Who murdered baby Jaidyn Leskie? Unsolved crime rocks country town | Under Investigation

tonight the year is 1997. john howard is prime minister pauline hanson launches one nation and rock star michael hutchins dies so much serenity at the box office the castle is raking it in it's not a house it's a home [Music] and the small victorian country town of maui hits the headlines [Music] jaden leske vanished from a home in maui more than two weeks the heartbroken mother of jaden leski the man who was looking after the child babysitter greg damasovic police began an extensive search of nearby grassland but found no clues to the little boys disappearing it's where jaden leske a 13-month old toddler goes missing 17 days of nothing the chances of finding jaden alive now are very very remote what follows is a murder investigation unlike any other which begins with a bizarre attack using a pig's head and ends with the arrest and trial of greg domicevich the little boy's babysitter okay he's got him i just want him back nearly all with a role to play in this case will feel scorched and brutally exposed in the relentless and intense reporting by the media lives and relationships will be openly judged and their working class environment scrutinised video camera tonight we'll re-examine the police investigation of jaden liske's murder the fiercely fought defense case will reveal why the jury let the prime suspect go free supreme court jury has cleared thirty-year-old thomas of killing the little boy and we'll ask the questions greg domicevich never faced in court in his first television interview in 20 years there was no accident no there's a big difference from an accident you know to say murder good evening i'm liz hayes and this is under investigation me roland legg the former victoria police homicide detective who led the investigation into jaden liske's murder keith moore the experienced crime reporter who covered the case for melbourne's herald sun historian dr elise rossa who has researched child murders in australia with a focus on the jaden liske case and the honorable anthony wheely qc former supreme court judge and one of the country's leading barristers [Music] why is it that this case looms so large still to this day what is it keith moore that makes you still want to write about this story look a lot of people compared it early on to the azera chamberlain case the public was really fascinated by it and obviously the fact that a person was charged and then acquitted it's still unsolved and everybody has a view on it roland legg you headed up the investigation this is a case that has unfinished business for you well you always regret that you didn't win a case at the end of the day but first of all you're investigating the ultimate crime and obviously you would like someone to pay a price and justice be seen to be done and that i think becomes even more important when it's the life of an innocent defenseless child at least from your perspective uh what is it about this trial because it had a huge impact didn't it socially a lot of the media coverage essentially constructed moe as a site of rural failure where they're like look at all these individuals um and you know how awful they are and how this advantage they are and how bogan they are and that was the word that was never said often but was implied constantly and judge well i think the media and other people clearly expected that the accused would be found guilty of this crime but as it turned out he was acquitted and this is a justification of the strength of the jury system yes that killer has gone free but who that killer is remains an unsolved mystery well uh let's go through what we do know on saturday june 14 1997 greg domicevich a 28 year old unemployed mechanic went to the home of his girlfriend belinda murphy and asked if he could babysit her son jaden for the afternoon belinda was headed out with her sister and after a big night of drinking greg would later pick her up and drive her home but belinda would never see her son again and to her horror six months later jaden's body was discovered in a dam he had been murdered greg domesevich's account of that day and night is at times unbelievable and will make him the central suspect this is your opportunity now to tell us what happened knowing anything nothing happened he'd looked after jaden a number of times before and this time greg claimed jaden happily played that afternoon as he worked on his car jaden he said did have a small accident causing a bloody nose but nothing serious and in the evening he put the toddler to bed at about 2am greg drives to a pub in a nearby town to collect belinda he says he leaves jaden sleeping what happens next is an incident so bizarre it will catapult this case to national attention unbeknown to greg waiting outside his place is a small gang planning a gruesome attack on his house armed with a pig's head maui local kenny penfold has come seeking retribution because he believed greg treated his sister yvonne poorly when they had been in a relationship after greg drove out that night kenny and one of his mates hurled the pig's head at the windows of the house when greg returns with belinda he sees the pig's head and the damage done it's then he says that he realizes jayden is missing still security yeah okay he's walking like little fella in there and just kind of greg