Cold case murder of Sydney woman Lynette White | Australian Story

[Music] [Applause] [Music] but wanting to you maybe see radio occasional and brothers in 16 in Sydney today and of course it's the weekend coming up it's a quarter fastest etiquette lines the leader of 1973 I was a young journalist and part of my role was to phone police and that's when I found out about the murder Lynnette white she was stabbed multiple times and I said Lynette white I said of Beach Street could you say yeah that's that's right I said I know her I know she's a friend of mine unknown her husband since I was a very small boy and there are a number of stab wounds to the chest region the throat had been cut it was a frenzied attack men's murder has never been solved [Music] it's very hard to shut the cell and of your mind I fell been jealous of families that they murder has been resolved that they know who the murderer is [Music] he needs to find out who did it before he dies it's been a cold case for almost 44 years it's now that we're really hoping for a breakthrough with five one three five and it could be the key nothing the urgency to find out who killed Elena's is great now as it was when it happened and the clock is ticking it's by no means too late to come forward now [Music] I've been friends with Bob for 60 plus years now team on the beach quite often as a small boy we swam in the same rock pool down at South Maroubra and then we became lifesavers together I felt a responsibility to help Paul because I had this journalism background and quite frankly that terrified me the fact that I'd be researching the murder of Lynn whom I knew quite well and I remember literally wanted to know who people were and he had this great interest in people he'd never given up trying to find the person of coral in wine and he never worked I first met Lynn on the beach at South Maroubra she was the new girlfriend for poor wife and everyone was very impressed because she is absolutely beautiful Paul was besotted with her and he wanted her no matter what [Music] straight away I knew that this was the girl for me I just I'd you she had other ideas I think at that stage Lynne had her own hairdressing salon so she was a businesswoman real here in her own right and she did very well [Music] she was very well-spoken she was very well educated and she was stunning and she could also dance she would did the hula dancing [Music] she was fantastic she was only tiny she had great figure and boy could she move [Music] all men liked her there was nothing not to like about Lin just her personality and everybody gravitated joy some guys a little bit of juice on board could get a little bit of excited it can be taken the wrong way because you're in a grass skirt that it's not a nice you know form of dancing but it was beautiful Hawaiian dancing is beautiful Ben and I were good friends and we became very close I was her bridesmaid she was my bridesmaid she just loved life you'd radiate off her [Music] laughter she got married they settled into a unit er could G if you stood on their balcony you heard water glimpses of coochie it's lovely we weren't the fun-loving girls we used to be because we had to settle down she was excited to be pregnant she looked gorgeous actually being pregnant [Music] you know Paul were both very social they just knew so many people with Lynn working full time as a hairdresser and then Pauline to swipe that was a cleaning product Paul only my managers and they had a group of people underneath them you could have it like a party plan like tuck with linen Paul had the idyllic life and then Lynn started to receive this telephone calls out of the blue and they are obscene calls and as time went on they got more and more depraved all the calls came through while Paul wasn't there there was a young bloke was saying things like I'm coming to get you I'm coming to get you I know where you live and then he referred at one stage to I've got a a white coffin for the babe she did tell Paul about these phone calls and then they both sort of just dismissed it thinking oh that's not gonna happen but I should have reported to the place and they didn't apparently shitty mother upset beer what she thought she might upset me so she told her girlfriends more about it than she told me she can find it mazey bad this Maisy said leanness what happens in show business we get a lot of these cycles we're stressed supporting leaned never to on the door to anybody unless you knew them which to my boys she wouldn't there was a knock at the front door they had a peephole on the front door been peered through the eyepiece saw this young fellow and apparently he flashed himself in front of her I don't think she didn't know him there's a possibility that Lynne was embarrassed or ashamed and that it wasn't the right thing to make a big fuss out of something that was probably of no consequence but at the same time there had been a number of rapes for instance in that very area at the ABC we wouldn't touch reporting of a road they didn't want to be associated with sensationalism and on reflection that's really wrong and I think as a result the message wasn't getting out to a lot of particularly girls that hey this is going on be awfully careful [Music] there was a rape at coogee the year before a very serious rape that could have almost turned into a murder so you say in your own mind why didn't she know get fair dinkum about this why didn't she go straight to the police maybe I didn't listen enough I don't know it's just unfortunate that we didn't talk about these things back then what we do today I wish we did with Lin having a pretty traumatic pregnancy have a healthy baby was number one undescribable this day Friday is a normal day she's up dressed gave a kiss goodbye I've been worried about her since the birth of Shane realizing that she might have been suffering a little bit of depression I found out later normally for the day she died chained for walk to do the washing ironing whatever people come round to buy swipe some be a team or phone or turn up Paul was trying to contact Lin all day long from his work he was starting to worry towards the end of the day a long time around at 7:30 mark come to our landing and I noticed a door was slightly ajar and it was dark and I thought that was