DNA clue hunt in Holland murder

POLICE hope new technology will unearth fresh clues to the murder of Leanne Holland, starting with the house she lived in 19 years ago.

A police officer leaves the former home of schoolgirl Leanne Holland on Alice Street. Picture: David Nielsen

POLICE hope new technology will unearth fresh clues to the murder of Leanne Holland, starting with the house she lived in 19 years ago.

Forensic police this week started an examination of the house in Goodna the schoolgirl lived in until she was killed in September 1991.

In May, Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said an independent investigator would head an “expansive and comprehensive” review of the case.

Mr Atkinson said the review would include new forensic testing, re-interviewing witnesses and examining the police handling of the investigation.

Yesterday, Assistant Commissioner Ross Barnett said examining the house where Leanne lived with her father Terry, sister Melissa and Melissa’s boyfriend Graham Stafford was the first major step of the review.

“It’s an open review into all aspects of the original offence and the investigation,” Mr Barnett said. “We are committed to doing an open and transparent review and we will go where the evidence takes us. The Commissioner has determined it is in the public interest to have a review.

“We’re looking at everything.

“We’re doing a forensic analysis of some areas of the house that were previously examined in 1991 just to see if there is any evidence there that was not captured at the time.

“As you would appreciate there have been significant improvements in forensic science in the past 20 years – broadly in terms of DNA and blood that we now have the ability to enhance samples in a crime scene.

“Initially we’re focusing on the bathroom area because that’s where some samples were found in the original investigation. So that’s our starting point.

“The house has not been renovated at all so it’s essentially as is at the time of that terrible crime. So it presents us with a unique opportunity to go back and have a look and see if there were things that were missed.

“We’re having a totally open mind and we encourage other people to do the same.”

Mr Barnett said he expected forensic police to stay at the house for three or four days. The review time-frame was open-ended, but he anticipated it would take several months.

Asked if police would speak to Leanne’s family, he said they “would speak to everybody we believe has any connection to the case”.

He said Graham Stafford would be interviewed “if that becomes necessary or if that’s appropriate”.

“At some stage in the future we will if that’s required,” he said.

Mr Stafford, who spent 15 years in jail for the murder of Leanne, supported the review when it was announced in May.

Yesterday he was reluctant to discuss it while it was under way, but he questioned starting with the Holland’s former house.

“There’s two ways of looking at it I suppose. One is they have to start there if it is going to be a comprehensive review of the case,” Mr Stafford said.

“The other way of looking at it is why would they start there when Leo Freney has already said it wasn’t the crime scene and she wasn’t in the boot of the car.”

This year, Mr Freney, the former Queensland chief forensic scientist reviewed the case and found there was insufficient blood in the house where the murder was alleged to have taken place and in the boot of Stafford’s car, where Leanne’s body was supposed to have been kept.

“It’s strange they started in the house,” Mr Stafford said, adding there should be more emphasis on finding who killed Leanne than going over old evidence.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing; it’s just the way they’re going about it,” he said.

“There have been four lots of tenants since we’ve lived there.”

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Originally published as DNA clue hunt in Holland murder