Byrne pauses momentarily. Could the witness see Exhibit 49, please? Faye registers shock when the photograph appears on the screen. She knows this man. Keith Kennedy. She cringes at the memory, huddling into Barry, desolate with grief. What does it mean? What does it mean, not guilty on the grounds of insanity? and his soothing reply: You’ve got it all wrong, Faye. Keith would never hurt our child.
Faye is brought back to the present, Byrne’s voice floating through the court. ‘See the blond person shown, the blond adult male? What can you comment about his teeth?’
‘Well, he has a very prominent gap between his two central incisors (front teeth) known as a diastema … It is quite a unique feature.’ So unique, he adds, that it would be regarded as a ‘forensic odontologist’s dream’ to get a set of models with a gap like that.
‘Would it help in identification of a bite mark left with teeth such as these?’
‘This would be wonderful. It is characteristic. If you saw that, you would expect to see a gap between the teeth straight away on the photograph.’
Now. Ask the question now. ‘The bite mark we see up there, could the teeth shown in that person have caused that mark?’
Sandra is poised for his answer, hands clasped tightly together. ‘No,’ Bamford instantly replies. ‘It is not possible.’
For the briefest moment, Raymond catches Sandra’s eye, then looks away. Bamford is still talking. ‘There is no break between the central incisors on this photograph. If this dentition struck the tissue, there would be a definitive mark.’
‘It is not possible?’
‘Absolutely not possible.’
Byrne resists the urge to grin. ‘That’s all I have. Thank you, your Honour.’
Davis goes straight in on the attack and Bamford sees it coming as the words leave his adversary’s mouth. ‘In cases of mass disaster,’ Davis says, ‘you are matching up teeth on a body with dental records; is that right?’
Bamford agrees that is part of it. But it is not the whole picture. In the Paddington rail disaster, for example, where heads and bodies were in fragments, what they got was a piece of bone with perhaps one tooth on it and another piece of jaw with perhaps three teeth on it. And these fragments were brought in, individually, given a number and slowly pieced back together.
Davis inclines his head slightly to the side. ‘Now you’ve told us that bite mark analysis is about picking patterns; is that right?’
‘Well, part of it, yes … it’s a visual exercise and a comparison of patterns, yes.’
‘And that general approach, notwithstanding there’s been new technology, hasn’t changed for many years, has it?’
‘No, it’s still valid.’
Davis has turned to look at the jury and now returns his gaze on his witness. ‘Well, it’s still valid, plus also there’s nothing new about this in basic terms, is there, this technology?’
Bamford did not see this one coming. ‘This is just a lovely way to graphically show it and certainly for displaying it to the court. It’s a lot easier than waving a photograph at the jury in one hand and a tracing in the other.’
‘The technique in 1985 was not digital overlay, but acetate etchings? … You did an acetate tracing in this case, didn’t you?… The same procedures that were adopted in 1985?’
‘Yes.’
It is a major point, and Davis has won.
Bamford did not review the evidence from 1985?
No, he did not, Bamford says, but he knows the basis of the findings: that the higher arches were caused by the upper, not the lower teeth, and he strenuously disagrees with that orientation. ‘Bear in mind,’ he tells Davis, ‘Sims is my teacher, but there was no reason for me to agree with him just because I know him or simply because he taught me.’
Well, Davis huffs, it seems as though Bamford has dismissed the collective views of the three odontologists without even bothering to view their arguments?
It is now Bamford’s turn to look exasperated. He had, he says, given a statement about his opinions long before he even knew the other three forensic dentists were involved.
It becomes an exercise in banter. Back and forth, agreeing, disagreeing. Some of the bruising inflicted on Deidre, Bamford agrees, has nothing to do with bites. No, he doesn’t agree that to make a cut during a bite would take more force and cause more bruising than seen in the second bite mark. No, the second bite not picked up at post-mortem was not a shadow or other mark that could not be clearly defined in a black-and-white photograph. It was, Bamford says, not unknown for police and pathologists to miss bite marks.
