Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants. It was absolute shambles, to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth, just absolutely really cold in blood
Speaker 1: on his clothing the day after the alleged a top
Speaker 1: on a shallow mud bank and if fits through a river.
Speaker 2: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 2: me are good people.
Speaker 3: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 3: you how many Indigenous prisoners in area inhan.
Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull 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. I'm
Speaker 1: Amy Maguire.
Speaker 4: And I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign
Speaker 4: Prisoner Support Service. Our producer is Paul Watts. Music by
Speaker 4: Clint Curtis and produced in collaboration with the Brisbane Indigenous
Speaker 4: Media Association. And a warning that this series contains the
Speaker 4: names of deceased peoples and has distressing content might upset
Speaker 4: some listeners.
Speaker 1: Recently, I visited Rockhampton for a weekend. It was Sunday
Speaker 1: when I decided to go down to the Fitzroy River,
Speaker 1: which runs through the center of the town. Cutting the
Speaker 1: north and the south. It was midday, hot and dry,
Speaker 1: and it was high tide as I went down to
Speaker 1: the north side of the river, the side opposite to
Speaker 1: Nuba House. On this side of the river there's a
Speaker 1: racecourse and up further are soccer fields, usually used for
Speaker 1: junior soccer when the season starts. That day, though it
Speaker 1: was quiet up further there were a couple of fishermen
Speaker 1: and another family who were getting out their rods. There
Speaker 1: were a number of brakes in the grass where you
Speaker 1: could put up a chair and throw in a light,
Speaker 1: but I stopped at one area, a more popular area,
Speaker 1: the area closest to the racecourse. There's a dirt track
Speaker 1: leading to a ramp which usually you can see going
Speaker 1: into the water when it's low tide. If you stand
Speaker 1: at the top of this time act ramp, you can
Speaker 1: turn and see the racecourse, and then on the other
Speaker 1: side you can see Tanuba House clearly see its gates
Speaker 1: now barricading the bottom area where the party would have
Speaker 1: been in nine to ninety one. On this Sunday, the
Speaker 1: water was so high that it was lapping at the banks,
Speaker 1: and as I approached the water, I had an uneasy
Speaker 1: feeling that something was watching me. Maybe it was just
Speaker 1: me being stupid, feeling that there was something there that
Speaker 1: needed to be found. But I kept walking to the edge.
Speaker 1: As I stood on the banks, a mere one foot
Speaker 1: from the water, there was a slow movement that caught
Speaker 1: my eye. Was it a school of fish? I thought?
Speaker 1: As I studied my gaze, and then my unies built
Speaker 1: because there I saw it, only a short distance from me,
Speaker 1: close enough to take a bite, was a crocodile. I
Speaker 1: could see its rocky back skimming the surface. It turned
Speaker 1: and began swimming away. I jumped and ran back to
Speaker 1: the car, where I immediately rang Mardin. Mardin, you would
Speaker 1: not believe what I just saw. I'm down at the
Speaker 1: Fitzroy River at the moment.
Speaker 4: What's going on?
Speaker 1: I just I was standing there on the corner, just
Speaker 1: like where the water it's high tied right now, so
Speaker 1: the water was just up the really high, and there's
Speaker 1: a stinking crocodile started swimming away from me. But it
Speaker 1: was that close to me. I couldn't believe it. A
Speaker 1: just freaked me out.
Speaker 4: I didn't even know there were crocs in that river.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's the crocs like Dad were saying that
Speaker 1: they actually, because it's a racecourse really close, they used
Speaker 1: to take the horses swimming, and the crocs used to
Speaker 1: attack the horses as heats. The crocodile you see them
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 4: Well, that makes things interesting because I'd never considered that
Speaker 4: there were crocs in the river there, because one thing
Speaker 4: we know is that there was marine life discussed in
Speaker 4: the trial. If I'd known there were crocs, that would
Speaker 4: have changed the way I was looking at things and
Speaker 4: reading about it, because I just assumed it was probably
Speaker 4: fish they were talking about.
Speaker 1: Nah, No, it's well known. We see croc sidings all
Speaker 1: the time. I should have told you. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: even thought that.
Speaker 4: You know, well, no, I didn't even think to consider.
Speaker 1: It, Hey, Martin, I got to go. Sorry.
