August 11, 2019 • 33 mins
A knock on the door delivers despair in the middle of the night. What was Margaret's demeanour in her final hours? Plus, an examination of the crime scene.
Credits:
Presenter / Investigative Crime Journalist - Paula Doneman
Producer / Writer - Sally Eeles
Sound Design - Marc Wright
TV reporter - Mackenzie Ravn
Graphics - Jason Blandford
With thanks to:
The team at 7 News Brisbane, Annette Caltabiano, Georgia Done, Letitia Wallace, Susan Bush, Alex Wright Media, The Daily Mercury and Mackay City Council Library.
Music Credits:
Theme: The Clock is Ticking by Dark Orb Music
https://soundcloud.com/dark_orb_music
Post Rock - Mattia Cupelli
https://www.mattiacupelli.com/
Music from https://filmmusic.io:
"Comfortable Mystery" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Music from https://filmmusic.io:
"Classic Horror 3" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Music from https://filmmusic.io:
"Interloper" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
In nineteen seventy eight, a young mom dies violently in
a small Queensland town. Suicide or murder? What happened to
Margaret Kirstenfeld? Someone knows? This is Pendulum episode four.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm Paula Donoman. Constables Craig Robertson and Peter Howard were
the first police officers to see Margaret's body on the
roadside at Serena on the night of February tenth in
nineteen seventy eight. What was going through your mind?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Something very bad has happened.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
I thought that she'd been learned.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
For Peter, who went inside the house. The scene was
gruesome and traumatic. Had you ever been confronted with the
scene like this before?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I don't recall in thirty years a more disturbing scene
or less particular one.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, the experience was shocking for the offices involved. Learning
of Margaret's death and the brutal circumstances in which she
died was nothing short of horrific for her family. In
the middle of the night, a local Gendowie police officer
turned up on the doorstep of Bunty and David Willet's home.
(02:06):
What did the police officer say to you?
Speaker 5 (02:07):
When he came to your door. Did he wake you up?
Speaker 6 (02:11):
Years would venishly knocking on the doors. I'm wondering what
was going on when we've seen him there. He had
to break the news toos about her.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Do you remember what he said, Bunty, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (02:26):
On the lind got some bad news about your daughter.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I think it was Did he tell you what had
happened to her?
Speaker 5 (02:34):
They murdered her.
Speaker 6 (02:35):
I don't think he went into details, but I think
David followed him out to the car and I think
they had a talk.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Bunty was spared much of the detail. Her husband, David
refused to tell her everything he was told by police,
and later would witness it for himself at Margaret's home
in Serena. Those torturous details would haunt him for the
rest of his life.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
I don't think David took a pretty well you seem
to hit the crawl out today heavier.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, he was a big drinker, but he certainly drank
a lot after her and sort of closed up with
her when you needed and he wasn't here.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Bunty had chatted to Margaret on the phone only hours
before her body was found. You spoke to her on
that night. Can you tell us a little bit about
the conversation you had of your daughter?
Speaker 6 (03:27):
Never heard it beings so excited, happy, laughable.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
What was she happy about?
Speaker 6 (03:33):
Oh, she didn't say what she was happy about that.
She just seen you so happy in a voice and everything.
Don'tahow long we talked four if he was on the payphone, would.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
Have been about eleven o'clock.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
I think ten or eleven.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Understandably, Bunty's recollection of these times, all these years on
can be fuzzy. A little later in our interview, she
says the phone call with Margaret was about eight or
eight thirty pm. She have much to say.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
I don't think what she's writing about, answering questions or
different things?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Did she can I answer the question?
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Did she sound like she'd been drinking at all? I
don't think so. She sounded michael happy.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
She could have had a few drinks. She wasn't slurring,
she wasn't doing anything like that. Just seeing one of
those nights that she was really exority, happy and unhappy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Interestingly, another person who spoke to Margaret hours before her
death said the complete opposite. Twenty nine year old Walter
Wallace told police, Margaret appeared to be down in the dumps.
According to his police statement, he'd been looking after the
corner store on Beach Road at Serena for his sister
in law when Margaret came in about eight fifteen pm.
(05:00):
She bought a couple of large bottles of Coca cola,
and because he was acquainted with her, he jokingly took
her purse, but Wallace says Margaret wasn't her usual happy self.
Before leaving the store, Margaret apparently told him she'd been
drinking heavily in the day's prior and had the sheiks,
(05:21):
and in his statement, Wallace said.
Speaker 7 (05:23):
It didn't matter if she drank or not. She still
woke up the morning after the shakes.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
A few doors down from Margaret's home at forty one
Serena Beach Road, resident Albert Bark saw Margaret's Holden car
leave in the direction of Serena some time between eight
and nine thirty pm. It returned a short time later,
then left again, this time heading in the opposite direction
towards Serena Beach. Once more, it returned within minutes. According
(05:54):
to a police statement, Albert Bark couldn't be sure who
was driving but at around ten thirty that night, he
wandered into his own front yard as a police car
was going past. The police shone a spotlight on him
as they drove by. The police report also states that
(06:17):
another acquaintance of Margaret ky Mattin was a passenger in
a car driven by her mother, which passed by the
curson Felt property between ten twenty and ten thirty that night.
The house was in darkness at that stage, but she
saw Margaret sitting at the top of her front steps.
Her head was bowed, her arms were folded, and she
(06:38):
didn't look up. Bunty knows that Margaret could have her
down days. Her daughter had been sad about three weeks earlier,
when the family had visited Serena for Margaret's birthday. Bunty
recalls the look on her daughter's face as they drove
away from her home. The last time he saw your
(07:01):
daughter alive was just after her twenty first birthday.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
He left and weekend We left up there, Australia weekend.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
And you thought, when you did, you leave a happy
daughter behind when you left.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
I think you soon was going home.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
He really did look down.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Do you think that was because she felt that her
support was going on.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
I think so you know her company at Milan.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Would you say she was lonely without Eberg?
