Case 325: The Gilham Family

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A cast recommends Hello, this is blind By.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Around every two years or so, I'm contractually obligated to
record an advertisement for my own podcast, The blind By Podcast.
I'm a writer and I like to use the podcast
space for writing. I write with my mouth for you
to read with your ears. I write about curiosity, and
I've delivered an episode every week for the past eight years.

(00:25):
I love doing it. If you want to listen to
If you don't, I'm sure we'll be grand, but most importantly,
mind yourself. The blind By podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
A cast is home to the world's best podcast, including
Crime World, The Other Hand, and the one you're listening
to right now.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If
you feel at any time you need support, please contact
your local crisis center for suggested phone numbers for confidential
support and for a more detailed list of content warnings.
Please seed the show notes for this episode on your
app or on our website. It was nearing four point

(01:27):
thirty on the cold, misty morning of Saturday August twenty eight,
nineteen ninety three, when married couple Ted and Jan Warner
were jolted awake by a loud knock on their front door.
The Warners lived on Prince Edward Park Road, a quiet
and leafy residential street in the southern Sydney suburb of Warnora.

(01:49):
Set on the waterfront of the Waranora River and surrounded
by bush land. It was highly unusual to hear a
disturbance at such an hour. Ted got up to open
the door and was surprised to find his neighbour, twenty
three year old Jeffrey Gillum, standing there, dressed in nothing
but a pair of boxer shorts and smelling of smoke.

(02:12):
Jeffrey lived next door to the Warners with his older brother,
twenty five year old Christopher, and to their parents, Helen
and Stephen. The Gillams were a fixture of Prince Edward
Park Road, having lived in the neighborhood for over two decades.
They were well liked, with locals, viewing them as a loving,

(02:33):
warm and sociable family, always keen to lend a hand
to those in need or bring a plate of food
to the neighborhood barbecues. Ted had known Jeffrey Gillum his
whole life and had never seen him in such a state.
Typically neatly presented and well spoken, his pale skin was

(02:53):
covered in goosebumps, and he appeared to be highly agitated.
He started speaking in a stream injured, disjointed fashion, asking
Tad to call Triple zero. They're all dad, Jeffrey mumbled,
He's killed them, set them on fire. Tad was stunned

(03:13):
as he tried to make sense of Jeffrey's semi gibberish claims.
Mum and Dad are both dad. Jeffrey continued, He's burned them.
I've killed him for what he did. Tad ushered Jeffrey
into his house and dialed Triple zero. As Tad tried

(03:34):
to explain to the operator what was going on, the
operator asked if Jeffrey had been drinking. Tad leant over
to smell Jeffrey's breath, noting that it didn't smell like
alcohol but kerosene. He handed the phone to Jeffrey so
he could explain things for himself. In a halting and

(03:56):
distracted manner, Jeffrey told the operator that his brother Christopher
had killed his parents and set their bodies on fire.
He said that he'd chased Christopher down the stairs and
killed him for what he did. He killed them, killed them,
Jeffrey stammered, I don't know why. Like most of the

(04:44):
other homes in the area, the Gillams lived on a long,
narrow block that sloped downwards from Prince Edward Park Road
and towards the river front. External stairs led down from
the street and to their modest two story home, which
was surrounded by an assortment of towering trees and greenery.

(05:05):
The upper floor consisted of the combined lounge, dining and
kitchen space, which gave way to Stephen and Helen's bedroom.
From the lounge room, a spiral staircase led to the
downstairs bedroom belonging to Christopher, which had an adjoining en
suite and rumpus room. Jeffrey lived in the converted boat shed,

(05:26):
which was attached to the main house by a set
of external stairs. At four forty three a m a
team of firefighters arrived at the property to find smoke
rising from the roof. Jeffrey Gillum was waiting for them
at the bottom of the external stairs in a highly
agitated and emotionally distraught state. He appeared to be disoriented

(05:52):
and delirious, speaking incoherently about his parents being dead inside
the house. The fire fighters ran along the side balcony
to the rear of their house. Flames roared from inside
Helen and Stephen's bedroom, as well as from a second
fire in the lounge room. The firefighters opened the sliding

(06:14):
glass doors that led to the upper living space, but
were met with a wave of heat so extreme that
they couldn't enter. Then the window from Helen and Stephen's
bedroom shattered, shooting flames outside. Within minutes, the team was
able to get the flames under control. One of the

(06:36):
firefighters entered the smoke filled lounge room and found Helen's
badly burnt body lying face down in the southern corner
near the front door. She had been stabbed seventeen times,
with thirteen of the wounds to the front of her chest.
The firefighter continued into the bedroom, fighting flames as he

(06:58):
went there. On the bedroom floor, he found Stephen's body
lying face down. He had sustained a total of twenty
eight wounds, sixteen of which were to the front of
his chest. Parallel to the bad was an axe. Police
officers arrived at the scene and accompanied firefighters as they

