Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolute shambles to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: actoutely really.
Speaker 1: Colored blood on his clothing the day after the alleged
Speaker 1: atip on.
Speaker 3: A shallow mud bank and it fits through river.
Speaker 4: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 4: me are good people.
Speaker 3: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 3: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 1: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 1: our justice system and ask who are the victims.
Speaker 2: I'm Amy Maguire and.
Speaker 3: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 3: Support Service. Our producer is Paul Watts. Music by Clint
Speaker 3: Curtis and produced in collaboration with the Brisbane Indigenous Media
Speaker 3: Association and a warning. This series contains the names of
Speaker 3: deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset listeners.
Speaker 3: Last week on this program, we gave you a broad
Speaker 3: outline of a story we've been working on for the
Speaker 3: past six months. It revolves around an Aboriginal woman named
Speaker 3: Linda who died tragically in Rockhampton in central Queensland.
Speaker 1: Linda was found on a mud bank in the Fitzroy
Speaker 1: River on September one, nineteen ninety one. Within a week,
Speaker 1: four people were charged in relation to her death. All
Speaker 1: of them were originally charged with her murder, and one
Speaker 1: of these individuals was Kevin Henry, also known as Kurdain.
Speaker 3: Kevin was charged with murder because he was supposed to
Speaker 3: have dragged Linda to the river where he'd put her
Speaker 3: in on the Tanuba House side, the south side of
Speaker 3: the river. Her official cause of death was drowning. In
Speaker 3: the last episode, we told you it was very unlikely
Speaker 3: the body would have been put in on the Tanuba
Speaker 3: House side of the river.
Speaker 1: That finding was based on analysis of the historical title
Speaker 1: record and a long one hundred and fifty meter parallel
Speaker 1: line that ran alongside the north side of the river bank,
Speaker 1: which showed it was more likely she was put in
Speaker 1: on the north side of the river, the racecourse side.
Speaker 1: If Kevin had put her in the river, he would
Speaker 1: have had to have made it to the north side
Speaker 1: of the river, and it just wasn't possible. He had
Speaker 1: no way of getting there, so why didn't police follow
Speaker 1: that up?
Speaker 3: Well? At the Tanuba House side, there were drag marks
Speaker 3: that supposedly led from a grassy expanse next to Tanuba
Speaker 3: House down to the river bank. Apparently that's the evidence
Speaker 3: that helped implicate Kevin in the crime. Those drag marks
Speaker 3: weren't originally found by police. They were found by an
Speaker 3: Aboriginal man by the name of dark Hart.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're going to go back a bit
Speaker 1: and we're going to tell you what we know about
Speaker 1: that day, August thirty, first Saturday, which was Linda's last day. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Linda isn't here to tell us exactly what happened. Her
Speaker 1: last moments are preserved in statements from people who saw
Speaker 1: her that day.
Speaker 3: Sadly, many of them had been drinking and also, sadly,
Speaker 3: some of them would be involved in her death. Now,
Speaker 3: it was getting into the later months of that year,
Speaker 3: and so the footy season would have been wrapping up
Speaker 3: on that Saturday. It was the beginning of the final season.
Speaker 3: That afternoon, at three pm down in Sydney, the Western
Speaker 3: Suburb's Magpies would face off against the canber Raiders, who
Speaker 3: was the Glory Days for the Raiders, headed up by
Speaker 3: Big Malmoninger and with a team basting the likes of
Speaker 3: Lurie Daily and Ricky Stewart, you can imagine that a
Speaker 3: lot of mob might have liked to have watched that game.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: In the morning of that Saturday, hours before that game
Speaker 1: kicked off, a fifty nine year old Aboriginal man by
Speaker 1: the name of Duck Hut woke up down at Tanouba House.