Speaker 8 (07:25):
I think she.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Another local man, Murray Lynch, told police he drove past
Margaret's home at ten forty pm. The police report reads.
Speaker 7 (07:39):
At that time he saw one person lying on the
ground with another person standing nearby. They were not directly
in front of residence. There is little doubt that the
person he saw were the deceased and Dale Payne.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Remember Dale Payne was the teenage motorcyclist who discovered Margaret's body.
He also says he was made to feel like a
suspect in her death. So in the hours after the
discovery of Margaret's body, where was her husband Malcolm? He says,
police found him asleep in a car at his in
law's gen Dowie property. He'd been out for a night
(08:15):
with his mates and had been planning to return to
Margaret at Serena was.
Speaker 9 (08:20):
That mother's place. I had a couple of drinks with
my mates and so I was saying goodbye. I said
goodbye to and said that I was going back up
and I'd got back late to her place. I've been
just sleeping in the car and going early in the morning.
I bad never been packed in the car ready to go.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Next morning, were you sleeping in the car outside the
Willett family home. When did you learn of the news
that your wife was dead?
Speaker 9 (08:47):
Of first, when he was when the door opened and
the police len standing at the door.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
To car, Malcolm was immediately a suspect.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
Well, I asked me that I come down to the
police station and answer some questions I did.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
What were the nature of the questions.
Speaker 9 (09:04):
As to where I was, who I had been, Did
I have an alibiity or whatever? You know?
Speaker 6 (09:09):
Not?
Speaker 9 (09:10):
You know, I said I'd been down for the week.
I'd been. I'd actually been down to my sister's place
at Itchwich.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Not that night, or are you talking about that night?
Speaker 9 (09:19):
No, I came home that afternoon from Midswich on a Friday.
I'd had a few drinks with moms, and I think,
I think about eleven o'clock or twelve o'clock or something.
I locked up around back around there, and I thought, oh,
I'll sleep in the car for three four hours and whatever,
and then I had off up to mccreie early in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And how did you find the police towards you, the
police attitude towards.
Speaker 9 (09:39):
You, But they just sort of sort of trying to determine.
I think, did I have time to get to the
guy who killed Margaret and then back to Gandali. I
think that was their nature of the question, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So they were treating you at that at that stage
like a suspect.
Speaker 9 (09:57):
I will say I would have been their main suspect ASI.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And did they give you any detail or idea of
the circumstances in which Margaret was found?
Speaker 9 (10:06):
Not on that stage, I did nothing, But we sort
of learned more when we got up there and I
had to go into the mcguy's police station. Some sort
of learned more. You know, things were fairly sketching. Nobody
was sort of saying too much a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Margaret's sister deb was nursing at the small hospital in
the town of Dolby at the time of Margaret's death.
Her parents called and told her to come home immediately.
Speaker 9 (10:30):
I r in the.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
Hospital when Dolby because did was nursing. I didn't turn
the straight away, so I think I didn't do it
because she heard it on the way home.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
It was on the radio.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
She was nursing at Derby, so never again, though I
stopped doing that. He did it off knowing straight away.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
You wanted it in the morning to yep, made they
called me earlier Morman.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Six o'clock.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (10:57):
I think the instructions were just come home, Dad, ask
any questions. We're talking when we get here, very very
much about trying not to worry to there's abby.
Speaker 7 (11:08):
Something that's.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Deb says she wasn't working when the call from her
parents came through, but was feeling a little under the
weather after a big night out.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Did we actually hear the news of her death?
Speaker 11 (11:19):
I've been I was a little hungover, so I was nineteen, Yeah,
so it was a little hungover land or.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Kind of got me that Mone was on the phone,
which was quite unusual at six o'clock in the morning.
There's obviously something that was terrible on it would tell
me when I came home. Yes, did you have a
feeling at all about what that? Hope you didn't have.
It has to be something to do with mar but
it always is was it was actually what I thought.
I didn't have a clue about whether it was a death.
(11:49):
It could have been anything.
Speaker 11 (11:50):
I remember other occasions when Mom and Dad I had
to go on the rescue for her. That this was
the first time i'd actually been asked to come home.
I had the radiour and heard it on the radio,
which was.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
A little hard to hear.
Speaker 12 (12:02):
Must have been one hell of a long drive to
care So when I got here Dad, at this point on,
I still didn't know what had happened, and he assumed
that I knew, So he's not saying and.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
People are buzzing around me, volunteers.
Speaker 11 (12:15):
And I think I still didn't know what was going
on for somebody just telling them what's happened, And that's when.
Speaker 8 (12:21):
It was that she had been murdered, and then it
was trying to get some detail and he didn't have it.
Then we had the policeman did come and tell us
that she'd been murdered. And I think for that first
three days I did nothing but build pictures of different
ways of fighting and how that she must have been
going through all that.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Type of depth.
Speaker 8 (12:43):
Do you mean that she would have fought a way
that she'd have played back and just that it just
doesn't fit with the personality. So in my mind I
was building pictures of the fight that she must have
been going through all the end of fear that.
