← The Binge Cases: My Mother's Lies
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- [00:00]
Jonathan Van Ness
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.
- [01:04]
Matt Angel
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 contains graphic descriptions of child abuse, abduction, sexual abuse and violence. Please listen with care.
- [01:49]
Detective Grant Linwood
As the door opened, it felt like a gush of wind came through. It looked exactly like the sketches. And then I turned to Bruce and I said, that's him. He comes in as witness through the Bay Court area. Thought, what a dog that is.
- [02:05]
Peter Johns
He initially refused to answer questions, which was fine.
- [02:08]
Detective Grant Linwood
He said he'd smoked a joint that morning at lunchtime. He had another joint.
- [02:13]
Peter Johns
I'd put a scenario directly to him that he had abducted Daniel, that there'd been some sort of struggle that had resulted in Daniel's death or that he'd intentionally done it.
- [02:23]
Detective Grant Linwood
You know, just kept being belligerent, out, didn't do it, and all that sort of stuff.
- [02:27]
Peter Johns
I finished my question saying, all of this shows that, you know, you did this, didn't you?
- [02:31]
Detective Grant Linwood
He thought he was so good. I think he thought he was better than everyone else and that he could handle this no matter what. We threw at him.
- [02:39]
Peter Johns
Got some really good hits on him, and I think it was all entirely fair.
- [02:43]
Denise Morcom
Cowan spent a day and a half in the witness box and he was absolutely stripped naked for the monster he really is.
- [02:53]
Peter Johns
It made it absolutely clear in my mind that he was the person responsible for Daniel's death.
- [03:02]
Matt Angel
It's April 1, 2011, day 19 of Daniel Morcom's coronial inquest. After spending the last two days on the stand, Brett, Peter Cowan is excused and driven to the airport by Detective Grant Linwood. They check Brett in for his flight back to Perth, then head to security. The detective is relieved that this is goodbye. For the last few days, he's had to monitor the child predator's every move. There's a bounce in Brett's step as he heads for his gate. Grantlin Wood calls out to him.
- [03:40]
Detective Grant Linwood
Don't come back to Queensland, Brett.
- [03:42]
Jonathan Van Ness
Ha ha.
- [03:43]
Detective Grant Linwood
And he gives me a thumbs up and I sort of give him a thumbs up. I meant it too. Don't come back. It's like wanted to go home and have a shower after being with him.
- [03:52]
Matt Angel
Qantas Flight 767 is set to depart at 8:10pm Brett's headed back to Western. I'm Matt angel and from Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is where is Daniel Morecambe? Episode 6 Trust, Honesty Loyal Remember that moment just before the inquest's first adjournment in October 2010, when the Queensland Police Service solicitor recommended that no POIs be called to give evidence. Bruce, Denise and Peter Boyce hadn't been able to shake it, especially given the thorough knowledge that they now had of the investigation. There were deficiencies, and to reject an opportunity to address those deficiencies seemed ludicrous. So following that first adjournment, the trio requested a meeting with Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson.
- [05:20]
Denise Morcom
The three of us met Commissioner Atkinson privately in his room at police headquarters and we expressed our concern that there had been insufficient reviews done on certain persons of interest, especially Cowan. But very fortunately, Bob Atkinson, the Commissioner, agreed that more work needed to be done.
- [05:45]
Matt Angel
Soon after this, Detective Inspector Mike Condon brought additional detectives in to dot some I's and cross some T's. Detective Grant Linwood was one of those detectives, but this wasn't his introduction to the case.
- [05:59]
Detective Grant Linwood
I was in uniform when Daniel Morcom was abducted. Like every plainclothes officer in my career as a young detective, I'd attended to little job blogs. I'd been up to the Sunshine coast with the Flying Squad doing door knocks. When I was at the prison, our collective services unit, we used to get files to talk to prisoners about Daniel Morcom. So that was a common thing, you know, someone ring up and blame a prisoner or whatever.
- [06:20]
Matt Angel
The experience had a profound effect on the young detective. He told his fellow constables that someday he was going to help crack the Daniel Morecam case. Later, in 2008, Mike Condon launched a massive review into Douglas Jackaway, the lead suspect at the time. Detective Linwood was one of the many officers brought in to assist on that review. And now, seven years into the investigation, Daniel's case had once again found its way into his life.
- [06:50]
Detective Grant Linwood
We were conducting some investigations into a couple of the persons of interest that were appearing before the ongoing coronial inquest. We were tasked to have a look at a connection between a person of interest named Brett Peter Cowan, and a gentleman that lived next door to the Morcoms, who owned a sandblasting business.
