Ep.6 Who is John Wilson?

Who did Victor and Pauline Licciardi see at Kathleen's house the day police thought she was killed? Their evidence, along with a refusal provide a DNA sample, sent police on the hunt to prove Andrew was the killer. 

Transcript

MURDER AND THE HELLCATS

EPISODE 6

Previously on Murder and the Hellcats.

HELEN: I didn't sleep. I was very upset. Now that Kathleen Marshall had died I would be unable to claim on the defamation suits. She was worth at least $80,000 to me now that she had died. I don’t know what I'll do. I'll have to discuss it with my solicitor.

UNAMED MALE CAT SOCIETY DIRECTOR: I am of the opinion that she is responsible for the death of Kathleen Marshall. I make this statement because I feel that she's a very psychotic and vindictive person who is capable of committing such a terrible act.

 CATHERINE: This is episode six of Murder in the Hellcats. 

In this episode, I want to talk about the last people to visit Kathleen's at her home before she was killed. Cat Society carers, Victor and Pauline Licciardi, were the last known persons at the victim's residence before the window of time the forensic entomologist initially said Kathleen was killed. Their evidence became instrumental in the police pursuing Andrew. 

After her murder, the Licciardis became involved in Operation Leaf when they went to pick up some cat cages from her house they met Ian Galton, Kathleen's friend who was staying at her house at the time. Ian Galton was the same person who police discovered trying to access Kathleen's house drunk with a friend the night her body was found. The Licciaridis mentioned to Ian their final visit to Kathleen's home. And he suggested they speak to police. The police were called and came straight over.

If you recall from the last episode, a friend of Helen, Clare Wagner, said in the poison pen letter:

CLARE WAGNER: Your recorded message recommends certain death in referring people to the RSPCA and certain neglects with a man convicted of cruelty.

CATHERINE: Clare Wagner was criticising the Cat Society for telling members of the public if they had a cat that needed rescuing to contact the RSPCA or another man. That man was Victor Licciardi and he had a prior conviction for animal cruelty. He had been a cat carer for the society since it was started in the mid-1960s. I don't have any records of what exactly Victor was convicted of. In his official police statement, taken on June 25th, he refers to this trouble. The couple have passed away since Kathleen's murder. This is what Victor told police, but it's not his voice.

VICTOR LICCIARDI: I was accused of a number of things, including taking possession of the cats and selling them to a research institute in New South Wales by people who I believe to be involved in some unsavoury financial deals involving the system and society.

CATHERINE: He goes on to say that there were rumours and innuendo about him by other members, and that Kathleen had offered to help him set the record straight. This is what Pauline Licciardi said in her police statement about the last time the couple saw Kathleen, which was four days before her body was found but it's not her voice.

PAULINE LICCIARDI: On Thursday the 26th of February 1998, Victor and I went to Kathleen's house. We had gone there to pick up a cat that had been delivered that morning. When we arrived Kathleen had just finished one appointment, which was a gentleman with a small dog. He was on his way out of the driveway.

CATHERINE: The Licciardis estimated they were at Kathleen's house for 10 to 15 minutes. 

PAULINE LICCIARDI: Kathleen told us she had another appointment at 1:00PM. Kathleen did not say what the appointment was for. Just on one o'clock we were on the point of leaving and Kathleen had come downstairs with us. She came down to the bus to look at two other cats that we had picked up for her, and we were going to care for.

CATHERINE: As they were leaving in their commuter bus, they noticed a man holding a cat in his arms walking down the hill towards Kathleen's house. 

PAULINE LICCIARDI: As the man got closer, he passed on the roadside of the bus. Within about 10 to 12ft of me. the man walked past the van and stood at the driver's side rear corner of the car. Victor had said to this man from his window: be careful mate in case I roll back. He said this because the man was standing close to the car and it is quite steep on that section of the road.

CATHERINE: But the man didn't move or acknowledge the Licciardis.

PAULINE LICCIARDI: We assumed, because he was standing and waiting for us to go, that the man was the next appointment.

