You're listening to a MoMA Mea podcast.
Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was recorded on It's November twenty ten and Christopher Rowe and his girlfriend Coralianne are on holidays in Queensland, enjoying the spring sun and some downtime ahead of the busy Christmas period. He reads something online from his hometown of Capunda, South Australia. Three people have been found dead. He notices a photo attached to the article is of
his street, so he jumps on Facebook. My family live on that street, he writes, can somebody check on my parents? Pretty quickly he gets a reply, all's good, someone writes, Relieved. Chris gets back to his holiday, but it doesn't take long for the truth to come out for that well meaning and misinformed locals comment to be proven wrong. As Chris answers a phone call from a detective, he can
hardly believe what he is hearing. His mum, Rose, dad Andrew, and little sister Chantelle have all been stabbed to death in his family home. Now, an eighteen year old man will face court today over the murder of a family in the South Australian town of Capunda. Andrew and Rose Rowe and their sixteen year old daughter, Chantelle were found stabbed to death in their home last week. A large crowd of locals gathered outside the police stations who hear
from detectives. The crime will be described in the media as a blood bath, disturbing confronting all three victims stabbed multiple times. The brutality of the crime shocks the local community, which is thrown into the global media headlines. To this day, it's described as one of the state's most savage crimes and resulted in one of the harshest penalties handed down in South Australian history. Kapunda is a rural Australian town which at the time of the murders had a population
of about three thousand. It sits on the edge of the Barossa Valley, an hour north of Vdelaide and is what you might call a low level tourist destination. It's home to Australia's first commercial metal mine, which you can now tour. It's a stereotypical Ossie town in that everyone knows everyone and many of the locals live there their entire lives. At the time of this crime in twenty ten.
There were only two police officers stationed there permanently. The last thing they expected to find inside the Harriet Street home in the early hours of November eighth was this. The victims had more than one hundred wounds between them. The man responsible was someone no one would have expected capable of such a horrific triple murder. Brian Littley is a journalist who covered this case extensive for the Advertiser. He knew Kapunda well and captain touch with the sole survivor,
Chris for many years after the crime. Brian joins us. Now, Brian, tell me about the Roe family. Who were they and what did their life in Kapunda, South Australia look like?
I think the Roe family there was Andrew the father, and rose Mary or Rose that she went by, typical country family, two children, Christopher who had moved out of home and was living with his girlfriend but nearby and
that'd have their weekend catch ups. And then of course Chantell sixteen year old in the midst of us schooling but also looking to branch out and do some work, casual work around in the community or in the towns, getting those cafe jobs or little jobs to earn some pocket money and getting around seeing her high school friends. They were your typical country family, had been living in
Capunda for some time. Not born and bred through Capunda, but had set up and were established in the town and known around the town as good, friendly, kind people and nice members of the community.
Do we know anything about the weekend before the murders what the family was up to. I know Chris was out of town, wasn't he.
Yes, well, Chris was with his girlfriend Cora Lee on the Gold Coast, had gone there for a holiday and I think he'd been there for close to a week away Andrew and Rose. There's not much known about what they had been up to across that week. And we know that the week before Bill O'Brien, who was at that stage running to be mayor and went on to become the mayor and has been a long standing mayor, is still mayor or closely associated with the local government
council there at the moment. Bill's a lovely bloke ran the supermarket, but he'd said that he'd run into Rose the week before and had a chat with her in his supermarket in the main street of Kapunda. So they were moving around doing their normal thing, but not standing out. Chantell, we know that she had been across that weekend in a few little places or speaking to a few people. A party at the neighboring town of Freeling. We think there's also other parties in Kapunda and bits and pieces.
So moving around with friends groups and catching up with friends groups is how it played out, what we learned about Chantelle's movements, and that's critical going on later on.
The bodies of Rose, Andrew, and Chantell, who was only sixteen, were found on a Monday in November twenty ten. Do we know if anyone raised the alarm or how that crime scene was discovered?
