Deadline: Tassie son-in-law murder worthy of its own Netflix series

Tasmania has been serving up Gothic crimes since runaway convicts ate each other, and the tale of respectable, country grandparents convicted of killing their ex-son-in-law is worthy of its own TV series.

Cedric Harper Jordan (left) and Noelene June Jordan (front) outside the Supreme Court in Tasmania in Launceston. Picture: Patrick Gee

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Praise the Lord, pass the ammunition

America has its hillbilly patches in the Ozarks and the Appalachians, where the hills and hollers are alive with moonshiners and meth labs run by backwoods folks whose big choice is whether to shoot first or pull a bowie knife.

The film industry has done good work with gunhappy “billies”, making shows like Justify and Ozark and Winter’s Bone. Very much a case of praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Now it seems Aussiewood is doing the same thing in rural Tasmania. After the success of the quirky comedy Rosehaven, Tassie is staking its claim as a ready-made film location.

The latest Tasmanian-located show, Bay Of Fires, is a crime-comedy-caper with some fine actors doing the best they can with a promising premise: a woke, uppity middle-class city woman and her kids are thrown into witness protection in the backwoods, marooned in a town of vaguely sinister weirdos where murders happen. And, worse, you can’t get a decent coffee or vegetarian food.

Breaking Bad it ain’t. It’s more Seachange with guns, though there is a laugh-out-loud scene involving a Russian hitman and a snake.

Meanwhile, though, real-life crime in Tassie is hard to top.

The island that has thrown up Gothic crimes since runaway convicts ate each other is at it again. A pair of respectable, clean-living, country grandparents have just been convicted of killing their ex-son-in-law exactly 14 years ago this week.

Cedric Harper Jordan will serve a minimum of 12 years of a 22 year sentence. Picture: Alex Treacy

The old golf gag describing a poor shot (“a son-in-law — not quite what I had in mind”) is what happened here. Cedric Harper Jordan and Noelene Jordan didn’t like the son-in-law who’d split from their daughter Rachel, and believed he treated her badly and had a bad effect on their granddaughter.

Grandpa Cedric Jordan often muttered threats about Barker, a rugged 36-year-old deer shooting type who lived in tiny Campbell Town.

What happened one dark night in 2009 is that Barker was shot four times in his driveway after arriving home from dinner with his parents.

At first the police focused on Rachel’s new partner but it wasn’t him. Then they looked over various other “persons of interest” before losing interest. But when a new-broom detective picked up the cold case in 2015, things changed.

He methodically checked alibis, movements and background for 97 potential suspects. When he got to the respectable former in-laws, the cold case warmed up.

It turns out the old couple had told a few porkies about their whereabouts on the night Barker was shot: they said they were home in the east coast town of Swansea that night. Which was strange, because granny Jordan’s mobile phone had pinged a tower in Launceston.

The Jordans then decided they had left home that night after all, driving much more than an hour to get a late night feed of KFC in suburban Launceston. Problem: the KFC security cameras hadn’t recorded such a thing. And Ma and Pa contradicted each other about which roads they’d used.

The prosecution case is circumstantial. The defence case is that there are no eyewitnesses identifying Cedric Jordan at the scene, no smoking gun, no fingerprints or palm prints, no live evidence of a credible motive beyond personal dislikes.

Murder victim Shane Barker’s sister Nicole Garwood, brother Paul Barker, and mum Barbara Barker after Cedric and Noelene Jordan were found guilty. Picture: Alex Treacy

Jordan steadfastly refused to admit he’d ever had an unregistered .22 pump action rifle that family and friends mentioned he’d got from his wife’s father. And yet bullet cases found at the murder scene matched a case found at the Jordans’ holiday shack in the bush. Asked why that would be, he told police they’d probably planted it.

The murder weapon was never found but that didn’t stop a jury returning a guilty verdict last month.

Those enthusiasts who maintain the innocence of another Tasmanian grandmother convicted of murder, Sue Neill-Fraser, might think the Jordans are victims of another unfathomable conspiracy by police and prosecution. Neill-Fraser, like the Jordans, was never the investigators’ first choice as the perpetrator.

If their appeals do not succeed, the gunslinging grandparents will serve a minimum of 12 years of their 22 year sentences.

It has the makings of a bleak drama about the pressure cooker effect on family life when love turns sour. Such a story might explore what the murdered man did to earn such a violent dislike.

Poo truckers unload at docks

A major Deadline investigation can reveal serious wrongdoing on our wharves, but it’s not related to drug importations or ghosting rackets.

This matter was far more serious. It seems phantom defecators had gone rogue, defiling the roadway around Swanston Dock.

“Mocking birds” were twice found recently on MacKenzie Rd, dropped quietly and quickly between parked cars.

Any port in a storm, as they say. But a portaloo would be better.

Authorities rightly made it a matter of urgency and launched an inquiry in which CCTV emerged as a powerful stool-detection tool.

As with the AFL’s ARC, a panel of adjudicators reviewed the evidence and identified two truck-driving offenders getting down and dirty.

The word from those in the know is that the pair have been hauled in and given a good kick up the backside for their crimes.

As one observer remarked last week, log (book) breaches are a genuine problem plaguing the transport industry but this was a new low.

Speaking of such depravity, there’s bad news for those who like to take the stairs at Southbank’s Eureka car park. Its resident polluter, or an imitator, recently returned to his favourite squat with devastating effect.

CCTV captured a couple of truckies getting down and dirty.

Hammer time

A Melbourne crime heavy has had some lively interaction with hoods from his hood of late.

The scuttlebutt is that the friction didn’t come out of the blue and had been brewing for some time.

A Deadline source says there’d been some previous nastiness at commercial auctions involving the tough guy and people with organised crime links.

Things can turn testy in an overheated property market. But pulling out guns is probably a bit rich.

Don’t come back

Last week we mentioned a bunch of former AFL footballers going hard at a mate’s coked-up shindig.

They aren’t the only footy retirees who play up when they should be old enough to know better.

One champion from decades back will hope a past episode remains in the past.

He headed to an Asian capital to help promote our great game and give some kind of morale-boosting end-of-season address to the small local footy community.

Unfortunately, he went too hard too early, securing the three votes for bad behaviour.

After a shambling performance, he put the hard word on the wife of one of the local footy big wigs and was escorted out.

It was a long trip home.

Let the games begin

The cancellation of the Commonwealth Games has had some regrettable consequences.

One of them is the ending of discussion of a new range of potential demonstration sports in which young Melburnians might excel.

The Twitter account of racing guru Ralph Horowitz has identified aggravated burglaries, stolen luxury car joy rides, teen knife crime and firebombings as among potential sources of gold.

“Showcasing the best teenage talent,” is the way Racing Ralphie Horowitz put it.

Turf war

It’s some time since we mentioned the Degani 150, a senior cop whose daily beat is the flat white precinct of police HQ.

A 150 is police radio code for an inspector and Degani is a cafe inside the flash new Spencer St complex.

Word reaches us that Code Three, the venue outside HQ, has now closed.

Apparently, there was also a Code Three 150 who has put in some solid hours maintaining his caffeine levels downstairs.

Strong rumour is that the displaced 150 will be seeking a transfer to take over the Degani 150 role. Tough gig but someone’s gotta do it.