True crime fans, you’re in for a real treat with this one.
Today, dozens of family members of the victims of the Bowraville Murders will march on the NSW Parliament, in an attempt to persuade them to grant them what they want: justice.
The murders, which many of you may be unaware of, were a series of three killings carried out over a five month period some 25 years ago.
Two 16-year-olds – Colleen Walker and Clinton Speedy-Duroux – along with 4-year-old Evelyn Greenup were disappeared from the rural NSW town of Bowraville between September 1990 and February 1991. Evelyn’s remains were found six months after her disappearance. Clinton’s body was discovered two weeks after he went missing. Colleen’s body has never been found, but her weighted down clothes were discovered in the nearby Nambucca River.
The subsequent police investigation has been scrutinised and highly criticised, as at first authorities insisted that the children – all indigenous – had simply “gone walkabout,” and a dedicated investigation into the disappearances was not set up until after Clinton and Evelyn’s bodies were found.
Politicians and experts have been savagely critical of the original police investigation, with many asserting that the interest in, and effort put into, the cases would have been significantly different had the victims been white.
Detectives involved with the case firmly believe the perpetrator of the heinous crimes to be a man named Jay Hart. However, when Hart was put on trial (twice, separately, for the murders of Clinton and Evelyn), evidence linking the cases was not presented to the jury. A second police investigation uncovered stark evidence that was never heard by a court. Hart was found not guilty in both cases, and has since moved away from the small town and changed his name.
The cases, and the push for an appeal linking all three crimes as serial killings, are the subject of an investigation conducted by The Australian, which has resulted in a Serial-style investigative podcast.
The first episode of The Bowraville Murders podcast was released late yesterday evening, and features crime reporter Dan Box delving into the history of the crimes. The five episode series will the investigation into the crimes and the missteps of authorities, the suspect at the centre of the on-going mystery, the botched trials that saw him exonerated, and the accusations and subsequent new evidence that points towards a true guilty party.
You can follow the series as it progresses, and the accompanying journalistic investigation at the Australian’s Bowraville Murders subsite.
It’s a push for justice some 25-years in the making, and it’s seriously as heartbreaking as it is absolutely riveting.
Source: The Australian.
