Wednesday, 5 November 2014

Justice for " Irma " !

Somewhere in Australia a murderer is sweating it out and waiting for the police to come knocking on his door.  If he watched a recent episode of "Sixty Minutes " he will be aware that they are connecting the dots to solve the brutal killing of a woman named "Irma "in Canberra way back in 1999.

Irma and her husband were moderately wealthy but they distrusted banks and preferred to have their assets in cash and gold jewellery - kept at home.  In 1999 two thieves broke into their home, tied them up and viciously bashed them as they tried to locate the loot.  They gagged Irma and blood from this beating pooled - and she literally drowned in her own blood.

Two years prior there had been another similar break-in and Irma had confronted one of the burglars.  During the struggle she had managed to tear the balaclava from his head and she saw his face.  More importantly, the police recovered hair and DNA from the balaclava, but in those days the science of DNA was not advanced.

Now it seems that an unconnected event has delivered the key to this murder.   Five young men broke into an abandoned golf club house in Canberra and police recovered DNA which was subjected to the now ever increasing technology of DNA analysis.   The computer makes routine comparisons between all new samples and the huge police data bank of past crimes - and in this instance it delivered a match.

It seems that science has evolved the ability to match family ancestry in the DNA chain -  and the data from the golf club break-in drew a match with the hair and tissue taken from that balaclava worn by the bandit who bashed Irma, two years before the murder.   This young man is the murderer's son !

Now all the police have to do is find the golf club intruder, and they have gone on Sixty Minutes to advance their search - because there is a half a million dollars reward still posted for information that solves Irma's murder.    That is a tempting windfall for the right information, and it is highly likely that many other young people know who made that senseless break-in which occurred after a nearby social event.

The police are well aware that the two events attempting to rob Irma and her husband are connected, and they are playing the waiting game.   For the murderer, there is the sure knowledge that if any member of his family - his Mum and Dad, siblings, uncles or aunts - and specially his children - come to the notice of the police and have their DNA recorded - the spotlight shines on him and the police will come calling !

It is also a sobering reminder to this nation's crime fraternity.  A carelessly discarded cigarette butt or perhaps a sip from a soft drink can at a previous crime scene for a criminal who has never come to police attention must now hope that no member of his family ever strays to the other side of the law. It brings a totally new dimension to law enforcement.

A decade from now, DNA science will have crossed even more advanced frontiers !

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