Double Jeopardy on Sunday Night: Will baby Chloe’s killer ever be brought to justice?

IT WAS the first time Chloe Murphy had stayed with a babysitter. She was left with injuries so horrific she couldn’t be revived.

WHAT do you do when the justice system shrugs its shoulders and turns away? When police who believe your every word say there’s nothing else they can do? When everyone around you understands your pain, but no one can help you?

Sitting in the back of a van leaving the coroners court in Melbourne, I am pondering these very questions.

I’m watching a couple, clenched fingers, lips tight, eyes welling with tears. The words are there, but they are angry words and they don’t come out right. Half sentences, repetition, and deep sighs of exasperation from a bruised heart. I’m glad they are telling their story, because Australia needs to know.

I am with Anthony and Kat Murphy, and I want you to walk in their shoes.

You’re young and you’re in love. You both work modest jobs, you live in a modest flat in Melbourne. Your first child is a beautiful little girl and you name her Chloe. Your heart melts every time she smiles.

Baby Chloe Murphy.

After a while your wife decides she wants to go back to work so you find a babysitter online. There are hundreds of them but you bypass the teenagers and choose a woman with two kids herself.

You go to the house, look around. After all, this is your 10-month-old daughter you are leaving behind for a few hours. Everything seems normal, the house is clean, the babysitter calm and relaxed.

You go out for dinner — not a fancy restaurant, just the food court at the mall. You watch a movie, just the two of you. It’s so simple but you haven’t done this in forever, and it’s wonderful.

When you get to the babysitter’s house she tells you Chloe is sleeping but every alarm bell, in every fibre of your being, is ringing. Her body is limp in your arms. You rush your little girl to hospital thinking it’s an allergic reaction, something is caught in her throat.

But by the end of the night doctors tell you she has brain damage so severe only the machines are keeping her alive.

You went out for dinner and a movie. And now you have to turn off those machines.

This is what happened to Anthony and Kat Murphy.

Kat and Anthony Murphy lost their beautiful baby girl after leaving her with a babysitter.

The babysitter’s name is Ketapat Jenkins. She was eventually charged with child homicide. In court she never gave evidence, exercising her right to silence. When it came time to hear about Chloe’s injuries, the entire court was silent.

Her tiny arm was broken in three places, retinal haemorrhages in both eyes, and a head injury so severe, so massive, she could have been in a car accident.

Without testimony from the babysitter submissions to the court canvassed what could have caused such horrific injuries. The defence case during the trial was enough to put doubt in the minds of the jury. Ketapat Jenkins was acquitted.

Ketapat Jenkins pictured leaving the Supreme Court after being acquitted of the murder of Chloe Murphy.

Tony and Kat Murphy were beside themselves, so they asked for a coronial inquiry. The ground rules here are different, witnesses can speak more freely. They called in nine medical experts, unchallenged in their field, hundreds of years of combined knowledge.

They all agreed on the most likely scenario and it was this: Someone jerked Chloe violently and upwards by the arm, and then flung her tiny body against a wall, furniture, or the floor. She was unconscious on impact and already dying due to massive head trauma.

Only one person could reveal what really happened inside that house — the babysitter, Ketapat Jenkins.

However the coroner, Jacqui Hawkins, explained her catch-22.

A coroner’s inquest should only determine what happened to Chloe not who did it. If Ketapat Jenkins was forced to testify, she might incriminate herself and fresh charges could be laid. So, she was excused from giving evidence.

Tony and Kat Murphy were distraught, and understandably angry.

Kat and Anthony Murphy are interviewed by Denham Hitchcock on Sunday Night.

In the end the coroner delivered a strong finding. “On the balance of probabilities Mrs Jenkins caused the injuries Chloe sustained.”

And this.

“I believe that an indictable offence may have been committed.”

But in Victoria without new and compelling evidence the babysitter is protected by the law of double jeopardy which states no one can be tried for the same crime twice.

Back to the beginning. Everyone cares. No one can do a damn thing about it.

Which is why the death of Chloe Murphy is so important. When you hear what really happened, when you see the medical reports and X-rays for the first time, hear from the experts, look into the eyes of Tony and Kat Murphy, you realise it’s simply not good enough.

Denham Hitchcock is a reporter with Seven’s Sunday Night. His special investigation into the death of Chloe Murphy airs tonight at 8.30pm on Seven.