If hair was found on some clothing then the location at which the hair was found on the clothing becomes important. If head hair was found on the shoulders of a shirt, then, naturally, the first thing to check would be the hair of the person who was wearing the shirt. Most likely it would have come from the person wearing the shirt. If the hair was on underpants, then a comparison of pubic hair would be made first to determine whether or not it came from that location. Naturally, if the hair did not belong to the person wearing the clothing we then asked: ‘Where did it come from? Whose hair was it?’
Trace evidence was found on the right palm of Alan Barnes. It was a paint chip but it was similar to the yellow paint from the railing of the bridge over the reservoir. Also, on his clothes, he had red, blue, yellow and white spray paint. There was vegetation on his clothes, which consisted of minute traces of a common weed, a type of bracken, moss, thistle weed and a rare gum nut. This type of nut was only found in the Adelaide Hills north of the River Torrens and does not grow 1.5 kilometres north of Williamstown. Probably, it came from the nearby area. Silt was in Barnes’ clothing. However, as mica was not present in the silt, the Warren, South Para, Millbrook Reservoirs in the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Reservoir were discounted. We worked on the possibility that he had been washed and cleaned in a dam or catchment area in the Adelaide Hills where the vegetation was found. We wondered whether or not the caravan that might have kept Richard Kelvin captive was near that dam or catchment area. We didn’t check around the location where Mark Langley was found as it was south of the River Torrens but we checked various locations around the airstrip and the Kersbrook/Williamstown area. We were trying to find a place where Alan Barnes could have been held and subsequently washed.
Des Carroll, a tall police officer who now works in the Forensic Science Centre, came with us. He was young and educated. He had gone to university to study botany to help with the identification of cannabis plants, which were becoming more and more prevalent during those years. Now, his training in botany was being used to investigate murders. One possible location where Alan Barnes could have been cleaned was a small roadside park about four kilometres south of Williamstown on the road between Kersbrook and Williamstown. The roadside park looked like it had been created when the new bitumen road had been straightened, allowing the bend to become a roadside park. All the relevant plants were present, including specimens of the rare gum tree. Water was held in low-lying sections of the roadside area, washed from the road and drained from the slopes of the adjacent paddocks. Alan Barnes or his clothes or both could have been washed in the pool of water before he was thrown from the bridge. Why would that have happened? Why would the murderers have wanted to wash the boys?
The bodily fluids from the decomposition of Mark Langley caused problems in obtaining much trace material from his clothes but small quantities of various metals were found on the clothing. As he worked as a plumber, they were explained away. No clothes were found on Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff. Crime scene examiners Ivan Sarvas and John Parkes sifted the area around where Peter was found but if his clothes were dumped with him then the fire destroyed any sign of them.
Des Phillips’ tape lifts from the clothes of Richard Kelvin produced a great deal of trace material. There were many fibres foreign to the clothes and he painstakingly recorded their locations before separating them. The foreign fibres were separated into different colours. He separated blue, turquoise, purple, orange, yellow, black, brown, red and green fibres before handing them to Sandra Mattner, forensic scientist, from the Chemistry Section for analysis. Hairs, not belonging to Richard, were recovered and handed to Dr Harry Harding of the Forensic Biology Laboratory.
These materials had to be examined and those analyses are often slow, painstaking tasks. But as the months passed we learned the importance of the fibres and hairs. Examinations of Richard’s organs also produced clues, and it was these that could be used much sooner.
Things happen at post-mortem examinations which I have not explained previously. Obviously, the body is examined to note and record the physical injuries but there is an examination of the brain and internal organs as well. Examination and tests conducted on different parts of the body help determine the cause of death, which proves whether a killing is deliberate or accidental — obviously, an essential thing to prove in a murder case.
To examine the brain, a scalpel is used to cut across the top of the head and the scalp is pulled to the front and the back, exposing the top of the skull, which is cut using a Hall oscillating saw. The circular blade oscillates rather than rotates. Oscillations of the blade cut bone but do not damage soft tissue. If anyone has had a cast on a broken bone, a saw is used to cut plaster from the limb. The saw does not cut the skin and, in a post-mortem, the saw allows the top of the head to be lifted, exposing the brain and fluid around the brain without it being damaged. The brain is removed and sliced by the pathologist to check for obvious damage. Bruising to the brain and brain stem indicate a knock to the head.
Samples from the body’s organs, blood and urine are taken for examination for any sign of drugs in the
