← The Binge Cases: My Mother's Lies
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- [00:00]
A
It's Jonathan Van Ness from getting better. With Jonathan Van Ness, it's easy to feel hopeless, but we don't have to stay there. I'm all about finding places where we can turn that energy into hope and into action. One of those places is Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United, or au is this quiet but mighty force working every day to preserve freedom without favor and equality without exception. I am so obsessed with that tagline. And let me tell you something, honey, that wall between church and state, paper thin. It's got a leak, honey. It's one of the last safeguards protecting so many of our rights. So right now, from bodily autonomy to LGBTQ + rights to the future of public schools, to me, this is about creating a world where everyone gets to live as themselves as long as you're not harming anyone else. Now is not the time to curl up and hide. It's the time to link arms and stand together for a better future. Join Americans United for Separation of Church and State and their growing movement because church, state separation protects us all. Learn more and join fight@au.org better. Let's go. Americans United. Listen to all episodes of where is Daniel Morcom? Ad free right now by subscribing to the binge, Visit the binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access. Wherever you listen the binge feed your true crime obsession the binge campsite Media. This episode includes graphic testimony relating to child sexual abuse and murder. Please listen with care. It's a surreal moment for Detective Grant Linwood. He's standing at Brisbane Airport waiting to pick up a person of interest in the Daniel Morcom investigation. The man Linwood is there to greet a sexual predator who called himself Shadow Nunya Hunter. He's flying in from Western Australia, one of a handful of people subpoenaed to take the stand in a high profile coronial inquest. And Grant Lynwood, he'll be by Shadow's side every step of the way.
- [02:26]
B
I was basically appointed at his babysitter. I got him from the airport, sat with him all through it, and I had to stay with him during the day, get him his lunches, take him up the roof for him to smoke. He can't smoke in the courts, but we didn't want him, you know, mingling with anyone. And we had very close tabs on what he was doing. And that was a big issue because basically we didn't want him to rape someone while he was in Queensland. So we had to keep a close eye on him.
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A
Watching shadow from afar at night, that's the easy part. It's the one on one time that's challenging for Linwood.
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B
Initially, you sort of want to punch him in the head because he's of what he is. He was just revolting. But he's also, he's very chatty. He's bright and eloquent and easy to talk to.
- [03:09]
A
Through these conversations, something dawns on Linwood.
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B
It was really eerie. We had a whole bunch of connections. So he'd grown up in, I think it was Nitterwell Street, Everton park, which was about five streets from where I was living at the time. He had gone to Marceline College, which was the same college I went to. His father and mine had both served in the army together, knew each other and so in a weird way, I was able to have quite a rapport with him.
- [03:38]
A
It's a rapport that helps Linwood's cause immensely because his objective for the next two days is to connect with this convicted pedophile to make him comfortable.
- [03:49]
B
You're doing a role, it's an act, you know, he's pretending he's buddy buddy with me. Let's be honest, he despises us and what we're doing, it's mutual. But we're all having a little dance together.
- [03:59]
A
It's weird, that little dance. Detective Grant Linwood doesn't know it now, but it will forever alter the course of his life. I'm Matt angel and from Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is where is Daniel Morecambe? Episode 5 the Inque we need no more proof of how remarkable Bruce and Denise Morcom are. Yet here it is. They still can't hold his funeral. Yet they've mobilised an army to protect other people's children. By 2008, five years on from Daniel's disappearance, the Daniel Morcom foundation had emerged as a nationally recognized force for change. Out of despair has come a strong message about child safety. One of the organization's annual events was the Walk for Daniel. Participants would retrace the four kilometer journey that Daniel hadn't been able to make, from a spot near the bus stop at Keel Mountain Road to a park near his home in Palm Woods.
- [05:32]
C
The walk was just one of 200.
- [05:34]
A
Events involving over a million children. But the centerpiece of all the foundation's activities fell on the last Friday of every October day. For Daniel, it was a day to honor Daniel, a day to wear red to work and school. In a powerful gesture of solidarity and a day schools dedicated to teaching the foundations lessons in child safety, an estimated quarter of a million people took part in some child safety activity. Today, the Morecambes have sent out around 1700 DVDs to schools across the nation. Running the foundation had just about taken over Bruce and Denise's lives. They sold their MOEAM franchise. This was their work. Now they were channeling their pain, using it to help others. It's all they could do. Back in 2006, the Morcoms had been informed by Detective Senior Sergeant Paul Schmidt, the senior investigator on Operation Bravo Vista, that leads were drying up, that detectives were being taken off the case. Before they knew it, 2007 was gone. Then 2008. They understood the reality here that the chances of discovering what had happened to Daniel became slimmer with each passing year. But also, they wouldn't give up. They couldn't give up.