- [07:08]
Matt Angel
It was a fairly menial task and it turned out to be nothing. Linwood could have easily just looked into the connection and awaited his next orders, but that's not his style. Linwood wasn't the type of detective to cut corners, so he began by reviewing everything investigators had ever collected on Cowan.
- [07:26]
Detective Grant Linwood
There was never any formal direction to do a review. The review was sort of an ad hoc thing we just sort of decided to do.
- [07:32]
Matt Angel
One of the first things Linwood clocked was the size of Cowan's file. It was noticeably lighter than some of the others.
- [07:39]
Detective Grant Linwood
There was not a lot of interest in Cowan, and I say that because I was a detective Senior Constable on my own, doing it with no other support or, you know, corroborator or normally we send a cast of thousands to go do anything. What I can tell you with absolute authority is that when we started in November, December of 2010, nothing had been done since 2006 because we went and got the folders and literally blew the dust off them where we found them. Nothing was in play and nothing was happening at that point.
- [08:08]
Matt Angel
Peter Johns, attorney and counsel assisting at the inquest, made a similar assessment.
- [08:13]
Peter Johns
The 33 people of interest I got, they were broadly, not exactly, but broadly ordered from the most highly suspected to the least. Cowan was person of interest 7. The police might deny that's how it was done, but clearly that the size of the files gradually reduced.
- [08:32]
Matt Angel
Grant Linwood's voluntary review of Cowan was enlightening.
- [08:37]
Detective Grant Linwood
After reading all the stuff, I was really concerned. This is a very low risk victim, but what they call a very, very high risk crime, you know, broad daylight, side of a major road, you know, you got Cowan, who is confident, lives in the area, he's in the right place at the right time. You know, he's changing his story. He changed his appearance in the days afterwards.
- [08:58]
Matt Angel
Linwood believed this guy deserved some serious consideration. But Mike Condon disagreed.
- [09:04]
Detective Grant Linwood
I said to people, I think he's right for it. I think he's done it. I can remember a particular conversation with the assistant commissioner where I told him what I thought and I was told that no way a blue car wasn't involved. And my recollection is you're an idiot or you're wrong. But I was certainly told in nine certain terms that I was wrong.
- [09:23]
Matt Angel
Here's the incredible truth of the matter. Cowan had never been a priority for police, which once you know his full background is jaw dropping. Bret. Peter Cowan began offending while still in elementary school. By 18, he he had sexually abused as many as 30 children and many went unreported or prosecuted. But not all of them. In 1987, after being caught breaking and entering, an 18 year old, Cowan was fulfilling court ordered community service outside of a Brisbane childcare center. The kids were playing all around him as he repaired pipes near a toilet block. He asked the children if any of them wanted to see a golf. And then he took one of the small boys into that toilet block and molested him. The child told his attacker that he was going to tell his mother. In response, Cowan wrapped his dirt covered hands around the boy's throat and threatened him.
- [10:25]
Detective Grant Linwood
And then goes back to doing his work. And it's only when the kid identifies him that he gets arrested.
- [10:31]
Matt Angel
The arresting officer noted that Cowan hardly reacted as they took him into custody. He was totally relaxed. Immediately after being released on bail, Cowan fled. A year later he was caught in Sydney and stood trial. The jury found Cowan guilty of indecent dealing, but they didn't feel sodomy had been proven. The judge vehemently disagreed. He trusted the child's account of what had happened. Still, Cowan was sentenced to just two years in prison. Fourteen months later he was out. Six years after that offense in 1993, Brett Cowan struck again. He had moved over 2,000 miles away to the Northern Territory where he lived in a Darwin caravan park with a girlfriend. Cowan was home alone one day when someone knocked on the door.
- [11:27]
Detective Grant Linwood
Little boy comes along. Have you seen my sister? No, no, but come with me.
- [11:30]
Matt Angel
Cowan told the six year old that he'd help find her. Instead, he lured the boy to a burnt out car in the bush.
- [11:38]
Detective Grant Linwood
Just done horrific injuries to him and by all accounts choked him to the point of unconsciousness. Thinking he's dead and throwing him in a wrecked car.
- [11:45]
Matt Angel
When the child regained consciousness, he staggered into a nearby service station, naked and covered in blood. Back at the caravan park, a group of residents had formed a search team. Cowan joined them. He even told neighbors that he was going to hunt down the man responsible.
- [12:04]
Detective Grant Linwood
He's on record with the police at the time, saying, I hope you get the bastard, or something like that, you know, cool as a cucumber.
- [12:10]
Matt Angel
But the victim remembered his attacker and the description he gave police helped them link the crime to Cowan, and he folded. Attorney Peter Johns was rattled by what Cowan had done to the boy.