(07:21):
kicked in the door to the downstairs rumper's room. The
area was dark except for the reflected light of a
spot fire that continued to blaze upstairs. There they found
Christopher Gillum's body lying next to the billiard table, naked
except for a toweling dressing gown. His body was unaffected

(07:44):
by the fire, but riddled with stab wounds. Like his mother,
he'd been stabbed seventeen times, a majority of the wounds
to his upper chest. Next to his body lay a knife.
After being examined by paramedics at the scene, Jeffrey Gillum

(08:07):
was taken to Sutherland Police Station, where at eight twenty
two am he agreed to participate in an electronically recorded interview.
The traumatic events of the morning had clearly taken their
toll on the twenty three year old. He sat wrapped
in a blanket with a somewhat bewildered look on his face,

(08:27):
his eyes cast downwards as he quietly mumbled brief answers
to all of the officer's questions. According to Jeffrey, the
previous evening had been an ordinary Friday. His girlfriend Hailey
had come over for dinner, leaving at around ten pm.
After that, he watched television with his parents in the

(08:50):
lounge room before having a shower and then going to bed.
He wasn't sure exactly what time this was, but thought
it was some time before menight. Jeffrey said he was
fast asleep when suddenly he was awoken by the intercom
that connected the boat shed with the main house. It

(09:11):
was his mother, Helen, screaming for help. Jeffrey couldn't understand
anything she was saying, but he wasted no time thinking
about it. He quickly pulled on a pair of boxer
shorts and raced through the garden to the staircase that
led to the sliding glass doors upstairs. This took him

(09:33):
less than a minute. He unlocked the door and ran
into the lounge room. There he found his mother's body
lying near the front door. A knife was on the
floor nearby, next to the piano, and his brother, Christopher
was standing over her with a match in his hand.

(09:54):
Christopher looked at Jeffrey from across the room and said,
I've killed mum and dad with that. Jeffrey claimed that
Christopher set Helen's body on fire. As the flames quickly
started spreading, Jeffrey looked towards the bedroom and saw his

(10:14):
father's Stephen's body on the floor. Within seconds, the fire
reached the bedroom and set Stephen's body ablaze. Unable to
believe what he was seeing, an overwhelming feeling overcame Jeffrey.
All he could think was that he had to get
his brother. He grabbed the knife from the floor and

(10:38):
lunged towards him. Christopher turned and ran down the spiral staircase,
with the Jeffrey chasing behind. Everything from there was a
bit of a haze. Jeffrey didn't know if he first
stabbed Christopher while they were on the stairs or once
they reached the bottom, but by the time they were

(11:00):
in the rumpus room, Jeffrey had him cornered. He launched
towards Christopher and began stabbing him repeatedly. Christopher fell to
the floor as Jeffrey continued to strike him. He didn't
know how many times he stabbed his brother or what
he did with the knife afterwards, but he eventually ran

(11:22):
back up the stairs. By then, the fire had spread
throughout the lounge room and the air was thick with smoke.
Jeffrey raced out the sliding doors and to the Warner's
home next door to raise the alarm. As word of
what happened spread around Waronora, those who knew. The Gillum

(11:45):
family were left in complete shock. To the outside world,
they had always appeared to be a completely normal, stable family.
Fifty eight year old Stephen Gillim was a cheerful and
easy going bloke. He'd recently retired after decades working for
the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority, and spent

(12:07):
his spare time sailing, playing golf, and working casually at
the local boat shared His wife, fifty five year old Helen,
worked as a school nurse with the Southern Sydney Health Service.
She was the more serious of the pair, known for
her no nonsense attitude when it came to raising her
two sons, but she also enjoyed a good laugh and

(12:30):
was fun to be around. Stephen and Helen loved their
two boys and had worked hard to give them a
solid upbringing. Life on the Warnora River meant that Stephen
was able to share his passion for sailing with his children.
It was through their shared love of boats that Stephen
and Jeffrey established a particularly close bond. They spent a

(12:55):
majority of their weekends out on the water, honing Jeffrey's
sailing skills competition. Such was his talent that hed once
won a national championship. When he wasn't outsailing, Jeffrey spent
his time surfing, socializing with Frans, and studying for his
civil engineering degree. He only had six months left before

(13:19):
he was set to graduate, and the future was looking bright.
While Jeffrey was known to be lighthearted and easy going
like his father, Christopher Gillam was more shy and reserved.
He often joined his family on their boating adventures, but
seemed happier to just hang around in the background. Christopher's

(13:42):
passions lay elsewhere in fencing, computers, and piano. He was
such a talented pianist that neighbours often asked the Gillms
to keep their windows open when Christopher was practicing so
they could hear him play. One uncle described the Gillum
brothers as impressive young man who had been well brought

