Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants.
It was absolutely shambles, to tell you the truth, just absolutely really coming.
Blood on his clothing.
The day after the alleged at top.
On a show a mud bank and it fits through a river.
Basically, I think most of the people are used to me, there are good people.
I think a really important question we need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
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. And a warning. This series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Last week we discussed with you the statement given by a Witness X. Remember this sty was given some ten years after events took place at Tenuber House, and so that's in two thousand and two that that statement was given by Witness X. We mentioned that Witness X saw people who we have named that is a Willie West in a green car and drove over the bridge, under another bridge and parked near the river where Witness X believed garbage was being dumped, but would later conclude that
that was not the case. And the inference is that there's a high possibility that that was Linda's body. Now we're going to continue with more of that witness statement, and we'll go back to the very start of that witness statement of Witness X, who explains the events from when they arrived that day in Rockhampton, and the first place they talk about is a place called the Road Thunder.
So Amy, for our listeners, can you explain to everyone where in rock Hampton the Road Thunder is and where it is in relation to the Crown Hotel and in particular Tanuba House.
Yeah.
So, I think what our listeners have to understand is a lot of the geographical locations in this case, they're all very close to each other, and at the time, a lot of Oriiginal people who lived on the riverbank, they actually walked everywhere. Very few people had cars. In fact, I don't think any of them would have had cars.
They either took taxis or they walked around. But The Road Thunder is actually in one of the main streets of Rockhampton, and it's the street that cuts through the mall, and it's a prominent landmark within the actual center of the mall in Rockampton. And it's about if you walked another five or ten minutes to your right up towards, you'd reached Chenerba House, and just shortly across another street you only have to walk about five more minutes to
get to the Crown Hotel. So they were all in walking distance of each other and likely would have been visited by a lot of people on the riverbank around that time.
Last week we read to you the section of Witness x's statement that related to the green car, the moving and dumping of Linda's body in the river, and an individual named Willie West. Now I'm going to go to another section of Witness x's statement, and it starts this way. I was at the Mall in Rockhampton on the thirty first day of August nineteen ninety one when I asked friends where did all the Rribinda people drink? They told me at the Road Thunder. They showed me the directions
and I made my way down there. It was about mid day when I got to the road under on Key Street, I saw. Now I'm not going to name all of those individuals because it's unfair to witnesses who had nothing to do with the case to name them, but I will say that it does include the women who committed the assault, and Witness X goes on to say they were all drinking and I sat down with them drinking on the grass under the shady gum tree. A woman came along. I didn't know her at all.
She sang out, come here, you West Australia and see this woman walked down to where someone else was sitting in a group of people drinking. Then we all seen her run away from that group. A person named then ran after to her and got hold of her and hit her. Then the others ran towards her and beat her too. Now again I'm going to leave out a
number of people's names who were not involved. But once again Witness X names the three women that were in fact convicted of the assault, and Witness X says, I didn't know why they were hitting her. Then I asked other people who was coming to the road tunder to stop them from hitting her, but no one done anything and said it was none of their business. Then Witness X moves to a separate part of their statement. This is when they explain where Kevin Henry was at that time.
Then Curtin staggered across the road to where we were sitting. He lay down for a while to sleep under the gum tree. The beating was still going on, and I couldn't stand it anymore because she made me very sorry for her. I told people to meet me at the Crown and to wake curtain up before they leave the road Under. I couldn't sit here any longer and watch this poor woman being bashed. As I got up to walk,
a green car pulled up at the road Under. Two men got out of the car and walked to where we were all sitting and drinking under the gum tree. I asked who they were, and they said the two men from the green car are Willie West, who we named last week, and again for fairness, I will not name the second person. Witness X continues. I made my way to the Crown Hotel, where I stayed there and
drank everybody who I've seen at the road. Thunder ended up at the Crown later that day, so Amy, I've just read more of Witness X's statement to the listeners. Was there anything in particular that stood out for you.
Well, it was interesting because we hadn't heard any other accounts that Linda had been assaulted prior to the really tragic assault in her at Tanuba House later in the later in the afternoon. So it's interesting that this witness remembers Linda potentially at another location, and so it makes you wonder whether her memory is really reliable. But what she describes that the rotunda actually makes a lot of sense.
And when I was thinking about the fact that this witness is actually recounting what she saw ten years after, and yet a lot of the geography of the rotunda at the time actually makes a lot of sense. And although the rotunda isn't there in Rockampton, it was actually demolished last year. There's actually a big gum tree that is still there that you can see straight in a horizontal line, right in the eye view of where the
rotundi used to be. So it makes sense that a Kevin Henry might have stumbled over there to go have a sleep under that gum tree, and that Linda potentially had actually been assaulted maybe even a couple of times before she unfortunately died later that night. So that's what really stood out to me about that statement.
Yeah, I think there's a few things we can draw from it.
There.
