Police release new details, photos in 1991 Pearce family killings

The sister of a murdered mum and her kids tells of last phone call as search for killer husband Stuart Pearce continues

Meredith Pearce with children, from left, Kerry, Adam, Travis and Matthew. Picture: Supplied.

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Linda Placucci can still remember the sound of her sister Meredith’s voice.

It was January 5, 1991, and their phone conversation was a typical catch-up call, about nothing in particular – and Meredith was in good spirits.

Linda had no inkling it would be the final chat she would have with her beloved younger sister, who, along with three of her four children, would be soon dead.

Within a few hours of their chat, Meredith Pearce, 31, and her children Adam, 11, Travis, 9, and daughter Kerry, 2, would be dead – almost certainly at the hands of husband Stuart.

Their bodies would not be found until the following morning after the deliberately lit fire that engulfed their Jackson St, Parafield Gardens, home was extinguished.

“There was no indication of anything wrong, nothing,” Ms Placucci recalled this week.

Just what led to their deaths and the whereabouts of Stuart Pearce, then 33, remain one of the nation’s most baffling crimes.

 

After dumping his Datsun at a Kilkenny shopping centre, Pearce simply vanished. He remains South Australia’s most wanted man with an arrest warrant for four counts of murder still valid.

Ms Placucci, 63, was close to Meredith. They would see each other every day and both had been working at the BP truck stop at Wingfield for the six months prior to the murders. It was where Stuart also worked the nightshift after his career as a car salesman ended.

She lived nearby at Salisbury Downs, not far from the Pearce house in Parafield Gardens. Meredith did not have a licence, so her sister often picked her up and dropped her off after work.

Linda Placucci says her sister Meredith was easy-going and placid. Picture: Mike Burton

“She was easy-going, placid, a bit like me. We just got on with things and did what we needed to do. If things went wrong we rode them out until the good times again,” Ms Placucci told the Sunday Mail.

She recalled the Pearces having a “full on” relationship, with Stuart the dominant personality. While they argued, it was only over the usual issues that arise in every relationship such as finances, children – and Stuart spending too much time with his mates.

While it was more than 25 years ago, Ms Placucci easily recalled her last conversation with Meredith. It was unremarkable, no different than other daily conversations, and it lasted about 10 minutes.

“I think it was just to make sure she got home from work OK,” Ms Placucci said.

At one point, mid-conversation, Meredith was even ticking the kids off for making too much noise because Stuart was still sleeping. He would usually get up around 10pm and have a meal, prior to starting work at midnight when working the nightshift.

Early next morning, Ms Placucci heard a radio news report about a house fire at Parafield Gardens. Her heart sank and she “had a feeling” it was Meredith’s home.

“I don’t know what made me think it might be her, but then I started ringing her,” she said. “I couldn’t get her ... I threw on some clothes and got my husband to drive me there. When I got to the end of the street I knew.”

The battered body of Meredith was found tied to a chair with a towel pushed into her mouth. The children had been suffocated with plastic bags placed over their heads. They all died before the house was set alight with petrol.

 

Ms Placucci said in the ensuing few weeks the reality that Stuart was responsible began to sink in. Today, she believes if he is still alive that he is almost certainly overseas.

“He’s not smart enough to hide himself for so long,” she said. “He is either dead or no longer in Australia. If he managed to get out of Australia, he must have had connections somewhere.”

She said she often thought about Meredith and her children, particularly considering her two boys and the Pearce children were close.

Ms Placucci said she wanted closure in the case – and answers to the many questions that still lingered. She appealed to anyone who may have helped Pearce elude police to come forward.

“Just give up and tell your story. There’s so much water under the bridge . . . if we can get some closure and find out what happened,” she said.

“You don’t have to give yourself up, just let us know if Stuart is alive or not so we can all get some closure. It would be nice to lay it all to rest.”

Major Crime Investigation Branch case officer Detective Brevet Sergeant Bob Sharpe said he had “little doubt” Pearce was the key to the tragedy and it was unlikely he, too, was a victim.

“There is a great deal of evidence to suggest Pearce was the offender,” he said.

“Whether he’s been able to go into hiding for so many years or whether he’s taken his own life having realised what he’s done are the two more likely options.”

While there were several sightings in the South-East in the first few years after the murders, each had been investigated and no further trace of him was found.

Brevet Sergeant Sharpe said he felt it would be “very, very difficult” for any person to live off the grid for 25 years.

Pearce’s fingerprints and DNA profile are recorded and an Interpol “red notice” is still active. Evidence from the crime scene and autopsies indicate Meredith and the children were dead before fire engulfed their home.

“Mrs Pearce received a telephone call from her sister about 9pm and things were fine; he (Stuart) was in bed,” Brevet Sergeant Sharpe said.

On that basis, the evidence indicates Pearce murdered his wife and children before leaving for work – most likely around 11.30pm. Detectives have revealed an attempt was made to burn the home down at that time. Gas bottles were placed within the home and a fire set, but an expected explosion did not eventuate.

“We believe he tried to set the fire before he left for work or at least have it burn down while he was at work,” Brevet Segeant Sharpe said.

When that plan failed to eventuate, Pearce had used an accelerant in his second attempt after returning home from nightshift the next morning. The MFS was alerted to the fire 27 minutes after Pearce finished work at Wingfield.

Detectives believe he left the scene in his Datsun, before dumping it. Meredith’s blood was in the boot and on a door trim. It’s likely her blood was on Pearce and he transferred it to the car. It is likely that abandoning the Datsun at Kilkenny was a deliberate attempt to shift blame on to his brother-in-law, Wayne Leslie Maynard, who spent six years in jail after killing his parents, Sylvia and Alan, in their Mt Gambier home in 1985.

A jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

Mr Maynard has a corroborated alibi for the night of the murders and is not considered a suspect.

 

Detectives believe it is unlikely Pearce’s involvement in the cannabis trade was linked to the murders. Following the fire, an underground bunker containing around 25 poor-quality plants was discovered. Several bags of cannabis ready for sale were also found in the console of the Datsun.

Detectives have no evidence that indicates Pearce is either alive or dead – but feel it would be “almost impossible” for him to still be alive in Australia and not come to notice.

“My gut feeling is that he has committed the terrible act, perhaps tried to shift the blame to his brother-in-law and when he has realised that has not gone down as planned and realising what he has done, he has committed suicide and has not been found,” Brevet Sergeant Sharpe said.

The cellar of the Parafield Gardens home where Stuart Pearce grew cannabis. Picture: South Australian Police.

“But we certainly do not rule out that he is not around the place and everything that comes in is thoroughly investigated. Mr Pearce remains a strong suspect.”

Ironically, six months before the incident, Ms Placucci recalls an encounter with a truck driver who used to visit the BP truck stop and claimed he had a talent for palm reading. He read both hers and Meredith’s while they were working the same night shift.

He told Ms Placucci she would win X-Lotto. Eight months later she won $3000.

Chillingly, his reading of Meredith’s was more sinister and she just laughed it off.

“He told her: ‘If you don’t change your lifestyle, you’ll be dead by the end of the year’.’’

The prediction was out by less than a week. Meredith died on January 5, 1991.

A $1 million reward is available for information in the case. Phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.