- [07:03]
C
Their greatest fear was that there's going to be a cold case. And I was not going to let that happen.
- [07:08]
A
Bruce was reading up on the inner workings of Australia's legal system when he came across something called a coronial inquest, a formal court hearing designed to gather information about the cause or circumstances surrounding a death, particularly when the cause of that death is unknown or contested. Crucially, these inquests are overseen by a state coroner who has the authority to scrutinize evidence in open court.
- [07:44]
B
A coroner is there to find facts, is to find out what happened in a death. One, because it's important to the victims of the family, and two, because by finding those facts, they might help prevent those deaths in the future.
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A
This is Peter Johns, a lawyer and, at the time, senior counsel assisting the state coroner.
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B
It's really one of the few types of court where the judge is also the investigator.
- [08:09]
A
This blows my mind when I hear the word coroner. I picture a person in a sterile morgue surrounded by walls of metal freezers. I will admit that could just be my naivete, or it could be because in the US we don't have the same system. In fact, the role of a coroner doesn't just vary from country to country. In the us, it varies from state to state, even county to county. But the most powerful state coroners in America don't wield the powers of those in Australia. In Queensland at the time, a man named Michael Barnes was entrusted with this great authority.
- [08:47]
B
He could make orders that anywhere be searched, people could be arrested on his orders, property seized. The most significant of all the powers is that the coroner could order People to answer questions, even if it might incriminate them. No other court has that power.
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A
Yeah, anyone can be subpoenaed, called to the stand, put under oath and made to talk.
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B
If you don't, you can be punished by fines, jail, whatever.
- [09:16]
A
The U.S. constitution's Fifth Amendment denies our institutions this ability. Here we can, as we say, plead the Fifth. We have the right to not incriminate ourselves. All that said, these coronial inquests are not trials. There can be no conviction in the end. But if the procedure uncovers anything significant, it could absolutely lead to a trial.
- [09:42]
B
The most the coroner can do is, if he thinks you're guilty of a crime, is send a report to the public prosecutor, who will then pursue it.
- [09:50]
A
For Bruce and Denise Morcom, there was one key aspect of an inquest that stood out, that convinced them it was the only way forward. Coronial inquests, they are public proceedings.
- [10:05]
C
What we wanted was the police investigation to be put in the public arena.
- [10:11]
A
After years of fruitless meetings with investigators, years of living in the dark, the Markhams saw a way to get the answers they'd been seeking.
- [10:19]
C
Let's flush it out. What have you guys been doing?
- [10:22]
A
Once again, they were getting strategic. The challenge was just how rare a.
- [10:27]
B
Coronial inquest was.5% of all deaths get to the coroner's office to start with. And of those 5%, maybe another 5% of that 5% actually ever go to.
- [10:38]
A
An inquest if you have a heart attack or you get in a car accident, if there's nothing questionable about your death, it's not going to result in an inquest, but deaths of people in police custody, deaths that are suspicious or violent, high profile, cold cases, that is when Peter and Michael would get involved. Peter Johns did a lot of the legwork in these sorts of investigations, but the decision was ultimately up to Michael Barnes.
- [11:08]
C
What we ended up doing was writing to the coroner and saying, this is who we are, we're Daniel's parents, we need your help, mate.
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A
A member of the public writing directly to the state coroner wasn't common practice. Typically, a request went through a chain of command. But Bruce was long past following any norms or procedures. He went straight to the top.
- [11:32]
C
And about a month after, he wrote back and organized a meeting.
- [11:38]
A
Michael Barnes is a kind looking man with glasses and a neatly cropped beard. He's had a distinguished career and is known for his calm authority, his thoroughness and his compassion in handling some of Queensland's most sensitive and high profile cases. His nickname in the courts supports this. They called him Cold Case Barnes.
- [12:00]
C
He said, this is in the public interest, this case. The public have a right to know. So that allowed him to say, yes, we will hold a coronial inquest. And he also said, yes, I believe you can assist.
- [12:15]
A
It was a big decision and an unusual one. Not only was Michael Barnes authorizing the inquest, but. But he saw value in Bruce and Denise's own dogged investigation and relentless pursuit of the truth. He believed that they had earned the right to be involved. They wouldn't just be watching from the sidelines. The Morcoms would be part of the process. As soon as the inquest was approved, reality set in. For the Morcams, what lay ahead was daunting, an emotionally overwhelming prospect to face in the public eye and a legal minefield they were not prepared for.
- [12:58]
D
We didn't know all the legal jargon, we didn't know where to sit in the court, what to do, what to say, how to bow, and we didn't know how to do all the questioning.
- [13:06]
A
They were eager to share the news with the Foundation's board, their trusted advisors on everything to do with Daniel.
