Little girl lost: On the trail of Tiahleigh Palmer’s killer
FOR months, what police told the public and what they were doing behind the scenes to solve Tiahleigh’s murder diverged. This is how they caught her alleged killer.
FOR better or worse, catching a killer sometimes necessitates a little smoke and mirrors.
For nearly 11 months, detectives investigating the murder of 12-year-old Queensland schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer told one story of her disappearance publicly.
Privately, they have suspected, for at least six of those months, that none of it was true.
As they worked, squirrel-like, behind the scenes, gathering the evidence that would prove what they now allege, they continued to tell it.
It gave them the time they needed to ensure their case was solid. It had to be.
Because who ever would have thought the seemingly salt-of-the-earth man who opened his idyllic rural home to a disadvantaged 12-year-old girl would be charged with her murder?
And who ever would have thought the rest of his family — the apparently good-hearted foster mother and her two adult sons, who also welcomed Tiahleigh into their lives — would be charged with allegedly covering up the heinous crime?
Right up until last week, when investigators seized a blue Ford Falcon they described as a “vehicle of interest” in the investigation, police maintained that Tiahleigh was last seen about 8.15am on the morning of October 30 last year, when her foster father Rick Thorburn dropped her off at Marsden State High School.
It was said to be the last time she was seen alive.
But she never made it inside the school gates that morning.
The prevailing public theory was that Tiahleigh had a secret, prearranged meeting with an unknown stranger, and that person was the one who killed the schoolgirl and dumped her semi-naked body on the banks of the Pimpama River, 30 kilometres away.
Detectives trawled her social media accounts and found no evidence that would point to such a meeting.
However, the investigation was complicated by the sometimes-unreliable memories of children.
Among the hundreds of students they interviewed, there were those who were adamant they had seen Tiahleigh the morning she vanished.
There was even one who claimed to have seen her in a nearby McDonald’s before school, however, a review of CCTV footage did not corroborate the sighting.
Also uncorroborated was Thorburn’s version of events.
Nothing supported the claim he dropped his foster daughter at school that morning.
Because, police will allege, he didn’t.
He had allegedly killed her the night before.
Rather than the mysterious stranger, it became apparent to detectives the killer they were seeking may have been much closer to home.
Inside Tiahleigh’s home, it will be alleged.
Throughout the high-profile hunt for the person who murdered the pre-teen, few outside the investigative team even suspected Rick and Julene Thorburn and their sons, Josh and Trent, could possibly be involved in her death.
The couple raised the alarm with authorities that Tiahleigh was missing when they turned up at Marsden State High School on October 30 to collect her and were informed she had not attended that day.
At her funeral, Rick Thorburn was one of six pallbearers clad in purple T-shirts, bearing the words “Tiahleigh RIP”, who carried her small white coffin and grieved the loss of her young life along with 600 other mourners.
In the many public appeals for information, it was her absent mother Cindy Palmer, who lost her daughter to foster care after a jail stint in 2011, who faced the cameras as the grieving loved one desperately seeking information.
The Thorburns were nowhere to be seen, although their absence was explained by the strict privacy controls that govern foster carers.
Until this week, few in the media even knew their names.
Publicly, many expressed sorrow for them.
In an interview with the Weekend Australian earlier this year, Foster Care Queensland executive director Bryan Smith said the Thorburns had their hands tied by the Child Protection Act, that any public appeal for information they made would put them at risk of prosecution.
“Carers are told very clearly that their hands are tied and to essentially sit on them and wait,” he said.
“It’s absolutely heart-wrenching. These kids are family members.”
As a matter of protocol, from the outset, investigators turned their attention to the Thorburn family.
But Facebook reportedly blocked them from finding a crucial piece of information, something that could have cracked the case much earlier.
A court was told this week that Trent Thorburn, then 18 and the youngest member of the family, allegedly used Facebook Messenger to confess to a cousin he had sex with his 12-year-old foster sister.
He further went on to reveal his fears that Tiahleigh was pregnant.
It’s a powerful potential motive for murder.
Before Tiahleigh was reported missing, the message was deleted.
When detectives applied to Facebook in the early stages of the investigation to examine the family’s social media profiles, their request is believed to have been refused.
Homicide Detective Inspector Damien Hansen declined to confirm the report on Friday, however, he did allude to the fact the investigative team were refused access.
The company requires “probable cause” of involvement in an alleged crime, he said, for profile access to be granted to police.
In the beginning, the theory that a prearranged meeting with a stranger led to her death was the most likely one.
By March, however, when a $250,000 reward and indemnity from prosecution was put on the table for anyone who would provide the information that would catch Tiahleigh’s killer, it was clear the direction of the investigation had changed.
