Case against Fernando Paulino: Details the jury never heard about the murder of Teresa Paulino
EVERY piece of court evidence police gathered to put brutal killer Fernando Paulino at the scene of his wife’s murder was ruled out. This is what the jury didn’t hear.
Law & Order
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THE CASE against killer Fernando Paulino was behind the eight ball before the jury even stepped foot in the Supreme Court.
The Herald Sun can reveal trial judge Justice Kevin Bell did his very best to ensure the ruthless thug got his version of a fair trial.
The various rulings saw every piece of direct evidence police had gathered to put Paulino at the murder scene ruled-out.
This included binning evidence that placed his wife’s DNA on three items of his clothing and on the rear driver’s side of his car.
Justice Bell ruled the evidence irrelevant and, for that reason, inadmissable.
So disturbed by the ruling were prosecutors that they appealed the decision.
But the Court of Appeal agreed with Justice Bell and the evidence was scrapped.
“It seems to me that, on any view, the case against the respondent, whether with or without the DNA evidence, is quite overwhelming,” the court stated.
The decision had Homicide Squad detectives shaking their heads in disbelief. But their case was about to go from bad to worse.
Teresa Paulino had told all and sundry about her fears that she would be killed by her ex-husband.
Detectives knew it because they’d gathered a fist-full of statements from people swearing under oath it was true.
But they were forced to bin them too when Justice Bell ruled they were too prejudicial to a fair trial.
Once on the stand, it was hard to stop witnesses from telling the truth. It was a pickle Justice Bell needed to manage in order for the trial to continue.
He was forced to have a chat to the jury when Melina Mancuso revealed her sister confided in her just days before she was killed that she feared her ex would kill her.
Mrs Mancuso said her sister had become frightened of her husband as a legal battle over their assets continued through the courts.
“I don’t want to go through with this anymore. He’s going to kill me,” Ms Paulino told her sister.
Justice Bell told the jury to “absolutely disregard” evidence about what Ms Paulino told friends and family about what the killer might do to her.
Even then, it was a carefully worded instruction that deliberately avoided the words “kill her” so as not to remind the jury about what they’d already heard.
But if that annoyed Homicide Squad Det Sen-Constable Tony Harwood, who had worked for years to bring Paulino to justice, a decision to disallow CCTV images that placed Paulino at the murder scene blew his mind.
The images showed a vehicle drive south past the shops three times in a 12 minute period just before 9pm when Ms Paulino was murdered.
The vehicle was then seen a fourth time driving back past the shops in a in a northerly direction a short time later.
An expert on Mitsubishi vehicles was adamant the car was a two-toned Mitsubishi Challenger PA — the same type driven by Paulino.
Sen-Constable Harwood could not hide his frustration as Paulino’s barrister Dermot Dann, QC, told the jury police had failed to find any CCTV placing his client at the scene.
Justice Bell felt the images had not been clear enough. Too prejudicial, he ruled.
Mr Dann mocked the prosecution case for being weak, circumstantial and “full of holes”.
In the end, the jury did not agree.