Speaker 1: He had slept there the Friday night, but it had
Speaker 1: woken up probably a little after the sun had risen,
Speaker 1: as he said he often did. He also would have
Speaker 1: woken up before Kevin Henry, who had also slept there
Speaker 1: at Nuba House that night, but who hadn't gotten up
Speaker 1: until about one pm in the afternoon. It seems Duck
Speaker 1: often slept down to Nuber House, but he also had
Speaker 1: a room that he often used down the bottom of
Speaker 1: the Great Western Hotel.
Speaker 3: The hotel was only a six minute walk away, still
Speaker 3: there today, Duck isn't really clear about when he began
Speaker 3: drinking that morning. Later on, while on the witness stand,
Speaker 3: he testified that he didn't drink early in the morning,
Speaker 3: but then later renegged and said he had started drinking
Speaker 3: probably around nine am that day. He might have been
Speaker 3: sharing a flagon with a couple of other people who
Speaker 3: had also been staying at Tanuba.
Speaker 1: But around midday, before Kevin woke up, Duck was a
Speaker 1: little intoxicated and decided to walk the short distance to
Speaker 1: the Great Western Hotel.
Speaker 2: He wanted to go and get more alcohol.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of shorter roots he could have taken,
Speaker 1: but he took the one that put him on the
Speaker 1: path past the Crown Hotel, which used to be on
Speaker 1: the corner of Bolsover and William Street, which is in
Speaker 1: the Rockampten CBD, only a short walk from the mall
Speaker 1: and also to Nuba House.
Speaker 3: The Crown Hotel was where a lot of Aboriginal people
Speaker 3: used to drink. It isn't there anymore. It's been replaced
Speaker 3: with a coffee shop that wouldn't look out of place
Speaker 3: in a gentrified suburb in a big city. Near the
Speaker 3: Crown Hotel, there would have been a shop on the
Speaker 3: corner of Bolsover and William Street. Was out the front
Speaker 3: of that shop that Duck came across Linda that day.
Speaker 3: He'd met Linda before. He said they'd had a few
Speaker 3: drinks at the Crown Hotel together about a week previously. Now,
Speaker 3: in the last episode, when we introduced Linda, we told
Speaker 3: you about how we were only referring to her by
Speaker 3: a first name out of respect for her family and
Speaker 3: also out of respect for her memory. We won't include
Speaker 3: every detail of her last hours in this podcast, but
Speaker 3: sadly we have to include some details, but only which
Speaker 3: we feel absolutely relevant to your understanding of this case.
Speaker 1: Now, in the last episode, we also mentioned that Linda
Speaker 1: was sick. She had been missing for about eight days prior,
Speaker 1: and she suffered from a mental illness. She suffered from schizophrenia.
Speaker 1: It meant she was prone to wandering. Linda was a
Speaker 1: woman who had achieved a great deal in her short life.
Speaker 1: She had achieved it despite coming from a background of trauma.
Speaker 1: We'll probably never know what was going through her mind
Speaker 1: that day, what she was suffering from, and the reasons
Speaker 1: behind her actions, and it's important we don't speculate. It's
Speaker 1: also important we don't blame her for what happened next.
Speaker 1: Regardless of what you think of the people named in
Speaker 1: this podcast, there is definitely one person who is undoubtedly blameless,
Speaker 1: and that's Linda.
Speaker 3: That day, Duck talked with Linda for a little while.
Speaker 3: He said, it was about a quarter of an hour.
Speaker 3: While outside they had a smoke, wasn't wrong. After that
Speaker 3: that the two Duck and Linda went to an area
Speaker 3: near the shop, which Duck refers to as the grain shed.
Speaker 3: There they engaged in sexual intercourse.
Speaker 1: Now Duck wasn't single. He was involved with someone, a
Speaker 1: woman named Doreene Ivy. He said he had been involved
Speaker 1: with Doreen for a couple of months and they were
Speaker 1: known by others at Tanuba as being in a relationship.
Speaker 1: On previous occasions, Doreen had referred to Duck as her man.
