‘Difficult to see’: Top cop reveals worst crimes committed in the Far North over the past decade
From tragic murders to multimillion-dollar frauds, these are the eight crimes which shocked us most around the Far North over the past decade.
Cairns
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SENIOR Cairns detective Sen-Sgt Ed Kinbacher has seen enough heartbreak, betrayal and horror to fill the next ten years, there is still one case – beyond the constraints of a decade – that sticks with him as unfinished business.
Det Sgt Kinbacher said two tragedies in the last ten years still stand out for the seasoned detective.
“You have the recent Toyah Cordingley case and obviously the children at Murray Street; they are the most severe of the murders,” Det Sgt Kinbacher said.
He said with experience came an unquantifiable feeling – that some cases were going to stick with him.
“You can get a sense of it to some degree; it is obviously difficult to see, as Toyah was,” he said.
“You must go in there and approach it with an open mind.
“Obviously with Murray Street the number of children leaves everyone scarred.”
But one of the cases he considers unfinished business happened closer to 20 years ago than 10 – the disappearance of Bevin and Brad Simmons on June 5, 2003.
Mr Simmons, the trawler captain of the El Dorado were last seen departing to check off shore shark nets near the Coleman and Mitchell rivers, just south of Pormpuraaw with his son Brad, 10.
They disappeared and remain missing.
Police have yet to recover a murder weapon, the bodies or their Simmons’ boat.
“Ten years is very limiting if we are looking at unfinished business”
“But there would have to be new and compelling information for that to be re opened,” Det Sen-Sgt Kinbacher said.
Still he works in the hope that in this decade something “new and compelling” may land on his desk.
Crimes that shocked and angered, 2010-2020
Cold case Leeann Lapham 2010
The 2010 disappearance of Leeann Maxine Lapham was solved in 2017 when her partner Graeme Colin Evans led police to the spot where he dumped her body.
He had bashed Ms Lapham to death in an Innisfail motel during an argument sparked by a packet of bacon.
Ms Lapham’s body was found in dense, steep terrain about 20m off the side of a private driveway on Cowley Beach Rd.
Police said if Evans hadn’t revealed the location, her body would not have been found.
For almost eight years, he denied involvement in her disappearance.
Evans was sentenced to nine years in jail for manslaughter and six months for interference with a corpse. He will be eligible for parole on February 8, 2021.
Murray Street – 2014
Schizophrenic mother Raina Thaiday thought God wanted her to stab her children. So she did.
Suffering a chaotic spiral of disintegrating mental health, Thaiday thought the chirping of a bird was a divine signal to stab her seven children and niece in their Murray St home on December 19, 2014.
Her eldest son, Lewis Warria, 20, found the bodies throughout the house.
The Mental Health Court ruled that Thaiday had a defence of unsound mind and would not face prosecution over the children’s deaths.
When the moment of horror revealed itself, Cairns was stunned. Eight children – aged 2 to 15 – were dead.
The court would find that Thaiday – already susceptible to schizophrenia – was in a psychotic state.
The judge said there was no sign Thaiday was affected by drugs or alcohol at the time of the killings. The judge noted that in Thaiday’s mind, her actions were “the best thing she could do for them”.
Gordonvale slaying – 2016
In a moment of vodka fuelled rage and pent up frustration, Balwinder Singh Ghuman, 46, stabbed his wife Manjinderjit and mother in law Sukwinder Kaur to death at Wiltshire Drive Gordonvale.
The arranged marriage of Balwinder and Manjinderjit had been troubled by his heavy drinking, paranoid delusions and resentment towards her family.
The spark that ignited the brutal inferno was Manjinderjit’s demand that Ghuman leave the family home.
Two days before their wedding anniversary, on March 14, 2016, he stabbed Manjinderjit more than 20 times.
The prolonged horrific episode was so ferocious that a piece of the kitchen knife that Balwinder wielded broke off in his wife’s face.
He was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in a Cairns Supreme Court trial last year and has been jailed for life.
Cane field gang rape 2017
Four men – Aaron Anau, 34, Francis Peter, 35, Jeffrey Tibau Banu, 39 and Tom Banu Ingui, 45 – raped a 16-year-old girl in the boot of a four-wheel-drive, parked in a cane field at Machans Beach in December 2017.
Ingui and his co-accused raped the girl in a Machans Beach sugar cane field, holding her in the boot of a four-wheel drive.
The court heard the drunk, unconscious girl woke as she was being raped by Anau.
A Cairns District Court trial heard the girl had tried to escape but was dragged back to the car and later dumped on a Cairns street.
All the men bar Banu were jailed for ten years, with Ingui earning a further six months due to his lengthy criminal history.
Anau, Peter and Ingui will serve at least 80 per cent of their sentence.
Banu, received seven years’ jail as he was only found to be present during the rapes, but did not have sex with her.
Multi million dollar betrayal 2017
Former office manager Wendy Ann Aspinall managed to pull off a multimillion-dollar fraud under the noses of her employers at Down to Earth Demolitions between 2007 and 2017.
Although it creeps beyond the decade, it is worth mentioning for its audacity and the damage wrought.
Aspinall is now behind bars, serving at least three years of an 11-year sentence. It is believed to be the biggest fraud sentence in recent Far Northern memory.
Aspinall, 56, was sentenced in Cairns District Court for 10 years of fraud she committed while employed by Down to Earth Demolitions, embezzling $3.16 million through cash withdrawals, phony cheques and electronic transfers between 2007 and 2017.
The vast majority of the money – nearly $2.9 million – was lost to poker machines at the Reef Casino.
When the fraud was discovered, Aspinall instead accused her employers of “financial irregularity” and claimed they “were using her as a cover”.
Toyah Cordingley – 2018
Toyah’s memory lives on in countless car window stickers, banners, tattoos and a beach memorial.
The pharmacy worker did not return from a walk with her dog on October 21 in 2018 and when her father Troy reportedly found Toyah’s body on Wangetti Beach, 42km north of Cairns, the city, state and country were stunned.
She had suffered visible and violent injuries and her killer remains at large.
The homicide investigation to hunt down those that killed the 24 year old “beautiful soul” with a “pure and innocent” heart is ongoing.
Originally published as ‘Difficult to see’: Top cop reveals worst crimes committed in the Far North over the past decade
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