- [13:12]
D
And Peter Boyce said, well, who's going to represent you? And Bruce said, we're doing it ourself. And Peter said, no, you're not. He said, they'll annihilate you. He said, I'm going to do it for you.
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A
Peter Boyce had been the Foundation's solicitor since the early days, when meetings were held around the Markham's kitchen table. He was to become their secret weapon.
- [13:31]
E
Full bore through the front door if I have to.
- [13:34]
A
Ruthless, committed to the cause. Peter Boyce had total respect for the judicial system.
- [13:41]
E
I've always thought our legal system, the courts, they've been fairly fantastic, really.
- [13:47]
A
But his views on the police service weren't always so generous.
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E
It's such a big juggernaut. What really annoys me about a lot of this is how they can make things sound favourable, when in fact, if you look at it closely, you think that's just rubbish. You start to pull it apart and they get the shits with you for doing that.
- [14:08]
A
He's right, they do. Cops don't like to be questioned in public and a coronial inquest puts an investigation under both a microscope and a spotlight, which is another reason why they exist, to dissect the investigation, assess how the system has performed and determine what improvements can be made.
- [14:27]
B
No one likes being told you did something wrong at a top level, that affects careers and so then there becomes Pushback.
- [14:34]
A
But there was also a deeper, more understandable reason for law enforcement's resistance to this particular process, a legal one. And it did have serious implications.
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B
You're constantly weighing up the desire to find out what happened, but it does risk messing up a criminal prosecution of that person.
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A
That's because evidence from an inquest can't be used in a criminal trial.
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B
If you sort of overstep the mark or a person is forced to give evidence to get to the facts and then they make an admission, yes, it's.
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A
Not admissible and any perceived unfairness in the process, it could later be weaponized by the defense.
- [15:16]
B
And they could still ultimately argue because they've had to give this evidence, it's been publicised, perhaps you're never going to find a jury who will give them a fair trial. So there is a risk.
- [15:26]
A
Bruce and Denise Morcom felt the risk was worth it. And Peter Johns agreed.
- [15:31]
B
You've basically reached a point where you say, look, there's not gonna be a criminal prosecution here, almost certainly not going to be one, so we might as well take that risk. Let's throw ourselves into this. If it ends up, we don't take it further, that'll suck, but, you know, maybe we can push things along.
- [15:49]
A
It was clear from the very beginning that the investigating team didn't agree with this.
- [15:54]
B
My understanding was in the early days that they said, no, look, we're not ready, it's not ready for an inquest yet. The investigation's still. You shouldn't hold an inquest until we're completely done.
- [16:04]
A
For over 18 months, Detective Inspector Mike Condon and his team told the Morcoms that the Coroner couldn't receive a brief while the investigation was still active. I looked at the 2003 Coroner's act, and from what I can tell, that isn't actually true. There can be concurrent investigations so long as no one has been charged in the case or is awaiting criminal prosecution. In Daniel's case, no one had been charged. Not to mention the Morcoms had been told things were sputtering out. If that was true, wouldn't detectives want to close the investigation and hand it off? Didn't they want what was best for the case? A case that, for all intents and purposes, was going cold?
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B
The use of the term cold case was incredibly controversial. That's what really annoyed the police, the Morgans calling it a cold case.
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A
But here's the thing. The Morcoms weren't just making this up. They remembered their 2006 meeting with Detective Paul Schmidt the way he spoke with defeat. That meeting was the catalyst that led Bruce and Denise to this point. And it wasn't long before they learned it had all been put in writing. The Police Commissioner, Bob Atkinson, had always assured them that the QPs would never give up on Daniel's case. But Paul Schmidt had written a letter to Mike Condon, an official suggestion that Daniel's case be referred to the Homicide Investigation Unit as a cold case. So that extremely loaded term it had been used. The Morcoms weren't just throwing it around.
- [17:34]
E
I have no suspicions that they were just going to cold case it. But we were trying to say, well that's your mindset. No, no, we're always going to investigate it. You think what bullshit that is. You tell us you've done all these things. We just want to make sure, but we check.
- [17:51]
A
Once the state coroner made the official request for a report, police had no choice. They had to prepare one for the coroner's office. It took them well over a year to do it. The Morcam's patience was wearing thin. Bruce went so far as to suggest that maybe the delay was due to some screw up being discovered. Perhaps police were trying to clean up their mess. Tensions were clearly mounting.
- [18:17]
E
It's all fair in love and war, but really they're not paid to be judges, they're paid to do a job and that is to present the evidence. Not to say well that's my view and let's close the shop. That's what they did.
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A
Give an opinion on who that came from.
- [18:33]
E
Well Condon was the person in charge so doesn't the backstop with the chief.
