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Thread: The Bowraville Kids - 90's Unsolved Serial Murders of 3 Aboriginal Kids, Nth Coast, NSW, Australia (Protests held 2013)

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    The Bowraville Kids - 90's Unsolved Serial Murders of 3 Aboriginal Kids, Nth Coast, NSW, Australia (Protests held 2013)

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-2...urders/4653032

    Greens seek inquiry into Bowraville murders

    Posted Fri Apr 26, 2013 11:46am AEST

    Greens MP David Shoebridge said the NSW double-jeopardy laws have failed the families of three Aboriginal children murdered over 20 years ago.

    The bodies of 16 year old Clinton Speedy-Duroux and 4 year Evelyn Greenup were found near the Bowraville Mission in the early 1990s.

    The body of 16 year old Colleen Walker has never been found.

    Mr Shoebridge said a man has been tried and acquitted of two murders but the families still don't have justice.

    "People need to hear their stories and how the double jeopardy laws have failed them," he said.

    "Next week, on Tuesday I will read onto the record a motion calling for a parliamentary inquiry.

    "To put it before what's called the Law and Justice Committee of the NSW Parliament to review the double jeopardy law.

    "In particular to look at how it's failed the community in Bowraville and these families."

    Mr Shoebridge said a parliamentary inquiry is needed to review the double jeopardy laws.

    "If this case doesn't meet the threshold for a fresh trial for double jeopardy well then we should be looking at the way the double jeopardy laws are operating," he said.

    "Because this is community that has found fresh evidence, there were clear failures in the initial police prosecution.

    "If ever there's a case for the double jeopardy laws to work you would think it was this.

    "If it hasn't worked in this instance, we should review the way the double jeopardy laws operate."



    Anyone interested in reading a detailed history, try this link -

    http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2...m-knox/mission
    Last edited by blighted star; 07-16-2013 at 10:34 PM.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    https://www.facebook.com/Justicefort...ocation=stream


    http://m.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/n...harges/651905/
    Evelyn Greenup, 4yrs



    Clinton Speedie-Duroux, 16 yrs

    Colleen Walker 16 yrs



    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/victims-fa...112-1nctm.html

    THE Deputy Premier, Andrew Stoner, will be presented with a petition for Parliament that accuses the justice system of racism in relation to the murder of three Aboriginal children.

    Colleen Walker, 16, disappeared from Bowraville in 1990. Her body has never been found, and family and friends searching for her grave recently found bones. Police say they are not human.

    Soon after Colleen disappeared, two other Aboriginal children, Clinton Speedy, also 16, and four-year-old Evelyn Greenup, were murdered. No one has been convicted.

    The petition is being circulated in indigenous communities throughout NSW. In it, the victims' families state: ''It is abundantly clear to us that if it was three white children from an affluent suburb in Sydney who were murdered there would be a totally different response from the judicial system.''



    indigenous witnesses in criminal trials''.

    This refers to pre-trial warnings given to juries that, in the case of indigenous witnesses, characteristics such as hesitancy and indirectness ought not to be as readily assumed to be signs of lying or evasion as they might be with non-indigenous witnesses.

    A spokesman for Mr Stoner told The Sun-Herald: ''Mr Stoner has worked with the local community on this issue for a number of years and he was successful in getting the case reviewed by the former government. Like all members of the local community, Mr Stoner would welcome any resolution to this matter.''
    Last edited by blighted star; 07-16-2013 at 10:19 PM.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Link to downloadable petition to request a Royal Commission

    http://www.jumbunna.uts.edu.au/resea...epetition.html



    We are the family of Colleen Walker-Craig, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux, the three Aboriginal children who were murdered in Bowraville, NSW 22 years ago.

    In June 2011, a submission was sent to the NSW Attorney-General requesting that he exercise his power under Section 115 of the Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001 to submit an application to the Court of Criminal Appeal for the retrial of the person acquitted of the murders of Evelyn and Clinton and an Ex-Officio Indictment for the murder of Colleen.

    Late Friday 8 February 2013, a representative of the family received the advice from Mr Andrew Stoner that the NSW Attorney-General has formed the view that there is not enough fresh and compelling evidence to proceed with these cases. This decision went against the views of the Strikeforce investigating the murder, a leading barrister, Legal experts from one of the biggest law firms in Australia, a leading Professor of Law and her expert team and the state coroner. For 15 years the matter has been investigated by a very experienced homicide detective.

    All of the expert opinions we have obtained clearly shows if all three cases were tried together there would be a reasonable chance of conviction. The Attorney-General ignored all of this advice when he refused to make an application to retry the murderer of our children.

    We are disheartened that after twenty months of consideration, we have been served with another disappointing conclusion. Despite our frustration in the absence of justice, we will not give up fighting for our three murdered innocent children. Ever since our children were murdered, there have been significant time delays, lack of consultation and concern in relation to the way the original investigation was handled.

    We are calling on the NSW Government to grant us a Royal Commission including the original police investigation, the committals, the inquests, the two failed trials and the subsequent total lack of concern shown to the families by the NSW Government.

    We ask you to support us by signing the attached Petition. Please take the time to read the attached information if you require further information.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    http://m.themorningbulletin.com.au/n...s-raw/1749650/

    Bowraville - the pain of three lost children remains raw

    Greg White | 10th February 2013 12:19 PM

    DETECTIVE Inspector Gary Jubelin wore a tired, sad expression as he fronted a media scrum on the pavement running along Goulburn Street in Surry Hills on Saturday afternoon.

    The NSW Police Homicide Squad's highest profile criminal investigator of recent times had earlier in the day requested attendance outside Sydney Police Centre at 2.30pm.

    DI Jubelin quietly announced he was making a statement following a decision by NSW Attorney General Greg Smith that there would be no re-trial of a man acquitted over murders which occurred in Bowraville in 1990 and 1991.

    Few expected they'd be hearing the man who has relentlessly pursued justice since 1997 to say he'd finally come to accept the murders were likely to remain unsolved.

    "The reality of it is, and I don't like to offer false hope to families, this is the end of the road," Jubelin said bluntly.

    "I told the families this application is the last effort we can make.

    "Now in saying that, homicides are never closed.

    "But the reality is there are no further lines of investigation to follow up."

    And with that, the dogged police officer who has lived and breathed the case for almost 16 years, turned and walked away.

    In 2007, then NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma took a personal interest in the case and gazetted a $250,000 reward for information on the murders which remains in force.

    The reward is offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the deaths of children Evelyn Greenup, Clinton Speedy-Duroux and Colleen Walker.

    The loss of the children within the space of five months during the early 1990s was devastating for the tight-knit Bowraville and wider Macksville-Nambucca Heads community.

    Colleen Walker, 16, disappeared on September 13, 1990, and her weighted-down clothing was later found in the Nambucca River.

    Although her body was never found, she is presumed dead.

    Evelyn Greenup, aged 4, is believed to have been murdered on October 4, 1990.

    Her remains were found in bushland in April, 1991.

    Clinton Speedy-Duroux, 16, was murdered on February 1, 1991.