says he panics takes belinda who is extremely intoxicated to her home then heads out into the night to search for the missing toddler [Music] and so the stage is set for a case that will electrify australia a little boy lost his babysitter and a bizarre pig's head attack the media sniffed the story and journalists raced to murray a quiet country town 150 kilometers east of melbourne joining the media throng was today extra regular shirley horton who at the time was the crime reporter for abc radio do you feel like they're accusing you the pig's head story and the man who threw it maui local kenny penfold hit the front page so what happened was greg was on and off at the vaughn and on and off with belinda so kenny decided that he was going to prove a point and get back at greg doma savage by throwing a pig's head through his window so he and a couple of mates obviously on the beers decided to throw this pig's head they threw it and then they took off for pig's head for his window just make him leave my sister alone a little bit been hustling around a while during an interview kenny said uh i'll use kenny's words to as far as i can my heart was pumping through my chest i launched the pig's head and next morning i come around the corner and there's f and coppers everywhere and i thought to myself you've got to be effing joking don't you all that's rene pig's head to walk into this investigation must have been like a minefield a lot of unbelievable characters you don't have the child you don't know where the child's dead or alive you want to try to find out whether the the pigs head people are merely a coincidence or whether they're directly involved i think and then all these other things with these relationships i think one of my first comments was this isn't a family tree it's a forest despite the complex relationships and troubled histories police quickly ruled out the pig's head gang as suspects roland legg's team decided there was no evidence anyone had entered greg domesevich's house to take jaden they reached that conclusion even though two windows had been smashed in the attack now this one on the lounge room it's a high higher window than the other one but right along the bottom of it there's jagged glass and there are shards up here so that's the wider gap and anybody who is intending to climb through there would have would be impossible to do it considering the jagged pieces at the bottom but in what was considered their first mistake roland legg's police team did not examine inside the house for fingerprints but why not fingerprint all of the material in the house particularly those objects that looked like they had been used by someone other than greg we we were looking at it that it wasn't they weren't in there for a social event if they went in there to get the child they're not going to be sitting down and having a drink even though roland and his forensic team say with complete conviction and certainty that no one could have got through the window there was one person who gave evidence that he could and that was kenny penfold he said yeah i could have done that because he was quite a skillful burglar as we know and he got through windows in his time so against that background just with that possibility even if it's a remote possibility the sensible thing to do would be to fingerprint the place from head to foot and that would prove that no one had been in there that's what didn't happen i can see where the judges coming from are not completely discounting it but that would also give we would have then been accepting that someone could have got in which we believed 100 they had true that's what you can do but you've got to be able to have the thinking fingerprinting done first before you can mount the secondary argument look i i know what you're saying uh well i'm not saying i'm just saying that's the way the defense did it we we with this whole circumstances of our investigation were confident obviously that those people ultimately were not involved in removing the child that doesn't mean they're all absolutely reliable been caught up in this bizarre and now i can't go nowhere i'd never dream of doing something like that i haven't got the stomach for doing that sort of stuff anyway just makes me sick to think that someone else would do it kenny penfold maintained he was innocent of any involvement in jaden leski's disappearance an early insight into just how difficult the police investigation would be was checking out kenny penfold's story in minute detail right down to the solid evidence he claimed he'd left behind on the night of the pig's head attack so as part of his alibi kenny actually said to detective seniors after rolling leg look i was really nervous about throwing it so i did a poo at on near the railway tracks and i didn't have any toilet paper so i ripped my flanny pocket off to wipe myself i said to him now kenny a couple of detectives are going to take you back to donna ceviche's house and i want you to go through every aspect of exactly what occurred exactly what you saw so you took them over to the railway line to the long grass where um where uh they'd been laying in wait for doma service to leave the house and he started marching up and down the railway line apparently searching for something which he found and held up to them and they said what's what's the story here he said