speaker 1: how we actually got to this point where we're at
Speaker 1: an inquest or not at the Supreme Court, and that
Speaker 1: was something that was questioned by the families. And I
Speaker 1: think the other thing that emerged in the coronial processes
Speaker 1: was again another disappearing of Constance and her family had
Speaker 1: done so much in order to make sure Constance and
Speaker 1: who she was was remembered. They brought across from Sherburg
Speaker 1: to the courthouse, they brought a wreath of red and
Speaker 1: black and yellow flowers, they brought pictures how they wanted
Speaker 1: people to remember contestants, and the very first day of
Speaker 1: the inquest her children. So she had ten children, and
Speaker 1: she had four who were now adults or on the
Speaker 1: cusp of adulthood, who gave a really moving letter address
Speaker 1: to their mother and remembering everything that she used to
Speaker 1: do with them, about how she used to do hug
Speaker 1: and kissed them, and how she would take them to
Speaker 1: the park and they'd play on swings and they'd throw boomerangues,
Speaker 1: and they just remembered all of these things, and yet
Speaker 1: they felt they'd been clearly denied that time that they
Speaker 1: could have spent knowing their mother as they grew up.
Speaker 1: And that really came out of the inquest the other
Speaker 1: day when a number of her children were there. And
Speaker 1: it's really hard to talk about these things because of
Speaker 1: what has happened to concerts, for what happened afterwards, and
Speaker 1: the fact that the coroner seemed very comfortable in delivering
Speaker 1: nothing for the families and was almost even aggravated when
Speaker 1: the families contested her own finding. And so I just
Speaker 1: don't believe these inquests are there to provide answers for families,
Speaker 1: especially in cases of disappeared Aboriginal women and there, as
Speaker 1: our listeners would know, there's been a number of inquests
Speaker 1: recently in Queensland, but all across the country in which
Speaker 1: families have not even close to receiving any form of
Speaker 1: justice through the coronial process. MNA just hearing that, what
Speaker 1: would you take from particularly this in quest in relation
Speaker 1: to these cases, are they even the right place to
Speaker 1: be looking for truth or any sort of accountability.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's clear from the inquests just that
Speaker 2: we've covered in this podcast that not one has delivered
Speaker 2: any answers or the truth for a family. They haven't
Speaker 2: been served. There's been no charges laid as a result,
Speaker 2: despite extraordinary amounts of evidence put before the coroner's court.
Speaker 2: And I think that's part of what troubles family so much,
Speaker 2: is that despite terrible police investigations, there is an extraordinary
Speaker 2: amount of evidence against individuals involved in the murders of
Speaker 2: Aboriginal women and children, and yet there are no charges.
Speaker 2: And this happens in the backdrop of a huge amount
Speaker 2: of gender based violence in this country, where tens and
Speaker 2: tens of women are being murdered every year. At the
Speaker 2: start of the year, there was the disappearance of Samantha
Speaker 2: Murphy in Victoria and her body has sadly not yet
Speaker 2: been recovered, and yet a man has been charged with
Speaker 2: her murder, and his charges are based on the fact
Speaker 2: that the police hypothesized that he killed her in the
Speaker 2: Mount Clear area. Well, in Constance's case, you don't have
Speaker 2: to hypothesize. You have direct evidence, the pink paint, the curtains,
Speaker 2: the pillow case linking that unit directly to these three men.
Speaker 2: You have eyewitnesses who see the ex partner with Constance
Speaker 2: the day leading up to her death and the day
Speaker 2: most likely of her death. You have the fact that
Speaker 2: the unit was set on fire where that evidence was found.
Speaker 2: You have the fact that a forensic pathologist explained that
Speaker 2: someone had gone to great lengths to dismantle and dismember
Speaker 2: her body. This is a brutal killing. The fact that
Speaker 2: suicide even becomes a suggestion is offensive and I really
Speaker 2: think it goes back to what the police are doing
Speaker 2: and what the media demand of the police. Again, in Victoria,
Speaker 2: with the disappearance of Samantha Murphy, we've seen hundreds of
Speaker 2: police officers deployed. We've seen the use of triangulation to
Speaker 2: her Apple watch and mobile phone. We've seen the dog squad,
Speaker 2: mounted branch, air wing branch, the Victorian State Emergency Services
Speaker 2: Parks Victoria, the Country Fire Authority, and even the terrorism
Speaker 2: squad involved in trying to solve this case as they
Speaker 2: should and to locate her body. And yet, for instance,
Speaker 2: may watch you, none of that is done. Nothing, And
Speaker 2: I think this just proves what an absolute waste of
Speaker 2: time these coronial inquests are. And worse than that is
Speaker 2: that a coronial in quest puts a full stop at
Speaker 2: the end, having given no answers to the family, having
Speaker 2: presented nothing by the coroner about who Constance was, despite
Speaker 2: her family, her children going to great lengths to tell
Speaker 2: the coroner who Constance was, despite all the evidence, a
Speaker 2: full stop is put and most likely these men will
Speaker 2: remain free and never face the consequences of what they've done. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: hundreds of police are deployed for a white woman in Victoria,
Speaker 2: and that's the state of affairs, and you can't argue
Speaker 2: with that. And so I really think now it is
Speaker 2: on the media who hear this to ask the questions
Speaker 2: of the police to ask the questions of the coroner's
Speaker 2: office to hold these people in positions of power to account.
Speaker 2: Otherwise the media is just simply exposing their own racism.
Speaker 2: Thousands of column inches have been dedicated to other women
Speaker 2: who are missing and murdered in this country, and very few,
Speaker 2: if any, other than the work of Amy are ever
Speaker 2: dedicated to the aborige in Lentora Strait island of women
Speaker 2: and children. And until that changes, there just won't be
Speaker 2: the pressure on police to provide the truth that these
Speaker 2: families deserve and the justice that should be brought against
Speaker 2: these men. This episode was brought to you by black
Speaker 2: Cast and produced by Clint Curtis. For more you can
Speaker 2: visit us at www dot Curtainthepodcast dot com, follow us
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