Speaker 4: Later it brought forth a new possibility. If this river
Speaker 4: was full of crocodiles and other marine life, would that
Speaker 4: have come up in Linda's autopsy? Would there have been
Speaker 4: interference with her body? Linda would have been bleeding when
Speaker 4: she was put into the water that night on August
Speaker 4: thirty first, nineteen ninety one. She had severe injuries to
Speaker 4: her head and other parts of her body. If she'd
Speaker 4: been put in around ten pm at the time police
Speaker 4: believed she was put in. Was it possible that she'd
Speaker 4: escaped other marine life like crocodiles by eight am the
Speaker 4: next morning when she was found. Was a possibility worth
Speaker 4: following up, So we called a local Rockhampton crocodile expert.
Speaker 1: John leve is the owner of Karana Crocodile Farm just
Speaker 1: outside of Rockamden and has decades of experience with crocodiles.
Speaker 1: He's been in Rockhamden since nineteen eighty. Yeah, So I'm
Speaker 1: just I was actually down at the Fitzroy River the
Speaker 1: other week and I saw a croc in the river,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we're doing this murder case and basically she
Speaker 1: was put in the river at a certain time. So
Speaker 1: I was just it brought you know, I just started
Speaker 1: thinking about questions about crocod.
Speaker 2: I caught one last night two point seven meters Oh true?
Speaker 1: Was it near the racecourse or because I saw it?
Speaker 2: Now now I was above the barage, Oh, above the barage, Okay,
Speaker 2: in the fresh water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. Because you actually came to Rocky in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: didn't you, So you've known a bit about Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know about croc habits. For a very long time, over
Speaker 1: a long period of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been working with them since nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, how would you describe Is there a lot
Speaker 1: of crocs in the fitzthrough revolt? How would you describe
Speaker 1: the numbers?
Speaker 5: Not a lot, But they've always been there.
Speaker 2: It's the southernmost extent of the saltwater crocodiles range in Australia,
Speaker 2: so you wouldn't expect there to be a huge population
Speaker 2: like you get in the wet tropics. It's quite different.
Speaker 2: So it's a meager population, but they always have been there.
Speaker 1: They're more likely to come out around nighttime or be
Speaker 1: more active during the nighttime.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're quite nocturnal in their behavior. Most of their
Speaker 2: feeding is done at night and their water edge feeders,
Speaker 2: so being on the water's edge after dark is a
Speaker 2: dangerous place to be.
Speaker 1: Are they more likely to be alongside like a muddy bank,
Speaker 1: I guess the muddy side of the river, or it's
Speaker 1: pretty much anywhere they can.
Speaker 2: Go anywhere anywhey.
Speaker 1: Okay, what would their prime feeding hours be if you.
Speaker 2: Wait for dusk and then add about another three hours,
Speaker 2: that's sort of if you can imagine us waking up
Speaker 2: at daybreak and then becoming active a couple of hours later,
Speaker 2: and then going through a day's work. Well, that's basically
Speaker 2: what the crocodile does in reverse. When it gets dark,
Speaker 2: he starts to feel secure, and he starts to venture
Speaker 2: out from wherever he's been hiding during the daylight hours
Speaker 2: and will then start to roam around, you know, after
Speaker 2: that time. And quite often when you go out surveying crocodiles,
Speaker 2: if you go just after dark, you don't see many.
Speaker 2: If you do the same stretch of river at one
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning, you find quite a lot. Right,
Speaker 2: And this is simply because of the crocodile's behavior and
Speaker 2: there their activity patterns.
Speaker 1: If you like, I'm just wondering this is sort of
Speaker 1: a morbid question, but would you expect if there was
Speaker 1: a body in a water and it was bleeding, would
Speaker 1: they be attracted to that body?
Speaker 3: Would you expect it could be there the blood itself.
Speaker 2: I mean, they've got very good sense of smell, but
Speaker 2: not necessarily in the water. They'd have to have direct
Speaker 2: contact with that in the water. But ten percent of
Speaker 2: their brain is devoted to their sense of smell.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you get this.
Speaker 5: Uh. An animal that might be roaming around.
Speaker 2: A river and there's something that may the smell of
Speaker 2: another animal further upstream downstream, and they'll swim around till
Speaker 2: they find it and then eventually get their feed.
Speaker 1: That way you're doing about CROs being quite opportunistic.
Speaker 5: Hunters, well they are.
