Dieter Pfennig convicted of abduction and murder of missing Adelaide schoolgirl Louise Bell
MORE than three decades after his heinous crime, Dieter Pfennig has been convicted of Louise Bell’s murder. INCLUDES BELL FAMILY’S MOVING STATEMENT
- Analysis: This verdict vindicates our criminal justice system
- Depraved teacher: Pfennig was pictured with a bound, gagged teen
- The prosecution: DNA was a ‘billion to one’ match
- The defence: Pyjama fluff ‘not enough to convict him of murder’
- Read Acting Justice Michael David’s full judgment here
MORE than three decades after his heinous crime, Dieter Pfennig has been convicted of Louise Bell’s murder, and challenged by a judge and his victim’s family to reveal the location of her body.
In an extraordinary moment, unprecedented in the state’s legal history, Acting Supreme Court Justice Michael David yesterday called on Pfennig to end decades of “ghastly” speculation and at last come clean.
He urged the former schoolteacher, already serving a life sentence for murdering another child, to end the torment of two families — and offered him no small incentive to confess.
He told defence counsel, “I say to your client through you: if he could tell the authorities where the bodies of Michael Black and Louise Bell are ... that may or may not affect my sentence.
“I do not know (if it will), but it would behove of me to do my duty ... I want to bring this whole ghastly thing to an end.”
READ A DETAILED BACKGROUND OF THE CASE HERE
Pfennig did not visibly react but, in a statement read outside court, Louise’s family echoed Acting Justice David’s call.
“While today is a significant milestone, we want our daughter back,” her father Colin, mother Diane and sister Rachel said.
“While this afternoon’s outcome is significant, it is only part of this terrible event ... we still want to be able to lay Louise to rest.”
Pfennig, 68, was serving a life sentence for the 1989 murder of Michael Black, 10, when he was arrested in his cell and charged with killing Louise.
He denied any wrongdoing but, in its 98-page verdict, the court ruled the “compelling and consistent” prosecution case proved otherwise.
Acting Justice David was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Pfennig abducted Louise from her Hackham West bedroom in January 1983 — even if he did not know how.
“We will never know some details of what occurred or the full story ... there are many tantalising gaps in the evidence,” he said.
“I cannot say how the deceased was actually taken from her room ... I find it difficult to accept that the abduction was done by force.
“Similarly, I cannot make a finding as to where the deceased was taken, or how ... I do not know how he actually killed the deceased, where he killed her, or where he put her body.
“These questions may never be answered, but they do not impinge upon the certainty of my verdict.”
He rejected the claims of two prison inmates — one a convicted conman and cultist — that Pfennig had confessed his guilt to them.
However, he found the core element of the prosecution case — a one-in-one-billion DNA match to Pfennig, taken from Louise’s torn pyjama top — indisputably proven.
Defence counsel’s challenge to the cutting-edge science, carried out by specialists in both SA and the Netherlands, was dismissed.
“I find that the results of both Forensic Science SA and the Netherlands Forensic Institute have been proved beyond reasonable doubt,” he said.
“I find it inconceivable that the DNA ... could somehow have been fortuitously transferred from the accused (and) somehow, was deposited on the pyjama top.
“I find such a proposition fanciful.”
He said the DNA sample had also survived both a dunking in the Onkaparinga River and an attempt to wash it away with tap water without contamination.
His ruling safeguards use of the technique around the world and opens the door for it to be rolled out in criminal cases across Australia — including the NCA bombing investigation.
Acting Justice David found the other witnesses, assessed together and alongside the DNA, contributed “a full picture” of a guilty child killer.
“The accused’s preoccupation with the deceased, and in particular the deceased’s body being in the Onkaparinga River, is given great force by the scientific evidence,” he said.
“There is no doubt that the accused was at his home alone at the time Louise Bell was abducted ... that body of evidence is overwhelming.
“I find that a combination of the above circumstances amounts to proof beyond reasonable doubt that the accused abducted and murdered the deceased.”
There was, he ruled, “no other explanation” for the facts “other than Pfennig’s guilt”.
Outside court, the Bell family said the verdict had brought them relief after more than 30 years of anguish, but did not end their suffering.
“Our beloved 10-year-old daughter was taken from her own bedroom — a place she should be safe — and she has never come home,” they said.
“Words cannot describe the impact this has had on our lives. Today is the culmination of our struggles to find answers for Louise ... it is a small victory for Louise.”
BELL FAMILY STATEMENT:
“Today’s verdict leaves us feeling relieved.
It has been a long time coming and while it is a significant outcome, it is not the end of this difficult journey.
Our beloved 10-year-old daughter was taken from her own bedroom – a place she should be safe – and she has never come home.
Words cannot describe the impact this has had on our lives.
Today is the culmination of our struggles to find answers for Louise. This is what makes today’s decision so important.
It is a small victory for Louise.
We would like to thank everyone for their persistence and efforts in trying to return Louise to us and for prosecuting this matter.
In particular, the police, the prosecution team and the judge, knowing it would have been a very difficult case to try.
We would also like to thank our friends, supporters and our extended family for their support throughout this more than 33-year process.
In this case there has been a number of witnesses who have come forward with information and that gave evidence in the trial. For some, it was under difficult circumstances.
We thank each and every one of them.
We would also like to thank the media for showing us great courtesy during this trial and for their reporting of the facts.
At this time, this is the only statement that we will be making. That may change in the fullness of time, but at this stage we do not wish to speak publicly.
While today is a significant milestone, we want our daughter back.
So I would appeal to anyone with information that might assist us in finding Louise to come forward now.
While this afternoon’s outcome is significant, it is only part of this terrible event. We still want to be able to lay Louise to rest.”