An inquest into the unsolved homicide of Melbourne girl Maria James has criticised the police investigation into her dying – together with the lack of key proof – however didn’t determine her killer.
Handing down her findings on Thursday, coroner Caitlin English stated James’s homicide was brought on by “an individual unknown”.
Nonetheless, English stated in her findings that two now-deceased males – Catholic priest Anthony Bongiorno and Peter Keogh – remained “important individuals of curiosity” after the 17-day inquest.
James was stabbed 68 instances at her Thornbury dwelling and bookshop in June 1980. She was 38.
Her dying was the topic of the favored ABC podcast Hint.
English discovered that whereas police have been flooded by info and false leads after a $50,000 reward on the time, they have been accountable for errors that hamstrung the investigation.
She discovered probably the most important of those errors was the usage of a blood-stained pillow case in 2003 – initially considered from James’s dwelling – to rule out a handful of key suspects.
In 2017, it was revealed the merchandise was from an unrelated case, which counsel helping the coroner, Sharon Lacy, had stated had value the investigation “14 years of potential progress”.
In the meantime, a quilted bedspread from the crime scene was recovered in June 2021, the inquest heard.
However different objects of proof, together with James’s blood-stained garments, have lengthy been lacking from the police reveals.
“The outstanding level of the exhibit errors was that all of them occurred for separate causes and weren’t linked,” English stated in her findings.
The coroner stated the inquest delivered an open discovering, with James’s killer nonetheless unknown, and advisable police do a full seek for lacking proof.
She stated each Bongiorno and Keogh had a motive to kill the mom of three.
An investigation into the unsolved homicide stays ongoing.