Speaker 11 (12:55):
She must have happened.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
The family tried to come to grips with the bombshell
of Margaret's death. Malcolm David and another family friend got
on a plane to Serena, while Margaret's baby daughter Leslie
was taken by ambulance officers to be cared for at
a local hospital. Arrangements were being made in Jen Dowie
as to who would look after her and her toddler
(13:23):
brother Colin in the future. The police investigation had begun
in the hours after Margaret was found dead. Serena. Officers
Craig Robertson and Peter Howard had waited for the undertaker
to retrieve her body and then were instructed by detectives
from Makai to secure the scene. Remember, both Craig and
(13:48):
Peter believed foul play was involved and possibly that a
killer was on the run. Yet in the crucial hours
following Margaret's death, it appears police did not immediate carry
out an extensive search or door knock. So do you
recall it all, Craig, when door knocks or any of
(14:10):
the actual investigation kicked off. Was it being treated as
a murder at that point? Or a homicide.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Initially it was treated as a suspicious there and if
I recall rightly, the next day detectives immense store knocking
in the in the Beach Road area.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Hi, Neil, it's pauls on them and how are you good?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Thank you, Paul, really good.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Neil Rayward was a scientific police officer who scoured Margaret's
home from memory.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I travel up there from Bushall with a finger ben
expert on the eleventh Cteborary and took up the detective
sergeant hasn't camp another police at the Macao police station.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Do you recall what your briefing was when you were
asked to attend?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Oh, it's just to make a scientific examination of the scene, Serena,
and maybe form some opinions as to how what I
thought may have happened in the house and then the
yard at that address.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Do you recall whether any of the investigators or responding
police had shared any of their insights with you as
to what they were dealing with.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Well, when I arrived, I believe they certainly thought they
were dealing with their suspicious death.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
My discussion with Neil is quite lengthy in detail, because
I wanted a first hand account of someone who spent
time examining the crime scene and blood patterns. He explains
exactly what he saw and interprets what may have happened.
As part of this process, I also provided Neil with
the statement that he had given to police at the time,
(15:48):
and to what he also supplied the following current inquest,
do you recall what your first impressions were arriving at
the house?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Well, the first impression was that there was certainly a
lot of blood, especially in the bedroom. The two pilothes
were soaped, and the blood is soaped through the top mattress,
and there's a second mattress that have soaped through that.
And there were some blood droplets from the bedroom out
front stairs down into the air. So there's appeared to
(16:20):
be a lot of loss of blood. And I had
to china a certain maybe from this blood as to
what may have happened on that night. Before I write.
The first thing I did was to assess the crime scene,
conduct as a search both inside the house and the
yard area of the house, and then from there I
(16:41):
made notes of my observations and I picked the bench
to any weapons that may have been in the house,
that may have flicked the wound on the deceased, and
also the patterns of blood that the present on the
floors of walls, especially in the bedroom of the house,
(17:03):
is that where.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
You think the worse of her injuries were inflicted.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
I was of the opinion that the injuries were inflicted
to the deceased when the shoe was lying down in bed.
Certainly that was the indication I got from the very
heavy bloodstaining on the top end of the bed where
you normally would rest your head.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
So, just going back to nineteen seventy eight, because obviously
technology and forensic science has changed and developed so much,
could the crime scene tell you that Margaret was actually
lying in bed when the injuries were inflicted.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Well, that was the opinion I formed. There was no
heavy blood staining anywhere other than on the bed, and
as a result of my touch knowledge of the injuries,
it's certainly even to me that the injuries were sustained
whilst she was lying in bed.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Okay, so at some point she must have been lying
on the bed, either being knocked down or falling down,
that is correct.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And then there's a passion of blood drop from the
bedroom out along the hallway down the stairs and into
the yard, so it would see that there was some
way that decease had made her way from the bed
out in the yard about eleven meters I think from
the front stairs of the house.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Given what obviously is now known about the nature of
Margaret's injuries, which included a deep throat wound, was it
odd to you that a woman of Margaret's stature, with
those level of injuries was able to walk or stumble
or stagger as far as she did. I mean, that's
(18:39):
quite a distance when you think about the severity of
those injuries.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Whilst I'm not an expert on what a human can
do after a heavy lot of blood, as we saw there,
to me it seemed very unusual that the person with
all that lots of blood could make a way out
into the yard. I had different in understanding how that
could have happened, But once again, all I can say
(19:05):
is that I'm not aware of how much blood she
did lose, and whether she had lost that much blood
she would be capable of any movement and to get outside.
So that was that's the problems of the photologists, who
may have been more able to ascertain that or give
an opinion on that.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
So the fact that she was able to do that
didn't lead you to draw conclusion of whether the injuries
were self inflicted or they had been inflicted by well.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
From my examination on that day, I've been swayed was
opinion that the fact was she had met the foul play.
That was my estimation from experience I've seen of such
scenes in the past.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Going by your police statement from the time, Neil, you
also mentioned that there are marks on the walls where
it appeared that Margaret may have tried to steady herself.
Did you ascertain that was actually her blood on the wall?
Speaker 4 (20:02):
There was the marks around the front door area and
on the wall there and in the bedroom as well.
There was blood on the floor. The drops had hit
the floor vertically, and there were lots of blood on
the wall. Behind me, you had a bed which looked
like a cast off from someone who had been reeling
(20:22):
a weapon similar that blood had splash from the weapon
or a hand on and the blood had made its
weight onto the wall. There wasn't wasn't much smearing of
blood as I can recall, So they're going to't have
cast off splatters from the weapon or the hands of
the deceased, or from the weapon being held by someone
(20:45):
else who's made a movement away from the particular object
that may have been a person that made.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Could you ascertain what height the knife that was used
to inflict her throating injury would have had to have
been held?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Well, I think from memory now the blood stain was
up to about half a meter above the level of
the mattresses on the bed behind the bed, So that
was indication that blood had been cast off a weapon
or for the arms or hands of some person to
cause that high on the wall.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Would Margaret's own outstretched arm? Could that have been a.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Possibility That could certainly cause that. It's really a movement
of the arm or the weapon with a glossy that's
caused the blood to fling from the arm or the
knife onto the wall. So certainly it could go higher,
(21:48):
just depends on what speed the knife was move or
the arm holding the knifeers move during the event.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
The blood smears and drops that you found on that
trail leading from the bedroom to the outer part of
the house, were you able to confirm that was in
fact Margaret's.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Blood that was handed to the forensic biologist and on
the blood that was found in the house had belonged
to Margaret, and the droplets of blood from the bed,
through the bedroom, through the poorway, through the front stairs
appeared to be as though they dropped vertically hit the
floor in a vertical at ninety threes. What is the
(22:30):
significance is that, well, someone well ext if you're standing upright,
the blood would be dripping down with the vertical dripping down.
