WEBVTT - New Documents Revealed 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:06.080 Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.480 verdicts against all three defendants. 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.119 It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:12.480 absolutely really heaving. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:14.720 Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged a. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.600 Top on a shallow mud bank and it fits through 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:16.960 a river. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.200 Basically, I think most of the people are used to me, 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:20.600 there are good people. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.280 I think a really important question we need to ask 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.360 is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent. 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:29.880 This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.440 blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:36.240 our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.879 Amy Maguire and I'm. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:43.040 Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.160 And a warning this series contains the names of deceased 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:52.200 peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners. 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:00.200 Welcome to episode forty nine of Curtain, the podcast. Over 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.360 a week ago, Amy and I spent a few days 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:07.919 sitting down pouring over some new documents that we've discovered. 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.800 We've spent plenty of time and money writing freedom of 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:17.959 information requests to documents that weren't present at trial and 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:22.040 are not part of the original trial transcripts, and we've 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.040 uncovered a lot more than we ever thought we'd find. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.959 But this was also the first time that Amy got 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.720 a chance to see all the documentation that relates to 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:39.320 Kevin Henry's trial in one go. So, Amy, what was 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.440 it like after nearly two years of working on this 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:47.080 case to see this to two thousand pages sitting in 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:48.480 front of you for the first time. 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.520 It was actually really amazing because obviously I thought I 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.480 knew a lot about the case, obviously from investigating it 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.240 with you for two years and also talking to a 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.440 lot of people around Rockhampton and experts that we've done 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.680 and that you've heard over the series of the Court 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.120 that you've heard over the course of the podcast. But 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:12.720 it was almost overwhelming looking at the weight of the documents. 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.640 So there are about two thousand paids of trial transcripts 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.919 that Martin and I went through yet again. And I 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.519 think for you, Martin early the tenth the relevance time 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.000 even more going through it. But for me it was 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.359 really interesting because gave me it filled in a lot 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.480 of gaps in the timeline, and it gave me a 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.920 bigger picture of what actually happened that night, not just 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.720 at Tanuba House, but the day after when Linda's body 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.959 was found, and then the police officers coming in, when 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.560 they started their instigation, what they did and what they 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.799 didn't do. It really just a lot of pieces were 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.840 falling into place that I didn't have a complete understanding of. 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.840 So for me, it was really amazing that even after 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.120 years and of continually talking about this case, continually digging 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.320 into every little aspect of it, there were still things 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.440 that needed to be uncovered and needed to be to 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:08.440 over And it just shows just how long reinvestigating a 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.160 case like this can take. And it really feels like 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.760 that we're doing the work that should have been done originally, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.880 and if it had been done originally, Kevin Henry would 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.200 still be in jail. So it was very overwhelmed, but 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.560 also inspired me to continue the fight as well, and 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.760 also gave me a better background knowledge of what was 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:33.480 happening in the police force at that time in Rockampden. 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:36.480 Yeah, and I think there was a few things that 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.800 really care to both of us, one of which for 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:45.080 me was that looking at the trial transcripts and the 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.200 new documents that we now have which are running to 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:53.200 the hundreds and hundreds of pages. We know that Kevin's 0:03:53.240 --> 0:04:00.240 case has been handed to other solicitors, a university babal 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.160 legal service over the years to request appeals or for 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:08.120 these to be examined, and these documents have been looked 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.400 at before and nothing has ever occurred after that, there's 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:16.000 been no follow up. And sitting down with Amy and 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.520 seeing her reaction as to just how much is there, 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.159 it actually reminds you once again that how did so 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.760 many other people look at this case and not take 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.800 it further? I think it's very interesting to get a 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:35.200 journalist's reaction and Amy uncovering things too that I admit, 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.760 where we've seen lawyers look at these and just turn away, 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.640 and I think that is incredibly frustrating and also goes 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.000 to the issue that we've discussed on this podcast a lot, 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.520 which is how many other Indigenous prisoners are innocent? And 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.919 given the weight of evidence here for Kevin, and we 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.960 know that we've had all these lawyers