- [18:40]
A
Through all of this, Bruce and Denise tried to keep their focus on the good. There was a flicker of hope. The inquest was happening and its aims were one, find out if Daniel was dead. Two if so, determine when, where and how he died. And three, assess the adequacy of the police's initial response to Daniel's disappearance as well as the ongoing investigation.
- [19:08]
E
Lets go and see what's been going on because they've been told, Bruce and Denise, well we've done everything.
- [19:14]
A
Whether or not that was actually true, the Morcoms would know soon enough. Nicole Ernest Pate was 21 years old when a predator assaulted her in her own home. He is kind of the boogeyman in the night that you are truly afraid of. She went straight to the cops. She said this sounds like some sort of movie plot. No one believed her. Until one day the man who helped put the Golden State Killer behind bars helped Figure out the serial predator's pattern. This is a serious offender. He'd been hiding in plain sight. But even when the attacker was unmasked, Nicole still had questions. The why? The what? The why me. She wanted to meet him. From Sony Music Entertainment and perfect cadence. This is hunting The Boogeyman. Coming November 1st to the Binge. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. The comprehensive police report on Daniel's case, the one mandated by the inquest, finally arrived at the coroner's office in April of 2010. Peter Johns couldn't believe the scope of it.
- [20:39]
B
The file was literally 30 plus large boxes of material that took up a quarter of my office. And that's a tiny fraction of the investigation. It was very clear to being told to us that it was the largest ever investigation in Queensland history.
- [20:54]
A
A 71 page cover report summarized the 10,000 page police brief. That brief covered over 1,000 interviews, 17,840 job logs, statements from 84 eyewitnesses, and profiles on 33 persons of interest who might be called to give evidence. Peter Johns had to know all of it inside and out. He would be the one questioning those persons of interest, their associates, detectives and eyewitnesses.
- [21:22]
B
The job of counsel assisting is to essentially be fair and impartial and to make sure all of the evidence comes out.
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A
As he worked his way through the materials, one detail in particular grabbed him. A detail that might sound familiar. The blue car. It had been nearly seven years since Daniel vanished, and the presumed relevance of this one particular piece of evidence hadn't faded. Peter became obsessed.
- [21:50]
B
For about a year there, I had a wall full of number plates fantasizing, I suppose, that there was some. Somehow I'd cracked the code of one of those number plates showing up in some other piece of evidence, constantly looking for that breakthro that the police may not have seen for some reason.
- [22:04]
A
But his persistence with that car didn't take away from his primary task to work out which of the 33 persons of interest from that police brief deserved greater scrutiny. He went through every single case file.
- [22:18]
B
Because of how long it had gone, how public it was, where absolutely every last rabbit hole had been gone down. We were getting to the level of, what do you call them, tarot card readers and people that claim they could, you know, see the future, which obviously you would just ignore normally. But it was such a significant case that I think the police were like, well, God, if we ignore this and something comes to it, we'll, we'll never live it down.
- [22:46]
A
It was exhausting work and Peter Johns wasn't the only one going through it all with a fine tooth combination. State Coroner Michael Barnes decision to let the Morcoms be involved meant that they too received the police report in its entirety.
- [23:01]
C
I think the coroner saw some merit in comparing his notes and his senior counsel's notes with my notes. And if something marries up, well, that's more so of interest. The police resisted. They requested that we did not receive it. But the coroner made a call that.
- [23:22]
D
We get it, they'll courier to our place in Palm Woods.
- [23:25]
C
Yeah, it wasn't just in one drop.
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D
File after file after file.
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A
They're not exaggerating. I visited the Foundation's offices and I got to see the report. They'd kept it, every bit of it, stored in dozens of thick binders, each filled to the brim, occupying multiple four shelf cabinets in Bruce and Denise's office. The moment they started receiving these files, Bruce, Denise and Peter Boyce dug in. They dedicated every waking moment to reviewing those materials and preparing for the court proceedings.
- [23:59]
E
We'd meet and I would say to them, well, give me what notes you want to make about witness A and witness B and witness C. I don't.
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D
Know where Peter found the time to do all this. He had six children of his own, his own wife, his own business.
- [24:15]
E
Get up at half past three, four o' clock in the morning and start reading it. And then I'd have my day's work. And I remember we went to Fraser island as a family and I took the brief with me. I'd dictate in our bedroom for our wife. Probably couldn't get much sleep, but did that for a week or 10 days that we were up there and got all my notes together.
- [24:35]
C
There were times you'd wake up in the middle of the night and I remember writing 74 pages of information that I thought just raised my eyebrow, thinking, oh, that's funny. Hmm. Wow. It was just compelling. I felt the answer is here. I just gotta flag it.
- [24:54]
E
There's not one word they wouldn't have read. They were unbelievable in their focus on areas that we wanted to cover with each witness. Don't think I've ever been able to work with anyone better who was not qualified as a lawyer. We were on the same page about the whole thing and how it might play out or it might not.