One is, as you say, that seems like someone must have certainly to know that tree. Someone must have been there and seen it. This is not something you would just make up ten years later. And it's not a big thing, but it does go to explain a lot of what we've always said, which is that Curtin Kevin Henry was by his own admission, drunk that day and slept most of that day, and this witness saw Curtain
sleeping under the gum tree. So it's not a big thing, but again it's just more confirmation of something we already thought might have been the case. And I think on the other point you raise as to this being a potential account of an earlier assault, it could very well make perfect sense, which is that it's only that the women committed a far more vicious assault later in the day that they were charged for that assault and not this one earlier. And that's why questions about this earlier
assault weren't raised. And we do already know from other statements that Linda herself as well, was in fact in center of rock Hampton during that day too, So it's very possible that this witness is absolutely telling the truth, in fact being more truthful than anyone else, and did see both this assault and the first assault.
The other interesting thing, Martin, is that the witness saw a green car earlier that day, and she actually saw Willie Weston another man in that car. What do you take from from that that she's seen that green car twice and it's obviously stuck a memory.
Well, I think a that she saw that car and the occupants in the daylight is very important. So I think it makes her identification of those individuals and the car later that night much more plausible because she'd already had a good look at it, and she'd already been told who these individuals were. And it also tends to suggest that these men were hanging around, That these men didn't just turn up by a chance that night later after the more vicious assault. These men had been hanging
around all day. And we can actually take that as well from another statement that was given, which is a witness that we identified in episode one as LB, and this witness says that they saw this individual, Willy West, both at the Crown that day in Rockhampton and at
a number of times at Tanuba House. Now, again it's very important to stress, as we did last week, that the police never took a statement from Willy West, they never sought to investigate Willie West, and they appear to make no attempt to ask any of the other witnesses who Willie West was. And this is despite the fact that his name came up in multiple statements, that his name is clearly linked to aspects of this crime, and that his name was raised throughout the trial by Kevin
Henry's defense attorney and the other defense attorneys. But the police simply deny any knowledge of this individual. And again I personally find that very hard to believe.
So what else do we know about this LB from the trial?
Well, LB is someone we mentioned in the very first episode of Curtin because LB was in the watchhouse with Kevin Henry at the time he was supposed to have confessed to this crime. And if you haven't listened to the episode about the confession, and it's very important you go back and do that to understand why that confession is so flawed. But LB was also asked about Willy West, and so we have this LB who is arrested with Kevin Henry, and he too had seen Willy West. But
there were some problems with LB's statements. Firstly, LB was heavily intoxicated when they were first arrested and made statements to police that never implicated Kevin Henry and really didn't make any sense at all. Later on, LB would implicate Kevin Henry, and we discussed this in episode one of the podcast. But here's the important thing to know about LB's statement that implicates Kevin Henry. That statement is dated
the thirtieth of August. Now, remember Linda was assaulted on the thirty first of August, and those who were at Tanuba House were not picked up, including Kevin Henry, until the first of September. So how could LB's statement taken on the thirtieth of August possibly contain any information about the assault on Linda or Kevin Henry's involvement when it was yet to take place, unless that statement was changed at a later date and that was put to LB at the trial. LB did deny this, but whether you
believe that or not is up to you. Now, there's one more thing that's very important to mention about LB. Remembering that LB has made a statement that implicates Kevin Henry. But this statement is dated the thirtieth of August, before Linda was assaulted, and that is that LB was related to two of Kevin Henry's co accused, two of the women who were convicted of the grievous bodily harm against Linda. This was not an impartial witness, so from that you
can draw your own conclusions. But personally, I think it suggests serious problems with the credibility of a witness whose first statement is not accurate, whose second statement is somehow dated before the crime ever took place, and who, thirdly is a direct relative a cousin of two of the women who committed the vicious assault against Linda.
Now, when we talk about the people who would go to Tanuba House, I mean a lot of them were related to each other, sogus. How does this come into place? Surely, when it came to a trial like this, a lot of people would have been accustomed to testifying for or against their relatives.
Yeah, I think that's certainly a fair point to raise, And there's no doubt that. I think it's fair to say most, if not everyone, who was there at Tanuba House would have had relatives there as well. However, I do think in a criminal trial, particularly when a man is on trial for his life, it should have been more accurately pointed out that the only witnesses who testify against Kevin Henry had direct relatives who were the three
women who committed the violent assault. And I think it should have been made very clear to the jury that although there was a lot of family members there that day and there that night, and that was quite a regular thing, that the people who testified against Kevin Henry were direct relatives of the three women who committed the assault. So I think we can at least had that been put to the jury more clearly, they could have been left to decide the truthfulness of those testimonies on their own.
And I also think it goes to the issue of the fact that that Kevin had a joint trial, as we discussed earlier in this series, with the three women who committed the assault, and I think a lot of the evidence, a lot of the witness statements have become very confused in all of that, and I think it's probably been glossed over that people who were pointing the
finger at Kevin with no actual evidence at all. These were all statements that were changed at a later date, were in fact direct relatives of the three women who committed the assault, and that judge and jury should have been more aware of that issue.