odd and I say legs protruding out from our second bedroom where I shine sleeps I remember racing in turn a light on [Music] it's blood everywhere and she was half-naked and the throat was slashed and I just IV for a pulse I couldn't couldn't get her back she was I called and clammy [Music] Shane was in the cot he was on here I may die away I raced and picked him up I think he was crying he was okay people were just in shock though it just just couldn't believe it I couldn't think of why yeah now I just will you're amazed you just think how could this thing happen you know such as such tragedy Paul was initially seen as a suspect fingerprinted I prompted online I did remember to get my wife back Paul had been at work all day they did checks from everyone it all matched up he didn't have anything to worry about he was totally innocent the afternoon newspapers came out and Paul was just absolutely horrified what would the reader think of that she was asking for trouble was she go-go dance at the cross was she stripper if so that she desert us the police had to seek the allen try and put all of this together this is the police theory knock at the door Lin opens the door and the fellow there asks for a glass of water which was later found smashed on the floor the theory is that she may have known this person he smashed his way in and that was it he had control of the place police believe that the motivation was meant to be a sexual attack an epilady said she came up with a delivery of Murphy's Allen knocked at the door no answer she start to walk away and she heard noises in there like someone crashing into a railing and so she came back up and knocked again and it's probably around this stage where Lynne was fighting off the attacker the Nabby bundle had been broken open and there's blood all over one of them so it looked like the killer had wiped his hands with these nappies police didn't have a murderer but they did have a suspect they had the identical image of a potential suspect and this was a young fellow who was seen leaving the White's apartment building very very strange here and be combined it just sort of seemed to wrap around the face about it so thick and it was of a red color they had very noticeable skinny legs to the fact that they could have been Polly had tied legs other major media organizations weren't publicizing it by this stage I just felt they had to do something I mean what could I do so I thought right well let's get this identikit picture and the description let's get it out to the eastern suburbs get the word out there that this guy's still loose he could breath in Paul said in the interview we've got to catch this bloke because he's going to do it again and Paul was dead right Maria stayed unbelievably tiny couple days away from our unit could you and Maria Ronnie 20 and 23 Steve had left for work I'll go ahead similar time clock this guy is at the door he asked for pen and paper and Maria goes to get it opens the chain on the door and this guy crashes he he rapes her and he strangles her to death with pantyhose and the husband who's a lovely bloke steve smith who finds maria when he comes home from work seeing that they hadn't caught the person we were frightened I was especially the police told me to have a can of pepper on beside the inside of the door just in case whoever did it and me being a friend of Lin's might know me [Music] at that time Shan was being looked after by Lin's parents [Music] Beryl became his mother for the first three years of his life basically Shane's sort of took the place of Lin and barrels eyes and then I have him for the weekend now I take him back Sundays it was pretty tough because so he was drinking pretty heavy back then through the week I was very lucky I had good close family close friends help me I took sign my name is spell three you couldn't have a stronger relationship with anybody well I made Shane he's a reflection of his mother in a lot of ways I think he looked after me the more I looked after him Paul and Shane formed a terrific relationship very close relationship and it's still that way today well there is nights when I lie in bed and wonder you know what she was like or what would be like now obviously I'd have a family the case sort of went cold and then Bob asked me to write the book and he started asking questions a police couldn't answer the case was going nowhere as far as I can remember there was there were no no leads apart from you know this this redhead and out of the blue we get this phone call hi I'm Dan Kelly look I'm the new detective working on this case about Lynn white and I'd like to talk to you about blah blah blah blah and it all seemed on again [Music] I think in New South Wales is about 600 unsolved homicides you have to focus on ones that are probably the most promising and solvable throw the gnomon I'm investigating the murder of Maria Smith in Lynette white under separate inquiries I think in order to determine if it was the same killer you need to investigate them independently all over the place yeah I know they mixed up yeah because it came in from all crime scene sections the case is open and very much active cold cases are very very difficult to solve they are the whodunits of homicides so there's a great responsibility and burden I guess on investigators that work there because the hopes of the families ride on us new DNA testing obviously has come a long way in the last 10 20 years looking at the crime-scene photos reading the pathology reports it was a frenzied attack what the evidence says is someone has tried to commence a sexual assault on her using enough that has been interrupted while she's tried to escape at the van rain could G one thing I needed to initially come out here and get a sense of what it actually looks like [Music] so this is unit three inside the complex where Lynette and Paul lived there was no sign of there being any forced entry and I believe it's it's very possible that she would have known know the person that came in on that day we really need to hear from other people that may have been in Unit four or visited unifor that that haven't spoken to the police's yet I find it very surprising I didn't notice anything wrong about the appearance of this unit and I would expect also there be some sign of