Jason Cooper sentenced for dumping body of Shae Francis in skip bin
From descriptions of a deathly stench coming from motel room walls to a grisly search for a body at a regional Qld rubbish tip, the Shae Francis mystery has gripped the coastal community from which she disappeared. Now, her family has spoken as the man who dumped her body in a bin walks free.
Fraser Coast
Don't miss out on the headlines from Fraser Coast. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The word justice has never sounded so empty to the distraught family members of missing Hervey Bay woman Shae Francis.
On Friday, they watched the man who was formerly accused of taking the life of their “gentle angel”, appear in court on less serious charges despite admitting he had dumped her body in a skip bin.
He will now walk free, after being sentenced – his 896 days in custody counted as time served for the offences of interfering with a corpse and fraudulently using her bank cards after her death.
It comes just weeks after a charge of manslaughter against Cooper was dropped by Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions, inciting fresh pain on Shae’s family, who face another Christmas without closure.
Jason Cooper, 46, was staying with Shae, 35, in a unit block when she went missing – just minutes from the calm waters of Torquay Beach in Hervey Bay, a small stretch of coast dotted with holidaying families and hopeful fisherman.
It was the water that beckoned Shae, where she would spend hours even on winter days, and it remains one part of her story, along with the undying love of her beloved aunt, that connects her to a normal life.
She spent her childhood in Shepparton, Victoria and had been full of ambition, studying human biology at university to one day cure diseases, and excelled at anything she tried.
She was intelligent, generous, thoughtful, uplifting, and unconditional in her love, her aunt Janine Francis said, with whom she had lived with in her teenage years and shared an unbreakable bond.
But sometime, somewhere Shae’s life of promise had gotten off track and between visiting her mother in the Hervey Bay Hospital in October 2018 when she was last seen and March, 2019 she vanished.
The months around her disappearance are murky.
Shae had been between jobs while living in Hervey Bay and had a somewhat strained relationship with her mother.
Both she and Cooper had a history of problems with alcohol.
It is unclear why it would be almost five months before Shae was reported missing after last being seen – a point which has long sparked collective guilt in a community which has struggled such a thing could happen on their watch and where supporters have since attended vigils and joined the campaign for answers.
What is clear however, is that police were already on the backfoot from the moment they started their investigation.
Along with the time that had passed since Shae was last seen alive, potential evidence and clues had also been lost.
The Torquay Esplanade unit block in The Hub that Shae and Cooper had been sharing, where a bloodstained mattress was allegedly seen after her disappearance, had been stripped and cleaned by the time police examined it.
A former worker who was cross-examined in a former committal hearing had described the smell in the unit as an “overpowering off meat” stench that reminded her of a morgue she had previously worked in.
Her family says for the room to be re-rented by the owners, it was refurbished, repainted and completely redone, leaving not a skerrick of evidence for police to strengthen a homicide case against Cooper that was circumstantial and left open the possibility Shae had passed non-suspiciously, possibly as a court would later hear, of an alcohol-induced cardiac arrest, and he had panicked.
Details about the room renovation were confirmed on Friday in the Brisbane Supreme Court which also heard Cooper told police he woke up one morning in October, 2018 in Esplanade unit to find his alcoholic partner dead beside him.
Judge William Everson said Cooper, also a chronic alcoholic who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, chose to kid himself that she might wake up and ignored the body.
He said Cooper said he remained in the room with the dead body for about three weeks before he wrapped the body in a sleeping bag.
Cooper claimed he intended to fulfil Shae’s wishes by burying her at a beach, but he panicked when he saw a police car while transporting the body.
Judge Everson said Cooper said he put the body in a skip bin and when he returned a couple of hours later, the body was gone.
After Shae’s death, Cooper continued to tell her family that she was alive and had gone to a rehabilitation facility.
Within days he was using his dead partner’s credit card to access $9260 from her Centrelink pension, spending the money on alcohol and rent, the court heard.
He sent text messages to Ms Francis’s family to deceive them that she was no longer in Hervey Bay – actions Judge Everson described as callous.
“What particularly distresses them is the complete absence of dignity in the way you responded to her death and what happened to the body,” Judge Everson said.
“By behaving in the way you did you denied the family and loved ones of the deceased of any opportunity to grieve.
“ … This has caused considerable anguish and harm to the family and loved ones of the deceased.”
Cooper had been evicted from the unit in December, 2018 and left the region for country Victoria.
He was later extradited back to Queensland.
A grisly search at the Maryborough rubbish tip was carried out after the skip bin information first emerged.
Police were able to pinpoint, through council rubbish collection mapping, where the load was discarded and an area similar to the size of an Olympic swimming pool was excavated in March this year.
The search, which included the use of cadaver dogs yielded nothing, a blow to police and Shae’s family who had at that point spent two years without answers.
Now, seeing Cooper walk from the Brisbane Supreme Court a free man feels like the final blow.
“We are gutted. We lost a very treasured family member; she was taken from us,” Janine told the Fraser Coast Chronicle
“Shae was intelligent, beautiful and kind and would give the shirt off her back – even to a stranger.
“Shae was like my daughter, and we shared each other’s life journey. I miss her every day.”
Janine said she would continue to look for Shae’s body and any information that might lead to her.
“I will probably do that until I take my last breath,” she said.
Outside court, Shae’s mother Cheryl Francis told the Courier Mail. “I’m in shock, I’m numb, it’s horrific. This is absolutely horrific. There is no justice.”
Detective Inspector Gary Pettiford, who led the investigation into Shae’s disappearance, urged anyone with information about Shae to contact Crimestoppers.
“We are still very interested in recovering the remains of Shae to bring some sort of closure to the family,” Det Insp Pettiford said.
More Coverage
$190m in works awarded for Borumba, including design of two huge worker camps
Three major works packages have been awarded for the Borumba Pumped Hydro developments, marking a significant next stage of the the 2000 MW renewable energy project.
Transformation planned for heritage pub with a colourful past
A landmark former hotel with a long history and a prominent location in the heart of Gympie is about to get a new lease of life.