well i didn't have anything to wipe me ass with that's my shirt pocket it was the kind of truth telling that helped take kenny penfold and his pig's head gang off the suspect list but police were already gathering evidence against greg domicevich although he claims their focus on him was because of complaints he had made previously about local police what role and leg's investigators did find was 600 in wet money under greg's mattress and later a wet wallet this curious find would bolster their case against greg when jayden's body was found six months later in a nearby dam that was interesting the the wet money under the mattress that's an intriguing find and again something consistent with another element that we had of a wallet you'd wonder why somebody would take six hundred dollars with them if they're going to dive into a dam and get it all soaked but they might in their second apparent failure police having found wet money under his mattress did not thoroughly investigate the clothes greg wore the night of jaden's disappearance and while the house was still locked up uh or sealed off we took him back there there was a pile of clothing in a rear room and we said well greg can you uh tell us what you're wearing on that night and he said yeah sure so he proceeded to pick up one piece at a time and sniff it now how that was going to identify what he was wearing on the night i don't know but we didn't ever we didn't ever establish exactly what he was wearing tonight but i just raised again the defense case attacked your crime scene examiner quite stringently the crime scene examiner never identified or photographed the clothing that was in the clothes basket in the laundry so if the case was going to be that greg rushed home and got rid of his wet clothes why didn't the crime scene examiner take the trouble to check the very obvious thing namely the clothes in the dirty clothes basket which he said he didn't do that but he did notice whatever was in there was wet but what was it was it a towel it clothes we don't know and so that left that possibility unexplored as well while the eyes of australia were on maui in maui police eyes and ears were on greg domicevic a little boy was still missing and roland legg wanted the babysitter kept under close surveillance um i i wanted greg domicevich followed at an early stage that evening i contacted melbourne i said i want to surveillance a full surveillance team down here now because i'm going to have to give him his car back it's the only wheels we can give him to be on the move and there are two reasons for that either he had left the child somewhere with someone and it all got out of control um if he was responsible or the child was already dead and as has been known to happen in the past someone might have disposed of a body uh very quickly without considering it and suddenly think oh no i should have buried it or i know i should have put it somewhere else so they're all those considerations but the extensive surveillance of greg domicevich failed to turn up any leads [Music] coming up the tragedy and its cast of characters so i guess essential people who are involved in the case i think they were represented as the most bizarre of the bazaar then the police swoop on july 16th 1997 greg domicevich was arrested and charged with murder that's next on under investigation [Music] it's june 1997 and the nation's attention is drawn to maui the small victorian country town where 13 month old jaden liske has gone missing suspicions are centered on jaden's babysitter 28 year old greg domicevich who was looking after him while his mother belinda was on a planned night out drinking the police have greg under constant surveillance but he leads them nowhere if the police are able to come up with enough enough circumstantial evidence that jaden is no longer alive then a conviction is still possible with the search for jaden intensifying police were trying to build their case against the man they believed knew where he was greg domesevich across the country this story is making front page news the media continued to be irresistibly drawn to the case and its cast of characters greg and belinda kenny penfold and his sister yvonne and their tangled relationships which saw kenny and his crew throw a pig's head at greg's house late in the night the same night little jaden leski disappeared but the town of maui also came under the spotlight [Music] prominent citizens took deep offense at the media's coverage [Music] to suggest that that marries a den of inequity and all these all these other sorts of things that seem to be coming out people are sick of getting kicked in the guts and we're not going to sit down and take it anymore we'll just stand up and kick back [Music] artist john matsez was a maui local at the time and remembers the unkind depiction of the people who lived there they referred to us as hillbillies and one reporter said something about the fact that when you're in maui it's like a scene playing out of the film of deliverance uh you know all that sort of stuff it was just really really really bad to put up with because we've never seen ourselves in that light well elise you've looked into the impact socially of this case was this poverty on becoming a spectacle oh absolutely you don't remember my dear i i might remember your smell sir but not actually your face and do