You can listen to the Front on your smart sneaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from the Australian. From the Australian, Here's what's on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, August sixteenth. A shortage of intravenous fluids, including saline, has been causing chaos in Australian hospitals, with patients at risk from dehydration and other complications. Regulators claim it's a global shortage, but
sources say Australia has failed to procure vital supplies. That's an exclusive live now at the Australian dot Com. Dou a labor scheme to get more aged care workers into Australia is off to a slow start. Fewer than five hundred visas have been granted in the program's first year, and of those, only eighty four were given to offshore applicants. The aged care sector is still facing critical staff shortages.
In twenty fifteen, our podcast The Alibi investigated the unsolved murder of Denise Givindir, a Sydney mother brutally beaten to death in her own home. Her husband, Aaron Givinda told police a home invader had knocked him unconscious and bound him with cable ties before killing Denise. Now Aaron has been charged with murder today, Why this twenty six year old cold case is back before the courts?
Aaron, Yes, Hello, My name's Yanni Bashan. I'm a reporter with the Sunday Telegraph. How are you. I'm well fine. Were you expecting me, Bonny Chance, No.
That's our reporter Joannie Bashan in twenty fifteen, attempting to talk to a man named Aaron Gavinda. He was a widower and his wife, Denise, the mother of their children, had been brutally beaten to death in her own home many years earlier.
I'm writing a story about your wife, Denise. Come on, come on, I'm writing a story about Denise's murder. I'd like to ask you a couple of questions if you're available, Just a couple of questions.
It's been nine years since Yanni knocked on that door, and now.
This there's been a cold case breakthrough today, some twenty six years in the making. An eighty one year old man arrested over the alleged murder of his wife, Denise Gavinda.
This morning, Aaron Gavinda will face a court charged with Denise's murder more than twenty six years after her death. He's not been required to enter a plea and will likely defend the charge. Evidence has yet been brought before a court, but on Thursday afternoon, Jonnie broke the story on the Australian dot com dot that Aaron Gavinda had been charged. The audio you just heard was first aired in a podcast Joannie and I produced in twenty fifteen.
Back then, we were both working at the Sunday Telegraph, just one floor upstairs from where we both worked today at The Australian. The podcast is called The Alibi. It was in the early days of true crime podcasting, and although Jonnie and I were experienced newspaper journalists, we were excited about this new way we could bring our stories to new audiences. This was one of Australia's first investigative podcasts, Yanni. When we made The Alibi, we didn't really know that
much about how to make podcasts. We've even hit up one of your friends, Josh Conn, a talented musician, to compose the theme music for us. That's what we're playing now. We kind of did what we would do if we were doing this for the newspaper, but turned it into audio. We recorded everything we did. It was a real learning curve, wasn't it.
Yeah, it was a very unusual time. It was twenty fifteen. There was a very popular podcast overseas called Cereal, which I hadn't heard yet. I remember coming to you and saying, look, I've got this interesting idea to investigate a cold case murder and doing it in some meticulous detail, and I remember your response was like, why don't we do it as a podcast? I think I might have even said, what's a podcast? But it was a really enjoyable learning experience.
It was an unusual way to explore the details of an unsolved crime, and it was also a highly effective way of doing it because we know that the police listened to it. We know that they followed our coverage in the years afterwards, and we know that ultimately it led to an independent investigation of this particular murder and that led to where we are day.
Benny Gavinda devoted her life to helping batted women. Last night, Missus Gavinda became the victim of violence, bashed to death during an apparent home invasion at Dover Heights.
By twenty fifteen, when we released the Alibi, Denise's murder was a seventeen year old cold case. She'd been murdered in nineteen ninety eight in her own bedroom. Aaron Gavinda told police in an interview recorded about two months later of a terrifying encounter in that home in Dover Heights, a suburb overlooking the cliffs just north of Bondai Beach. Here's a bit of our podcast, The Alibi. We included some of Aaron's police interview, and then you'll hear Yoannie's voice from episode one.
And obviously blood. I came here and read tpagium and asked for an ambulance, said police.
I filled her out. I didn't know.
Where to feel a pulse. Yeah, it was all flop okay. Now, Aaron wouldn't talk to me, but that was him speaking to police about two months after Denise's murder. So Aaron has been the victim of a terrible crime. His wife has been murdered, and even worse, he's living with the fact that police at some point have investigated the theory that he was the killer. Though he's never been charged. His story has always been the same. He and his
wife were victims of a home invasion. But there's no getting away from the fact that Aaron's account doesn't answer some pretty big questions, like how the house at first looked like the scene of a robbery yet nothing of value was taken, or why the killer stole the family car and then dumped it down the road. And here's
another one. The cable ties used to bind both Denise and Aaron were identical to those sold under the brand name Landier, which could only be purchased from one hardware chain in the country, and the nearest one was located just down the road from the Gavinda family home. But above all, there's this why would anyone want to kill Denise Gavenda?
Afternoon everyone, Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty, Commander Homicide Squad, State Crime Command.
This is the new South Wales Police's Homicide Squad, Commander Danny Doherty.
About ten to fifteen am today, Strifle's detectives the rest of eighty one year old man at Springwood Police Station, where has been now charged with one count of murder.
After we broke the story on the Astralian, Danny Doherty revealed more details about how Aaron Gavinda was arrested.
This is a hard slog of investigation. This is twenty six years in the making, including the original investigation and looking at the evidence with fresh eyes, but building on the evidence that had already been obtained, and reinterviewing certain witnesses, gaining information from members of the public, reinterviewing other people, gaining new medical evidence is important, and also gaining new
forensic evidence. So in totality it's formed a very convincing and compelling, circumstantial brief of evidence and which we will put to the court that this person who was arrested in charge today was the sole person responsible for Denise's murder.