From what we understand it was actually Christopher's boss had gone to check. I'm not sure about the details of him and why he would have gone to check, but he'd gone to call in on the family home somewhere around eleven o'clock on Monday the eighth November, maybe to drop something in, just to say get a something like that, and he discovered the bodies of Andrew and or discovered the scene I should say, with Andrew, Rose and Chantel,
as we know now brutally brutally murdered and stabbed. It's a seasoned police call it now the most horrific scene that they've ever seen.
I don't want you to go, you know, into too much detail that you're uncomfortable with, but to help us set the scene. What happened to that family in that house?
Yeah, I think you know. I've had this explained to me by some police who were in there, who were first on the scene, and as I said, they talk about up being the most brutal and horrific scene that
they'd ever ever seen. We know that he came out and caught at the details about that scene read out by Judge Sulan when they were finally prosecuting and sentencing the killer, Jason Downey, that Chantel had been stabbed thirty three times and raped to the point where she'd been stabbed and wasn't killed, and then raped and then stabbed again.
Andrew was stabbed twenty four times in the back, and from what police have described to me or some people I've heard through those channels in those investigations, Andrew didn't have a chance of even getting out of the bed and was rendered incapable of being able to defend his family. I guess for me, I think as horrific as both of those ends are, I think it's a description of what happened to Rose, who was stabbed more than fifty times,
which which really impacts me and would impact anyone. She was said to be crawling on the ground trying to escape the madness that was happening in and around her when she was stabbed again and again. You know, the efforts by the killer to clean up the mess, and then only to go back and stab people again, for
blood to fall over that mess again again. So it's it was a frenzied, crazy attack, which is just mind boggling to think that someone could even continue to be in such a rage or such a out of control state.
Well that's more than one hundred stab wounds alone, and you know, any murder is horrific. But you know that visceral language that you describe the police officers using, you disturbing confront a blood bath, a massacre like it's It doesn't get more brutal and horrible than this.
No, it doesn't. And I've got to say that you know those details it took, they went put up early on in the piece. It's only over time that those details really started to come out, I guess after the after the court case as well, and they started to flow out, and we heard more murmurs of what police had been confronted with when they were the first into
the scene. And I've got to assume that, you know, those police officers, hardened police officers who've seen a lot, you know, were and still are probably struggle to cope with what they saw in that house, so very disturbing.
I've read reports that a neighbor actually heard some screaming that night but didn't end up reporting it. Were there many other kind of witness reports that came out.
Yeah, that was one the things that had very early in the police investigation that at about one am in the morning, a neighbor had heard I think Andrew's loudly loud voice, some screams from one of the ladies, one of the girls, And that is in the police sort of investigation from the very outset that that was something that had triggered. Other than that, there was very little from that night that would alert anyone to a crime
being a crime happening in that town. I think the person they have thought it was a domestic dispute and nothing more. But it wasn't an ongoing, ongoing cries for help or scenes. It was you could just imagine a father rendered incapable of protecting his family, whether he was already dead, a terrified young teenage girl she was hiding under the bed. He pulled her out from underneath the bed and stabbed her again. And a mum who was
unable to escape this madman. What was going on inside that house, whether they couldn't scream in fear and shock, incapable of doing that at that time.
My mind immediately goes to Chris, who wasn't there, and he was on holiday with his girlfriend. I'm assuming he got a call. Do we know how he found out how quickly he was able to make it back.
Yeah, we know that he did get a call. Well, obviously got a call and was alerted to it, and I believe he was able to get back by that Monday afternoon or evening. He was raced back there, raced back to what his whole family had been murdered. And you know, I spent a bit of time with Chris
as in the years after. It was three years after that I I spent time with Chris and Coraly, and it was the last real touch point I had on this story was to do an interview with the pair as they awaited the birth of their child, and it
was lovely to be sitting there and doing that. I'd had a little bit of contact with Chris throughout that time, but obviously family and friends, community police, all of those people you'd expect were very protective of him, and I'd like to think that I respected that, and our coverage respected that as well. We did a lot of our liaison with the family through Chris's cousin, Kylie Duffield, and she became a real powerful and strong and fantastic spokesperson
for the family. The torment that Chris went through, you know, even even to the point of well, he had a absolute alibi and the Gold Coast had he organized the killing of his family and what or had he led? Was he up to something that led them to be attacked, It would have been so tormenting. And you know, he was a really strong and powerful young man at the time to be able to even cope with that and
get through Yeah. Yeah, he raced back and I know that he was a pillar of strength for the people around him, and he had a lot of people around him to support him as well, though he was pretty stood fairly strong in the circumstances.