Speaker 2: Duck later agreed that he was fond of Dorene and
Speaker 2: she was fond of him.
Speaker 3: But regardless of the fact he was in a relationship,
Speaker 3: Duck on that day still engaged in a sexual act
Speaker 3: with Linda. Would have been upsetting to Doreen, his partner,
Speaker 3: because sometime during that encounter she turned up and caught
Speaker 3: Duck and Linda together. Now Doraen was not alone. She
Speaker 3: was also with another woman, and that woman was Susan Aubrey.
Speaker 3: Dark had originally told police that Doreen and Susan caught
Speaker 3: him and Linda in the act, but on the witness
Speaker 3: stand he later claimed they found the master, possibly while
Speaker 3: they were getting dressed. Now we told you Duck couldn't
Speaker 3: recall many details. He couldn't remember what shirt Linda was wearing.
Speaker 3: He also couldn't remember what Dorain or Susan Aubrey were wearing.
Speaker 3: But he remembered that Linda was wearing a black and
Speaker 3: white scarf around her head, not her neck, and she
Speaker 3: had on black pants or what he called black strides.
Speaker 1: Now that black and white scarf is interesting. There was
Speaker 1: only one reason to wear a scarf in the central
Speaker 1: Queensland hit.
Speaker 2: It seems Linda may have.
Speaker 1: Been barracking for the Black and white Western Suburbs and
Speaker 1: no Plize that day, although we don't know or can't
Speaker 1: confirm whether she was a Rugby League fan. But what
Speaker 1: happened next is muddled. Duck never gives a conclusive answer.
Speaker 1: He claimed in court that Doreen didn't say anything to
Speaker 1: him after she caught him with another woman. He then
Speaker 1: said he left the three women and started on the
Speaker 1: way to the Great Western Hotel.
Speaker 3: But before appearing in court, he told the police that
Speaker 3: Doreen had yelled at him and He later said that
Speaker 3: he'd had a row with Doreen. Under cross examination from
Speaker 3: Kevin's barrister, David Murray in the court, Duck claimed he
Speaker 3: was not angry at Linda, despite the complications that had
Speaker 3: caused with Dora, but then he concedes. This from the
Speaker 3: court transcript, David Murray, Kevin's barrister, said, then when Doraan
Speaker 3: caught you, you were sorry, weren't you, mister Hart, that
Speaker 3: you'd been caught. Duk replies, most definitely. Murray says, most
Speaker 3: probably because you didn't want to think that you were
Speaker 3: going to fall out with Doreen, did you that worried
Speaker 3: you didn't it? Duck said, yeah, that's right. Murray says,
Speaker 3: do you remember what you told the police the reason
Speaker 3: you stayed at the Great Western Hotel? I told them
Speaker 3: that me and Doreen had a row. This is what
Speaker 3: you said to the police. I knew Doreen was cranky
Speaker 3: with me, so I stayed at the Great Western for
Speaker 3: the night. Duck responds, Yeah, you were frightened to go
Speaker 3: back to Tanuba, weren't you. Weren't you, mister Hart? Yeah,
Speaker 3: that would be right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that day, Duck claimed he continued walking to the
Speaker 1: Great Western.
Speaker 2: He said he got there around one pm.
Speaker 1: The manager at the time confirmed that he was knocked
Speaker 1: back from ordering drinks, but he did eat there.
Speaker 3: He then said he went down to his room in
Speaker 3: the TV area and went to sleep, where he stayed
Speaker 3: asleep from one to about four. At around four, he
Speaker 3: apparently started drinking again with beer that he'd found under
Speaker 3: his bed. He claimed he'd it there previously. He claimed
Speaker 3: he never went back to Tanuba House that night, the
Speaker 3: night Linda was brutally assaulted.
Speaker 1: Now we do know Linda was assaulted, and remember the
Speaker 1: other woman who caught Linda with duck.
Speaker 2: Her name was Susan Aubrey.
