TELEVISION TRIES TO SUCCEED WHERE THE COPS FAILED
Channel 9 says in a recent media release: ‘In 2021 we welcome a brand-new franchise to our stable of news and current affairs programs. Presented by Liz Hayes, Under Investigation will be a one-hour studio-based program that will take a single story and invite the audience right inside it.
Combining the best elements of a live panel show with the interviewing, story-telling, shooting style and post-production excellence of 60 Minutes, each episode of Under Investigation will feature an elite and renowned team of ‘story insiders’. They will seek to solve crimes, uncover new evidence, hear from people who have never spoken publicly, while harnessing great knowledge and skill with exciting and innovative storytelling techniques.
Each week, this group will apply their collective experience to an unsolved mystery, a divisive or complex social issue or a topical news event.
In the fast-paced news environment we live in, many stories are passed over quickly and not properly examined. This is the fertile and undiscovered ground where Under Investigation will operate.’
I’m pleased to say that I have been involved as a contributor to the planned episode which will have a fresh look at the unsolved murder of little Jaidyn Leskie in eastern Victoria in 1997. I agreed to cooperate with the program because the murderer of Jaidyn Leskie has not been brought to justice. He or she has got away with murder. Someone might come forward …
Jaidyn was an angelic-looking 15-month old toddler, who had been in the care of his regular baby-sitter, Greg Domaszewicz, when Greg went to collect Jaidyn’s mother from a nearby party at 2am, leaving Jaidyn asleep on his couch. When they returned, Jaidyn was gone, windows were smashed and there was a pig’s head in the front garden. Despite Greg and Jaidyn’s mother going to the police to report the child missing and Greg having had no opportunity to dispose of the body then or later, the police decided he was the culprit and spent the next few months trying to make the facts fit their story, before charging Greg with murder.
While Greg was in prison awaiting trial, 6 months after Jaidyn’s disappearance, his little body was found at the Blue Rock Dam, floating to the surface like an inflatable baby doll, coincidentally in Greg’s favourite fishing spot. How did Jaidyn’s body get there? More importantly, how long had he been in the dam? How could Greg have put him there if he was in prison from four weeks after Jaidyn vanished? Was Jaidyn still alive after he vanished? Experts are equivocal on the length of time Jaidyn spent in the cold dam water. When was the child assaulted? Therein lies the key.
At the trial, the jury acquitted Greg, totally unimpressed with the police case and having had at least one police officer admitting and apologizing about having lied during his evidence.
Despite being cleared by a jury, Greg was a marked man in the court of public opinion. An alleged baby killer. Police state they are ‘not looking for any other suspect’—police-speak for ‘we think the real killer got off’. Greg’s life and the lives of many others have been blighted by the tragedy, but how was he to know the Pig’s Head Team were waiting across the road, waiting for the set-up they’d arranged to get him to go out, so they could vandalise and break into the house?
As an inquest later found, he did contribute to Jaidyn’s death—by leaving him alone in a house sleeping. That was Greg’s big mistake.
Tune in to the program! See what you think. Get informed in advance. Read my book on the case, available from Libraries or on line. The book is called ‘Justice Denied’ from the quote ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’, a title suggested by Colin Lovitt QC, who represented Greg pro bono and sadly died on 11 January 2021, after texting Greg that he still believed in Greg’s innocence.
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I have also contributed to another full-length TV special, which re-opened the debate about whether Bradley John Murdoch got a fair trial for the alleged murder of vanished British backpacker, Paul Falconio in the NT on 14 July 2001. The program aired on Channel 4 in the UK and Channel 7 in Australia. I have always maintained that Murdoch did not get a fair trial and that he was set up for the murder. This was confirmed in my mind when I was told by a serving NT police officer, in front of a Supreme Court official during an adjournment during the trial, ‘We don’t think he was the shooter, but he’s going down for it.’ As Murdoch continues to assert he does not know where Falconio’s body is, new legislation in the NT ensures he will now die in jail.
When the police are as open as that and they are corrupt enough to get someone, anyone, behind bars to appease the tourism and backpacking public, the British High Commission and the government, did Mudoch stand a chance?
Signed copies of the updated Third Edition of my book, Dead Centre, released just before the TV special went to air, are available through robinbowles@bigpond.com. Or check Big W or your library.
Read this story from New Idea https://www.newidea.com.au/peter-falconio-murder-robin-bowles
Or watch the full 4-hour documentary on
https://7plus.com.au/7news-presents-murder-in-the-outback-the-falconio-lees-mystery
I’m for truth and justice! In this case I don’t think the truth has been told, so justice has not been done. Let me know what you think!
I read two books at the time, one for her and one against her and I believed the both of them.
I like your honesty though and have just enjoyed Smoke and Mirrors, so sad.
I agree, Murdoch got a bad deal. Police can get tunnel vision and that’s dangerous.
Dear Robin
Very distressed with today’s media regarding the whereabouts of Falconios body.
There is no proof he is dead.
Only the very skilled liar Miss Lees knows the truth.
I certainly feel for Murdoch rotting in gaol.
NT police have a bit of a hthanabit for this sort of thing.
I just wish there was something I could do to help him and others in similar circumstances.
I am 71 years old and dying of cancer. Far better off than rotting in prison for someone else’s convenience.