- [12:24]
Peter Johns
When we got the medical records on that case, it showed that the boy had petechial haemorrhaging. So that's when you get blood spots in your eyes, and that's a sign of a person being choked. The woman who was manning the service station at that time says that when he first came in, she thought he'd been in a car accident.
- [12:49]
Matt Angel
The six year old had a punctured lung, lacerations all over his body, including at the base of his scrotum. Widespread repeated strikes of both blunt and sharp force. He had been sodomized with what officials believe was a stick and then raped. I know it's hard to hear the details of these assaults, but they're relevant because the judge overseeing the trial knew these details. He even said that he believed them to be accurate. And yet, Brett. Peter Cowan was convicted of grievous bodily harm, deprivation of liberty, and gross indecency.
- [13:28]
Peter Johns
Nothing in relation to rape, nothing in relation to the penetration, nothing in relation to the choking.
- [13:34]
Matt Angel
He was sentenced to seven years in prison with the possibility of parole at three and a half. And exactly three and a half years later, Cowan was out. So let's talk big picture for a moment. Brett Cowan had a grisly history. He was a twice convicted child sex offender. Psychologists and parole reports assessed that he was a pathological liar and serial predatory pedophile. He stood trial for two horrendous rapes of little boy boys. For these crimes, Cowan received a cumulative sentence of just nine years behind bars, but he served only four and a half of them. In my opinion, that is absolutely fucking unforgivable. The task force Argos detectives that I spoke with helped me understand what had happened here. Back when these crimes occurred, prosecutors would often accept reduced charges. For starters, authorities wanted to avoid putting traumatized child victims through the stress of a trial. But another reason for reduced charges was that the evidence was sometimes shaky. If a conviction by A jury didn't seem like a sure thing. Going to trial posed a risk of the offender walking free, accepting convictions on lesser charges. It wasn't ideal, but it could at least keep predators off the streets for some amount of time. Now, I want to zoom in on Daniel's case because there's another important takeaway here. In 2003, Brett Cowan's criminal record only showed the charges that he had been convicted of.
- [15:15]
Jonathan Van Ness
Right.
- [15:16]
Matt Angel
Charges which fell at the lower end of the scale in terms of seriousness. Regardless, I assumed that investigators on Daniel's case would have known the extensive details of those crimes. Surely they were in the case files. But according to Peter Johns, that wasn't so.
- [15:33]
Peter Johns
The police had not fully dragged out all of the information relating to those previous offences. What we did was to drag up all of the documents relating to each.
- [15:45]
Matt Angel
Of those incidents given when the crimes took place. These records, witness statements, medical reports, they weren't electronic, but the coroner's office worked to obtain them.
- [15:57]
Peter Johns
That showed that in both cases that those offenses were way, way more serious than the criminal history suggested. They showed that Cowan was not just an opportunistic child molester, he was a violent rapist.
- [16:13]
Matt Angel
Those details, the strangling, the lacerations, what he did to those boys, none of.
- [16:19]
Peter Johns
That was on his criminal history. And none of that was known to the Queensland Police until we dug up that material.
- [16:25]
Matt Angel
But Detective Grant Linwood disputes this claim.
- [16:28]
Detective Grant Linwood
That's definitely not correct. The police definitely had those details because the photographs from the Northern Territory crime and the detail, the reports were in that folder of material we got.
- [16:39]
Matt Angel
If Grant Linwood is right and police did have the full details of Brett Peter Cowen's past offenses, then how could anyone look at Cowan in 2003 and not think that he should be a prime suspect? And if Peter Johns is correct, if Operation Bravo Vista detectives never obtained the detailed case files from those crimes in their entirety, then that would be an oversight of epic proportions. Either way, if you ask me, there were some major missteps here by investigators. Brett Cowan scans the rose as he moves through the cabin. He drops into his seat in row 42. His time in Brisbane at the inquest. It's over. A good looking guy in his 30s approaches and takes his seat beside Brett. He's edgy, Mohawk, sun kissed, a tight, athletic body. Brett eyes him, then, unable to resist, introduces himself. His name is Joe Emery. He tells Brett he's thinking of moving to Perth and wants to check it out before he pulls the trigger. He'll be staying at a motel in the city, the two men hit it off. They spend the next five hours chatting about Western Australia, work, family. Brett does what he does best and lies about his visit to Brisbane, saying he was there to visit his kids. Then Cowan steers the conversation back to where Emry's gonna stay in Perth. He invites him to crash at his place just while he finds his feet. Emry declines, but they exchange numbers and make plans for the week. Brett's going to help him find a secondhand car. They part ways, but it's the beginning of a strange friendship. A dangerous friendship.