Speaker 1: Well, now we have to tell you some really distressing details,
Speaker 1: and we warn our listeners that what we're going to
Speaker 1: tell you next is horrific. Martin has spent a long
Speaker 1: time gaining and understanding of each of the witness statements
Speaker 1: and what was most likely to have happened that night
Speaker 1: at Tanuba. So, Martin, we know a little bit about
Speaker 1: what happened earlier that day, around midday, but what happened
Speaker 1: a bit after when Linda went back to Tanuba House,
Speaker 1: there seems to be a blank. What happened when she
Speaker 1: actually went back down there.
Speaker 3: We know more than likely the football game had just finished.
Speaker 3: We know that there was a considerable number of people
Speaker 3: there that evening, and those people included Kevin, Susan Aubrey,
Speaker 3: and Doreen who had caught Duck and Linda in the act,
Speaker 3: as well as friends of Susan Aubrey, Margaret Bob, and
Speaker 3: Amy Saunders. Immediately things got hostile, and that hostility was
Speaker 3: directed towards Linda. At first, she was verbally assaulted and
Speaker 3: generally warned off about going near their men. But things
Speaker 3: got bad very quickly. You have to remember a considerable
Speaker 3: amount of alcohol had been drunk by all involved.
Speaker 2: Martin, do we know what happened next?
Speaker 3: What we know for sure is that Linda was assaulted.
Speaker 3: Who threw the first punch we can't be clear. According
Speaker 3: to all the testimony, if you break it down, it
Speaker 3: was either Susan Aubrey, who was there when Linda and
Speaker 3: Duck were court, or Margie Bob. But very quickly three
Speaker 3: women began a brutal assault on Linda, Amy Saunders, Susan Aubrey,
Speaker 3: and Margaret Bob, and it was a violent assault. Linda
Speaker 3: would later be described to have had wounds all over
Speaker 3: her body, to her head, to her face, to her ribs,
Speaker 3: and up and down her legs and arms. It was
Speaker 3: a vicious attack, and it was predicated on the fact
Speaker 3: that the women seem to have felt Linda shouldn't be there,
Speaker 3: she didn't belong, and made him wantor around.
Speaker 1: Martin, you talk about the level of alcohol that had
Speaker 1: been you know that had been taken that day by
Speaker 1: all involved, But how do we know that that's a
Speaker 1: true account?
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: How do we know that it wasn't sort of tainted
Speaker 1: by the amount of drink that so many people had
Speaker 1: had that day.
Speaker 3: All we can say is that in terms of the
Speaker 3: assault on Lender itself by the three women, that all
Speaker 3: the witness statements, and there are at least thirty of
Speaker 3: them match up. In fact, those women pretty much concede
Speaker 3: what they did. They would later plead guilty to being
Speaker 3: involved in this attack, and the details of much of
Speaker 3: the incident are pretty crystal clear according to everyone who
Speaker 3: was there. So even with alcohol involved, the fact that
Speaker 3: statements match up mean that at least that part of
Speaker 3: the day we can be fairly sure of.
Speaker 1: And I guess it fits with what her injuries actually were.
Speaker 2: So the details as described.
Speaker 1: By the witnesses and maybe even some of the women
Speaker 1: that fit with the injuries that he ultimately found on
Speaker 1: her body.
Speaker 3: That's right, And we know also that it matches up
Speaker 3: with the forensic testimony given at the trial. So we
Speaker 3: know that not only do witnesses give the statement not
Speaker 3: only to the women involved confirm what happened and that matches,
Speaker 3: but also that the forensic expert testified that the injuries
Speaker 3: suffered to winda match up with what was described. And
Speaker 3: we have to remember that this assault had the potential
Speaker 3: to be lethal. We won't go into the brutal details
Speaker 3: of what occurred, but we have to remind our listeners
Speaker 3: that wind that did pass away later that night. How
Speaker 3: exactly we don't know, but it is possible from all
Speaker 3: the evidence that's been gathered that that assault did play
Speaker 3: at least some part. How much of a part, we're
Speaker 3: still to uncover.