you believe uh that impacted the impression of belinda absolutely greg and kenny and lavonne and anybody else who was touched by this i think they were represented as the most bizarre of the bazaar and i think that it's sort of made for you know a soap opera it made for dramatic you know dramatic television dramatic media reporting and it's like oh look how these people out in the country live oh look what they do out there they're all sleeping with each other's boyfriends and that's normal for them and i think what it did especially though was it affected how belinda was represented and how do you think that a lot of the media basically discussed her as the failed mother you know media articles which say things like um had the headline i wasn't drunk i was very drunk and they sort of really pitch it as she was a drunk she went out she left her child alone with a man i'd never leave my kids with with anyone i didn't sort of trust i mean i regret everything now but i mean you can't change anything when jaden disappeared greg domicevich was belinda's boyfriend and initially in the investigation she too was a suspect we had the possibility of belinda covering up for greg in some way um and and she was of course in those early stages not in a great state herself to get any sort of uh clear clear story from and and she was supporting greg early in the piece no she was i and this was another thing uh one one of our strategies and i don't think it's any secret is that after some time and we were beginning to focus more and more on him as our suspect or our star suspect i suppose you'd say it was in our interest to alienate them not by any deceptive way but to just sit her down and say look belinda we're thinking that that you might be involved in thinking that greg's involved or whatever and we it's very difficult in a situation like this too because you're trying to be sympathetic towards the mother who has a missing child and and um uh who we believe by this stage is dead and you know you want to put her through as little pain as you can but she yet and she just continuing went back to him she was maintaining a relationship with the man that you believed was responsible yes and i mean on on day one she indicated to us can only be greg but he was constantly telling her that jaden was still alive i was constantly telling her that jaden was most likely dead and as a mother she preferred what he was saying to what i was saying okay he's got him i just want him back he may have done this no idea at all in his early police interviews greg rambled and contradicted himself but you're the person who's playing huh you haven't been drinking you haven't been using drugs you haven't been taking medication yeah why can't you remember is we're talking six days ago and probably one of most of the biggest events that's happened in your life the disciples of this child that's what i mean you know i'm under pressure too he later said he was simply exhausted what have you done to jade after a month of digging roland legg and his investigative team were convinced of greg's guilt but the police case was entirely circumstantial there was no one piece of conclusive evidence and no body yet on july 16th 1997 police arrested greg domicevich and charged him with murder this this is pretty important you're about to arrest this man in this very high profile case you only have circumstantial evidence and it has to be pretty damn good doesn't it well we thought it was but other people thought it wasn't but you did look i i was totally satisfied that we charged the right person [Music] then six months after he disappeared the body of little jaden liske was found on new year's day 1998. the terrible discovery was made at blue rock dad about 20 kilometers out of mowing once the body was recovered in january 1998 there was a a fairly broad opinion that this was quite the icing on the cake because all that we discovered on that new year's day in 1998 pretty well confirmed all our theories the police investigations had found that greg's wallet was wet the night of jaden's disappearance and that he placed wet money under his mattress they also believed a crowbar used to weigh down jaden's body belonged to greg but at his murder trial everything including the clothes jaden was wearing when he was found would be called into question belinda gave evidence that the t-shirt he was wearing was not the t-shirt she had given him or given greg that the track suit was not the tracksuit so where had they come from who'd put those clothes on the child had a sleeping bag she hadn't taken to greg's place that day where did sleeping bag come from there were things in the in the in the sleeping bag such as a bib which she said she'd never ever given jaden with the discovery of jaden's body also came the terrible truth of how he died and he's agonizing final hours forensic pathologist dr shelly robertson conducted the autopsy the deceased jaden leski had a broken arm which had been splintered in some form just using a piece of wood and a bandage wrapped around that splinting the arm and in your opinion what would it take to have a break like this a uh blow of some sort a direct blow to that region there was also a head injury how significant was that that was quite significant do you believe that was the cause of death yes this is not an accident i don't believe so no and