CATHERINE: Police found a small blue diary in Kathleen's house. In the diary there was an appointment for Jazz the dog, scheduled for 12:30PM, the same day of the Licciardis visit. The Licciardis confirmed that when they arrived, a man and his dog were leaving Kathleen's. Jazz's owner was located and eliminated from the investigation.

The police tried to identify the next person in Kathleen's diary a man named John Wilson, who had made a one o'clock appointment for his ca − John Wilson who may or may not have been the man carrying a cat outside Kathleen's house as seen by the Licciardis. 

In the police log of this interaction with the Licciardis dated March 8th, which is a week after Kathleen was killed and months before the Licciardis made their official police statements, the couple's only physical description of the man with the cat was that he was in his 50s and unfamiliar to them. There was no description of the cat breed and no other details of the physical appearance of the man. We can't determine from the police logs how the police attempted to find the John Wilson from Kathleen's appointment book. 

But we do know the attempt to identify the John Wilson appointment, who was bringing their cat, went nowhere until late May when police visiting the Spiritualist church ran into Andrew. Here's amateur sleuth Ted Duhs discussing that first encounter.

TED: And it was, um, after that, about three months after that police became interested in Andrew Fitzherbert. They asked him to give DNA.  And he said, well, is it voluntary? And the police, that is Detective Geoff Marsh, who was in charge of the police investigation, said yes, it's voluntary. And Fitzherbert then said, well, in that case, I prefer not to give DNA.

CATHERINE: Just over a week after Andrew refused to take a DNA test, Victor Licciardi attended the government medical office to supply a saliva sample for testing. At this time, Detective Marsh mentions in his own police statement that he spoke to Victor and Pauline. But his statement did not reveal exactly what was discussed during Victor's DNA test. We’d have to assume he wanted to know more about the man they saw carrying the cat outside Kathleen's house now that they had their first and only real male suspect, Andrew, on their radar. 

Nearly two weeks later, on June 22nd, police visited Andrew's house to ask him to supply his DNA. Ruth owned three cats. A pregnant cat called Zilla had disappeared on February 26th. That was the Thursday before Kathleen's body was found and the same day a man was seen standing outside Kathleen's house, holding a cat in his arms. 

Andrew refused to take a DNA test voluntarily for the second time. The next day, police put together a photoboard of suspects to show the Licciardis.

Pauline and Victor were at the Coorparoo RSL at the time. So that's where Detective Marsh asked them to pick out the man carrying the cat. A passport photo of Andrew was one of the faces for the Licciardis to choose from.

Victor could not identify anyone from the photoboard. Pauline identified photo number nine as being the most like the man she saw carrying the cat. That happened to be Andrew Fitzherbert. This is how she was questioned at the committal. These are not the actual voices of Andrew's defence barrister, Jeff Hunter KC, who was not a King's Counsel at the time, or Pauline. 

JEFF HUNTER KC: Having studied the photo board, how confident were you of the selection that you made?

PAULINE LICCIARDI: I chose one number and I said, that is the man most like the man. I saw the difference being that this is a smiling photograph, and when I saw the man, he was not smiling.

JEFF HUNTER KC: And that is the only difference?

PAULINE LICCIARDI: That's the only difference that I could tell. 

JEFF HUNTER KC: And on that date, there was nothing out of the ordinary?

PAULINE LICCIARDI: No.

JEFF HUNTER KC: There was nothing about that day that caused the events of about one o'clock to, um, stick in your mind, was there?

PAULINE LICCIARDI: No. Only the fact that we didn't think about it at all until Kathleen's body was found and then it came back to us that there was someone there.

CATHERINE: Two days later, after the photoboard identification, the police recorded interviews and took detailed statements from the Licciardis for the first time. In those statements the cat the Licciardis saw being held by the man was described as a Siamese. As long-term cat carers they were familiar with breeds. Victor remembered the cat the man was carrying as a Seal Point Siamese, which is described as having light-coloured fur with darker points. Pauline, in her statement to the police, identified it as Lilac Point Siamese. The difference: the Seal Point has the darkest points, which means the more contrasting fur on the ears, paws. The lilac is the lightest with a pale grey fur in those areas.