(14:05):
up with old fashioned good values. This made it all
the more difficult for their friends and family to believe
what had happened. According to Jeffrey Gillum, that winter had
been a bit rough on Christopher. Having completed a degree

(14:26):
in chemical engineering the previous year, he was struggling to
find a job in the wake of the recession, that
hit Australia in the early nineteen nineties. His parents had
urged him to study a one year teaching degree as backup,
but Christopher wasn't particularly enjoying it and also had doubts
about his future employment prospects. He'd done some practical teacher

(14:50):
training at a tough Western Sydney high school and didn't
feel particularly cut out for the role. To make matters worse,
Christopher's goal had recently broken up with him. He retreated
further into himself, spending most of his time at home
on the family's computer. Jeffrey claimed that in the weeks

(15:13):
leading up to the murders, Christopher had been acting strangely.
Tensions seemed to be boiling over between him and their father,
and they'd been arguing constantly. Jeffrey told his girlfriend Hailey
that Christopher had lost it and that he'd been going
off at their parents, throwing things and pushing and shoving

(15:35):
their father. About two weeks before the murders, Hailey was
on the phone to Jeffrey when she overheard an argument
in the background. When she asked to Jeffrey what they
were fighting about, he responded, I don't know what's going on.
But I think it's to do with money. If there
is a fight, I'll have to break it up. Around

(16:00):
five pm on the night before the murders, Jeffrey had
gone to the beach with his close friend Wayne to
check out the surfing conditions. Jeffrey told Wayne that his
brother had been acting strangely and had been going off
at the drop of a hat. Wayne had known the
brothers for several years and was shocked to hear that

(16:21):
Christopher had been pushing and shoving Stephen Gillem. He asked
what the fighting was about. Jeffrey said he wasn't sure,
but he thought it could be over money, given that
Christopher wanted a new car. Jeffrey declined an invitation to
watch a movie at Wayne's house that night. He said

(16:42):
his dad was due home from golf and he wanted
to be there in case Christopher acted out again. When
Jeffrey got home at around eight pm, his girlfriend Hailey
was there, having arrived unannounced while she'd been waiting for Jeffrey.
Hailey had briefly crossed paths with Christopher when he came

(17:03):
out of the computer room to grab a coffee. While
Hailey hadn't observed anything, out of the ordinary, she thought
she could send some underlying tension between Christopher and his parents.
Jeffrey and Hailey ate dinner together and then played billiards
before Jeffrey walked Hailey out to her car at around

(17:24):
ten pm. Again, he repeated his concerns about Christopher's behavior.
What am I to do about my brother, Jeffrey asked,
it's pretty serious. I've never seen him so psycho. He
is pushing my father around. I don't know what to do.

(17:48):
In the bathroom attached to Christopher's bedroom, police found two
empty packets of Panadol brand paracetamol in the clothes basket,
along with a twenty five millimeter syringe with a white paste,
a glass cup with a white substance on it, and
a knife containing the same white substance. Each of these

(18:09):
items tested positive for paracetamol, leading to the presumption that
Christopher had likely prepared this high dose mix of panadol
ahead of time with the intention of taking his own life.
What he hadn't accounted for was his mother calling Geoffrey
for help on the intercom, thus foiling his plans as

(18:29):
he died by his brother's hand instead of his own.
Post mortem. Examinations of Stephen and Helen's bodies were unable
to determine in which order the two had died or
their times of death. All pathologists could say for sure
was that the stab wounds had been inflicted while the

(18:50):
two were still alive, and that they both died within
minutes of being attacked. Samples taken from the carpet of
the upper floor of the Gillums home tested positive for
mineral turpentine or a similar flammable hydrocarbon liquid, indicating that
Christopher had used an accelerant to start the fire. Searches

(19:13):
of the property didn't turn up any such containers, but
given that mineral turpentine was sold in lightweight plastic bottles,
investigators reasoned that any evidence relating to this would have
been readily consumed by the fire without leaving a trace.
For the death of his brother, Jeffrey Gillam was charged

(19:34):
with murder and denied bail. He spent a month in
the psychiatric unit of Long Bay Jail as he struggled
to accept the magnitude of the situation. Friends and family
rallied around him, providing whatever support they could to get
him through this tragic time. Jeffrey was eventually granted bail

(19:56):
on the condition that he undergoes psychological counseling and to
move in with a family friend who had been supporting
him since his arrest. He faced trial for Christopher's murder
in April nineteen ninety five, where he pleaded guilty to
the lesser charge of manslaughter. Two psychologists found that Jeffrey

(20:17):
suffered from no ongoing mental disorder, psychiatric condition, or violent tendencies.
He simply reacted, albeit in a very extreme manner, to
the circumstances he was presented with at the time. They
were both of the view that there was minimal risk
of Jeffrey offending again, that he showed deep remorse, and

