Grandson’s plea for justice for his gran who was attacked twice in her own home
NOBODY in Jessie Lauder’s family could have predicted the depraved act committed against the loving grandmother. Two years later their worst nightmares were realised when it happened again.
Law & Order
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IT was an unspeakably depraved act against the most gentle and loving of grandmothers.
Nobody in Jessie Lauder’s close-knit family thought in even their worst nightmare there would ever be a repeat of that act — yet it happened again two years later.
What happened was Mrs Lauder being attacked and raped in 1981 and again in 1983.
Both sexual assaults on the former Red Cross volunteer were in her home in Mason Street, Newport, where she lived alone following the death of her husband Lindsay in 1977.
No charges have been laid over the attacks on the mother of two, who was 82 at the time of the first rape and 83 when, against all the odds, she was raped again.
What has only recently been established is that the same man committed both offences.
That shocking and unexpected discovery was made after crime scene exhibits from the 1981 and 1983 rapes were dragged out of a freezer to be tested to see if DNA could be extracted from them.
Scientists at the Victoria Police laboratory were able to get the offender’s DNA, which prompted sexual crimes squad detective sergeant Nigel Freebairn to last year start reinvestigating the two attacks on Mrs Lauder.
Having the offender’s DNA has enabled Det-Sgt Freebairn to eliminate the only three suspects in the case.
He hopes a $500,000 reward he is announcing today will lead to the offender finally being caught more than three decades since he twice attacked Mrs Lauder.
It is the biggest rape reward ever offered in Victoria.
“Hopefully it will bring justice for Grandma,” her grandson Malcolm Lauder told the Sunday Herald Sun yesterday.
“The reward, and the dedication of Nigel in reinvestigating the case, gives us renewed confidence that justice will be served even after all this time.”
Mrs Lauder died in 1993 at the age of 93.
Malcolm Lauder, 56, was the first person Mrs Lauder spoke to after each sexual assault.
It was over the phone after the first attack, but face-to-face the second time as Mrs Lauder bravely walked the 400 metres from her home to where her grandson lived with his parents, Jack and Hazel Lauder.
“There was a knock on the door, there was just Mum and I home, Dad was out,” Malcolm Lauder said.
“So I answered the front door and there was Grandma standing there draped in a dressing gown and she just says ‘I’ve been raped’, which was traumatic.”
Mrs Lauder told police after the first attack on September 22, 1981, that she had pleaded with the disguised and knife-wielding offender not to hurt her.
“I’m 82 and I have a bad heart,” she told him.
He replied: “I won’t hurt you if you give me what I want.”
Mrs Lauder told police he warned her not to report the rape, saying to her that if she did “I’ll come back every week”.
He didn’t carry out that threat, but, chillingly, he did break into Mrs Lauder’s home a second time on July 6, 1983, and again went to great lengths to prevent her seeing his face.
She later told police she started to scream and was crying out “no, no, no” and that he shouted “stop that or I will kill you.”
Hazel Lauder, 84, who was married to Mrs Lauder’s son Jack, yesterday said Mrs Lauder had lived in the Mason St home for more than 50 years and was reluctant to leave it even after the second attack.
“I eventually told her ‘you might want to go back home but I can’t live with the fact you will be there by yourself’ and I insisted she move in with us, which she did,” she said.
Det-Sgt Freebairn said there were many similarities between the two attacks on Mrs Lauder, but there was nothing to suggest the same person did both until last year when scientific advances enabled the offender’s DNA to be extracted from crime scene exhibits.
He believes the offender probably lived in the Newport area and knew how vulnerable Mrs Lauder was as she was frail and lived alone.
The offender was described by Mrs Lauder as being aged between 20 and 30, so would now be aged between 55 and 65, 175cm tall with a fair complexion, dark hair and an Australia accent.
He is believed to have worn gloves, a red and blue beanie, work boots and items over his face to disguise his identity.
“What I am hoping is the reward and publicity about the case will prompt people who might know somebody they think has the propensity to have committed the attacks to contact us and provide that person’s name,” Det-Sgt Freebairn said yesterday.
“While it would be great if somebody actually knows who the offender is and provides us with that name, we are also keen to have the names of anybody who somebody even has the slightest suspicion about.”
In addition to the $500,000 reward to solve the case, Det-Sgt Freebairn has organised for an information caravan to be set up in Market St, Newport, tomorrow so people can speak to police about the case.
“I have something to say, not just specifically to the offender in this case, but to all the offenders out there who have committed serious sex offences in the past and think they have got away with it, and that is that forensic science is catching up with you,” Det-Sgt Freebairn said.
“We have your DNA and it’s only a matter of time before we have your name.”
Det-Sgt Freebairn urged anyone with information about the attacks on Mrs Lauder to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au