Meet The Riddle Crackers

Sun Herald

Sunday July 25, 2004

By JOHN KIDMAN POLICE REPORTER

SCIENCE has given them the tools to detect the invisible and analyse evidence in ways previously thought impossible.

But the state's newest team of crime-fighting technosleuths, the NSW Unsolved Homicide Unit, will rely just as heavily on the fact that with the passing of time, human relationships can change for the better.

Wives, who from a sense of displaced loyalty refused to inform on their husbands 20 years ago, might now be divorced and less secretive.

Similarly, a witness who was initially terrified of becoming a killer's next victim might now feel less afraid and more inclined to come forward.

The nine-member team, which has been given the daunting job of reviewing more than 350 stalled murder inquiries dating back to 1970, will have any amount of cutting edge CSI-style equipment at its disposal.

As they reinvestigate some of the nation's most enduring criminal mysteries, everything will play its role, from DNA, digital fingerprints and luminol bloodstain tests to laser ballistics and the latest computer software.

But they will also take advantage of the so-called "red wine principle" that some long-cold homicide cases can, in fact, improve with age.

"The passage of time in regards to domestic relationships, for example, can mean that some of them break down," squad boss Detective Superintendent Paul Jones explained.

"The bonds that held them together don't exist any more and that's an opportunity for us to now capitalise on that relationship which initially acted as inhibitor to those witnesses giving a full and frank version of events to police.

"Where organised crime is involved, there is also the potential for suspects to have exerted some influence through fear. But years later, that fear may have subdued a little or even a lot. The physical prospect of someone 30 years down the track doesn't present the same level of intimidation.

"Our hope is that after having wrestled with what they know they might feel they finally have an opportunity to get things off their chest and do the right thing."

Part of the squad's job will be to plough through tens of thousands of pages of old witness statements, original police running sheets and court transcripts, searching for fresh leads.

But where possible, they will also conduct interviews with the detectives who first worked the investigations now under review a task that was once avoided because of the professional sensitivities involved. These days, however, the same office politics don't seem to apply.

"As far as I'm aware, our guys have been warmly received whenever they have made that approach," Superintendent Jones said.

"As an organisation, I think we've grown into the idea of reviewing what we've previously done. It's now acceptable and even desired.

"In fact, when we go back to some of the old detectives, they've still got a glint in their eyes, hoping that these new guys will have some success where they unfortunately, and for all sorts of reasons, didn't."

© 2004 Sun Herald

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