The Murder of Penny Hill | Million Dollar Murders | Crime Stories

foreign 1991 20 year old Penny Hill was brutally bashed and left to die on the side of a country road she just left home only three days before to begin her dream job as a nanny when her future was stolen from her I always hoped it would be solved but it just didn't happen who killed Penny Hill she comes was it the rock star and his wife are you protecting your ex-husband no I'm not the boyfriend he's an obvious line of inquiry as well or someone else Penny Hill's family has never given up hope and neither have police today launching a one million dollar reward for information I want to help find out who killed penny her family deserves Justice a New South Wales police want Justice Deborah Wallace Rose to the top of the New South Wales police force with Grace humor and an iconic sense of style [Music] the person that was shot is known to police in her incredible 37 years in the force drug suppliers and bikie gangs all cases can be solved they're never cold and you never give up [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm traveling to cooler in New South Wales where Penny Hill was found brutally bashed and left for dead by the side of the road Motown five elves Drive Northwest of Sydney [Music] Ola traces its Heritage to the Black Star a classic Australian reference to a place beyond civilization [Applause] Cooler's not big but it's country through and through there's two pubs of course and the Blackstock Motel where I'll be staying it just so happens Penny Hill stayed here for a couple of nights before she was brutally bashed hi there how you going thanks for having Monorail for a few days I'm wondering if it's possible to have the same room that Penny stayed in which was here in the back near the archway two doors on thanks I'll see you in that way okay see you later bye I want to immerse myself as much as possible in the world Penny lived in she stayed in room 14. it's a very basic room there's a double bed with a side table a bar fridge and TV a place to hang a few clothes and a small bathroom off to the side Details Matter because the police could never clearly establish where Penny was bashed [Music] was it here inside her motel room at the black stump or somewhere else [Music] this is Penny as a baby with her dad Felix she was born in 1970. on Christmas Day quarter past two she arrived first child pretty special a fun loving girl all she ever wanted to do was mind children yeah yeah there's five years and ten months between her and her brother and when Andrew was born she always said it's mine and Dad's baby not your baby mum there was never any question for penny that she was going to be a nanny she left the family home in narrabri for six months and trained in child care at Tamworth Tafe yeah and she wasn't home all that long when she got the job there at the cool black stunt Motel foreign and Barbara bajent owned the blackstunt motel in 1991. they needed a living Nanny to look after their three young kids you drove her to cool up we drove it to Kula my son came as well so did you drop her off at the bajan's place yes yeah and we met them and everything okay yeah what was your impression when you first met well you know you're always hoping to be all good Penny was now on her own A Stranger in a Strange town starting her dream job one take two thank you this is a town that I know well Alex Cullen is a journalist he grew up on a property near cooler I got very invested in this story because I grew up with people like Penny this was a young naive trusting girl who had the will to defeat so she got there on the Friday her parents dropped her off we know that she spent some time with the kids on the Saturday and on the Sunday she was given time to unpack it had a bit of spare time so we know that she went to the local pub just up the road drank lemon squash played some darts hung out with a few of the locals penny left the pub with a short walk back to the black stuff motel at about 5 30 pm she was staying in room 14 which had been allocated to her by her employers Colin and Barbara bajant after dinner Penny took a phone call from her mother the call came through the motel reception you spoke for about half an hour about a half an hour roughly do you remember that what you spoke about and that happened oh we just talked about what she'd been doing so then they just signed off that night like yeah yeah there was no indication she was thinking about what she was going to do that night or anything no because it was so cold she wouldn't have gone out received another phone call at about 8 30 pm that phone call was from her boyfriend at the time Shane Williams [Music] this is a 1991 photo of Penny and her boyfriend Shane Williams they'd only been dating for three weeks when Penny accepted the job in cooler Alex Cullen interviewed Shane in 2015. in that call we know she told him that she'd been hanging around at the pub hanging around with people [Music] I said Shane were you jealous were you worried that she was you know getting on a bit too well with with other men in the town and he denied that he said no uh no there was nothing I could do about it we know that after the phone calls she went back to her room room 14. we have no idea what happened in those hours [Music] [Music] I'm up early it's 7 30 a.m and I'm leaving town on the same road taken by a school teacher Susie Brown on the morning of July 8 