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David Eastman and Colin Winchester: Two 'Cracks' in the Night Echoed Across 30 Years’

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David Eastman and Colin Winchester: Two 'Cracks' in the Night Echoed Across 30 Years’ Networked Knowledge Media Reports Networked Knowledge David Eastman Homepage This page set up by Dr Robert N Moles [Underlining, where it occurs, is for NetK editorial emphasis] On 22 November 2018 Elizabeth Byrne and Jordaon Hayne reported for the ABC ‘David Eastman and Colin Winchester: Two 'cracks' in the night echoed across 30 years’ Man who served 19 years in jail for top cop's murder found not guilty in retrial Two cracks in the darkness, like stones thrown against a window. That is how Gwen Winchester described the gunshots that killed her husband and ignited a legal storm that raged for 30 years. Was it a mafia hit? It seemed logical. But the head of the ACT's police force had more than one enemy. The mafia question lingered throughout media coverage, inquiries, and appeals. But both times the murder went to trial, it was former treasury official David Eastman sitting in the dock. In the middle of the summer holidays, on January 10, 1989, the day-night match between Australian and Pakistan was on TV, and Canberrans were settling in for a quiet night. About 9:15pm, Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner for the ACT Colin Winchester pulled into his elderly neighbour's driveway — knowing she felt safer with a car in front of her home. Mr Winchester was returning from visiting his brother to discuss an upcoming hunting trip, and as he parked, turned to pick up a box of bullets from the passenger seat. Police believe the gunman was standing behind the unmarked police car as Mr Winchester opened the door and moved to get out. The first bullet hit him in the back of the head, and he collapsed inside. Within seconds the gunman stepped to the right and fired another shot to the side of Mr Winchester's head. Two cracks were heard, a noisy car drove off. No one saw anything. An instant investigation VIDEO: Commander Lloyd Worthy speaks to the media the day after Colin Winchester was shot (ABC News) Gwen Winchester initially thought her husband was playing a trick when she saw him slumped in the driver's seat. Then she saw the blood. After rushing into the house to call the police, she went back outside. "I just cuddled him," she would later say. As police descended on the Winchesters' quiet street in the suburb of Deakin, the night turned frantic. In the immediate aftermath, police closed roads and stopped more than 2,000 people to ask for their details. More than 700 houses were doorknocked, motels were checked, and a special taskforce interviewed more than 1,200 people. But even as police swung into action, the investigation was showing signs of fracture. A hangover of unease and tension from the marriage of Canberra's original police force and the Australian Federal Police a decade earlier split investigators in two directions. One group pursued the seemingly obvious theory that the mafia had killed Mr Winchester, while the other quickly focused on a retired public servant with a grudge against police. Why David Eastman? VIDEO: David Eastman is arrested by detectives in December 1992 (ABC News) Highly intelligent and just as stubborn, David Harold Eastman was in the frame almost from the start. After graduating as dux of the prestigious Canberra Grammar school — an honour he shares with Gough Whitlam — the diplomat's son secured work in the Australian Public Service in the mid-1960s. Despite taking time off to care for disabled family members, he rose quickly through the ranks of the APS. But, as courts would later hear, he was hostile and difficult to work with. He left his job at the Treasury Department in 1977, but engaged in several bitter disputes with the public service over the terms of his departure, eventually launching a protracted bid to return. At the time of Colin Winchester's murder Mr Eastman was due to face court on assault charges, after punches were thrown during a fight with a neighbour over a car space. Mr Eastman believed he should not have been charged, going so far as to meet with Mr Winchester and ask for his help to have the matter dropped. On the morning of the killing, a letter arrived at Mr Eastman's flat reading that the police would not intervene. The Crown would later argue Mr Eastman was infuriated, believing the charges could prevent him from re-entering the public service — a motive Mr Eastman's lawyers contested heavily. The long lens of the law When police came knocking the day after the assassination, David Eastman could not account for his movements the night before, saying only that he had been driving around, and "may have" bought take away food. It