DNA bungle by police in the Maria James murder case puts several suspects back in the frame
A KILLER and a paedophile are back on the list of suspects in the 1980 murder of Thornbury bookshop owner Maria James after a police DNA bungle.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A DNA bungle has put previously eliminated sadistic thug Peter Keogh back on the list of key suspects in the Maria James cold case murder.
Victoria Police wrongly cleared Keogh in 2003 because his DNA didn’t match DNA they believed was from the man who stabbed the Thornbury bookshop owner to death in 1980.
In an embarrassing stuff-up, police recently revealed the DNA sample used to mistakenly clear Keogh and other suspects — including paedophile Catholic priest Anthony Bongiorno — was actually from another crime scene.
So the several Maria James murder suspects eliminated by police through that dodgy DNA are now firmly back in the frame.
HOW THE PRIEST BECAME A SUSPECT
FATHER BONGIORNO LINKED TO MURDER
Father Bongiorno and Keogh are among what police have told Ms James’s son Mark is their current “persons of interest” list in relation to the murder of his mother.
“Police told me that apart from Father Bongiorno they have two other main suspects, but altogether they have what they called the top five,” Mr James told the Herald Sun yesterday.
Keogh, who lived near the Thornbury bookshop when Maria James was murdered, was convicted of killing his former partner Vicki Cleary — the sister of former federal MP and VFA footballer Phil Cleary — by stabbing her outside a Coburg kindergarten in 1987.
Evidence which puts Keogh as one of the key people suspected of murdering divorced mother of two Maria James, 38, includes:
PSYCHOTHERAPIST Margaret Hobbs was treating Keogh as a patient and became convinced by what he said to her in her consulting rooms that he was responsible for murdering Maria James, telling a psychologist friend after the stabbing that “I am sure I know who did it because the bastard told me”.
KEOGH’S former girlfriend Judy McNulty confessed years after the murder that she had given Keogh a false alibi by claiming to police that he couldn’t have killed Maria James because he was elsewhere with her at the crucial time, when in actual fact she wasn’t with him. She was pressured by Keogh to provided the false alibi.
AFTER Keogh was convicted in 1989 of manslaughter, rather than murder, over the death of Ms Cleary, 25, Judy McNulty told Ms Cleary’s mother Lorna that Keogh had “got away with murder before” at the Thornbury bookshop.
CLOSE relatives of Judy McNulty told detectives Keogh often carried a knife and had used it against Ms McNulty.
JUDY McNulty’s sister told police in 1997 that she was amazed Judy initially provided Keogh with an alibi for the day of the Maria James murder because Judy had once told her Keogh had murdered somebody
OTHER McNulty family members told police Keogh had raped a woman known to them in the same year Maria James was murdered.
A POLICE officer who once shot Keogh in both kneecaps to stop Keogh attacking him with a knife rang the homicide squad after the Maria James murder to say Keogh bore a striking resemblance to the identikit picture of the man a witness saw running away from the murder scene.
Keogh’s psychotherapist, Ms Hobbs, refused to directly tell detectives about her strong belief that Keogh murdered Maria James because she wasn’t prepared to break her code of ethics relating to patient confidentiality.
But she was so convinced of Keogh’s guilt that soon after the 1980 murder she got a psychologist friend to tell police they should question Keogh about the Maria James murder.
The information passed to the homicide squad at the time was vague about why detectives should talk to Keogh. It was more like a suggestion than the crucial clue it actually was.
Years later, Ms Hobbs played a major part in getting Robert Arthur Selby Lowe convicted of the 1991 murder of Sheree Beasley, 6, after Lowe admitted his guilt to her while she was treating him.
Keogh, whose long criminal history included convictions for various sex and violence offences, committed suicide in 2001.
He killed himself in the rear yard of his home in Mansfield St, Thornbury — just 1.5km from where Marie James was stabbed 68 times.
At the time he died, Ms Cleary’s brother Phil was strongly lobbying police to reinvestigate Keogh over the Maria James murder.
The then State Coroner, Graham Johnstone, approved a homicide squad request to get DNA from Keogh’s body before it was cremated. They got it from his hair and a piece of bone.