What police will allege when this matter gets to trial is that Aaron Gavinda staged the break in, murdered Denise himself, cable tied her, and then made up a story that someone had broken in, claiming to be a police officer, and knocked Aaron unconscious.
Will allege who was a stage robbery just to cover the tracks allegedly of what's been committed, which was a murder in essence, a domestic violence murder. And that's important that it was never lost on us that this is a woman that lost her life finally in our own home. That's been something that's driven and motivated the investigators from
day one since nineteen ninety eight. What we're in the facts in relation of this matter, and I got to be careful because it is before the court, but what we're legend the facts was that there was no break in, there was no bogus police officer. The circumstances, which we'll outline, was that this man was responsible for violently assaulting to Nice and then stage a robbery in terms of putting things out in the place that make it look like a robbery, when in fact nothing was actually stolen, no
value biles were ever stolen. There were circumstances that were inconsistent with virgins provided and even the car going missing had only been found a short distance away, was quite unusual. And all these circumstances and on top of other things were legend in the facts we believe make it compelling that this person should be charged with her murder.
Doughty revealed Aaron Givinde attended Springwood Police station near his home for another reason to find detectives waiting for him.
Yeah, it was under an unrelated matter and he was met by the investigator with so homosot to him. So his reaction was quite emotionless, which is unusual, and he was then placed in custody in charge. So whether he had a sense of maybe the inevitable's happened, maybe that's something that we could infer, but he was quite emotionless.
On Thursday, you spoke to Danny Dougherty in an interview after he'd spoken to the rest of the journos. What did he have to say?
There are some limitations in terms of what he can say because we're waiting for the suspect in this matter, Eron Govinda, to actually go before a court and to apply for bail and for a police statement of facts to be tended. So there are some things can be said that can be said at a high level, But generally speaking, what was quite fascinating about my conversation with Superintendent Doherty was just a little bit of the insight into what police have actually been doing these past few years.
So I've obviously been following this case for a very
long time. I've noticed that it's kind of ticked along in a very gradual, very slow fashion, and I've always wondered what are the detectives actually doing, And what I was able to glean from Superintendent Deity was that much of this work is just so protracted and involves reinvestigating every line of inquiry that existed at the time, and reinterviewing witnesses and not just family and friends of Aaron Govendor or Denise Gavinda, but also going back and interviewing
the old detectives who started this case and built the foundations of this case back in the late nineties. But I guess one of the more fascinating and unexpected aspects of the investigation that I wasn't aware of was that the detectives were in a way waging a slow burn, simmering game of psychological warfare with their target. And I guess we see this in films from time to time, that you bring the suspect in, you grill them, you give them a break, you grill them again. That's kind
of what they were doing. They at a certain point last year they turned up at Aaron go Vender's property. There've been very little publicity about this case. They raid the property, toss it over, collect some items of interest, slap him with some very small scale charges. He's ordered to go off to court. I mean this is all pressure. This is legal pressure that mounts on a person. Then you pull them in, you subject them to questions, You let them know that you're the target of an investigation.
And slowly, slowly you're asking questions of this person to ascertain are they still cleaving to the same story they told in nineteen ninety eight or are they changing their version of events? And I think that was the insight that Superintendent Delherity provided to me, that it wasn't necessarily a smoking gun that blew open this case. It's a collection of small pieces of evidence that all cobble together to form a circumstantial brief that will ultimately go before the court.
Coming up another cold case murder with an intriguing connection to this story that's coming up next. Our subscribers are always the first to know. Join us at the Australian dot com dot au and we'll be back after this break. I told you earlier our podcast from twenty fifteen was called the Alibi. So what did that mean? Well, Aaron Gavinda had been caught up in an earlier murder case, this time the wife of a close friend of his, Eva Weebel, was found bashed to death inside her home
fifteen years before Denise's death. That was in nineteen eighty three. Her husband, George Weebel, was charged with murder, and when the matter came to trial, George brought to court an alibi witness for his whereabouts at the time of Eva's murder. His friend, Aaron Gavinda, said he had called George at a different premises at the exact time of the murder and spoken to him on the phone. George Weebel's lawyers argued this was crucial evidence that proved he was not guilty.
George Weebel was acquitted, and he later spoke to Yourn for our podcast.
Look, the case we'll never be solved because the coppers arrested me, they had me on the rest for two years or thereabouts, and after that.
Bloody thing has gone so cold, it's not even money, and there's just no way that they'll find anything.
In that conversation, Ynni asked George Weebel about the dreadful luck that saw two close families struck by similar tragedies, the fact his close friend his alibi, Aaron, subsequently lost his wife in a violent murder in her own home. Eva Weebel and Denise Gavinda were friends, just as Aaron Gavinda and George Weeble were.
Enough.
Look, I don't gamble, I don't gamble, and I don't have to find dogs. It's happened.
I don't know why it's happened. I don't know why the first lunch happened. I don't know why the second I don't know who, And I just want to get on with my life.
As simple as that.
Look, I honestly can't see it how I can be interesting this bloody case.
Johnny Bishan is a journalist with The Australian. Thanks for joining us on the front. Our team is Stephanie Coombs, Joshua Burton, Leat Sammaglue, Tiffany Dimak, Jasper Leik, Kristen Amiot and me Claire Harvey. Don't forget to check out all our journalism twenty four to seven at The Australian dot com dot au