Missing police diary could free alleged killer Katia Pyliotis after conviction quashed
A missing police diary containing a confession to the murder of lonely widower Elia Abdelmessih — who was bashed to death with a statue of the Virgin Mary and a tin of mangoes — could lead to the imminent release of a woman jailed over the killing.
Police & Courts
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A missing police diary containing crucial evidence about a confession to murdering lonely widower Elia Abdelmessih has been found, and may lead to the imminent release of a woman jailed over the killing.
The diary, found in police archives this month, contains notes about an original suspect, Susan Reddie, who had admitted to killing Mr Abdelmessih in his Kew East home in 2005.
Critical to the prosecution case was the evidence of former Victoria Police homicide investigator Warren Ryan, who recalled that in October 2005, Ms Reddie recanted on her confession to police that she had hit Mr Abdelmessih with a ‘’rock’’.
The Herald Sun can reveal the discovery of the diary notes appear to contradict the former detective’s evidence. They not only reveal Ms Reddie did not recant her statement, but that she confessed to the murder again.
More than a decade later, police charged another woman, Katia Pyliotis, with the murder, based on her DNA being at the crime scene.
Ms Pyliotis was convicted two years ago of the September, 2005, murder of Mr Abdelmessih, who was bashed to death with a statue of the Virgin Mary and a tin of mangoes.
Last year she was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Although Ms Pyliotis’ conviction was quashed on appeal in May this year, the 37-year-old remains in jail awaiting a fifth trial.
She will now apply for bail.
Homicide detectives eliminated Ms Reddie as a suspect in 2005 when her DNA, or fingerprints, could not be found at the crime scene.
She died in 2012.
But the cornerstone of Ms Pyliotis’ defence has been that although she was inside Mr Abdelmessih’s house the day he was murdered, Ms Reddie, who confessed to attacking him, was the real killer.
Ms Reddie, in 2005, told police in a taped interview she hit Mr Abdelmessih with a ‘’rock’’, before running out the door.
She also told homicide investigators that she had visited his home on up to 15 occasions and he paid her for sex, but on this visit he was rude to her.
Ms Reddie, who had an acquired brain injury, made further confessions to a manager at the residential care facility where she lived.
Then homicide detective Ryan has testified she recanted her statement when they spoke alone in a supermarket carpark days after she made admissions in a taped police interview.
But Mr Ryan gave evidence the notes of his conversation with Ms Reddie – which took place in the back of a police car – were in his police diary, which could not be located.
At the time of the meeting, the detective was aware DNA found at the crime scene was not Ms Reddie’s. No formal interview was conducted thereafter.
The Reddie confession, and its recanting, has been hotly contested during four trials.
In 2016, almost eleven years after the murder, Ms Pyliotis became an immediate prime suspect when she was questioned by police in Adelaide and her DNA was entered into the national database.
It got a hit, with a match made to the Kew East murder scene. Ms Pyliotis was charged and extradited from South Australia.
Pyliotis’ sample was found to match DNA found within a glove located by police near the victim’s body.
A cut in the glove also matched a scar on Ms Pyliotis’ finger.
Her blood was found in several areas of the house.
Police found Mr Abdelmessih lying face down in a bucket of water in the foyer of the house after a neighbour raised concerns he was not answering his door.
Sometime after her arrest in 2016, Ms Pyliotis, in a recorded prison call, told a family member she had found Mr Abdelmessih dead in his house, but did not report it.
Although no motive has been established as to why Ms Pyliotis would want to kill Mr Abdelmessih, it has been established she knew him as a regular at the McDonald’s restaurant where she worked.
The Office of Public Prosecutions are yet to indicate whether they will continue to prosecute.
During the 2018 trial, Justice Paul Coghlan described Ms Pyliotis’ defence casting Ms Reddie as an alternative suspect as a ‘’red herring calculated to mislead’’.
Justice Coghlan also dubbed a line of questioning ‘’boring’’ and dismissed the possibility of Ms Reddie being responsible for the death.
‘’Well whoever that someone else is, it would not seem possible that it was Susan Reddie,” Justice Coghlan said.
He also said “if there was an alternative suspect or suspects, they did not happen to leave any DNA or fingerprints at the scene”.
It was among four comments Justice Coghlan made about the defence which led the Court of Appeal to rule there had been a substantial miscarriage of justice.
Ms Pyliotis, who trained as a youth worker after leaving Victoria in 2006, has been the victim of multiple violent attacks both inside and outside prison.
Oddly, it is the second time in less than a year a police diary has suddenly emerged.
Former Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland told the Lawyer X royal commission he had not kept a diary before it was found in storage.
Its emergence changed the axis of his testimony.
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