Speaker 2: Money you talk about it being quite a horrific assault.
Speaker 1: Was it just punches or kicks or what do we
Speaker 1: know actually happened to her? With our other implements.
Speaker 3: Used, those things certainly did occur, but the most horrific
Speaker 3: injuries are a result of two things. The first is
Speaker 3: that those who assaulted her, the women we've named, jumped
Speaker 3: on Linda off some steps. But what happened next was
Speaker 3: far more horrific a pole, and we don't know exactly
Speaker 3: of what kind, and nobody in the court case or
Speaker 3: in the transcripts can ever give us a detailed description
Speaker 3: of what sort of pole it was. But at some
Speaker 3: point Linda was impaled with that pole.
Speaker 1: That assault actually could have had the potential to be lethal,
Speaker 1: regardless of what happened after to Linda.
Speaker 2: Would that be a possibility, It certainly.
Speaker 3: Would be, and it matches up with the forensics. Although
Speaker 3: no specific answers have ever really been given. What we
Speaker 3: do know is that virtually every part of Linda's body
Speaker 3: had bruising, bleeding, and trauma, and that includes on her
Speaker 3: brain and bleeding below the surface of the scale and
Speaker 3: on the tissue of the brain, and also some very
Speaker 3: severe injuries to her body, some of which are a
Speaker 3: result of that pole.
Speaker 2: What did they do with her body?
Speaker 1: What happened to Linda afterwards after that assault, because obviously
Speaker 1: there was a lot of witnesses there.
Speaker 3: The assault went on for a considerable period of time.
Speaker 3: It started, and it stopped, and it started again. But
Speaker 3: after the most horrific aspects of the assault, Linda was
Speaker 3: left on the footpath on the pavement near Tanuba House
Speaker 3: and soon after most of the people who had gathered
Speaker 3: at Tanuba left for the Crown Hotel.
Speaker 1: Were there any suggestions that Kevin Henry was involved in
Speaker 1: this assault.
Speaker 3: No, not a single witness, including the women who committed
Speaker 3: that assault well, ever, say that Kevin took any part whatsoever.
Speaker 3: There's not one suggestion from witnesses, from the assailants, from police,
Speaker 3: from anyone that we know of, that Kevin was involved
Speaker 3: in any way in even verbally attacking Linda. Now we
Speaker 3: told you a little bit about the assault and about
Speaker 3: the women who were involved. Well, that night, after the
Speaker 3: assault had occurred, Kevin says in his initial statement that
Speaker 3: he went to the Crown with everyone else and they
Speaker 3: all put in for alcohol, which Susan Aubrey purchased. He
Speaker 3: claims in his initial statement that he came back and
Speaker 3: Linda was gone.
Speaker 1: The day after Linda was found, Kevin told police that
Speaker 1: he had asked another Aboriginal man where Linda had gone to,
Speaker 1: and that man had said she'd gone to the creek.
Speaker 2: The details in.
Speaker 1: Statements changed three days later in another sitting with police,
Speaker 1: but we'll go into that statement later.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: In the last episode, we told you that the day
Speaker 1: Linda was found, Kevin was picked up off the streets.
Speaker 2: By police and put in the watchhouse basically for public drunkenness.
Speaker 1: You would also realize that a lot of the people
Speaker 1: involved in this story had been drinking. In fact, Januba
Speaker 1: House was set up to provide alcohol and drug counseling
Speaker 1: and other services. It was filling a large vacuum that
Speaker 1: existed in Rockhampton.