    His remains were found in bushland a few weeks later.

    After an investigation led by Detective Inspector Jubelin, a man was charged.

    He twice went to trial but was acquitted each time.

    The case has been the subject of hearings, inquests, a Four Corners report and an Australian Story feature.

    The original police investigation and trial transcripts are now used to teach undergraduates in law and trainee detectives.

    Numerous scholarly articles have been written about the investigation and many people at the heart of the case openly express serious disquiet.

    Surviving family members and their supporters are now preparing to lobby governments for a Royal Commission.

    And while (at least for the moment) Gary Jubelin is resigned to ending the investigation, his closing words from Australian Story on ABC-TV, probably best illustrate the man's true feelings and those of the wider Bowraville community.

    He said: "Certainly at this stage, at this point in time, with the murder of these three children no-one has been called into account.

    "So I'd have to say, no, justice hasn't been done.

    "But what I can say and I think this is, if any comfort the community can take and the relatives can take, they know that people are in there really trying for them and trying to bring justice to the matter.

    "No, we won't give up.

    "You can't give up.

    "It's not an option - three kids have been murdered.

    "We've given an undertaking to the community.

    "We can't give up on this.

    "I sit here very comfortably sending a message out to the person that's murdered these people that we will do everything in our power, and I'm talking the whole of the New South Wales Police, to bring to justice the person that murdered three children.

    "The pain's still very raw in that community.

    "I think it would be extremely positive if it was resolved.

    "I think it would bring closure and the community could move on."

    Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

    All information will be treated confidentially.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    The Background to the 2013 Protests

    "From a detective's point of view, it doesn't sit well with me that three children living in the same street can be murdered and no one has been brought to justice,"


    Friday 08 June 2012 When 16-year-old Colleen Walker went missing from Bowraville, a country town in northern New South Wales, police told her family she had probably "gone walkabout". They said the same when Colleen's cousin, four-year-old Evelyn Greenup, disappeared three weeks later. Then a third Aboriginal child, Clinton Speedy, 16, vanished – and a fortnight later the bodies began turning up in bushland. That was in 1991, and 21 years later the families of Colleen, Evelyn and Clinton – who lived in the same street – are still waiting for justice. They have endured two police investigations, two trials, an inquest and numerous appeals to prosecutors and politicians. Now, finally, they have a glint of hope that the man they are convinced carried out the murders may be brought to account.

    Jay Hart was a white labourer who – unusually in a town notorious for its racial divisions – hung around Bowraville's Aboriginal housing estate. According to witness testimony at a 2004 inquest, he supplied alcohol and drugs for parties and made sexual advances to young women and girls, including Colleen. He had a history of violence, the inquest heard, including towards one of his former partners. When each of the three children disappeared, Mr Hart was on the scene. Now 46, he has always denied involvement. He was acquitted of murdering Clinton in 1994. At the 2004 inquest, the coroner recommended that he stand trial for killing Evelyn, and he was acquitted of that murder in 2006. He was not charged with Colleen's murder. Her body was never found, although her clothes were discovered in a river.

    Some families would have given up after the acquittals. But not the families of Colleen, Evelyn and Clinton. They campaigned for the state's double jeopardy laws, which prevented a suspect being tried twice for the same offence, to be overturned – and succeeded. They then lobbied the Director of Public Prosecutions and the former Attorney General to reopen the case – unsuccessfully, despite the police claiming to have found "new and compelling evidence" against Mr Hart. Now they have asked the new Attorney-General, Greg Smith, to refer the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal, which could order a retrial. "We don't want to get our hopes up too high after all this time," Clinton's sister-in-law, Leonie Duroux, said yesterday. "But it's all we've got to pin our hopes on." Despite the passage of time, the families remain bitter about the mishandling of the original investigation, which may have led to evidence being missed and key witnesses not coming forward. They are bitter, too, about the length of time the case has dragged on –and they believe that, in contrast to other child murders, it has received little attention because the victims were black.

    Bowraville, nestling in verdant hills near the coast, has always been racially fraught. Just a few decades ago, Aboriginal people could not get served in caf?s and they had to enter the cinema via a side door. And as recently as 1990 the pubs were still segregated. Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin, who led a second investigation and uncovered new evidence, said: "The families often ask me whether this matter would have been handled differently if the children were white, and it's a question I find very difficult to answer. Certainly they have every right to feel they've been let down by the criminal justice system." Had it not been for Mr Jubelin's diligence and commitment – he took on the case in 1997 and is still involved 15 years on – it is unlikely it would have got this far. What drives him is what drove him from the start. "From a detective's point of view, it doesn't sit well with me that three children living in the same street can be murdered and no one has been brought to justice," he said.

    On the night Colleen Walker disappeared in September 1990, she had rebuffed advances by Mr Hart, the 2004 inquest heard. He was later seen following her home. Evelyn Greenup vanished from a house where Mr Hart had attended a party. Clinton Speedy went missing in February 1991 after going to Mr Hart's caravan with his girlfriend. His body, and Evelyn's, were found in bushland outside town, a couple of miles apart. Frustratingly, for the families and for police, no jury has yet heard evidence about all three murders. They hope that will happen if a retrial takes place. "It's very important to look at all three cases together because of the very strong links and similarities," said Oscar Schub, senior partner with a Sydney law firm assisting the families. Mr Jubelin is reluctant to criticise the initial investigation, but says it may have been hampered by "communication difficulties" between police and the Aboriginal community. One key witness, for instance, did not come forward until the inquest in 2004. "He had significant information, and when he was asked why he didn't provide it back then, he said 'I'm a blackfella and I drink, why would anyone believe me?'"

    Two years later, when Mr Hart stood trial for Evelyn's murder, Mr Jubelin realised that Aboriginal witnesses were at a disadvantage because of cultural factors. As well as being intimidated by the court setting, they avoided eye contact and were prone to long silences – habits common among Aboriginal people, but which could be misinterpreted as evasiveness. Although more than two decades have elapsed, few Australians know much about the Bowraville case – unlike, for instance, that of the Beaumont children, Jane, Arnna and Grant, who disappeared from an Adelaide beach in 1966 and have never been found. One police source said: "If they [the Bowraville children] had been three white kids from an affluent Sydney suburb, I'm sure more pressure would have been brought to bear to speed things up and make sure everything was done properly. But for whatever reason it didn't grab the attention of the community, and so it sort of slipped under the radar."

    Ms Duroux, who is the widow of Clinton's late elder brother, Marbuck, said: "We feel terribly let down by the justice system, and have felt at times like we're banging our heads against a brick wall and that the government doesn't care, otherwise there would have been a result years ago. "We just want to see justice done and get some closure for the families, but also for the kids – they were innocent – and that they didn't die in vain."

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...w-7827904.html

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Tens of thousands march for Irish murder victim, Jill Meagher 2012


    March for the Evelyn Greenup, Clinton Speedie-Duroux & Colleen Walker, 2013


    Shit. Just made myself cry.

    Last edited by blighted star; 07-16-2013 at 11:14 PM.