It was that DNA sample that led to police wrongly eliminating him after they later got what they thought was the killer’s DNA from what they mistakenly thought was a bloodstained pillowcase from the Maria James murder.
Police recently discovered the pillowcase was from another crime scene and had been placed at some stage in a Maria James evidence bag that was supposed to contain the bloodstained quilt from Maria James’ bed.
The quilt that should have been in the bag wasn’t there and it is believed to be still missing, although Victoria Police this week refused to confirm or deny that.
“Victoria Police will revisit the examination of all exhibits pertaining to the death of Maria James,” a spokesman for the force said.
“It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”
The quilt could be a crucial piece of evidence as the police forensic officer who collected samples from the murder scene said it was very close to where Maria James body was found.
“A quilted bedspread on the bed was heavily stained with blood on the edges near the deceased,” Sen-Constable Terrence Collins said.
“There were spots of blood on top of the quilt which had sprayed across the bed.”
Killers who use knives often cut themselves during the attack, particularly if the victim suffers multiple stab wounds and Maria James was stabbed 68 times — so there is a good chance some of the blood on the missing quilt was from the murderer.
Sadly, it is possible police will never be able to compare Keogh’s DNA with DNA from the Maria James murder scene as at this stage Mark James has been told they don’t have any.
And even if the retesting of the Maria James murder exhibits, which police are doing now, does result in getting the DNA of an unknown male that could belong to the killer it is possible police no longer have Keogh’s DNA as the DNA of suspects who are cleared is usually destroyed — and Keogh’s body was cremated.
While wanting police to still consider Keogh as a suspect, Mark James is as sure as he can be that his mother was killed by a paedophile Catholic priest — and possibly two.
The two he suspects were involved are Father Anthony Bongiorno and Father Thomas O’Keeffe, who were the James family’s priests at St Mary’s in Thornbury at the time of the 1980 murder.
He says both Catholic priests were sexually molesting his intellectually disabled younger brother Adam in the period before their mother was stabbed to death.
Mark James believes the motive for one or both of them killing his mother was that Adam had told her about Father Bongiorno sexually abusing him and she confronted the priest about it on the day she was murdered.
“Given the circumstances, it appears very much like Bongiorno knocked off my mum,” he told the Herald Sun yesterday.
“If you had asked me maybe 25 or 30 years ago if a Catholic priest could have done this of course I would have said no way.
“Now, at best, these two monsters Bongiorno and O’Keefe have sexually assaulted my brother and absolutely terrified him for years.
“At worst, to perpetuate their activities, facing exposure, they have either murdered my mother or arranged for my mother to be murdered.”
The Herald Sun revealed in 2013 that the murder case against Father Bongiorno had strengthened as a result of Adam, who was 11 when his mother was killed, making a new statement to police about the paedophile priest.
That article prompted an electrician who had been working at St Mary’s on the morning of the murder to contact police to say he saw Father Bongiorno that day and that he was covered in blood.
Mark James recently appealed to Victorian State Coroner, Judge Sara Hinchey, to hold a second inquest to examine all the compelling new evidence in the case.
“A lot has happened since the 1982 coronial inquest,” he said yesterday.
“Coroner Mason did the best he could at the time with the information he had, but he wasn’t privy to all of the information that has come out in recent years.
“I am asking the coroner to consider these new facts and circumstances and I am requesting her to put aside the findings of the original inquest.
“Down the track, when police have picked through more of the investigation, I would like the coroner to take a lead role in directing the police in certain areas and holding a further inquest.”
He also hopes the coroner will investigate the circumstances of the DNA bungle in his mother’s case.
The Coroners Court of Victoria has received the application to set aside the finding and the State Coroner is considering the matter.
Police have for years thought they had the unknown killer’s DNA from blood he left at the scene.
They used the DNA to eliminate several suspects whose DNA did not match the DNA police believed belonged to the killer.
But the force last month admitted that DNA was actually obtained from an exhibit from another murder and that the exhibit had somehow found its way into exhibits from the Maria James murder scene.