Was Coapunda you know regularly in the news. You know, as far as I can see, a bit more of a sleepy rural town, a little bit of a tourist location. But this would have kind of really put it on the map.
Yeah, like for the wrong reasons. Yeah. No, Copanda is a fabulous place. It's a lovely sleepy country hamlet. Really. It has a really rich history and probably quite a I imagine it's had a fair share of trouble and strife, but nothing like this. So you know, it's part of the Copper Triangle with the Cornish miners and so had the copper mine there, and at one stage I think
had the number of pubs in Capunda. There was somewhere around thirty pubs in Kapunda, and even at this stage in twenty ten, there's still a lot of little pubs in there. So you can imagine the rough and tumble. It is a rough and tumble town. It's got a rich Catholic history. It's also got a number of tunnels that run below the town, very intriguing township, but nothing like this.
You said you were tasked with, you know, chatting to the locals as part of your team's investigation. What was their reaction like to something like this happening in the town. At the start, as you mentioned, we didn't know the details, but they did know that three members of a family had been killed in the one house.
I had a shock at that devastation that a family from their community had been so horrifically murdered. And as it filtered out, of course there's that immediate grief and outrage. Then the fear really set in because and it was within a few days I think that the township of Capanda started to sort of work out that hey, this isn't likely to be well, they thought it was someone
from outside of town. It'd have to be, wouldn't it, because no one in their town, that the people that they lived with, their neighbors, isn't going to do anything like this. But within a few days, the efforts of the police were starting to see it that way that we think this could be one of your own, and that level of fear really rose, so they were quite scared.
They I think walking around the town people did try to go about their lives as usual and try to keep that face of you know, we're still we're getting along with things. We're supportive of every effort that the police make. But then you've got media from everywhere. All the eyes are on it. So everyone was on tenterhooks
and they were scared. So even I found myself knowing a lot of people there, they were reserved in what they might come forward with and a bit frightened about talking with you, And so it made it pretty hard.
Were the police sharing any clues in those early days or were they kind of keeping things pretty under wraps. I know that there was a really widespread search, you know, underwater land everything.
I know that over time I've been critical of police, and at the time I was critical of police because not about keeping things under wraps. I understand that that's the way that things need to be. And something that was quite of interest to me was the head of Major Crime and Grant Moyle. He'd been in the job for two days before this murder happened. And you know, I'd no Grant Moyle from He's a few years older than me, but he grew up in the same township
as me and my mum used to babysitting. There was this journo cop battle like, you're the investigative editor, Brian, but I'm the investigator, say, there's always been that with police. I think that police did a good job from the outset in putting together a plan to try to that would likely capture the suspect or the lightly suspect. It's
just that this crime was different. So I think what they would normally go into trying to capture a person that they looked in the wrong spots to start with early, but arether the wrong spots probably not, That's how you'd approach it. I don't think anyone believed that it was someone from Capunda that would have that, so certainly not the person it turned out to be. But police went doing the things that you might expect him to do
from the start. So there was a security guard security patrol who patrolled Kapunda and would have been the most likely person to go to to ask for had you seen anything. He'd been out that Sunday night. In fact, he responded to an alarm at the Compunda Primary School at around ten o'clock on the Sunday night. It turns out that that primary school's a couple of blocks shy
of where Jason Downey lived at the time. The police hadn't even been to the local security patrol guy to say did you see anything the one person who had reason to be driving around Kapunda late at night on a Sunday night. They didn't particularly go to the people that Chantelle had had contact with over that weekend. So Chantelle was the only person that you could closely track where she went from place to place and what she
was doing. So I made a discovery some three or four days into that investigation that they hadn't spoken to Chantelle's boss, who she'd messaged not more than two hours before she was murdered to say that she wouldn't be at work the next day. Was in a neighboring town in Urutpa place that I know, Cafe Divine. She'd worked there for a week. But even the cafe operator, the boss, who had the message on her phone from Chantelle saying
I'm not going to be in tomorrow. I feel crooked, police hadn't spoken to her, and she was flabbergasted at that. Why wouldn't they speak to her if you're going to try to track these movements. So yeah, police did a good job in the circumstances. I think they'd do a lot better job knowing that this is the crime that happened and what had happened, So the debrief would have set some new parameters. I think.
