00:00:10 Speaker 1: Little Girl Lost The unsolved Murder of Leanne Holland, Episode five. 00:00:21 Speaker 2: Last time you're sitting in that potentially holding cell, I guess is it for that first week or when they shut the door behind you on that How was that? 00:00:30 Speaker 3: It's pretty tore many coming to talk to your parents holding the door like that, seeing the looks on their faces. One of those things that never leaves you. 00:00:42 Speaker 2: When the police come out and tell you that they've charged your son with the murder of Leanne Holland, this twelve year old girl. What's your first reaction? 00:00:49 Speaker 4: My first thing was, does that mean you're not going to look anywhere else? 00:00:54 Speaker 5: That's where I sat to the policeman. Twenty three days after lee Anne was murdered, as Stafford and his fellow inmates watched the evening news. 00:01:04 Speaker 6: Two railway workers discovered the body of the twelve year old face down in lonely Woogaroo Creek around eight fifteen. 00:01:10 Speaker 5: This morning, he learned another murder had been committed at Gudner. 00:01:14 Speaker 7: It appears at the a young female in school uniform a facedown in the creek behind where we stand at the moment. 00:01:25 Speaker 5: Her name is Julianne Lowe. 00:01:28 Speaker 6: Police quickly sealed off the area. Her body was removed to Brisbane for post mortem examination. 00:01:33 Speaker 5: Like Leanne, Julianne is twelve years old. 00:01:36 Speaker 6: Police were actually aware of a missing schoolgirl. 00:01:39 Speaker 5: She's from Gaels, the suburb next to Gudna, and. 00:01:42 Speaker 6: Her parents had reported her missing. 00:01:44 Speaker 5: Her body is discovered near the Gal's caravan Park, Willianne's best friend Tricia lived and which Leanne visited frequently. 00:01:51 Speaker 6: Julie's father was brought in to help detectives establish her last movements. They say there was little her parents could have done. 00:01:57 Speaker 5: The date is October sixteenth, nineteen ninety one. Graham Stafford is in custody awaiting trial, charged with the murder of Leanne. He vividly remembers hearing the news. He had this to say to Michael Asher from seven's Murder Uncovered. 00:02:18 Speaker 3: I was actually in wake Hall Jail at the time when that occurred. I was actually sat watching television and the news flash came on that this girl had been murdered at the caravan park, the same caravan park we spoke of previously. And yeah, that was that was disturbing. I mean, obviously it was obviously very upsetting, but a selfish part of me felt some sort of relief, I guess because I thought, well, it was almost like see I told you guilty. 00:03:01 Speaker 7: Certainly in this case is not a great deal anybody could have done. She was on a way to school and has probably been done that for a number of years. 00:03:11 Speaker 5: Julianne Lowe had left home at six point forty in the morning in order to walk to good In a railway station to catch the train to school in Ipswich. She'd walked along Brisbane Road adjacent to the Ipswich Motorway, then on a footbridge to cross Woolgaroo Creek, and finally back under that same bridge to access a path to the station. Julianne was wearing her school uniform and carrying a school bag, but she never made it to class. At eight thirty am, a railworker found Julianne's body face down in Wogaroo Creek. The top buttons had been torn from her blowers, but she was fully clothed and even had shoes on her feet. Her bag was found on the embankment next to the creek. There were footprints in the mud, initially detectives from the Goodness CIB The same officers who'd investigated the Leanne Holland murder attended the scene, but later police were also brought in from Ipswich CIB. While their colleagues concentrated on Leanne's case. Pathologist doctor Rosemary Ashby, who conducted an autopsy of Leanne Holland, also attended the location where Julianne's body was found. Present at Julie's autopsy were Alan Fines, Clinton and Graham Richards, the detectives who had charged Stafford with Leanne's murder. There were no obvious marks of violence on the body, nor was there any sign of sexual assault. 00:04:50 Speaker 6: This afternoon, detectives dawknocked the area. Several people identified an eighteen year old man loitering near the creek. 00:04:58 Speaker 5: When detectives retraced julian steps, they were drawn to a tent site which overlooked the creek and the pedestrian footbridge. The occupant of the tent was eighteen year old Sean mcphedron. 00:05:12 Speaker 7: We've located a young man who lived nearby and he's currently being questioned by Goodn the detectives. 