(20:41):
that his prospects for rehabilitation were excellent. The Crown accepted
Jeffrey's manslaughter plea and he was sentenced to a five
year good behaviour bond, with the judge describing the whole
situation as a remarkable human drama. Months later, a coronial

(21:01):
inquest was held to formally solidify the circumstances of Helen
and Stephen's deaths. The coroner found that the couple had
died by stub wounds inflicted by their son, Christopher, and
the case was officially closed. Jeffrey Gillum did his best
to move on with his life, focusing on one small

(21:24):
task at a time. He completed his engineering degree with
honors and secured a stable job. His relationship with Hailey
ended and he started dating a friend of his from
university named Rebeccah. The two developed a deep bond and
began making plans for their future together, with a house,

(21:45):
marriage and children on the horizon. After everything Jeffrey had
been through, he worked hard to create the life he'd
always envisioned for himself prior to the tragedy. Many admired
the way in which he was able to pick himself
up and carry on. But for Jeffrey's paternal uncle, Tony Gillam,

(22:08):
things weren't sitting right. Ever since the funerals of Stephen,
Helen and Christopher, Tony Gillum had felt like something was
a little off. He'd watched at Jeffrey during the funerals
and was surprised to see that he hadn't shed any tears.

(22:29):
Even the sight of his family's coffins hadn't sparked any
visible emotion. Tony had been in such a state of
shock after the murders that he had taken half a
year off work. Meanwhile, he felt like A. Jeffrey was
carrying on as though he was unaffected, completing his university
degree so quickly and with flying colors. When at took A.

(22:52):
Jeffrey six months to collect his family's ashes, Tony started
to get really suspicious. Tony found the allegations that Christopher
had killed his parents over disputes about money to be
completely without logic. Although Tony lived into state and didn't

(23:12):
visit his half brother and his family often, he had
caught up with Stephen and Helen just six months before
the murders, and everything had seemed perfectly fine. If there
had been tensions between them and their eldest son, they
certainly hadn't shown it. Tony was also a bit taken
aback by Jeffrey's claims that Christopher was the more shy

(23:35):
and with the drawn member of the family. As far
as Tony was concerned, it was Jeffrey who had always
been the aloof one, whereas he'd always found Christopher to
be friendly and talkative. If anything, Tony thought that Jeffrey
was jealous of the extra care Christopher received from their
parents and could be a bit of a bully. When

(23:59):
the crime scene was examined, investigators had found a twenty
five liter jerry can containing roughly one lid of petrol
in the small alcove at the front of the house
where the bins were capped. There was also a freshly
cut length of garden hose which appeared to have been
cut from a longer hose that ran from an outdoor
tap to a boat in the car port. Jeffrey explained

(24:23):
that on the night before the murders, he and his
father had cut the hose in an attempt to siphon
some petrol out of his car to use in one
of their motor boats for an upcoming trip. They wanted
to make two stroke fuel, but then realized the car
contained the wrong kind of petrol, so they aborted their
mission and put the jerry can back near the bins.

(24:47):
Tony found this hard to believe. Not only was it
likely that Stephen Gillum would have the proper equipment needed
to pump petrol without having to use this crude method,
he had being scheduled to enter a golf tournament that saturday.
If there was no sense of urgency to get the
boat ready. Why would the two be outside so late

(25:10):
on a cold winter night undertaking such an arduous task.
A thought began to form in Tony's mind. Was it
possible that Jeffrey was actually responsible for all three deaths
and had created the story of his brother's so called
psycho behavior to set Christopher up for the crime. Tony

(25:34):
wasn't the only one who felt this way. Tad and
Jan Warner, the couple who lived next door to the Gillams,
had been suspicious of Jeffrey's story ever since he knocked
on that door on the morning of the murders. Despite
claiming to have just stabbed his brother to death, there
didn't appear to be any blood on him. Tad had

(25:57):
looked to Jeffrey up and down, and the only bl
blood he'd seen was on the little toe of Jeffrey's
right foot and the shin of his left leg. There
was also a spot of blood on one of his fingernails.
Jan had noticed this too. In her view, the blood
on Jeffrey's legs looked pale, pink in color, as though

(26:19):
he had tried to wash it off. While Jeffrey had
been at the Warner's home. Waiting for the firefighters to arrive,
He'd switched between sitting on their light colored leather couch
and lying on their kitchen floor in the fetal position.
Jan gave him a jumper to wear, but instead of
putting it on, he just hugged it to his body. Afterwards,

(26:43):
the Warners didn't notice any blood residue on the couch
floor or their white colored telephone. After the police had
taken Jeffrey in for questioning and cordoned off the house
as a crime scene, Jan had turned to her husband
and said, I think he's making it up. In nineteen