Speaker 2: I mean even if a crocodile. The one thing about
Speaker 2: crocs is they are hardwired to react, and they react
Speaker 2: particularly to vibrations. So if a crocodile has just had
Speaker 2: a big meal and it's just lying underwater relaxing and
Speaker 2: there's a vibration in the water beside it, it can't
Speaker 2: help itself. It's got to react towards that vibration. Now,
Speaker 2: this is similar to me flicking my hand, knee your face.
Speaker 2: You will blink. It is an uncontrollable reaction, and it's.
Speaker 5: The same with crocodile.
Speaker 2: So someone or something jumping in the water or landing
Speaker 2: in the water and you're a crocodile, the crocodile is
Speaker 2: hardwired to react to that source of the vibration. So
Speaker 2: it's not only seeking out foods. Sometimes their opportunistic feeders.
Speaker 2: In as much as I'll give you a classic example
Speaker 2: when you're out at night spotlighting and you shine the
Speaker 2: spotlight across the top of the water. Quite often the
Speaker 2: mullet jump up into the light and if they land.
Speaker 5: Near a crocodile, the crocodile.
Speaker 2: Reacts immediately and grabs hold of the mullet. And you know,
Speaker 2: so that is not an opportunistic feeding, but it's a
Speaker 2: total reactive thing which crocodiles will do because there's a
Speaker 2: vibration in the water alongside it.
Speaker 1: Ok. Yeah, because I can imagine it. Also, if there's
Speaker 1: something like a body that's been in a waterway all
Speaker 1: nine and it's just going up and down with the tide,
Speaker 1: obviously there would have likely been crocodiles in it at
Speaker 1: that point in time, because it was around nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: But if it's just going up and down, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very likely that it would have come into contact
Speaker 1: with a crocodile.
Speaker 5: Loved one.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety one, the police actually employed me to
Speaker 2: go out.
Speaker 5: In the garden while they were doing the diving.
Speaker 2: That for that body.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well they never found the body, I don't think today.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they did. So it was a nine ninety
Speaker 1: one around August September and they found her on the side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think they would have had to go in anyway.
Speaker 6: But the thing we found that they did, they did
Speaker 6: a lot of diving out there with them for I
Speaker 6: think two or three days while they died around the
Speaker 6: area where they thought it was a bit suspicious.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're actually doing a long term investigation. And I
Speaker 1: was just interested because they didn't find any marine damage
Speaker 1: to her body and she'd been in overnight. So I
Speaker 1: just thought, well, that's very strange to me. You know,
Speaker 1: I would have thought at least fish had gone into her,
Speaker 1: at least crocodiles.
Speaker 2: You know, well crabs in particular, the real scavengers, you know,
Speaker 2: they they're quite predatory on dead meat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now this raised questions. First of all, the autopsy found
Speaker 4: no sign that Linda's body had been interfered with by
Speaker 4: marine life, not even or crabs. That seems strange to me,
Speaker 4: given the timeline of when she was supposed to have
Speaker 4: been put in the river. How was she in the
Speaker 4: water from ten pm the night before until eight am
Speaker 4: the next morning without her body being interfered with by crocodiles, fish,
Speaker 4: or even crabs.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that her body was put in at
Speaker 1: a later time. Do we need to narrow that window?
Speaker 1: And if her body was put in the river at
Speaker 1: a later time, not at ten pm, would there have
Speaker 1: been a window of opportunity for Kevin to even do that.
Speaker 4: Now, last week we gave you a few details about
Speaker 4: the forensics in this case. We told you that this
Speaker 4: week you'd be hearing from an international expert who is
Speaker 4: looking into the forensic evidence presented at trial. But unfortunately
Speaker 4: that analysis is not yet ready. And the reason is this.
Speaker 4: Already our expert has found the forensics in the case
Speaker 4: were far too simplistic, both in the testimony of the
Speaker 4: forensic experts at Trophile and also in the reports they
Speaker 4: gave to the police. This forensic evidence could potentially be
Speaker 4: very important and so as vital.
Speaker 5: We don't rush it.
Speaker 1: But my brush with the crocodile raised some interesting questions
Speaker 1: for us to pursue in the meantime. How much time
Speaker 1: did Kevin have on the night of August thirty first
Speaker 1: to put Linda in the river? Did he have any
Speaker 1: time at all? And if he didn't put Linda in
Speaker 1: the water, the obvious question is who did.
Speaker 4: Now again, we must transport you back to the events
Speaker 4: of August thirty first, nineteen ninety one, the night of
Speaker 4: Linda's assault and death. We've told you the grim details
Speaker 4: of the assault on Linda. Now we're going to tell
Speaker 4: you what we know about what happened after that assault.
