’It was him’: Family’s verdicton Shandee Blackburn’s murder sealed in ink

Shannah Blackburn has no doubt who killed her younger sister, Shandee, her views permanently inscribed in ink.

Murder victim Shandee Blackburn’s sister, Shannah Blackburn, gets a tattoo stating ‘Not guilty does not mean innocence’, watched by her mother Vicki Blackburn in Mackay. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Shannah Blackburn has no doubt who killed her younger sister, Shandee.

“One hundred per cent. Matter of fact. It was him,” Shannah says.

In Shannah’s view, her sister’s former boyfriend, champion amateur boxer John Peros, got away with murder when a jury acquitted him of the crime four years ago.

Shandee Blackburn with John Peros.

The strength of her belief is there in permanent, curved lettering across her waist, in a tattoo that reads: “Not guilty does not mean innocence.”

Vicki Blackburn is of the same opinion, saying the justice system let her daughter down after her savage murder in February 2013.

Up until now in the Shandee’s Story investigative podcast series their views about the murderer’s identity haven’t been heard.

It was a deliberate omission to allow listeners to make their own judgments.

In the final episode of the series for the year, they explain who they think did it and why.

Mr Peros has always denied it, and the jury’s verdict in less than two hours was emphatic.

Vicki says if she was a juror, on the evidence seen at the trial she would have been unable to convict him too.

“All the way through, we have said we feel very sorry for the jury,” Vicki said.

“They’re making a decision on someone’s life, and they’re not given enough information. It’s just such a minute piece of the picture that they had.”

The police and prosecution case was that Mr Peros parked his car, hid in bushes outside a Girl Guides hut, then ran at Blackburn as she walked home from work in the sugar and mining town of Mackay, on Queensland’s central coast.

Detectives remain confident they charged the right man – that he used a large knife in his ­lightning-fast hands to inflict more than 20 stab and slash wounds, slicing her larynx and leaving her unable to cry out.

Episode 13 of Shandee’s Story is called Unheard Evidence.

A car that appeared identical to Mr Peros’s distinctive HiLux ute was identified on CCTV driving near the scene shortly before Blackburn’s murder.

The same car was then recorded driving out of town for 2½  hours.

Jurors didn’t hear Mr Peros in his recorded interview with police describing Blackburn as a “very, very manipulative piece of shit” when her body was still lying in a hospital mortuary.

That’s because it appears he wasn’t told by police of his right to remain silent, and that any statements he made might be used against him.

Nor did the jury hear from a long list of witnesses who could have testified about the nature of their relationship, his anger ­towards Blackburn – and her fear of him.

Text messages between the pair that were read to the jury ­presented Mr Peros in the best light, while menacing and threatening ones he sent were withheld.

Shannah said the targeting of Shandee’s face, neck and chest was also personal – not the work of a street criminal like William Daniel, put forward by the defence as the real killer.

“We know the evidence that was ruled out before the trial. We know the evidence that hasn’t been seen, and it’s undeniable when you have seen all that evidence together that there is any other person responsible for this,” she said.

Former detective Scott Furlong agreed the case that reached the jury was not the one he helped assemble. “We did our part. We caught the killer, in my opinion. And then it’s to the criminal justice system to see whether or not he is convicted.”

Coroner David O’Connell last year found Mr Peros did kill Blackburn, but did not find fresh and compelling evidence required to charge him again under double jeopardy laws. The finding was, to Vicki and Shannah, vindication – but not justice.