Brisbane crime: Police offering $250,000 reward for information on murder of Joan Katherine Pitt

HALF a million dollars worth of distinctive jewellery could hold the key to the cold case murder of a St Lucia woman more than a decade ago, for which police are still offering a $250,000 reward.

Joan Pitt is believed to have been murdered in her St Lucia home in a robbery gone wrong but police are yet to solve the case.

JOAN Katherine Pitt was 83 when her lifeless body was found by her daughter on New Year’s Day, 2004 in her luxury St Lucia apartment.

About $500,000 worth of jewellery was missing from the 11th floor penthouse and the home had been ransacked, police said at the time.

More than a decade later, no arrests have yet been made over the businesswoman’s murder.

A $250,000 reward remains on offer for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for Ms Pitt’s death.

Some of murder victim Joan Pitt’s missing jewellery.

The chance for indemnity from prosecution may also be discussed for any alleged accomplice who is the first to give information, police said.

In January, 2004, Queensland police investigators said Ms Pitt’s murder likely happened sometime between 8.30pm Wednesday, December 31, 2003 and 1.20pm Thursday, January 1, 2004.

The belief was, and remains, that the widow’s death was part of a burglary gone wrong.

The investigators refused to say how Ms Pitt died at the time, but January 2004 Courier-Mail articles state she was strangled.

One of Ms Pitt’s two daughters, Catherine, then 52, had gone over to her mother’s home on New Year’s Day after her mother failed to answer her phone.

She told Indooroopilly police at the time that they had last spoken on the phone about 2pm the previous day.

Catherine’s sister, Ellen, lived in the US at the time and flew to Brisbane as soon as she heard of her mother’s death.

Some of murder victim Joan Pitt’s missing jewellery.

Ms Pitt had a million-dollar Brisbane River view from her top-level home in the River Towers unit on Sandford St in St Lucia, which boasts one unit per floor. She had bought the unit in 1973.

Ms Pitt and her sister were directors and shareholders in Corrigan’s Pty Ltd, which owns the historic Boundary Hotel, on the corner of Boundary Rd and Jane St, in West End.

The hotel, first established in 1864, became part of Corrigan’s Pty Ltd in 1922 and has been run by the Pitt family ever since.

Some of murder victim Joan Pitt’s missing jewellery.

The hotel was placed up for sale for the first time in nearly 100 years earlier this year.

In January 2004, neighbours told police that they heard a scream just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, but could think of no reason why she would be targeted.

Neighbours interviewed and quoted in The Courier-Mail shortly after the murder said everybody in the building knew each other, and described Ms Pitt as a “canny businesswoman who enjoyed an active life,” and who still drove a car.

They also said she was pleasant, friendly and well-liked.

“There’s nobody in the building who would have wished her ill,” one neighbour told The Courier-Mail.

Police in the area around the St Lucia unit where Joan Pitt was murdered in 2004. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Detectives at the time said Ms Pitt’s unit appeared to have been the only one targeted and confirmed no other homes in the block had been broken into.

At the time, they said the door of the home, the fire escape door and a security grille in the basement of the unit complex had all been forced open.

The River Towers complex itself had locked security gates at all its entrances, but the 11th floor unit could be reached by a lift inside the building or via an outside stairway.

A week after finding Ms Pitt’s body, Catherine and Ellen Pitt appealed for information to help find their mother’s killer at a press conference organised with investigators.

They said their mother was “obsessive about locking her doors and windows.”

Ellen and Catherine Pitt at a press conference following their mother’s death.

Ellen Pitt had said it was a tragedy that their mother was killed in an apparent break-in and entry after always being so careful to lock up her home.

“She was so safety-conscious. She didn’t even want us on the streets after dark,” Ms Pitt had said at the time.

“She locked everything. She was obsessed with keys, locking doors, locking windows.

“It’s just a tragedy that she died in this way. My sister and I have been robbed of what could have been another 10 years of the joy and the happiness that she’s brought to our lives.”

Queensland Police Detective Sergeant Mark Brand with the Homicide Squad’s Cold Case investigation team this week said the belief there was more than one person involved with Ms Pitt’s death remained.

“There are some suspects known to police ... and there was forensic evidence left at the scene,” he said.

“It is also still believed that it was possibly a break and enter to the premises that went bad.

“They went there to steal jewellery but the problem is the break and enter didn’t turn out well because Ms Pitt was there.”

Det Sgt Brand said Ms Pitt’s unsolved murder was one of about 200 cold cases in Queensland.

“Our cold case investigations are always open,” he said.

“Obviously, it depends on if information comes in from the public or we have updates in forensics and technology.”

Any member of the public with information which could assist Police is asked to contact the Criminal Investigation Branch, Indooroopilly, Phone [phone]; the Homicide Investigation Group, Brisbane, Phone [phone]; any Police Station; or Crime Stoppers, Phone [phone].