Speaker 3: There simply was not a lot of help for many
Speaker 3: Aboriginal people who suffered from drug or alcohol addiction. It
Speaker 3: was more likely to be criminalized, as illustrated by Kevin
Speaker 3: being thrown in the watchhouse. It's also interesting to note
Speaker 3: the year Linda died was the same year the Royal
Speaker 3: Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was handed down, which
Speaker 3: came down very heavily on criminalizing public drunkenness. There were
Speaker 3: several cases investigated where average people have died in custody
Speaker 3: after being picked up simply for being drunk in public.
Speaker 2: In fact.
Speaker 1: In the same week Linda was found, a local Aboriginal group,
Speaker 1: Gumby Gumby called an urgent public meeting between government departments,
Speaker 1: police welfare groups, and local community representatives. It seems there
Speaker 1: was obviously a real need pushed by the Aboriginal community
Speaker 1: themselves for greater services for those who struggled with alcohol
Speaker 1: and drug addiction. This was a theme played out in
Speaker 1: the local media at the time, and following Kevin's conviction,
Speaker 1: Channel seven ran this report which quoted local Aboriginal elder
Speaker 1: Honey Judy Tattoo, who was then the coordinator of Tanuba House.
Speaker 4: Basically, I think most of the people are used to me,
Speaker 4: there are good people.
Speaker 1: Honey duty Tatto is a respected elder in Rockhampden and
Speaker 1: is now retired. She's only been retired for about three years,
Speaker 1: but she's well known in rock Hampden for setting up
Speaker 1: and helping run a lot of local Aboriginal organizations, including Tanuba.
Speaker 1: Told me this week on the phone from Rock Hampden
Speaker 1: that Tanuba was seen as a safe place.
Speaker 4: But the things about Tanuba was that it was like
Speaker 4: a savory and I don't know if you can remember,
Speaker 4: but they used to have ah it wasn't a fence,
Speaker 4: but it was like, uh like, I was kind of
Speaker 4: like offens but that was the satary and the police
Speaker 4: never used to touch them inside that area. But you know,
Speaker 4: the police wonder fine, and if somebody might run away
Speaker 4: from the hospital and all that sort of stuff, they
Speaker 4: just come down there and yeah, if they were there,
Speaker 4: they'd taken back up to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Any Judy said that Tanuba played a very critical role
Speaker 1: for very vulnerable people who lived on the riverbank, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't always a safe place because of the racism
Speaker 1: in rock Hampden.
Speaker 4: It wasn't always to say place for them, bigcause sometimes
Speaker 4: uh gangs always suppose if you want to call them,
Speaker 4: they'd come down sometimes within the night time and might
Speaker 4: have some sticks or baseball bat.
Speaker 2: Sticks and baseball bats.
Speaker 1: Now, it was well known that non Aboriginal people would
Speaker 1: come down to Tanuba House to terrorize the mob who
Speaker 1: lived there. And remember that fact because the night before
Speaker 1: Nundad died, there are actually reports of a group of
Speaker 1: about eight white men who came down to Tanuba House
Speaker 1: and we're yelling out derogatory statements and things to the
Speaker 1: Aboriginal women there. So at that time, it was obviously
Speaker 1: a regular occurrence that the Tanuba Mob were often victim
Speaker 1: to a lot of racist incidents. Any Duty said the
Speaker 1: Aboriginal people who stayed at Tanuba were even seen differently
Speaker 1: than Aboriginal people around town. But in the end that
Speaker 1: reputation was undeserved.
Speaker 4: Well, I really think that it was an important place
Speaker 4: for our mob, Yeah, the ones who really haven't had
Speaker 4: a good break.
Speaker 3: In life sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean there's lots of us out there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we all charge up, but people don't see us the
Speaker 4: way they see how they used to drink at Tanova.
Speaker 4: You know, they don't see us as drunks and that
Speaker 4: like they thought people from Tanoova were, you know, because
Speaker 4: we go out and enjoy ourselves. But nobody thought anything,
Speaker 4: Well that's what they do there. They used to do
Speaker 4: down but people didn't see that side of it. They
Speaker 4: just thought, you know, they might have been walking down
Speaker 4: the street with blood all over them and shirt undone
Speaker 4: and all this and just think like there's somebody's child,
Speaker 4: you know, And we wouldn't like people to think the
Speaker 4: worst about our kids.
