Hunting Far North killers: Inside top cop’s bloodcurdling career
A Cairns detective, who once dissolved a pig in acid to catch a cold killer, reflects on a career spent protecting you from psychopaths and reveals a cold case breakthrough after 25 years.
Cairns
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DETECTIVE Senior Sergeant Ed Kinbacher has spent a career standing between you and the Far North’s coldest killers and disturbed psychopaths.
Known for his unorthodox investigation techniques, he has been part of nearly every major Far North Queensland serious crime since becoming head of the Cairns Criminal investigation branch in 2005.
For 17 years as boss of the Cairns CIB he has seen the horrific, the bizarre and the tragic fallout for family members left behind after a brutal killing of a loved one.
And for the first time the outgoing Detective reveals the fate of the man police believe to be responsible for the 1996 cold case assault of Cleis Norbury.
Ms Norbury was beaten and left for dead in a Mulgrave Rd alley after an innocent night out on the town.
As he prepares to hang up the badge and the gun on a long and illustrious career spanning 30 years and investigating some of the worst Far North crimes – for the first time Ed ‘Eddie’ Kinbacher reflects on the stories behind the hair-curling headlines.
“All these things involve death for love or money,” he said.
“You’re exposed to death wherever you are in this job. It’s graphic, you have to be resilient. “And perhaps, I’ve got a personality that has been able to manage that. And compartmentalise.
“I don’t lose sleep over those things, you can’t.
“You couldn’t do this job for 40 years if you were a personality that was vulnerable to take it home.”
However the outgoing Detective – referencing the murder of eight children at the hands of Cairns mother Raina Thaiday at a Murray St home – said some things need not be seen.
“I didn’t need to see that professionally … because that would have been damaging,” he said.
Asked if seeing so much death had eroded a belief in humanity being inherently good, Det Snr Sgt Kinbacher was frank.
“You get very right wing views as to as to the nature of people,” he said.
“And I’m strongly of the opinion that there are some people who are just bad, they are bad by nature.
“But Danny Shakespeare is probably the only true psychopath I have dealt with.”
A career criminal, conman and former elite SAS soldier Shakespeare wreaked financial havoc across Cairns in the early 1980s.
The Cairns CIB veteran said solving a crime was never as simple as just being motivated to lock up an alleged perpetrator.
He said an obsessive streak in an unwavering commitment to a task at hand as a team member was key to getting results.
But often there was a competitive element to big investigations.
“It’s a contest, there’s no question it’s a contest,” he said.
“(That) motivates me, that’s what matters at the end of the day. This is what I find interesting in the job, it’s why I joined the job.”
Ed Kinbacher was born in Blackall and graduated from the academy aged 19 in 1981.
He was first posted to general duties in Ingham following in the footsteps of his father who was officer in charge of the Southern Downs town of Allora and grandfather who attained the rank of sub inspector in Townsville.
Det Snr Sgt Kinbacher moved to Cairns in 1982 and joined the CIB unit as a constable in 1987.
By 2005 he was in charge.
Having come close to closing the book on nearly every major crime during his tenure as CIB head Det Snr Sgt Kinbacher said he can retire content that he gave the job his all.
“Which is extraordinary,” he said.
“If you (look at) worldwide statistics and (see) how successful we are in Queensland homicide investigation.
“Because we do focus, we really focus.”
The outgoing cop has no major plans in retirement other than to get on the water and paddle into a few decent waves.
KEY KINBACHER INVESTIGATIONS
TOYAH CORDINGLEY
The murder of 24-year-old pharmacy worker on the beach at Wangetti in 2018 was an exceptional case for Det Snr Sgt Kinbacher.
“It was horrific,” he said.
“(She was) a genuinely innocent victim, and it’s relatively rare.
“So from that perspective, it struck a chord with everyone, this could be anyone’s daughter walking along the beach.”
The retiring cop was brought to tears of pride as he detailed an intense team operation involving thousands of hours dedicated to reviewing road camera footage in efforts to identify a vehicle of interest heading south from Wangetti beach.
“It was extraordinary. I was at the scene that morning, and I was looking at her gravesite and I said, ‘how are we going to do this’,” he said.
He said for the first time in Australia telecommunications technology was key to a breakthrough that helped to identify Innisfail person of interest Rajwinder Singh.
Mr Singh has since fled to India.
Det Snr Sgt Kinbacher said now all that can be done is “remain optimistic” that Mr Singh will be extradited and the case was now “out of our hands”.
“It would be a huge travesty … for this person to live their life normally and (to) about their business scot-free,” he said.
“And I’m sure everyone is of that common mind.”
CLEIS NORBURY
In October 1996 Cleis Norbury was out on the town with her brother when she was beaten to within an inch of her life in a Mulgrave Rd alley by an unknown assailant.
She suffered a permanent brain injury and has needed special care ever since.
Det Snr Sgt Kinbacher said no one was ever charged and to date it’s remained a cold case.
“It’s still from the public’s perspective an unsolved case,” he said.
“Well, what we can now say is that effectively we have closed the case. We believe we know who’s responsible.
“That person will never be brought to justice as they are deceased.”
The Cairns Detective said that person was a man and he had taken his own life.
“That’s with not absolute certainty, but with a high level of confidence,” he said.
“(This information release) is to reassure the community that there is not someone out in the community who’s responsible for the assault on Cleis Norbury who hasn’t remained accountable.”
The closure of the cold case came after an anonymous Crimestoppers tip.
“We would really appeal to them to come forward and provide exactly what they know, so we can comprehensively just close it,” he said.
He said iron-clad information would help Cleis’ mother Rhonda who has been impacted by the crime at a similar level to the actual victim.
LI PING CAO
In 2011 when investigating the death of Cairns woman Li Ping Cao, that became known as the wheelie bin murder, Snr Sgt Kinbacher had CCTV footage of Klaus Andres buying hydrochloric acid from Bunnings.
But there was no research to prove a body could be completely dissolved in acid within a certain time frame.
“I posed the question to our forensic people but they were not prepared to conduct experiments and there’s very little research on this,” he said.
“So I basically got some hydrochloric acid, I went and bought meat and went into my backyard and I conducted an experiment.
“But the serendipity was, when I washed it (the dissolved tissue) modified out as a white, waxy looking substance and also got a distinctive smell.”
That same smell was detected at Andres’ Brinsmead house.
In 2013 Andres was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
LYNNETTE MULLER
Cairns radiographer Lynnette Muller and another colleague were murdered at the Cairns hospital in 1995 by a medical student who failed an exam.
Recalling the events of March 30 1995, Snr Sgt Kinbacher detailed how he was able to cope with the very graphic scene.
“I was one of the first officers there,” he said.
“So I was walking through a horrific crime scene but what I recall from that day and what I later saw through photographs were two completely different things entirely.
“You’re not processing it in that detailed way because it’s just too shocking and graphic.
“It’s a protection factor, it’s how you can function around these things.
“You can’t get bogged down into the misery of it because you couldn’t do that.”
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