- [18:50]
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- [21:27]
Matt Angel
The coronial inquest adjourned for the weekend following Bret Peter Cowan's testimony. Peter Johns had successfully exposed Cowan's past and scrutinized the gruesome details of his crimes. Some of his most perverted tendencies had been put on full display for the world to see. At one point, Cowan smirked as he told the court that he couldn't have done anything to Daniel because 13 was too old for him. He liked six to eight year old boys. Cowan's time on the stand changed everything.
- [22:01]
Peter Johns
That took Cowan from a bit player to clearly the main suspect.
- [22:07]
Matt Angel
As a result, the direction of the proceedings took a hard turn and when things resumed on April 4, the spotlight was firmly on Cowan.
- [22:16]
Peter Johns
We now knew he was a violent man, very much with a history of actual abduction, not just opportunistic touching. And then we come to his alibi.
- [22:27]
Matt Angel
Back In December of 2003, just two weeks into the investigation, Task Force Argos detectives Dennis Martin and Ken King had visited Brett Cowan at his home in Biroa, just a little over 20 miles south of where the Morcambes lived. He had walked them through his whereabouts. On December 7. The timeline went as 1:30pm Cowan leaves his house in his white Mitsubishi Pajero four wheel drive. He travels along Nambour Connection Road, the same road where Daniel stood beneath an overpass waiting for the 1:35pm bus. 2pm Cowan arrives at the home of Frank Davis, a man lending him a mulcher for tree trimming. 2:20pm Cowan and Davis chat and load the mulcher into his four wheel drive. After about 20 minutes, Cowan leaves. Approximately 3pm Cowan returns to his home in Biroa. It was a credible alibi, but when detectives Martin And King began conducting interviews and retracing Cowan's alleged movements. They found some discrepancies. Call records showed that he'd left his house closer to 1250, not 1:30. He'd overstated the amount of time it took him to travel each way. And Frank Davis told police that Cowan was only at his house for a few minutes, not 20. They simply loaded the mulcher into Cowan's vehicle and he took off.
- [24:00]
Detective Grant Linwood
Cowan had been, right from the beginning, trying to sort of fudge his times. He'd been, oh, I was there for ages having a chat and came straight home. And he, he tried to really blend. This time period just didn't make sense.
- [24:13]
Matt Angel
Taking these discrepancies into account, Martin and King had discovered a roughly 45 minute window of unaccounted for time, a window that fell somewhere between 2 and 3pm Based on the countless eyewitness statements, police had made a determination on the precise time that bus 1A passed by Daniel, the precise time the boy was last seen.
- [24:36]
Detective Grant Linwood
2:15. The people on the bus see one man standing behind a boy matching Daniel's description. At 2:18. They're not there.
- [24:44]
Matt Angel
And Cowan's return trip home from Frank Davis house to Biroa, it would have had him traveling under that infamous overpass at approximately 2:05pm precisely when Daniel Morcom would have been standing there.
- [24:59]
Peter Johns
Of the people in that list, he was the only one where we could say, yes, this guy was at the scene with Daniel. He admitted to that because he thought that the cameras on the freeway would have picked him up. As it turned out, those cameras weren't working, so he probably could have said he wasn't, but he'd already admitted he was there.
- [25:19]
Matt Angel
Many senior investigators had always discounted Cowan. They believed that the 45 minute gap didn't leave enough time for him to abduct a boy, murder him and dispose of the body. Given his past two offenses, Grant Linwood and Peter Johns both strongly disagreed.
- [25:37]
Detective Grant Linwood
I thought, well, yes, he could have. He had gone on each occasion from zero to rapid escalation and offending in only a matter of minutes.
- [25:44]
Peter Johns
In the Darwin case, where he had abducted a boy from a caravan park, sexually assaulted him, left him in that burnt out car, and then Cowan had returned to the car, caravan park, like nothing had happened. That whole process had taken like 15 minutes.
- [25:59]
Detective Grant Linwood
So each time he'll just be going about his life. It's like a snake going, you know, past a wounded mouse. He just will offend and then quickly go back to doing nothing and calm as pie till he's confronted.
- [26:12]
Matt Angel
But there was something else, something that happened in May of 2006 and breathed new life into the missing 45 minutes of Cowan's alibi. Two and a half years after Daniel disappeared, Bret Peter Cowan and his ex found themselves embroiled in a custody battle for their two children.
- [26:32]
Detective Grant Linwood
Basically, his wife was trying to say, you shouldn't see his kids because he's a suspect for Daniel Morcom. You know, he's a potential pedophile and he's a suspect, shouldn't see his kids.