00:05:18 Speaker 5: At the moment, he'd moved there some weeks earlier and seemed nervous when detectives found a bag of wet clothes on the floor of his tent. It soon became clear that mcfedern had a history and fascination with holding people underwater for dangerous amounts of time. His mother, Gay, described when Sean was a small child, how his younger brother had drowned as the pair had taken a bath together. While it was unclear whether Shawn was involved, Gay told police she felt she could not trust her son with other people in pools or at the beach. Mcfederan's sister, Megan, remembered being terrified when Sean held her under the water in a pool. This is what she told police in nineteen ninety one. It isn't her voice. 00:06:10 Speaker 2: In general, Sean would just go from mucking around to losing it in an instant. By that, I mean he would just snap, step up a gear and become really violent. 00:06:20 Speaker 5: One of mcfedrin's few friends, Scott Butler, remembers pulling Sean off Megan as he held her underwater. He also remembers punching Sean for doing the same to him. Both also recalled mcphedern had a fascination with fire and would hold heated lighters to his own skin and that of others. Scott Butler had this to say, It's not his real voice. 00:06:46 Speaker 8: Sean always took things too far. He used to like seeing things in pain. I recall Sean burning things like lizards. He'd light the tail of the lizard for something to do. His reaction to something like that was excitement. 00:07:01 Speaker 5: Mcfedern left Red Bank Planes High in nineteen eighty nine, two years before Leanne attended the school. At the time of Julianne's murder, he was working as a trolley collector at the Red Bank Plaza. He moved into the Gal's caravan Park on September three, nineteen ninety one, just twenty days before Leanne went missing. Gay mcfedrin told police she'd kicked her son out of the family home because she was no longer able to deal with his violent outbursts and behavior. Sean mcfedern was taken in for questioning not long after Julianne Lowe's body was found at Goodna Police station. He quickly confessed to Julianne's murder. 00:07:46 Speaker 9: The man accused of her murder, Sean mcfedrin, told police he and the girl had been mucking around, had fallen into the creek, and Julianne had drowned after he held her underwater as they continued to Skylark. 00:07:57 Speaker 5: There were several reasons police ruled out mcfedern as a suspect in Leanne's murder. For a start, the circumstances of Leanne and Julie's death were very different. Leanne was brutally beaten, her body dumped semi naked in bushland. Police believed Leanne's murder was sexually motivated. However, mcphedern's fetish with holding people underwater seemed to be the motive for Julianne's murder. She was drowned and her clothes were in place. There were no signs of physical violence or sexual abuse. Furthermore, mcfedern was known as a poor driver and had no car or driver's license. Therefore, he had no means of transporting Lianne's body to the side where she had been found. This is what Detective Graham Richards told a police review into Leanne's murder in twenty ten. This is not his voice. 00:08:51 Speaker 10: I could see no similarities between the two murders, that of Leanne Holland and Julie Low. It was discussed by the Goodness Coib We discussed the possibility that Grahame Stafford may use the murder of Julie low in his trial to suggest that the same person was responsible for both murders. We just had to do our job properly and make sure we got it right. There were so many differences between the two murders, including the modus operandi. Mcfedrin drowned people and had no means to murder Leanne Holland or dispose of her body. 00:09:26 Speaker 5: Detective James Wardow had this to say to the Review, It's not his voice. 00:09:32 Speaker 11: I recall that there were no identified links between the murder of Leanne Holland and the murder of Julie low. Really, the only similarity was the ages between Leanne Holland and Julie low To my memory, there were no discussions or considerations that the two murders were linked in any way. I think that Sean mcfedern admitted killing Julie Low. My recollection is that Sean mcfedrin wasn't an intelligent man, and he described the murder of Julie Lowe has play gone wrong. I recall that Sean mcfedern lived in a tent at the Gaels caravan Park. I don't recall him having a car. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: What do you think there was a reluctance. 