Larrimah tea house owner’s granddaughter declares ‘My nan is innocent’

The granddaughter of former Larrimah tea house proprietor, Fran Hodgetts, has declared her faith in her grandmother’s innocence.

THE granddaughter of former Larrimah tea house proprietor, Fran Hodgetts, has declared her faith in her grandmother’s innocence, following an inquest into the disappearance of her neighbour, Paddy Moriarty.

In a letter to the NT News, Hope Gilbert said she felt compelled to speak out after the inquest concluded on Thursday, saying “I believe my nan is innocent”.

Ms Gilbert said she visited Ms Hodgetts and her ex-husband, Bill Hodgetts, in Larrimah while the couple were in the process of separating in around 2009 and “they never had a bad word to say about each other”.

Ms Gilbert said when she heard allegations aired during the inquest, and denied by Ms Hodgetts, that she had offered to pay someone to kill Mr Moriarty, she “spun out”.

Ms Hodgetts took the stand on Wednesday where she denied ever having met a man who the court earlier heard had accused her of offering him $10,000 to kill Mr Moriarty.

“I don’t know nothing about all this, you can put me on a lie detector if you want, but I don’t know nothing,” she said.

“I can tell you now, I never, ever, ever, paid anybody or wanted to pay anybody to bump Paddy off and I swear to God, on my mother’s grave, I know nothing about Paddy.”

Fran Hodgetts leaves the Katherine Local Court after giving evidence in an inquest into the disappearance of Paddy Moriarty in 2018.

Ms Gilbert said the time she spent with her nan was “awesome”.

“She was pretty funny, talking about the old days, I didn’t see or feel any bad vibes from her, which normally if I get a funny feeling about someone my instinct is normally right,” she said.

Ms Gilbert said her grandmother was “pretty devastated” when she heard the news of Mr Moriarty’s disappearance in December 2017.

“All she wanted was to live a normal life and do what she loves best, her home made pies,” she said.

Ms Gilbert said she was “not saying this because I’m her granddaughter”.

“I just want to speak out and to let everyone know the way my nan truly is,” she said.

In chilling recordings played to the court on Thursday, Ms Hodgetts’ former gardener, Owen Laurie, was allegedly heard saying he “killerated Paddy”.

“I struck him on the f***ing head and killerated the bastard,” Mr Laurie is allegedly heard saying on the recording,” he appears to say.

“I killerated old Paddy, f***ing killerated him, I struck him on the f***ing head and killerated him.”

A sign out the front of "Fran's Devonshire tea house" in Larrimah on Thursday. Picture: Jason Walls

In another recording, Mr Laurie is allegedly heard remonstrating with his dog, Ruby, saying “I kill pup dogs ahaha”.

Mr Laurie exercised his right not to answer any questions about the recordings on the basis that he may incriminate himself but at one point stated: “I didn’t say anything like that at all, at any time, at any place”.

Family of Fran Hodgetts speak out following inquest into disappearance of Paddy Moriarty

THE family of one time Larrimah tea house proprietor, Fran Hodgetts, have spoken of their shock at the allegations aired as an inquest into the disappearance of her neighbour, Paddy Moriarty, wrapped up on Thursday.

Ms Hodgetts’ grandson, Brent Cilia, who now manages the Devonshire tea house on the Stuart Hwy, said he was “really upset” at first, but the town had rallied around him.

“Bobby and Karl (Roth) came over with eggs this morning to see how I was going,” he said.

“I’m just shocked.”

Despite covert recordings played to the inquest in which Ms Hodgetts’s gardener, Owen Laurie, could be heard saying to himself “you killed Paddy”, Mr Cilia was adamant that his “nan doesn’t know anything”.

A sign seeking any information about the disappearance of Paddy Moriarty still stands outside his Larrimah home. Picture: Jason Walls

But he acknowledged that the police still hadn’t cleared her of any wrongdoing.

“They said to me this morning on the phone, the police, they said ‘It could still be your nan that did it’,” he said.

Mr Cilia said a theory aired at the inquest that Ms Hodgetts had offered to pay a man named Brian Roberts to kill Mr Moriarty – which she categorically rejected in her evidence – was ludicrous.

“I called my sister and (she said) ‘They said that nan tried to pay someone’ and I just started laughing,” he said.

