January 13, 2021 • 19 mins
For more than three decades, the seven crimes known as the Family Court Murders remained the worst series of unsolved serial killings in Australian criminal history. Between 1980 and 1985, four people were murdered and dozens critically injured in a cruel five-year reign of terror across Sydney, aimed at the very heart of the country’s judicial system. Five bombings and multiple shootings targeting judges of the Family Court of Australia, their families, a lawyer and innocent members of the public. There was only ever one prime suspect linked to all seven crimes but despite years of surveillance he was never charged. Leonard Warwick thought he was invincible, that he’d got away with murder. In 2013, a major Channel Seven investigation, led by award-winning journalist Ross Coulthart, would blow the case wide open. For the very first time in more than a quarter of a century, all the main witnesses who until that point had been too afraid to speak out, including Warwick’s daughter and ex-wife, would describe the events that rocked Australia. Coulthart’s forensic investigation would put the horrific murders and bombings back in the public focus – and in the spotlight of authorities. Unknown to Warwick, and long forgotten by police, was the crucial mistake that would bring him down. Buried deep in a box of archived evidence, Warwick’s blood collected from one of the bomb sites that would be analysed using advanced DNA technology. In this stunning conclusion, how Warwick's world came crashing down and the punishment he received for his crimes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following program includes coarse language and violence. Some people
were killed over me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The story no one was gay to touch.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
He is the manifestation of pure evil.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
A little girl, her violent, deranged they were violent man,
serial killing father.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Oh, I used to shoot rammits.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I suppose that's pretty violent. The most frightening man in Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
People have to understand how bad this man was.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Possessive.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
It's mine as mine and I'm going to have what's mine.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Two shootings, four murders and five bombings.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Man who was spitting in the eye of justice in Australian.
I've been framed by a police.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
He almost got away with it. Who is a very
very credible, riveting inside story.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You are in danger. This man is a total psychopath.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
The vital breakthrough he bled everywhere that trapped the family
caught bombering.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
How this confrontation.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Changed everything and in a major new development, is there
a new victor?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Effectively disappeared off the face of the planet.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Well looking the buy you some more?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
For thirty five years, Leonard Warwick literally thought he'd got
away with murder.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yes, I believe, sir, I believe that he thought he'd
got away.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
With it he thought he'd been able to beat you.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yes, and I must face factor he had at that stage. Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So one of Australia's most violent serial murderers remained large,
and the cool, cunning prime suspect at the center of
the family court killing spree showed no signs of putting
a foot wrong or changing his story. Leonard Warwick got lucky.
He almost got away with it. But then we came calling.
(02:19):
We're recording you at the moment because what we are
was preparing a story. So obviously, from the very first
time he was called in for questioning, Lenn Warwick said, little,
you were accused in a court and bombings you with
a prim say. He consistently played one card, his right
(02:40):
to silence, on the basis that his answers might incriminate him.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Why didn't you make a comment? Why did you refuse
to speak to his post.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
For five years, Warwick was placed under constant surveillance. His car,
home and phone were boaked. The police helicopter was used
to track him. When he went into the National Park
adjoining his then home, Warwick was seen carrying suspicious items.
(03:15):
Police suspected he had a hiding place. They just didn't
know where.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
We got some information that Warwick used to frequent a
cave in the National Park now Helensburg, which is where
he was from. Remember the name of the cave our
my memory was was Jimmy the Black's Cave.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Did you find the cave? Nah? We didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Acting on information, we went to the bushland south of Sydney.
Our guide, who knows len Warwick, was a local who
insisted on not being identified. He knows the area and
knew of the cave. After two hours he brought us
(03:59):
to the spot police failed to find. Well, the police
couldn't find this cave what they thought might have been
Len Warrick's hide art, and it's not hard to see why.