therefore in your opinion this child was murdered yes on january 14 1998 little jaden was buried up greg domicevich breaks his 20-year silenced mistake and then ended up costing a young boy his life you know which is on me do you believe that the police focused only on you and no one else was ever considered 100 you didn't murder him you didn't hit him on the head you didn't break his arm that's next on under investigation with the tragic discovery of the body of 13 month old jaden liske the police believe they nailed their case against the toddler's babysitter 28 year old greg domicevich they argued there'd been an accident possibly a carjack falling on jaden and severely breaking his arm while greg worked on his vehicle in the backyard greg they believed panicked gave jaden a prescribed drug which was found in the little boy system and then killed him with a blow to the head and disposed of his body in a local dam when his home was unexpectedly attacked by a group throwing a pig's head that night greg used it to explain jaden's disappearance but the police case failed spectacularly and greg domicevich walked free how and why that happened is an extraordinary story but first the man at the center of it all it's been more than 20 years since greg domicevich gave a television interview but he agreed to sit down with me to talk about the case and this is what he told me about his decades of agonizing regret tell me about jaden what kind of boy was he he was a great little kid you know like yeah i know what to say like he was good he loved the animals loved like mucking around all this stuff like used to play you know like the you know nintendo back then and i just thought like you know he's a little fella growing up and you know he's surrounded by women and i'm thinking you know sort of like you know he needs to um you know get into cars and shooting or fishing or something you know as i understand it to this day you still blame yourself for jayden's disappearance of course why do you say that if i didn't leave the house to pick up belinda nothing would have happened so that afternoon when you picked up jaden you took him back to your place and what did you do in the afternoon i was just like mucking around the car yeah but he just spent like the afternoon you know like while i was doing that you know just playing with the dogs it was stated that whilst you're working on the car perhaps the car had been jacked up and had fallen no there's a big difference from an accident you know to say murder or something like but nothing happened at all you know that while he was at my house it was just like he had a little fall you know cleaned him up this and that and we're off again you know he was plainly so that afternoon he did have uh an accident and he did hurt himself but it wasn't serious well it was nothing like yeah sorry it shouldn't say like that but yeah it was just like yeah it bumped his nose then he had like a yeah like a nose bleed i remember that and i just then wanted to clean it up i didn't see it happen you know or anything you know like he just came up when i was you know still working on the car and i went i'm like geez you know and then yeah just like wiped his nose told him to blow his nose and that and you've said there's a big difference between an accident and murder i i only ask you this because i i people might see that as you going look something accidental occurred rather than murder the cops when they first arrested me saying look just you know tell us where he is we'll give you you know like two years or something you're gonna be two years on remand anyway it's like if an accident happens it's an accident but like you know they said oh the car fell off the jack it wasn't even on a jack it was on ramps you know and it didn't fall off at all no when you got home that night and realized the windows to your house had been smashed there was a pig's head outside what did you think at first my initial thought i can remember was like you know i seen the broken glass on like i should coming into the front door like that window i thought [ __ ] someone's molly tough you know me house think [ __ ] you know it didn't work or go off because jayden's in there and you know he would have you know like burnt to death or something but you found that jaden was missing at that stage how did you feel i don't know it's like [ __ ] you know like he is not here you didn't tell belinda that jayden's missing at that point no because i just thought i could find him you knew instantly who had thrown that pig's head at your window did you it's very strong yeah pretty much yes you felt you knew instantly it was related to um yvonne and kenny penfold yeah well i had no other you know any like people trouble anywhere else except just from her and the police you chose still not to seek their help not for them [ __ ] mutts the police say that a a person couldn't have climbed through the window the broken window there was not enough room what do you say about that absolutely [ __ ] you can see you know like in the pictures it was like a two meter by one meter you know whole through glass and being smashed you know you know right down to like the window sort of fraying in some places you know do you believe that the police focused only on you that you were their target always and no one else was ever considered yes i mean yeah