|
Location |
Defendant(s) |
Date of Alleged Crime |
| Australia (NSW) |
Roseanne Catt |
Convicted 1991 |
|
Roseanne Catt was convicted of conspiring to murder her husband, Barry Catt.
Prior to being charged with this crime, Roseanne was informed by the NSW Department of Family and Community Services
(FACS) that her new husband, Barry, in company with other prominent
Taree townspeople, had been molesting his own four children for years prior to their marriage. She agreed to help FACS expose this pedophile ring. Shortly afterwards she was arrested
by Detective Sgt. Peter Thomas. Roseanne was acquitted in 2004 after
evidence surfaced that she was framed. (OLO) |
| Australia (NSW) |
Jonathon Manley |
Convicted 1993 |
|
Jonathon Manley was convicted of murdering his 22-month-old son, Harry,
after Harry died from a ruptured bowel caused by a blow to the abdomen.
Manley later had his conviction overturned due to "unsafe and unsatisfactory
evidence" presented at his trial. Manley spent 12 months imprisoned.
He has written a book about his ordeal entitled Enemies Without Cause -
Convicted, Imprisoned, Innocent. (FJDB) |
| Australia (NT) |
Lindy Chamberlain |
Aug 17, 1980 |
|
Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murdering her 10-week-old daughter Azaria.
Lindy claimed Azaria was snatched by a wild dog, known as a dingo, from a
campsite in central Australia. Azaria was never seen again. (www.lindychamberlain.com)
(A Cry in the Dark) |
| Australia (QLD) |
Kelvin Condren |
Sept 30, 1983 (Mt. Isa) |
|
Kelvin Ronald Condren was convicted of the murder of Patricia Carlton.
Carlton's body was found in a parking lot behind a Mt. Isa pharmacy. (ALB)
(Report) |
| Australia (QLD) |
Graham Stafford |
Sept 23, 1991 |
|
Graham Stafford was convicted of the murder of 12-year-old Leanne Holland.
Holland's body was found in Redbank Plains three days after she was reported
missing from her home in Goodna. Analysis shows that critical evidence used to convict Stafford
is seriously
flawed. (Video
1) (Video
2) |
| Australia (QLD) |
Frank Alan Button |
Feb 17, 1999 |
|
Frank Alan Button was convicted of raping a retarded 13-year-old girl.
The victim said she had been assaulted during a party at her mother's home
in Cherbourg. She identified Button, but her testimony was
confused and contradictory. Button's nephew, Lester Malone, claimed
Button had confessed to the rape while they were in a park shortly after
Button had been charged. However, Button went straight to jail after
being charged and the confession in the park couldn't have occurred.
Malone later withdrew his statement and claimed the investigating detective
had intimidated him and put words in his mouth. Following Button's
conviction, DNA tests were done which showed the assailant to be a prisoner
who was doing time for another rape. Button became the first
Australian convict to be exonerated of a crime due to DNA evidence. He
was released after serving 10 months of his 6 year sentence. (JTC)
(Police
Reform) |
| Australia (QLD) |
Raymond Paul Davy |
Dec 2003 |
|
Raymond Paul Davy was convicted of murdering 73-year-old Donald Rogers.
Three months after Rogers went missing, Davy led police to his remains in Beerburrum State Forest.
The Crown alleged Davy withheld Rogers' diabetes medicine to extract
his credit card PIN number before dumping his body, burning his car, and
spending $30,000 from his account. Davy, a heroin addict, admitted
stealing Rogers' money, but always maintained he did not kill him. An
appeals court later quashed Davy's murder conviction because it found the
possibility that Rogers died by natural causes was not excluded beyond
reasonable doubt. (Google) |
| Australia (SA) |
Edward Splatt |
Dec 3, 1977 |
|
Edward Charles Splatt was convicted of the murder of Rosa Amelia Simper.