Bamford defends the accuracy of simulating the 1973 condition of Carroll’s teeth, but agrees that movement of Deidre’s leg after the biting would affect the shape of the bruise. And now Davis is back to suggesting that the bite was made by someone with a diastema, someone with a gap between his front teeth. Bamford, he says, turning again to face the jury, has not seen a cast of Keith Kennedy’s teeth. He has discounted him as the author of the bites purely by looking at a photograph. ‘I suggest to you that the bruising which is shown on bite mark one and alleged bite mark two is so vague and diffuse that you couldn’t possibly exclude him as the biter?’
‘Yes, you can. You can expect to find clearer division … produced by this dentition …’
Davis is finishing his cross-examination. His defence expert Dr Whittaker has claimed experience in over 200 bite marks cases, and his expert opinion is that the quality of the bites is not of sufficient quality to identify the biter. Does Bamford disagree? Yes, I do. He disagrees, but he does not contest Whittaker’s expertise? No, I have no reason to do that at all.
Barry Kennedy is watching and listening. The odontology evidence is sophisticated and impressive but it’s showmanship, too: a battle for supremacy. Herpich, Garner and all the rest want their technique accepted in court. He has seen the evidence. He thinks it’s all gobbledygook.
Barry slips outside for another smoke. It is claustrophobic in here.
Michael Byrne is cringing. Swifte had been bad enough with his fanciful tale of a child at the end of his bed, but now one of his expert witnesses is in tears. Despite Dr Pamela Craig’s obvious discomfort at the committal hearing, he had still backed her to come through at trial. Blonde, well-presented and professional, she is eminently qualified in her field. A bachelor and master’s degree in dentistry. Graduate Diploma in Forensic Odontology. Lecturer in Oral Radiology and Anatomy. She has prepared acetate etchings to help her form her opinion, not relied just on the computer technique, and she starts confidently enough. Carroll, she says, has an unusual bite. He cannot move his jaw forward in the same way as someone with an ordinary bite; instead, he has to bite on the side. The shape and orientation of the bite is consistent with a jaw where the upper and lower teeth don’t meet. The dental cast matches this description and shows wear consistent with this dentition. Based on the size and shape of the arch, the second bruise was, in all probability, a bite mark, and broken or missing material of the upper central teeth would probably account for the laceration in it.
Craig identifies points of concordance with the lower dentition and the upper section of the first bite mark. But she is beginning to fumble, not making it clear which teeth she is referring to on the monitor that is displayed to the jury. Davis moves in like a shark. ‘I am sorry, your Honour I have got no idea what she is talking about.’
Justice Muir gently reminds the doctor to reference the teeth so that everyone in court can follow what she is saying.
‘OK.’
Because Carrol bites at an angle, she explains, the teeth that indent the deepest will cause more of a bruise. But now it is Byrne who needs to rebuke her. ‘You have to identify the teeth please, Doctor …’
She appears to understand. ‘Right …’
A family portrait showing Keith Kennedy is up on the screen, again she is asked whether his pronounced diastema could account for the bruise mark. No, she replies firmly. And now she is fighting bac
k in answer to Davis’s cross-examination about the pattern of bruises toward the top of bite mark one, a lineal mark running up the thigh with a scalloped edge. ‘The other mark may not be a tooth mark?’ Davis asks.
‘No,’ Craig replies, ‘it represents a suspender from a corset.’
‘Oh?’ Davis looks bemused. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I’m old enough to wear these things.’
There is a tittering in the court and Davis doesn’t like it. ‘You’re not going to tell us that you’re an expert on the marks that suspender belts leave on 17-month-old babies, are you?’
‘No, but I’m an expert on the marks they leave on adult females.’ It is the only win she has, but it is resounding.