later emerged that hours after the shooting Mr Eastman was in Fyshwick visiting a sex worker —a woman who went on to give evidence several times. She said in Mr Eastman's 2018 trial that he seemed completely normal, not stressed or anxious. She did not remember any mention of the shooting. Within days of the murder, surveillance of Mr Eastman ramped up. He was followed to the beach in Narooma on the NSW South Coast, and officers would hide in camouflage at the National Botanic Gardens where he would regularly walk. That was the soft surveillance. Chief investigator Ric Ninness took a more robust approach, confronting Mr Eastman in public and asking him questions, after Mr Eastman told police he did not want to talk to them. That method was based on advice from a psychiatrist who had suggested the two- pronged attack as a way to pressure him to crack. It did not work, and nearly 30 years later Mr Eastman still protests his innocence. Police also placed listening devices in the flat next door to Mr Eastman's. It is on these tapes that prosecutors believe he confessed to the murder, allegedly muttering "had to kill him sitting down" and "he was the first man I ever killed". But the quality of the tapes was so bad that Mr Eastman's lawyers said the word "killed" could just as easily have been the word "kissed". The mafia theory The major alternative theory on the murder can be traced back more than a decade earlier, to the killing of Griffith anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay. Lead investigator Mr Ninness was on the scene of Mr Winchester's murder within half an hour of the shooting. "Our first thoughts were the mafia of course," he later said. The era was marked by fears about organised crime and its influence over drug crime in Australia. Colin Winchester had set up Operation Seville in the early 1980s, targeting mafia- linked marijuana crops at Bungendore in NSW, in the hope of finding information about Mr Mackay's murder. He and other officers wanted to let the crops grow and begin to be distributed, hoping it would lead them to more senior members of the group. Several people were eventually charged and were about to face court at the time Mr Winchester was shot. The key witness, an informant dubbed "You Know Who", ultimately refused to give evidence, causing the case to crumble. One theory was that mafia members killed Mr Winchester as payback after realising they were caught in a police trap. The informant emphatically denied telling the group Mr Winchester was involved in the operation. But David Eastman's lawyers produced a police transcript in which he admits he did. Much of the information about the mafia theory was suppressed, or heard in closed court, meaning the full picture of what happened may never come to light. The trial of David Eastman David Eastman was charged over the killing in 1992, after a coronial inquest was re-opened and the coroner ordered his arrest. Six years after the murder, Mr Eastman faced a chaotic first trial, where his behaviour in the courtroom was often the centre of attention. He would frequently disrupt the court with curse-riddled outbursts and he sacked his lawyers many times throughout the trial. After one mid-trial blow up, Mr Eastman's bail was revoked. He would not taste freedom for 19 years. For the rest of the trial he watched proceedings on a television in a room under the court, with Judge Ken Carruthers able to control the volume if he tried to interject. But that did not protect the court from Mr Eastman's outbursts during one stretch while he was representing himself. Justice Carruthers: Well, now do you have any questions by way of cross-examination of the witness? David Eastman: Yes, I would like to ask your honour why you are such a corrupt shit. ... David Eastman: I wish to ask your honour why you are such a lying c***. Justice Carruthers: Yes, well, I will treat that as a no. Mr Eastman has since argued the trial should have been abandoned when his bail was revoked, so that his fitness to plead could be examined. Instead the jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison. But conviction was only the first chapter of Mr Eastman's fight. In the years afterwards, he unsuccessfully mounted appeals and frequent legal bids to gain his freedom, then demanded an inquiry into his conviction. A first inquiry found he was fit to stand trial in the case, but a second inquiry, ordered in 2012, was key to setting him free. Free after 19 years VIDEO: David Eastman freed from Canberra jail after murder conviction quashed (7pm TV News ACT) When Justice Carruthers sentenced Mr Eastman to life in prison, he praised "one of the most skilled, sophisticated and determined forensic investigations in the history of criminal investigation in Australia".
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