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    Jay Thomas Hart - new name, new town, but still living under a shadow
    JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 08, 2013 12:00AM



    A NORTH coast community organisation is standing behind one of its employees after it was revealed he was living under a new name after twice being acquitted of murder.

    Jay Thomas Hart, 45, had passed all the criminal checks required for his job with young people, a spokeswoman for the community centre said.

    Hart, who was acquitted in 1994 and in 2006 of the murders of two young Aboriginal neighbours in the north coast community of Bowraville, was tracked down this week to his new job and the new home in the Newcastle area where he has been living under his new identity.

    He was living in Bowraville when the two young people - Clinton Speedy-Duroux, 16, and Evelyn Greenup, 4 - went missing in 1990 and 1991.

    No one was charged following the disappearance and suspected murder of another neighbour, Colleen Walker, 16, about the same time. Hart has always denied any involvement in any of the three cases.
    Last edited by blighted star; 07-16-2013 at 11:24 PM.

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    Senior Member kevansvault's Avatar
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    What a tragic story. And very sad that racism is obviously alive and well in Oz...or was, for all those years. It makes me wonder about people who have jobs that serve the public..do they all have such deep seeded hostilities toward others who are different? And if they do, why? And why should it change the way you do your fucking job? The answer, of course..for those of us who aren't racist, sexist or in other ways prejudiced, is to treat everyone the same...regardless of who they are or where they're from.

    I'd wager an assload of money that, if those kids were white...the entire country town would have been turned upside down multiple times until clues and the perp were found. And that's just fucking sad. Just like the case of JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado, when it's cute little white kids that go missing or die...the world stops to pay attention. Everyone else? Yeah, not so much as a newspaper clipping..to say nothing of any TV time. Disgusting.

    It hurts my heart that someone did this to those kids. No matter your racial or ethnic makeup, children are children. They look to us to show them all that is good in the world and we owe it to them to do just that. How sad is it that, in death, the community showed them how cruel and uncaring it could be by not doing everything possible to find their killer(s). But that's just me.
    Don't like what I have to say? I respect that. Go fuck yourself.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    It's fucked isn't it. I remember the first one, I was 19 or 20 & it just never occurred to me that this wouldn't get the same response as the Backpacker Murders, Evelyn was only 4 ! I just assumed they were keeping quiet for investigative reasons. I should point out that the families of the white kids that revolting Derek Percy is accused of murdering have had a similar experience BUT those murders occurred in the 60's when forensics weren't what they were in 1990. These families should've been able to expect the same level of investigation, care & respect that the families of Milat's victims were getting at the same time - most of whom weren't even Australian (& I don't mean at all that the overseas families should've had less, but Evelyn, Clinton & Colleen should've had so much more).

    If it happened today, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be walking round free -not with the copper who's running the case now. But like a certain other case, double jeopardy laws seem to be working against justice. We have another infamous child murderer who got off when he shouldn't have after a jury trial & has allegedlly since confessed to the crime multiple times. No-one can do a damn thing about it

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jaidyn_Leskie
    (this case was HUGE & hit the media recently, 'spose I should make a thread if there isn't one already ..)

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    Senior Member TessD's Avatar
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    Thanks for all the information on the tragic murder of these three kids, Blighted Star. It's hard to believe that this happened in the 1990's and the killer went free! I looked at Google map of Bowraville and when I zoomed in on Gumbayngirr Road, I could see the stone memorials for these three kids in the park. Very sad!

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    http://tracker.org.au/2013/08/nsw-ag...ville-murders/

    NSW AG Knocks Back Royal Commission into Bowraville murders

    BY AMY MCQUIRE, AUGUST 9, 2013

    NEW SOUTH WALES: The NSW Attorney General Greg Smith has come under fire from the families of three Aboriginal children, murdered on Bowraville mission in the early 90s, after he refused to support a Royal Commission into the case, stating it would not lead to a conviction.



    It is the latest disappointment in the case that has strangled the victims’ families and the community of Bowraville, on NSW’s mid north coast.

    Between 1990-1991, 16-year-old Colleen Walker-Craig, 16-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux and four-year-old Evelyn Greenup all disappeared within a five month period from the same street on Bowraville mission.

    Whilst the bodies of Clinton and Evelyn were found in close proximity to each other, Colleen is still missing. Her clothes were fished out of the nearby Nambucca River, where they had been weighted down with rocks.

    There has only ever been one alleged perpetrator targeted over the crimes, but due to failings in the original police investigation, he has never been convicted, and has only stood trial for Clinton and Evelyn’s murders.

    The families have always maintained the three murders should have been linked in one trial because of the similarities and circumstances between them.

    In 1993, a Supreme Court judge had ruled against linking the murders of Clinton and Evelyn – which meant key evidence was omitted from both trials.

    The families have been on a two decade long fight to get the man before a judge again.

    After he was acquitted of Evelyn’s murder in 2006,they succeeded in having the state’s double jeopardy laws overturned in order to reopen the trial, a potential world-first.

    But both the former state Attorney General John Hatzistergos and current Attorney General Greg Smith knocked back calls to reopen the trial after being approached with “fresh and compelling” evidence.

    Mr Smith claimed the evidence presented very little chance of conviction. In response, the families began petitioning him to launch a Royal Commission as one of the few avenues left for any semblance of justice.

    Earlier this year they took part in a protest outside NSW Parliament House in Macquarie St, shutting down traffic along the busy motorway and calling on Mr Smith to help bring some sort of healing to their communities.

    But representatives of Clinton and Evelyn’s families met with Mr Smith in April and were disappointed at his response, where he mistakenly referred to the alleged perpetrator as Thomas – the name of Clinton’s father.

    At the meeting, Mr Smith said he would not consider a Royal Commission because it would not lead to a conviction. According to Leonie Duroux – Clinton’s sister-in-law – he also asked family members if they had undergone grief counseling, and then mentioned that they would probably need more.

    “It was patronising,” Ms Duroux told Tracker.

    That meeting was followed up with a recent letter to Ms Duruox, stating that Mr Smith had re-considered a Royal Commission and again ruled it out because it would not lead to a conviction.

    Ms Duroux told Tracker she replied to the letter, stating that Mr Smith had missed the point.

    She said that it was about accountability.

    The police officers involved in the original flawed investigation have never been held to account, and neither has the man accused of the crimes.

    “I replied to him and said with all due respect, you’ve missed the point,” Ms Duroux told Tracker.

    “We understand that a Royal Commission won’t secure a conviction… we appreciate the legal consideration has been extensive but it doesn’t address the issues we raised at the meeting.

    “…. Besides (Greens MLA) David Shoebridge, no one is willing to put their political agenda aside and put their hand up and take responsibility.”

    “… I asked in my email to Mr Smith that if he won’t do it, if he is not willing to open a Royal Commission and it isn’t a recommended avenue, please advise us what he’s going to provide us.”

    Ms Duroux says she has also written to the Human Rights Commission and the Police Integrity Commission.

    The PIC has said it has made representations to the Attorney General but they couldn’t go any further.