- [25:17]
A
Together they began to see holes.
- [25:19]
C
You could see deficiencies and gaps. And you think, why wasn't that run out? We didn't know. Like there were so many answers.
- [25:26]
A
This may well have been one of the Largest ever police investigations in Australian history. But as Peter Boyce now saw it, volume doesn't necessarily equate to quality.
- [25:36]
E
They turn up at the inquest as the largest investigation ever in Queensland. Probably was. But was it the best investigation?
- [25:43]
C
Probably not.
- [25:48]
A
The inquest began on October 11, 2010. It was held at the Maroochador Magistrates Court, just a stone's throw away from the Sunshine Plaza Daniel was headed to on that fateful day.
- [26:01]
D
I remember walking up through Morricia Door where we parked at the big top shopping centre with this trolley load of archive boxes. Dean and Bradley were with us as well. As we walked up the up to the courthouse, there was just media everywhere.
- [26:15]
C
There was almost a line where they had to be, I don't know, 30ft from the front door.
- [26:21]
D
People with cameras everywhere just waiting for us to talk.
- [26:25]
E
I think I was nervous, but I was probably saying to myself, I wonder where this is going to end. Hopefully something really good comes out of it, but let's go and find out as much as we can.
- [26:37]
A
It was a modest courtroom, basically just a meeting room. A few rows of chairs were laid out theater style at the back. Up front, a table set up with microphones.
- [26:48]
D
When the coroner came in, everybody had to stand up, bow to the coroner, sit down. Peter Boyce and Bruce were sitting on one of the benches together and there was a police prosecutor and Peter Johns was in the middle.
- [27:04]
A
This small courtroom would become their world for the next three weeks. Witnesses appeared one by one, each questioned by the two Peters, Peter Johns representing the coroner and Peter Boyce for the Morcams.
- [27:18]
D
I think Bruce was the first witness to be called up.
- [27:21]
A
It made sense. The story began with Bruce and Denise noticing their son had gone missing.
- [27:29]
C
I was extremely nervous. This is not an environment I'm used to, but Peter Boyce had sort of said, just answer questions. If you're not sure of an answer, just say, I don't recall and do your best. Simple as that.
- [27:45]
A
Bruce walked everyone through those first terrifying hours, explaining how they'd realized Daniel was missing. The search, the first conversations with police.
- [27:55]
C
He was trying to establish, is he a runaway? Did he have drug habits? Did he have issues with gambling or debts or meeting someone online? Somewhat obvious questions.
- [28:07]
A
Peter Boyce's line of questioning here had a very significant, specific purpose to illustrate that police hadn't done enough in those early hours, given what Bruce and Denise were telling them about Daniel's character.
- [28:18]
E
And you can understand the coppers, they probably get a lot of people in like that and they do turn up but you got to work out who's the subject before you.
- [28:27]
A
Bruce arrived at the point in the story where Officer Laurie Davison issued a be on the lookout for alert. And an astonishing revelation.
- [28:36]
C
There was no evidence to suggest that it had been done.
- [28:40]
D
We found out that that didn't happen.
- [28:42]
A
Peter Boyce was fuming.
- [28:44]
E
The mind boggles have got their lack of action.
- [28:55]
A
It was a troubling start and it set Peter Boyce on a course. He drilled into the initial police response.
- [29:02]
E
So we were uphill and down dale and all that stuff, and some of it was done well, some of it was really poor or not done at all.
- [29:09]
A
Here's another example. On the afternoon of Sunday, December 7, 2003, less than two hours after Daniel was last seen, the Sunbus offices received a phone call. Sunbus was the name of the Queensland bus operator. It was their 1:35pm bus that Daniel was waiting for beneath the Keele Mountain Road overpass. The incoming call that day came from a distressed woman. She wanted to know if a boy had been reported missing after not being picked up from a stop. Investigators had just assumed it was Denise who made that call.
- [29:44]
D
But we didn't know Daniel was missing until later. I didn't get home till 4 o'.
- [29:48]
A
Clock.
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C
It was a phone call from an outside source that nobody knew.
- [29:52]
A
But police never checked the phone records.
- [29:55]
C
It was an astounding moment of why didn't you look at the pieces of paper?
- [30:01]
A
Could that phone call have led the police to Daniel in those crucial first hours? Maybe, maybe not. But for Bruce and Denise, the oversight was devastating. The frustration that they'd long held in check was beginning to boil over and it began to spill into the public spotlight.
- [30:20]
B
The inquest into Daniel Morcom's disappearance has raised doubts over the initial police investigation.
- [30:25]
A
The inquest took a sudden turn when Brooks Bruce Morecambe testified he was unhappy with police when he reported his son missing.