- [26:41]
Matt Angel
And Cowan's rebuttal?
- [26:42]
Detective Grant Linwood
He says, no, no, I was really at my drug dealers. I just didn't want to say that to the police.
- [26:46]
Matt Angel
Cowan told the family court in 2006 that he couldn't be guilty in the Morcom case because at the time of the abduction, he was at his drug dealer's house.
- [26:56]
Detective Grant Linwood
He'd never told the police that if he had that simple alibi and if he was buying some marijuana and you're being looked at for, you know, potentially the most serious child abduction murder crime in Queensland, you wouldn't just say that.
- [27:08]
Matt Angel
Officials from the Family Court clocked the new detail and contacted QPS detectives to notify them.
- [27:14]
Detective Grant Linwood
And that, as I understand it, is the reason why, why he was reinterviewed.
- [27:18]
Matt Angel
In 2006, Cowan implied to detectives that he had lied to police in previous conversations because he was trying to protect his drug dealer. He said the truth was this. After picking up the mulcher at Frank Davis house, he drove to the dealers in Biroa. He was there for at least 30 minutes. They chatted, drank coffee, and then he went home. The new alibi put Cowan at his dealer's house for about half an hour, somewhere between 2 and 3 o'.
- [27:49]
Peter Johns
Clock.
- [27:50]
Matt Angel
Following this interview, detectives reached out to that dealer, a woman named Sandra Drummond. She lived with her partner, Kevin Fitzgerald. They asked her if she could confirm Cowan's alibi from that December afternoon back in 2003.
- [28:05]
Detective Grant Linwood
She's gone.
- [28:05]
Peter Johns
Oh, I don't know.
- [28:06]
Detective Grant Linwood
Might have been, who knows? We're all having a smoke. It was years ago, wouldn't have a clue. And that's where it had been left.
- [28:15]
Matt Angel
When the inquest resumed on April 4, the Morcam's attorney, Peter Boyce, tore into police over their handling of Sandra Drummond. For starters, her 2006 interview hadn't been done on the record.
- [28:28]
Detective Grant Linwood
And Kevin Fitzgerald, the partner husband, they didn't interview him. I think this is unforgivable.
- [28:35]
Matt Angel
But Grant Linwood could understand why in this Instance, the police didn't speak with Fitzgerald.
- [28:41]
Detective Grant Linwood
This gentleman, by his own admission, had had head injuries, been a prolific cannabis user for something like 30 odd years. He didn't know what day of the week it was, but he might tell you anything.
- [28:50]
Matt Angel
Nearly everyone believed that Brett Cowan was lying about his alibi. Investigators just had to prove it. So with the inquest underway in Brisbane, Detective Linwood and his partner, Detective Emma McIndoe, set out for Beerwa to question Sandra and Kevin. Maybe they couldn't rely on their memories of a single afternoon eight years prior, but seasoned investigators had methods.
- [29:20]
Detective Grant Linwood
You see this practice done a lot with historical child sex offences, like where they might say to a victim, what date did this happen on? They go, I don't know. What can you tie it to? Well, I do remember I was on my little red bike and I got that on my sixth birthday. And I remember I was at the old house with the green roof. And we can prove from records that that house was only purchased in a certain year. So things like that, you try and identify other aspects of their lives that you can get a date from. So using that approach, we thought, what is everything we can think of to work out what Sandra Drummond was doing on the 7th of December?
- [29:50]
Matt Angel
They started rolling through questions with her.
- [29:53]
Detective Grant Linwood
We said, what does Sandra do? Where does she go? You know, do you play sport? No. Do you have a social thing? No. Do you work?
- [29:59]
Jonathan Van Ness
No.
- [29:59]
Matt Angel
Then she thought of something.
- [30:01]
Detective Grant Linwood
Her grandson's birthday is 8 December, the.
- [30:03]
Matt Angel
Day after Daniel disappeared.
- [30:05]
Detective Grant Linwood
And she thought, oh, maybe I was at his birthday party on the 7th, because that's the day for his birthday.
- [30:09]
Matt Angel
She remembered that the party was at a McDonald's. So Linwood and McIndoe went to that McDonald's. They tried to obtain any records of party reservations from 2003.
- [30:19]
Detective Grant Linwood
Ultimately, no. That's another notice of nothing, but stuff like that all over the place.
- [30:25]
Matt Angel
They went back to the drawing board, back to Sandra.
- [30:28]
Detective Grant Linwood
And then we thought, what do you do on weekends? Where do you go? She just throws up. Oh, sometimes I go to the rsl.
- [30:34]
Matt Angel
The RSL Returned and Services League of Australia. Anyone listening to this in Australia, you know what this is. But for the rest of us, I asked Peter Johns to explain.