a hundred 100 and why do you think that was the case well i was the you know only one to say that i seen him and i was the last to see him they took my car you know um they forensic you know there was no forensic evidence to show you'd been to the dam is what you're saying yeah can you explain how you had money that was considered wet under your mattress and a wet wallet my car leaked water and because i had like yeah like you know you crawl under the car sort of thing it was like my wallet was in the back and i just threw it in the you know front floor of the car which was wet [Music] how did you feel then when jaden's body was found in the dam what was your reaction just anger and pain he just was crying i don't know yeah it's just like who could do something like that you know right and that is the question who could do something like that sick person someone may be iced out or something like you drugged out somebody with [ __ ] problems after 16 months behind bars and accused of murdering a helpless child greg domicevich emerged from the supreme court free to go home to his mum when you heard the jury come back and say not guilty what was that sort of like thank god you know and then i thought all right what happens now and then you know the guards at the you know court said regularly you can go and i go well really like i can just look now and go and it's sort of like shock or overwhelming you had been found not guilty but the court of public opinion still is quite damning he there was no accident no accident nope you didn't you didn't murder him you didn't hit him on the head you didn't break his arm no it's just he didn't try and bandage it up as it the as was found when his body was retrieved so in other words there's no part of you that has contributed to this little boy's death other than you saying he left the house i'm just a mistake and then ended up costing a young boy's life you know which is on me coming up the pig's head team in court i'm talking frothing at the mood banging on the table like this how the police case crumbled that's a very tight time frame but it's far from impossible that's next on under investigation [Music] greg domicevich's murder trial began at the supreme court of victoria on october the 12th 1998. his defense team headed up by the flamboyant and ferocious qc the late colin lovett launched a blistering attack lovett forcefully argued police had focused almost entirely on greg domicevich and not fully investigated other potential suspects still to most it seemed the verdict was a foregone conclusion is that how you felt roland i don't know whether i mix in the wrong circles but the majority of people with whom i spoke were pretty much um yeah believing that uh that greg was responsible uh if you remember the public looking at the media coverage i think it'd be a little question as to you know who was guilty and who would be convicted and keith did you feel as though that the police probably had a compelling case yes i certainly did and look to this day i think greg was saved by uh by the pig's head team and more importantly having colin dotted the late colin lovett qc was a legend of the law a highly theatrical and articulate attack dog uh i thought this case was a weak case and i i've always thought that his first mission was to eviscerate the pig's head team kenny penfold and his mates who had carried out the bizarre attack on greg's house the night of jaden's disappearance kenny and his pigs head mate tubby hopkinson went berserk in the courtroom abusing lawyers and the judge and completely unravelling under colin lovett's fierce cross-examination the prosecution chose to put the team the piggy's head team into the witness box uh that was a good idea well it was the only thing we could do uh we we thought and look it was always thought with danger but also we're obliged to provide the court with all available evidence yeah and sometimes some sometimes that doesn't go the way you like do you think their antics in the court their behavior in the court um impacted poorly with the jury mr lovett as he's entitled to do saw them as the perfect targets and was goading them he wanted explosions in the witness box there's no doubt about that and he got back and he got what he dreamed for i'm talking frothing at the move banging on the table like this having security guards thinking we've got to stop this and it just it really and it went on and on and on and then remembering in the summing up he said remember ladies and gentlemen the jury when toby was in the witness box when kenny was in the witness box remember how deranged the word he actually used the word deranged to former judge anthony wheeley the crown prosecution's case against greg based on roland legg's police investigation seemed flawed even before the trial began well the crown case was that greg probably accidentally or in a bit of a fit of anger injured the child who died he then had to decide what to do he'd take it to her place put the body in the cot and when she woke up the next morning after a big night out she'd think maybe it was her fault i mean that always struck me as a pretty implausible case and they didn't run with it eventually what made it impossible well if you woke up and found your baby you died with a fractured skull it was hardly a cot death was it you know and yet you'd come home and gone to