Well, it did take, you know, eight days or so to arrest their suspect. Was Jason Downey's name floating around? Do we know now from the start was he an early person of interest?
I was certainly not in the police eye, as you know. I think if he was a person of interest, they would have had him in there earlier to speak with him at least, And the circumstances of him being brought in even suggests that, you know, even then they weren't too short that he was the right person. They were
just going on a bit of a hunch. But I guess, you know, his actions, certainly to go and put flowers at the gravesite and move around and go back to work normally and work each day activities that he didn't stand him out as a person of interest. No one was jumping up and down and saying we think it's him,
we think it's him. But I think there was one event in that week in the eight days that certainly some eyes had started to turn towards him as if he might be the person that had some involvement in it. There was a Christmas party that he went to with his workplace and they looked at him. One of the girls, their partner of one of his fellow mechanics at this Christmas party, took a photograph of him because they thought
that he was acting oddly and strangely. And she sent this photograph to us in the days shortly after Jason Downey's arrest, and we obviously we couldn't run it for some months until he appeared in court. But you know the explanation from the girl who made contact and sent that photograph to me, she said, I took it because I thought that he'd killed those people.
That's kind of creepy, isn't it.
It's really creepy. And the photograph, you know, it didn't help Jason Downey's cause to look any anything of innocent. It's because it was a days when you didn't have the red eye flash reducer. So you know, this photograph that's striking. He's got these devil eyes in it as well. So when we did run that photograph eventually after he'd
appeared and the suppressions on his identity were lifted. You know, it was a face of unmasking, a face of evil, and it certainly the photo did sit there appropriately to paint the picture of an evil person.
You mentioned something briefly that I wanted to bring back up the fact that he visited the flowers the shrine that was kind of caught on Like you could watch that. It's on video, It's on news camera footage, and it's kind of it's very eerie to look at in retrospect. He visits and stands there for ages and gives a gift.
Yeah, and wrote something I can't recall exactly what he wrote on that note, but yeah, As I said that, the media pack was there day and day twenty four to seven, pretty much inca punda and going to different locations, going to the lake that they had searched, the police had searched, and going for press conferences there. So there's always cameras on that house and cameras on the locations where police were searching, the cameras on people in the
streets as the police moves through there. So it's not surprising that they captured that footage, but obviously that became
quite a piece of valued footage across newsrooms. And I think also for police when they were trying to get an understanding of who they were dealing with once they had finally caught Jason Downey, what type of person they were dealing with, someone who could act so blase, And I guess it probably supports the fact that police didn't have any leads on It didn't seem outrightly as someone that they should be focusing on, because to be able to move through the community like that in a time
of grief and purport to be grieving. And he'd gone and visited the boyfriend of Chantelle rote that the person that one of only a few friends that Jason Downey had, he went and visited him within two days of the murder and act as if you know, he grieved with him. Was quiet and reserved. Described by Dylan Pratt that boyfriend as you know, typical of Jason, a bit quieter than normal. But wow, I mean the guy cold hearted.
M So that's the connection, isn't it. Can you tell us a bit about Jason because he is friends with Dylan and Chantelle is Dylan's girlfriend. That's the kind of link.