We only found it with the help of locals. But
that's not all the locals have told us. We've uncovered
quite extraordinary new evidence. We understand local youths knew that
(04:22):
if you came into this forest just two kilometers from
len Warick's then home, if you knew where to look,
you could find and steal explosives. In the mid seventies,
demolition crews were blasting rock for a reservoir expansion close
to Helensburg, near Warwick's home to those in the.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
No security was lax.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Our guide revealed how on one occasion he and mates
stole fuses, detonators and explosives. Len Warick, you this place
like the back of his hand. His father worked in
a nearby mind where explosives were often used. I know
(05:09):
you don't want to talk to us, but there's a
lot of people out there, victims, name victims, families, your
own daughter.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Whether or not you did this.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Do you think that Lynn Warreck would be convicted today
if we hadn't made that story.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I think it would be difficult. Your story convincedly. Your
story set out very clearly and concisely in chronological order,
these horrific murders and bombings, and it brought to the
attention of the hierarchy of the police force that these
(05:49):
crimes did need some attention by the cold case unit.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Lenn Warwick, of course, knew nothing of this renewed interest,
and also unknown to him and at first forgotten by police,
was his crucial mistake that was about.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
To bring him down.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It was buried deep inside a box of evidence here
at the Sydney Police Center. Remember, on the night before
a fatal bomb blast ripped apart the Jehovah's Witness, Kingdom
Hall in nineteen eighty five, somebody had broken in, shattering
a window, cutting themselves in the process. There was no
(06:32):
DNA technology back then, but there is now. After years
of killing everybody in his way, it would be a
self inflected wound that would bring Leonard Warwick undone. Thirty
years later, the cold case unit found the long forgotten blood.
(06:53):
They sent it to an independent laboratory.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Who analyzed the blood and compared it with a blood
sample from Leonard Warwick's daughter and found that the samples
were identical. The DNA evidence was the conclusive part that
left no doubt that he was the offender.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Lenn Warwick thought he was invincible. He never saw it coming.
Twelve thousand, eight hundred and nineteen, days after Judge David
Opus was shot dead on his doorstep, the family caught bomber.
The man who left so many dead and so many
more living in fear, was finally taken.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
About eleven thirty this morning, re arrested a sixty eight
year old man in relation to seven incidents that occurred
between February and nine.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
In July nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
These incidents include four murders and a number of attempted murders.
There will be thirty two charges laid against that individual,
including four murder charges.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
The News South Wales Police cold case unit had done
their job and got their land.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You need to realize the door will never be closed
on a murder investigation.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Len Warwick finally a captive, but still no contrition, defiant
to the end, as defiant as he was the day
I confronted him, How could you have lived with yourself?
And how did you get away with it?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Leonard Warwick had showed no remorse, no guilt, no empathy
towards his victims whatsoever. He stopped at nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
After his arrest became his trial before Justice Peter Garling,
len Warwick's lawyers argued he was innocent. The family called
bomber was someone else or a couple of was up
against munsions of evidence and the righteous anger of good
men like Kevin Woods.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I was at the Supreme Court for ten days and
I was cross examined for eight.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I realized know what to Vic? Did you get shit? Adds?
I'm desperate to try to increase compared your ratings. Yeah,
absolutely desper aren't you no, sue what we are? Fuck off?
Yes you are, daughter and all of the victims bombings
and murders find.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Out the answer my verdicts are as follows is a
murdered justice opus so that the accus did murder David Opas.
I find and return a verdict of guilty that on
six March nineteen eighty four, that the accused did, by
the explosion of an explosive substance destroyer building with intent
(09:52):
to murder Richard g I find and return a verdict
of guilty.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Absolutely desper aren't you on.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
The fifteenth of April nineteen eighty four at Paramatta in
the state of New South Wales, that the accused maliciously
placed an explosive substance near pretended north in Australia when
you attempt to marriage the said building. I find and
return a verdict of guilty.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
This was the justice system reasserting you do not get
away with a blow at the heart of the justice system.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Like Lynn Warwick tried.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Exactly on count six, that the accused on four July
nineteen eighty four at Greenwich in the State of New
South Wales did murder Pearl Watson. I find and return
a verdict of guilty.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Did you vert at Graham Weckskis did murder Graham Wikes?