(27:07):
ninety six, after the coronial inquest had officially declared that
Christopher was responsible for the deaths of Stephen and Helen,
Jeffrey was able to apply for his share of the
family's estate. He was only entitled to fifty percent, with
his four grandparents entitled to the rest. Given everything that

(27:28):
Jeffrey had been through, three of his grandparents wanted Jeffrey
to have their share to help him rebuild his life. However,
Stephen's mother, Jeffrey's grandmother, Jesse Gillham, who lived in a
house under Stephen's name, did not Jeffrey sought further legal

(27:48):
advice and discovered that he was actually entitled to one
hundred percent of his parents estate. This included their nine
hundred thousand dollars home in Waranora, his father's boats, as
well as Jesse's house in marriong The paperwork was sent
out to all of his grandparents to formally sign it over,

(28:10):
but Jesse refused to do so. Jesse called her son,
Tony Gillum, in a state of distress, saying that Jeffrey
was trying to harass her into signing her entitlements back
to him. It was at this point that Tony could
no longer ignore the red flags. He flew to Sydney

(28:32):
and visited the detective who had been in charge of
the investigation. I've got my suspicions about Jeffrey, Tony said.
What the detective told him next was shocking. Case file

(28:53):
will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by
listening to this episode's sponsors.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
The ready set Ford two sixty one sales event is
on this November. Discover incredible savings across Ford's electrified range,
from the sleek Puma Jenny and versatile Cougar plug in
Hybrid to the adventurous Explorer and Iconic Capri with prices
from just twenty eighty nine hundred Euro. There's never been
a better time to drive a new Ford. Visit for
dot Ie or your local dealer by thirtieth of November

(29:24):
ready set forward teesncas apply. Price excludes delivery and dealer
related charges, and includes grant and VRT relief. See for
dot i E for details.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
A Cast recommends.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Hello, this is blind By. Around every two years or so.
I'm contractually obligated to record an advertisement for my own podcast,
the blind By Podcast. I'm a writer and I like
to use the podcast space for writing. I write with
my mouth for you to read with your ears. I
write about curiosity, and I have delivered nepsod every week

(29:56):
for the past eight years. I love donut If you
want to listen to If you don't, I'm sure it'll
be grand, But most importantly, mind yourself.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Blame By podcast a cast is home to the world's
best podcast, including Crime World, The Other Hand, and the
one you're listening to right now.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting
our sponsors, you support case file to continue to deliver
our quality content. During the initial police interview with the
Jeffrey Gillum on the morning of Saturday, August twenty eight,

(30:41):
nineteen ninety three, the interviewing detectives weren't sure what to
make of his account. They had a hard time believing
that two separate slayings could have occurred in the same
household at around the same time. If Jeffrey was capable
of killing his brother, they thought stood to reason that
he could also be capable of killing his parents. They

(31:05):
also thought it seemed highly strange that Jeffrey's first reaction
upon seeing his parents' dead bodies had been to attack
his brother, rather than check on his parents to confirm
if they were actually dead or try to stop the fire.
One of the detectives put these questions to Jeffrey directly.

(31:26):
I don't know why I killed my brother, he responded,
I was just chasing him. I don't know why. The
detective pressed on, You're saying that your brother has killed
your mother and father, and I'm just wondering whether it's
just a convenient ployee on your behalf to tell us
that when in fact you've killed the whole three of them.

(31:50):
Jeffrey kept his eyes cast downwards and mumbled back, I haven't.
He also couldn't explain why he hadn't checked on his
dad or tried to stomp out the fire first. I
don't know why, Jeffrey said, I just thought of other
things and just did the wrong thing. Obviously. During the interview,

(32:15):
one of the detectives had also scribbled down a note
for the other that rad if he's just stabbed his brother,
where's the fucking blood. Their suspicions grew upon hearing Jeffrey's
explanation for the jerry can of petrol with its makeshift
siphon that was found in the Gillam's alcove. To the detectives,

(32:37):
it sounded like Jeffrey had been trying to use the
petrol as an accelerant to start the fire with, before
finding it too hard and using mineral turpentine instead. They'd
also been curious about the timing of the events. A
woman named Christine Shaw lived on the opposite side of
the road to the Gillams, on a slope that overlooked

(32:59):
their property. In the early morning hours of Saturday, August
twenty eight, nineteen ninety three, Christine had been reading in
bed at around three forty five when she heard the
screams of two people. One was a man making a
guttural sound that reminded Christine of someone being struck by lightning.