Speaker 4: We're going to cry and piece together a timeline of
Speaker 4: what happened afterwards.
Speaker 1: Madam. We talked in the last episode about the assault.
Speaker 1: What time did the assault end?
Speaker 3: We can't be exactly sure. We have to remember that
Speaker 3: everyone there that night was fairly heavily intoxicated, but we
Speaker 3: do know that it was dark or getting dark. We
Speaker 3: know the football game had ended, which had started about
Speaker 3: three pm. So from the best estimate from all the
Speaker 3: witness statements and also the estimates that are given at
Speaker 3: the trial, we think it was around seven pm to
Speaker 3: eight pm?
Speaker 1: And what happened? Did they leave her there? Do we
Speaker 1: have a good sense of when they left Tanuba or
Speaker 1: what happened after the assault.
Speaker 3: So what we know is that everyone who was there,
Speaker 3: apart from two individuals, left Tanuba. Now they didn't all
Speaker 3: leave at exactly the same time, but we're talking within
Speaker 3: a matter of minutes. Some made a point of walking
Speaker 3: around the side of Tanuba House so that they didn't
Speaker 3: have to walk past where Linda's body was. Others simply
Speaker 3: walked straight past the footpath right where Linda was lying.
Speaker 3: And they were all heading in one direction, and that
Speaker 3: was to the Crown Hotel.
Speaker 1: And the Crown Hotel at the time was a popular
Speaker 1: drinking place I guess for a lot of Aboriginal people.
Speaker 1: And it's not that far from Tanuba. Is that it
Speaker 1: only takes a few minutes walk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's a couple of minutes walk. We know
Speaker 3: that although there was plenty of places in Rockhampton for
Speaker 3: people to buy alcohol, that the Crown Hotel was the
Speaker 3: place most frequented by Aboriginal people. And it's certainly the
Speaker 3: place where everyone from Tanuba regularly went, either to drink
Speaker 3: or more often to just buy alcohol.
Speaker 1: Talked about everyone leaving at different times, I guess, and
Speaker 1: only two staying. Was Kevin one of those two who
Speaker 1: stayed behind.
Speaker 3: No, Kevin went to the Crown with everyone else. Now,
Speaker 3: there is one witness who says that Kevin didn't go
Speaker 3: to the Crown and that he stayed behind. But this witness,
Speaker 3: when she first appeared on the stand, claimed to have
Speaker 3: been sober all of the Saturday and all of the Sunday.
Speaker 3: She also made claims in her statement that couldn't be
Speaker 3: backed up by any forensic evidence. Now she would backpedal
Speaker 3: on all of those claims, including about Kevin, and she
Speaker 3: would admit that she was in fact heavily intoxicated on
Speaker 3: the stand. So this is someone who lied under oath,
Speaker 3: who was intoxicated on both the Saturday when Linda was
Speaker 3: assaulted and on the Sunday the following day. Who is
Speaker 3: the individual who says Kevin stayed behind. But this is
Speaker 3: a person who then admits that most of what she
Speaker 3: said on the stand is being made up and that
Speaker 3: she can't in fact remember what went on. So it's
Speaker 3: fair to say from that we need to include what
Speaker 3: she said to give everyone a full account of what
Speaker 3: witnesses say. But other than this particular witness who did
Speaker 3: admit to eying on the stand, we know that Kevin
Speaker 3: was with everybody else.
Speaker 1: So I mean, the obvious question is when did he
Speaker 1: get time if the police version of events is true,
Speaker 1: when did he get time to do what he was
Speaker 1: supposed to have done to Linda?
Speaker 3: Yes, so what we know is that the primary reason
Speaker 3: for going to the Crown was to buy alcohol. It
Speaker 3: wasn't to go there and drink. Now, some of the
Speaker 3: witnesses say they were there for less than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: In fact, one witness says they were only there for
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes. What they all agree on is
Speaker 3: that everyone chipped in and Susan Aubrey paid for the alcohol,
Speaker 3: and it appears that was a case or two of
Speaker 3: beer and at least one flagon. Then people left and
Speaker 3: some went in other directions, but most headed back to Tanuba.
Speaker 3: So we have a very small timeframe in which anybody,
Speaker 3: including Kevin, could have interfered with Winder's body. It's as
Speaker 3: short as perhaps ten minutes or even less. It could
Speaker 3: be up to half an hour. But given that most
Speaker 3: people say Kevin was at the Crown, it's hard to
Speaker 3: find a time when he could have had any opportunity
Speaker 3: to be alone with Linda's body.