00:10:11 Speaker 5: Graham Stafford and his supporters felt there was a reluctance by police to investigate a link between mcfedern and Leanne's death. 00:10:19 Speaker 3: I don't know why. I guess maybe because they would look like they've got egg on their faces. They'd have obviously have some explaining to do as far as the way in which they were, you know, portraying the events like that had occurred with me and Leanne. Yeah, I don't know why they wouldn't sort of think that there was a need to have a look at Sean for obvious involvement in possible in man's murder as well, given that he, like I say, lived on the caravan park. He was known to Leanne, he was known to Trisha obviously as well, that lived on the caravan park. They actually played together with. 00:11:10 Speaker 5: However, Sean mcfedern has always insisted that he didn't know Leanne. Whilst incarcerated at the same jail, Graham Stafford claims he asked mcfedern if he knew Leanne, but he denied it. In April nineteen ninety three, mcfedern went to trial for murdering Julianne Lowe. His defense was that he was suffering a disease of the mind and was therefore guilty of manslaughter. The jury would take just three and a half hours to convict him of murder. At the time, defense witness doctor Francis Fargiese told the court, well. 00:11:46 Speaker 12: This person has, over his lifetime, behaved in a very unusual, I dare say bizarre way with respect to ducking people in the water to very dangerous extents. I am of the opinion that this ducking people's head underwater, close to drowning, near drowning, as some kind of meaning in his mind which we cannot access, and that it is part of the schizophrenia. 00:12:09 Speaker 5: The police investigation revealed mcphedern was a loner with few friends and meager possessions. He'd never had a girlfriend or a sexual encounter, and usually spent his time alone reading comics. He had discipline problems, a lack of self care and hygiene, and a fascination with violent films and neo Nazism. 00:12:29 Speaker 9: Called as a defense witness today, Sean mcfedrin's mother told of his history of behavioral problems, how as a child he'd played chicken with trains and cars, that as a teenager he'd held his younger brother and sister underwater in the backyard pool until she feared they'd drown, and how he'd developed an interest in witchcraft and a fascination for horror movies. 00:12:48 Speaker 5: He reportedly spoke about what it would be like for someone to be killed. 00:12:52 Speaker 9: A psychiatrist told the jury mcfedrin was a chronic psychotic schizophrenic and said mental illness impaired his ability to know drowning people was wrong, but prosecutor Brendan Butler said mcfedrin had run away after the killing and lied to police to protect himself. He'd known what he did and was guilty of murder. 00:13:08 Speaker 5: Sean mcfedern was sentenced to life imprisonment. He remains incarcerated in the residential section at the Wilston Correctional Center on Brisbane's western outskirts I was. 00:13:19 Speaker 13: In the Queensland Police from nineteen seventy four to nineteen eighty five. 00:13:23 Speaker 5: Graham Crowley, a former Queensland Police detective. He became a major advocate for Graham Stafford and who co authored the book Who Killed Leanne Holland in two thousand and five, is not convinced mcfedern has no link to Leanne's case. 00:13:39 Speaker 13: Major red flags for me. 00:13:40 Speaker 5: He had this to say to Michael Aisher. 00:13:42 Speaker 13: You get two twelve year old girls murdered within a fortnight of each other in the same suburb. I didn't think it was a coincidence. 00:13:53 Speaker 2: Police argued, though, different circumstances, different style of Murderah. 00:13:58 Speaker 13: Yeah, they did it. At the at the trial they said, oh, well, one was bashed with the hammer and the other was drowned, so different, that's rubbish. 00:14:09 Speaker 2: Why is it rubbish, Well. 00:14:11 Speaker 13: There's ample evidence of murderers convicting different murders using different style, killing one, shooting one, bashing one. It's just the fact that one was bashed and the other was drowned is not evidence that it's a different killer. 00:14:31 Speaker 2: Was there any connection of mcfedron to Leanne. 00:14:34 Speaker 13: They knew each other, They mixed in the same circles, they lived in the same area. Mcfedrin knew Ian Holland. He denied it, but he knew her. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: How did he know her? Let's establish that. 00:14:52 Speaker 13: He knew her through Lianne's girlfriend. Trish mcfedern denied at that at that time knowing Leanne Holland. In fact, I spoke to him on the telephone once and he denied knowing her. But when I spoke when I interviewed Tricia Lynch, who was Leanne's friend, she told me that she had introduced Shan mcfedern to Leanne and they played together, they were they hung out together. 00:15:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, and who ended up confirming that relationship? Because this is significant and that connection. How to verify that? 00:15:31 Speaker 13: When I interviewed Tricia Tricia Lynch, I tracked her down to she was living in Sydney. Well, she was living on the streets in Sydney. I tracked her down there and went down and spoke to her personally, and she told me that she had introduced Shan mcfedron to Leanne and that they knew each other. 00:15:52 Speaker 2: Where is Shan mcfredern today. 00:15:55 Speaker 13: Well, as far as I know, he's still in prison. I'm not sure whether he's in the middle section, mental health section, whether mainstream, I don't know, But as far as I know, he is still around Gudner in the prison there. 00:16:08 Speaker 5: According to the police review of Leanne's murder, Tricia told investigators she was under the influence of a substance when she was interviewed by Graham Crowley at a refuge for homeless teenagers in King's Cross in nineteen ninety three. She reportedly told mister Crowley how she had introduced Sean mcphedern to Leanne Holland and they had all played together on a number of occasions. However, Tricia later told the police review she was struggling with alcohol at the time she spoke with mister Crowley. There is no recording of her interview with him, just his case notes. Tricia has since gone on record denying ever introducing her friendly Anne to mcfedrin. She told police that a guy at the caravan park had once asked her into his tent, but she'd said no. This is a reading of part of her statement about mcfhedron to police. 00:17:00 Speaker 14: Thing happened and Mum and Keith told me that I wasn't allowed to go near him again. I remember that after Leanne was murdered, another girl was murdered and he was charged with killing that girl. He was a big fella. I remember him being big, chubby. I don't remember him having a car. I don't remember that boy's name. I don't ever remember swapping names with him. I didn't introduce Leanne to him and never saw Leanne with him. 00:17:29 Speaker 5: Mister Crowley spoke to mcfedern in nineteen ninety three when he was incarcerated in the Wolston Park Mental Hospital. He also interviewed mcfedrin's mother, who said she'd wondered whether her son had any knowledge of Leanne's death or maybe witnessed it and then killed Julianne in a copycat attack. This is what SEW mcfedern had to say to the police review. It's not his voice. 00:17:56 Speaker 15: I am guilty of the murder of Julie, Okay, live with that every day and I deal with that. But I do not have anything to do with this case of Leanne Holland. And I know it's easy for people to draw that conclusion, the almost convenient conclusion to draw, but I can only state categorically that I've got nothing to. 00:18:16 Speaker 16: Do with it. 00:18:28 Speaker 5: Meantime, Graham Stafford was not having an easy time behind bars. 00:18:36 Speaker 3: Early on. Obviously, before people sort of got to know me as a person, and you know, they just saw that I'd been arrested for this horrific crime. I was targeted, obviously, bashed, I had my food tampered with, and yeah, it was pretty horrific. I can remember being Bogga Road very early on, and even before I was put in a yard, I was put in a cell away from I think it would have been in the medical area, and every hour on the hour, the guards would come around and kick the door or you know, make sure that I couldn't get any sleep. 00:19:26 Speaker 5: After initially saying they believed him, Stafford's girlfriend, Melissa Leanne's sister and her father, Terry soon cut all contact. 00:19:35 Speaker 2: They believed the police that you were guilty. How did that affect you, certainly as far as. 00:19:47 Speaker 3: Knowing that Melissa was having you know, those sort of thoughts was very very upsetting. I mean, you know, she she was pretty much my focus, my world at that time, you know, other than going out with friends and that we were inseparable, you know, so for her to turn around and just not even come in and seeing it was pretty pretty upsetting. 00:20:21 Speaker 2: Did you hold out some hope that she might change your churn yep. 00:20:26 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:20:27 Speaker 2: How long did you hold onto that hope that she might come and visit or she might believe you? 00:20:35 Speaker 3: Years? 