1991. to exit cooler Susie drove past the Caravan Park which is just 100 meters from the black stump then a further 250 meters to a bridge across the Kula baragandhi River [Music] meters past the bridge on the left hand side of the road Susie spotted someone lying by a gate post [Music] this is where Penny Hill was found barely alive on that cold Winter's morning in 1991 thanks for taking my call I'm talking to Susie Brown the school teacher who found penny what could you see from the car Susie well I certainly hurt because they get the doctor and the ambulance so then I went straight over to her and what do you remember of her injuries her face was very swollen he'd been bleeding from the nose and the ears there was a lot of dried blood on my face but it was smeared she was very badly hurt and it was really hard to tell what had happened to her but I'm her breathing was so labored and I thought she's gonna die she's gonna die here was this heart wrenches awful I can't tell you how traumatic it was there's more to say about what Susie saw on that day but when the ambulance arrived Penny was quickly taken from the scene doctors tried to stabilize her at cooler hospital before she was airlifted to newcastle's John Hunter Hospital when we saw her John Hunter it it sort of hit me how bad it was it was a shock did you feel at that stage that she's going to get over this she's going to come through no no [Music] so you knew in your heart of hearts yep [Music] she never regained Consciousness at all and I believe she was there 13 days before she passed away she died of um septicemia as a result of the injuries yes yes so now we've gone from an assault into a murder inquiry true straight away yep [Music] [Music] foreign 1991 cooler was a quiet rural Backwater murder and violence was not part of the landscape this was a town where the only crime recorded was a car theft way back in the 1970s so a news broke that Penny had died of her injuries the community of cooler went into shock nobody will be able to sleep in this town till the personal persons are caught I'm sitting down with retired homicide detective Graham Merkel he drove straight out to cooler to take over the investigation when he was informed that Penny had died but that was a fortnight after she'd been brutally bashed the assault wasn't taken as seriously as it should have been at the time by the by the responding police was that a difficulty for you to overcome well it was it was extremely difficult because her room room 14 had been cleaned because Penny's case began as an assault the room had not been preserved as a crime scene so by the time Graham arrived at the black stump Penny's room had been thoroughly cleaned parenting already done this stuff here so yeah we had to rely on that [Music] forensics had documented the room by taking a series of photographs the most interesting one the remnants of a letter written by Penny to her boyfriend Shane remember they'd only been dating for three weeks the contents of that letter will never be known because that letter was discarded that's right the letter was torn up thrown in the bin and sent out with the rubbish [Music] the next step for detective Sergeant Merkel and his team was to start interviewing people from the motel one of the first people he spoke to was Colin bajent the owner of the black stump in 1991 young fresh girl innocent I think very innocent for her age she wasn't worldly [Music] the last sighting of Penny was at the motel late in the evening of Sunday July 7. do you recall where he said he was on the night that she was assaulted yes he went he went Fox shooting with the cook from the motel a man named Bob Lee do they say what time they returned or what their movements were that night they returned about 10 30 so they say but they were they were fairly vague in the in that time themselves both of them both of them yeah yeah [Music] the time of Penny's assault is a crucial part of this investigation and here's why what could you say from the car Susie I'm going back to my interview with Susie Brown the school teacher who found Penny by the side of the road on the morning of July 8. there were no tracks in the Jews there's been quite a heavy view there and there were no Fresh Tracks in the due at all so when does the Jews start to form here in winter probably two or three o'clock in the morning and I think she'd been there all night because when the ambulance driver lifted her and put her on the gurney underneath Penny was dry it was an Indian where a bottom had things but the grass was dry all of which points to the fact Penny was dumped here by her attacker or attackers sometime before the Jew formed in the early hours of the morning he had definitely been placed there Herbert were clean her outfits were cleaned so who else was at the Blackstock Motel on the night of July 7 besides penny the patients were there and so was Bob Lee the motel cook let's take a moment to focus on him Bob Lee was a bit of a scallywag he'd been around the traps a bit he'd been a bit of trouble for police over the years [Music] who he divorced in the early 60s confirmed to us that he was in the force when they were married but when detective Merkel caught up with Lee the cook revealed nothing of his past life he was just a matter of fact you know you were the cops you know I don't know anything [Music] now Bob Lee lived in a caravan Park just a hundred meters from the blackstop motel an