Speaker 1: Especially as you were saying it was obviously such a
Speaker 1: transient place. Did any of the two people who stayed
Speaker 1: at Tanubah that night, who were there the whole night,
Speaker 1: never left. Did they say anything about whether Kevin was
Speaker 1: still there at any point?
Speaker 3: No, So they say that they didn't see Kevin Henry
Speaker 3: next to Linda's body, nor moving Linda's body, and they
Speaker 3: were there the whole day, they'd been there the night before,
Speaker 3: and they were still there the following day.
Speaker 1: So when you consider that the fact that he would
Speaker 1: have had between fifteen thirty minutes maybe at the most
Speaker 1: to put her body in the water, would that have
Speaker 1: correlated with what the police believe her body being put
Speaker 1: in around ten o'clock at at night. Given what we
Speaker 1: know of when the assault finished and when everyone left
Speaker 1: to go to the.
Speaker 3: Crown, it doesn't match up at all. And this is
Speaker 3: a large problem in the trial that the police, although
Speaker 3: they hint at a time they believe the body was
Speaker 3: put in and that Kevin did what they allege, they
Speaker 3: don't give any exact time. But if we even take
Speaker 3: their rough estimate, that means that everyone had to stay
Speaker 3: at the Crown for at least two hours, so from
Speaker 3: between seven and eight until after ten pm, and not
Speaker 3: a single witness ever claims they were at the Crown
Speaker 3: Hotel for anywhere near that length of time. We know
Speaker 3: also that there are other people who just simply never
Speaker 3: left left Tanuba. So it's very flimsy what the police
Speaker 3: offer up in terms of the opportunity for Kevin to
Speaker 3: have had any chance at all to interfere with Linda's body,
Speaker 3: move her body, let alone have time to put it
Speaker 3: in the river.
Speaker 1: Originally, Kevin says in his statement that he can back
Speaker 1: down from Tanuba and the body was already gone. I mean,
Speaker 1: is that something from other witness statements? Does anyone notice
Speaker 1: when the body first goes missing, given that she had
Speaker 1: just been left at Tanuba when everyone left.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So one thing again that a lot of the witnesses
Speaker 3: agree on, in fact all of them, is that when
Speaker 3: they returned from the Crown, Linda's body was gone. So
Speaker 3: they say that it was a very short period of
Speaker 3: time that they were gone. When they came back, that
Speaker 3: Linda's body had been moved and was nowhere to be found. So,
Speaker 3: given that Kevin was with people during this period of time,
Speaker 3: and then from then on is with up to twenty
Speaker 3: other people for the rest of the night, most of
Speaker 3: whom including Kevin, we believe went to sleep, there's no
Speaker 3: clear window of where Kevin could have committed the crime
Speaker 3: time that he's alleged to have committed and been found
Speaker 3: guilty of committing well.
Speaker 1: I mean, given the fact he had no modern news clothes,
Speaker 1: that would have had to be around high time, which
Speaker 1: was not around ten o'clock at night, that's right.
Speaker 3: So this is something we can use to pin down
Speaker 3: the timing of when the body was put into the water. Now,
Speaker 3: the police are going to claim and did claim that
Speaker 3: that was done around ten pm and that was about
Speaker 3: three hours before the tide reached high. Now, given in
Speaker 3: the Fitzroy River, the tides are very large at high
Speaker 3: tide and very small low tide. On the Tanuba House side,
Speaker 3: that means a large area of mud is exposed and
Speaker 3: only covered at high tide. So the police would claim
Speaker 3: that whoever had to put the body in the water
Speaker 3: would have needed to go through that mud that was
Speaker 3: exposed because it was not high tide. In fact, the
Speaker 3: police officer who attempted to recreate that ended up with
Speaker 3: mud all over his clothes, all up his pants, his
Speaker 3: boots covered in mud. Kevin did not have one speck
Speaker 3: of mud on his clothes and they're the same clothes
Speaker 3: he was wearing that night. So the police timing simply
Speaker 3: doesn't match up with the accusation that Kevin put the
Speaker 3: body in the water at ten pm. If he did
Speaker 3: do it at that time. Firstly, he couldn't have been
Speaker 3: at the Crown, where we know most people say he was,
Speaker 3: except for one witness who later admits to lying on
Speaker 3: the stand. And two he would have been covered in mud.