    Ms Duroux has also written to NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione but as yet has not received a response.

    “It really does feel like the doors are closing. But we’ll find the doors that are still open,” she said.

    Ms Duroux says it feels as if Mr Smith is just telling the families to move on, when there are no other avenues to move on.

    Colleen Craig-Walker’s mother Muriel Craig told Tracker she was glad she hadn’t attended the meeting with Mr Smith and said she felt “spared” from his words.

    She says she had hoped the Attorney General would understand and that he would have sympathy for their plight.

    “It’s alright for him to say (move on), but that can’t happen with us. We’re still stuck in one place. I haven’t been able to sleep. I overthink and I stress at night. “He isn’t to going through what we’ve been going through,” Ms Craig told Tracker.


    Ms Craig’s main focus is finding her daughter.

    “I really want to know what happened to Colleen and where she is. I don’t care who did it or whether they are going to jail. Hate is not going to solve anything. We just want to find her.”

    Evelyn Greenup’s mother Rebecca Stadhams told Tracker that she still has nightmares.

    “I look at (Evelyn’s) photos.. I think about her. She would have been 27 years old.

    “We can’t move on. We’ve got to keep fighting. Sometimes you get tired. You do feel like you want to give up you know.

    “Then you kind of look at (the kids’) faces and the pictures and you know you can’t give up. It’s wrong for us to give up.

    “We’re still fighting for Evelyn.”

    Ms Duroux is currently circulating a paper petition calling for a Royal Commission to State Parliament. It needs 10,000 signatures in order for it be raised for debate in Parliament.

    Ms Duroux says she went to NAIDOC Day at Musgrave Park in Brisbane, and was shocked that out of 80 people she petitioned, only two knew about the Bowraville murders.



    She says the families will continue fighting for justice.

    “We don’t want someone to say ‘I’m sorry’. We want accountability. We want those police officers (in the original investigation) to answer questions. Sorry doesn’t cut it.

    “Why has it taken 22 years?”

    This is the text of the petition. If you would like a paper copy to circulate, please contact amy.mcquire@alc.org.au The petition of certain citizens of NSW notes that:

    • Twenty two years ago over a five month period three Aboriginal Children: Colleen Walker-Craig, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux were murdered in the small town of Bowraville on the mid north cost of NSW. • To date no person has been convicted of these crimes. • The police investigation of these murders was characterised by flawed communication, crucial evidence was missed, crime scenes were not properly followed up. • Although attempts have been made to bring charges in these matters, as yet there has not been a trial where all three murders were considered together. • On 8 February 2013 the Attorney General Greg Smith advised that he would not exercise his power under Section 115 of the Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001 to allow an application to be filed in the Court of Criminal Appeal seeking a re-trial. Your petitioners request that the House: • Support a Royal Commission into the handling of the investigation, failed prosecutions and the manner in which applications to have the matters referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal were assessed and rejected. • Consider whether the Double Jeopardy changes introduced in 2007 are having an intended effect.
    Last edited by blighted star; 08-10-2013 at 08:51 PM.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    There's a Change.org petition to get justice fr these kids - please share it guys

    http://www.change.org/petitions/the-...e-murders#sign

    The NSW Government: To grant a Royal Commission into the Bowraville Murders



    SIGNATURES 2,586

    PETITIONING Mr Greg Smith, NSW Attorney-General and Mr Barry O'Farrell, Premier NSW

    STARTED BY

    Leonie Duroux

    Overview



    Twenty two years ago over a five month period three Aboriginal Children: Colleen Walker-Craig, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux were murdered in the small town of Bowraville on the mid north coast of New South Wales. To date no person has been convicted of these crimes. The police investigation of these murders was characterised by flawed communication, crucial evidence was missed, crime scenes were not properly identified, witnesses were poorly interviewed and legitimate lines of inquiry were not properly followed up.

    Although attempts have been made to bring charges in these matters, as yet there has not been a trial where all three murders were considered together. On 8 February 2013, the NSW Attorney-General Mr Greg Smith advised that he would not exercise his power under Section 115 of the Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001 to allow an application to be filed in the Court of Criminal Appeal seeking a re-trial with all three cases together. We are asking that the NSW Government support a Royal Commission into the handling of the investigation, failed prosecutions and the manner in which applications to have the matters referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal were assessed and rejected.

    Letter

    With regards to the unsolved murders of Colleen Walker-Craig, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux, we are asking that the NSW Government support a Royal Commission into the handling of the investigation, failed prosecutions and the manner in which applications to have the matters referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal were assessed and rejected. Sincerely, [Your name]

    Click this link to sign & share -
    http://www.change.org/petitions/the-...e-murders#sign

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    This was written a few months back, but they're still fighting this now & one of the comments made in this article really drives it home. She refers to the high-profile child abduction case of Daniel Morcombe & she's so, so right -

    Victims' families won't let inquiry rejection stop them

    Jessica Grewal | 26th April 2013 4:08 PM




    THE families of three children murdered at Bowraville have vowed to continue their fight for justice as the NSW Greens prepare to reignite a parliamentary debate over the legislation that failed them.

    NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith this week rejected calls for a royal commission and/or parliamentary inquiry into the unsolved deaths of Evelyn Greenup, Colleen Walker and Clinton Speedy-Duroux.

    The news was delivered to devastated family members at private meeting at Parliament House.

    Leonie Duroux, Clinton's sister-in-law, said the family was told it was time to "let it go, leave the past behind and seek grief counselling".

    She said Mr Smith told them he had reviewed the case and did not believe there was any evidence of corruption in the police investigation or fresh information that could lead to a conviction.

    While Mr Smith and every senior police officer she has encountered in the past 22 years has insisted the investigation was not racially biased, Ms Duroux questions why the names of the three Bowraville children had never received the same recognition as other high profile child killings.

    She said authorities "would never have told Daniel Morcombe's parents to give up and move on" and her family could not be expected to give up their fight."We are devastated, disgusted...lost," she said.

    "If it had been three white kids and the suspect was a black man, we wouldn't be having this debate today".

    Despite being bitterly disappointed at the Attorney-General's decision, Ms Duroux hasn't given up hope and will eagerly await the result of a motion being tabled in NSW Parliament next week.

    Greens MLC David Shoebridge accepts Mr Smith is bound by legislation but believes no amount of bureaucratic red tape can change the fact that, somewhere in NSW, a killer, whether it be the main suspect or someone else, has gotten away with the murder of three children.

    He said on Friday the Bowraville tragedy had shed light on much bigger issue and will use it as an example when he calls for an Upper House inquiry into the double jeopardy legislation.

    If the motion does not receive the support of his colleagues, Mr Shoebridge believes forcing a debate on the issue will be a step in the right direction.

    The motion will be tabled on Tuesday.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    They won their the right to a Parliamentary Inquiry. It starts tomorrow.