Speaker 6 (10:56):
I find and return a verdict of guilty.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Did you murdice? Even that the.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Accused did murder Stephen Blanchard? I find the accused and
return a verdict of not guilty.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It was a shock to many, including Kevin Woods, not
guilty of the murder of his brother in law, Stephen Blanchard,
the brave young man who was executed with a single
shot to his head after helping his sister escape Warwick's violence.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
My gut feeling is that he murdered Stephen Blanchard, and
I firmly believe he did. But what the test is here?
That we failed to produce enough evidence to convince a
judge beyond reasonable doubt that he had committed that offense.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Did he do it? Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Of course he did.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
But Stephen Blanchard isn't the only mystery remaining tonight. There's
a sinister new development. Did Leonard Warwick murder his own sister?
There's another mystery, isn't there?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
In this case?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
The sibling? Yes, Eileen Muriel Warwick. Islen Muriel Warwick, Yes,
where is she? I don't know. We checked birth deaths,
and marriages and taxation records and we just couldn't find it.
Do you think she's dead. I won't make the call
on that.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But there's no record of her in the country.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
No, there's no record of her leaving the country.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
There's no record of her marrying. No, there's no record
of her dying.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Lenn Warwick's sister has effectively disappeared off the face of
the planet.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
She has, Yes, we couldn't find her.
Speaker 7 (12:38):
No.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
In nineteen ninety three, the father of Len and Eileen died.
In his will, he left his son and daughter assets
to be split evenly between them.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Eileen hasn't been seen since.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
I think for the purpose of history, it would be
great if Eileen, if she's still alive, did come forward.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
If anyone out there knows of her whereabouts, you can
contact us confidentially.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Leonard John Warwick.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
The family Court bomber will be sentenced on September third,
when justice will finally be served on this serial killing madman.
Speaker 7 (13:28):
If you could imagine everything that means anything to you
being taken away in one minute, everything my best friend,
he was the most beautiful famer just gone out of
your life, and then your life is in total pieces.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
We were in fear of our lives for years and
you can drive yourself nuts worrying about it, and I did.
Speaker 7 (14:04):
He is going to have to go to jail and
pay for all the distress and terror that he's caused.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Everybody guilty Leonard Warwick seventy three.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So he possibly will spend the reminder of his life
in prison, which is where he deserves to work.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So you'd like to see him die in jail?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (14:33):
Thened Warwick, better known as the Family Court bomber, has
been sentenced to life behind bars. Warwick terrorized Sydney in
the nineteen eighties, murdering three people, including a judge, but
he was undone thanks in part to the reopening of
the case by seven year Spotlight investigative reporter Ross Coulthard.
Ross joins me now and ROSSI were actually in the
(14:54):
court as he was being sentenced.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What was his reaction? No remorse, no emotion? What he
did do?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
The judges talking to him from here, he turns and
looks down like that. I'd love to think it was
a shameful expression. You know, he's remorseful, but I don't
think so. He'll never be remorseful.
Speaker 8 (15:12):
And you are one of the few people who would know.
You're one of the few people who've actually spoken to him.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
What is he like. He's an evil grub, He's a monster.
He's a man who is wired differently from the rest
of us. Just because he was upset with family court
judges because they'd done he perceived the wrong thing by
him in relation to the custody of his daughter, he
decided to set out on this murderous campaign attacking murdering judges.