- [30:45]
Peter Johns
They're sort of like, I suppose, mini casinos. They're predominantly bars, clubs where people get together. But they'll have a section that has slot machines, pokie machines, as we call them. Everyone in Australia's been to one of these things.
- [30:57]
Matt Angel
Drummond's daughter had worked at the RSL in 03, she ran the 2 o' clock raffle on Sundays, which it turned out Sandra and Kevin were usually there for.
- [31:07]
Detective Grant Linwood
We said, oh, okay. So we went down the rsl. We were looking for sign in books, cctv, anything that would show her perhaps being there. And they didn't have anything like that.
- [31:18]
Matt Angel
But they did have one thing, their old payroll records.
- [31:22]
Detective Grant Linwood
And it showed that the daughter had been working on 7th of December.
- [31:26]
Matt Angel
So on Sunday 7th December 2003 at 2pm, were Sandra Drummond and Kevin Fitzgerald at home having coffee with Brett Peter Cowan? Or were they at the Beerwa RSL where they spent most of their Sunday afternoons with watching Sandra's daughter run the raffle?
- [31:45]
Detective Grant Linwood
And then on a whim, you know, what else have you got? And they had these player reward loyalty cards.
- [31:49]
Peter Johns
We know that when you play the pokies in Australia you have a card that you slot through the machine each time because there'll be some process by the more money you turn over this machine you'll get a rewards that allows you to buy drinks or something. On this card.
- [32:03]
Matt Angel
Kevin had confirmed that they always played the pokies and always inserted their rewards cards. So Linwood pressed further with the RSL anyway.
- [32:12]
Detective Grant Linwood
Where are the records of that?
- [32:14]
Matt Angel
The RSL searched, they didn't have them. But Linwood and McIndoe had one more idea. They contacted Max Gaming, the company responsible for the slot machines and rewards program. Maybe they had records.
- [32:28]
Peter Johns
We got the police to ask them for it. They said, look, we just don't have the material, we don't have records going back that far.
- [32:33]
Matt Angel
And then an unexpected surprise.
- [32:36]
Peter Johns
An engineer at the company had gone back to the off site storage and gone through all their material and found the hard data.
- [32:44]
Matt Angel
That data, it included the precise time to the second that any reward card had ever been inserted and removed from one of their machines. And it gave police the break they so desperately needed.
- [32:58]
Detective Grant Linwood
Sunday 7th of December 2003 at about 2.22pm, Sandra's in machine number whatever it was 10 and Kevin's in machine number 11.
- [33:07]
Matt Angel
The couple couldn't have been with Bret Peter Cowan on the afternoon of Daniel's abduction because they were at the RSL at exactly the same time Cowan claimed to have been at their house. The timestamp was irrefutable.
- [33:21]
Detective Grant Linwood
That's as good as you're ever going to get. Now it's a tiny thing, but it shows he's lying. He was not. And right in that middle of time he's not at her house like he's claimed.
- [33:29]
Matt Angel
Cowan's alibi had been blown to bits. 2,600 miles away, in a caravan in Perth's eastern suburbs, Brett finishes up a hot shower. He wraps a towel around his waist and exits the bathroom. His new friend, Joe Emery is there watching tv, waiting for Brett to finish getting ready. Brett drops his towel with intention, but Emory says nothing, clearly not interested. In the week since the flight from Brisbane, the men have chatted regularly, run errands together, got Emory set up with a car. He found work in town, so he's staying. One thing Brett's noticed, whatever Emory does for a living, the guy is always flush with cash. As Brett gets dressed, the flicker of the television catches him. The morning news is on coverage of the inquest. The Morcums. They stand in front of something, a mannequin of some kind. It's on fire. The anchor comments on the scope of the Daniel Morcom investigation. Brett, affectless, turns to Emry and asks, think they'll ever find the guy who did it?
- [35:05]
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- [36:08]
Detective Grant Linwood
Thursday night Football is on and it's only on Prime Video. This week it's an old school rivalry as the Las Vegas Raiders collide with the Denver Broncos.
- [36:18]
Denise Morcom
This is a matchup everybody wants to see.
- [36:20]
Detective Grant Linwood
Coverage begins at 7pm Eastern with football's best party, TNF tonight presented by Verizon. Not a prime member? Not a problem. Simply sign up for a 30 day free trial. It's the Raiders and Broncos Thursday at 7pm Eastern only on Prime Video. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com amazonprime for details.
- [36:41]
Matt Angel
The inquest once again adjourned that April 6th. The witnesses had been called, the POIs questioned. For investigators, it was a battle won, but the war was far from over.
