Answers prove elusive in Underbelly graves mystery
POLICE trying to identify the remains of three people found in a suspected gangland graveyard at the site of Captain Cook’s first steps in Australia have hit a brick wall, despite DNA testing and expert analysis in the US.
Crime in Focus
Don't miss out on the headlines from Crime in Focus. Followed categories will be added to My News.
AN “Underbelly” graveyard on the shores where Captain James Cook first stepped foot in Australia two centuries ago will remain a mystery, with extensive DNA and other police investigations — both here and abroad — failing to identify the bodies.
Since October 2007, several human bones belonging to at least three people — two men and one woman — have been found in the sand dunes along the historic Kurnell peninsula south of Sydney, first unearthed when the NSW Government was building the state’s desalination plant.
There had been speculation the bones may have been from a historic shipwreck from centuries earlier at the entrance to Botany Bay, discovered by Capt Cook in 1770.
But based on other finds and DNA testing of the bones, police later concluded they were more contemporary, with carbon dating placing them from between 1962 to 1981.
Now NSW Police say that after more than a decade of evidence finds, and testing and retesting each time new DNA techniques were developed, they have drawn a blank.
“Despite extensive forensic testing, including all kinds of DNA comparisons, including most recently, mitochondrial, the bones have yet to be identified,” a NSW Police State Crime Command spokeswoman told True Crime Australia.
“They’ve used all the latest forensic and DNA matching techniques like mitochondrial (maternal DNA) and looked overseas as well; their examinations are continuing though and the case remains open.”
Evidence was sent to the United States for analysis as part of the post mortem inquiries but failed to yield anything further.
True Crime Australia: The day Milat tried to kill me
Life on the run: Robber turns his tale into Hollywood gold
The NSW Police Homicide Squad suspect the wide burial area may have been used by underworld killers to dump bodies, and the first DNA test match performed was with 1980s hitman Christopher Dale Flannery, who was murdered in 1985 and whose body has never been found.
Police also tested to see if the remains matched Lyn Woodward, a prostitute aged in her 20s who vanished after making several statements to police about the shooting of low level criminal Warren Lanfranchi by disgraced detective Roger Rogerson.
Several missing persons cases were also probed for matches, including retail heiress and publisher Juanita Neilsen and missing Greek businessman Peter Mitros, all without success.
The first evidence was a shin bone found in October 2007. A week later, after a huge search and excavation, several ribs and small bones were uncovered about 300m away.
A search off Sir Joseph Banks Drive, named after the botanist who made his fame after chronicling Cook’s Endeavour voyage and landing, also produced small bones including a sock with feet bones still inside.
Analysis showed the two males were both caucasian and aged 24 to 46, but such detail could not be determined from the woman’s remains.
A black wig and clothing items were also part of the evidence found, all of which will remain boxed awaiting further forensic advances.
Kurnell is not Sydney’s only suspected Underbelly graveyard, with two of a suspected three to four bodies found buried across the bay on the foreshore dunes of Botany Bay. That killing field was favoured by notorious 1980s’ underworld criminal Neddy Smith who is currently in jail for life on multiple slayings.
Police said one issue with Kurnell was that its development led to the importation of landfill, so there was no guarantee the bodies found there were actually dumped there. They may have been inadvertently transported to the area by construction trucks.