Davis doesn’t take long to come back from the clip mark, trouncing Craig, reminding her of the mistakes she made at committal, when she confused left and right. It is the same trap Dr Ken Brown had fallen into at the first trial, by not insisting that a full explanation be given, and she is trying to explain how it happened. ‘As a dentist, the patient’s right is on the left and the left’s on the right. You look at a bite mark, the right’s on the right, the left’s on the left. If you look at an upside-down mark, the right’s on the left … I got absolutely rattled.’ At committal, she got it upside down in her mind and Davis is hammering her now and reminding her, when she attempts to assert herself, just who is conducting this cross-examination. She is trying to say she has re-examined the evidence since the committal hearing and has changed her mind and now Davis has reduced her to a crying heap and the judge is calling for a break. Davis is attacking her experience in bite mark forensics, breaking her down and asking her to admit that it would be impossible to mistake the top teeth for the bottom. I would have thought so. It depends on the quality of the photograph… and she has fallen into his trap. She can’t think straight, she is not coping and there is an adjournment until the following morning. It is a humiliating spectacle and the jury shares her discomfort, looking sideways at each other.
It is left to Michael Byrne to tell the court that his witness has admitted that without external clues she has difficulty telling her left from her right. She is ambidextrous. She knows dentistry but she just could not get her knowledge across to the jury the right way around.
Justice Muir kindly offers Craig another break. She declines. ‘Your Honour, it is my son’s school play tonight and I have got to get back to Victoria to see it. I am sorry, I will have to keep going.’
Davis will not let her off the hook. Isn’t the bruise so diffuse, he asks, that she couldn’t be sure if it was a bite mark at all, nor confidently say that the laceration was left by any tooth, let alone a particular tooth?
She looks ragged, and Byrne completes Craig’s evidence with a series of questions that explain, simply, what she is saying. Or trying to say. ‘May the witness be excused?’ Byrne asks, with a definite weariness in his tone. ‘Thank you, your Honour. That is the case for the Crown.’
Davis is satisfied that all the Crown witnesses, except Forrest, had by their evidence virtually admitted that the computer technique achieved no more than the acetate sketching method. He quietly instructs Liz Wilson to make a note raising the fact that only the ‘inventor’ of the new technique, Alex Forrest, had formed an opinion based on the computer technology.
41
The Kennedy family’s victim impact statements, shown to the jury during this trial but not read aloud to the court, are so harrowing that those who see them bow their heads in tears. If ever there was a moment when the impact of Deidre’s murder on the family was defined, this is it. If ever there had been any illusion that time had healed their pain, this is the instant it is dispelled.
Deidre had been abducted from her makeshift cot 27 years before, but she lingers in the minds of her family, as though standing in the shadows off-stage watching their lives play out.
Barry Kennedy, unable to talk about his unendurable heartache, has spilled out his pain and guilt on the page. Here, finally, was what the jury had sensed when he had given evidence: that elusive something in his demeanour that had suggested to them they were witnessing more than an expression of grief – something deeper, more troubling.
‘The reality was,’ he had written,
I do and did remember hearing a noise which woke me during the night of Deidre’s abduction and murder. I can always remember listening for further noises, but because it had been a long day and I was immobile with my knee operation, I went back to sleep. I will never forgive myself that I did not get out of bed, as this could have prevented a tragedy …
He had said from the witness stand he had not heard a noise, had put his head down and rubbed his forehead with a trembling hand when he had made the admission. He could not face that packed court with the truth. But here it was, stark and bleak, the thing that had stalked Barry for years, dogging his every footstep. Guilt.