(15:40):
And then when he couldn't kill the judges, he thought
the Jehovah's witnesses are helping my wife, I'm going to
kill them as well. And he let a bomb off
in a whole church of innocent parishioners, which is just
absolutely outrageous, let a bomb off outside the Paramatta family Court,
incredible risks played with people's lives. And the tragedy is
that to this day he still says he's innocent, which
(16:02):
he's not. The evidence against him is absolutely overwhelming, and
he maintains this fiction that he's an innocent man. And
quite frankly, he can rotten jail. I know for the families,
the victims, and indeed for the people in the judiciary
and the justice system, this man going down today is very,
(16:22):
very important because it was a blow right at the
heart and of the administration of justice. It was an
attack on democracy itself. And it's so important even though
what it's thirty five forty years since those crimes, it's
so important that he's been brought to justice.
Speaker 8 (16:40):
In that shot that we've seen of you your interactions,
was he in arrogant man? It certainly seems that way.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
He called our show a crummy show, and he called
me a maggot.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
He was really angry.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I don't think he'd ever expected that somebody was going
to catch up with him, because we'd been investigating him
for months and he had no idea. And what we've
done is we'd interviewed all the victims. We'd gone to
America to it to view somebody who was a victim
in the Jehovah's Witness case. We'd gone all over the
world to find people who were victims. And the thing
that struck us when we were doing the research, I've
(17:12):
never had a story before where we're going, oh my god,
you know, we were literally looking at the evidence, going
how can this guy not be in jail? The evidence
was just overwhelming based on the circumstantial evidence. But then
I think as a result of our story, there was
a moment when the police decided to review the evidence.
(17:32):
They found a blood sample from the Jehovah's Witness Church.
He'd done a break in at the Jehovah's Witness Church
and he'd left blood at the scene, And because they
hadn't been able to do that kind of DNA testing
forty years ago, they hadn't really put it through the
right sort of tests. When they finally did, they got him.
The DNA nailed him, and that was the moment for
(17:55):
the police. A great bit of police work that finally
brought this evil guide to justice.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
Great police work, also great journalism. The judge acknowledged your
reports helped police realize how much evidence they had. Do
you think if it wasn't for police campaigning so heavily
and your reporting, that he could still be a free man.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I dread the thought.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I mean, I think it's nice to know that journalism
can still be of use and is valued in society
these days.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It's really important. This is one story I'm very very
proud of.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Certainly, the police investigation was initiated after our report, and
I think what our report did was it made people
focus on the evidence. It made them sit back and go, hey,
why haven't we cracked this case. And when they finally
did go through the boxes of evidence and review the case,
with the help of a wonderful old detective who's become
a mate of mine, Kevin Woods, they discovered they had
(18:49):
an absolute, iron clad case against this guy and it
was possible to bring an evil murderer to justice, which
is fabulous.
Speaker 8 (18:57):
Well, Ross, you're a humble man, but you deserved be
proud along with those police officers. Thanks so much for
your time.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Thanks for a much
The following program includes coarse language and violence. Some people
were killed over me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The story no one was gay to touch.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
He is the manifestation of pure evil.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
A little girl, her violent, deranged they were violent man,
serial killing father.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Oh, I used to shoot rammits.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I suppose that's pretty violent. The most frightening man in Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
People have to understand how bad this man was.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Possessive.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
It's mine as mine and I'm going to have what's mine.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Two shootings, four murders and five bombings.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Man who was spitting in the eye of justice in Australian.
I've been framed by a police.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
He almost got away with it. Who is a very
very credible, riveting inside story.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You are in danger. This man is a total psychopath.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
The vital breakthrough he bled everywhere that trapped the family
caught bombering.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
How this confrontation.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Changed everything and in a major new development, is there
a new victor?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Effectively disappeared off the face of the planet.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Well looking the buy you some more?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
For thirty five years, Leonard Warwick literally thought he'd got
away with murder.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yes, I believe, sir, I believe that he thought he'd
got away.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
With it he thought he'd been able to beat you.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yes, and I must face factor he had at that stage. Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So one of Australia's most violent serial murderers remained large,
and the cool, cunning prime suspect at the center of
the family court killing spree showed no signs of putting
a foot wrong or changing his story. Leonard Warwick got lucky.
He almost got away with it. But then we came calling.