inquest into Penny Hill's murder heard from a witness who reported seeing Lee exit his Land Rover and into his Caravan in the early hours of Monday morning July 8. foreign police questioned Lee several times regarding Penny's murder later realizing that he was wanted in connection with the attempted armed robbery of a brothel in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield when they arrested him for the armed robbery they found an arsenal of illegal weapons in his Caravan including a rifle and a silencer Lee was released on bail [Music] but just a few months later he died in mysterious circumstances [Applause] Bob was involved in a car accident some would argue that he ended his own life out of remorse out of guilts the town of Kula was a hotbed of rumors and when it came to suspects in Penny's murder there were literally hundreds of them you had cooler this small town was absolutely heaving that weekend you had a couple of Rugby League games you had a tennis tournament you had a golf tournament so you had a lot of people in this town a lot of suspects a lot of people of Interest Ross kitto a pro golfer from New Zealand attracted police attention for his part in a violent altercation with his girlfriend at the blackstunt motel this occurred at around 9 30 p.m on July 7. the same night Penny was bashed it was extremely violent she later said that she thought he was going to end her life he apparently had his hands around her neck the assault happened inside the couple's motel room but here's where it gets interesting because Ross keto was physically pulled off his girlfriend by none other than Colin bajent and Bob Lee which means they must have returned from their hunting trip before 9 30 when Kito attacked his girlfriend he tells movements for the next few hours were hard to verify because his girlfriend moved to another room at the motel kiddo went back to New Zealand he has been Cooperative with police with New South Wales police that's important to note yeah detective Merck Hill soon became much more interested in the owners of the Blackstock Motel Colin and Barbara bajent when I interviewed a bagents I found them fairly elusive both of them both Barbara and Colin Bagent their stories changed just even during the time I was in living room I do have my my suspicions for the agents no far more than what they're saying foreign [Music] [Music] I grew up in Sydney's Parramatta in the 1970s it goes without saying that I love my Aussie rock bands I'm a huge fan of Cold Chisel AC DC and the oils and who could forget Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs she comes on black Heroes this is Billy Thorp in the Aztecs on Channel 9's Bandstand in 1966 with their Smash Hit poison ivy [Music] and who's on drums are very young Colin pages [Music] moved on from the Aztecs in the 60s and by the early 1980s he and his third wife were looking for a tree change and they moved to coolara to manage the black stump Motel but when police died bajans were vague and unhelpful I wasn't ever happy with my interviews of them he'd speak to them and they'd say I did this such and such a time I did that then you sit down behind the typewriter to take a statement off and they'd say something else now we know that Colin was violent in his relationships in his past relationships he was alleged to have been violent in his relationship with Barbara and before that as well uh did that come up in one of the inquests it did exactly right the inquest heard Mr Beijing had been violent to three of his wives Barbara bajent blamed herself saying he didn't just hit me for no reason the coroner replied he shouldn't have hit you at all [Music] in the seconding quest it was also alleged Colin beige and had a history of abusing and acting inappropriately towards his employees hi Tracy I'm on the phone to Tracy she doesn't want to give her last name which I respect Tracy had a harrowing experience when she was working at the blackstunt motel in 1991. I was only 16 at the time when I was working for Carl Tracy was hired by Colin bajent a few weeks before Penny Hill was hired as a nanny and that's when he stepped me before she started and why did he sack you because I didn't give what he wanted [Music] Colin pageant employed Tracy to work in the laundry and what kind of work did you do in the laundry uh Dawn shakes you name it I'm standing outside the laundry right now and I wondered if you could tell me what happened that night Carl badgent came to see you in there [Music] [Music] or fanny come down with two glasses of wine [Music] and down below he came down behind it getting me drunk so he can rape me in it that's why I never went back I'm so sorry this happened to you Tracy did you have a sense before that night that there just wasn't something quite right with coal badgent [Music] Tracy didn't take her allegations to the police but she did tell her story to the coroner looking into Penny Hill's murder Colin Bajan denied her allegations and was never charged let's go back to the blackstut motel on the night of July 7 1991. we now know that Colin Bajan and Bob Lee were back from their hunting trip by 9 30 pm in time to stop the Ross keto assault on his girlfriend but what about after that Colin's wife Barbara told police that her husband locked up the motel and was with her for the rest of the night thanks for taking my call tonight I'm on the phone to Stephen Davis who lived right next door to the bajans