There was certainly no smears of blood as such as
this someone was being dragged through the house, which is
quite different appearance. Of course if someone was vertical and
(22:54):
walking and blood has dropped down during this movement, so
that as that would be the difference there. That is
what made it a bit unique in someone had been
vertical and walking as they were going towards the front stairs.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
You mentioned that all the blood found in the house
belonged to Margaret. Did that also include the blood on
the rear door, on the back door, I think there's
a laundry door as well.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Blood that the rear door was from an unidentified source.
There were free specimens of blood was compared with them
for memory their blood on the rear door, as someone
may have been exiting the rear of the house so
as not belong to either Margaret or to the two
other persons that the sample of blood had been attained from.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Would that have suggested that there may have been another
person in the house.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Well, it may have been another person in the house
or veins did appear fairly fresh, but they could have
been from another instant. It may have happened in the house.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
I couldn't say one way or the other, but certainly
the indication that maybe someone had left by the back
door and there was blood on this person that wasn't
belonging to Margaret. Whether the blood belonged to the person
in the house at the time, I can't say.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Could you explain why there was no blood found between
Margaret's bedroom in the kitchen. No.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
I know that there was a knife found in the
sink and a pair of found in the sink that
had blood identified blood on them from Margaret, and one
explanation perhaps could be that these items could have been
taken to the sink after the event. There were just
smears of blood on the weaponry on these two items,
(24:54):
and if some ajries had been sustained in the kitchen
and there wasn't sufficient damage to call the blood to
drop from the person, or that could be another explanation
as well.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Even though I did appear though that the majority of
the blood found was in the bedroom, that is correct.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yeah, there's nothing to indicate that there was a person
had been badly injured and had made passage from the
sink in this bedroom. There's nothing to indicate that whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So there's nothing really sort of any rhyme or reason
as to why the blood trail would have stopped between
the bedroom and the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
No, that's correct. It would appear that the blood in
the hole in the bed in certainly in the hallway
from the beds in the front of the house. There's
no correlation with that with anything that I found in
the kitchen. There was no blood on the sink or
on the kitchen floor, just these two islands, which is
a blood on.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
The actual murder weapon I believe was a serrated knife
with a tea towel wrapped around it.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
That is correct. There was a knife found that the
foot of the bed some recollection and that and this
tea towel is staying with blood, so that would appear
to be the weapon that caused the majority of the
damage to the threat of the deceased.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
With the tea towel wrapped around the knife handle, what
does that say to you?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Well, it's most unusual and I really had not given
it much thought. But maybe it may have been some
attempt to tail the flow of blood during the incident,
and for whatever reason, the tea towel is wrapped around
the knife. But I really can't explain why there's the
(26:42):
tetawel wrapped around the blade of the knife. That's most unusual.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Could it be that it would be someone trying to
hide their fingerprints.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
That could be one reason for it to certainly mask
any fingerprints that the person's holding a knife didn't one
to have fingerprints found on the handle of the knife,
which if it was not covering the teeth power, there's
every possibility that bloodstains and the prince could have been
been on the handle of knife. And I can't recall
(27:13):
whether it's plastic handle knife or see your handle or
wooden handle, but that was certainly one explanation for why
that had occurred.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And the second knife found in the sink, along with
the with the scissors, had parts of hair from Margaret's
head as well as some blood on it.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Yes, there was identified at her head hair on that knife.
I think it was just a single strand I can't
recall now, but there was hair removed from the knife
and the blade of the scissors. Of one blade of
the scissors, the tip had been broken. Also, whether that
may have happened anytime prior to the event, I didn't
(27:52):
think it could happen during the event. I can't explain
the blood on the scissors, although I was where there's
another injury to the body which may have resulted from
the scissors being used for that injury in.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Relation to the injury that was found in her vagina.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
And it's correct, Yes, there was a wound there which
was a having type wound.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You didn't know at that point that she had suffered
any internal injuries.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
No, I didn't know anything at all, or I knew
that I was told that her faith was very severely cut,
and that was all the information I had when I
conducted my examination until the next day the pathologist had
found this other injury which was completely separate to the
neck injury.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And were there any signs of struggle in Margaret's house?
Speaker 4 (28:46):
No signs of struggle whatsoever. There was nothing to indicate
that there was a struggle in the bedroom or in
any other area of the house.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Officer Raywood took blood samples from the scene. He also
bagged some items for further examination.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, I took the pillow slips offer to bloodstained pillow,
and these sheets were removed from the bed. That's a
standard practice and that didn't listit any information. Had just
said that this blood was from the decease, which we
were expected.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
So at the end of your initial investigation, before you
got to the post autumn, had you formed any opinion
in your mind as to what had happened that night To.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Margaret, I had not formed the opinion, but from my
gamination of scene and the amount of blood I saw
that had been lost from the victim, you know, I
was tending more towards thinking that it could have been
as we look our play, and I certainly hadn't had
any thoughts in my mind for memory that would have
(29:54):
been a suicide.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
For the first officers on the scene. The fact that
baby Leslie had been found unharmed sleeping in her cot
added weight to the murder theory. This is Craig Robertson again.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Well, I certainly. It immediately piqued my interest in that
we've got a deceased female laying in the front yard,
if we have a very young baby harmed within the house,
my initial gut reaction was that feil play was involved.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
The lead detective from Mackay, Sergeant Milton Hassenkam known to
most of his colleagues. As Bill Hassenham wrote.