    The copper handling the case is a brave, brave man. He's already had to deliver a report & was scathing of the actions of senior police during the original investigation. He said if the case was tried today he has no doubt they would get a conviction - meanwhile this triple murderer of children has worked with kids for decades because he's never been convicted of a crime against children


    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-3...s&topic=latest

    Parliamentary Inquiry into Bowraville murders sits in Nambucca this week

    Posted 9 hours 25 minutes ago

    A parliamentary inquiry into what police and the families are calling, the 'serial killings' of three children at a Mid North Coast Aboriginal Mission in the early 1990s will start hearings in Nambucca tomorrow, Thursday May 1, 2014.

    In early 1991 the bodies of 16 year old Clinton Speedy-Duroux and 4 year old Evelyn Greenup were found near the Bowraville Mission.

    16 year old Colleen Walker went missing from the Mission some months earlier and her body has never been found.

    The families of the three children believe a single killer was active in the community at the time.

    Leonie Duroux is the representative of Clinton's family and said the inquiry will be told of the impact the murders have had on them and the community

    "I've always said I'm not a community spokesperson for Bowraville but I can speak for my family," she said.

    "It's been tragic.

    "My kids are 16 and 18 and I've got step-children now 6 and 8.

    "They're taking on this role of grieving for their uncle and fighting for justice for someone that they never even met.

    "It's had a big impact on the family and I don't think it's ever going to go away unless there's some justice."

    Ms Duroux said the families hope the inquiry will help bring them justice.

    "I think it's 23 years for Clinton this year, 24 for the girls so it's a long time," she said.

    "Everyone seems to be, excited is probably not the right word but we're really looking forward to making the most of this chance that we've never ever had before.

    "Where the family members can get up and tell their story and they can put all three cases together as a big picture."
    Last edited by blighted star; 04-30-2014 at 02:54 AM.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    This is seriously long but I'm pasting all of it because indepth detail of this case has been hard to find these last 2 decades & articles sometimes seem to be irretrievably archived.

    This was written for the Australian Women's Weekly magazine late last year. There's a damn good reason the writer assumes her readers have never heard of this case - mostly, they haven't.


    http://www.aww.com.au/news-features/...till-grieving/

    The murder of three children in Bowraville is a crime that has gone unsolved for more than 20 years, Caroline Overington investigates why.

    Three Australian children go missing from the same small town and nobody is ever held responsible for their deaths. Reading that, you’re probably thinking, "Yes, I remember – that was the Beaumont children."

    Yet, no, this story isn’t about the Beaumont children. It’s about three quite different children, who went missing from the town of Bowraville on the NSW North Coast in the early 1990s.

    Unlike the Beaumont children, these three children – Colleen Walker, 16, Clinton Speedy-Duroux, also 16, and Evelyn Greenup, four – did not disappear without a trace. The bodies of two of them –Clinton and Evelyn – have been found, as have Colleen’s clothes, bagged and weighed down with rocks and the bones of a dog in the Nambucca River, so there is little doubt that she, too, is dead.

    The families – and some police – believe the children were victims of the same serial killer. That’s something that would normally fire the public’s imagination, but despite the media’s best efforts to whip up interest, it hasn’t happened in this case. It’s worth asking why. It could be because we’ve all watched a few too many crime shows. We expect the victims of serial killers to have some features in common (Ivan Milat liked to kill backpackers, Jack the Ripper went after prostitutes and so on). The three victims from Bowraville don’t fit into a neat box: one was a 16-year-old girl; one was a 16-year-old boy who looks in some photographs more like a man, with his stocky good looks, his moustache and his job in the local tannery; and one was a four-year-old child.

    What holds them together? All went missing from the same town of just 900 people, in the same five-month period between September 1990 and February 1991. All were known to each other. The two bodies and Colleen’s clothes were all found in roughly the same area, either along a dirt road that leads down to the Nambucca River, or in that part of the river itself.

    Also, all three victims were Aboriginal.

    As a nation, we want to believe that race plays no role in matters of justice, but the data suggests otherwise. Aboriginal people are more likely to be arrested, less likely to get parole, more likely to be sent to prison and more likely to die there. No doubt, there are people who think that’s because of the way they behave, drinking and fighting all the time, but there’s a flipside. This crime, in which Aboriginal children are the victims, has gone unsolved for more than 20 years and there has been nothing like the effort, or the resources, that has gone into trying to find the Beaumont children, or indeed into tracking other serial killers.

    Could it be that we don’t really care – or don’t care as much – about this case because the kids were black? Or that we feel more comfortable about turning a blind eye because of the way the families lived? Or, as Colleen Walker’s devastated mother, Muriel Craig, puts it, "I ask myself, would we still be sitting here if this were three white kids? And I know what the answer is."

    ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽

    Colleen Walker was just 16 years old when she arrived in Bowraville from her home in nearby Sawtell in September 1990. Bowraville was then a relatively small community of 150 Aboriginal people and about 750 white people, and the two groups didn’t really mix.

    On one of her first days in town, Colleen attended a party under a big, old tree. There was plenty of alcohol and Colleen got very drunk. She didn’t leave the gathering until after midnight. She was supposed to meet two friends at the local railway station so they could catch the 3am train out of town. When she didn’t turn up, they left without her.

    This was before mobile telephones. There was a bit of a culture in Bowraville of letting teenagers do their own thing. Drugs and alcohol were part of the mix. Colleen’s mum didn’t find out for two days that Colleen hadn’t caught the train. When she went to tell police that her daughter was missing, they asked her whether it was possible that Colleen had just "gone walkabout". They didn’t really search for her at all.

    On October 3, there was another party in Bowraville, not under the big tree this time, but in a house. One of the guests was Rebecca Stadhams. She was a young mum, with three children under the age of five. She got very drunk at that party. Halfway through the night, she dragged her kids, including four-year-old Evelyn, down to their father’s house to see if he could take care of them, but Billy Greenup was dead drunk, too, so she took them back to her mother’s house, where the party had been raging. Now it was dying down. Rebecca’s mum, Patricia, had shooed everyone way, saying it was time for the kids and everyone else to get to bed.

    Rebecca took the kids inside and all piled into one bedroom to sleep. When Rebecca woke up the next day, Evelyn was gone. Rebecca didn’t immediately raise the alarm, telling police that she assumed that Evelyn had simply toddled off down the road to visit her dad, but when she caught up with him at the RSL later that day, Evelyn wasn’t with him.

    Again, it was at least two days before a police search was mounted and it was somewhat cursory. The feeling among some police was that Rebecca had been drunk, so how could she know what had happened to the child? Child protection officers were sent in, to see whether anyone in the family could explain what had gone on.

    Four months later, Clinton disappeared.

    Like Colleen, he was only 16, yet he was partying pretty hard on the night of January 31, 1991, which was the last time anyone saw him alive. The difference this time was that Clinton’s body was found, not by police, who weren’t really looking, but by two men out searching for firewood in scrubby woods off the dirt track that ran down to the Nambucca River.

    Clinton had a head wound and a pillowslip was found stuffed into his pants.