00:20:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a long time. 00:20:42 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:20:43 Speaker 5: A two day committal hearing was held in December nineteen ninety one in the Ipswich Magistrates Court. Then on March the sixteenth, nineteen ninety two, in the Brisbane Supreme Court, Graham Stafford went to trial for murder. The case was before Justice Derrington. David Bullock was the prosecutor. Charles Clark represented Stafford. When arraigned, Stafford pleaded not guilty to murder. Under Queensland laws, the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the jury's decision must be unanimous. 00:21:18 Speaker 2: When they started going through the details. 00:21:21 Speaker 5: This is how the jury foreman, a truckie known as Bluey, remembers the start of the trial. He's speaking with Michael Usher. 00:21:31 Speaker 4: I've never been in court before, so I didn't know what to expect. 00:21:35 Speaker 16: Yeah, a tractorwer. You don't think about things like that. 00:21:40 Speaker 2: When they started getting into the detail and they started going through the evidence, can you recall when you were hearing that or when it was being presented, what were your thoughts when you were starting to hear the evidence. 00:21:55 Speaker 16: I'll never go through it again. I don't care what happens. I wouldn't go through it again. 00:22:01 Speaker 4: I remember they passed her jumper around, called the jury, and I just grabbed it and passed it. 00:22:10 Speaker 16: I didn't want I didn't want to live at it. Not that you could see much. 00:22:14 Speaker 4: It was in a cellophone bag, and it was a purple purple jumper inside a cellophone bag. 00:22:20 Speaker 16: But I didn't want, not me. 00:22:29 Speaker 5: The prosecution called thirty five witnesses. The case relied upon circumstantial and forensic evidence. According to a lay the police review, a number of key areas were considered. Firstly, Stafford had the opportunity to kill Leanne Holland he was an a rostered day off from work. Leanne was on school holidays. They would have been alone to get gather for a number of hours. Secondly, blood consistent with Leanne's rare a B blood type was found on several items in the boot of Stafford's red Gemini, a blanket, a canvas bag, etc. Fairly, drops of what's thought to be Leanne's blood were found on the front stairs and landing of her Gudna home. Spots were also found in the bathroom. Number four, A maggot similar in size and appearance to those found on Leanne's body was discovered in the boot of Stafford's car. Five Tire tracks found in the dirt near where Leanne was found were comparable to the treads on Stafford's Gemini six. A car similar to Stafford's was seen near the location where Leanne's body was found. Number seven. A hammer was missing from the Gudna house. Melissa Holland gave evidence Stafford kept a silver colored hammer on his bedside table. It had been used to hang pictures, and while Melissa couldn't remember the last time she saw it, it had been missing since her sister's disappearance. Police had recovered and seized a hammer from Stafford's car boot. In a preliminary scientific examination, it had tested positive for blood. However, it was not produced as an exhibit at Stafford's trial. Melissa sketched a diagram of the hammer she remembers from the bedside table, but she was not shown the hammer police had seized from the boot. Stafford was adamant that he had only one hammer, a black, square headed mallet, which was beside his bed, but he believed police had seized it. As our listeners would recall, Doctor Rosemary Ashby, the pathologist who performed an autopsy on Land's body, thought she had been killed with a blunt instrument such as a stout hammer or sp number eight. In an unusual move, Stafford had removed the collapsible chair he kept in the boot of his car. He used the chair to sit on while watching Melissa play netball. Melissa Holland claimed she found it in the spare bedroom when she got home from work on the daily Anne vanished. However, she also acknowledged that there was no netball on that Monday night because it was school holidays. Additionally, Stafford had suffered an arm injury that was consistent with having been involved in violence. A plastic garbage bag found under Leanne's body was similar in size and shape to ones found in the Alla Street house of Gudna on the night of Leanne's disappearance. Stafford put the wheelie bin out, a chore that was normally Terry Holland's responsibility, and there were inconsistencies in