Just a reminder, according to the police logs when they were first interviewed, the couple only described the man carrying the cat as in his 50s and unfamiliar to them. There was no physical description about his height, build, hair colour, clothing, or cat breed. And when you heard Pauline discuss the sighting with Andrew's barrister at the committal, she specifically said nothing else about the sighting stuck in her mind.

In the statements taken from the Licciardi’s on June 25th, after they had seen a picture of Andrew on the photoboard, they both gave quite detailed descriptions of the man and the cat. They both described the cat-holding man as being in his 40s, 5ft 6 to 5ft 8 tall, of slight build, clean shaven with short light-coloured hair and a thin face according to Victor, or brown to grey hair according to Pauline. They did not mention what he was wearing. They both remember him walking down the hill towards Kathleen's house and they both remembered it was a Siamese cat that he was carrying, although they disagreed over the exact type of Siamese. 

There are some other elements of their description of the man carrying the cat that make the likelihood of that person being Andrew Fitzherbert questionable. We'll be getting to that later in the podcast.

 This is what Detective Marsh said about trying to find John Wilson at the committal. When questioned by Andrew’s barrister, it is not their voices.

JEFF HUNTER KC: Have you made any efforts to find anyone by the name of John Wilson? I accept that there will be a number of them, but have you done that?

DETECTIVE MARSH: Preliminary checks were made of people that live in the area, and you've got to remember the person was seen carrying the cat in their arms. So we assumed in our investigations that the cat hasn't come very far. But there was no John Wilson living in the area.

JEFF HUNTER KC: Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't one of the Licciardis say that they didn't know whether there was a motor vehicle? 

DETECTIVE MARSH: They weren't sure. But the fact that the cat was in their arms, from my limited experience with cats, I'm sure a cage would be required to transport an animal any distance. But to answer your question, we checked for John Wilson, but there was nothing there.

JEFF HUNTER KC: Was John Wilson a name that appears anywhere else in the diary?

DETECTIVE MARSH: No, it wasn't.

JEFFREY HUNTER KC: And did you find any diaries for previous years or just for 1998?

DETECTIVE MARSH: No, we didn't. We found the personal diary plus a receipt book. The last receipt was given on the 26th of February to Matthew Thompson and his dog Jazz.

JEFFREY HUNTER KC: Right, but there's no receipt for John Wilson?

DETECTIVE MARSH: No receipt for John Wilson. We made some inquiries, but nothing.

CATHERINE: There was no receipt for John Wilson and his cat in Kathleen's receipt book. It seems likely from this piece of information that whoever John Wilson was, there was no vet work done for him.

Amateur detective Ted Duhs explains a theory that he heard from Helen on how Andrew could have been involved in Kathleen's murder. 

TED: The theory that ______  I think suggested, is that Fitzherbert's brought Ruth's cat, pregnant Siamese cat Zilla to Kathleen Marshall, one o'clock Thursday. Marshall puts it in the house somewhere. Somehow or other the cat gets out of the cage; disappears. Ruth, who's devastated by the loss of her favourite Zilla the cat, somehow comes to Kathleen Marshall's place, confronts Marshall. Violence erupts. Ruth kills Kathleen Marshall. Fitzherbert is present while Ruth is doing this, and that's how his DNA appears in the surgery.

Here's the legal academic Laura-Leigh Cameron-Dow discussing the cat revenge theory.

LAURA-LEIGH: The idea was that he'd had this pregnant cat and he'd taken it to Kathleen to be treated. And she'd killed the cat, and so he killed her − which was interesting. They never found evidence of the pregnant cat. Andrew did have a cat that went missing at the time. Uh, but there was no evidence found of the pregnant cat at the veterinary surgery.

