Police outline nine clues ‘that lead to Jamie Gao’s killers’

Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara murdered Jamie Gao and dumped his body off the coast of Cronulla, a jury has been told.

Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara murdered Jamie Gao, stole his drugs and dumped his body off the coast of Cronulla to hide their crime, a jury has been told in the first of the closing statements in the trial against the two former NSW detectives.

Crown prosecutor Christopher Maxwell QC told the NSW ­Supreme Court yesterday that the former detectives, who were also friends, planned and executed the university student’s murder.

Mr Maxwell, who is arguing that Mr Rogerson and Mr Mc­Namara acted in “joint crim­inal enterprise” to kill Gao, said the evidence backs police claims.

“Jamie Gao, after entering unit 803, is never seen again until he is uncovered at the city morgue after being found by fishermen,” he said. “He is removed in a surfboard bag. He is driven to an underground basement with no CCTV, and he is put into a boat that happens to be there, behind a mesh door that can be closed. The boat’s there … precisely for the purpose that it was used on the 21st.

“Common sense dictates that all of those matters are not about coincidence.”

The court has heard that Gao, a would-be drug dealer, was killed inside a storage shed in southwestern Sydney on May 20 and his wrapped, weighted body was dumped off Mr McNamara’s boat into the ocean the next day. Mr Rogerson and Mr McNamara have pleaded not guilty to murder and supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug.

“Three days, three people and three objects loom large in the proof of this case,” Mr Maxwell began yesterday.

“The 19th, 20th and 21st of May 2014, the two former police offic­ers Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara and Jamie Gao. The objects: the boat, unit 803 and the car. These nine things are interlinked in many ways which the crown argues provide a powerful circumstantial case against both accused.’’

Mr Rogerson has claimed that Gao was dead on the floor of ­Padstow Rent-A-Space storage shed 803 when he opened the door, and had been shot in a struggle with Mr McNamara.

Mr McNamara told the court Mr Rogerson entered the shed and executed the 20-year-old by shooting him twice in the chest.

The trial continues.