Yeah. So Jason Downey he didn't have any friends through high school, and you know, he was doing this apprenticeship and he did one day a week at tafe, so I do think he'd sort of finished his schooling before matriculation and had gone into this trade. But he, you know,
he didn't have a great life in Capunda. He'd emigrated there in two thousand and six with his mother Lorna, from Kilmarnock, and had a brother Jamie, who also lived there with a family or close by and worked close by down at gawler In I think as a stable hand or track work writer, a jockey if you like. But he had very few friends. Jason Downey, he wasn't one who made friends. He did try to act the
cool guy from all accounts. He was trying to purport himself as the you know, a bit of a basketball star and a gun mechanic and popular, but he really he'd had an infatuation with his only real his best mate's girlfriend, and you know, she Chantelle didn't shut that down, particularly because you know she she didn't want to upset her boyfriend either, and the boyfriend, you know, I sat with Dylan, you know, years after the case was so when we're putting together some material and and he was
talking about Jason Downey actually quite you know, friendly and jovial about it, saying that this guy wouldn't hurt a fly, and he never had any suspicions about him, and he didn't have any concerns about his girlfriend being interested in Jason Downey. But in Jason Downey's mind, you know, his girlfriend, Chantell Rowe was interested in him, and it was reciprocated. And that's that volcano or that firestor and that built up and you know, he was he was there to take what he thought was his So.
Really, at the end of the day, this was a sexual obsession or an infatuation with Chantelle and.
Z I for I guess, affection and attention, a cry for help. He he a cry for help. I guess he was. He felt quite alone. And you know, it has been suggested that, you know, Chantell had continued to message him and be polite to him and things like that, and he took that as she's interested in me and built that up in his own mind, I think, and we don't really know what happened behind those closed doors
and what sparked that frenzy. But you know it would appear that rejection and being told that this isn't happening, He snapped.
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Jemma Bass. I'm speaking with journalist Brian Littley about the Kapunda triple murder. Up next, Brian tells us about how the arrest of Jason Downey unfolded. How did his arrest go down in the end.
So we know that it had been eight days or so since that murder three people stabbed more than a hundred times violently like one of the most violent murders and scenes that police have seen. Jason Downey had throughout that time been working at the Tarnanda Mechanics as an apprentice,
where he was a lowly apprentice. Each day he ride shared with someone else, another young person from Kapunda who worked at the same mechanics, and they'd ride share and go across the thirty odd kilometers from Capunda to Tnanda, and Jason had continued to as he normally would catch a lift with his work colleague and catch a lift back with his work colleague, and police having acted on a hunch about information that Sergeant John Keen had picked
up in when interviewing Jason Downey. He'd made a point that he he tried to make an alibi for where he was. He wasn't at this party on the Saturday night. Yes he knew Chantell, but you know, he kept making the point that he wasn't at this party. And I went to McDonald's down in Gawla and got some food, so on Sunday that's where I was. So he made this alibi and he was insistent on it, and John Keen had picked up going it's odd, you know, he keeps offering up this alibi. If he hasn't got anything
to hide, why would he be volunteering this information. So they did start to check him out, and they were closing in on him obviously, and they knew that they had someone who was a suspect here. By matching shoe prints and doing some actual detective work matching fingerprints, they started to think that this could be the guy. So they got the colleague who was working with Jason that
time in to Nanda. They said, we'll get you to bring him in to come in and sign his would just tell him he's going to sign the statement, and you know it's it's played out since in the weeks after that, you know, these mechanics in the workshop at lunch time, we're sort of joking with Jason Downey. They're going, oh, they're going to arrest you for those murders. And these are the same colleagues that just a few days before we're thinking, hey, this guy's acting a bit dodgy. He's
got cuts on his hands as well. He's trying to explain some things that had happened, and you know, enough to take a photograph of him at their Christmas dinner to say we suspect this guy has done this, and they were joking with him. I can't imagine how nerve racking that drive for that young person he was driving to deliver him directly to the police station. Must have been knowing that, you know, I'm driving a person back to the police station that we all suspect has done it,
and we've been joking around with it. And of course, you know, Jason Downey knows what he's done, doesn't.
He You've shown how dangerous that he is, so to put that person in that position, that's right.
And there was no suggestion at the time, and there's no suggestion that they were being followed by police patrol on marked the car or anything like tracktor. That was just I thought that was bizarre that police did that, but it did work out for them. He went there and he and they got their man. So, you know, I don't think it'd be the number one way of bringing in a suspect who's committed that sort of crime.
And Jason's name was suppressed for a while, wasn't it. Why was that because he was eighteen at the time of his arrest.