Speaker 3: Again that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: What are we up against in relation to trying to
Speaker 1: pin down a time. Obviously there are quite a lot
Speaker 1: of barriers. I you know, witnesses couldn't remember, or the
Speaker 1: trial happened the next year. I mean, what sort of
Speaker 1: problems do we face when we try to establish a
Speaker 1: certain time or when things might have happened that night.
Speaker 3: So we're left with a number of issues. One is
Speaker 3: that we don't have a markup for a time where
Speaker 3: the assault ends and when everyone returns to the Crown Hotel.
Speaker 3: Our main market for that day is the football game,
Speaker 3: and so everyone can agree at what time that started,
Speaker 3: and the witnesses basically get that right. But as they
Speaker 3: drink throughout the football game the assault occurs. We're left
Speaker 3: with a lot of people not really sure of what
Speaker 3: time it was when certain events took place. They had
Speaker 3: no time of reference, no point of reference for them
Speaker 3: to remember it from, so it's very difficult to establish
Speaker 3: a time.
Speaker 5: The problem though, that really.
Speaker 3: Comes for the police is that the exact time doesn't
Speaker 3: actually matter. What they need to find is a period
Speaker 3: of time where Kevin was alone for considerable enough time
Speaker 3: for him to commit all the acts that they allege,
Speaker 3: and whether that time was at eight pm or ten
Speaker 3: pm or sometime in between, he simply wasn't alone for
Speaker 3: long enough, so the exact time becomes slightly irrelevant. We
Speaker 3: know at all of this point between eight and ten
Speaker 3: that the tide was out and he would have had
Speaker 3: to have walked through the mud. We know that didn't
Speaker 3: take place. We know he would have had to have
Speaker 3: been alone to get the body of the considerable distance
Speaker 3: down towards the water via Root Valley and then get
Speaker 3: it into the water. He wasn't alone at any point
Speaker 3: long enough. And to me, that seems to be why
Speaker 3: the police never really tender evidence in terms of an
Speaker 3: opportunity a time when he was alone long enough, because
Speaker 3: they couldn't establish that either.
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes me think if there were people
Speaker 1: whonging around to new but someone must have seen something.
Speaker 1: There must have been something coming up in just another
Speaker 1: witness statement. Given so many people gave witness statements, it
Speaker 1: just makes me wonder why if he had done it,
Speaker 1: if he had some sort of opportunity, someone would have
Speaker 1: seen him. Surely with that limited time available.
Speaker 3: Well, we know many of the witnesses who gave statements
Speaker 3: didn't appear at trial. Now, from the prosecutor's point of view,
Speaker 3: if one of those witnesses had in fact seen Kevin
Speaker 3: and Kevin close to Linda's body or moving Linder's body,
Speaker 3: surely that witness would have been called. But I think
Speaker 3: it's fair to assume that those statements that were given
Speaker 3: are in line with the others of those who were
Speaker 3: there who did appear on the stand, who all say
Speaker 3: they didn't see Kevin at Linda's body nor moving her body.
Speaker 3: So if someone did see it, they either didn't speak
Speaker 3: to police or what they saw was not Kevin Henry
Speaker 3: moving Linda's body at all. It could have been someone else,
Speaker 3: perhaps it was them, But no one who appears at
Speaker 3: trial gives the evidence that Kevin moved Linda's body.
Speaker 1: Where were other people? We know that there were three
Speaker 1: women who actually perpetuated the assault on Linda. We know
Speaker 1: that there are other people. The police failed to investigate.
Speaker 1: Where were other people at that time? Can we establish
Speaker 1: whether they were at the Crown or whether they might
Speaker 1: have stayed behind it at Tanubo.
Speaker 3: We know some of those individuals, including the three women
Speaker 3: who committed the assault, went to the Crown. We know
Speaker 3: that Susan Aubrey brought the alcohol. What we don't know
Speaker 3: is the location of a number of men in particular,
Speaker 3: who are mentioned by a few witnesses at least to
Speaker 3: have been regulars at Tanuba and whose whereabouts can't be
Speaker 3: accounted for at the time when the body may have
Speaker 3: been moved. They were never brought to the trial as
Speaker 3: witnesses and as far as we know, if they were
Speaker 3: questioned by police, their statements were never tended as evidence.
Speaker 1: Now, Martin, you mentioned before that there are a number
Speaker 1: of people who weren't accounted for. Did these people have alibis?