    This was clearly a homicide. Police began to trace Clinton’s last movements. They knew that he’d been at a party with his Aboriginal girlfriend, Kelly Jarrett, the night before he’d disappeared. One of the other guests at that party was a 25-year-old white man, Jay Hart, who lived in a caravan on Bowraville’s outskirts. Hart is now middle-aged, married, with a couple of kids and a beer gut.

    He uses a different name. In those days, he was a fat, young bloke with a job at the local tannery, skinning hides. Unlike other white folk, he didn’t mind hanging around the "Aboriginal" part of town, also called "the Mish" after the old Aboriginal mission. He often supplied the alcohol. He got drunk that night and invited Clinton and Kelly back to his caravan to continue drinking. Kelly told police that when she woke up the next day – still in the caravan – she felt groggy, like she’d been drugged. Her underpants had been removed. She couldn’t find Clinton, only his shoes.

    Jay Hart wasn’t there, either. He had been seen driving around town at around 5am. He would later tell police that he had decided to drive to work, despite having organised to get a lift with another tannery worker. Then he came home to have a cup of tea, which is why he’d been spotted returning to the caravan, just before his lift arrived.

    Police heard him out, but didn’t believe him: the pillowslip found stuffed into Clinton’s pants was from Jay Hart’s caravan. They decided to charge him with Clinton’s murder. Their theory was that he’d drugged Kelly so he could rape her. When Clinton woke up and tried to stop him, he’d hit him on the head, taken his body out in his car, dumped it and driven back to his caravan, all before dawn.

    Jay Hart protested his innocence. He was awaiting trial when a fisherman snagged his line on Colleen Walker’s jeans in the Nambucca River. A search team went into the water and turned up two more bags of clothes. Eight days later, the remains of Evelyn’s body were also found. She had a head wound, too.

    It was around this time that the theory that Jay Hart might be involved in all three murders began to form. Witnesses came forward to say that he’d been at the party with Rebecca on the night that she had become drunk and dragged her kids around to their dad’s. Rebecca’s mother, Patricia, remembered seeing Jay Hart hanging around, peeking in the windows after she’d tried to shoo everyone away. One of Evelyn’s "aunties" (not a real aunt, but a close female relative) said she had seen Jay Hart coming out of the bedroom where Rebecca and the kids eventually lay down to sleep. Patricia remembered hearing Evelyn crying and then a thump, then Evelyn falling silent. Rebecca told police she had felt groggy, like she’d been drugged, when she woke up – and her underpants had been removed.

    Then people remembered that Jay Hart had been at the party with Colleen Walker on the night she disappeared as well. Witnesses said he had pestered her and maybe even followed her when she left.
    Last edited by blighted star; 04-30-2014 at 03:24 AM.

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    A theory began to form. Jay Hart wasn’t a serial killer in the ordinary sense. He was a sexual predator. He was killing people who got in the way of rape. Police were on board. Having already charged Jay Hart with Clinton’s murder, they now charged him with Evelyn’s murder. All the evidence was circumstantial – nobody had seen Jay Hart kill anyone and he couldn’t actually be placed at the scene of any crime – which is why the families of the dead, including Colleen’s mum, wanted the evidence from all three cases to be heard together, but that kind of thing is hardly ever allowed; in all but the most exceptional circumstances, a case must be run on its own merit.

    Jay Hart went to trial for the murder of Clinton Speedy-Duroux in February 1993. Three years to the day after Clinton’s body was found, Hart was acquitted. Without the so-called "tendency" or "coincidence" evidence from the other cases, the jury simply didn’t buy it.

    The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions subsequently "no-billed" or dropped the case against Jay Hart for Evelyn’s murder.

    That wasn’t the end of the matter. The families complained that police had botched the investigation. They wanted somebody to have another look. Years went by, during which much painstaking work was done. A strike force was formed, first under the management of Detective Inspector Rod Lynch, who worked on the Ivan Milat backpacker killings and later under senior homicide detective, Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin, who has worked this case for 15 years. They weren’t given the resources provided to other investigations (no experts have ever been flown in from overseas, for example, as happened during the investigation into the serial killings in Claremont, WA, during the 1990s). Still, they managed to find some new evidence, but NSW’s then Director of Public Prosecutions, Nick Cowdery, said it wasn’t sufficiently compelling and refused to send the matter back to the courts.

    Undaunted, Gary Jubelin persuaded the NSW Coroner to hold an inquest, instead. Inquests aren’t like trials. There’s no burden of proof as such and all kinds of evidence can be heard. Coroner John Abernethy, who is now retired, weighed up all the different theories and, in 2004, came down on the side of the families, saying, "I am of the opinion that the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Colleen Walker and the murders of Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy have strikingly similar characteristics".

    Jay Hart subsequently found himself back in the dock, this time charged with Evelyn’s murder, but the waves of optimism came to nought. The case against Hart was still mainly circumstantial. Confusing matters further, there were witnesses who said they’d seen Evelyn wandering alone, after she supposedly disappeared from the house. Jay Hart was acquitted, meaning he has now been charged with the murder of two of the missing children and also cleared of both of them.

    Still, suspicion lingers – just last month, Jay Hart was confronted in a shopping centre car park by a team from the Seven Network’sToday Tonight, wanting to know whether he had killed all three children from Bowraville. He was adamant, saying, "No, I did not."

    Jay Hart has always insisted upon his innocence. The families have never given up hoping that somebody will one day be held to account. In recent years, they’ve received assistance from Larissa Behrendt. She’s a lawyer, academic, author and now a filmmaker, intent on bringing the story of Bowraville to a wider audience.

    "I have known about the case since I was at university in 1991," Larissa told The Weekly. "I was an Aboriginal law student, the Royal Commission [into Aboriginal deaths in custody] was on and it was showing Aboriginal people were being locked up for misdemeanours and here we had the murder of three Aboriginal kids, and the legal system couldn’t put anyone away. For a young Aboriginal lawyer like me, it’s struck a chord."

    Two years ago, Larissa began filming the testimony of the families for a documentary tentatively titledThree Lost Children. In the process, she has come to admire their quiet dignity.

    "Their lives have been shattered, but this isn’t a lynch mob," she says. "You can feel the emotion, but they aren’t saying, we have to go and get [whoever it is who did this]. Their anger is directed at the legal system as it is at any perpetrator. How can there be a case like this, where no proper search is even ever conducted?"

    Larissa submitted her film to both Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals, to the ABC and to NITV, which is part of SBS. Meanwhile, the families suffered another blow. On February 8 this year, the NSW state Attorney-General, Greg Smith, refused an application to send the matter to the Court of Criminal Appeal for a second look. There are some politics bubbling away in the background. Greg Smith was Nick Cowdery’s deputy when Mr Cowdery knocked it on the head last time. Adding insult to injury, having made the families wait for 20 months for his decision, Greg Smith didn’t bother to tell them personally that they wouldn’t be getting another go. Favoured journalists were briefed before the families were even told. This may be a justice matter, but that’s a kind of politics, too –it’s called massaging the message.

    Last edited by blighted star; 04-30-2014 at 03:19 AM.

