Holding Court - part 2
“In your experience, where is the best place to dispose of a body?”
Quite a few comments and questions since that last update, some public, most private. Thank you! I’ll try and cover all in this post. Firstly though, I need to quickly answer standard question #5 from part 1: “In your experience, where is the best place to dispose of a body?”
Well, that’s a tough one nowadays. Up until the Coronial Inquest, I had always said that this whole experience had taught me two valuable life lessons. 1) patience; and 2) if you want to murder someone, dispose of their body in a Goldfields’ mineshaft. Even if they’re found, you’ll still likely get away with it due to the time delay.
Now, since the inquest, those two life lessons are out the f—king window, too. I have zero patience anymore; and, thanks to Ray’s legacy, the TRG are now fully trained to search all mineshafts as the first port-of-call in any missing persons case out that way.
Gee, thanks Ray! Now you’ve gone and ruined those plans, too…
Another piece of housekeeping I need to address from part 1 is my summary of the Coroner’s Findings. My wife, Sally was most displeased with how brief I’d summarised them. For context, Sally took a very active role in the inquest. So active in fact that following conclusion of the two weeks plus two-or-so days, I urgently purged her google-search results—blood spatter analysis, hyoid bone strangulation statistics, decomposition stages, vegetarian meal options—fearing that if the Police got hold of it she’d be marked as a potential future Bandyup Prison inmate. Sally would most definitely do hard time, and not just because they don’t allow dogs.
Sally knows the score, is what I’m saying. So, she rightfully questioned my logic in summarising 118 pages down to:
Ray, Jennie, and someone went to the Sandstone region location for the purpose of abseiling down mineshafts. They had all planned and trained for it for months prior to their fateful trip. Ray was subsequently found deceased down a mineshaft. Ray’s injuries, blood spatter analysis, and final position (from a macro perspective) indicated that whatever happened to ensure his decease occurred at the bottom of the mineshaft he was found therein.
Or, in other words: Ray was murdered at the bottom of a mineshaft that he had pre-planned and trained to abseil down, by the hand of a “person unknown”. Note: abseiling down mineshafts is very uncommon, for reasons that should not need to be explained.
My reasoning for such will also cover many of the questions you good people had sent me following that part 1. It seems from the questions received, many people have queries and concerns about DNA results, the state of the camp, accountability of peoples’ travel directions, and other general questions related to circumstantial aspects of the findings. The reason I have focused on Ray’s final location, and their travel-party plans to reach that location, and Ray’s cause of death, is because this combined should be the key to the DPP hitting the GO button (in my opinion).
Criminal Court is very different to the Coroner’s Court. I am not saying that on a personal experience; I am saying that based on advice received from colleagues in the last six years. The Coroner’s Court is strictly a scientific study of all the facts available, whereas the Criminal Court involves posturing.
From the Coroner’s Findings, paragraph 26:
It should not be forgotten that an inquest is a fact finding exercise and not a method of apportioning guilt. The procedure and rules of evidence which are suitable for one are unsuitable for the other. In an inquest it should never be forgotten that there are no parties, there is no indictment, there is no prosecution, there is no defence, there is no trial, simply an attempt to establish facts.
The Findings are black and white clear as to what happened in March 2015. (In my opinion, and 99.9% of people I have discussed them with). The problem is, throw a Criminal Defence Lawyer in the mix, flapping his $25k suit around, offering alternative facts to any piece of evidence posed, either hard or circumstantial, and the outcome has every potential to go tits-up. And this is the numero-uno, main factor for the DPP considering very carefully whether a case goes forward. Posturing.
Posturing
noun
adopting a vain conceited posture.
behaviour that is intended to impress or mislead.
This posturing may occur with regard to any number of the 118 pages of circumstantial evidence sifted through by the Coroner—that is a given. However, how could it possibly go that direction with these hard facts:
a) Ray, Jennie, and someone went to the Sandstone region location for the purpose of abseiling down mineshafts. They had all planned and trained for it for months prior to their fateful trip.
b) Ray was subsequently found deceased down a mineshaft.
c) Ray’s injuries, blood spatter analysis, final position, et cetera (from a macro perspective) indicate that whatever happened to ensure his death occurred at the bottom of the mineshaft he was found within.
d) Abseiling down mineshafts is very uncommon, for reasons that should not need to be explained.
So, how would a defence lawyer approach the case? I mean, sure . . .GPS signals and CCTV results are inconclusive. Ella might have chased a kangaroo. Someone’s DNA was on everything, including the ciggies at the top of the HOLE and the water bottle between Ray’s legs, because they were “camping together”... even though there’s a denial of someone even being near that HOLE? Sure, no worries…
Or, what else? Some other random abseiling prospector came along and accompanied Ray down the HOLE? The HOLE shown on their mudmap? In one of the most remote locations on earth? Then this new random abseiling prospector assaulted Ray, dragged him out of view, and continued on his merry-abseiling-prospector way? Really? Is that the defence?
The compounded probabilities, the Swiss cheese model of accident causation—or, as the Coroner refers them: “The balance of probabilities” in the Findings (30 & 542)—fall over under scrutiny for any other scenario relative to Ray’s death.
The rest of the evidence can be argued and postured over ‘til the cows come home; but, Ray is the key. The Man in the HOLE.
Read the Findings seventeen times. Tell me I’m wrong.
Now, imagine a defence lawyer sifting through all the evidence and reports and thinking, you know what, Imma take this case on. I reckon I can get my name against another high-profile win in the Criminal Court. Screw the family. Screw the public. Screw justice—I AM JUSTICE! as their Gucci coat tail flaps in the breeze.
Fair enough. Can’t blame them, it is their job after all.
More importantly though, imagine a Prosecutor, The DPP, sifting through same, and deciding not to proceed. How f—king spineless would you need to be?
What would their excuse be? That this bloke, also seen at the scene of the crime, is a more probable candidate for what happened up there in March 2015?
Court is adjourned.
On a final more serious note, to further explain the reasoning for some trials not proceeding, I thought this quote from a Guardian article, by Professor Ben Saul from the University of Sydney, with regard to another high-profile case was a good one to reference:
“It may be the police dropped the case because there isn’t enough evidence. But there are a lot of reasons why police don’t proceed with charges … That could be based on whether there is a reasonable prospect of a conviction. That could be because of the time delay, the cost, the public interest factor.”
The moral of the story is, by sharing this story we can only improve our chances of a criminal conviction. To keep the public interest factor alive. Please share.