Stafford's interviews with police. The prosecution case lasted a week. The defense called seven witnesses, including Graham Stafford himself. The defense case lasted a day. According to appeal documents, the defense lawyers claimed that Stafford had no motive to kill Leanne and that he was a person of good character, having never been in trouble with the law before. There was no sign of blood on his clothes, and it was improbable that he would have attempted to remove a body from the house to the car in daylight and in full view of residents in neighboring houses and people at the pub across the road. There was evidence that some time before Leanne's disappearance, she'd cut her foot in the house and had gone outside, dropping blood as she went. Additionally, it was claimed that stafford opportunity to carry out the crime was limited, and there were reported sightings of him on the Monday afternoon Leanne went missing. The prosecution called four witnesses who testified seeing Leanne in the early morning on the day of her disappearance. The defense called five witnesses who said they saw Leanne in the late morning through to the late afternoon and evening. Stafford maintained that on the day of Leanne's disappearance, she went to the shops around nine thirty am, having discussed dyeing her hair with both Stafford and her father, Terry. He stated that was the last time he saw her alive, as Leanne never returned to the house. Here's how jury foreman Blewey remember Stafford's demeanor during the trial. 00:27:52 Speaker 4: He was so cool. He was really cool. And I was thinking it's black Jerrigan because he was so cool. But I've since learned that it was mate, tell the truth. The truth were free, and that's what he was told by a solicitor. Tell the truth and you will be right. 00:28:15 Speaker 2: But in the court, not knowing him or not not knowing much about him, he struck he as. 00:28:21 Speaker 4: Arrogant, arrogant because he wasn't upset, he wasn't showing emotion. He was just answering. 00:28:27 Speaker 16: Questions that to say, well, I'm telling the truth. I'm telling the truth, and yeah, I just thought it was something wrong. He's so cool. I didn't, I guess. 00:28:40 Speaker 5: But on the inside Stafford was in turmoil. 00:28:43 Speaker 3: I mean, I know, obviously my family were trying to do everything they could for me. It wasn't it was like a I guess, just a surreal period where I didn't really think about anybody else other than family, you know, how they were coping, and how Moisfer and Terry were like. You know, it was like a vacuum where no one else really penetrated. 00:29:13 Speaker 5: The jury retired to consider its verdict at two point fifty nine pm on March the twenty fifth, nineteen ninety two. At five point fifty seven pm, after less than three hours of deliberation, it returned its verdict. Here's what jury foreman Bluey had to say to Michael Usher when it came. 00:29:34 Speaker 2: Time to decide Stafford's guilty innocence. What was the mood in the jury? 00:29:43 Speaker 4: Well, by that time, I think I think the case took about ten days. I think from memory, I just forget exactly now, but I think by the end of the ten days, everybody was leaning towards the guilty verdict and we didn't have to discuss a great deal. There was one juror who was a bit unsure, wanted out of one or two things, but it was only a minor doubt. But everybody was like, I think we only deliberated for about four hours, less than three hours, in fact, three hours there yah hmm. 00:30:27 Speaker 2: Well, I was going to ask you that. In fact, I mean it took you all less than three hours to decide that Stafford was guilty. 00:30:33 Speaker 4: So before we went to the jury room, everybody, because you talk at smoker, you talk before, you talk after, you talk at lunch as a jury, which we're allowed to do. 00:30:45 Speaker 16: And I think you're. 00:30:47 Speaker 4: All just sort of slowly came to the saying that this evidence they've got, there's nothing against this evidence which comes back to that apprentice solicit or whatever. 00:31:04 Speaker 11: He was. 00:31:06 Speaker 2: Fair to say that there wasn't a lot of doubt in the jury at all, tame time to make the decision. Stafford was guilty of missing the end. 00:31:14 Speaker 4: Yes, I was quite satisfied with that, with the decision, and the old red hair would have taken over. If I thought were getting enrolled, I would have said. 00:31:27 Speaker 2: Something, because you were the jury foreman. 00:31:29 Speaker 11: Yes. 00:31:30 Speaker 16: I queried the judge on a number of things. 