Transcript
A (0:04)
This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie. And as promised, we are back today with the legendary Charlie Bazina. But this time you can watch the interview in full living colour if you want by checking out the Australian True Crime YouTube channel. There is of course a link in the show notes. Charlie is here to talk about some of the stranger and more unpredictable investigations he was part of the during his decades as a detective with Victoria Police. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. I'm always sus when people go, oh, you wouldn't do that. You just wouldn't do that. Who would do that? Nobody would do that. And I think I. People do some really unexpected things under pressure. Exactly.
B (0:58)
And never, always expect the unexpected. And I've got to be satisfied, you know, what with different ones and. Cause my name's on it. I've got to stand by it.
A (1:06)
This first case that you wanted to talk about is a fascinating one because on the face of it, and I shouldn't use the word on the face of it, because this elderly lady's face was severely injured.
B (1:18)
Fractured. Yeah, yeah.
A (1:20)
So, but it turned. There was a twist. Tell us about him.
B (1:23)
Well, it was February, height of summer. We get a call. There's a deceased elderly female on the blind side of her house, lying on her back. She's wearing a skirt, her legs are splayed open, there's a towel, a face washer on the face and it's pretty well decomposed. It was maggot infested. I only say that not for shock value, but that becomes part and process of the investigation. So, yeah, very sinister. And we've got a blood trail up the driveway and a shoe, a female shoe on the driveway. We arrive at the scene, we have a look at the crime scene. We look at. There's a blood trail up the driveway, there's a shoe. There's two wrought iron gates at the end of the driveway. One wrought iron gates open. We go around to the blind side of the house. Sure enough, as described, there's a female.
A (2:18)
Was she found by neighbors? How was this?
B (2:20)
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. And the other twist to it, she didn't have any underwear on. So from experience you do know that as an investigator, that one trait is when a female has been assaulted, let's say a rape, or that then leads to a death or they Want to rape a person post mortem that they don't want to look at the face, they'll put a covering over the face. Here we've got a covering over the face, legs sprayed open, no underwear. Well, you think of the sinister. We then start your investigation. You want to learn as much as you can about the deceased person. Ultimately, woman lived on her own. So we processed the crime scene and part and parcel of processing that crime scene and as you see in the movies, time of death becomes an issue critical for us. Here we have a body that's infested with maggots. Then you know as an investigator that we may be able to get a time span on the, these maggots being, or the eggs being laid by the blowfly. So we bring an entomologist in and she collected the maggots from the body. We then start our investigation. We then talk to neighbors, et cetera. She had no relatives, lived on her own. There's no forced entry into the house because of the severe decomposition. He can't look at any bruising or issues, nothing significant. We got gaping wounds or anything like that. So we don't, we can't remove clothing at the scene, leave it in situ. We process the crime scene. We then learn that she lived on her own. Bit eccentric, this lady. And we learned that she was a prolific climber. She'd been found on outside garages, in backyards. She would have a shopping trolley, she'd go to house to house at nighttime pinching pavers, gnomes, shoes, whatever might be in the front yard. So we start building this picture up. So we get the body back to the coroner's court and the pathologist does the post mortem pathologist comes back and like any expert, a lot of them have an each way bet. So we come back, he's unable to tell us where she's been sexually assaulted because of the decomposition. He tells us her there's symmetrical fractures to the face. Now it would have to need a flat surface to get symmetrical fractures. If you suspect someone on the side of the face, you're going to get a fractured right cheekbone or whatever. But here we have symmetrical fractures on the face. Like you got a fry pan, something flat and hit this woman. So the pathologist said, charlie, it's an accident or it's a murder. So doing the investigation, look at the broader crime scene. We then learn that she used to tie up her wrought iron gates with these toweling similar to what's on her face. A lot of times you can't explain A lot of things. So looking at the crime scene, at the back of the. Behind the gate, along the fence, you got the cross piece of timber. And I looked at it and it looked like it was all worn down. Next door was a block of flats with a concrete car park. So we then surmise that it's possible that we'd learned that she's a climber, that she's climbed over the back fence, ties up why she tied the gate up behind the gate, not in front of the gate, and then climbed the fence. So we surmise that she's climbed the fence, she's fallen and her face is smashed onto the concrete.