over the year 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.400 look at these docum and look away. How many other 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.360 cases have they looked at and looked away? How many 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.559 other people are there just like Kevin, average men, women, 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:13.240 and young people in juvenile attention who have just as 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.520 much evidence for them showing their innocence, and their cases 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.760 have been looked at by the als University, other lawyers 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.279 and it's never progressed. So that was something else that 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.600 stood out for me. Amy. The other thing I guess 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.840 that really struck me at the end of the day 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.880 sitting down and spending the time stand out in this 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.599 story the fact that the more you read it and 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.440 the more you get to grips with exactly what happened, 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:47.640 and we had some good breakthroughs. Just Evin just how 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:51.520 badly he was failed. I'm wondering obviously that's something we've 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.520 known all along, but did that strike you as well? 0:05:55.680 --> 0:06:00.520 Oh? Most definitely, definitely worst about Linda being so vulnerable 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:04.200 and no one living to care for her, even that night, 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.560 but then the day after, and even the way she's 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.760 sort of spoken about in the trial transcripts. There is 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.440 just nothing about her humanity. And we've told you, and 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:16.520 we've talked to the family. We know that she was 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.279 an exceptional woman down in South Australia. She was really 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.320 ahead of her time in her chosen field. She was 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.920 incredibly beautiful, She was a great mother to her four 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.599 children and yet in the trial transcripts there was none 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.200 of that. There was no one there to speak about 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.000 her as a person. It became a victim, and that's 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.120 what came out of the trial transcripts for me, and 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.919 it's what we have to continue trying to do to 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.880 ensure that you know, this was a you know, this 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.040 is a life, and across history, Aboriginal women's lives have 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.080 been so devalued, and Linda's life was devalued in the 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.039 core of those court proceedings and also the night that 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:00.159 she sadly lost her life. And also the thing that 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.240 really came up for me in the transcripts was just 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.599 how much it focused on the assault. So I didn't 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.600 realize that the majority of the case actually involved detailing 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.600 and trying to figure out the truth about what happened 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.440 before she was put in the river. And so it 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.560 was really interesting to me to see that Kevin Henry, 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.160 the allegations against him, played very little part in the 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:29.360 court proceeding, and that was really confusing and frustrating because 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.920 I wondered how the jury could have convicted based on 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.800 such little evidence around against Kevin. It's really unfathomable that 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.400 it could have happened when so much of the weight 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.280 of evidence was actually directed to the assault itself and 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:49.360 not what actually happened after, and none of the barristers 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.920 actually picked up any of that, I don't think. So 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.840 that was really interesting, and well, the fact that the 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.960 focus was never really on Kevin, and yet he got 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.080 the harshest sentence, and in a sense, no one really 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.320 stood up for him as well. So Linda and Kevin 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.800 were both outsiders at Tanuba in different ways, and the 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:10.559 system very much let them down. 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:13.920 Yeah, I totally agree, and I think that's something that's 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.880 come to the form more and more that we're looking 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:21.280 at thousands and thousands of pages. We're looking at not 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.080 just the trial transcripts now, but everything that was done 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.920 before the trial, even handwritten notes. Pages up to twenty 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:34.560 pages of handwritten notes we've been able to uncover, and 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:40.920 there's really nothing about Linda. In fact, there's vital details 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.760 just about her age and things like that that are 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.640 completely wrong in a lot of the transcripts and some 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.800 of the information that was acquired by police early on. 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.520 Linda was a woman who, as we've spoken about before, 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:02.800 are in early childhood education for Aboriginal children in South 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.959 Australia and there was no mention of this, and something 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:11.360 you find always in murdered focus on the victim and 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:16.000 creating a picture for the jury of who they were. 