(33:20):
The other was a distressed sounding woman who seemed to
be desperately trying to reason with someone. Christine couldn't hear
what was being said, but the voices alerted a neighborhood dog,
who started barking incessantly. Eventually, at around three point fifty
seven am, Christine went to the window to see what

(33:42):
was going on, but by the time she got there,
the voices stopped and she couldn't see anything. The dog
continued to bark, waking its owners. At some point between
four and four fifteen am. They got up to try
and quiet him, but didn't hear any other voices. It

(34:03):
was presumed that Christine Shaw had overheard Stephen Gillim in
the throes of death and Helen Gillum defending herself against
her attacker, but if that was the case, it meant
that they had both been attacked at around four am.
Jeffrey claimed that upon hearing his mother's cries for help

(34:24):
over the intercom, he'd immediately raced to the house, which
took less than a minute, and everything had happened very
quickly from there. Why then, hadn't Jeffrey arrived at the
Warner's house next door to raise the alarm until around
four thirty am? What had he been doing for that
unaccounted for period of around half an hour. While all

(34:49):
of these factors were dubious, it was when the autopsies
came back that the detectives really started to question things.
Forensic examination had revealed that Steve, Evan Helen, and Christopher
Gillum had all been stabbed a similar number of times,
with a vast majority of the wounds concentrated on their
chests and none on their abdomens. If there had been

(35:12):
two separate killers, what were the chances that both had
struck in such similar manners. Testing was done of the
blood found on Jeffrey's left shin and right hand to
determine who the blood came from, but the samples weren't
strong enough to make an identification. Then there was the knife, which,

(35:34):
according to Jeffrey, had been used in all three of
the killings. The knife had been tested for fingerprints, but
none were found, nor was there any blood on the handle.
Of the knife nor the blade. There hadn't been any
prints on the panadole filled syringe or any of the
other items in Christopher's laundry basket either. Tony Gillum couldn't

(35:58):
believe what he was here. He asked the detective why
they hadn't charged Jeffrey with Stephen and Helen's murders if
they believed he was guilty. The detective said that they
had actually recommended that charges be laid, but the Director
of Public Prosecutions declined. Tony refused to accept this all

(36:22):
sought that out, he said. After discussing the situation with
his other brother, Tony rang Jeffrey and asked him to
meet with them. Jeffrey refused, questioning why and saying he
wouldn't speak to anyone about the night of the killings
without his solicitor present. Tony then decided to take matters

(36:45):
into his own hands. He began writing letters to the
Department of Public Prosecutions urging them to charge Jeffrey for
the murders of Helen and Stephen Gillum. The DPP refused,
citing a lack of evidence. Tony began reaching out to
journalists and other members of law enforcement, trying to raise

(37:07):
awareness to the situation in any way possible. Eventually, his
story caught the attention of the production team at the
Channel nine television program sixty Minutes, who launched their own investigation.
Stephen's mother, Jesse told sixty Minutes she didn't believe Christopher
Gillen played a role in the murders at all. She

(37:30):
described him as a lovely chap with a beautiful personality
who had no malice and was bullied by his younger brother.
Jesse recalled, Jeffrey could never walk past Christopher without thumping him.
They always did it. It was just a known thing.
I don't think they liked each other at all. I

(37:51):
really don't. Neighbor Ted Warner expressed his disbelief about Jeffrey's story, too,
saying to have two homicidal maniacs kind of crack out
of their egg in the one night, in the one home,
in the one suburb is pretty scary stuff. In Jeffrey's

(38:13):
version of events, Christopher had lit his mother's body on
fire and the house had blazed from there. But sixty
Minutes had four separate arson investigators look into the case,
and they found evidence to indicate that the fire had
actually started in the main bedroom near Stephen Gillum's body,
thus creating further doubts about Jeffrey's story. They also consulted

(38:38):
a leading criminal barrister who raised questions about Jeffrey's timing
of the events. Jeffrey had told the police that approximately
ninety seconds had passed between him hearing his mother screaming
for help on the intercom, racing upstairs to the lounge room,
and witnessing Christopher light her body on fire. If this

(38:59):
was korrected, it gave Christopher just ninety seconds to stab
Helen seventeen times before running around the house pouring out
mineral turpentine in preparation for the fire. Before Jeoffrey arrived,
The Sixty Minutes team reached out to renowned New South
Wales forensic pathologist doctor Godfrey Oakley to examine the case

(39:21):
on their behalf. After reviewing the crime scene photos and
autopsy reports, doctor Roakeley raised some questions about the lack
of blood on Christopher's body. While the dressing gown he'd
been wearing was soaked in blood from his own wounds,
it was free of any blood spatter, as were his
arms legs and face. If Christopher had been the one

(39:44):
to attack his parents, doctor Oakeley expected that his whole
body would be splattered with blood. Only a few drops
were visible on his neck and a chin, and forensic
experts agreed this could have come from his own wounds.
Looking at the crime scene photos, doctor Roakeley noted that
the knife was lying underneath Christopher's left arm. This positioning,

(40:09):
coupled with the fact that there was no blood or
fingerprints on the knife, led doctor Roakeley to conclude that
the knife had likely been washed and then placed there.
As for the lack of blood found on Jeffrey Gillum,
doctor Roakeley reasoned this could only be explained by an
attempt at cleaning himself or having been in contact with water.