CATHERINE: Could that have happened? Could this have been the motive for Andrew to kill Kathleen? After he had visited her for veterinary care, which she had botched in some way, did Ruth become angry because it was actually her cat and he had decided to go back and kill Kathleen? Or did they go together?

If that was the case, the initial visit would've been legitimate and the murder would've only occurred because the vet visit went wrong. Why, in that scenario, would you use a false name to make the appointment?

Remember previously in the podcast we talked about an old school associate of Kathleen's who saw her alive on Friday. That witness, Catherine Stevenson, saw a notice at the local newsagency for a missing cat with a significant reward and Kathleen's contact details. Catherine Stevenson assumed from the notice that Kathleen was treating the cat, it got injured and ran away. But I couldn't find anything in the police logs that gave any more detail of this notice. This lost cat notice posted on the newsagency window with Kathleen's contact details is likely how this cat revenge theory started. 

It was Andrew's refusal to give DNA that alerted the police. It's obvious from the timeline of events and lack of other evidence that police decided his refusal to take the test voluntarily made him a suspect.  And at this point, they had no other suspects in what was a very high-profile case.

ACT II  

I want to talk about Andrew's arrest timeline and answer the question I think everyone has about this case. Why didn't Andrew agree to have his DNA tested in the first place if he had nothing to hide?

Kathleen's body was discovered on Sunday, February 28th. A month later, on March 31st, Ken Cox at the government forensic lab, known then as the John Tong Centre, discovered male DNA at the crime scene. A week later he telephoned Detective Marsh for the first time to tell him male DNA was found. No written communication or DNA profile sheet was given to the police at that time. So that means there was no timestamped documentation of the DNA profile in police hands.

On May 28th Detective Marsh met Andrew for the first time when they visited the Spiritualist Church looking for Patrick the psychic. Andrew's initial refusal to supply a DNA sample triggered a deeper look at his possible connection to Kathleen. Just over a week later, on June 9th, Detective Marsh spoke to Pauline and Victor Licciardi in the course of taking Victor's saliva swab. He asked more questions about the cat-carrying person outside Kathleen's house on the Thursday. But we don't know what information was passed to Marsh cause that's not in his police statement. And no official police statement was taken from the couple until later in June.

At the committal, detective Marsh summarised how Andrew became a suspect.

DETECTIVE MARSH: We always knew that Ruth Bennett was a supporter of ________. She appeared in the Sunday Mail article on the 14th of June, I believe. The Crown has a copy of the article where she states that she is a supporter of ________. Obviously, we had male blood, but Ruth Bennett has a de facto Andrew Fitzherbert, and that's why his name enters onto the list. Also through Patrick Hanrahan, when talking to him on a critical day in the investigation being Thursday the 26th of February, Patrick Hanrahan made a statement that he was with Andrew Fitzherbert and our person of interest ________ on that day. We just wanted to eliminate him so we could concentrate elsewhere.

CATHERINE: In the afternoon of June 22nd, Detective Marsh and Senior Constable Trennery went to Andrew's house and requested Andrew take a DNA test. They also asked Ruth, Andrew's de facto partner, to supply a mouth swab. She also refused. In response to why he was refusing, Andrew declared himself to be a civil libertarian.

 In the statement of Detective Marsh about this visit to Andrew's home, he said he highlighted the connection between Andrew and Helen. Police were at this stage still working on the assumption from the forensic entomologist that Kathleen was killed between 9PM Thursday and no later than 3AM Friday morning.

Police argued that because Helen was a person of interest in the investigation and that Andrew and Helen were together at the Spiritualist Church on the Thursday of February 26th, before Kathleen's body was found on Sunday, that Andrew needed to do a DNA test. This is what Detective Marsh said about Andrew's behaviour after he told him this.

DETECTIVE MARSH: At this point, I noticed that Andrew Fitzherbert commenced to visibly shake and he sat down on the lounge. I also noticed that his face went a shade of red and he appeared shaken.