in 1991. on the night Penny was bashed he was lying in bed when he heard a strange sound can you tell me what actually happened on that night it was approximately 1 30 in the morning I heard a noise sounded like a sliding door on a van just closing very quietly and I heard the car riddled away and it idled away without sort of rubbing the motor changing up through the gears so I thought that was a bit odd do you know if Cole badgent actually had a van at the time I believe he did dude Stephen was unable to tell what make and model the van was from the idling noise only that it was a van Penny Lane a coma in newcastle's John Hunter hospital for 13 days before she succumbed to her injuries her parents Jeanette and Felix kept a vigil by her bedside all that time but if they wanted to be left in peace they weren't getting any they kept receiving phone calls from a particular person in cooler three and four times a day for the first week asking had she regained Consciousness and who was asking that from the motel Colonel Barbara it was him that reigned so cold beige it would ring you to see how she regained consciousness yeah to me I thought was a bit strange yeah were they frightened she was going to say what happened strange question to ask when you're just checking on welfare generally that's right and you don't forget those sort of things no following Penny's death Colin Bajan became the prime suspect in the murder investigation his wife Barbara was also a person of interest after agreeing to one sit-down interview protesting his innocence Colin bajent had very little to say for the next 30 Years in 2012 a second coronal inquest was held into the murder of Penny Hill important new evidence was presented regarding DNA profiles for the key Persons of Interest DNA's samples from Colin bajent and golfer Ross kiddo have been taken police are also sourcing samples from the family of Bob Lee the motel cook who died just months after Penny was found [Music] second inquest Barbara bajent faced intense questioning over Colin's movements on the night Penny was bashed back in 1991 she told police that her husband was with her the entire night in the inquest the second inquest Barbara changed her story Mrs baygent couldn't be certain Colin beige and hadn't left their bed during the night but said if I had any knowledge of what happened to Penny I would have said so are you protecting your ex-husband no I'm not what did he have anything to do with uh what happened to Penny Hill thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] ly when it comes to violence towards women the facts don't lie on average one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner so when police were investigating who may have been responsible for the murder of Penny Hill one person I looked at was her boyfriend Shane Williams foreign on the night she was bashed and lived to die Sunday July 7 1991. Penny Hill took a phone call from Shane Williams at about 8 30 or 9 pm she was at the blackstut motel in Kula he was in Armada where he lived but apart from the phone call what else was Shane Williams doing on the night of July 7. where did he say he was I think he'd been to uh some event with a Salvation Army and then he'd gone home to his family and went to bed he was there next morning I didn't find anything suspicious about him at all and basically eliminated him from my inquiries [Music] until the second inquest in 2012. when he found it difficult to recall the exact details of his movements on the night Penny was attacked Alex Cullen questioned him further in an interview in 2015. he says that he was in Armadale that night and I said to him well what were you doing in Armadale that night and he couldn't really tell me he he said look I could have been doing any any one of things I could have been at church I could have been walking around on a property that I had access to at the time I could have been home with my parents which struck me as quite odd yeah I thought hang on this is the night that you're girlfriend was bashed within an inch of her life and and you don't remember where exactly you were [Music] Shane doesn't really have a good memory of where he actually was the night of Penny's assault but if it was your girlfriend how would you forget something that horrific in your lifetime and that gives you rise to some questions in your mind that's exactly right if he talked to on that night and then he can't recall where he was well it's a little bit hard to believe I don't forget things I can remember things from when I was little following his memory loss at the 2012 inquest police began taking a closer look at Shane Williams as a person of interest in Penny Hill's murder Danny could you tell us who you are and what you do superintendent Danny Doherty I'm the commander of the State Crown command homicide Squad Danny Doherty is in charge of the reinvestigation into Penny Hill's murder and he's got some questions for Shane Williams being in a short relationship and being so obviously besotted with Penny it does Rose a few flags and he's an obvious line of inquiry as well so Williams called Penny from Armadale on the night she was attacked we know she told him where she was staying and her room number but could he have jumped in his car after the call driven to cooler and then back to Armadale Before Sunrise it's a 300 kilometer Drive each way he's some distance away you know 300 kilometers that doesn't