Barry had further written: ‘I would like to say that I grew up in the belief that men didn’t show emotions … crying, sharing with others, problems of a sensitive nature …’ Detailing the years from Deidre’s murder through to Derek’s birth, Barry had written that he believed they had a happy family life until they were contacted at Richmond RAAF Base concerning Carroll. He laid bare his soul. ‘After the trial and then acquittal, my life began a downhill run. Because of my inability to communicate, I took to drinking and playing poker machines to numb reality …’
Finding it impossible to talk to strangers about his problems, Barry found no comfort in the help offered by the RAAF, meetings with clergy or psychologists. Admitting he could not deal with his own demons was, he believed, tantamount to a flaw in his character. He had grown up in the country, where men were strong and hid their fears. ‘My career in the air force suffered and I retired after 21 years,’ he had written. Losing his beloved Deidre, followed by his family and finally the structure and support provided by the RAAF, proved catastrophic. Barry’s life now spiralled out of control. He hit rock bottom.
After some time I left and found myself living as a homeless person for approximately 12 months, living out of the car and finding food where I could. Words cannot convey what I went through in this time. I remember when doing late shift at Richmond, I would come home at about 1am, sit in the lounge chair and sob. There was nobody to see me and I was safe.
In all this I deeply regret the anxiety I caused my wife, daughter and son and I still do not fully know the extent of the harm this has done to my relationship with my children … Carroll, by his horrific actions, has ruined many lives to this day, and, as far as I am concerned, he will not be put away for long enough.
‘May Justice prevail.’
Stephanie, haunted by the fact she was in the room with Deidre when she was abducted, has written on behalf of herself and Derek.
It has only been in the past two years of my life that I have begun to try to overcome some of the fears that have consumed my life. My absolute fear of the dark and the noises that haunt me in the darkness. My obsession with ensuring, not once, not twice but three or more times that the doors and windows are securely locked. Derek, at such a young age, has found enormous inner strength to deal with this and provide the emotional support for Mum … it has left our strong family emotionally depleted and we will continue to bear the scars for the rest of our days …
She has finished her statement: ‘To our darling Deidre, you will remain forever in our hearts. May God rest your soul.’
Outlining her loss, Faye has written that, although it was more than 27 years ago, the day of Deidre’s murder is as vivid to her as though it happened only yesterday. In her statement, she has poured out her heartache at the breakdown of her marriage, the eight years she has lived on her own, the empty house and the long nights when her mind always meanders back to the past. It has consumed her, usurped any chance of a normal life. She had been raised a Christian, snuggled safely in the loving arms of the Church, nurtured and nourished by an all-seei
ng God and the teachings of the Scriptures. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away… But this has been no comfort. It is not just that Deidre had been taken, but the monstrous obscenities that had been visited upon her.
As I prepare myself for the final week of the trial, I cast my mind back to the happy times when I had two beautiful little girls … Having to accept my loss was always so much more difficult knowing that my baby had suffered so badly at the hands of the monster who took her from us …
She has grappled with ways of explaining the loss, how to explain to her grandchildren that their aunt had been killed – not by an act of nature, but by a force of psychopathic evil.
‘How I miss that little girl,’ she has concluded. ‘No one will ever understand the pain in my heart for her. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t wonder how different and happy our lives would be if we could erase that day in April from our lives …’
‘I will always think of Deidre as being busy polishing the stars for us all.’
42
The Crown has called 53 witnesses, and the court now seeks instruction as to the accused’s intentions. ‘Raymond John Carroll, the prosecution having closed its case against you, I must ask if you intend to adduce evidence in your defence. This means you may give evidence yourself, call witnesses or produce evidence. You may do all or any of these things or none of them.’
Davis rises. ‘My client will not give evidence himself,’ he announces. ‘But he will call two witnesses.’
In anyone’s language, it was an uneven ledger. Fifty-three witnesses for the Crown. Two for the defence.
Peter Davis flags his defence in his opening address. He has a lot of ground to cover; this jury is so absorbed in the evidence that the foreperson sent a note to the bar table asking that the lawyers not speak amongst themselves when a witness was on the stand, as they found it distracting. On many occasions, both male and female jurors had noticeably paled when distressing exhibits had been shown. Davis’s main challenge is to destroy the prosecution’s key platform: the odontology evidence. By the time he has finished, he hopes the jury thinks it is all bunkum.
Justice In Jeopardy Page 25