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