Speaker 3: Well, we know there was a number of people that
Speaker 3: were at the Crown at certain times, who had been
Speaker 3: at Tanuba at certain times that day, and nobody gives
Speaker 3: evidence that they were part of the group that went
Speaker 3: to the Crown and returned shortly after. So these are
Speaker 3: people who can't be accounted for.
Speaker 5: At that time.
Speaker 3: And they include duck Hart, who he mentioned in episode
Speaker 3: two he'd had sex with Linda earlier that day, and
Speaker 3: some would claim to have seen him later on at Tanuba.
Speaker 3: So here's one individual who doesn't have an alibi and
Speaker 3: who is whereabout scenes at least far less sure than
Speaker 3: that of Kevin Henry.
Speaker 1: But are there other people as well?
Speaker 3: There's many others now they're primarily men. One includes the
Speaker 3: man who is alleged to have confessed to his lawyer,
Speaker 3: and that lawyer took the information to the police. He
Speaker 3: can't be provided with an alibi. There's also a man
Speaker 3: named Willie West. He was known to frequent Tanuba and
Speaker 3: he has no alibi for that period of time either.
Speaker 3: Now we don't know if the police took a statement
Speaker 3: from him investigated his involvement. What we do know is
Speaker 3: that as soon as they had taken the statement from
Speaker 3: Kevin and stopped investigating, all these individuals who can't be
Speaker 3: accounted for were never followed up on. They were never
Speaker 3: questioned by police from that day on. They were never
Speaker 3: treated as suspects. Nobody was even asked questions about them.
Speaker 1: Mindin, this is a new name we're bringing up Willy West.
Speaker 1: How does his name come up in the trial?
Speaker 3: Okay, so his name was mentioned quite a few times
Speaker 3: during the trial, but firstly by Lyle Barnes, who was
Speaker 3: one of the first witnesses on the stand. He'd been
Speaker 3: at Tanuba, he'd gone up to the Crown, and he'd
Speaker 3: returned to Tanuba to sleep, and this is what he
Speaker 3: says on the stand. Are you aware that Willy West
Speaker 3: was a friend of duck Heart. Yeah, they were drinking
Speaker 3: in the pub together. Did you see Willy West in
Speaker 3: the company of Amy Saunders or Margie at any time
Speaker 3: on that Sunday, sorry, on the Saturday or the Saturday night.
Speaker 3: They was with me, Lionel, Lisha duck Hart, and Willie West.
Speaker 3: So this is four individuals Barnes, Lisha Hart, and Willie West, who,
Speaker 3: although we're at Tanuba, who although were at the Crown
Speaker 3: at some point, and who did return to Tanuba, were
Speaker 3: never asked if they'd interfered with Winter's body, never asked
Speaker 3: if they had our abies, and never investigated.
Speaker 1: Now, judging just from that really time frame, it seems
Speaker 1: strange or it seems unlikely that Kevin would have even
Speaker 1: had time to dump a body. Is it possible that
Speaker 1: someone else had done that at a different time.
Speaker 3: That's certainly a possibility. A because we know that there
Speaker 3: is quite a number of individuals who can't be accounted
Speaker 3: for their movements are simply unknown, at least to police.
Speaker 3: We also know that while the body had been moved,
Speaker 3: it may not have been put in the river until
Speaker 3: much later on in the night. In fact, it's more
Speaker 3: likely that the body was placed in the river at
Speaker 3: high tide. This would have allowed anyone who put the
Speaker 3: body in the river to have done so without getting
Speaker 3: in the mud. Now, by this time, Kevin Henry is
Speaker 3: asleep and this is well accounted for. So if the
Speaker 3: body is placed in the river later on in the night,
Speaker 3: it simply can't be Kevin. He was with up to
Speaker 3: twenty people under Tanuba House and he was fast asleep.
Speaker 3: But the other individuals, some who have named, some who
Speaker 3: we haven't, could have quite easily transported the body or
Speaker 3: moved the body. Now, in the first episode, we talked
Speaker 3: about a parallel line. That line ran on the north
Speaker 3: side of the river, the racecourse side of the river.