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:20.280 Part of how we understand the loss of death is 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:24.280 to understand the person. Well, this was not done at 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.640 all in the troll. In fact, I doubt very much 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.120 that the jury, even exiting with fresh minds on all 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.080 the evidence, could have told you anything about her and 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:39.280 her life. And I think that's absolutely appalling and it 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.760 shows what we know so much about the way Aboriginal 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:47.560 women are treated in this country. We've spoken about miss 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:52.040 Marr who died in police Cutty. She died within just 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.080 a few hours of being put in a police cell 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.960 and it said of natural causes. Someone doesn't just die 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.520 in a police cell, young person, and no real explanation 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:07.880 is given, no real investigation is done. Once again, Aboriginal 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:13.080 women are just killed and nothing about their humanity is 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:17.120 ever uttered. And it's that lack of humanity that is 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.280 placed on Aboriginal women that allows these things to take 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:25.280 place originally, and yet to read through a murder trial 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:30.040 and nothing about Linda to be raised is absolutely disgusting 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.439 and That's one of the reasons we've tried to dig 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.200 and uncover more is how did the police and those 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.640 who were supposed to get Linda justice do such a 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.520 terrible job. And so part of that process is to 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:50.400 reinvestigate the entire case and also find out how did 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.520 Kevin Henry get him for what he's adding up to 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.640 be his life for something he didn't do. And from 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.000 the documentation is also so clear there is no real focus, 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:06.080 as Amy said, on Kevin, it's largely all about the assault, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.760 which we know Kevin not only didn't take part in, 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.680 he told the people who were doing it to knock 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:18.800 it off. So as part of reinvestigating this, Amy actually 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:23.200 went and spoke to one of the witnesses from the trial, 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.760 in fact, the very first person to take the stand. Amy, 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.400 can you tell us who that was and how that went. 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.880 Yeah, So this was last year sometime, and we didn't 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.319 put the interview on the podcast because the men in 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.160 question didn't want his voice heard on the radio. But 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.040 it was actually the fisherman who found Linda's body on 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.760 that Sunday morning, first of September nineteen ninety one, and 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.640 there were two fishermen out that day and they had 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.680 actually launched their dinghy closest to the old bridge on 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.400 the north side of the of the bank. So the 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.839 race collide and the fisherman remembers that it was a 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.000 very very low tide, and he remembers thinking that the 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.800 tide was so low that it must have begun falling 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.920 about six hours before. And he told me the tide 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.480 in such a state that it was not moving at all, 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.079 and so it was in a half an hour of 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:21.040 dead time. And so he and his friend who is 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.560 out so him and his friend who were out there 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.920 that day actually had a good understanding of the tides 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.400 and what was going to happen, and they knew that 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.320 as they sailed up the river Quiet River on a 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.480 Sunday morning, that the tide was going to turn within 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.200 thirty minutes. So I spoke to him, and he had 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.200 quite a lot of memory of that day. It was 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:43.760 the first time that he'd ever seen a dead body. 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.400 He's a non indigenous man with quite a comfortable life, 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.920 who respected the police and had no reason not to, 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.200 and so it was quite a shock for him when 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.440 they turned a bend just past town and saw Linda's body, 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.360 and he actually told me that at first glanced the 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.400 two men that it was a doll, and I think 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.440 they were far enough away that they couldn't really determine 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.040 what it was. But it seemed to me like in 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.839 his mind he was trying to go through any conclusion 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.959 rather than what looked like the truth, a really, really 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:19.160 horrible truth. So he actually told me about he remembers 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.280 actually getting off the boat with the detective. So after 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.560 the two men found the body, they turned back towards 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.400 the fitz Row rotorbated clutches right next to the uber house, 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.200 and they rang the police and a police constable, a 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.040 police officer, Constable Glenn Jones, actually came and boarded the 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.360 boat and went out to the ball and sinking down 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.319 right the mud and it was the mud like glue 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.040 that's found at the bottom of the river, and he 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.520 remembers that it came up about to his knees. The 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.440 other thing that was interesting was he remembered seeing and 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.800 pointed to the constable the lot and led up to 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.960 her her feet, and he remembers that clearly, and he 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.600 remembers telling this, and the very interesting for me talk 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.640 the very interesting thing for me talk to him that 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.920 afternoon was that he remembers what he was thinking at 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.960 the time, and he remembers when he saw that line, 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.800 he thought, well, there's no way that she could have 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.040 come in on the other side of the bank. And 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.040 he thought, because it was a place where you couldn't 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.040 access by car or by foot, Flor must have brought 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.080 her in by a boat and had dragged her along 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.600 the side. The members telling an SEES worker or a 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.920 police officer later that morning that's what he thought happened 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.240 enabled him that no, she'd actually