CATHERINE: In the presence of police, Ruth deferred to Andrew about whether they should give their DNA, but Andrew stated that he had heard about a person in New South Wales who spent 10 years in jail, wrongly identified by fingerprint. Andrew said to Marsh, I will not have my DNA wrongly identified at her house. Andrew told the detective, no, he didn't trust it, and Ruth also refused. Andrew cited his civil right not to, and a distrust of authority. He invited police to check the two ASIO files on him as a political agitator. And he proudly declared he had been to every demonstration that had taken place in Queen Street, Brisbane.  

I'm just going to digress into a little Queensland political history. The protest movement from the 1960s in Brisbane centred on the Vietnam War and conscription, and it was fierce. The State Traffic Act meant successive governments, particularly the infamous Bjelke-Peterson state government, gave extensive powers to the Queensland Police to control street demonstrations.

Joe Bjelke-Peterson led the Queensland Liberal Country Party Coalition for decades to become the most notorious of Australian state premiers in modern political history. He was in the Queensland State Parliament for 40 years, first elected in 1947 and retiring in 1987. He was premier from 1968 till he left politics after making a tilt at being Prime Minister. Known for his tough stance on law and order, a royal commission known as the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption later revealed widespread malfeasance up to ministerial level. Four government ministers and the police commissioner who Joe had knighted were ultimately jailed. Joe himself left politics in disgrace after a failed prosecution for perjury at the inquiry.

Under Premier Bielke Peterson's leadership, Queensland Police became known for rough handling of protesters and making arrests when other states didn't arrest demonstrators at the time. Many of those protests were about the right to protest. Premier Bjelke-Peterson declared a state of emergency in 1971 to stop anticipated street demonstrations against the Springbok tour of Australia. In 1977 he abolished the right to hold street protests.

Andrew's attitude to the police was influenced by that era and his direct experience of participating in street protests. So understandably, being a person with a demonstrable commitment to civil liberties, it made perfect sense for him to want to avoid dealings with Queensland Police.

So going back to Andrew's arrest timeline, police visited his home that he shared with Ruth on June 22nd. While they were there, a cat entered the room and sat on Andrew's lap. Seeing the cat, Detective Marsh contacted the Licciardis and according to his statement had a conversation with them. The content of this conversation was not revealed, but I assume it was about the breed of cat they saw the man carrying outside Kathleen's house. The conversation prompted Detective Marsh to secure a photo of Andrew by approaching the passport office.

 On the same day, June 22nd, which was over three months since Pauline and Victor Licciardi told police about the man with the cat outside Kathleen's house and the police had seen the diary entry of John Wilson, detective Marsh admitted at the committal:

DETECTIVE MARSH: Um, in an article or an interview I gave to Channel 9 or Channel 10 on June 22nd I actually asked, I don't know if it went to air, but I asked if anyone had attended there with an animal to come forward because we were still trying to identify this person.

CATHERINE: I can't confirm if that appeal went to air and Detective Marsh admitted he didn't know either. But the question I have is why wasn't an appeal made much earlier when the Licciardis first told police about the person carrying the cat. Why did they wait to make this appeal for John Wilson to come forward until Andrew was already a suspect, if indeed this appeal was broadcast.

Even without the couple's account of seeing the man carrying the cat, Kathleen's own appointment book had the name of the cat owner from which the police could have made a public appeal, well before Andrew became a suspect.

 The police returned to Andrew's house the next day on June 23rd at 9AM and asked him again to supply a sample for a DNA test. After a conversation that lasted about half an hour, they left empty handed. In the afternoon, they added Andrew's passport photo to a photoboard of male faces and showed it to the Licciardis. As we know, Pauline picked out Andrew and Victor couldn't identify the man they had seen outside Kathleen's house.

At the committal Andrews barrister, Jeff Hunter asked Detective Marsh about the next day, June 24th, when a conversation took place about a listening device. It is not their voices.

JEFF HUNTER KC: Now on June 24th, you say you spoke to Sharon Loder, who's a lawyer employed by the Queensland Police Service.

DETECTIVE MARSH: That's correct.