There was talk of there being more than one person involved in her death and it was hoped the financial carrot would prompt one of the less involved to turn.
The Thorburn family, however, allegedly maintained their silence.
It was an anonymous tip in April that gave detectives the breakthrough they needed.
Cindy Palmer, however, remained in the dark. When investigators seized a blue Ford Falcon for forensic examination last week and declared it a “vehicle of interest”, she was not told who it once belonged to.
Police will allege Rick Thorburn used the car to drive his young foster daughter to the banks of the Pimpama River, where her decaying body was found by fishermen a week after he allegedly killed her.
After her death, he sold the car online.
Cindy Palmer learned the car once belonged to the Thorburn family through a third party.
Its seizure, and the inference that the family were suspects in her daughter’s death, appeared to be as much a bombshell revelation to her as it was to everyone else.
On the “Justice 4 Tiahleigh” Facebook page, she expressed her disbelief.
“The car that was seized is identical to the one that … and … had, the one they had sold within days of Tiahleigh’s body being found,” she wrote. “And as the news and police depicted this car was in the possession of a new owner who was NOT a suspect in their investigation ...
“… and … were the carers of Tiahleigh, the people who were intrusted [sic] where [sic] her care and wellbeing, the same carers who are publicly selling up everything they own.”
It came, as Det Insp Hansen said the following day, at a “crucial stage” in the investigation.
It came just as police were granted access to the family’s Facebook profiles, where they found the vital message Trent Thorburn had allegedly deleted.
Their case was building but they were not yet ready to swoop.
Ms Palmer was ordered to take the post down but it was too late.
Media outlets had picked up on the explosive new twist in the mystery and soon it was everywhere.
The police had no choice but to move.
The Thorburn family was all taken into custody for questioning.
Rick Thorburn, the 56-year-old family patriarch, was soon after charged with the murder of his foster daughter and interfering with her corpse.
Thorburn, who refuses to co-operate with police, according to Insp Hansen, apparently did not take the development well.
He is alleged to have overdosed on pills while in custody at a Beenleigh watch-house in a bid to take his own life.
After being rushed to Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital, he was transferred on Friday to the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre.
Trent Thorburn was charged with incest, two counts of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
He was denied bail in Beenleigh Magistrates Court on Wednesday and also remains in custody.
It’s understood the 19-year-old will make a fresh bail application to the Queensland Supreme Court at a later date.
Julene Thorburn, 54, and her son Josh, 20, have also been charged.
Both face one charge each of attempting to pervert the course of justice and perjury.
The family is alleged to have all lied to the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission in coercive hearings, in which they were questioned about Trent’s sexual relationship with Tiahleigh and their involvement in her murder.
On Friday, Insp Hansen said both Julene, 54, and Josh, 20, had provided statements to police, in which they are believed to have provided a lot of information.
The pair has returned to their rural Chambers Flat home, which remains a crime scene and is likely to for some days, Insp Hansen said.
In bizarre scenes, Julene Thorburn has been seen feeding horses as forensic police search her property.
The officers have been scouring the property for clues in the homicide investigation and on Friday began digging at parts of the acreage with an excavator.
Key to the evidence they are looking for are the school uniform and pink backpack Tiahleigh was believed to be wearing when she died.
The items have not been seen since she vanished.
Despite the circumstances that led to the rapid expedition of the investigation this week, Insp Hansen on Friday declared himself pleased with its progress.
“I’m very happy with where it sits,” he said.
Now, the focus shifts to the judicial process.
In her first statement since the bombshell arrests of her daughter’s foster family, Ms Palmer urged the public to be cognisant of the potential ramifications commenting on the case may have.
After 11 long months of not knowing what happened to Tiahleigh, the arduous legal process stretching ahead of her now begins.
“I miss my daughter terribly every day and a piece of my heart is missing,” she said.
“I’ll not let Tiahleigh’s death be in vain.
“The time has come to get justice for Tiahleigh and I ask everyone to let the judicial system work.
“Please refrain from speculating or spreading any information that may damage the hard work the Queensland police have done.”
Insp Hansen during the week described the case as one of the hardest of his career.
Hundreds of police have been enlisted to help with reviewing hours of CCTV footage and following more than 3500 lines of inquiry.
“One person doesn’t solve a homicide and particularly something like this. This is one of the most difficult I’ve ever worked on,” he said.
“We’ve had dedicated police on this for a long period of time, 11 months ... it’s just been a great team effort.”
At times since Tiahleigh’s death, it seemed no one would ever be charged.
And while it has taken nearly a year to arrive at this week’s development, Insp Hanson said that, for the little girl who loved to dance, his team’s work is far from done.
“By no means is it over. There’s a lot of work to go on with yet,” he said.
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