(02:19):
We're recording you at the moment because what we are
was preparing a story. So obviously, from the very first
time he was called in for questioning, Lenn Warwick said, little,
you were accused in a court and bombings you with
a prim say. He consistently played one card, his right
(02:40):
to silence, on the basis that his answers might incriminate him.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Why didn't you make a comment? Why did you refuse
to speak to his post.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
For five years, Warwick was placed under constant surveillance. His car,
home and phone were boaked. The police helicopter was used
to track him. When he went into the National Park
adjoining his then home, Warwick was seen carrying suspicious items.
(03:15):
Police suspected he had a hiding place. They just didn't
know where.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
We got some information that Warwick used to frequent a
cave in the National Park now Helensburg, which is where
he was from. Remember the name of the cave our
my memory was was Jimmy the Black's Cave.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Did you find the cave? Nah? We didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Acting on information, we went to the bushland south of Sydney.
Our guide, who knows len Warwick, was a local who
insisted on not being identified. He knows the area and
knew of the cave. After two hours he brought us
(03:59):
to the spot police failed to find. Well, the police
couldn't find this cave what they thought might have been
Len Warrick's hide art, and it's not hard to see why.
We only found it with the help of locals. But
that's not all the locals have told us. We've uncovered
quite extraordinary new evidence. We understand local youths knew that
(04:22):
if you came into this forest just two kilometers from
len Warick's then home, if you knew where to look,
you could find and steal explosives. In the mid seventies,
demolition crews were blasting rock for a reservoir expansion close
to Helensburg, near Warwick's home to those in the.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
No security was lax.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Our guide revealed how on one occasion he and mates
stole fuses, detonators and explosives. Len Warick, you this place
like the back of his hand. His father worked in
a nearby mind where explosives were often used. I know
(05:09):
you don't want to talk to us, but there's a
lot of people out there, victims, name victims, families, your
own daughter.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Whether or not you did this.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Do you think that Lynn Warreck would be convicted today
if we hadn't made that story.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I think it would be difficult. Your story convincedly. Your
story set out very clearly and concisely in chronological order,
these horrific murders and bombings, and it brought to the
attention of the hierarchy of the police force that these
(05:49):
crimes did need some attention by the cold case unit.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Lenn Warwick, of course, knew nothing of this renewed interest,
and also unknown to him and at first forgotten by police,
was his crucial mistake that was about.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
To bring him down.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It was buried deep inside a box of evidence here
at the Sydney Police Center. Remember, on the night before
a fatal bomb blast ripped apart the Jehovah's Witness, Kingdom
Hall in nineteen eighty five, somebody had broken in, shattering
a window, cutting themselves in the process. There was no
(06:32):
DNA technology back then, but there is now. After years
of killing everybody in his way, it would be a
self inflected wound that would bring Leonard Warwick undone. Thirty
years later, the cold case unit found the long forgotten blood.
(06:53):
They sent it to an independent laboratory.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Who analyzed the blood and compared it with a blood
sample from Leonard Warwick's daughter and found that the samples
were identical. The DNA evidence was the conclusive part that
left no doubt that he was the offender.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Lenn Warwick thought he was invincible. He never saw it coming.
Twelve thousand, eight hundred and nineteen, days after Judge David
Opus was shot dead on his doorstep, the family caught bomber.
The man who left so many dead and so many
more living in fear, was finally taken.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
About eleven thirty this morning, re arrested a sixty eight
year old man in relation to seven incidents that occurred
between February and nine.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
In July nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
These incidents include four murders and a number of attempted murders.
There will be thirty two charges laid against that individual,
including four murder charges.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
The News South Wales Police cold case unit had done
their job and got their land.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You need to realize the door will never be closed
on a murder investigation.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Len Warwick finally a captive, but still no contrition, defiant
to the end, as defiant as he was the day
I confronted him, How could you have lived with yourself?