come from the other 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.000 side of the bank, and he just accepted it. So 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.280 it was very interesting. He also remembers a lot of 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.480 the reason he remembers that is because obviously he was 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:40.800 a very keen fisherman, even though he was an amateur 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.000 Members when thinking about how he was going to get 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:45.800 this mole of his mind out of the bottom of 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.720 his boat. So that was the other interesting thing, the 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.640 fact that there was so much mud that he spent 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.600 all afternoon when he got home from the police station 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:56.720 trying to scrub it out, and it took him a 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:01.200 fair few hours as well. So Martin, when you eyewitness 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.400 accounts like that, what can we sort of draw from that, 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.320 particularly that fact about him seeing all of that might 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.400 at the bottom of his vote. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.480 Look, I think it's reinteresting, and I think it's we're 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.480 learning things that didn't come up so much at tri 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.440 things that should have definitely been explored, both by the 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:27.200 defense and the prosecution. But there's one thing you said 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:31.960 just then that's very interesting and struck me immediately when 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:36.160 you first told me, which was that he seemed quite 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.280 convinced that the body had gone on the northern side, which, 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:44.600 as we've discussed on the podcast before, is the opposite 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.680 side of the bank from where Tanuba House is and 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:52.360 where Kevin and Linda were. But also the police told 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.200 him that no, the body had gone in on the 0:15:55.280 --> 0:16:00.000 southern side. And so here we have, before any investigation 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:04.920 has begun, simply the finding of the body. The police 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.920 have already decided on which side of the riverbank and 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.480 where the body has been placed, and this wigation because 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:19.120 they decided something very early without any facts. And what 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.760 we've discovered is the second fisherman, who we knew had 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:29.800 never tooken a trial, did give a lengthy statement to police. 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.640 And so for those of you who support the podcast 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.960 through Patreon and you can do that if you like it. 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:42.800 Patreon dot com, Forward slash Curtain podcast. That money has 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:47.040 largely been going lately to lots of freedom of information 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.400 requests to find out new information. And one of the 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.760 things your money has uncovered is a statement by the 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:59.280 second fisherman. Now I won't give his name, because there's 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.600 no point. He was a much more experienced fisherman. He 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.760 was older in age, and he'd grown up on the river. 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.919 He knew it really well, and his statement goes to 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.760 show that he understands the times it takes to travel 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.800 to different parts of the river. He knows all the 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:23.280 names of all the locations. He'd fish this river for 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.239 a considerable period of time. And what we understand is 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.760 that he was actually showing the other fisherman, who was younger, 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.919 some of the things he knew about the river that morning. 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:42.080 And he too was also quite sure and confident that 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.000 the body must have gone in on the north side 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:49.640 of the river, not the side the police would suggest immediately. 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.919 So here you have two fishermen who really didn't have 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.679 time to say a lot to each other. You have 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:02.400 to remember that once they'd seen the body, they immediately 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.520 went back at police and come, and it's not like 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.280 they could have collaborated their stories and sound like they 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.359 do what you do, have a share own knowledge based 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.400 on what they saw that morning, believed the body must 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.000 have been put in on the northern side of the river. 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.120 And yet the police had decided two things, one that 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.639 that wasn't the case. And this sort of shocked the fishermen, 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.840 but they just assumed the police must know something they did. 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.399 But of course the police didn't even know who the 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.720 body belonged to, but they'd already decided. Most confronting to 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:45.600 me is the fact that the men that found Linda's body, 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.119 the older man knew it like the back of his hand, 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.840 believed the body had been put in on the northern side. 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.960 Not once was a police vehicle dispatched to that northern 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.760 side to look for eddance of where Linda might have 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.480 been placed in the water. They did not follow up 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.040 on this knows what they might have found if they'd 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:11.480 done that. But already they decided that the body had 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.639 been placed in the south side of the river. And 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.840 the only reason they would be deciding that is because 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.760 that's where those Aboriginal people had been the night before, 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:27.080 So before the body is even found. We know that 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.280 the police were looking to pin this crime on an 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:35.840 Aboriginal person from Tanuba House, and we'd read through two 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.400 thousand pages of transcripts and hundreds of pages of more 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.840 information and there is not an ounce of evidence that 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:47.360 suggests that foot suggestion by the police is accurate. And 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:52.520 to me it's shocking to know that before anyone was interviewed, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.040 before Linda's name was known, the police had made up 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:00.240 their mind. I was wondering amy over the Lanfe last 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.359 couple of years, and it's something we thought was the case, 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.160 but now we're finding out new information. As a journalist 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:11.800 too is always having to investigate things that have gone 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:16.879 on where the truth is unclear. What did you think 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:21.520 and feel about this police assessment basically that was going 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.240 to pint on Aboriginal people from the beginning, despite the evidence. 