bed full of grog so how did it happen you know it doesn't strike me as as particularly logical but anyway it didn't work out that way because the crown said that when he came home to his place with belinda in the car and presumably the body over at her place he then sees the pig head and the broken glass so cunningly he changes his whole strategy and he then follows a timeline where he rescues the body from the house at her place and ultimately buries it in the damn our judge also argues that the prosecution's theory that greg suddenly decides to exploit the pig's head attack to cover for having killed and disposed of jaden's body was a bit of a stretch now normally a crown case that's going to succeed is pretty simple here i think it was such a complex thing and it required a sort of arch villain and you know cunning inventive creative able to move quickly with changing circumstances was greg domicevich that person he didn't look like it to me yeah he was quick-witted at times but he was pretty stupid other times i don't see him as that arch villain and but the crown had to show that he was and i think that made it difficult [Music] roland your turn take on all that eh we believe there was enough time and sometimes desperate situations call for desperate measures that you might think a person is incapable of doing but is so desperate they might do it the tight timeline it was argued made it near impossible for greg to dispose of jaden's body after dropping belinda home greg was stopped at 3 30 am for a random breath test the police case was that greg returned to his home collected jaden's body and disposed of it in a dam 20 kilometers away greg then returned to belinda's house and both went to maui police station now we know that he's pulled up by the police at 3 30 so let's say 3 35 he leaves that scene and the police drive away so he's got between 335 and 445 to get home to collect the things that he wants to dump the body in uh to put all the body in the sleeping bag with the other items to tie the crowbar to it and then to put all that back in the car and then drive to the dam dump the body get back out get in your car drive home get rid of your clothes put the wet money under your mattress leave your wet wallet in the car put some new clothes on and get around to belinda's place by 4 45 that's a very tight time frame it is tight but what we're saying is the scene was set all he had to do after we was pulled over by the police was to go home get a piece of rope and a crowbar and drive that distance on a deserted open country road okay it's tight but it's far from impossible and it was you say that's our theory that was our case and as i say i've had a lot of time to think about it and it hasn't swayed me from our initial theory coming up the stunning verdict it's a tough place to be isn't it you're not you're the head of the investigation that's next on under investigation for more than six weeks the trial of greg domicevich for the murder of 13 month old toddler jaden liske dominated the nightly news and daily headlines the media and the public expected a guilty verdict but domestivity's fiery defense barrister the late colin lovett qc demolished the prosecution case successfully casting serious doubts about greg's culpability over three days the jury examined a bizarre trail of circumstantial evidence that ranged from mathematics to mayhem to reach their unanimous verdict good evening after four days of deliberations a supreme court jury has cleared thirty-year-old damosevic of killing the little boy and i would just like to thank you team and colin lover my barrage john lee for everything they've done how did you feel good how was it great when they said not fueled uh a tough one for you to have to hear i think roland ah we were disappointed i mean it was never a hundred percent but based on what you heard in the court and what you saw in the court and what you know it was always a possibility maybe i should ask you this judge would you have been surprised if greg domesevich had been found guilty unfortunately a criminal trial is not a search for the truth some people wish it were but it's not that it's a test between the state and an individual citizen and that high burden is there to protect people they may be guilty but that burdens put there to protect them against the might of the state and the reason that burden is so high it's based on the ancient british principle and it's it's roughly it's far better to let 10 guilty men go free than it is for one innocent person to go to jail it's hard for the community to accept that but i suppose that's right but the truth is we're left with greg domicievic quite rightly can say he's not guilty he's been found not guilty yeah is he innocent well that's something other people will debate [Music] adding further to the public perception that a guilty man had walked free a coronal inquest eight years later determined greg domicevich probably contributed to jaden's death and that it was likely he had disposed of his body next i made okay greg who did it thank you thank you oh thanks good one greg a coroner did determine that you had disposed of jaden's body and that you had some responsibility in this that was just part of the corroboration squad and there's no evidence like you didn't dispose of his body no greg has always contested the coronal finding which did