Speaker 13 (30:44):
In his report, during the investigation, I did consider the
possibility that the deceased had committed suicide. I discarded the
possibility due to the fact that I could not find
blood between the bedroom and the kitchen in the deceased home,
and I found a difficul to accept the fact that
a woman would commit suicide by cutting her.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Throat while Margaret's family was planning a funeral. The investigation
was about to take a very different turn. Next time
(31:24):
on Pendulum, a post mortem report shatters theories of foul play.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
The appearance of the neck would suggest that it was
self inflicted.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Wow. I think there was a dismay amongst the investigators.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But could the pathologists who examined Margaret's body have got
it wrong? If you have information about the Margaret Kirstenfeld case,
(32:21):
please let us know. Email us at Pendulum podcast at
gmail dot com, or go to seven news dot com
dot AU Forward Slash Pendulum presenter and executive producer Paula Donovan,
(32:45):
Writer and producer Sally Eels. Sound design Mark Wright, Graphics
Jason Blandford, Transcripts Susan Bush. Our theme music is the
Clock Is Ticking by Dark All music See our show
(33:08):
notes for full music credits. With thanks to seven Years
Brisbane
In nineteen seventy eight, a young mom dies violently in
a small Queensland town. Suicide or murder? What happened to
Margaret Kirstenfeld? Someone knows? This is Pendulum episode four.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm Paula Donoman. Constables Craig Robertson and Peter Howard were
the first police officers to see Margaret's body on the
roadside at Serena on the night of February tenth in
nineteen seventy eight. What was going through your mind?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Something very bad has happened.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
I thought that she'd been learned.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
For Peter, who went inside the house. The scene was
gruesome and traumatic. Had you ever been confronted with the
scene like this before?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I don't recall in thirty years a more disturbing scene
or less particular one.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, the experience was shocking for the offices involved. Learning
of Margaret's death and the brutal circumstances in which she
died was nothing short of horrific for her family. In
the middle of the night, a local Gendowie police officer
turned up on the doorstep of Bunty and David Willet's home.
(02:06):
What did the police officer say to you?
Speaker 5 (02:07):
When he came to your door. Did he wake you up?
Speaker 6 (02:11):
Years would venishly knocking on the doors. I'm wondering what
was going on when we've seen him there. He had
to break the news toos about her.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Do you remember what he said, Bunty, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (02:26):
On the lind got some bad news about your daughter.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I think it was Did he tell you what had
happened to her?
Speaker 5 (02:34):
They murdered her.
Speaker 6 (02:35):
I don't think he went into details, but I think
David followed him out to the car and I think
they had a talk.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Bunty was spared much of the detail. Her husband, David
refused to tell her everything he was told by police,
and later would witness it for himself at Margaret's home
in Serena. Those torturous details would haunt him for the
rest of his life.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
I don't think David took a pretty well you seem
to hit the crawl out today heavier.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, he was a big drinker, but he certainly drank
a lot after her and sort of closed up with
her when you needed and he wasn't here.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Bunty had chatted to Margaret on the phone only hours
before her body was found. You spoke to her on
that night. Can you tell us a little bit about
the conversation you had of your daughter?
Speaker 6 (03:27):
Never heard it beings so excited, happy, laughable.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
What was she happy about?
Speaker 6 (03:33):
Oh, she didn't say what she was happy about that.
She just seen you so happy in a voice and everything.
Don'tahow long we talked four if he was on the payphone, would.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
Have been about eleven o'clock.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
I think ten or eleven.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Understandably, Bunty's recollection of these times, all these years on
can be fuzzy. A little later in our interview, she
says the phone call with Margaret was about eight or
eight thirty pm. She have much to say.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
I don't think what she's writing about, answering questions or
different things?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Did she can I answer the question?
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Did she sound like she'd been drinking at all? I
don't think so. She sounded michael happy.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
She could have had a few drinks. She wasn't slurring,
she wasn't doing anything like that. Just seeing one of
those nights that she was really exority, happy and unhappy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Interestingly, another person who spoke to Margaret hours before her
death said the complete opposite. Twenty nine year old Walter
Wallace told police, Margaret appeared to be down in the dumps.
According to his police statement, he'd been looking after the
corner store on Beach Road at Serena for his sister
in law when Margaret came in about eight fifteen pm.
(05:00):
She bought a couple of large bottles of Coca cola,
and because he was acquainted with her, he jokingly took
her purse, but Wallace says Margaret wasn't her usual happy self.
Before leaving the store, Margaret apparently told him she'd been
drinking heavily in the day's prior and had the sheiks,
(05:21):
and in his statement, Wallace said.
Speaker 7 (05:23):
It didn't matter if she drank or not. She still
woke up the morning after the shakes.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
A few doors down from Margaret's home at forty one
Serena Beach Road, resident Albert Bark saw Margaret's Holden car
leave in the direction of Serena some time between eight
and nine thirty pm. It returned a short time later,
then left again, this time heading in the opposite direction
towards Serena Beach. Once more, it returned within minutes. According
(05:54):
to a police statement, Albert Bark couldn't be sure who
was driving but at around ten thirty that night, he
wandered into his own front yard as a police car
was going past. The police shone a spotlight on him
as they drove by. The police report also states that
(06:17):
another acquaintance of Margaret ky Mattin was a passenger in
a car driven by her mother, which passed by the
curson Felt property between ten twenty and ten thirty that night.
The house was in darkness at that stage, but she
saw Margaret sitting at the top of her front steps.
Her head was bowed, her arms were folded, and she
(06:38):
didn't look up. Bunty knows that Margaret could have her
down days. Her daughter had been sad about three weeks earlier,
when the family had visited Serena for Margaret's birthday. Bunty
recalls the look on her daughter's face as they drove
away from her home. The last time he saw your
(07:01):
daughter alive was just after her twenty first birthday.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
He left and weekend We left up there, Australia weekend.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
And you thought, when you did, you leave a happy
daughter behind when you left.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
I think you soon was going home.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
He really did look down.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Do you think that was because she felt that her
support was going on.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
I think so you know her company at Milan.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Would you say she was lonely without Eberg?
Speaker 8 (07:25):
I think she.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Another local man, Murray Lynch, told police he drove past
Margaret's home at ten forty pm. The police report reads.
Speaker 7 (07:39):
At that time he saw one person lying on the
ground with another person standing nearby. They were not directly
in front of residence. There is little doubt that the
person he saw were the deceased and Dale Payne.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Remember Dale Payne was the teenage motorcyclist who discovered Margaret's body.