(40:33):
Asked if he thought the crime had been committed by
one killer or two, doctor Roakeley said, I think the
probability is that there was one killer. I think it's
reasonably probable, and I don't think it is reasonably probable
that two people killed in exactly the same way. I
think that the evidence which was shown on the dead

(40:55):
brother demonstrated that he wasn't involved. I think that he
wasn't part of it. Jeffrey declined to be interviewed for
the program without his explanation for all of the evidence
sixty Minutes had uncovered, The host of the segment called
for an official coronial inquiry to be held. He also

(41:18):
said that DNA testing should be done of the blood
found on Jeffrey's body to determine which family member it
came from. Stephen Gilliam's family, unwilling to accept the fact
that Christopher had gone to his grave condemned as a
double murderer, strongly agreed. One of Stephen's brothers steadfastly stated,

(41:41):
all of these questions have to be answered. The sixty
minute segment reinvigorated interest in the case, and, to Tony
Gillham's relief, it was announced that a second coronial inquest
would be held to examine all the available evidence relating
to the deaths of Helen and Stephen Gillam. Jeffrey refused

(42:05):
to speak to the press, creating further doubt about his
story in the eyes of the public. After all, if
he had nothing to hide, then why not share his
side of the story. The inquest commenced in late nineteen
ninety nine, with hearings scheduled to be held over several months.
The council assisting the coroner presented the court with all

(42:28):
of the questionable elements of the case, with significant focus
on the blood evidence and the similarities between the stub
wounds of the three victims. Testimony was also delivered from
various witnesses about Jeffrey's physical appearance at the time of
the crime. Some recalled that his hair had been wet

(42:48):
or shiny looking, suggesting the possibility that he could have
washed it, but according to testimony from one blood spatter expert,
the lack of blood on Jeffrey did it told any
major significance anyway. He told the court that it was
a common misunderstanding to think that the amount of blood
on an attacker was linked to the level of violence

(43:11):
they inflicted. A detective who had attended the crime scene
also gave evidence that he hadn't been surprised by the
lack of blood on Christopher or the murder weapon that
was found lying beside him. A huge amount of water
had cascaded into the downstairs space due to the firefighting
efforts on the floor above. A tar paulan had been

(43:34):
placed over Christopher's body in an attempt to preserve any evidence,
but water had already dripped onto him before this occurred.
The detective therefore assumed that any blood on Christopher or
the knife had been washed away. However, DNA testing had
since been done of samples taken from the drops of

(43:55):
blood on Jeffrey's feet, and while the results were below
laboratory level five years in storage, there were some indications
that the blood was Helen's. Of the four forensic experts
who gave evidence, two believed that the number and pattern
of the stab wounds indicated that only one killer was

(44:16):
involved in the crimes. Doctor Christopher Lawrence, the pathologist who
had conducted the Gillum family autopsies, was experienced in dealing
with triple homicides and told the court, I honestly cannot
recall a group of three sets of wounds that looked
this much the same. However, while he found this compelling,

(44:38):
Doctor Lawrence said it didn't necessarily prove that only one
person was responsible. The forensic experts recommended that the knife
be formally re examined, while Christopher's dressing gown and Jeffrey's
boxershorts should undergo full chemical analysis. After all of the

(44:59):
evidence and witness testimony was presented, the coroner found that
there was sufficient evidence to suggest that Jeffrey Gillum could
be responsible for murdering his parents, and they recommended that
the Director of Public Prosecutions consider laying charges. There was
just one problem. After Jeffrey's manslaughter plea back in nineteen

(45:25):
ninety five, key pieces of evidence, including the knife, the
clothing worn by all four family members, carpet samples taken
from around the bodies, the piece of freshly cut garden
hose from the petrol siphon, and Christopher's fingernail scrapings had
all been destroyed by the police. Other items, like the

(45:47):
jumper Jan Warner had given to Jeffrey to where after
the killings, had never even been taken into evidence. Anything
that could be useful for further testing was no longer available.
In July two thousand, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdrey,
notified his decision not to press murder charges against Jeffrey Gillum.

(46:11):
Without these key pieces of evidence, he felt there was
no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. Jeffrey's uncle Tony
was outraged Refusing to accept this conclusion, Tony continued trying
to attract attention to the case in any way he could.

