Dramatic twist in Australian murder case

Maybe they'll let the poor guy out of jail yet

The Leanne Holland murder case has taken a dramatic new turn, with claims by a leading scientist that police scrapped a report that would have demolished their evidence. Brisbane forensic scientist Russell Luke was asked to examine crucial evidence used to convict Graham Stafford of the schoolgirl's horrific 1991 sex slaying. He says his report would have discounted much of the prosecution evidence. But police investigators, who consulted the former Queensland Health entomologist when the case was sent to the Court of Appeal in 1997, never asked for his report. "I had serious questions about much of the evidence," Mr Luke said yesterday.

Stafford's 1997 appeal was lost on a majority verdict, despite Court of Appeal president Tony Fitzgerald finding he should get a new trial.

"My report would have said that much of the forensic evidence should have been totally ignored . . . it should not have been part of the police case," Mr Luke said. "To put it bluntly, some of the evidence was woeful."

Prosecutors said Stafford killed Leanne - his fiancee's sister - on the morning of Monday, September 23, 1991. They said he hid her body in the boot of his car for two days and then dumped it in bush at Redbank Plains in Ipswich on September 25.

Police asked Mr Luke to look at evidence relating to the time of death - determined from the growth rate of maggots on her body - and a lone maggot allegedly found in the back of Stafford's car. The lone maggot, the same species and age as those found on the body, was one of the key pieces of evidence. Police relied solely on circumstantial evidence to convict the then 28-year-old.

Stafford had an air-tight alibi from 4pm on September 23 onwards. But a book by former detective Graeme Crowley and criminologist Paul Wilson, Who Killed Leanne?, said the 12-year-old, of Goodna in Brisbane, was actually killed on September 24. The authors provided evidence that showed police gave scientists wrong weather data to calculate the maggot growth. The correct temperatures would have put the time of death back 24 hours, clearing Stafford.

Entomologist Beryl Morris, who gave evidence for the prosecution, later agreed the new figures changed the time of death to the next day. Mr Luke also concluded the correct figures would have put the time of death back 24 hours. He questioned other aspects of the police case:

* Why was the lone maggot found in the boot longer and fatter than maggots found on the body 36 hours later, and how did it manage to survive so long without food and moisture?

* Why didn't police remove the live lone maggot in the boot when they claimed to have first found it, instead of 24 hours later?

* Why was there no written, photographic or videotape record of the initial find?

* Why did police not DNA-test the gut content of the maggot to confirm it had come from the body?

* Why didn't the boot have more maggots, a smell, blood or other body fluids or other conclusive evidence the body had been there for two days?

"It would have been very hard, if not impossible, to get that dead smell out of the boot - out of anything," said Mr Luke, who investigated more than 40 cases for police. "They have used that maggot to try to prove that the body was in the boot. "But the maggot evidence is tarnished . . . it should have been ignored, thrown out. "I would not have gone near that - it's just crazy." Mr Luke said maggots need food and moisture to survive and, once removed from the food source, quickly shrivel and die. "Given the period of time that elapsed . . . it just doesn't add up."

Report here



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