He also says he was made to feel like a
suspect in her death. So in the hours after the
discovery of Margaret's body, where was her husband Malcolm? He says,
police found him asleep in a car at his in
law's gen Dowie property. He'd been out for a night
(08:15):
with his mates and had been planning to return to
Margaret at Serena was.
Speaker 9 (08:20):
That mother's place. I had a couple of drinks with
my mates and so I was saying goodbye. I said
goodbye to and said that I was going back up
and I'd got back late to her place. I've been
just sleeping in the car and going early in the morning.
I bad never been packed in the car ready to go.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Next morning, were you sleeping in the car outside the
Willett family home. When did you learn of the news
that your wife was dead?
Speaker 9 (08:47):
Of first, when he was when the door opened and
the police len standing at the door.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
To car, Malcolm was immediately a suspect.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
Well, I asked me that I come down to the
police station and answer some questions I did.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
What were the nature of the questions.
Speaker 9 (09:04):
As to where I was, who I had been, Did
I have an alibiity or whatever? You know?
Speaker 6 (09:09):
Not?
Speaker 9 (09:10):
You know, I said I'd been down for the week.
I'd been. I'd actually been down to my sister's place
at Itchwich.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Not that night, or are you talking about that night?
Speaker 9 (09:19):
No, I came home that afternoon from Midswich on a Friday.
I'd had a few drinks with moms, and I think,
I think about eleven o'clock or twelve o'clock or something.
I locked up around back around there, and I thought, oh,
I'll sleep in the car for three four hours and whatever,
and then I had off up to mccreie early in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And how did you find the police towards you, the
police attitude towards.
Speaker 9 (09:39):
You, But they just sort of sort of trying to determine.
I think, did I have time to get to the
guy who killed Margaret and then back to Gandali. I
think that was their nature of the question, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So they were treating you at that at that stage
like a suspect.
Speaker 9 (09:57):
I will say I would have been their main suspect ASI.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And did they give you any detail or idea of
the circumstances in which Margaret was found?
Speaker 9 (10:06):
Not on that stage, I did nothing, But we sort
of learned more when we got up there and I
had to go into the mcguy's police station. Some sort
of learned more. You know, things were fairly sketching. Nobody
was sort of saying too much a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Margaret's sister deb was nursing at the small hospital in
the town of Dolby at the time of Margaret's death.
Her parents called and told her to come home immediately.
Speaker 9 (10:30):
I r in the.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
Hospital when Dolby because did was nursing. I didn't turn
the straight away, so I think I didn't do it
because she heard it on the way home.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
It was on the radio.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
She was nursing at Derby, so never again, though I
stopped doing that. He did it off knowing straight away.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
You wanted it in the morning to yep, made they
called me earlier Morman.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Six o'clock.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (10:57):
I think the instructions were just come home, Dad, ask
any questions. We're talking when we get here, very very
much about trying not to worry to there's abby.
Speaker 7 (11:08):
Something that's.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Deb says she wasn't working when the call from her
parents came through, but was feeling a little under the
weather after a big night out.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Did we actually hear the news of her death?
Speaker 11 (11:19):
I've been I was a little hungover, so I was nineteen, Yeah,
so it was a little hungover land or.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Kind of got me that Mone was on the phone,
which was quite unusual at six o'clock in the morning.
There's obviously something that was terrible on it would tell
me when I came home. Yes, did you have a
feeling at all about what that? Hope you didn't have.
It has to be something to do with mar but
it always is was it was actually what I thought.
I didn't have a clue about whether it was a death.
(11:49):
It could have been anything.
Speaker 11 (11:50):
I remember other occasions when Mom and Dad I had
to go on the rescue for her. That this was
the first time i'd actually been asked to come home.
I had the radiour and heard it on the radio,
which was.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
A little hard to hear.
Speaker 12 (12:02):
Must have been one hell of a long drive to
care So when I got here Dad, at this point on,
I still didn't know what had happened, and he assumed
that I knew, So he's not saying and.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
People are buzzing around me, volunteers.
Speaker 11 (12:15):
And I think I still didn't know what was going
on for somebody just telling them what's happened, And that's when.
Speaker 8 (12:21):
It was that she had been murdered, and then it
was trying to get some detail and he didn't have it.
Then we had the policeman did come and tell us
that she'd been murdered. And I think for that first
three days I did nothing but build pictures of different
ways of fighting and how that she must have been
going through all that.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Type of depth.
Speaker 8 (12:43):
Do you mean that she would have fought a way
that she'd have played back and just that it just
doesn't fit with the personality. So in my mind I
was building pictures of the fight that she must have
been going through all the end of fear that.
Speaker 11 (12:55):
She must have happened.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
The family tried to come to grips with the bombshell
of Margaret's death. Malcolm David and another family friend got
on a plane to Serena, while Margaret's baby daughter Leslie
was taken by ambulance officers to be cared for at
a local hospital. Arrangements were being made in Jen Dowie
as to who would look after her and her toddler
(13:23):
brother Colin in the future. The police investigation had begun
in the hours after Margaret was found dead. Serena. Officers
Craig Robertson and Peter Howard had waited for the undertaker
to retrieve her body and then were instructed by detectives
from Makai to secure the scene. Remember, both Craig and
(13:48):
Peter believed foul play was involved and possibly that a
killer was on the run. Yet in the crucial hours
following Margaret's death, it appears police did not immediate carry
out an extensive search or door knock. So do you
recall it all, Craig, when door knocks or any of
(14:10):
the actual investigation kicked off. Was it being treated as
a murder at that point? Or a homicide.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Initially it was treated as a suspicious there and if
I recall rightly, the next day detectives immense store knocking
in the in the Beach Road area.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Hi, Neil, it's pauls on them and how are you good?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Thank you, Paul, really good.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Neil Rayward was a scientific police officer who scoured Margaret's
home from memory.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I travel up there from Bushall with a finger ben
expert on the eleventh Cteborary and took up the detective
sergeant hasn't camp another police at the Macao police station.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Do you recall what your briefing was when you were
asked to attend?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Oh, it's just to make a scientific examination of the scene, Serena,
and maybe form some opinions as to how what I
thought may have happened in the house and then the
yard at that address.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Do you recall whether any of the investigators or responding
police had shared any of their insights with you as
to what they were dealing with.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Well, when I arrived, I believe they certainly thought they
were dealing with their suspicious death.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
My discussion with Neil is quite lengthy in detail, because
I wanted a first hand account of someone who spent
time examining the crime scene and blood patterns. He explains
exactly what he saw and interprets what may have happened.