Speaker 2: For now, we want to go back to Duckhart, the man.
Speaker 1: We are telling you about at the start of this episode,
Speaker 1: the man who had been caught having sex with Linda.
Speaker 3: Dark claims he never went back to Tanuba House the Saturday,
Speaker 3: even though it would have been easy for him to
Speaker 3: come and go. But early on Sunday morning, he apparently
Speaker 3: woke up and went back down there. There is a
Speaker 3: reason as to why he went down there so early.
Speaker 3: While there, he was sitting with two other people under
Speaker 3: the house. Fairly early on, he said he had to
Speaker 3: go to the toilet. Now, there is a toilet under
Speaker 3: Tanuba which people would normally use, but.
Speaker 1: Duck decided to walk over to a tree, which is
Speaker 1: about a forty meter walk away, in order to use
Speaker 1: the toilet. He told the court that every other time
Speaker 1: he would usually just use the toilet under Tanuba. While there,
Speaker 1: Duck apparently found a black and white scarf and a
Speaker 1: pair of black strides. Remember those items of clothing. Those
Speaker 1: were the only items of clothing that Duck remember Linda
Speaker 1: wearing the day before.
Speaker 3: He couldn't remember anything else. He couldn't remember her shirt,
Speaker 3: He couldn't remember the clothes that Susan and Dorring were wearing.
Speaker 3: But he could remember those black strides and that black
Speaker 3: and white scarf, conveniently the two items of clothing he
Speaker 3: found by the tree that early morning. This is what
Speaker 3: he said. I walked over here to the gum tree
Speaker 3: there and walked back and found the woman's clothes there.
Speaker 3: While there, he also noticed that there was a place
Speaker 3: in the grass which had been pushed back. He would
Speaker 3: tell police and court that he saw drag marks in
Speaker 3: the grass running down to the sand.
Speaker 1: He called the two people he was drinking with at
Speaker 1: t Enuba at that point. They went over and had
Speaker 1: a look, and then all of them went back and
Speaker 1: had a drink. That's according to dark Heart. Now, Linda
Speaker 1: would not have been found by the fisherman at this point.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know, as the exact time has never
Speaker 1: really stated, but we do know that at eight o'clock
Speaker 1: two kilometers downstream, on the opposite side of the river,
Speaker 1: the racecourse side of the river, she would have been
Speaker 1: found by two fishermen on a mud bank. But that
Speaker 1: morning Duck couldn't have known where she would be found,
Speaker 1: or even that she may have been missing. Somehow, he
Speaker 1: found her clothes, and he decided to go to the
Speaker 1: police station.
Speaker 3: That afternoon around two twenty pm. Duck had a conversation
Speaker 3: with a police officer, Senior Constable Robert Hunt, which on
Speaker 3: the stand he referred to as Robert. Remember, by then
Speaker 3: Kevin would have been in the Whitehouse, locked up for
Speaker 3: public drunkenness. He'd been picked up around one pm that day.
Speaker 3: After that conversation, Senior Constable Hunt and another police officer
Speaker 3: plane closed. Senior Constable Leslie Girk company Duck down to
Speaker 3: Tanuba House. There were already investigations beginning into Tanuba because
Speaker 3: Linda's body was found that morning.
Speaker 1: The two policemen given the task of arresting officers were
Speaker 1: these two we just mentioned Hunt and Girk. Now when
Speaker 1: they got down to Tanuba, Douck took Hunt to the
Speaker 1: place where he saw the dragmark. Hunt says he showed
Speaker 1: what happened to be drag marks leading from Tanuba House
Speaker 1: down to another area which is now referred to, which
Speaker 1: I now know to be Root Valley.