Now, there was another vital piece of information contained in this statement, Mardin, Can you provide some of the contexts behind that before we tell the listeners.
Yes, So, something that was placed into evidence at the trial and accepted by both the prosecutor and the defense was some information that related to Linda, and where it relates to what we're about to reveal is that the last thing Linda was seen wearing was as she was walking from North Rockhampton towards the city, and she was said to be wearing a red coat, black slacks, and
a headband or scarf. Now we've already revealed in this podcast that the black slacks and the scarf were recovered and multiple witnesses saw those black slacks, the scarf which was white and black, and a red top on Linda that day. So the one piece of clothing that was not recovered by the police that Linda was wearing when she was last seen when she first went missing. Is that red coat. And I'll read to you from Witness
X's statement. This is what Witness x's statement says in relation to that red coat, and they will mention Witness Why, who remember from last week, was in the back of the green car when it went over to the other side of the river and something was dumped from the boot of that car. Witness Ex's statement. Witness Why came over to me and sat down. They had a red long coat on with buttons down the front with two
big pockets. I noticed water dripping from the coat and I asked, why is the coat wet and where did it come from? Witness Why told me that it came from the river bank.
Mardin.
How often did this red coat, in fact Linda was laughing wearing a red coat come up during the trial or in the witness statements.
Is it sort of called.
A common knowledge?
Yes, so I think it was fairly well except did by the witnesses that at some point at least they'd all seen Linda wearing the red coat, and that's why it was introduced as evidence and accepted without contest by both the prosecutor and defense, so there was no contest over what Linda was wearing that day, which is that she went missing wearing the red coat, the black slacks, and the black and white scarf, and she would be seen eight days later, the day of the assault, wearing those same clothes.
Again.
Now, what's important about what Witness X is just revealed in their statement is that the red coat is the one piece of clothing that Linda was wearing that was not recovered by police. So the black slacks, the shirt that Linda was wearing, and the scarf were recovered the next day, and it was duck Hart, and we've spoken about this on an earlier podcast, who led police to this evidence, and it was down by the riverbank near to an uber house. But this red coat has always
been elusive. We didn't know what happened to it. But now we know a where the red coat was, that it was being worn by a person who was in the car, that green car that drove to the other side of the river, that that coat was not destroyed, that it did still exist, and that very small piece of information that Witness X probably never realized was so important, which is that that coat that red coat of Linders,
now being worn by another individual, was wet at the bottom. Again, this suggests that whoever was wearing that red coat, and particularly the coat itself, had been in or near the river, And there is no suggestion at all that Kevin Henry was ever in possession of that red coat, or that Kevin Henry had ever been near the river itself.
So it was this further evidence of the theory that Linda was probably put in on the other side of the racecourse side of the river.
The fact that the red coat was still being worn by someone, and particularly that it was wet and had water dripping from the coat itself, and this was very observable and obvious immediately to Witness X. I think does go more to the theory that I've proposed that Linda's body was placed on the racecourse side of the river, because that's a part of the river where you could
access the water without getting in the mud. Now, there is something else that we can add from Witness x's statement, and that is that Amy Saunders, this is one of the women who committed and was convicted of the assault against Linda, was seen by Witness X to have genes on and that they were wet up to the knees.
What we know from both visiting Tenuba House now and from expert testimony given for the prosecution at Kevin Henry's trial is that to access the river on the Tanuba House side, anybody who did that would have needed to get in the mud. And there was no suggestion that Amy Saunders jeans had mud on them. There is no suggestion that this red coat had any mud on them,
but they did have water on them. And I think it's safe to assume that given Linda's body was placed in the water, and we know that for a fact that this is further evidence that it was done on the racecourse side of the river where somebody could access the water, could place a body in the river, would
get their clothes wet, but wouldn't get muddy. And we know that Kevin Henry didn't have any water on him, didn't have any mud, and didn't have any forensic whether that be DNA, biological material, or any other kind of Linda's or Linda's clothing anywhere on him or on his clothing. And now we have people in possession of Linda's coat that's wet and also wearing jeans that are wet. Whether people want to take this evidence to the full extent
that these individuals were involved or not. For now, we'll leave our listeners to determine that, but it's quite clear this punches another huge hole in the evidence against Kevin Henry. Once again, we've discovered new evidence, and once again it does not point to Kevin Henry. It points directly to others. And this is evidence that could have very easily been obtained by the police had they simply done their job. That was episode seventeen of Curtin the Podcast. Until next week.
You can join us on Twitter at Curtain Podcast, on Facebook at Curtin the Podcast, and on our website at www dot curtinthepodcast dot com. Please feel free to leave feedback, ask questions, and get involved because it's becoming clear that Kevin Henry should never have been found guilty based on the evidence we've entered to you throughout this series. You need to ask yourself, would you have found Kevin Henry
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If the answer is no, please join us in spreading the word about this podcast so we can ensure justice is finally done.