Jury in Suzanne Poll murder trial warned about evidence ‘mistakes’ made 30 years, is urged to acquit Matthew Tilley

Mistakes – such as officers handling evidence without gloves – could have “echoed” across 30 years, the jury in the Suzanne Poll murder trial has been told.

A single incidence of contamination at a cold-case crime scene could have sent “echoes” through almost three decades worth of assumptions about who killed Suzanne Poll, a jury has been told during closing addresses.

Matthew Donald Tilley, 48, is standing trial accused of the 1993 murder of the 36-year-old mother of two, at a stationery store on the edge of Parabanks Shopping Centre.

On Tuesday the prosecution finished its closing arguments to the jury and Mr Tilley’s legal team began its address.

Jane Abbey, for Mr Tilley, took aim at DNA evidence that prosecutors allege linked Mr Tilley to the murder scene.

Carmen Matteo, prosecuting, earlier urged the jury to disregard any insinuations the evidence had been contaminated as extremely unlikely.

However, Ms Abbey said a single mistake or incidence of contamination could have long-running repercussions in an investigation almost 30 years old.

“The question for this court is whether the evidence has been preserved,” she said.

“One instance of a procedure falling down at a certain point in proceedings might cause echoes over time and over the years.

“You don’t need multiple mistakes at various points along the way in order for there to be a problem.”

Suzanne Poll was stabbed to death in a Parabanks store in 1993.

Matthew Tilley is seen with police leaving the Adelaide Airport in Adelaide in September 2019.

Ms Abbey said footage of the crime scene taken in 1993 showed forensic officers examining the scenes without gloves.

A later audit of some forensic exhibits found they had been stored incorrectly, she told the court.

She said there was a “real chance of contamination” at the Forensic Science Centre.

“In order to find regularity here you have to accept that procedure was followed and human error wasn’t made,” she said.

“It is a lot to ask and a lot to assume. It might not be fair when there is evidence that hasn’t happened in this circumstance.”

Ms Abbey highlighted evidence from Mr Tilley’s mother and girlfriend that her client had no noticeable cuts to his hands or body that they could remember.

She also referred to several different statements from people who had been near the shop around the time of the stabbing – none of which she argued linked Mr Tilley to the crime.

The scene of the stabbing of Suzanne Poll at Sands & McDougall stationery shop, Parabanks Shopping Centre in 1993.

Opening the trial, prosecutor Carmen Matteo had told the jury Mrs Poll was stabbed 18 times around closing time at her workplace, the Sands and McDougall stationery store, on April 29, 1993.

She said Mr Tilley was linked to the scene in 2019 after technology advances first linked his brother, Daniel Tilley, as a familial match to bloodstain samples taken from the crime scene.

In 2019, Mr Tilley was arrested and charged with murder after detectives used DNA from a discarded cup to link him to the scene.

The jury has heard the likelihood ratio it was his DNA on various items at the 1993 crime scene was “greater than one billion times more likely” than an unknown person.

During the trial, Mrs Poll’s husband, Darryl, gave evidence and described finding his then wife lying in a pool of blood in the shop’s rear office after she failed to return home from her usual Thursday evening shift.

The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdict later in the week.