00:31:34 Speaker 4: Throughout the trial, and not just things I didn't understand or something was said and I didn't quite pick up on it, and I excuse me, And each time he addressed the problem, explained it, and like we were on. 00:31:53 Speaker 2: The wall, you were far from a passive jury. Your last questions technical questions. 00:31:59 Speaker 4: Not so much tech nickel, but just clarification of a statement type thing, you know, just so we understood it. And I was doing I did that a couple of times. One of the other jury players had to go. He questioned the judge about something once and yeah, it's just sort of by the time we got to the jury of the end of us pretty well all over. 00:32:24 Speaker 16: You know. 00:32:26 Speaker 5: Graham Stafford was convicted of Leanne Holland's murder. There was only one sentence, mandatory life imprisonment. 00:32:44 Speaker 16: Well, I didn't look at him. 00:32:46 Speaker 5: Here's Bluey again. 00:32:48 Speaker 4: I thought I was supposed to look at the judge, and I believe I'm supposed to look at the judge when. 00:32:54 Speaker 16: I'm talking to him, And yeah, I just said guilty. And then then I look. 00:33:00 Speaker 4: Towards Grahamey's head was down and I could hear his mother crying and all that sort of stuff. 00:33:07 Speaker 16: I just couldn't wait to get deadly. 00:33:25 Speaker 5: The following is from a court transcript. Soon after the verdict was handed down, the Crown had just submitted that Stafford should never be released. Prosecutor David Bullock said it was a child murder of the most terrible kind and that Leanne, who had everything to live for, had her life taken from her in the most brutal way. She was treated abominably, cruelly and with indignity in relation to some of the injuries inflicted on her body. He said, Leanne's murder was a sort of crime which outraged the community and was of the utmost evil. Defense Barrister Charles Clark told the court Stafford had no prior convictions and a loving family who stood by him. This was Justice Derrington's response. 00:34:25 Speaker 17: In respect of the application by the Crown for a recommendation that the accused man never be released. I declined to make such a recommendation. I am not sufficiently convinced of the circumstances of the matter to justify a recommendation of such a serious nature. I take into account in that respect his blameless past. 00:34:45 Speaker 5: He then went on to say, mister. 00:34:47 Speaker 17: Stafford, you have been convicted of one of the most heinous of crimes in the criminal calendar. There is only one possible sentence, and I sentence you to imprisonment for life. The punishment you will now suffer is one which must horrify you, because it is indeed a horrifying future for you. I only hope that it will be a deterrent to others against crimes of violence, and particularly of serious violence. There is too much violence in the community already, and people can be protected only by the sentences imposed by the court. I warn people disposed of violence that your terrible fate will fall upon them also if they offend in this way. 00:35:34 Speaker 5: While an appeal against the medic conviction was subsequently lodged, Stafford's life was about to become even more bleak. In prison, childkillers are deemed the lowest of the low. They're reviled by inmates. Stafford's life was at risk from those around him, but also himself. In the meantime, outside, the lives of Leanne's family and friends were falling apart. 00:36:20 Speaker 1: Next time my little girl lost fair to say you were a barked man. 00:36:26 Speaker 3: They came in and cleaned me up. After that knocked me out. The dog screw that was with me when I went to the hospital said, oh, at least we know what size shoes they were wearing, because I had footprints on my back. 00:36:42 Speaker 2: No twelve year old deserve what happened. 00:36:47 Speaker 3: Murder of children is is the lowest of the Loan and for me to have been accused of that that alone connected. It's just something that scars me for life. 00:37:03 Speaker 2: They'd probably give Terrier a slow, faithful death. Her youngest kids be murdered. How could you possibly be the same. 00:37:15 Speaker 1: This podcast series is produced by Paula Donovan, Laura Dimmick and Sally Eels. Sound designed by Mark Wright, some madeterviews by Michael Asher and the team from seven's Murder Uncovered Executive producer Mark Llewellen, voice over by Rex Clark and Paula Donovan. Music touched by Matia Cappelli at Mathia Cappelli dot Wheebley dot com. The Little Girl Lost The Unsolved Murder of Leanne Holland is a production of seven News Brisbane.