Yeah, I think I can't really explain the legal reasons why it was suppressed, but I think it was matching up. You know that there were things that hadn't been found, like so Chantelle's phone was missing, and we know that there was a message sent from that phone that sort of they apparently never found the phone, They hadn't found a murder weapon. There was suggestions that, I guess his identity suppressed. There's still a lot of talk about the
fact that this could one person do this. It's you know, he wasn't a very strong guy, wasn't a big guy. It's quite a weedy week looking in sip a eighteen year old, he's managed to overpower Andrew and and you know that was no mean feat. So there was still this talk was there another person about did he have an accomplice? And things like that? So plus small town, you want to control the narrative. I want to control the information that's coming out. So my only thinking is
that that's why it was suppressed. They're also chasing guilty please from him, so that would be the hope to I guess, limit the amount of pain for Christopher and that community of Capunda.
The appearance of Downey really did kind of shock people, didn't it when he was eventually kind of revealed to be this killer because of the brutality and yeah, like it just goes to show that you know, anyone can be a killer.
Well, it really does, because you know, he wasn't the obvious choice, or was he? If you have a look at that footage of him placing those flowers's he's a weak looking eighteen year old boy. And to have that brutality in someone so young as well, to have that amount of rage that must have taken like, it doesn't it doesn't match the persona doesn't match the person at all the crime.
Tell me about the strange rumor that was kind of circulating once his name did come out.
Yeah, look, I guess that is probably what we're touching on this. You know, the crime doesn't match. People are looking for answers as to how this young man could possibly responsible for such a brutal crime. And so the rumors started coming out and we're flowing that he matched the identity of the James Bolger killers. So he'd come
from Kilmarnock. And if you know the story of James Boulger, two year old boy in the UK in nineteen ninety three, taken off in a shopping center by two ten year olds. He tortured him, held him hostage and then murdered him. Robert Thompson and John Vannables. Now in two thousand and one they were released with new identities, and there was quite a bit of talk that Robert Thompson, who disappeared off the face of the planet, really there was taught
that he'd been relocated to Australia. Now, in two thousand and six, Jason Downey and his mum and the family landed in Capunda, emigrated to Capunda, and there was a bit of a. I guess a resemblance in just general sort of if you looked at them and the ages were matching up, and that reomor went around and was thoroughly checked out by media organizations and proven to not be the case, obviously, but it probably the speculation about all the consideration that how could someone have so much
rage they went to match it to someone who'd done something so violent and vulgar in the past.
Can we talk about the evidence that was gathered against Downey? You mentioned DNA, So they had, you know, a lot of blood, they had fingerprints, they had footprints, seamen, what else did they have against him?
Going through police reports on what they did gather and yeah, a fingerprint that was almost accidentally gathered. They were dusting one space on the inside of Chantell's bedroom door location that they looking at, and a bit of the dust the fingerprint dust was missed place that was sort of drifted off somewhere else and it landed on a fingerprint, which was a fantastic thumb print. I think that they're
able to lift. So they had that there an they had that fairly early on, but of course Jason Downey had never I didn't have a criminal record or anything, so they had nothing. You know, they had a fingerprint eventually was going to prove vital, crucial. There was also the shoeprints that were left around in the blood that you know, he'd tried to cover up at one stage and he'd walked out, and he was so calcul well not calculated, but working to in that scene, such an
odd thing. He'd tried to clean up some blood. Then he went back and stabbed people. He took his shoes off at one start and walked around in bare feet, in socks, i should say, and put these different sock covered prints around the place, and he left there with his shoes off, and they've never been found. So they managed to his mum had revealed that, you know, he only had three pairs of shoes, so they matched shoe prints from a pair that was missing, like one of
those pairs was missing. But all of that stuff was what ultimately got him secured that conviction and all that evidence against him. But the one thing that they didn't find was the knife, and it was a kitchen knife taken from the Row family's house, so he didn't go there with a weapon. From everything we know, he took it, and this sort of I guess raises the point that this was a snap. He didn't go there with the
intent to kill them, but that's how it happened. The police line on that is that they never found that knife, they never found the murder weapon. But I'd questioned that as well. Those months later and happened to be on a day that Jason Downey was facing court, and from my memory, it was a day that he entered his plea.