As part of this process, I also provided Neil with
the statement that he had given to police at the time,
(15:48):
and to what he also supplied the following current inquest,
do you recall what your first impressions were arriving at
the house?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Well, the first impression was that there was certainly a
lot of blood, especially in the bedroom. The two pilothes
were soaped, and the blood is soaped through the top mattress,
and there's a second mattress that have soaped through that.
And there were some blood droplets from the bedroom out
front stairs down into the air. So there's appeared to
(16:20):
be a lot of loss of blood. And I had
to china a certain maybe from this blood as to
what may have happened on that night. Before I write.
The first thing I did was to assess the crime scene,
conduct as a search both inside the house and the
yard area of the house, and then from there I
(16:41):
made notes of my observations and I picked the bench
to any weapons that may have been in the house,
that may have flicked the wound on the deceased, and
also the patterns of blood that the present on the
floors of walls, especially in the bedroom of the house,
(17:03):
is that where.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
You think the worse of her injuries were inflicted.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
I was of the opinion that the injuries were inflicted
to the deceased when the shoe was lying down in bed.
Certainly that was the indication I got from the very
heavy bloodstaining on the top end of the bed where
you normally would rest your head.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
So, just going back to nineteen seventy eight, because obviously
technology and forensic science has changed and developed so much,
could the crime scene tell you that Margaret was actually
lying in bed when the injuries were inflicted.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Well, that was the opinion I formed. There was no
heavy blood staining anywhere other than on the bed, and
as a result of my touch knowledge of the injuries,
it's certainly even to me that the injuries were sustained
whilst she was lying in bed.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Okay, so at some point she must have been lying
on the bed, either being knocked down or falling down,
that is correct.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And then there's a passion of blood drop from the
bedroom out along the hallway down the stairs and into
the yard, so it would see that there was some
way that decease had made her way from the bed
out in the yard about eleven meters I think from
the front stairs of the house.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Given what obviously is now known about the nature of
Margaret's injuries, which included a deep throat wound, was it
odd to you that a woman of Margaret's stature, with
those level of injuries was able to walk or stumble
or stagger as far as she did. I mean, that's
(18:39):
quite a distance when you think about the severity of
those injuries.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Whilst I'm not an expert on what a human can
do after a heavy lot of blood, as we saw there,
to me it seemed very unusual that the person with
all that lots of blood could make a way out
into the yard. I had different in understanding how that
could have happened, But once again, all I can say
(19:05):
is that I'm not aware of how much blood she
did lose, and whether she had lost that much blood
she would be capable of any movement and to get outside.
So that was that's the problems of the photologists, who
may have been more able to ascertain that or give
an opinion on that.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
So the fact that she was able to do that
didn't lead you to draw conclusion of whether the injuries
were self inflicted or they had been inflicted by well.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
From my examination on that day, I've been swayed was
opinion that the fact was she had met the foul play.
That was my estimation from experience I've seen of such
scenes in the past.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Going by your police statement from the time, Neil, you
also mentioned that there are marks on the walls where
it appeared that Margaret may have tried to steady herself.
Did you ascertain that was actually her blood on the wall?
Speaker 4 (20:02):
There was the marks around the front door area and
on the wall there and in the bedroom as well.
There was blood on the floor. The drops had hit
the floor vertically, and there were lots of blood on
the wall. Behind me, you had a bed which looked
like a cast off from someone who had been reeling
(20:22):
a weapon similar that blood had splash from the weapon
or a hand on and the blood had made its
weight onto the wall. There wasn't wasn't much smearing of
blood as I can recall, So they're going to't have
cast off splatters from the weapon or the hands of
the deceased, or from the weapon being held by someone
(20:45):
else who's made a movement away from the particular object
that may have been a person that made.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Could you ascertain what height the knife that was used
to inflict her throating injury would have had to have
been held?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Well, I think from memory now the blood stain was
up to about half a meter above the level of
the mattresses on the bed behind the bed, So that
was indication that blood had been cast off a weapon
or for the arms or hands of some person to
cause that high on the wall.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Would Margaret's own outstretched arm? Could that have been a.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Possibility That could certainly cause that. It's really a movement
of the arm or the weapon with a glossy that's
caused the blood to fling from the arm or the
knife onto the wall. So certainly it could go higher,
(21:48):
just depends on what speed the knife was move or
the arm holding the knifeers move during the event.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
The blood smears and drops that you found on that
trail leading from the bedroom to the outer part of
the house, were you able to confirm that was in
fact Margaret's.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Blood that was handed to the forensic biologist and on
the blood that was found in the house had belonged
to Margaret, and the droplets of blood from the bed,
through the bedroom, through the poorway, through the front stairs
appeared to be as though they dropped vertically hit the
floor in a vertical at ninety threes. What is the
(22:30):
significance is that, well, someone well ext if you're standing upright,
the blood would be dripping down with the vertical dripping down.
There was certainly no smears of blood as such as
this someone was being dragged through the house, which is
quite different appearance. Of course if someone was vertical and
(22:54):
walking and blood has dropped down during this movement, so
that as that would be the difference there. That is
what made it a bit unique in someone had been
vertical and walking as they were going towards the front stairs.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
You mentioned that all the blood found in the house
belonged to Margaret. Did that also include the blood on
the rear door, on the back door, I think there's
a laundry door as well.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Blood that the rear door was from an unidentified source.