- [30:32]
C
Bruce Morecambe testified police had sometimes been.
- [30:35]
A
Dismissive and were initially slow to respond. In the days that followed, the police continued to face uncomfortable questions. The inquest was beginning to cast the investigation in a whole new light. What had previously seemed comprehensive was now starting to look like it was filled with holes and the Queensland Police Service was feeling the pressure.
- [30:57]
C
The police legal representative in the first few days didn't have a lot to say. Then that person was removed as there appeared to be a little bit of heat and perhaps anger within the room. Then there would be two more senior counsel and then some time in the future beyond that, they were removed And Queen's Counsel would sit in the chair. So there was an upgrading several times of the legal skill and ability that were all representative of Queenstown Police.
- [31:29]
A
In week three, focus shifted to the persons of interest. Peter Johns presented a list of POIs that he felt should be subpoenaed to give evidence. Following that suggestion, Peter Boyce rose. He too had a list of POIs the Morecambes wanted to put on the the stand. They were especially keen to hear from POI 5 Douglas Jackway. Following Boyce, the solicitor for the police got to his feet and his plan for the POIS was, well, I'll let Bruce tell it.
- [32:03]
C
The police representative, he stood up and said to the coroner, we don't wish to call any witnesses, your honor. Yeah, this was the perfect opportunity for the investigative task force to actually put some bastards in the chair and say, what do you know? Where were you? Your alibi doesn't stack up. What were you wearing that day? Who were your friends?
- [32:27]
D
Like serious questions, Dean, Brad and I were furious. We would have just looked at each other and gone, what the hell?
- [32:33]
E
We were gobsmacked that they didn't want us to cross examine any of them.
- [32:38]
A
The solicitor went on to question how putting these persons of interest on the stand could possibly help. He said that Jackway had been thoroughly looked into by cops and that some of the others had also already given evidence.
- [32:51]
C
So when you have all the tools at your disposal and the coroner's there with fresh eyes, lots of talent, lots of skill, and the police decline to call any witnesses, just didn't make rhyme.
- [33:02]
E
Or reason, you know, stand up and say, it's the biggest investigation in Queensland. This could interfere with the investigation. What bloody bullshit that is. You've had seven years to do this. What more do you want?
- [33:15]
C
I remember mumbling under my breath, you must be very proud. Which was me saying, you're a prick, mate, because that's really what I wanted to say to him.
- [33:24]
A
State Coroner Michael Barnes disagreed with the police position and he overruled them.
- [33:30]
B
As many as 10 people identified as being of interest may be brought before the Coroner's court over the disappearance and suspected murder of Sunshine coast teenager Daniel Morcom in December 2003.
- [33:47]
A
By this point, two additional persons of interest had been added to the original 33 outlined in the police brief. It was time to apply the legal blowtorch to the suspect. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and PIN messages so no one forgets mom's signature and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com it's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app?
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A
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Inquiry which may impact your credit scores.
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A
Experian the inquest was adjourned for six weeks before resuming on December 13, 2010 at a new courthouse in Brisbane. The move to the State Capitol's courthouse was to provide greater security and accommodate what officials anticipated would be heightened interest in the next phase of the proceedings. Across the nation, the inquest had become front page news. Australians were poised for a breakthrough in the case and the prospect of further police missteps had the media clamoring.
- [35:39]
E
I remember ringing Bruce because he was interviewed by the abc. He was really complimentary of the police and saying there's some things that obviously might have been missed and the inquest is about us checking and making sure. And one of the things he said was, even though we're challenging a lot of that, you gotta remember we're on the same side here. When I heard that, I rang, I said, mate, I don't know how you could do that because there's no way I could, he said, but we are on the same side and I've never forgotten that statement by him.
- [36:21]
A
Six POIs were set to take the stand. They included a suspected murderer, rapists, pedophiles. Bill Dooley was first up. He was led into the courtroom by police. He wore a suit and reading glasses. This was the man who'd sat with Bruce in that interrogation room in 2004 and claimed to know what had happened to Daniel, the man who in 2006 was incriminated by a girlfriend claiming to have witnessed his involvement in the brutal sexual assault, murder and burial of Daniel. Daniel Morcom's case aside, Dooley was forever in trouble with the cops. He'd been charged with the murder of his 73 year old roommate. That conviction was later overturned. Yet here was Bill Dooley, still in police custody, serving time for Another batch of unrelated crimes. Dooley admitted to the court that he had lied to police about Daniel's case over the years. When asked why, he said he didn't know, he just did.
- [37:24]
B
It made no sense, but it was designed to benefit himself and try and get him off these other charges. And then when it became clear to him how serious what he was doing, he immediately retracted it all and said, gee, sorry, I'm lying. But of course, you know, you can't just take that at face value.