And how did you get away with it?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Leonard Warwick had showed no remorse, no guilt, no empathy
towards his victims whatsoever. He stopped at nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
After his arrest became his trial before Justice Peter Garling,
len Warwick's lawyers argued he was innocent. The family called
bomber was someone else or a couple of was up
against munsions of evidence and the righteous anger of good
men like Kevin Woods.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I was at the Supreme Court for ten days and
I was cross examined for eight.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I realized know what to Vic? Did you get shit? Adds?
I'm desperate to try to increase compared your ratings. Yeah,
absolutely desper aren't you no, sue what we are? Fuck off?
Yes you are, daughter and all of the victims bombings
and murders find.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Out the answer my verdicts are as follows is a
murdered justice opus so that the accus did murder David Opas.
I find and return a verdict of guilty that on
six March nineteen eighty four, that the accused did, by
the explosion of an explosive substance destroyer building with intent
(09:52):
to murder Richard g I find and return a verdict
of guilty.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Absolutely desper aren't you on.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
The fifteenth of April nineteen eighty four at Paramatta in
the state of New South Wales, that the accused maliciously
placed an explosive substance near pretended north in Australia when
you attempt to marriage the said building. I find and
return a verdict of guilty.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
This was the justice system reasserting you do not get
away with a blow at the heart of the justice system.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Like Lynn Warwick tried.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Exactly on count six, that the accused on four July
nineteen eighty four at Greenwich in the State of New
South Wales did murder Pearl Watson. I find and return
a verdict of guilty.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Did you vert at Graham Weckskis did murder Graham Wikes?
Speaker 6 (10:56):
I find and return a verdict of guilty.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Did you murdice? Even that the.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Accused did murder Stephen Blanchard? I find the accused and
return a verdict of not guilty.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It was a shock to many, including Kevin Woods, not
guilty of the murder of his brother in law, Stephen Blanchard,
the brave young man who was executed with a single
shot to his head after helping his sister escape Warwick's violence.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
My gut feeling is that he murdered Stephen Blanchard, and
I firmly believe he did. But what the test is here?
That we failed to produce enough evidence to convince a
judge beyond reasonable doubt that he had committed that offense.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Did he do it? Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Of course he did.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
But Stephen Blanchard isn't the only mystery remaining tonight. There's
a sinister new development. Did Leonard Warwick murder his own sister?
There's another mystery, isn't there?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
In this case?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
The sibling? Yes, Eileen Muriel Warwick. Islen Muriel Warwick, Yes,
where is she? I don't know. We checked birth deaths,
and marriages and taxation records and we just couldn't find it.
Do you think she's dead. I won't make the call
on that.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But there's no record of her in the country.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
No, there's no record of her leaving the country.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
There's no record of her marrying. No, there's no record
of her dying.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Lenn Warwick's sister has effectively disappeared off the face of
the planet.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
She has, Yes, we couldn't find her.
Speaker 7 (12:38):
No.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
In nineteen ninety three, the father of Len and Eileen died.
In his will, he left his son and daughter assets
to be split evenly between them.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Eileen hasn't been seen since.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
I think for the purpose of history, it would be
great if Eileen, if she's still alive, did come forward.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
If anyone out there knows of her whereabouts, you can
contact us confidentially.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Leonard John Warwick.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
The family Court bomber will be sentenced on September third,
when justice will finally be served on this serial killing madman.
Speaker 7 (13:28):
If you could imagine everything that means anything to you
being taken away in one minute, everything my best friend,
he was the most beautiful famer just gone out of
your life, and then your life is in total pieces.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
We were in fear of our lives for years and
you can drive yourself nuts worrying about it, and I did.
Speaker 7 (14:04):
He is going to have to go to jail and
pay for all the distress and terror that he's caused.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Everybody guilty Leonard Warwick seventy three.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So he possibly will spend the reminder of his life
in prison, which is where he deserves to work.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So you'd like to see him die in jail?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (14:33):
Thened Warwick, better known as the Family Court bomber, has
been sentenced to life behind bars. Warwick terrorized Sydney in
the nineteen eighties, murdering three people, including a judge, but
he was undone thanks in part to the reopening of
the case by seven year Spotlight investigative reporter Ross Coulthard.
