Tasmanian Case of Convicted Murderer Sue Neill-Fraser a Mystery Still”
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Networked Knowledge Media Reports Networked Knowledge Sue Neill-Fraser Homepage This page set up by Dr Robert N Moles On 27 November 2016 Patrick Billings and David Killick of the Sunday Tasmanian reported “Tasmanian case of convicted murderer Sue Neill-Fraser a mystery still” One of Tasmania’s most perplexing murder cases began with a pre-dawn call to police about a yacht sitting low in the water off Sandy Bay. As the sun rose over the Derwent on January 27, 2009, officers boarding the 53-foot Four Winds found blood spatter on the stepladder and a knife lying on the floor. A pipe to a toilet had been cut and a ball valve stopcock opened — flooding the boat for the preceding nine to 12 hours. There was no sign of the boat’s 65-year-old co-owner Bob Chappell, who was left aboard by his partner the afternoon before. He has not been seen since. Bob Chappell — the chief radiation physicist at the Royal Hobart Hospital’s Holman Clinic — and Sue Neill-Fraser bought the Four Winds in Queensland in September 2008 for $203,000 and sailed it to Tasmania. The couple was looking forward to taking the yacht on trips near and far once Bob retired, though the boat was plagued with a series of minor problems which quickly took the initial gloss off the purchase. Bob spent Australia Day 2009 tinkering in the vessel’s engine room. The couple had afternoon tea and Sue Neill-Fraser left Bob alone on board, taking the tender and leaving a mobile phone to call in case he needed her. What at first appeared to be a missing persons case took a sudden, sinister, turn. Just two days after the Four Winds was located, police announced the case was being treated as suspicious — that the yacht had been sabotaged, that items were missing and blood had been found. As time went on, the police suspicion that Bob Chappell had been murdered became stronger. Neill-Fraser was charged with murder on August 20, 2009, and pleaded not guilty at a court appearance the following day. THE CASE AGAINST SUE NEILL-FRASER There was no body, no murder weapon and no direct evidence that Neill-Fraser murdered Bob Chappell on Australia Day 2009. Instead, an abundance of circumstantial evidence was used to prove she killed her partner of 18 years by attacking him on their yacht, winching his body on to a tender and dumping the body at sea. The case against Neill-Fraser rested on “the wall of lies” she told in the days and months following his disappearance. Among the myriad of mistruths, there were two lies which prosecutors said the jury should use to convince itself of her guilt: FOR months after the disappearance Neill-Fraser perpetuated a lie about going to Bunnings after leaving Bob aboard the Four Winds on the afternoon of January 26, 2009. Investigators reviewed hours of CCTV footage but could find no trace of the 55-year-old wandering the aisles for hours as she had claimed. In May 2009, aware that detectives had viewed Bunnings cameras, Neill-Fraser retreated from the story telling police she had been mistaken. The then Director of Public Prosecutions Tim Ellis, SC said Neill-Fraser’s changing accounts was the truth “seeping out” around her “wall of lies”. Neill-Fraser spent the night of Bob Chappell’s disappearance alone in the couple’s West Hobart home. At least that’s what she told police. But on March 9 investigators showed Neill-Fraser’s daughters a photo of a car similar to their mother’s on Sandy Bay Rd at 12.15am on January 27. In May, Neill-Fraser finally came clean about not being home all night. She admitted going down to check on Bob from the shore after getting a call from a friend of his daughter’s. Over the phone Richard King said Claire Chappell was suffering delusions about something bad happening to her father. Phillip Paul Thomas Triffett dropped a bombshell at the trial — Neill-Fraser had asked him to help kill her brother and later Bob Chappell in the 1990s. Both murders were to be carried out on boats, the bodies thrown overboard and the vessels sunk. She proposed wrapping Bob’s body in chicken wire, he said. A witness saw what looked like a woman in a dinghy on the night of January 26 coming in the direction of the Royal Yacht Club, where Neill-Fraser had last tied it, and going towards the Four Winds. The next morning the tender was at shore. The rope used to tie it was in the boat, indicating the vessel hadn’t come free by itself. Tim Ellis said it was too much of a coincidence that a stranger happened to use the Four Winds’ unmarked tender to go to the boat. He said if strangers had killed Bob