It'd been horrific for the family members, in the community, and of course the legal system, the prosecutors were all hoping for that day to end that, you know, get a guilty plea and try to stem that flow of pain for that community.
You mentioned that he entered a plea. It ended up being, you know, a year later after the murders. So before that he was kind of maintaining his innocence, wasn't He even had kind of a strange story about why there might have been his fingerprint there.
Yeah, yeah, there was. There was a lot of a lot of that, and I think that's when it did come out. It's not real clear what his story was, and I certainly say myself I didn't closely follow those back and forth, so it got out of my hands, the investigative guy on the ground, and it was really in our court reporter's hands. He was trying to give reason for not being there. So I think the police probably explain it better. And I've heard that that you know,
he was. They were keenly getting those fingerprints and keenly getting these bits and pieces, and they wanted to really make sure they had that forensic stuff. Having the shoe prints and having the fingerprint, having multiple bits of forensic evidence meant that they could shut down if he did want to say, hey, but I've been there in the past, and the police made it quite clear that. And Dylan Pratt has also said that he rarely had gone inside
that house to see Chantell. He wasn't welcome there. Jason Downey had met Christopher Rowe once a few weeks before the murder, and Christopher, who has shared that he would normally, you know, shake someone's hand, he obviously had a bit of a feeling about Jason Downey because he didn't shake his hand, he said, so I think they stacked up the storyline that there was no great possibility that Jason Downey had been a regular person inside that Harriet Street house.
So his alibis or his whatever story he made up wasn't really going to sit tight.
So he did plead guilty, which obviously saves Chris and the other family members from having to go through the ordeal.
Of a trial.
I want to talk about Jason's apology letter, if you can talk to that, because I've seen it described as a childlike reaction to a horrendous crime, which I think is a very fitting description.
Yeah, it was. He called it my recent actions, was the way he described killing three people. So it was not an apology. It was there's no trition, there's no remorse in it. I mean, it was the writings of a child and a person who had no comprehension of what he did. Now, I'm sure Jason Downey did comprehend what he'd done. He knew what he'd done, but I'm sure he didn't get advice on how to write that letter. Because the apology letter, because it just it didn't hit.
It only hurt that family. You know, he was upset, he wrote him there before this, before my recent actions, I had a good job, I had a good car, and had a good social life, and I've lost all of that because of my recent actions, so he didn't get.
It so down. He ended up getting thirty five years, which to me, knowing what he did and knowing how many people he killed, doesn't sound like a lotch but it is actually a very significant penalty in South Australia, isn't it.
Yeah, that is There's only been one higher I believe, and that's Michael Barry Fife, the bird Man of Yatler they call him. I think he got a total of thirty eight years, but that's thirty five years before he has any chance of parole. Doesn't mean that he's necessarily going to get out.
After the break, we find out where Christopher Rowe is now and whether he's been able to move on from the murder of his family. Back to Chris again, because you know, you were the one of the only, or if only, the only journo to kind of have extensive chats with him, and another kind of insight he gave you was the amount of debt that these murders left him in and the kind of lack of help he was given.
Yeah, I'm trying to think back to it, but I do think so the victims of crime levee is you know, is there to pick up help pick up some of those pieces. But you can imagine Christopher couldn't work for two years, really like it couldn't have a normal life.
And even after the you know, the the sentencing and everything, there's there's no normally, it's hard to get back to any normal life there and the trauma trying to deal with it with counseling and trying to just make day to day happen and get around is going to cost you a great deal of money. The I think there's hold ups with the states as well. That's going to happen in situations like that. So he's really back against the wall type stuff. And the victims of crime levee
that was paid out to I guess the family. It wasn't even paid out to Chris. He wasn't considered a victim of crime because he wasn't there. He wasn't a victim of a They lost his whole family. And I think the total amount was twenty three thousand dollars from Victims of crime Levy, which has got millions of dollars in that. Mind you, every time you break the law, obviously there's that levy you're paying on top of your fine.