Ross joins me now and ROSSI were actually in the
(14:54):
court as he was being sentenced.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What was his reaction? No remorse, no emotion? What he
did do?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
The judges talking to him from here, he turns and
looks down like that. I'd love to think it was
a shameful expression. You know, he's remorseful, but I don't
think so. He'll never be remorseful.
Speaker 8 (15:12):
And you are one of the few people who would know.
You're one of the few people who've actually spoken to him.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
What is he like. He's an evil grub, He's a monster.
He's a man who is wired differently from the rest
of us. Just because he was upset with family court
judges because they'd done he perceived the wrong thing by
him in relation to the custody of his daughter, he
decided to set out on this murderous campaign attacking murdering judges.
(15:40):
And then when he couldn't kill the judges, he thought
the Jehovah's witnesses are helping my wife, I'm going to
kill them as well. And he let a bomb off
in a whole church of innocent parishioners, which is just
absolutely outrageous, let a bomb off outside the Paramatta family Court,
incredible risks played with people's lives. And the tragedy is
that to this day he still says he's innocent, which
(16:02):
he's not. The evidence against him is absolutely overwhelming, and
he maintains this fiction that he's an innocent man. And
quite frankly, he can rotten jail. I know for the families,
the victims, and indeed for the people in the judiciary
and the justice system, this man going down today is very,
(16:22):
very important because it was a blow right at the
heart and of the administration of justice. It was an
attack on democracy itself. And it's so important even though
what it's thirty five forty years since those crimes, it's
so important that he's been brought to justice.
Speaker 8 (16:40):
In that shot that we've seen of you your interactions,
was he in arrogant man? It certainly seems that way.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
He called our show a crummy show, and he called
me a maggot.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
He was really angry.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I don't think he'd ever expected that somebody was going
to catch up with him, because we'd been investigating him
for months and he had no idea. And what we've
done is we'd interviewed all the victims. We'd gone to
America to it to view somebody who was a victim
in the Jehovah's Witness case. We'd gone all over the
world to find people who were victims. And the thing
that struck us when we were doing the research, I've
(17:12):
never had a story before where we're going, oh my god,
you know, we were literally looking at the evidence, going
how can this guy not be in jail? The evidence
was just overwhelming based on the circumstantial evidence. But then
I think as a result of our story, there was
a moment when the police decided to review the evidence.
(17:32):
They found a blood sample from the Jehovah's Witness Church.
He'd done a break in at the Jehovah's Witness Church
and he'd left blood at the scene, And because they
hadn't been able to do that kind of DNA testing
forty years ago, they hadn't really put it through the
right sort of tests. When they finally did, they got him.
The DNA nailed him, and that was the moment for
(17:55):
the police. A great bit of police work that finally
brought this evil guide to justice.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
Great police work, also great journalism. The judge acknowledged your
reports helped police realize how much evidence they had. Do
you think if it wasn't for police campaigning so heavily
and your reporting, that he could still be a free man.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I dread the thought.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I mean, I think it's nice to know that journalism
can still be of use and is valued in society
these days.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It's really important. This is one story I'm very very
proud of.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Certainly, the police investigation was initiated after our report, and
I think what our report did was it made people
focus on the evidence. It made them sit back and go, hey,
why haven't we cracked this case. And when they finally
did go through the boxes of evidence and review the case,
with the help of a wonderful old detective who's become
a mate of mine, Kevin Woods, they discovered they had
(18:49):
an absolute, iron clad case against this guy and it
was possible to bring an evil murderer to justice, which
is fabulous.
Speaker 8 (18:57):
Well, Ross, you're a humble man, but you deserved be
proud along with those police officers. Thanks so much for
your time.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Thanks for a much
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