Speaker 3: Root Valley was a name given to the small area
Speaker 3: of grass to the side of Tanuba House where people
Speaker 3: would go to have sex. This small area was where
Speaker 3: Duck had found the two items of Winder's clothing. But
Speaker 3: those drag marks that Duck showed the officers were not
Speaker 3: as they seen. Even Hunt admit that it wasn't a
Speaker 3: definite track, was just grass pushed over. It was definite
Speaker 3: that movement had gone through there, he said.
Speaker 1: And even Hunt admits in cross examination on the stand
Speaker 1: that the marks could have been caused in another way.
Speaker 1: In the trial, he's given the example while on the
Speaker 1: witness stand that the marks could have been caused by
Speaker 1: somebody using that area to walk down to the river
Speaker 1: to put a crab pot in and tied off on
Speaker 1: the old post. And he agrees to that. There was
Speaker 1: no evidence of blood found on the grass Idly Kevin's
Speaker 1: and remember that because we'll go into that a bit later.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Two other witnesses who were at to.
Speaker 1: Nubah that night, Lyle Barnes and Frank Saunders, pol police
Speaker 1: in their statement that duck Hart had gone back to
Speaker 1: Tanubah that night. The police never really followed it up,
Speaker 1: but it was only a short walk from the Great
Speaker 1: Western Hotel. It would not have taken long if duck
Speaker 1: had decided to go back.
Speaker 3: After duck had had a long sleep in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: he said he got up and continued drinking with beer
Speaker 3: he found under his bed at the Great Western. He
Speaker 3: said that he continued drinking by himself until about one
Speaker 3: am on the Saturday morning. Hunt and Girk, the two
Speaker 3: arresting officers, never investigated Duck any further. That's despite Duck
Speaker 3: being involved with Linda and him most likely being upset
Speaker 3: about his partner Dori and Ivy catching him with her.
Speaker 1: On September five, three days after Kevin gave his initial
Speaker 1: statement to police, he told Gurk he had something else
Speaker 1: to add. Kevin apparently Todd Girk that his statement, which
Speaker 1: included a pretty accurate account of Linda's assault by the women,
Speaker 1: was missing quote a paragraph on the end. There, that paragraph,
Speaker 1: which would end up being the confession, was the only
Speaker 1: thing that imprecated Kevin in the crime. Now, in the
Speaker 1: long ten day trial, the judge gave the jury several
Speaker 1: instructions before they were retired to consider their decision.
Speaker 3: Now, one of those instructions was this at this point,
Speaker 3: I'll paraphrase, but we'll come back to this in detail
Speaker 3: when we examine exactly what the judge said to the jury.
Speaker 3: But what he did remind the jury is this, did
Speaker 3: the police investigate Dukhart, and we know they didn't. The
Speaker 3: judge reminds the jury this could be a failing on
Speaker 3: the police's behalf. And if they have any doubt as
Speaker 3: to Duck's involvement, if he had motive, what he may
Speaker 3: or may not have done that night that was never investigated,
Speaker 3: they needed to consider that when coming to their conclusion
Speaker 3: on what Kevin's involvement was.
Speaker 1: So you have to wonder how did Duck find Linder's
Speaker 1: clothes so fast, and how did he find those drag marks?
Speaker 1: And why didn't the police look further into his story?
Speaker 3: Remember that last paragraph that Kevin wanted to add, the
Speaker 3: part the police would go on to say was Kevin's confession. Well,
Speaker 3: after that was taken on the fifth of September, the
Speaker 3: police investigation stopped. That's where it ended. But we haven't
Speaker 3: stopped our investigation. Twenty five years later. We're doing the
Speaker 3: follow up work the police should have done. That would
Speaker 3: never have resulted in the judge having to give the
Speaker 3: jury those directions. And what we've found is probably what
Speaker 3: the police should have found.
Speaker 1: So now you can catch up on iTunes by typing
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Speaker 2: Join us next week for Curtain