Which means all those suspects cleared because their DNA didn’t match the DNA police were mistakenly using are back to being suspects.
While Mark James still puts Father Bongiorno at the top of his list of suspects, a list that also includes Father O’Keefe, he wants police to keep an open mind and re-examine all the other suspects as well.
He would also like a new inquest to examine every suspect and the events surrounding the exhibits used that caused the DNA bungle.
Police have told him they are now re-examining all available exhibits from his mother’s crime scene in the hope of obtaining the killer’s DNA so they can compare it with whatever DNA they can get from suspects.
As many of the suspects are dead — including Father Bongiorno and Father O’Keefe — that could prove difficult.
Mark James believes if the only way to get DNA from suspects is to exhume their bodies then that is an avenue “police are obliged to pursue”.
If police fail to get unidentified DNA from the current retesting of the exhibits from his mother’s murder then he is considering pursuing a legal remedy.
Other suspects in the Maria James murder, apart from Father Bongiorno, Father O’Keefe and Peter Keogh, include:
MARIO. One of Maria James’ customers told police that on the Saturday morning before the murder she was in the shop talking to Maria and Maria said a man called Mario had tried to chat her up and had asked for her phone number. The woman said Maria told her she had given Mario “the brush off” Police identified Mario and interviewed him. He admitted he had been in Maria James’ bookshop on the morning she was murdered. He told police the shop was closed when he got there but Maria had let him in after he knocked on the door. He said he tried to sell her some magazines and that they argued after she refused to take them. He told police he left the shop after the argument. Police later received information that Mario went back to the shop later that morning. He was a keen tomato grower and used twine similar to the twine used to tie up Maria James. He remained a strong suspect until he was eliminated in 2004 when his DNA didn’t match the DNA police believed at the time was the DNA of the killer — the recent DNA bungle puts Mario back high on the suspect list.
PETER. Police identified Peter, who was a local real estate agent, and interviewed him, but didn’t find any evidence to implicate him. Police were told Peter was married with two children at the time he attempted to form a relationship with Maria James. One theory is the very moral and upstanding Maria discovered Peter was married and became angry with him for trying to deceive her. A fellow real estate agent provided Peter with an alibi, saying he was with Peter visiting properties elsewhere at the time of the murder.
THE Telecom man. He was identified by police and questioned. They discovered he had lots of freedom in his Telecom job to travel wherever he liked and that he was in the area on the day Maria James was murdered. They were told he frequented second hand bookshops. He was separated from his wife. Maria James’s doctor told police she told him she was seeing a Telecom worker who was separated. The Telecom employee left Melbourne for Queensland on August 1, 1980, just a few weeks after Maria James was murdered. He picked up two female hitchhikers on August 6, 1980, and attempted to rape them at gunpoint. The women fought back and managed to escape after one of them wrestled the gun from him. Police caught him and searched his vehicle, finding two rifles, a fake pistol, handcuffs, thumb screws, ether, nylon cord, white adhesive tape and a knife. The knife was of the same brand and size as the one missing from Maria James’ kitchen and which police believe was the weapon used to stab her 68 times. Maria James’ hands were tied. A witness in the Maria James case told police she saw a man running
out of the bookshop at the time of the murder as she was driving past and had to brake heavily to avoid hitting him as he sped across the road in front of her. Her description of him fitted the Telecom man so police flew her up to Queensland so she could take part in a line-up of several men. She identified the Telecom man as the person she saw running out of Maria James’ bookshop just after the murder. Although Telecom records suggested the man could not have been in Thornbury at the time of the murder he remained a suspect as it was possible the records were falsified. Police also discovered the female motorist who told police she saw a man running out of the bookshop at the time of the murder was an unreliable witness as she also picked suspect Peter the real estate man out of a police line-up as the man she saw fleeing the scene — and he looks nothing like the Telecom man.
THE traffic officer. He had known Maria James for decades and sometimes took her out socially, not romantically. Was questioned and while he had an alibi he remained a suspect as police were not 100 per cent sure it was watertight. He was convicted of sex offences committed against people known to him more than a decade after the Maria James murder.
keith.moor@news.com.au