Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

At 12:40 a.m. on February 13, 1978, a bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel on George St. in Sydney, Australia.  The explosion occurred during a prime ministers' conference attended by 12 prime ministers of Asian and Pacific British Commonwealth countries.  All were staying at the hotel.  The bomb had been placed in a trash bin in front of the hotel and exploded after it was emptied into a trash truck.  It killed two trash collectors and a policeman who was standing in front of the hotel.  It also injured eleven others.

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Ljube Velevski was convicted of murdering his wife, Snezana, his daughter, Zaklina, age 6, and his twin babies, Daniela and Dijana, age 3 months.  The throats of all the deceased had been cut.  At trial, Velevski's defence argued that Snezana had killed her three children, then herself.  The killings occurred in a three bedroom suburban house in Berkeley, Wollongong, New South Wales.  Velevski's parents lived with Velevski and his family at the time of the killings.

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Frits Van Beelen was convicted of the murder of 15-year-old Deborah Leach.  Leach was last seen near her home in Adelaide at 4 p.m. on July 15, 1971.  She was crossing a paddock and heading towards the beach.  The beach was covered with seagrass that was up to 2 meters (6-7 feet) high.  Her partially clothed body was found at 4:20 a.m. the next morning in the seagrass.  There were no signs of bruising to her body and a medical examiner ruled that she had been drowned.

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Henry Vincent Keogh was convicted of the murder of his 29-year-old fiancée, Anna-Jane Cheney.  Cheney was found dead in the bathtub of the home that the two shared on Homes Ave. in Magill, an Adelaide suburb.  On the day of her death, Cheney finished work and met Keogh in a local hotel where the two had wine and potato wedges. Both of them went home to Anna's house but drove there in separate cars.  Cheney then took her dog to her sister-in-law's house and the two women walked their dogs in a local park.  After Cheney returned home, Keogh went to visit his mother.  Keogh returned home around 9:30 p.m. and found Cheney slumped in her bathtub with her face underwater.  He claimed he tried to resuscitate her, but neither he nor paramedics were successful.  Cheney's blood alcohol level was later determined to be .08%, a moderate level of intoxication.

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Kevin Ibbs was convicted of sexual assault for “raping” Christine Watson.  Watson was a close friend of Ibbs' wife, Katrina Carter, and was living in the same house as the couple.  Watson agreed to have consensual sex with Ibbs with the full knowledge of Carter who was in the house at the time.  As Ibbs was nearing ejaculation, Watson withdrew her consent to sex (or said she did) and tried to push Ibbs away.  Ibbs, however, continued for about 30 seconds without consent.

For this non-consensual sex, Ibbs was charged and convicted of sexual assault.  He was dubbed the “30 second rapist.”  Ibbs was sentenced to four years in prison, although the sentence was later reduced to six months.  Some years later Watson admitted that the whole incident was a setup by Carter to get Ibbs out of the house they were sharing.  Watson and Carter were subsequently convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. They served seven months in jail.  (IPWA)  [10/09]

Salvatore (Sam) Fazzari, Jose Martinez, and Carlos Pereiras were convicted in 2006 of the murder of 21-year-old Phillip Walsham.  The three allegedly pushed Walsham off of a pedestrian bridge that spanned a highway onramp.

At approximately 2:12 a.m. on Feb. 28, 1998, Walsham had gotten off a train at Stirling station with two friends, Craig Betts and Spencer Toogood.  Betts walked ahead of Toogood and Walsham.  When Toogood realized that Walsham was not following, he went back to the station and found Walsham there.  Walsham was heavily intoxicated and not feeling well.  Toogood then set off to catch up with Betts.

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Arthur Allan Thomas was convicted of the shooting murders of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe.  The married couple were killed on or about June 17, 1970.  At least one of the them was shot inside the Crewes' farmhouse in Pukekawa and both bodies were dumped in the Waikato River.  Jeanette's body was found in the river two months later (Aug. 16) and her husband's body another month afterwards (Sept 16).  An axle which had been used to weigh down Harvey's body was also found.  The Crewes' disappearance was reported to the police by Jeanette's father and neighbor, Lenard W. Demler, on June 22, 1970. The Crewes' 18-month-old daughter Rochelle was found alive in the house and it is believed that an unknown woman had fed her between the 17th and 22nd.  On June 19th, a farm laborer, Bruce Roddick, saw a fair-haired woman outside the house.

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David Cullen Bain was convicted of murdering his mother Margaret, 50, his father Robin, 58, sisters Arawa, 19, and Laniet, 18, and brother Stephen, 14.  All had died from .22 gunshot wounds to their heads.  The murders occurred at 65 Every Street, Anderson's Bay, Dunedin.  Twenty-two-year-old David was arrested four days after making a frantic 111 call from the family home. Police responding to the emergency found him huddled in the house babbling incoherently.  At trial, David's defense argued that his father Robin killed the family then himself while David was out doing his early morning paper run.  David has consistently maintained his innocence.

The evidence against Robin appears to be greater than that against David, but since none of it is especially strong, one can assume that the evidence against both is evenly divided.  Depending on the weight one puts on various pieces of evidence, it is possible to believe either one of them is the likely perpetrator.  However, reasonable doubt attaches to David because a plausible case can always be made that Robin is the perpetrator.  The motive evidence is stronger against Robin.  Other evidence shows the perpetrator had fought with Stephen, and Robin had six recent abrasions on his hands.  These abrasions were alleged to be due to Robin's replacement of spouting at the family home.

After exhausting his appeals in New Zealand, David appealed to England's Privy Counsel, and in 2007 it quashed his conviction as a miscarriage of justice, based on new evidence that the Crown reportedly disputes. David was subsequently released on bail by the Christchurch High Court.  Two 1997 books were published on the Bain case, the pro-defense David and Goliath by Joe Karam, and the pro-prosecution The Mask of Sanity by James McNeish.  (NZCity) (NZ Herald) (FJDB)  [10/08]