Coroner to revisit some of Victoria’s most ‘baffling’ deaths

EIGHT of Victoria’s most puzzling cases, including the 1988 police shooting of bank robber Graeme Jensen, could be reopened, fuelled by fresh evidence and corruption claims.

Graeme Jensen's smashed car after police shot him dead.

SOME of the state’s most baffling deaths, disappearances and murders could be reopened amid claims of police corruption, cover-ups and fresh evidence.

State coroner Sara Hinchey has been asked to set aside findings and take a look at eight deaths in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, but is caught up in legal argument about whether she has the power to reopen the inquests.

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Ms Hinchey has been asked to set aside findings in:

THE death of Maria Theresa James, who was found stabbed to death in a Thornbury bookshop in 1980;

THE murders of Dorothy and Ramon Abbey, who were murdered in their West Heidelberg home in 1987;

THE murder of Barbara Ellen Dawson, whose body was found in Altona Meadows in 1980, bound in plastic bags with her throat slashed;

THE 1996 death of Christian Oscar Diaz;

THE 1988 police shooting of bank robber Graeme Jensen;

THE 1985 disappearance and presumed murder of underworld figure Laurence Joseph Prendergast; and

THE 1997 death of Mary Elizabeth McCrystal.

Graeme Jensen was shot in 1988. Picture: Photo File

The Herald Sun revealed in 2015 the court had been asked to re-examine the death of bank robber Graeme Jensen, shot dead in 1988 by police who claimed he pulled a gun.

Lawyers for Mr Jensen’s sister Fay Spear say they have fresh evidence the gun was planted. The gun is said to have come from a bag of firearms once hidden in the roof of a suburban police station.

Lawyers acting to reopen the investigation into the deaths of Ms James and Jensen have already approached the Supreme Court to have the cases reviewed by a judge and not the coroner.

Jensen’s death sparked the payback slayings in Walsh St of police officers Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre.

Lawyers for Ms Spear have already lodged affidavits of at least two former police officers containing explosive new evidence.

Jensen was a career criminal notorious for violent bank ­robberies. His death was a low point in a war between police and criminals, who believed they were being executed by the armed robbery squad.

Coroner Hinchey adjourned the application until next month.