Speaker 3: And while police would claim that Kevin placed the body
Speaker 3: in the water on the Tanuba House side, the slim
Speaker 3: opportunity he had to do so would have required he
Speaker 3: waded through the mud if the body had been placed
Speaker 3: on the racecourse side, which would have meant it would
Speaker 3: have followed that parallel line straight to where Linda's body
Speaker 3: was found the following day. The body could have been
Speaker 3: dumped right near where you saw that crocodile, and that
Speaker 3: wouldn't require anyone to have got mud on their clothes
Speaker 3: or on their body. They could have simply driven a
Speaker 3: car straight to the edge of the water and placed
Speaker 3: the body in the water. That also would have reduced
Speaker 3: the time period for marine life including crocodiles, crabs, and
Speaker 3: fish to have interfered with the body, which we know
Speaker 3: Linda's body was not interfered with by marine life, and
Speaker 3: would have meant that her body was placed well after
Speaker 3: crocodile feeding time had commenced. Where the police are claiming
Speaker 3: that not only did Kevin wade through mud that was
Speaker 3: never on his clothes at prime crocodile feeding time, but
Speaker 3: that's when he placed the body in the water. Now,
Speaker 3: perhaps it did or didn't raise the suspicion of crocodiles
Speaker 3: in the area, but the body would then have had
Speaker 3: to have been in the river for a considerable period
Speaker 3: of time and no marine wife to have interfered with
Speaker 3: the body, and Kevin would have had to have mud
Speaker 3: all over his body and clothes, both of which we
Speaker 3: know not to be true.
Speaker 1: So, just getting back to the start of this podcast,
Speaker 1: I mentioned I was down on the racecourse side of
Speaker 1: the river on a Sunday at midday when the high
Speaker 1: tide was lapping the shores of the river bank. But
Speaker 1: what was I doing down there that day, risking crocodiles.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd sent Amy down to the side of the
Speaker 3: river and the reason I'd asked her to go was because,
Speaker 3: based on that parallel line, based on the forensics of
Speaker 3: the tidal movements, the pathology, and the placement of Linda's body,
Speaker 3: that's where I believe was most likely where Winda's body
Speaker 3: had been placed in the river.
Speaker 1: Now, just to give you a little bit of atmosphere,
Speaker 1: that day, at a high tide, I could have driven
Speaker 1: my car straight to the water's edge. The water was
Speaker 1: that high there was no chance of me getting dirty
Speaker 1: at all. I could have done this without getting dirty
Speaker 1: at all or getting any mud on my shoes or clothes.
Speaker 3: Now that's important because although the police had instantly decided
Speaker 3: the body had been placed on the Tanuba house side,
Speaker 3: that meant they needed someone with mud on their clothes,
Speaker 3: and of course they just couldn't find it, particularly not
Speaker 3: on Kevin. But what if the body had been placed
Speaker 3: where Amy was standing. Therefore, the person who placed the
Speaker 3: body in the water wouldn't have had mud on their clothes.
Speaker 3: And we know if they'd done it later in the night,
Speaker 3: not at ten where Kevin, not at ten pm, not
Speaker 3: at ten pm, because later on, from then on, Kevin
Speaker 3: can be accounted for. So when Amy was standing beside
Speaker 3: the river on the racecourse side opposite to Nuba, this
Speaker 3: replicates the same tidal conditions that would occur just after
Speaker 3: everyone else had gone to sleep, including Kevin Henry. This
Speaker 3: meant those who didn't have an alibi finally had an
Speaker 3: opportunity to place the body in the water, to place
Speaker 3: it somewhere the tide was high, where they didn't have
Speaker 3: to get into the water, where they could drive a
Speaker 3: car right to the river's bank, and from this point
Speaker 3: where the body would make that parallel line and be
Speaker 3: found exactly where it was discovered the following day.
Speaker 1: So it's possible someone else placed the body in the river.
Speaker 3: Based on the timeline, the forensics, the witness statement, and
Speaker 3: even the evidence gathered by police. I'm saying not only
Speaker 3: is it possible someone else dumped the body in the river,
Speaker 3: but that it's more likely it was somebody else than
Speaker 3: Kevin Henry, and it's far more likely that it was
Speaker 3: done on the racecourse side than on the Tanuba House
Speaker 3: side of the river where Kevin Henry was.
Speaker 1: And not only that, also at a different time, a
Speaker 1: time when we know Kevin Henry or Curtain was fast
Speaker 1: asleep under Tanuba House. That was episode seven of Curtain
Speaker 1: for Now. You can catch up on iTunes by typing
Speaker 1: in Curtain the Podcast, or go to our website www
Speaker 1: dot Curtin Thepodcast dot com.
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