“Because I was here in 2016 and I just know nan, she’s been working her butt off to get the property settlement sorted.

“I just knew, these guys, she wouldn’t even know who they are and it just made me giggle a bit.”

Ms Hodgetts told the inquest she still planned to return to Larrimah later in the year, but Mr Cilia said that seemed unlikely.

“She wants to so much, her dog upstairs, I’ve been putting it off – putting it down – and I’m actually being cruel not doing it because I’ve been waiting for nan and then all this popped up,” he said.

“No, she can’t come here at the moment, no, so I think maybe not now, maybe not ever, I don’t know.

“My intentions are I want to preserve her – she’s my grandma, if I bring her back here I probably won’t see much of her for very long I think.”

Ms Hodgetts’ former husband, Bill Hodgetts, who still lives on the property with Mr Cilia, said he was surprised to hear about the alleged recordings of Owen Laurie on the radio but he didn’t feel much closer to learning what happened to Paddy.

“We still don’t know, no further ahead than we were first up,” he said.

“But I never met the bloke (Owen Laurie), he never come over to the pub, no one in town knew him at all.”

Fran Hodgetts’ ex-husband Bill Hodgetts at home in Larrimah. Picture: Jason Walls

For his grandson’s part, Mr Cilia hopes Larrimah can now start to move on from the mysterious tragedy.

“I just did a six year solar contract for solar panels for $10,000, it’s just like, is it even worth staying here now, you know?” he said.

“Are people going to think about this place as being ‘This is the place where that guy got murdered’?

“It’s just, crazy, absolutely crazy, and I don’t want Larrimah to be like that, I want Larrimah to be a place where people want to come and have fun and stop every time they drive past.”

Mr Cilia said his one regret was leaving Larrimah after a stint in the town in 2016, before Mr Moriarty disappeared.

“I think if I was here, probably, a bit earlier, she wouldn’t have needed to get Owen here,” he said.

“She should have just called me and I would have come up to help her without a doubt.”

Brent Cilia says his grandma, Fran Hodgetts, wants to know what happened to Paddy as much as anyone. Picture: Jason Walls

He said he and his grandma would now continue to help the police get to the bottom of what happened on that fateful evening in December 2017 when Mr Moriarty vanished into thin air.

“Our town’s great, everyone’s supporting everyone,” he said.

“I think her and the people that loved Paddy probably want him found the most, to be honest, and get the answer of this and I feel sorry for his friends.”

Knick knack, Paddy whacked! Give his dog a bone, this old man ain’t strolling home: Coroner declares foul play involved in missing Larrimah man’s disappearance

MISSING Larrimah man Paddy Moriarty is dead.

In handing down his findings following an inquest into Mr Moriarty’s disappearance on Thursday, Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh said while it was not for him to say who killed Paddy, “offences may well have been committed”.

“In my opinion, Paddy and his dog were killed in the context of, and likely due, to the ongoing feud that he had with his nearest neighbours,” he said.

Mr Cavanagh said there could be no doubt that Mr Moriarty “is dead” and likely met his untimely end, along with his dog Kellie, on the evening of December 16, 2017 after returning home from the pub.

“He had ridden home from the hotel, put the mostly eaten chicken in the microwave, put his wallet on the table, put his hat in its usual place, put the dog food in the dog’s bowl and got his own meal out of the freezer,” he said.

“He then went outside with the dog.”

Mr Cavanagh said while it was unclear what happened next, it likely related to an ongoing and “escalating feud” with his neighbour and then tea house proprietor, Fran Hodgetts, who had recently complained to police that Mr Moriarty had poisoned her plants.

“There is no evidence as to where he went, however, in my view, it is likely that the new plants that were at Fran’s place were of some attraction to him,” he said.

Mr Cavanagh said the Coroners Act precluded him from making a finding “that any particular person may be guilty of an offence”.

“However, I will refer this investigation to the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions,” he said.

“For I believe that offences may well have been committed in connection with the death of Patrick Joseph Moriarty.”

Speaking outside court, Larrimah resident Karen Rayner said she was surprised by the evidence that came out during the final day of the inquest on Wednesday, saying she had “thought it was more accidental”.

Larrimah residents Mark and Karen Rayner said the evidence that came out on the final day of Paddy Moriarty’s inquest had been an ‘eye-opener’. Picture: Jason Walls.

