WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF FINDING OUT?

One of Linda Lavarch's last acts as attorney-general was to reject a long-standing request to allow the re-testing and analysis of the DNA samples that convicted a man to life imprisonment for the frenzied stabbing murder of "Cat Lady" Kathleen Marshall. The lawyer acting for Andrew Fitzherbert, Laura-Leigh Cameron-Dow, said she would this week ask acting Attorney-General Rod Welford to review the decision because Mrs Lavarch had not properly addressed the detail of the request.

Fitzherbert, who maintained he had never met Marshall, let alone killed her, was the first person in Australia to be convicted solely on DNA evidence. No motive or witnesses were produced in court.

The request to allow Fitzherbert's supporters to pay for a WA laboratory to retest the shoes, rags, bags and other material found at the crime scene at Marshall's Windsor home and veterinary clinic was first made when Mr Welford was attorney-general 2½ years ago.

Mrs Lavarch resigned as attorney-general on October 18, citing depression. In her letter dated October 17, Mrs Lavarch said Fitzherbert's supporters had failed to raise "any justifiable doubt about the correctness of the sampling or testing of the DNA material".

However, Ms Cameron-Dow said Mrs Lavarch's letter missed the point of the request for retesting. "We haven't claimed problems with the testing, what we've claimed is an issue with the analysis. We're querying the statistics based on the data produced, which is a whole different ball game." Ms Cameron-Dow, of Slater & Gordon, said that since lodging the request in February 2004, she had not even been able to ascertain whether the material Fitzherbert seeks to retest still exists.

Marshall was stabbed more than 50 times in the head, face, neck, chest, arms and abdomen sometime between February 25 and March 2, 1998. Forensic scientist Kenneth Cox told Fitzherbert's jury that the chance of the blood coming from anyone other than the palm reader was 14,000,000,000,000,000 or 1.4 multiplied by 10 to the power of 16. However, Ms Cameron-Dow says the DNA interpretations are disputed by Professor Barry Boettcher, who was influential in uncovering problems with evidence in the Azaria Chamberlain murder case. She added there had been improvements in the analysis of DNA data since. "DNA is not the Holy Grail, it's still a matter of interpretation," Ms Cameron-Dow said.

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