- [36:52]
Detective Grant Linwood
We still don't have a body. We still don't know what happened to Daniel. We know he's lying, we know he's in the right place, we know he's got the right mo. He ticks every box, but unless he admits it, we can't prove it. We could not have charged him with no body and going to trial with that.
- [37:09]
Matt Angel
What happened next was unclear to Bruce and Denise Morcom. What was clear, they were ready for some catharsis.
- [37:16]
Denise Morcom
On a piece, a square of paper, with a pen, I wrote POI Person of Interest, BBQ Barbecue. DMF, Daniel Morcom Foundation House, 10am Tomorrow.
- [37:32]
Matt Angel
As they left the courthouse that day, Bruce slipped the coded message to journalists. The next day at 10am, over 30 members of the press arrived for a barbecue at the Daniel Morcom foundation headquarters.
- [37:44]
Denise Morcom
They all turned up and that's when we burnt the effigy.
- [37:48]
Peter Johns
In a symbolic release from seven years of pain, the parents of missing Sunshine coast teenager Daniel Morcom have burned an effigy of a person of interest in the case.
- [37:57]
Denise Morcom
You know, the, the diesel's tipped on his head and, and Denise has got the lighter and she flicked the cricket lighter, the disposable lighter, and started lighting his testicles.
- [38:07]
Detective Grant Linwood
I started on his groin and it just went bang. The Morcom say the burning represents the.
- [38:13]
Peter Johns
Closing of a chapter after five weeks of evidence at a coronial inquest.
- [38:17]
Detective Grant Linwood
I think we must have looked a bit crazy. I think we'll stand there laughing, going, yeah, we did.
- [38:23]
Denise Morcom
I'm just sure. Some people thought we'd lost our marbles, but we didn't care.
- [38:26]
Detective Grant Linwood
I don't care. The Morecambes say they're confident they're getting.
- [38:29]
Peter Johns
Closer to finding the person who took their son.
- [38:34]
Matt Angel
The coronial inquest had run for 22 days over the course of nearly six months. Months filled with challenges for Bruce and Denise Morcom. The Daniel Morcom Foundation's funds were drying up. An unprecedented monsoon flooded the offices and one of the last remaining pieces of Daniel was torn from their lives when his cat Mittens was struck by a car. But worst of all was the quiet that followed that 22nd day in court.
- [39:05]
Denise Morcom
Weeks, months went by and it was incredibly frustrating.
- [39:12]
Matt Angel
No updates from investigators, no check ins, just quiet. The couple were sure that they had stared into the eyes of the man responsible for the loss of their son. And yet it seemed nothing was being done.
- [39:29]
Denise Morcom
I remember sitting there numerous nights thinking, well, if police don't solve this, maybe I'll go and ask him a couple of questions myself. I knew Cowan was in Perth. I knew he was in a caravan park. I just wanted to ask him face to face. You saw the boy on the side of the road in the red T shirt. We know your history of offending against children. We know your violent record against those children. You didn't say you were standing at the back of Daniel, but we know. I wanted to ask him. What did you do? I was gonna fly to Perth.
- [40:06]
Matt Angel
Just days after getting evicted from Perth's Crystal Brook Caravan Park, Brett loses his job. Then the Courier Mail and Sunday Times start running the headlines. The man at Top of Daniel Suspect list Child Offender Tracked Child Sex offender Lives here. Luckily, the papers never use his real name. Just poi7. So his new mate, Joe Emery, he shouldn't catch on. Ironically, Emry's been feeling bad for Brett. It's obvious he's struggling to make ends meet, so Emry loans him some cash. A few weeks later, he introduces Brett to a friend of his, a guy named Paul Fitzsimmons, but everyone just calls him Fitzy. He's short, wears his blonde hair in a ponytail, curses like a sailor. Fitzy and Emery work together and Emery's thinking, if Fitzy's good with it, maybe they can bring Brett in on things, throw him some opportunities. Fitzy's wary of the idea. He doesn't know this guy from Adam, but Emry vouches for him. Next thing Brett knows, he and Emry are sitting in a car outside the airport. Brett holds a picture of the man they're waiting to id. The moment the man exits the terminal, Emery makes a call.
- [41:30]
Detective Grant Linwood
Brett.