“Yesterday was certainly an eye opener, what the police had found,” she said.

“We’d just like to say that we believe the Northern Territory Police have done an exceptional job in getting to the conclusions they came to.

“It was a needle in a haystack but hopefully we’re a bit closer to justice for Paddy.”

After the findings were delivered, officer in charge of the investigation, detective Sergeant Matt Allen, said the case would remain open, with a $250,000 reward for information still on the table.

Detective Sergeant Matt Allen said the disappearance of Paddy Moriarty was a ‘once in a generation case’. Picture: Jason Walls.

Sgt Allen said when Mr Moriarty and Kellie “literally disappeared without a trace” in December 2017, it was the beginning of “a once-in-a-generation case”.

“Murder investigations are challenging, particularly when there is no body,” he said.

“We need to find Paddy. Cases of this nature are never closed until they are solved.”

In vacating the bench for the last time after a decades long career, Mr Cavanagh addressed his counsel assisting, Kelvin Currie, one final time.

“Well Mr Currie, close the door, shut the gate, draw the blinds, drop the curtain, turn off the lights,” he said.

“It’s all over for me, last day, final hearing. Cheerio.”

Secret recording allegedly captures gardener’s killing confession

UPDATE, WEDNESDAY 4.15PM: POLICE secretly recorded tea house proprietor Fran Hodgetts’ former gardener, Owen Laurie, confessing to having “killed Paddy” and “smacked him on the nostrils with me claw hammer”, a court has heard.

The chilling recordings were played in the Katherine Local Court on the final day of an inquest into the disappearance of Larrimah man, Paddy Moriarty, in 2017, after Mr Laurie took the stand on Wednesday afternoon.

Deputy Coroner Kelvin Currie said while the recordings were somewhat indistinct in places, detectives had interpreted Mr Laurie as saying that he “killerated old Paddy”.

“I struck him on the f***ing head and killerated the bastard,” Mr Laurie is allegedly heard saying on the recording.

“I killerated old Paddy, f***ing killerated him, I struck him on the f***ing head and killerated him.”

Owen Laurie at the Katherine Local Court on Wednesday April 6, 2022. Picture: Jason Walls

Mr Laurie is also allegedly heard saying “Well they didn’t f***ing find the hammer, well they can’t get me for anything”.

“You gotta find out who f**ing done it mate, that’s if you don’t find the f***ing body, to find out who done it,” he allegedly says.

“What, you reckon there’s a body somewhere and you want to find out who done it, then who did it?

“I can tell you you’re not finding out, I can tell you f***ing repeatedly you are not finding out, you are not finding out.”

In another recording, Mr Laurie is allegedly heard remonstrating with his dog, Ruby, saying “I kill pup dogs ahaha”.

In response, Mr Laurie exercised his right not to answer any questions about the recordings on the basis that he may incriminate himself but at one point stated: “I didn’t say anything like that at all, at any time, at any place”.

Ms Hodgetts also took the stand on Wednesday where she denied ever having met a man called Brian Roberts, who the court earlier heard had accused her of offering him $10,000 to kill Mr Moriarty.

“I don’t know nothing about all this, you can put me on a lie detector if you want, but I don’t know nothing,” she said.

“I can tell you now, I never, ever, ever, paid anybody or wanted to pay anybody to bump Paddy off and I swear to God, on my mother’s grave, I know nothing about Paddy.”

Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh will deliver his findings on Thursday.

READ THE TRANSCRIPT

UPDATE, WEDNESDAY 12.30PM: FRAN Hodgetts offered to pay a hitman $10,000 to “get rid of” her Larrimah neighbourhood nemesis, Paddy Moriarty, before his disappearance in December 2017, a court has heard.

Giving evidence at the recommencement of an inquest into Mr Moriarty’s disappearance on Wednesday, Wayne Ledwidge told the court he and his neighbour, Brian Roberts, bumped into Ms Hodgetts in Katherine earlier that year.

Mr Ledwidge said he had driven the elderly man into town to do his shopping when a woman called out to Mr Roberts inside a government building.

“This lady approached Brian Roberts in front of the Motor Vehicle Registry, she was very loud, abrupt, and said to Brian ‘That bastard is still giving me a hard time, I need to get rid of him’,” he said.

“She asked Brian to ‘Have a think about it and I’m also looking for someone to move in as the gardener’.