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    Colleen Walker’s mum, Muriel, has lived in the same, neat-as-a-pin house for 35 years. She finds it difficult to talk about her missing daughter, in part because the grief is still raw after 20 years, but also because her culture discourages any mention of people who have "passed".

    "I don’t tell people my suffering," she tells The Weekly. "But it feels sometimes like it doesn’t matter what I do, we’re not going to get anywhere. That’s hard to accept."

    She is reluctant to use the race card, saying, "I don’t say people are thinking, these are just black kids, but they did treat us like we just let our kids go walkabout.

    "He [Attorney-General Greg Smith] could have taken it back to court and he didn’t, and he didn’t ring us personally. The media found out before we did. I don’t like to make comparisons, but we have asked people from government to come and see us and we don’t get replies. When Daniel Morcombe went missing, they had the Queensland Premier marching with them. I don’t say anything bad about the Morcombes. I’m glad they are having their trial. But I see the difference."

    In a statement to The Weekly, Greg Smith said the obvious, "The death of the three children is tragic … I feel terrible for their families and understand why they are seeking a retrial" – but no, he wouldn’t give them one because, in his view, there was "no reasonable prospect of success".

    Australians worry endlessly about the state of relations between black and white Australia. Everyone wants things to improve. Then we see a case like this – three children dead and the families waiting 20 years for an answer only to be told – yet again – sorry, but there isn’t one. Those children were murdered. Two had suffered blows to the head; clothes from the third were bagged up and tossed in a river. Somebody knows something.

    Maybe Colleen’s mum is right – for all the billions of dollars spent and for all the formal apologies given, maybe things between black and white Australia haven’t changed at all.

    This story was originally published in the April 2013 issue of The Australian Women's Weekly.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Found the article on the copper's statement.I sincerely hope he hasn't fucked his career. Real integrity's a rare thing & we need this one to stay in the force. It looks like he has the police commissioner's support, but who knows.

    http://m.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/...-1226900273626


    A “SERIAL killer” operating in a country town where three children disappeared has escaped justice because local officers were let down by the police hierarchy, a senior homicide detective has told a parliamentary committee.

    When all three children disappeared within five months from Bowraville, on the mid north coast 24 years ago, police bosses failed to recognise the seriousness and complexity of the cases, Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin said.


    Insp Jubelin told the standing committee on law and justice — the first state parliamentary committee to inquire into a murder — that if all the evidence went before a jury now, there was a reasonable likelihood of the “serial killer” being convicted.

    The suspected killer is a local man known to police and to the families of the three victims, Colleen Walker, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux. He was acquitted of murdering Clinton, 16, in February 1991, and a charge of murdering Evelyn, 4, in October 1990, was then dropped.

    The body of Evelyn’s cousin, Colleen, 16, reported missing in September 1990, has never been found. “Three kids from the same community living in the same street murdered over a five-month period and no one has been called to account,” Insp Jubelin’s submission, signed off by Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, says. “These matters should have been solved.”

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    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-0...-opens/5424626


    Bowraville murder inquest: Investigator condemns lack of interest

    By Tom Lowrey, Lucy Carter and staff Updated Thu 1 May 2014, 11:51pm AEST

    The lead investigator in the murder of three children in Bowraville, on New South Wales' mid-north coast, more than 20 years ago says the case has a received a shocking lack of interest from authorities.

    Evelyn Greenup, 4, Colleen Walker, 16 and Clinton Speedy-Duroux, 16, were murdered in Bowraville in the early 1990s.

    Nobody was ever convicted over the murders.

    The State Government's Standing Committee on Law and Justice has been looking into the community impact of the murders and on Thursday, public hearings began in Macksville, near the town where the murders took place.

    Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin, who led a re-investigation of the killings in 1996, was the first to give evidence.

    He told the inquiry the community was frustrated with the lack of interest in the case.

    "I'm still shocked ... and I don't say that lightly," he said.

    In an earlier written submission to the inquiry, he said the community still felt it had not had its day in court.

    He said the community has been treated with disrespect by the judicial system and government agencies.

    In his statement, he also said that if all the available evidence was presented to a jury, "there would be a reasonable likelihood of a conviction being recorded".

    In 1991, the bodies of Clinton and Evelyn were found near the Bowraville Aboriginal Mission.

    Colleen, the cousin of Evelyn, went missing from the mission some months earlier and her body was never found, however items of her clothes were found weighed down in a nearby river.

    In 1991, Bowraville local Jay Hart was charged with the murders of Evelyn and Clinton.

    The cases were heard separately and Mr Hart was acquitted of murdering Clinton in 1994. Prosecutors then dropped the charges relating to the murder of Evelyn.

    In 2004, after an inquest, Mr Hart was again charged with Evelyn's murder but was acquitted.

    In 2011 the then-Attorney-General, Greg Smith, agreed to review the case, however last year he recommended against taking the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal.

    After an impassioned appeal by the families of the young victims, the NSW parliamentary law and justice committee agreed to hold an inquiry exploring the community response to the deaths.

    Hearings were to resume on Friday.

    I wonder if they can order Jay Hart to appear. I hope the smug bastard's shitting himself. It would be very unusual if he grew out of serial killing, it doesn't tend to be a short-lived phase & there's an awful lot of missing hitch hikers up the NSW North Coast. Some of them, like Rose Rain Howe, are kids from North Coast Aboriginal communities. None of their cases got much official attention, you can tell by looking at their NSW Police mis pers profiles - they're practically blank.

    Working in youth services up there would allow him to know which kids would immediately be written off as runaways & quickly forgotten. He'd know which ones didn't even have family who'd care enough to report them missing. I hope they look further than Bowraville for victims.




    Detectives comments in more detail
    https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wo...child-murders/
    Last edited by blighted star; 05-04-2014 at 05:38 PM.

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    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-free-man.html


    The serial killer who got away: Families claim triple murderer escaped because victims were Aboriginal and police said children had 'gone walkabout'

    It's 23 years since the bodies of Clinton Speedy, 16 and Evelyn Greenup, four, were discovered in the tiny town of Bowraville, Australia and all that remained of Colleen Walker, her clothes, bagged and weighted down with rocks in the Nambucca River. All the victims were indigenous and the families say if they had been white and living in suburbia instead of being black and from an Aboriginal mission, the murders would have been solved long ago. Now a senior homicide detective is about to give evidence at a parliamentary inquiry that a serial killer operating in the country town where the three children disappeared in the early 1990s escaped justice because police failed to properly investigate. Submissions to the inquiry will say the families were failed and assumptions were made that when Aboriginal children disappeared they had just 'gone walkabout'.



    Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin of the New South Wales Police will tell the NSW Law & Justice Parliamentary Committee in relation to the Bowraville Murders on Thursday that the three child murder cases should be considered together and that there would be a reasonable chance of identifying and convicting the 'serial killer'. One suspect in 1991 was a local tannery worker, Jay Hart, a white man then in his twenties. Hart was charged with the murders of Clinton Speedy and Evelyn Greenup. After a judge, Justice Badgery-Parker of the NSW Supreme Court, ruled that Hart could not be tried for the two murders together, Hart was tried and acquitted of the murder of Clinton Speedy in 1994, and of the murder of Evelyn Greenup in 2006. Nobody was charged with the murder of Colleen Walker. Inspector Jubelin's submission, along with others from Aboriginal language and cultural experts, and the victims' families will point to a lack of forensic evidence being gathered at the time of the murders, of the disappearances not being taken seriously and the two cases which were prosecuted being treated 'apathetically'.