There were free specimens of blood was compared with them
for memory their blood on the rear door, as someone
may have been exiting the rear of the house so
as not belong to either Margaret or to the two
other persons that the sample of blood had been attained from.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Would that have suggested that there may have been another
person in the house.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Well, it may have been another person in the house
or veins did appear fairly fresh, but they could have
been from another instant. It may have happened in the house.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
I couldn't say one way or the other, but certainly
the indication that maybe someone had left by the back
door and there was blood on this person that wasn't
belonging to Margaret. Whether the blood belonged to the person
in the house at the time, I can't say.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Could you explain why there was no blood found between
Margaret's bedroom in the kitchen. No.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
I know that there was a knife found in the
sink and a pair of found in the sink that
had blood identified blood on them from Margaret, and one
explanation perhaps could be that these items could have been
taken to the sink after the event. There were just
smears of blood on the weaponry on these two items,
(24:54):
and if some ajries had been sustained in the kitchen
and there wasn't sufficient damage to call the blood to
drop from the person, or that could be another explanation
as well.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Even though I did appear though that the majority of
the blood found was in the bedroom, that is correct.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yeah, there's nothing to indicate that there was a person
had been badly injured and had made passage from the
sink in this bedroom. There's nothing to indicate that whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So there's nothing really sort of any rhyme or reason
as to why the blood trail would have stopped between
the bedroom and the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
No, that's correct. It would appear that the blood in
the hole in the bed in certainly in the hallway
from the beds in the front of the house. There's
no correlation with that with anything that I found in
the kitchen. There was no blood on the sink or
on the kitchen floor, just these two islands, which is
a blood on.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
The actual murder weapon I believe was a serrated knife
with a tea towel wrapped around it.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
That is correct. There was a knife found that the
foot of the bed some recollection and that and this
tea towel is staying with blood, so that would appear
to be the weapon that caused the majority of the
damage to the threat of the deceased.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
With the tea towel wrapped around the knife handle, what
does that say to you?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Well, it's most unusual and I really had not given
it much thought. But maybe it may have been some
attempt to tail the flow of blood during the incident,
and for whatever reason, the tea towel is wrapped around
the knife. But I really can't explain why there's the
(26:42):
tetawel wrapped around the blade of the knife. That's most unusual.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Could it be that it would be someone trying to
hide their fingerprints.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
That could be one reason for it to certainly mask
any fingerprints that the person's holding a knife didn't one
to have fingerprints found on the handle of the knife,
which if it was not covering the teeth power, there's
every possibility that bloodstains and the prince could have been
been on the handle of knife. And I can't recall
(27:13):
whether it's plastic handle knife or see your handle or
wooden handle, but that was certainly one explanation for why
that had occurred.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And the second knife found in the sink, along with
the with the scissors, had parts of hair from Margaret's
head as well as some blood on it.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Yes, there was identified at her head hair on that knife.
I think it was just a single strand I can't
recall now, but there was hair removed from the knife
and the blade of the scissors. Of one blade of
the scissors, the tip had been broken. Also, whether that
may have happened anytime prior to the event, I didn't
(27:52):
think it could happen during the event. I can't explain
the blood on the scissors, although I was where there's
another injury to the body which may have resulted from
the scissors being used for that injury in.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Relation to the injury that was found in her vagina.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
And it's correct, Yes, there was a wound there which
was a having type wound.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You didn't know at that point that she had suffered
any internal injuries.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
No, I didn't know anything at all, or I knew
that I was told that her faith was very severely cut,
and that was all the information I had when I
conducted my examination until the next day the pathologist had
found this other injury which was completely separate to the
neck injury.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And were there any signs of struggle in Margaret's house?
Speaker 4 (28:46):
No signs of struggle whatsoever. There was nothing to indicate
that there was a struggle in the bedroom or in
any other area of the house.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Officer Raywood took blood samples from the scene. He also
bagged some items for further examination.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, I took the pillow slips offer to bloodstained pillow,
and these sheets were removed from the bed. That's a
standard practice and that didn't listit any information. Had just
said that this blood was from the decease, which we
were expected.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
So at the end of your initial investigation, before you
got to the post autumn, had you formed any opinion
in your mind as to what had happened that night To.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Margaret, I had not formed the opinion, but from my
gamination of scene and the amount of blood I saw
that had been lost from the victim, you know, I
was tending more towards thinking that it could have been
as we look our play, and I certainly hadn't had
any thoughts in my mind for memory that would have
(29:54):
been a suicide.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
For the first officers on the scene. The fact that
baby Leslie had been found unharmed sleeping in her cot
added weight to the murder theory. This is Craig Robertson again.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Well, I certainly. It immediately piqued my interest in that
we've got a deceased female laying in the front yard,
if we have a very young baby harmed within the house,
my initial gut reaction was that feil play was involved.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
The lead detective from Mackay, Sergeant Milton Hassenkam known to
most of his colleagues. As Bill Hassenham wrote.
Speaker 13 (30:44):
In his report, during the investigation, I did consider the
possibility that the deceased had committed suicide. I discarded the
possibility due to the fact that I could not find
blood between the bedroom and the kitchen in the deceased home,
and I found a difficul to accept the fact that
a woman would commit suicide by cutting her.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Throat while Margaret's family was planning a funeral. The investigation
was about to take a very different turn. Next time
(31:24):
on Pendulum, a post mortem report shatters theories of foul play.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
The appearance of the neck would suggest that it was
self inflicted.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Wow. I think there was a dismay amongst the investigators.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But could the pathologists who examined Margaret's body have got
it wrong? If you have information about the Margaret Kirstenfeld case,
(32:21):
please let us know. Email us at Pendulum podcast at
gmail dot com, or go to seven news dot com
dot AU Forward Slash Pendulum presenter and executive producer Paula Donovan,
(32:45):
Writer and producer Sally Eels. Sound design Mark Wright, Graphics
Jason Blandford, Transcripts Susan Bush. Our theme music is the
Clock Is Ticking by Dark All music See our show
(33:08):
notes for full music credits. With thanks to seven Years
Brisbane
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