necessarily in your mind discount that he could have made the trip who doesn't discount it um again you have to have an open mind about these things plenty of things have happened and we definitely can't discount that that theory police are now re-examining all of William's statements so there's some discrepancies in these versions which creates an opportunity for us to have a look at there was some mention of uh some involvement with um and links with the Salvation Army we would we would make further inquires with and also his access to vehicles and what type of vehicles emo had access to at the time in July 1991 Williams was driving a blue dats and stanza around 11 40 pm on July 7 Barbara bajid reported seeing a dark-colored car similar to a commodore driving through the blackstut motel car park without the lights on Shane owned a blue dats and standard and police believe that she may have mistaken that stanza for a Commodore yeah so they looked at that very very closely Clues have emerged about the murder 20 cooler in the state's West a car found near the murder scene which was originally described as a Commodore is now believed to have been a blue Datsun stanza a police forensics team in Sydney searched William's old stanza in 2013 looking for Clues to Penny's murder I asked him straight out did you kill Penny Hill no of course not I would not hurt her in any way possible foreign I believe that one of the people that we've mentioned has had a sexual interest in her [Applause] [Music] it's time to reach out to my good friend retired detective Chief Inspector Wayne Hayes her second opinion in the murder of Penny Hill I call Wayne the homicide Whisperer we've given you access to the research files is there anything that you can share with me that struck you from those files quite a bit actually it's just amazing that somebody is there in three days they're murdered there are some complications there's a golf tournament and there's a rugby league competition in town that day so there are a lot of people in the town thank you but Wayne's primary focus is room 14 at the Blackstock Motel that's where he believes Penny was assaulted somebody gains access to that motel room [Music] they've either got to be known to get that they've got to have a key to get that at the motel they knock on the door and she opens it but she probably would if it's what a term of Blitz attack by somebody so you do have enormous potential for a crime scene there when she's found the next morning and inquiries commence the room itself is basically undisturbed I've spoken to Graham mckill the original investigating officer he would have found some difficulties taking over that case no doubt well what have you got they've left you with nothing unfortunately the letter that Penny wrote to her boyfriend was thrown out in the garbage the envelope is all that's left so I want to ask Wayne about Shane Williams as a murder suspect you've got this torn up letter you've got an envelope there addressed to him what does it say was it a go away letter which I've met somebody else later oh you don't know and there's a telephone conversation with them in his favor he's at Armadale so he's got to drive at night 600 kilometers round trip let's make it a six hour drive possible but it's a big Drive Williams cannot account for his movements in Armadale on the night Penny was bashed that doesn't look good for him [Music] neither does Barbara bajan's witness statement that she saw a car similar to Williams in the motel car park on the night of July 7. but is Barbara Bajan a reliable Witness or her husband Colin or the motel cook Bob Lee Wayne believes the answer lies at the blackstop motel put it all together my view is I'm looking at something that's associated with the motel and that's it finish end the first person on the motel suspect list is the black stumps cook Bob Lee a former policeman Lee was on the run for an armed robbery when Penny was fatally bashed at the motel but he dies in a road accident shortly afterwards [Applause] the rumor mill goes overboard the town saying is clearly done it caused his committed suicide I.E the investigative police don't think so and B is people kill themselves in Road accidents all the time people are killed people survive it's yeah it's luck of the draw sometimes I'm afraid she comes [Music] what beauty form of the bosses of Penny the bajents husband and wife three very young children they need a nanny she applies and is selected she comes after one shift basically is not suitable now this is something I haven't revealed before when Penny's mother Jeanette rang the black stump to speak to Penny on the night of July 7 it was Barbara Bajan who answered the phone Barbara told Jeanette the penny wasn't working out as their nanny and she was going to sack her she just said that she might have been a bit Young and I thought well how can you decide on somebody for such a short time yeah because she'd only worked one day and they gave her the next day off [Music] and here's something else Penny stayed with the agents in their family home on the night she arrived July 5th but then the bajans shifted her into room 14 the very next day moving out of the family home into this hotel room being terminated that Something's Happened there I I I think [Music] I'm interested in Wayne's take on the movements of Colin Bagent and Bob Lee on the night that Penny was attacked they were both at the motel at around 