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.240 I wasn't particularly shocked because, as we've said in the podcast, 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.840 this is the time of the ninety ninety one Fitzgerald 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:37.840 inquiry into police corruption throughout Queensland. So to me, it 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.040 seems that they've seen an Aboriginal woman on a mud 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:45.359 bank and immediately have assumed that Aboriginal people are the perpetrators, 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.960 and that assumption is very dangerous, so they use that 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.280 assumption as a cover in order to not do their 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:57.280 investigation properly, to just sign and off. So I think 0:20:57.280 --> 0:20:59.560 it shows that they just did have the best interests 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:04.280 of aberal people in mind at all, and just my 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:07.679 own background and reporting a lot of these some cases 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:12.040 to Linda and Kevin's. It's not surprising because it happens 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.320 so often, particularly in this time period of the nineties, 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.680 where we see police actively covering up Aboriginal deaths in custody. 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.479 So it does not suppose me at all that they 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:28.200 would also not carry out their duties as police officers 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.600 in relation to a murdered Aboriginal woman. 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:35.600 We're aware of many murders that took place along this river, 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:38.919 but there was one that was quite well known in 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.960 town and we won't discuss right now. In fact, I 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.760 won't mention any names about it, but it was a 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.920 well known murder and assault on an Aboriginal woman, and 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.359 when you hear about it, the similarities to what happened 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.520 to Linda are shocking. But Amy, you've been looking into this, 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:01.239 and I'll just ask one question about it, which is 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.840 what side of the river was her body placed into 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:05.280 the water. 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.959 So this Aboriginal woman was actually placed in on the 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.840 north side of the river, and she was found four 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.879 days low, but she was definitely placed on the northern 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:16.640 side of the river. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.720 So here we have an example of something very similar happening. 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.719 Just like the fisherman believed Linda's body was probably placed 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:30.280 in on the north side, everything they saw told them 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:34.520 that the case where that had occurred too, And yet 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:39.200 once again they made no attempt to investigate whether Linda 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.720 had been placed on the north side. So there were 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.439 so many reasons they could have done this, and I 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.320 think just this little issue got to the heart of 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:53.280 everything the police did that was so wrong. Now, in 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:59.120 addition to the fisherman, the second fisherman whose statement we've uncovered, 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:03.440 we have many many other statements that we'd never seen 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:09.120 and perhaps we don't know were kept from Kevin's defense too, 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:13.920 but they certainly highlight a great deal more. One thing 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.920 we learned was that when Linda's body was brought back 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:22.200 to the boat club that morning, once the fisherman had 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.800 found her body, and the police said one police officer 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:29.159 had helped them bring the body back to shore, there 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:33.560 was a medical practitioner waiting, and he was there simply 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:37.720 to do a quick assessment. Basically, in that situation, the 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:42.920 doctor to write whether the person is in fact deceased 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.520 or not and record a time. This is before any 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:51.560 post mortem or thing like that is done. And what 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:55.680 this doctor said is that he confirmed what the two 0:23:55.760 --> 0:24:00.199 fishermen had said, that Linda's body was heavily cut, it 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:06.159 in mud, and that there was a sense of an assault, 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:11.880 there was blood, and that much of what we already 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.199 know matches up, but he made particular mention of the 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:19.679 amount of mud. And yet what you've heard us speak 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:23.440 about in the past when we discussed the post mortem 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:27.359 is the fact that the doctor who undertook that post 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:33.879 mortem state that the body had been covered with mud. 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.879 But the body has since been cleaned. Now, what we 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:43.800 don't know is what happens between the first doctor seeing 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:48.480 Linda's body covered in mud and when the body was cleaned. 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:53.919 There is no recorded information about happened there, but we 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:58.840 have been able to uncover what might have happened, and 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:02.840