- [37:42]
A
Detectives were constantly hearing stories about Dooley's involvement in Daniel's abduction and murder, and they were constantly following up on those leads. But with each passing year, it became clear Dooley was a master in the art of deception. And when Dooley's associates, Alexander Meyer and Elise Smyth, took the stand, they further confirmed this theory. A quick refresher on these two. Elise Smyth was the woman who claimed to have been in the car when Dooley and Alexander Meyer had abducted Daniel. She told the horrific story of Daniel being held in a dungeon beneath Meyer's house. Then, given the name Birthday Cake, she had drawn the map which she claimed led to Daniel's remains. But Smythe's testimony at the inquest made clear to the court what police had suspected for years. She was a drug addict and her recollections were very much affected by that abuse. And Meyer, well, he admitted to knowing Dooley. He admitted to the deadbolted dungeon beneath his house. He even admitted to helping Dooley dump a man's body once. But he vehemently denied having anything whatsoever to do with Daniel Morcom's abduction and murder. The testimony from the fourth POI seared itself into the psyches of everyone present. Kingston Quick, a convicted child rapist, was a young teen when he was molested by an older man who would go on to become his lover. Like Dooley, Quick was in prison for another crime at the time of the inquest, and he had to be escorted in by police.
- [39:24]
E
He was repulsive in the sense he had long fingernails, dirty long toenails, and was obviously in there for terrible crimes.
- [39:32]
A
Quick sat in the witness box and then confessed.
- [39:38]
B
A person who had spent two years giving the police the most detailed experience account of how he and his lover had abducted Daniel and hidden his body at Green bank in the southern suburbs of Brisbane.
- [39:51]
E
Daniel got chopped up and put in a bin and taken out of the boat or on a boat thrown to.
- [39:58]
B
Sea, and he'd taken police out to show them where it had happened.
- [40:01]
A
The courtroom was sickened by the detailed Gruesome testimony.
- [40:05]
B
Disgustingly and tragically, the Morcoms, they disappeared. Sit there in court and listen to this insanely detailed account.
- [40:13]
E
That was an awful day.
- [40:15]
A
But the more investigators dug into his story, the more obvious it became. Quick was also full of shit.
- [40:27]
B
The police eventually formed the view that this person was just lying, that this was just fantasy. He'd ended up in jail because the partner had told police about something he'd done and this was just a revenge thing. He was willing to go down himself to incriminate the partner who had put him in jail.
- [40:46]
A
Every word of it was a lie.
- [40:48]
B
It's the only time ever that I've had someone claim they did something that, you know, we didn't think they had. It's insane that someone was confessing to a murder, but that was this insanity that we were dealing with.
- [41:00]
A
With four POIs having taken the standard, the court adjourned. The holidays came and went. Then January, February. Not until March 28, 2011, did the inquest resume and just two persons of interest remained.
- [41:28]
C
They'd gone through the first 1, 2, 3, 4, and then Jackway was the fifth one up.
- [41:34]
A
Douglas Jackway, the convicted pedophile who had been from the beginning the prime suspect in the case.
- [41:41]
E
Douglas Jackway is a shocker.
- [41:44]
A
Peter Boyce had always said he would have marched in the streets in support of the idea that once a prisoner had done their time, they should get out. But Jackway changed all of that.
- [41:54]
E
He's the one that probably convinced me as a lawyer that some people don't ever deserve to be out. There are some people who just should never see the light of day once they get convicted, because they aren't worthy of the privilege of living in society.
- [42:13]
A
For years, Jackway had haunted investigators and the Morcoms. And now here he was.
- [42:20]
B
Jackway was an incredibly serious criminal that had a privy history of abducting young boys and raping them. Sir Jaquay was right to be the focus of police investigation.
- [42:33]
A
He had also asked associates to lie about his whereabouts on the day of Daniel's abduction. Associates who over the years would change their stories time and time again. He knew the area, having grown up not far from there, and he was scheduled to be back in that area for court the next day. And then there was the most damning piece of evidence. His car. Douglas Jackaway drove a blue Holden Commodore, a car perfectly matching the description of the one seen broken down near the underpass by more than 80 eyewitnesses.
- [43:10]
E
What's the chances of him being in town on the same road at the same or similar times that Daniel goes missing. Of all persons of interest, he was striking.
- [43:23]
A
There was just one problem. For years, investigators believed that Jackaway and his blue car were seen on the afternoon of December 7, the afternoon of Daniel's abduction. One day before Jackoway was meant to be in the area for a court hearing. That is what some eyewitnesses had reported. And given how often his alibi shifted, it wasn't out of the question to think that maybe he came up to the Sunshine Coast a day early. But as time passed, it became impossible to ignore that most of these sightings of Jackaway had actually been on December 8, one day after the abduction.
