Inside the police sting to catch Daniel Morcombe’s killer

The mother of schoolboy Daniel Morcombe, who was murdered by predator Brett Peter Cowan, has marked a gut-wrenching anniversary.

Today, we woke to a mother’s mourning as Denise Morcombe, mother to murdered schoolboy Daniel, took to Twitter to remind Australians it had been 18 years since she had lost her son.

Eighteen years since her little boy’s life was tragically stolen by a predator with a history of child sex abuse.

Eighteen years since he has sat at their Christmas table.

And eighteen years of advocacy, as the Morcombe family has bravely turned their loss into advocacy to protect the lives of other children through the Daniel Morcombe Foundation.

This morning, unbelievably, it is 18 years since we last saw Daniel’s smiley face. Daniel innocently attempted to catch a bus to the shops to do his Christmas shopping; but he didn’t make it. Daniel’s legacy lives on strongly through the work at the Daniel Morcombe Foundation. pic.twitter.com/UYGqFckHeq

— Denise Morcombe OAM (@DeniseMorcombe) December 6, 2021

Two weeks after Daniel disappeared in 2003, police paid a home visit to his murderer.

They knew the bloke was a paedophile, the shiny trinkets and windmills dotted around his front garden, tipped them off.

But it would take eight long years, and a meticulously planned and executed covert operation – requiring the co-operation of police from three Australian states – before predator Brett Peter Cowan was finally charged and convicted.

Courier Mail Crime Editor Kate Kyriacou covered the police investigation, and spoke with the operatives at the coalface of one of Australia’s most high-profile murder cases.

“One of the first things police did – and it’s a pretty standard thing in cases like this – is that they go and look at every known child sex offender in the area, and visit them one-by-one, and they asked them where they were,” Kyriacou said.

Brett Peter Cowan was found guilty of the abduction and murder of Daniel Morcombe.

Police could identify from witness statements that Daniel disappeared within a brief window of time, while waiting for a bus to the Sunshine Plaza Shopping Centre, at an unofficial bus stop under the Kiel Mountain Road overpass.

Courier Mail crime editor Kate Kyriacou.

But there wasn’t just one suspect in the local area that police thought had the criminal history or inclination to rape and murder a child.

In fact, the coastal locale — famous for its laid-back lifestyle and pristine beaches – was teeming with paedophiles.

One was Brett Peter Cowan.

He was married, with a child of his own, but had twice abducted young boys to abuse them. In one instance, he beat and raped the boy so badly police were surprised he didn’t die.

Detectives Dennis Martin and Ken King approached Cowan’s house. It was in a nice street, with views of the Glasshouse Mountains.

“I’ve spoken to Dennis quite a few times about knocking on the door, and he said to me there were little windmills and little trinkets all around the front yard of Brett’s house. And he said: ‘If no one had told him, he would have known straightaway what kind of person lived in that house. He said it’s pretty common that a paedophile would put little things in their front yard to attract children’,” Kyriacou said.

Brett Peter Cowan had a history of sexual crimes against children before he was convicted of the assault and murder of Daniel Morcombe.

“They asked Brett where he’d been, and, this is one of the most important moments in that whole investigation [because] Brett Cowan did what he always does. He fesses up to something that he thinks they already know or he can’t get out of. And then lies about everything else.”

Cowan told police he was in the area at the time Daniel was last seen but that he was at his boss’s house borrowing a mulcher.

“He had a very tight alibi when you looked at it, but really he had put himself driving past the bus stop where Daniel was waiting at the exact same time that he would have been there. Throughout that whole investigation of all of the persons of interest they looked at, they couldn’t put anyone else so conclusively at the scene, as they did with Brett Cowan, two weeks into that investigation,” Kyriacou said.

However, the investigation rolled on, and police did not have strong enough evidence to lay a charge.

Bruce and Denise Morcombe visit the grave of their son Daniel Morcombe in Palmwoods, Queensland. Picture: Brad Fleet

Then, during court proceedings, it was revealed Cowan told others that at the time of Daniel’s disappearance he was at his drug dealer’s house buying marijuana.

The contradiction in accounts drew police suspicion, and they were able to disprove his claim of being with his dealer when records from the local RSL showed the dealer was on the premises at the time of Daniel’s abduction.

Efforts zeroed in on Cowan.

Police decided to trial an undercover policing methodology called the Mr Big Sting, which had been used with success in Canada and Western Australia.

“The Mr Big Sting is where police basically pretend they are a criminal gang who do a bit of everything like drug trafficking, managing sex workers, buying illegal seafood … And to be honest, Brett was in a perfect position to fall for this because he’d left Queensland, the place where he abducted and murdered a young boy, and he was trying to start fresh,” Kyriacou said.

Daniel Morcombe with his twin brother celebrating their tenth birthday in December, 1999.

The sting works when the faux criminal gang befriends their target, and after building his or her trust, coaxes them to confessing to the major crime they are investigating.

In this instance, an undercover officer sat next to Cowan on a flight from Brisbane to Perth, as Cowan was making his way home from giving evidence in an inquest into Daniel’s disappearance.

“I was lucky enough to do an interview with that covert officer under some very strict conditions, and he said that he actually ended up like a sore leg and quite a sore body from that five hours because he was so repulsed by Brett [Cowan],” Kyriacou said.

“He was sort of simultaneously leaning away from him while also trying to sort of lean in and be friendly. And he said just his body was having this fight with itself because he was such a repulsive person.”

The operative was successful in convincing Cowan to join his make-believe criminal enterprise, and, over a period of months, Cowan engaged in a number of “jobs”, including collecting payments from sex workers and organising guns’ deals with bikies.

Cowan relished feeling like part of the pack, where everyone had each other’s back.

“He said to one of them, ‘this is the stuff dreams are made of,’” Kyriacou said.

Brett Peter Cowan fell for a covert police operation and confessed to killing Daniel Morcombe.

Once his trust was secured, police moved in to close the deal.

The “gang” members told him they had a big job coming up, but for him to be part of it, and to get his share of the profit, he would have to go through a background check with their leader, Mr Big.

When Cowan meets with Mr Big, he is confronted with questions about whether he had any involvement in Daniel’s disappearance. Mr Big tells him he needs to know the truth, so there’s no surprises or trouble that may be brought back on the gang – and threatens him with expulsion.

Finally, Cowan confesses: “He drew them a map as to where he’d left Daniel’s body. He went through in detail about how he’d convinced him to get into the car, about where he’d driven him, about what he’d done,” Kyriacou said.

Bruce and Denise Morcombe at Daniel House in Palmwoods, Queensland. Picture: Brad Fleet

It was an extraordinary and relentless investigation that relied on police from three states, and considerable and cost and investment without guarantee of an outcome.

But, finally, police had their confession.

And, physical evidence from the crime scene supported its validity.

“I think the most important thing that came out of it — other than the fact that we’ve got a predator off the streets and hopefully he’s never released — is that Bruce and Denise [Morcombe] got to bury their son,” Kyriacou said.

“I always like to honour the efforts those covert officers went to because no one knows what they do, that’s the nature of their job. And they go and have to do horrible, horrible things and it’s such important work yet they can never get the credit for it.

“So even though we can’t know who they are, I always like to try think about the work they did. And I know Bruce and Denise think about the work they did all the time.”

Originally published as Inside the police sting to catch Daniel Morcombe’s killer