not change the jury's verdict in the supreme court that he was not guilty here you are a man who was put before the courts you were found not guilty but all these years later you carry the burden of a public who thinks you are because the police never done their job properly have you ever felt innocent i feel innocent yeah i've caught like but i've got this like guilt thing that if i just didn't [ __ ] up and leave him at home you know there'd be a you know little boy out there and you don't even know like it's just the worst thing like all i can say is i promise that i did not kill jaden but out of all that you know i lost all my house all my assets everything like to pay for you know the case and this and that but to me you know you know bullet you got to bite on because you know it was ultimately me that he's not with us now you know for years after jaden's murder his mother belinda continued to believe greg was innocent because i know myself that i had nothing to do with it was that swimming and belinda i've never believed greg done it never ever never will how do you feel about belinda today i just you know love to say like sorry again like to give her like peace which you know i wish you could have you know like just to know you know the thing of unknowing is just must be just just just unbearable you know and but there is nothing you know what can i say belinda had never seen greg's police interviews until keith moore sent her a copy of the videotapes years later i've got an email from belinda so this is 2003. long time afterwards dear keith i just thought i'll let you know that the tape arrived today and thank you i feel it in my heart and i know it in my head and i've never been so ashamed of myself god knows why i visited him in jail gave him money bought him presents and confessed love to the mongrel it's going to take a long long time to get over this if ever i do it all thanks for making it so clear to me [Music] in my [Music] this case was sensational in every meaning of that word nearly 24 years on the murder of jaden leski remains unsolved a source of pain grief and regret for all involved including everyone here one thing is certain a killer or killers are still walking free from everything you've heard here at the table has anything changed in your view about this case no look after you know more than 20 years of covering this my belief is still that uh that greg never intended and he harmed the jaden he was fond of jaden but my personal belief is that greg is responsible well and i have to say that he absolutely has not been found guilty so therefore he is not responsible at least anything you heard here today and and the interview with greg that changed any of your perceptions or thoughts not so much changed them but um i would say it reinforces how important i think this case is and will continue to be but even if it was resolved tomorrow you know somebody got a guilty verdict i think it would still linger sort of in our collective consciousness so do you roland um have any regrets wish you'd done things differently there are reasons that things were done the way they were um my opinion is that we did still have a a strong circumstantial case but um yeah i i accept as i should uh full responsibility for everything that took place it's a tough place to be isn't it you're you're you can be you're the head of the investigation so much was riding on it and it failed and you haven't changed your mind about [Music] who the prime suspect is who did this not at all no [Music] judge finally i've been very interested in what everyone's had to say but in the end i think from my reading anyway the result although disappointing for many people was probably justified sadly it must be recalled that so many lives have been ruined by these events jaden himself lost belinda greg and many others around them their lives were ruined everybody is eager to find the truth everybody's eager to find a culprit but sometimes we can't do it successfully within the justice system and that's the way it is and that's the way it is with this case that's the way it is with this case [Music] of course if there's still someone out there who knows something whose memory or guilt may have been sparked by what you've seen and heard perhaps it's time to speak up we're all still wanting to know what happened to jaden leski thank you all for joining me and thank you i'm liz hayes good night [Music] hello i'm liz hayes thanks for watching our brand new event series under investigation subscribe to our channel now for more great stories from both under investigation and 60 minutes australia for other exclusive under investigation content visit nine now dot com dot a u and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 1,286,015

Rating: 4.6738863 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, 60Mins, #60Mins, jaidyn leskie, jaiden leskie, murder, unsolved murder, true crime, true crime australia, Greg Domaszewicz, belynda, bylinda, moe, victorian country town, moe town, bogan murder, who killed jaidyn, what happened to jaidyn leskie, leskie murder, toddler murder, Michael Gleeson, the jaidyn leskie murder, babysitter murder, killed by babysitter, unsolved true crime, under investigation, under investigation with liz hayes

Id: QVKyUS1k1Oc

Length: 58min 47sec (3527 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021