The pubic hair found on Rachel’s body could belong to a number of extended family members, but so far all but one has a sound alibi, some interstate and others overseas. It seems that even the cousins want nothing to do with Noelene’s bad brood.”
The prosecutor turned to Anya. “This isn’t enough. We need more on the family.”
Giverny’s rape and death, Rachel’s murder and Sophie’s brutal assault should have been enough, she thought. But the legal system put the onus on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Giverny was dead so that case was compromised. Natasha Ryder was placing all of her hopes for a conviction on the Goodwin case, or any other they could prove. Yet despite physical evidence linking Gary Harbourn to the Goodwins, he could avoid prosecution by pleading insanity.
“I have spoken to a woman who came to the SA unit. She was raped by some of the Harbourn brothers over a year ago.”
Natasha sat forward and flicked open a folder containing a legal pad. “What’s her name? When can I see her?”
“Hold on.” Violet’s name had to remain confidential. “At this stage she still refuses to make a statement, but the forensic evidence from her attack is kept locked in the SA fridge. I’ve spoken to her recently but until she officially comes forward, there’s nothing I can give you. She was involved with the family and is still terrified of them.”
The prosecutor tapped her pen on the pad. “Not good enough. If she knows the family, maybe she can fill us in on some of their dirty secrets, give us something to go on. Can you put pressure on her?”
Anya’s first thought was Giverny Hart and how she had been threatened with the weight of the law if she refused to testify. Violet didn’t deserve that treatment either. “I pushed my luck tracking her down in the first place.”
Hayden considered, “Can you make a statement to the effect that there was a similar pattern of evidence in the attacks between this woman and Giverny?”
“Everything was different. Giverny was randomly snatched off the street, this girl was linked to one of the brothers and was drinking with them when the rapes took place.”
Natasha dropped the pen on the pad. “We’re back to having nothing. Even if she does agree to talk to us, it sounds like a disaster to prosecute. It would be her word against the family’s, no matter what the evidence shows. It always comes back to ‘he said, she said.’” She swiveled around to the window. “We have the murder weapon, but we also need something to connect the Harbourns to the Goodwins
Anya remembered the cropped top Zimmer found at the scene. It had a bloodied fingerprint on it. “What about the print on Rachel’s pink top? The one we think was used to gag her?”
Hayden shook his head. “Fingeprint’s not on file. It doesn’t match anyone in the system.”
“Aren’t all the brothers on file? Each of them has a criminal record.”
“They should, I’ll double check that. Maybe someone else was at the scene that night, like Simon Vine, our phantom friend. So far we’ve only looked at the Harbourns.”
“That’s because they only ever travel and hunt in a pack. The family’s like Medusa’s head,” Natasha said. “You cut one of the snakes off by sending it to jail and another one slithers up to take its place.”
Hayden’s phone rang and he moved away to answer it. A minute later he returned to the table with a large grin.
“We just got two breaks. It seems Noelene Harbourn’s been telling lies. Two of her sons were filmed at a bottle shop that night, nowhere near the Goodwin house when the girls were attacked. With Ian still in prison, that only leaves Patrick and Rick with Gary at the Goodwins. And Rick’s prints weren’t on our data base. It seems he had a juvenile file sealed at the mother’s request. We got a court order to access it. The print on the top was definitely Rick Harbourn’s.”
“So we’ve just narrowed down which three were most likely to be involved.” Natasha smiled for the first time that day.
“Now we crank up the pressure and see which one loses his head first,” Hayden said. “We’ll bring them in for questioning, then charge them.”
Anya asked Natasha about prosecution for Giverny’s rape.
“If we successfully prosecute the Harbourns for Rachel and Sophie, it will be easier to argue that pack rape is their specialty. But if we fail on the first trial, the chances of ever making them pay for what they did to Giverny Hart are too low to even contemplate. It all rides on convicting Gary, Rick and Patrick.”
27
Monday morning, Natasha Ryder strode into court and placed her briefcase on the prosecutor’s table. She looked formidable in her dark trouser suit and mauve shirt for the hearing to establish whether Gary Harbourn was fit to stand trial for the aggravated sexual assault and murder of Rachel Goodwin and the rape and attempted murder of Sophie.
The bail hearing for Rick and Patrick hadn’t gone to plan. Both had been released on bail, their lawyers arguing that they had tried to stop their psychotic brother hurting the Goodwin girls. Rick’s juvenile file was not admissible and he gave some sob story about needing to support his family. Anya couldn’t believe he claimed his fingerprint was on the cropped top because he had removed it from Rachel’s throat, trying to save her life. With passports confiscated, both brothers had been released pending trial.
It may have been cliched, but glasses made Natasha look wiser, and somehow softened her features, which no doubt made her look more sympathetic to juries. This hearing was to be heard in front of a judge, however. Natasha’s role was to convince him that Gary was mentally fit to stand trial. Whether he was insane at the time of the attack was for a jury to decide if the case went to trial.
Trailing behind the prosecutor was a lawyer carting a trolley of files; he took a seat at the table.
Across the aisle sat two lawyers, almost clone-like in appearance. Charcoal suits and single-colored ties, that, at least were each a different color.
Gary sat unshaven, in disheveled clothing, no doubt to look the part of a mentally unstable character, despite the luxury of his psychiatric facility. It also hid the mole that had incriminated him.
The press gallery contained a smattering of journalists, and the public gallery was empty apart from Noelene Harbourn and her supporters. Bevan Hart sat in the back row, with the junior Homicide detective, Shaun Wheeler. It didn’t surprise Anya that Giverny’s father had come to witness the trial, and his appearance with the junior detective was not unusual. Kate and Liz Gould would be testifying, not Wheeler, so there was no reason for him to be excluded from observing. Besides, victims and their families often relied on ongoing support from police to face the legal process.
The court rose for Judge Philip Pascoe.
Anya’s heart sank. He had a reputation for being old school but strongly advocated rehabilitation programs in lieu of tougher sentences, without appreciating that few such opportunities for prisoners existed due to funding constraints. Nevertheless, he continued to err on the side of minimum sentencing, even for repeat offenders. She had no idea about his sympathies toward cases involving the possibility of mental illness.
From the number of age spots and deep lines on his face, he had to be near seventy, the compulsory age for retirement.
Natasha’s confident appearance seemed to evaporate as he entered the room. She fidgeted with a pencil on the desk.
The judge’s assistant outlined the reason for their presence, to establish whether Mr. Gary Harbourn was in fact fit to stand trial for the aforementioned crimes. After a lecture on the significance of the hearing and the responsibility of legal parties, the judge began to hear evidence.
Natasha argued that Harbourn had been calculating and aware enough to flee a search at his home, and the defense played up the fact that he had been in his underpants, jogging at the time-hardly rational behavior.
Anya was stunned to be called by the defense to recount what had happened when she had seen Gary in the hospital, and how he had behaved. All she could do was state the facts and hope the judge would pick up on the