“She said she did already have a gardener there but he was no good and if Brian wanted the job (he could have it).”

Mr Ledwidge said the woman, who Brian told him was “Fran from the pie shop”, and who he later identified as Ms Hodgetts’s after visiting Larrimah, “mentioned that she had $9000 and she could get more”.

Fran Hodgetts leaves the Katherine Local Court in 2018.

“(She) said she needed to get rid of him and she would pay $10,000,” he said.

Mr Ledwidge said on the drive home Mr Roberts “made a comment in the car that he had a mate who would do the job for $10,000”.

Then, after Mr Moriarty went missing, Mr Ledwidge said Mr Roberts was at his place watching TV when news of his mysterious disappearance broke.

“It came over the news that Paddy and his dog was missing and when that came on the news Brian blurted out ‘Shit, he didn’t have to do the dog’,” he said.

“I was a bit shocked at the time, I sat back and I looked at him, I think he was referring to the news footage that he was sitting there viewing at the time.

“He immediately took off in his wheelchair and left me sitting there, he went back to his house and drove out past my house towards Katherine.”

Mr Ledwidge said he later learned his neighbour’s step son, Chris Malouf, had been a suspect in the murder of British backpacker, Peter Falconio, and Mr Roberts also claimed to know where he was buried.

He said there was another incident in which the pair were watching TV at his house when footage of the man who was convicted of Mr Falconio’s murder, Bradley Murdoch, came on the air.

“Brian Roberts started yelling at my TV at news footage of Bradley Murdoch being escorted down the elevators and Brian Roberts started yelling at the TV saying ‘He didn’t do it’, referring to Bradley Murdoch, ‘He didn’t do it, you’ve got the wrong man’,” he said.

“I was sitting at the edge of the couch looking at him, Brian was leaning forward on my couch, his eyes were wide open and he was staring at the news footage yelling at the TV saying ‘You’ve got the wrong man, he’s buried under a tree’.”

Detective Sergeant Matt Allen at the Katherine Local Court on Wednesday, April 6 2022. Picture: Jason Walls

Officer in charge of the investigation into Mr Moriarty’s disappearance, Matt Allen, said phone and financial records indicated Mr Roberts was not in Larrimah when Mr Moriarty disappeared and Mr Malouf was in Queensland.

Detective Sergeant Allan said he had passed the information about Peter Falconio’s murder on to his colleagues “through our normal chain”.

Ms Hodgetts is expected to take the stand when the inquest resumes on Wednesday afternoon with Territory Coroner, Greg Cavanagh, indicating he would hand down his findings on Thursday morning.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: THE eyes and ears of Territorians along with much of the nation and even the world will be fixed on a small courtroom in Katherine on Wednesday as they await answers in one of the NT’s greatest and most enduring outback mysteries.

Paddy Moriarty, was one of just 12 residents in Larrimah — an isolated speck on the map less than 200km outside Katherine — when he vanished without a trace along with his dog, Kelly, just before Christmas in 2017.

Since then, the mystery surrounding the 70-year-old’s disappearance and the cast of characters that made up the rest of his local neighbourhood, centred around the town’s iconic Pink Panther pub, has captured the attention of amateur sleuths around the world.

Paddy Moriarty at his local watering hole the Pink Panther pub. Picture: Helen Orr

Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh opened an inquest into Mr Moriarty’s disappearance in June 2018 which heard from the rest of the town’s tiny population, as well as the investigator in charge of searching for a man long since believed to be deceased.

Before the inquest was adjourned indefinitely, Detective Sergeant Matt Allen told Mr Cavanagh that after extensive search efforts in and around Larrimah, it was “unlikely” Mr Moriarty would be found alive.

“I’m confident with the search efforts that if he was above ground within the area that we’ve searched that we would be able to locate him, or a sign of him and his dog,” he said.

“Essentially every resident of Larrimah has given multiple statements. They were spoken to by Katherine detectives initially, then we’ve come and asked for further detail.

“The questions keep getting asked as the investigation progresses. All residents of Larrimah have provided statements, and quite often numerous statements.”

While the witnesses due to give evidence after the inquest resumes on Wednesday remain unknown, the world will be watching and waiting for any revelations about what really happened to Paddy Moriarty and Kelly on the way home from the pub on December 16, 2017.