The crime occurred in
Cheltenham, an Adelaide suburb. (NetK)
(Sydney
Morning Herald) (Charles
Smith Blog) |
| Australia (SA) |
Emily Perry |
1978, 1979 |
|
Emily Perry was convicted of two counts of attempting to murder her third
husband Ken Perry. She allegedly tried to poison him in 1978 and
again in 1979. Emily's conviction was based in part on three
suspicious deaths of people she was close to that occurred in 1961, 1962,
and 1970. She was never charged in these deaths. (NetK) |
| Australia (SA) |
David Szach |
June 4-5, 1979 |
|
David Szach was convicted of the murder of 44-year-old Derrance Stevenson,
an Adelaide lawyer. Szach, then 19, had been in a gay relationship
with Stevenson for three years. Stevenson's body was found in his
freezer with a gunshot wound to his head. (NetK) |
| Australia (SA) |
Derek Bromley |
Apr 4, 1984 |
|
Derek Bromley was convicted of the murder of Steven Dacoza in 1985. (NetK) |
| Australia (SA) |
Michael Penney |
Oct 30, 1995 |
|
Michael Penney was convicted of the attempted murder of his wife.
Penney allegedly set fire to the trunk of his wife's car right before she
drove away. (NetK) |
| Australia (TAS) |
Bruce Smith |
Sept 25, 2001 |
|
Bruce Smith was convicted of murdering Grant Garwood, a man who was having
an affair with his wife. (Justice
for Bruce Smith) |
| Australia (VIC) |
Christopher Szitovszky |
July 1, 2004 |
|
Christopher Leslie Szitovszky was convicted of the murder of his 58-year-old
father, Peter Szitovszky. The victim was nearly decapitated with an ax
outside his home between 3 and 4 a.m. in the Melbourne suburb of Wheelers
Hill. An appeals court acquitted Christopher of the murder in 2009 on
the grounds that the evidence against him was insufficient to convict him.
(NetK) |
| Australia (WA) |
Darryl Beamish |
Dec 20, 1959 (Cottesloe) |
|
Darryl Beamish was convicted of the murder of socialite and chocolate
heiress Jillian Brewer. (IPWA)
(Beamish
v. The Queen) |
| Australia (WA) |
John Button |
Feb 10, 1963 |
|
John Button was convicted of manslaughter in 1963 for allegedly driving his
car into his girlfriend, Rosemary Anderson, as she walked by the side of the
road. Button was exonerated in 2003 after new evidence indicated
serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke was Anderson's likely killer. (IPWA)
(Button
v. The Queen 2002) (Button
v. The Queen 2001) |
| Australia (WA) |
Kevin Ibbs |
Nov 29, 1986 |
|
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] |
| Australia (WA) |
Jeannie Angel |
Mar 1989 |
|
Jeannie Angel was convicted of murdering her step-mother, Jean Richards, at
South Hedland. (PN) |
| Australia (WA) |
Andrew Mallard |
May 23, 1994 |
|
Andrew Mallard was convicted of the murder of Perth jeweler Pamela Lawrence,
who was killed in her Glyde St. shop. At trial, witnesses, with
varying degrees of credibility, testified that they had seen Mallard in or
about the shop at or about the time of the murder. Police notes of
interviews with Mallard were produced, for which the police claimed he had
confessed. These notes had not been signed by Mallard. Also
produced was a video recording of the last twenty minutes of Mallard's
eleven hours of interviews. The video shows Mallard speculating as to
how the murderer might have killed Lawrence. Even though Mallard
speculated in the third person, police claimed it was a confession. (NetK) (IPWA)
(Mallard
v. The Queen) |
| Australia (WA) |
Rory Christie |
Nov 15, 2001 |
|
Rory Christie was convicted of the murder of his wife, Susan Christie.
He was charged nearly a year after her disappearance. On retrial he
was judicially acquitted because the evidence was insufficient to convict
him. (IPWA)
(Christie
v. The Queen) (Regina
v. Christie) |
| New Zealand |
Arthur Thomas |
June 17, 1970 |
|
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 and her husband's body another month afterwards. An axle which had
apparently 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 was suspected that an
unknown woman had fed her between the 17th and 22nd.
On Oct. 27,
1970, when the garden at the Crewe house was searched for a third time, a
cartridge case was found. Marks on the cartridge showed it had been
fired from a rifle owned by Thomas. Due to this evidence he was
convicted of the murders in 1971 and again in 1973. Later forensic
work showed the cartridge had been planted at the scene. Thomas was
pardoned in 1979 after serving 9 years of imprisonment. A Royal
Commission of Inquiry found that the cartridge case was planted by Detective
Inspector Hutton and Detective Sergeant Johnston.
A 1978 book was
written about the case entitled Beyond Reasonable Doubt by David
Yallop. A docu-drama was also made based on the book and sharing
the same name. In 2001 another book about the case was published entitled
The Final Chapter by Chris Birt. (Royal
Commission Report) (NZ
Listener) |
|
