56 Twenty six answers
Was the investigation compromised?
Aug 14
51 Two Conflicting Depositions
... and the failure to exhibit a quarter-full box of Bryant and May matches.
Interlude 3
‘Certain persons … have a natural predilection to live in that curious world of espionage and deceit, and attach themselves with equal facility to one side or the other, so long as their craving for adventure of a rather macabre type is satisfied.’
John Masterman, The Double-Cross System.
46 The Big Picture in seven sentences
The engineer was recruited by an allied agency and instructed to pass false information to an intermediary.
The intermediary was recruited by an allied intelligence agency to act as a communist party sympathiser and gain their trust.
The engineer’s information was passed to the intermediary using a coded Rubaiyat.
The intermediary passed the engineer’s messages to a communist agent.
The agent was lured to Adelaide in November 1948. He made his way to the suburb where the intermediary lived and was murdered.
The police investigation was limited in its scope at the direction of the allied agency.
32 The evidence handlers: questions we would have liked to ask
Professor Cleland, Jimmy Durham and James Cowan are questioned
31. The evidence gatherers: questions we would have liked to ask
Cowan and Durham are questioned.
25 What was he poisoned with?
Remarks by James Cowan, Professor Sir Stanton Hicks and Coroner Cleland
23 Where did he die?
Remarks by Coroner Cleland, Professor Cleland, Professor Sir Stanton Hicks, Detective Sergeant Don O'Doherty.
22 The question of lividity
Remarks by Professor Cleland, PC Moss, Gerry Feltus, Dr John Dwyer and Professor Sir Stanton Hicks
19 Did the prints taken from the unclaimed luggage match the prints taken from the body?
A question of procedures
17 The handling of crucial evidence, updated 28 April.
... did Leane make use of the opportunity?
16 Why were metal traces found in SM’s hair?
a simple answer to what was a complex question
15 What happened to ballet dancer Otis Pearce?
He's a ballet dancer with big hands, heavy metal traces in his hair, wedge shaped feet, highly developed calves and suntanned to his upper thighs. His name is Otis Pierce, or Pearce and he disappeared in 1939
14 Eleven inexplicable investigative omissions
eleven reasons not to believe what we've been told
13 The Francis family’s generations of silence
When you wipe your blackboard clean of Francis, other aspects become clearer.
7 Senior government analyst Cowan’s failure to identify a dark powder
he was dumbfounded by the dark powder shaken out of the brush found in the dead man's suitcase ..
6 Why didn’t Detective Sergeant Leane delegate? Updated 30 April.
... when his real job was sitting behind a desk