blood on the door as well Dionne is really starting to uncover things and they found a lot of detail that hadn't been followed up there were a lot of people who weren't interviewed that should have been interviewed they are possible suspects but they have been checked up on everyone that ever lived that was known to went out white and Paul White some of them weren't even spoken to I just had a focus and direction with this absolutely an associates of those people so it's just expands one of the appalling things was that a lot of the evidence that had been gathered at the time was lost in police storage police lost the knife that's the last box now that's something that I could believe could happen how the hell could they lose that knife which could have had DNA the nappies and even any traces of carpet or cloth that had blood on them were all lost there was a culture by a lot of police to go and get something out and not to return it what possible reason would they be missing souvenir collectors are and if they were taken out whilst they'd be no records yeah there'd be a record I'd be a record of service be a record of a record some exhibits were misplaced exhibits were stored at various locations and moved it's extremely frustrating because it might provide that obvious breakthrough and an opportunity to us [Music] Dion had this theory that they could find out if they try in the white unit could you so this was the first time they'd been a hunt for DNA in that unit so we had to consider the possibility that his blood is also soaked through the carpet that was there then in the concrete so everything examiner is there ways of getting blood or assumes that's been cleaned repainted a new carpet over the years but look shouldn't say no we have to consider the possibility he had bled profusely around her body there's evidence he was hovering around the body for some time seeing the nappies blood stain is another reason that police I think initially at the time may have thought that he's cut himself when we peel back the carpet I think it dawned on me at that moment this actually happened it was pretty surreal I read all the case files being actually seeing in front of the the pool of blood where she was my the gave us and hope that we still could obtain something forensically from that stain he was a static if it's gonna be solved it'll be because this day night I'm sure they noticed whether it was there before but there was some damage a little bit of damage to the Dora doll I'm say once that the samples from that blood was in lost we found the blood of Lynette watt so the DNA matched profile and we've also found two male profiles from that but it's they are very weak profiles but they were in the same spot there is a a chance that one or both of those profiles belonged to the killer or killers the samples have been uploaded to the national database but as yet they haven't been any matches [Music] what we do know is that this person with the thin legs and the the ginger beard is not the only person that was seen in the area there was one anonymous phone call and one anonymous letter that came in they've seen a person coming from the unit driveway holding a a towel of some kind to his head which they thought was odd to this day they've the remain anonymous but they've actually witnessed some very important details including the registration of the vehicle the Aloha's dance group is another significant lino Coria but another difficult line of enquiry because of the document cases of people being obsessed with her men who would regularly come to the show there were a few instances of her being followed after the shows there's also the possibility there been the same person responsible for the phone calls or the indecent exposure you know well they tried to track down whoever made the phone calls as best they could but there are no phone records of course in those days that they would follow up as for the guy who flashed himself with the door he had Orban or brown colored hair and he wore glasses that's all she's told the French but she did not recognize him at that time there are numerous people who were spoken to in the Swat Lyda McGuire in the original investigation and it's very significant because of what Lynn told two of her friends around that time what we fairly sure of is someone involved with what has come to the unit and suggested that they go to bed together and Lena's told the person and never come back and she hasn't really that we can tell identified to anyone who it was the unsolved homicide team have had a number of successes so I'm always optimistic that despite how difficult a case might look at first that it's not until things revisited reinvestigated that you never really know if you're going to get there and I've got that much faith in day on that if he doesn't crack it this year I don't think anybody could we just gave me a very open mind about what's actually gone what this has done to family you don't realize what it does unless you're involved so please please just come forward and and tell the police what you know and put this the rest feel ours the Hawaiian dancing SWAT and the South America surf club all the people that are related in any way in those organizations and social circles if Paul finds out who did this I don't know how he will be if someone who knows has done it I don't know how he'll react [Applause] [Music] his life since the tragedy has gone on family is very important to Paul he has a son and two daughters and he has grandchildren when he's like my great mate we've been together now nine years but she's very understanding [Music] I'd say Paul's quietly obsessed he doesn't overtly let you know that or talk about it but yeah it's forever there with him Paul's very loyal to Lynne Paul can only give so much of himself and this is my interpretation I don't think anyone will ever step into her shoes that's just how he is she's his one and only and that's how it will be [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 980,277

Keywords: Australia, Murder, Australian Story, Cold Case, Lynette White, Paul White, murder mystery, unsolved murder, unsolved murders Australia, Lyn White, Mother murdered

Id: Nq8J1r4mrCY

Length: 27min 53sec (1673 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2017