Ian Lynch tells Gary Jubelin of day he found dead body in suitcase

It was while searching through the home of a suspected wife-killer that homicide inspector Ian Lynch got the shock of his life. He reveals details of finding a woman’s body inside a suitcase in today’s podcast episode of I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin.

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It takes a lot to shock Ian Lynch but the veteran homicide detective is still haunted by the nasty surprise he got while searching the flat of a suspected wife-killer.

In today’s episode of smash-hit podcast I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin, Lynch tells his former homicide colleague, Jubelin, about the case he’s “still freaking out about”.

Dawn Street’s body had been found buried at Berry Island nature reserve in North Sydney, and police had suspicions about husband Eddie but very little evidence.

Retired Detective Superintendent Ian Lynch appears in Gary Jubelin’s podcast I Catch Killers. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Confusing matters, a nun said she’d seen Mrs Street alive the day after the murder.

The officers went to Mr Street’s flat to collect clothing for forensic analysis.

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Lynch asked: “Can we borrow a suitcase?” (Street) goes yeah, take the red one. While we’re looking around we notice there’s blood everywhere. Dried blood. But there’s a lot of it. He says ‘Last night I cut my hand.’ Sure enough, there’s a big cut on his fingers,” Lynch says.

Edwin Thomas Street was charged with murders of wife Dawn Street in 1993 and girlfriend Linda Whitton in 1994.

“We open the red suitcase up. I said ‘Mate, we’ll use the blue case, it’s bigger’. So we open up the blue case and inside there’s another suitcase.

“I’m still freaking out at this. It’s a latch suitcase. So I open up the latch suitcase and there’s a body of a woman in the suitcase. Another body.

“I’ll never forget it,” Lynch says.

“If you see Felix the Cat when he gets a fright and he’s hanging on the ceiling – I virtually put my head through the ceiling. I know I swore. F**k me dead I think was the most prominent thing (I said).”

Detective Lynch led the investigation into the disappearance of schoolgirl Trudie Adams, who went missing in 1978. Picture: Supplied

Det Lynch (second from left) with colleagues before retiring. Picture: Supplied

It turned out Street, having killed his wife, then got into an argument with his girlfriend, who happened to be very similar in appearance (which explained the sighting by the nun).

He’d stabbed the girlfriend to death, packed her in the suitcase, but hadn’t had a chance to bury her before the cops came knocking.

Lynch spent 30 years in the police, including bringing a serial killer known as the “crossbow butcher” to justice.

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He led the reinvestigation of one of Australia’s most haunting disappearances, 1970s schoolgirl Trudie Adams, and caught notorious paedophile Phillip Bell as well as catching bank-robbers and fraudsters and the toughest job of all: running internal investigations into the cops themselves.

The shock of finding the second body left Lynch deeply traumatised.

“That really shook me up. I was having nightmares. My wife was so concerned she rang the police psychologist. But we all knew you had to be careful of reporting things like that, and I was doing a job I loved and they would drag you off it,” Lynch says.

Listen, subscribe or follow I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin at truecrimeaustralia.com.au, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast

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Originally published as Ian Lynch tells Gary Jubelin of day he found dead body in suitcase