WHO KILLED LEANNE HOLLAND?

One of the most controversial Australian murder cases has recently had
a book written about it. A summary of some of what the book reveals appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on October 23rd and is reproduced below

Two sisters have claimed their father was responsible for a shocking sex murder, despite another man being jailed for life. They say their father - a violent convicted sex offender - was the man who tortured and killed Goodna schoolgirl Leanne Holland in 1991, not her brother-inlaw Graham Stafford. Stafford has always strenuously denied he killed the 12-year-old and family and supporters have campaigned to have him freed.

The sensational new claims are contained in a book by former detective Graeme Crowley and criminologist Paul Wilson, Who Killed Leanne? An investigation into a murder and a miscarriage of justice.

Mr Crowley, now a private investigator, said the sisters revealed:

* Their father knew Leanne and had raped them at the same spot in bushland where her body was found.

* He had photographs of her corpse, showing shocking injuries, which he had either taken himself or came from the official police file.

* A floral skirt left at their house by Leanne's older sister was similar to one the schoolgirl was wearing when her body was discovered.

The man, 51, was jailed in 1996 for sex crimes and served his full seven-year sentence before being released in 2003. He refused to take part in the sex-offender treatment program.

Stafford, who was 28 when sentenced in 1992, will be eligible for parole in 2007. But authorities said he probably would not be released because he won't admit his supposed guilt.

Mr Crowley said evidence he had gathered over the years irrefutably cleared Stafford and should be investigated by police. "The questions raised here will be answered only when there is an open and honest inquiry into the evidence involved in this case," he said. Mr Crowley said the sisters initially contacted police in 1996 with their shocking claim and an officer eventually put the women, then in their 20s, in touch with Mr Crowley. He interviewed them in front of their mother and stepfather and found them "extremely convincing".

"They said they thought their father was involved in her murder ... no doubt," he said. "The women claimed that on a number of occasions he had shown them photographs of Leanne taken after her death and highlighting her injuries. "He threatened them that they would `end up like her' if they said anything about what he did to them. "They also told one of his favourites pastimes was to burn them with cigarettes and lighters. He called them `smilies' because the disposable lighters left a burn on the skin similar to a smile."

Leanne's body showed at least four burn marks - probably caused by a cigarette or lighter - that were inflicted before she died. The killer also left trace marks on her body with a knife and outlined them in her blood. Pathologist Rosemary Ashby told the Supreme Court murder trial the killer had a sadistic fetish and had sexually abused his victim.

Mr Crowley said the sisters told him their father had raped them on numerous occasions. "They said that in the past their father had taken both of them to the bush track, where Leanne's body was found, for sex," he said. The women took Mr Crowley to the exact spot off Redbank Plains Rd.

Mr Crowley said Stafford believed the man, a known police informant, had been placed in his cell soon after Stafford's arrest to tap him for information on the killing. Stafford said he told him nothing but believed police had acted on details from the informant - details which would have been known only to the real killer.

Police have repeatedly ruled out investigating new evidence in the Holland homicide because Stafford had been convicted of the murder and lost two appeals. Court of Appeal president Tony Fitzgerald said in 1997 that the conviction should be quashed and a retrial ordered. But the other two judges on the bench disagreed.


(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)