It was seven thousand dollars per life taken and then some money to clean up the crimes and the house for sale or for yeah, also it could later be sold. And that was a compensation that the Row family got that Christopher Roe got. So there was no compensation for Christopher for losing his family.
You did say that there was, you know, somewhat of a happy ending for Chris. He and his partner had a little baby boy together and as far as you know, they're living a happy life now.
Look, I know that it was very up and down for the and I know that they did have a little baby and that was wonderful. And I do believe they had a second child together, but I don't I don't know for sure, but I don't believe that they continued in a partnership. But I think they've always continued
to support each other. So I don't know that they're together anymore, but certainly my last contact with them, which was some years ago, was that they're still very supportive and you know, they have a huge amount of support, still ongoing support from that Compunda community, and you know, they wrapped their arms around Christopher and Cora Lee and their family and each other as well, because there's so many people that were very, very much hurt within that
community for a whole myriad of reasons, not just because they lost friends, but because the impact that such a crime would have on a community.
He isn't an Australian citizen. He's originally from Scotland, as we've mentioned. If and when he does get out, will he stay here, will he be able to settle in Australia, or does he get kind of kicked out of the country.
Yeah, he would be extradited. Was at the point of him being sentenced and going to jail, that was the status then that you know, if ever he did get out or was released parole after thirty five years, it would be extradition for him, right.
And I believe that there was a bit of media public resistance kind of happening at the thought of that as well from Scotland who said they didn't want him.
Yeah. Yeah, there seemed to be that coming from across the way there that no, you can keep him. He's been there since he was a child. He did this, he's one of yours. He's not one of ours. So I think from memory that's where there was plenty of resistance. Well, I had a bit to do with chasing. He's got a half sister back in Scotland, Jodie was a half sister. Jason Downey's father is not even on his birth certificate, so I'm not sure that he doesn't know the identity
of his father. So kil Marnut was a pretty tough, rough and tumble place as well. So there's no doubt that this lad had a pretty tough upbringing and or hard life. You know, he was uprooted and emigrated to Australia, didn't like Capunda and things like that, but you know, he doesn't really have a place these places in jarl Atte moment.
Has the stain of this crime affected Kapunda long term, you know, like unfortunately still to this day it's kind of referred to as the Kapunda triple murder. It's got the town's name and it's kind of title. Has it affected the town?
I would say it certainly had some impact on it. But they're pretty good people and I able to pick up the pieces pretty well.
You know.
It was in twenty ten and for that first decade, Yeah, definitely, I think that they've done a really good job of filtering that out and washing cleansing themselves of that. But you're right, it's still the Companda triple murder. If someone asked me about the road founder Mesa, it's the Companda murders. It's not unlike Snowtown Truro. Truro is just down the road. You know, Truro, a town with a secret. Capunda hasn't
earned that sort of title. The murders are always going to be known as the Capunda Copunda triple murders.
How do you reflect on your time investigating this story. Did it have a big impact on you at the time, and do you think about it often or is it one of those ones that you've been able to let go?
H No, I don't think I let go of any of the crimes that I have investigated, and there's been some horrific ones, which does take an impact, and Kampanda certainly does. I think doing this now is a great reminder.
I've got a fifteen year old daughter, and you know, I reflect at the time, you know, she was just a child, and and I'd softened a fair of bit because I, you know, had been the pretty hard nosed journo out to get the scoop all the time out there, and I'd actually soften and I really felt this violence against a young girl that that hurt me. It made
me hungry to find out what happened as well. So, you know a bit of a mix of being the journal and the dad, I guess, and the community member, and I felt that I had that strong connection to the community out there as well. I felt that I was in my role serving that community and my state to be able to try to tell this story in a way that was you know, accurate and foolsome and
also carry some compassion with it. So it does stick with me quite a bit as one of the cases that you know, I'll never forget it and the emotions I had around it while I was doing it, and there was some times where you're just blown away and you do want to go off and have a bit of a cry as well, and that you know, it doesn't matter how tough a bloke you think you are, that's okay.
Thanks to Brian for helping us to tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by me Jemma Bass and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another true crime conversation.