Chappell they wouldn’t have bothered going to such lengths to dispose of the body or sink the boat. The killer’s motives were categorised as greed for an inheritance out of Bob’s estate, disagreement with him over the Four Winds, and the disintegration of their relationship. THE DEFENCE OF SUE NEILL-FRASER THE defence has always argued the case against her is wafer thin, incomplete and too weak to overcome a reasonable doubt. Defence barrister David Gunson, SC, said it was “based entirely on suspicion and nothing else.” They attacked the investigation claiming police had developed “tunnel vision” leading them to exclude all other potential suspects. Neill-Fraser’s lies weren’t malicious or borne from guilt but a result of shock at the loss of her life partner. How could she be expected to give a “blow by blow” account of her every move, they asked. Her fiercest support, daughter Sarah Bowles, wrote in the Mercury in 2014 “she was distraught, in shock and couldn’t eat. That impacted on her memory.” Her failure to tell police for months that she had visited Sandy Bay the night Bob disappeared was to protect his mentally unwell daughter, whose comments that night, via Richard King, had sparked the trip. Phillip Triffett’s credibility as a witness came under fierce attack at trial. The defence revealed he was facing firearm (ammunition) and possession of stolen property charges at the time he came forward to police with information. Triffett, who had a prior conviction for assault, admitting asking police whether his information would help with his charges. He was told it would not. Nonetheless the defence painted his account of Neill-Fraser seeking his help to kill her brother and Bob Chappell as “completely fraudulent and dishonest”. Several witnesses gave accounts of seeing a dinghy tied up to the Four Winds on January 26 that differed in appearance from the tender. They recalled a “grey” dinghy not the white with blue trim tender that belonged to the Four Winds. The defence said this showed other people were aboard the vessel. The defence has continued to criticise the forensic testing of the dinghy which was examined with luminol, a screening agent for blood but not a conclusive one. An enduring aspect of the defence case is the homeless teenager whose DNA was found aboard the Four Winds. David Gunson argued there was “no rational explanation” as to how it got there other than the 15-year-old having been on the boat. She remains a person the defence says is an alternative suspect in the disappearance of Bob Chappell. The dedicated band of Neill-Fraser supporters, including prominent people such as Andrew Wilkie MP, can offer zero insight into what happened to Bob Chappell on Australia Day 2009. Despite this they are probably her greatest asset, ensuring the issue remains in the public eye as they agitate for her release. The jury were unswayed by Neill-Fraser’s defence, delivering a unanimous verdict of guilty after 18 hours of deliberation on October 15, 2010. She is serving 23 years’ jail for the murder of Bob Chappell. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? SUE Neill-Fraser’s bid to have her conviction overturned lies in a piece of legislation that didn’t even exist when she was first accused of murder. If the campaign on her behalf can claim no other success, it is in successfully lobbying for a new avenue for criminal defendants to take their case when all other appeals have been exhausted. While the final form of Sue Neill-Fraser’s case is yet to be revealed, an early draft lodged with the court identified three other people who could have killed Bob Chappell — including a reputed hitman. Neill-Fraser’s legal team also claimed to have fresh evidence that police withheld evidence and bungled forensic tests. In a series of directions hearings, her lawyers have clashed with the new Director of Public Prosecutions Daryl Coates SC over the admissibility of some of the evidence they want to use in their application for leave to appeal. The latest twist is Justice Shan Tennent’s decision to have the case heard by another judge — at a hearing of the special leave to appeal in March. The biggest hurdle in the case is the legislation’s requirement for the appellant to produce evidence that is both “fresh and compelling” before an acquittal or a new trial might be granted. The case has been the subject of countless stories in this newspaper, an award-winning documentary, an ABC Background Briefing report and an eight-part TV series is in production. The continuing legal fight to clear he name makes one thing certain: this case is one which will in the headlines well into 2017, and beyond.