- [44:03]
B
They were just never able to prove that he was near the scene on the day. That wasn't helped by the fact that like he was up there the following day. Right. Do you think, geez, what are the odds of that?
- [44:13]
A
Maybe the timelines didn't match. Still, to police it had always seemed very suspicious and there was something else that they had to take into account.
- [44:23]
B
There's these criminologists who'll say that, you know, people often return to the scene of a crime the following day.
- [44:29]
A
Maybe Jack Way had that compulsion. Maybe he did commit the abduction on the 7th and then return returned to the scene on the 8th. Maybe that is why the eyewitness accounts varied. So Mike Condon, now the Assistant Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service, couldn't rule Jack Way out. He remained steadfast in his belief that Jackway was their guy. That's why in 2008, Condon had launched Operation Golf Avalon, a full scale 18 month review of the case against Jackson Away. It's why in 2009 a review of that review was carried out. But they still found nothing solid. It was all just circumstantial.
- [45:11]
E
Every time you looked at the evidence in a critical sense, you thought, you know, we're a foot off it being 100%. So the rope never got entwined because there was still a gap. And whichever way he went around, you still thought, oh, it's not enough to get him.
- [45:30]
A
Peter Johns took his turn to question Jackoway at the inquest. But his measured, restrained approach caught Bruce and Denise off guard.
- [45:38]
C
I can recall him being questioned. I remember talking to Denise as we were leaving court and I said, gee, they went soft on him because I thought it was a little lame and a little timid and I didn't say that it was in my mind. I just buttoned me lip and let it roll through.
- [45:55]
B
I get the feeling that Bruce and Denise I think were quite disappointed after my. My examination of Jaquay in that I was very matter of fact just because I think the evidence had been so tested by that stage in relation to Jaquay as to his movements and there just seemed no way of ever putting him on the scene.
- [46:16]
A
And with that, Douglas Jackaway was excused. One POI remained listed in his case file as POI seven Shadow Nunya Hunter flew in for the inquest from Western Australia. A young detective by the name of Grant Linwood had picked him up and brought him to the inquest. Shadow was tall, wiry. He wore a confident but sinister look on his angular face. And that name, Shadow, well, investigators knew him by another name, Brett Peter Cowan. Remember him?
- [46:59]
C
And then when he came to the.
- [47:00]
A
Door, I just felt it, you know what I mean?
- [47:02]
B
You could feel the slime fall off him. I had this disgust, I guess, and this concern that he was someone that could do some horrible things.
- [47:10]
A
I said, did you see a little.
- [47:11]
B
Boy under the overpass standing where the.
- [47:14]
A
Bus would pick him up? No, I never saw anybody.
- [47:17]
B
He is someone with this kind of history who admits that he was in the vicinity where Daniel went missing from.
- [47:25]
E
At about the time when Daniel went.
- [47:27]
B
Missing and he was going to get.
- [47:29]
E
A mulcher from a bloke on Keel Road. Ibupaz.
- [47:34]
B
We have what we thought was a red hot suspect.
- [47:38]
A
Bret. Peter Cowan swaggered into the courtroom through the civilian entrance.
- [47:43]
D
As the door opened, it felt like a gush of wind came through. My whole body just went, my goodness. And Karen walked to the left of us and sat only two or three feet away from us. And before Cowan would sit down, I said to Bruce, my God, that's him. Just knew it.
- [48:19]
A
Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of where is Daniel Morcom? Ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Search for the binge on Apple podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the 1st of every month. Check out the Binge channel page on apple podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. If you'd like to make a donation to the Daniel Morcam foundation, please visit danielmorcam.com where is Daniel Morcom is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. It was hosted reported and co written by me, Matt Angel. Joe Barrett is the Managing Producer and co writer Grace Valerie Lynette is the Associate producer. Additional production support from Tiffany Dimac. The series was sound, designed, composed and mixed by Garrett Tiedemann. Our studio engineer is Trino Madriz. Fact Checked by Tracy Lofgren Lee A special thanks to Ashley Ann Crit Baum and Doug Slaywin and our operations team, Ashley Warren, Sabina Mara and Destiny Dinkel. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriadis and Matt Sher. Sony's Executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch for Pacesetter Productions. The executive producer is Jessica Rhodes. Allison Momassi and Brian Daly are the associate producers for Mad Jimmy Productions. The executive producers are Me, Matt angel and Suzanne Coot. Consulting producers are Dan Angel, Lee Parker and Andrew Fairbank. If you enjoyed where is Daniel Morecambe? Please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.
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E
SA.
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B
And Doug Here we have the.
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A
Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping.
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People customize their car insurance and save.
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Hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating.
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It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
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Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
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Cut the camera. They see us.
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B
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com.
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A
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