- [41:31]
Matt Angel
And that's that. Brett's handed 150 cash. Quick, easy money. And there's a lot more where that came from. Brett knows what he's just taken part in, that his new friends run in shady circles. And he is all for it. One job becomes two, two become four. Emry and Fitzy can see Brett's commitment and loyalty, so they start introducing him to more other guys. He tells the gang his name change is official. He is not legally Brett anymore. He's Shadow. Nunya Hunter Shadow, the name of a dog he'd had. Nunya as in Nunya business. And Hunter, well, he doesn't fucking know. He heard it somewhere and thought it sounded good. So that's what they call him. Shadow. Soon Brett's making deliveries, running cash, being handed solo surveillance gigs. He takes part in large scale burglaries and drug hauls. And as the jobs get bigger, so do the paydays. The more Brett witnesses this group's reach, the more he understands what he's stumbled into. These people are powerful. They own cops and court officials. They traffic sex workers and run counterfeiting schemes. They deal in arms and blood diamonds. This isn't just a small time gang. It's a goddamn criminal enterprise. A national syndicate. A brotherhood which lives by a motto. Trust, Honesty, Loyalty. And Brett has been brought into the fold. For the first time in as long as he can remember, Brett feels like he is a part of something bigger. And it's beyond his wildest dreams. Brett's last interaction with his friend Joe Emery is at an upscale restaurant with the gang. Apparently, Emry's landed himself in some trouble with the kind of people you never want to land yourself in some trouble with. So Arnold, the man at the top, the boss, the Brotherhood's kingpin. He's getting Emory out, protecting him, sending him off to London with 10k and a new identity. Brett's disappointed, but he's got work to think about. It's August when Brett learns of the massive Ecstasy shipment that's in the works. It'll be his biggest job to date. His cut alone is 100k and he can't stop daydreaming about what he's gonna do with it. But the dream is about to be cut short. Brett and Fitzie are in the car headed out of town for a job when Fitz's phone rings. It's Arnold, the boss. He's just flown in from the east coast. He's there to see Brett. And it needs to. At 12:35pm on August 9, 2011, Brett, Peter Cowan and Paul Fitzsimmons enter the Swan River Room suite at the Hyatt Hotel in Perth. Their boss, the man they call Arnold, he's already inside with a few other gang members. Arnold's stout and bald. He carries himself with calm authority. But Brett can sense the menace dripping off of him. This is a man used to being in control. Brett heads for the couch and sits down. He's perched on its edge, anxious. Arnold talks with the others for a moment.
- [45:14]
Detective Grant Linwood
I just need to have a little bit of a chat with Sarah about a few things that have come up.
- [45:17]
Matt Angel
That you're probably not really privy to at the moment.
- [45:20]
Detective Grant Linwood
But I just need to talk to.
- [45:21]
Matt Angel
Him for a while and he's going.
- [45:23]
Detective Grant Linwood
Get yourself something to E or whatever and I'll give you the bug.
- [45:29]
Matt Angel
What you're hearing is the live audio from when this happened. Arnold crosses the room and sits on the opposite side of the couch from Brett. The distance between them speaks volumes. Arnold turns his full attention to Brett as the last of the gang members exits.
- [45:49]
Detective Grant Linwood
Hang.
- [45:51]
Matt Angel
On, what's been happening? Brett's heart is racing. After all, he thinks he's sitting across from the head of a criminal enterprise. But Arnold isn't who he says he is. He's not the head of a criminal enterprise at all. Arnold is an undercover cop. In fact, Brett's fellow gang members and all of the criminals they've been in dealings with the crooked cops and bot court officials, the drug dealers and sex workers, the arms brokers and smugglers, the nearly 40 people Cowan's interacted with these past four and a half months. Every single one of them are undercover cops. From the moment Brett Peter Cowan sat next to Joe Emery on that flight from Brisbane to Perth, he had been the target of what would become one of the most elaborate covert operations ever attempted in Australia's history. Don't want to wait for that next episode? You don't have to unlock all episodes of Where Is Daniel Morecam? 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 Morcom foundation, please visit danielmorkam.com au where is Daniel Morecambe? 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 Garret Tiedemann. Our studio engineer is Trino Madriz. Fact Checked by Tracy Lofgren Lee. A special thanks to Ashley Ann Krigbaum 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 Coote. Consulting producers are Dan Angel, Lee Parker and Andrew Fairbank. If you enjoyed where is Daniel Morcom? Please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Nicole Ernest Pate was 21 years old.
- [50:05]
Detective Grant Linwood
When a predator assaulted her in her own home.
- [50:08]
Matt Angel
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.
- [50:27]
Detective Grant Linwood
The serial predator's pattern. This is serious offender.
- [50:30]
Matt Angel
He'd been hiding in plain sight. But even when the attacker was unmasked, Nicole still had questions. The why, the what? The why means she wanted to meet him. From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, this is Hunting the Boogeyman, available now on the binge search for Hunting the.
- [50:50]
Detective Grant Linwood
Boogeyman wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today.