JEFF HUNTER: What did you speak to her about?

DETECTIVE MARSH: I prepared a document for her for legal opinion in relation to the obtaining of a covert listening device, an application in relation to the obtaining of other investigative materials. 

JEFF HUNTER KC: Have any listening devices been used in the course of this investigation?

DETECTIVE MARSH: Well, her opinion was no, we would not get one. 

JEFF HUNTER KC: I'm asking you whether…

DETECTIVE MARSH: No, they have not been used.

CATHERINE: The application for a wiretap was not supported by the police lawyer. But we do know from the transcript of the Committal, that Andrew was under surveillance. This is what Detective Marsh said when questioned by Andrew's barrister.

JEFF HUNTER KC: Well, when was this surveillance undertaken?

DETECTIVE MARSH: The 26th, I believe they're dated; the photographs are dated, but it was, it was after the photo board identification.

JEFF HUNTER KC: Hmm? It was after you'd, you'd first had that formal conversation with him. Is that, is that so?

DETECTIVE MARSH: Yes. It's after we had the first, when I first attended his house on the 22nd of June.

CATHERINE: On July 1st Detective Marsh went to Andrew's house again. This time he asked him to come to the police station for questioning − voluntarily. Andrew was on his way to the Spiritualist Church that day and requested to come to the police station later. This request was refused. Andrew was then arrested for the murder of Kathleen Marshall and taken for questioning.

While in police custody, Andrew made contact with solicitors Robertson O’Gorman, and on their advice, he declined to make a statement. Not making a statement to police is standard advice if you are a suspect in a crime. Although TV crime shows would make you think it's tantamount to guilt.

Let's look at a situation of why a lawyer might tell a client not to make a statement. Let's say the police ask you what you did on a certain day and in Andrew's case, they would be asking about a date that was four months prior. This was before smartphones, so there was no ability to track those events with technology. Even if you can recall, if you get some detail wrong or forget to mention something, the police can assume it's a lie to cover the fact you are involved in the crime. So not making a statement to police is prudent when you are a suspect and does not insinuate guilt.

 Andrew was taken to Nunda CID and asked by Detective Marsh to give permission for a doctor to take a blood sample for DNA analysis. Andrew declined. He was held in custody that day while Detective Marsh applied to a magistrate to get permission to take Andrew's DNA. The hearing concluded at 4PM with the magistrate not finding grounds for the application, and it was refused. 

After Andrew was released, police scientific officer Brian Hogan went to the room where Andrew had been interviewed. At around 6PM he said he took three swabs from the desk surface, a black pen and a hair fibre found on the desktop. These were bagged and handed to the scientific section of the police.

Then at 7PM that same day, the detective again applied to the same magistrate this time for a search warrant for Andrew's house, which was granted. This is what academic Laura-Leigh Cameron-Dow said about the warrant.

LAURA-LEIGH: The weird thing about Andrew's test was the police turned up at his house and asked him, well, they turned up originally and asked for a DNA test at the church, and Andrew said, no, he's a civil libertarian. He doesn't believe in those sorts of things. At the time, you had to get a warrant and demonstrate a connection with the case to get a DNA sample. The initial warrant request by the police was turned down by a judge and they didn't get it granted. They then turned up at his house with another warrant and took the samples and had the results back within 24 hours.

ACT III

CATHERINE: At 8:30 at night on July 1st, after getting the search warrant, the detectives attended Andrew's house and stated that they were looking for a number of items for DNA testing, including a toothbrush, hairbrush, sheets, underwear, pillows, and pillowcases and cups. They took the socks from his feet and the handkerchief that was in his pocket. After collecting these items from Andrew's home on the night of Wednesday, July 1st. They took them to the John Tonge Centre the next morning, July 2nd.

The following day, on July 3rd which was a Friday, testing of those items was completed, and Andrew's DNA was a match. The items collected from the room where Andrew had been interviewed at the police station earlier on July 1st were stored at the police scientific section and not lodged with the John Tonge Centre until Monday July 6th.