    'Clinton's disappearance was taken a little but more seriously because his body was found three weeks later. Even so, there was an eye witness who identified the man standing over Clinton's body on the road at the time he disappeared and that was taken by the police but not used. 'There are families and communities in many places and towns who are still suffering and paying for the mistakes made by police all these years later.' The first victim of the Bowraville killer was Colleen Walker, who in September 1990 arrived from her home 60 km north, to the community of around 150 Aboriginal and 750 white people. Few of the white townsfolk fraternised with the Aborigines on the mission, except Jay Hart. On her first or second day in Bowraville, the 16-year-old attended a party at the mission, at which there was alcohol and cannabis, known as 'yarni' . Walker got very drunk and failed to meet her friends to take the 3am train out. Her mother did not find out she was missing until days later.



    The following month, on October 3, after another party at the mission, a drunk Rebecca Stadhams took her three children, including four-year-old Evelyn to their father, Billy Greenup's house,but found he was too inebriated to mind them. Back at her mother's house, Stadhams fell asleep with the children only to wake up the next morning to find Evelyn gone. Assuming the child had walked down in daylight to see her father, Stadhams didn't realise Evelyn was missing until she caught up with Billy Greenup later in the day.

    In January 1991, Clinton Speedy was visiting from his home in the country town of Tenterfield, five hours north-west of Bowraville. Speedy attended another party at the mission. The teenager disappeared and the discovery of his body dumped on a dirt track seven kilometres out of Bowraville sparked the first suspicions by police of a murder at the mission. The next remains to be discovered were when a fisherman snagged Collen Walker's clothes in the river near that track and, thereafter, Evelyn Greenup's decomposed body.

    Police charged Jay Thomas Hart with the murders of Clinton Speedy and Evelyn Greenup, having identified similarities in the deaths and identifying a possible sexual motive, in that Hart allegedly wanted to have sex with someone in each victim's company at the time of their disappearance. [B]A Supreme Court judge decided to try the cases separately, making evidence about the Collen Walker and Evelyn Greenup deaths inadmissable at Hart's 1994 trial for Clinton Speedy's murder. Hart was acquitted. More than a decade later, Hart was tried and acquitted for the Greenup murder.

    Inspector Jubelin, who was not part of the original murder investigations, took up the case in 1997 and has since taken carriage of the families' fight for justice. Leonie Duroux told the MailOnline the families of the murder victims and the wider indigenous community were grateful this latest inquiry might give them another opportunity for the cases to be investigated and tried. 'We hope something comes of it,' she said. 'it was because of these cases that the laws were changed surrounding double jeopardy [in which a person cannot be tried a second time after being acquitted once on the same charge],' Ms Duroux said 'The law now says a case can be retried if the evidence is fresh and compelling.

    We hope they will listen and and decide something has to be done. 'It has been a very long time and the murders still affect peops lives.' Jay Thomas Hart's mother. Marlene Hart, told the MailOnline her son was an innocent man who had been unfairly targeted for almost a quarter of a century. 'It's been absolute terror,' said Mrs Hart, who still lives in Bowraville. 'It's affected our whole family and my health, but [the police] stop at him and don't go any further.'

    Sorry about the multi-posting, but to date we're literally the only site collecting articles on this case & I don't want the detail disappearing into giant news archive databases never to be seen again.
    Last edited by blighted star; 05-04-2014 at 07:27 PM.

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  22. #22
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Since you're bringing this up in other threads, I thought maybe you'd like some feedback. I'm not stalking you, honest.

    The first girl who went missing, Colleen Walker, her body was never found. If a serial killer had such a great place to hide a body, why would he leave the next 2 where they'd be found so easily? You know what they say in crime shows: "No body, no crime."
    So, they tried Hart for Clinton Speedy's murder first. That sounds logical, as they actually had a witness placing him in Hart's trailer. Trouble is, she was drunk, and therefore, we'd call her an "unreliable witness" here in the States.
    Then they tried him for the 4 year old, Evelyn Greenup. The last one to see her alive, the mom, was also drunk.
    He was acquitted of those 2 murders. In the States, that's it. He could never be tried again for the same crime. Even if he admitted it later, they would have to find something else to try him on.

    We don't combine serial murders into one trial here. The evidence is only used by police to help find the killer.
    In the 2002 DC sniper case http://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-lib...gton-dc-sniper the killings were done in 3 jurisdictions: Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. They decided to have the first trials in Virginia, because it carried the harshest penalty. If they were convicted, the other courts would save the expense of trials.
    That's exactly what happened. Jon Allen Muhammad was convicted, sentenced to death, and was executed in 2009. Lee Boyd Malvo, was a juvenile, and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He's incarcerated in Virginia. If for some reason, he's released, they have plenty of other murders to charge him with, and they will.

    What I'm saying, is if this had happened in the States, Hart would still be free. Colleen could have gone off with anyone. She went to Bowraville for a drinking party. Her mom didn't know she was missing for a couple of days. If her body is ever found, that would be the time for a trial.
    I'm pretty sure if there were similar crimes anywhere near Hart, the police would be checking him out. Whatever else you want to say about them, they sure wouldn't want to look like fools.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Go away. Why are you even posting about people you've already called "short & stupid" as a race. You're "arguments" & "reasoning" are always uninformed & ignorant personal opinions. This time is no different.

    I would expect that by now, most visitors & members know better than to bother reading what you & your imaginary spouse post under your multiple usernames.


    JUST FUCK OFF


    ETA & send your opinion to the NSW Police Force, NSW Coroner. The opinion I've expressed is shared by multiple law enforcement, legal, medical & coronial professionals - if you disagree with my view, you disagree with theirs.


    Really, I suggest you contact the NSW Police North Coast Homicide Squad if you seriously feel errors are being made in their current investigation.

    I'm sure they'll value your input as much as MDS does.
    Last edited by blighted star; 05-12-2014 at 10:28 PM.

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by blighted star View Post
    Go away. Why are you even posting about people you've already called "short & stupid" as a race. You're "arguments" & "reasoning" are always uninformed & ignorant personal opinions. This time is no different.

    I would expect that by now, most visitors & members know better than to bother reading what you & your imaginary spouse post under your multiple usernames.


    JUST FUCK OFF


    ETA & send your opinion to the NSW Police Force, NSW Coroner. The opinion I've expressed is shared by multiple law enforcement, legal, medical & coronial professionals - if you disagree with my view, you disagree with theirs.


    Really, I suggest you contact the NSW Police North Coast Homicide Squad if you seriously feel errors are being made in their current investigation.

    I'm sure they'll value your input as much as MDS does.
    You're so sweet.

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