Dying Rose: Former detective Gary Jubelin says Lasonya Dutton inquest shines light on systemic police failings

Celebrated homicide detective Gary Jubelin says shocking evidence given at inquest over a mum’s horrific death shows Australia’s cops still have a problem - and families are suffering for it.

Shocking evidence given after a mum’s body was found being eaten by dogs shows systemic issues remain rife when it comes to police investigations into Indigenous deaths, former detective Gary Jubelin says.

A female constable has admitted she “would have done things differently” as the NSW coroner probes whether Barkandji woman Lasonya Dutton, 31, was met with foul play before she was found dead in the backyard of her home in the remote town of Wilcannia in 2022.

Lasonya is one of six women whose deaths were investigated by a team of The Advertiser reporters in the Walkley Award-winning podcast – and now soon-to-be-released book – Dying Rose, with each of their families believing police did not respond adequately to their deaths.

Her body was found just metres from her family’s kitchen window, with an electrical cable wrapped around her neck which police believed was used to hang herself from a fence post.

Lasonya’s father, Keith Dutton, has spent years fighting for answers and asking how his daughter could possibly have been there for so long without her family seeing her.

Her uncle Merle, who discovered her body, said he was never questioned by police.

During a coronial inquest into Lasonya’s death, which began in February, a detective told the court she felt unsupported at the times, having not even been told she was officer-in-charge of the investigation.

The detective said she herself had doubts about the cause of Lasonya’s death, even when she sent an email outlining her opinion that it was suicide.

The court also heard obtaining CCTV footage from Lasonya’s ex-partner’s house was a priority in the investigation but, when he handed it in to police, it had “significant portions” missing, including of Saturday morning and all of Monday.

There is no suggestion Lasonya’s ex-partner was involved in her death.

Lasonya, 31, was found just metres from the kitchen window in her family’s backyard. Picture: Supplied

Keith Dutton has been fighting for answers since Lasonya’s death in 2022. Picture: Dijana Damjanovic

Jubelin, one of Australia’s most celebrated homicide detectives, said he was not surprised by the evidence given by the young constable, given concerns raised by Lasonya’s family to the Dying Rose team.

“There are a lot of investigative opportunities that might have been missed and that plays into the concerns of the family,” Jubelin said.

“I’m not sure what support that relatively junior officer was given … but to not even be aware that you’re the officer in charge of the case is a fundamental flaw and I think that potentially plays out in the quality of the investigation.

“Whether Lasonya’s death was suicide or whether it’s something more sinister, the families will never be comfortable knowing that they found out the full truth.”

In 1997, Jubelin was sent to reinvestigate the unsolved murders of three Aboriginal children at Bowraville, a tiny town on the Mid-North Coast of NSW, between 1990 and 1991.

For the past 25 years, he has stood alongside the children’s families as they continue to fight for closure.

Former homicide detective Gary Jubelin told the Dying Rose team he feared the mistakes of Bowraville were still being made - and is pleading for change.

He believes that if police had responded properly when the first child, Colleen Walker, disappeared, the other two children could quite possibly be alive to this day.

And he fears little has changed.

“That’s the consequences if you don’t do an investigation properly,” he said.

“I really hoped with what happened in Bowraville that something would change … but these situations are still going on.

“You just scratched the surface in regards to the six cases that you identified in Dying Rose. I still get phone calls from people that are expressing the same concerns from across the country, that (Indigenous deaths) are not being looked at properly.”

In late 2024, a landmark federal inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women handed down its findings, shedding light on systemic racism within government and policing systems and finding many families found little — if any — justice.

Much like the Dying Rose podcast, the probe heard harrowing stories from First Nations families whose trauma had been worsened by failings in communication and a perceived lack of care towards their loved ones’ deaths.

A new Dying Rose novel will be published by HarperCollins on March 19.

Rose Hunter-Hebberman’s mother Courtney and grandmother Mandy. Rose was the first death investigated by the Dying Rose team – and the namesake of the podcast.

The inquiry received 87 submissions and held public hearings in Victoria, the ACT, the NT, Queensland, NSW and WA — but not in SA — many of whom told of “appalling and shocking” discrimination within police forces and the criminal justice system.

It found these behaviours culminated in “racist, sexist, disrespectful, unprofessional and negligent” responses to Indigenous people’s missing persons reports and homicide investigations.

Jubelin said for something to change, policing institutions first needed to acknowledge their own mistakes.

“Police are there to serve everyone in the community – and need to acknowledge there have been problems in the past and overcompensate for that,” he said.

“Time and time again, we’ve shown that we haven’t done it properly and it’s just not good enough.

“Unless we keep pushing, it’s not going to change.”

Dying Rose by Douglas Smith, Kathryn Bermingham, Emily Olle and Gemma Jones will be published by HarperCollins on March 19.

Listen to Dying Rose here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Originally published as Dying Rose: Former detective Gary Jubelin says Lasonya Dutton inquest shines light on systemic police failings