LAURA-LEIGH: I've never been able to find the paperwork for the second warrant. It was not included in my FOI request from the DPP. I don't know what changed between the first warrant and the second warrant. I don’t know how the second warrant got through because there isn't a copy of it. The other comment is with the best rush job in the world, the John Tonge Centre did not get results out in 24 hours. So that would be a question mark. Did they already have a sample, an unofficial sample, and they were simply going through the process to get unofficial one so that they could match it, in which case they already had the results? I don't know. But turning something around in 24 hours, it's just not the way it works at the John Tonge Centre. Even with a rush job, I don't think you'd get it out in 24 hours, particularly not in those days with the testing available. So there are issues with his sample and the way it was taken by the police from that perspective.

CATHERINE: Police in Queensland can now take a suspect's DNA without a court order if the crime is serious enough and the person is lawfully detained. The Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 was passed shortly after Andrew's case. Before then, police routinely relied on covert means to obtain DNA.

For instance, Helen's ex-boyfriend Fijian National Keveli Tavale refused to supply DNA at first. So police collected his DNA covertly when he spat on the ground and from a discarded tissue. Which makes me wonder, Andrew was under surveillance on June 26th; could police have collected his DNA then? If this did occur, it certainly gives an alternative explanation of the quick turnaround in the DNA analysis. It also makes me wonder about the entire credibility of the DNA used in this case. 

Andrew arrived at the Brisbane City watchhouse Saturday, July 4th at 8:45AM accompanied by Terry O’Gorman, a well-known civil libertarian and criminal lawyer in Brisbane. Terry O’Gorman also told police this. These are his words as recorded by Detective Marsh, but it is not Terry O’Gorman's voice. 

TERRY O’GORMAN: In my experience, in this sort of case, the ingredients are ripe for a jail verbal. I am therefore going to be asking for my client to be kept in the watch house cell here by himself to prevent that from occurring. If it is intended to put a police officer as a prisoner in that cell to try and talk to my client − if you do that without a tape recorded, then the consequences are pretty obvious.

Let's digress for a minute to talk about jail verbals. A jail verbal happens when a suspect is arrested and put in a cell with an undercover policeman, corrections officer, or informant inmate, in order to extract a confession. These confessions could then be used as evidence in a prosecution, but were often false. The Lucas Inquiry into the enforcement of criminal law in Queensland in 1977, recommended that all police interviews should be recorded on tape. But the Queensland Police Union supported by the Bielke-Peterson government at the time opposed it. So it wasn't until partway through the Fitzgerald Inquiry, the one that exposed police corruption all the way up to the police commissioner and state government ministers, that it was formally introduced. That was in 1989. 

My question was, how are police doing verbals in jail cells while pretending to be other prisoners to get a confession in 1998? Obviously from the comments made by Terry O’Gorman, Andrew's solicitor at the time, they were still common enough for him to issue the police with a warning not to do it. 

Back to the events. On the advice of his lawyer, Andrew did not make a statement to police on Saturday, July 4th when he was arrested for the second time. He was then charged with the murder of Kathleen Marshall. At 9:45AM, an hour after arriving at the watch house, a government medical officer obtained a blood sample from Andrew and it was given to the police scientific officer who had been at the original crime scene, a Sergeant Holohan, along with the items collected from the police interview room. It was taken to the John Tonge Centre on Monday, July 6th. 

Next time on Murder and the Hellcats.  

ROD DAYMENT: Photo boards and photo identification; not reliable at all. You know, it may give you a, a line of inquiry, but as evidence in a murder trial. Unreliable, terribly unreliable.

 RUTLEDGE: How many times do you say you rang Kath Marshall's home?

ANDREW: Once, just once.

RUTLEDGE: Just once? 

ANDREW: Yes. At least that is my memory. 

If you have any information about this case please contact me at:

somethingtheysaid@gmail.com

This episode was written and produced by Catherine McHugh. Theme music by Sasha Louis Leger, and additional music by Lunar Years and Sasha Louis Leger.