South Australia’s cold case murder investigations stall as forensic backlog grows

INVESTIGATIONS into some of the state’s most notorious cold case murders have stalled because key exhibits that could yield vital new DNA evidence cannot be analysed quickly enough at Forensic Science SA.

Grandma Beverly Hanley is one several cold case murders being reviewed that involve the retesting of multiple exhibits.

INVESTIGATIONS into some of the state’s most notorious cold case murders have stalled because key exhibits that could yield vital new DNA evidence cannot be analysed quickly enough at Forensic Science SA.

The Advertiser can reveal requests by Forensic Science SA director Professor Chris Pearman for more funding to help clear DNA testing backlogs have been rejected — prompting fears community safety is at risk because suspected killers, some of whom have been identified, remain at large.

Senior police declined to comment on the delays caused by the forensic backlog or the number of murder cases affected, but the Homicide Victims Support Group said it had received several complaints from the families of murder victims.

“Many of these families have unresolved grief. They sense there was some urgency in trying to resolve these matters, fostered by the announcements about clearing up unsolved cases,’’ Victims Rights Commissioner Michael O’Connell said.

“They find it very, very difficult to comprehend that the further delay is as a consequence of there not being adequate resources available. Some of them see that as putting a price on justice for their loved ones.’’

SOME OF THE COLD CASE MURDERS BEING REVIEWED THAT INVOLVE THE RETESTING OF MULTIPLE EXHIBITS

Murder victim Patricia Schmidt

Murder victim Anne Roberts

The delays are putting community safety in jeopardy because killers — in some cases identified by police — remain at large and at risk of reoffending. They also increase the difficulty of obtaining convictions if suspects are charged because of either the death or failing memories of witnesses.

The forensic backlog has arisen because of new technology and increased demand for DNA testing by police — including detectives working on the Operation Persist cold case initiative launched by the Major Crime Investigation Branch two years ago.

Under Operation Persist more than 100 cold case murders are being intensively reviewed and reinvestigated to try to prompt breakthroughs.

So far, there have been several arrests and many other cases are at advanced stages of investigation with new leads and evidence uncovered.

As part of each review, exhibits are considered for resubmission to Forensic Science for fresh DNA testing using techniques that are often far more advanced than when the crimes occurred.

However, Forensic Science SA prioritises the DNA testing of exhibits, with current murder cases taking priority over cold cases.

Murder victim Robert Sabeckis

Murder victim Phyllis Harrison.

When asked how much extra funding he had requested and what it would have been used for, Prof Pearman declined to respond.

But he said police had made it clear they did “not want the cold case reviews to impact on our contemporary case work’’.

“So we are fitting in the cold cases around our current work. We do that in constant contact with Major Crime so we identify priority cases for us to work on, and that might change from time to time if police get some information about a particular case,’’ he said.

“We look at those cold cases and we target the exhibits we think will give us the best opportunity of a result.’’

He said there were five or six cold cases being examined at any one time and police had advised there were “about 60 altogether’’.

“Realistically, we are probably looking at one or two of those, some of them are quite big,’’ he said.

Cold case murders being reviewed that involve the retesting of multiple exhibits are those of Robert Sabeckis (2000), Patricia Schmidt (1971), Lina Marciano (1978), grandmothers Phyllis Harrison (1998) and Beverly Hanley (2010), Peter Seaford (1999), Anne Roberts (1979) and Robert Woodland (2004).

Murder victim Peter Seaford

Murder victim Robert Woodland

Prof Pearman said advances in DNA technology, such as the new Globalfiler system now used by FSSA, had also contributed to increased workloads because the tests were more sensitive and produced more material that required examination.

The Globalfiler system can recover DNA profiles from both degraded and extremely low-level samples. “That means we have been able to provide more information to both the courts and the police,’’ he said.

“The downside of that is that it generates more results and more data per sample that is actually taking longer to ­process. We have also introduced some other technologies, so we are offering police more services.’’

In the latest Attorney-General’s Department annual report, FSSA forecast further pressures on resources as the use of familial DNA matching increased. It also revealed turnaround target times for returning crime scene samples in which there were no suspects were not being met and it was “planning to improve exhibit triage across all scientific disciplines to better identify the most probative exhibits for examination and limit unnecessary analyses’’.

Attorney-General John Rau confirmed FSSA’s funding bids had been examined and declined and said he was “concerned that FSSA is able to deal with work, in particular urgent work”.

“FSSA, like any other agency of government, has things that it absolutely must be doing in a time-sensitive way and it has got things it would be great to do if it had the resources to do them probably more quickly than it does,” he said.

Victims Rights Commissioner Michael O'Connell.

“I don’t think anyone is of the view they are being hamstrung to the point where they will never get around to things, it is just a matter of how quickly they get to things.”

Mr Rau said he was confident planned reforms to the way in which major indictable offences were processed in the courts system next year would assist FSSA.

“There will in effect be an injection of additional capacity into FSSA because some of the matters they are presently prioritis­ing will, instead of being matters that look like going to trial, be matters resolved by way of an early plea,” he said.

“Those are all matters which would be ahead of cold cases in the queue.”

Prominent criminal barrister Craig Caldicott said proper funding of FSSA “had to be a priority in the justice system”.

“The reason why is that matters cannot progress without adequate resourcing there, so we can actually find out what the evidence is,” he said.

“Without that evidence, we can’t advise whether they should be pleading guilty or not guilty to the relevant charges.

“It is in everyone’s interest to have the information early rather than later, because if the information isn’t there, it leads to delays and matters adjourned, soaking up more resources inside the judicial system.”