9 30 p.m when they separated rosquito from his girlfriend two people are very proximate to the deceased two people potentially because they're known to her have access to the room what do you think happened to Penny I believe that one of the people that we've mentioned has had a sexual interest in her and has gone a knocked on the door which has been opened or has gained access somehow maybe she says something that makes that person enraged [Music] [Applause] and once you're enraged it just got out of control you just don't know whether or not alcohol or drugs played a part in it as well because that loosens people's restraint they behave less responsibly than what they do when they're not affected by drugs or alcohol foreign and then she's only taken 800 meters down the road why would you take somebody 800 meters down the road because you've got to be home quickly because you can't be away for very long you can't go very far because you could be discovered remember a witness reported seeing Bob Lee a car and entering his Caravan in the early hours of Monday July 8. is it possible that with his police training bubbly could have forensically cleaned room 14 in the early hours of July 8. after assaulting penny in her room [Music] that would explain why police found nothing untoward the next day and were happy to release room 14 back to the motel [Music] with this case how would you breathe life back into it there will be some potential for DNA I'd be looking at DNA again this is the jumper that Penny was wearing the night she was attacked and left for dead police have retained it as an exhibit in the hope they can match DNA on the jumper to Penny's killer or killers the day adventure DNA technology they hold potential to possibly identify who carried the deceased if my DNA is on the clothing yeah I've got to explain why foreign [Music] [Music] over the years I've become an advocate of the homicide victims support group founded in 1993 by the parents of Anita cobby and Ebony Simpson the group supports families and friends affected by the death of a loved one to homicide the pain for these families never goes away as Penny Hill's father Felix knew all too well he was traumatized by his daughter's murder until the day he died he took it very hard she was dad's girl and he never got over losing her foreign [Music] before he went [Music] I almost hoped it would be solved quickly but it just didn't happen and here we are 30 years later still talking and looking for answers aren't we that's right Penny Hill's family has never given up hope that her killer would be caught and neither have police who today offered a substantial reward for anyone who can help them crack the case you're always hopeful you never give up and neither have detectives today launching a one million dollar reward for information really only mind something if we get information from the from the community and from the public someone would know what's happened the original investigation is reviewed the two Colonial inquists were reviewed all contemporary information that we have is reviewed is there any forensic evidence that we may be able to re-examine the advances in DNA and forensic science is significant and also of Technology the jumper Penny was wearing when she was dumped by the road May yet provide a link to her killer police have obtained DNA samples from Shane Williams Colin bajent and roskitto police have not yet revealed if they have conducted DNA analysis using samples from the family of Bob Lee the motel cook do you have a feeling what happened to Penny that night it changes daily Tim in the lead up to my chat with you here today I I've I've delved right back into it and I thought to myself Shane Williams the boyfriend could he have driven that far that night could he have done it without fueling up nobody will be able to sleep in this town till the personal persons are caught and then I think of colbagent could he have done it a lot of things don't Stack Up for a long time I was convinced one thing and then today I'm convinced of the other which makes it so hard for these investigators [Music] is that it's a very short distance from the Blackstock Motel to where Penny was dumped I wonder by leaving her in plain sight of passing motorists whoever assaulted Penny didn't really want to kill her [Music] maybe they wanted her to be found alive even if that's the case it doesn't answer the question was she killed by her boyfriend or someone associated with the motel [Music] it's not knowing it's the unknown that you always think about you think how could someone do this and walk away and leave a person how can they carry on with life and have no guilt about what they've done [Music] why should I work scot-free she gets a death sentence we get the life sentence [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Australian Crime

Views: 170,677

Keywords: Australia, Australian Crime, Australian crime documentary, Australian crime series, Gangs & Mobs, Psychology of Crime, Stalkers, child crime, con artists, crime, crime documentary, crime series, disappearances, family crime, murder, police, serial killer, true crime, true crime documentary, true crime series, Murder, Outback, Forensics, Investigation, penny hill murder, penny hill case, crime stories, true crime podcast, true crime asmr, murders documentary

Id: lHfpT5QRHKo

Length: 51min 13sec (3073 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2022