(46:31):
He put a sign on the rear wind screen of
his car that read that DPP is protecting a mass
killer by the name of Jeffrey Gillum and parked it
out the front of Nicholas Cowdrey's office in the city.
He even offered his own two hundred thousand dollars reward
for information. Tony continued the fight for three and a

(46:53):
half years, motivated by the blatant way in which Jeffrey
continued to live his life seemingly with no consequence for
his alleged actions. During this time, Jeffrey got married and
bought a house in Saint Ives, an affluent suburb in
Sydney's Upper north Shore. He continued to enjoy sailing using

(47:15):
the sailboat he'd inherited from his father. In early two
thousand and four, thanks to Tony's persistent efforts, the New
South Wales Homicide Squad finally decided to reopen the investigation.
With the key pieces of evidence no longer available, their
focus was on uncovering new and compelling evidence that could

(47:37):
convince the DPP it was worth prosecuting Jeffrey Gillum for
his parents' murders. Looking back through the case file, they
noticed that several items of Jeffrey's clothing had been found
in the burned wreckage of his family's lounge room. Jeffrey's
girlfriend from the time confirmed this was the same clothing

(47:57):
he'd been wearing when she'd visited the g Gillham home
on the night of the murders. Given that Jeffrey had
shown up on the Warner's doorstep wearing nothing but boxer shorts,
investigators wondered what his clothing was doing in the lounge room.
An examination revealed there was no blood on any of
the garments. This led them to theorize that Jeffrey could

(48:21):
have hastily undressed before attacking his family to avoid getting
any blood on his clothing, and had left them behind,
assuming they'd get burned in the fire. The location where
Christopher Gillum's eyeglasses were found was also of interest. Christopher
was shortsighted and had mild astigmatism, a common eye condition

(48:45):
that causes blurred or distorted vision. He wore glasses at
all times, except when sleeping or showering. According to his
ex girlfriend and a former flatmate, Christopher always kept his
glasses next to his bedside because he needed them to
move around, even wearing them to go from the bedroom

(49:06):
to the bathroom. But after the murders, his glasses were
found on the window ledge in the downstairs bathroom. Investigators
thought it was highly unlikely that Christopher would have walked
upstairs in the dark to kill his parents without his
glasses on. They deemed it more probable that Jeffrey had

(49:29):
waited until his brother was asleep before moving his glasses
to put him at a disadvantage. The reason Christopher wasn't
wearing them was because he'd been roused from his sleep
upon hearing his parents being attacked, and had run upstairs
in a panic without stopping to find his glasses first.

(49:49):
Christopher's vision impairment also highlighted another crack in Jeffrey Gillum's story.
Those close to Christopher said he wasn't very confident when
it came to driving. He rarely borrowed the family vehicle
and refused to drive at night, therefore making it highly
unlikely that his desire for a car would have been

(50:11):
a strong enough motive to kill his own parents. Detectives
reinterviewed the first responders who attended the Gillum residence on
the morning of the attacks. The firefighter, who had been
operating the pump at the rear of the fire truck
recalled that Jeffrey Gillum had been brought over to him
by another officer. When Jeffrey was about a meter and

(50:35):
a half away, the firefighter could smell petrol on him.
Given his experience in the field, he was familiar with
the smell of petrol and could distinguish it from any
other accelerants. Based on this statement, investigators felt that the
ooda Ted Warner, had smelt on Jeffrey's breath, which he'd

(50:56):
described as kerosene, had actually been petal. With the second
witness backing Ted's recollection, investigators cast even more doubt on
Jeffrey's claims that he'd tried to siphon the petrol with
his father earlier that evening. Had he done so, the
smell would have been washed away in the shower he

(51:18):
claimed to have taken before bad They were more convinced
than ever that Jeffrey had attempted to siphon petrol from
his car by sucking on a garden hose in order
to set fire to the house. Another firefighter recalled that
when he arrived at the Gillum's property with breathing apparatus,

(51:39):
Jeffrey was standing near the garage by himself in a
highly agitated state. He apparently said, don't go in there.
Somebody's got a knife. Investigators believed this was Jeffrey's final
attempt to deflect the firefighting efforts in the hopes that
the fire would oblate all evidence that proved the real

(52:02):
killer was him. This just left the question of motive
if the case made it to trial. It wasn't the
prosecution's responsibility to prove motive, but it would certainly help
strengthen the brief of evidence before it was presented to
the DPP. The detective leading the homicide investigation decided to

(52:27):
search the dusty storage unit attached to the Sutherland Police
station where the Gillum family murders had first been investigated.
Along with Christopher Gillum's student diary. He found a box
containing three mini cassette tapes. It appeared that, among other things,
Jeffrey Gillum had used one of the tapes to record

(52:50):
his Year twelve English Homework. In it, he gave an
audio review of the book Stories from Suburban Road by
Australian writer Tom Humtifford, in which he likened some of
the characters in the book to his own life. Jeffrey
said that he had an older brother who was favored
by his parents, and that like one of the characters

(53:12):
in the book, he often got in trouble for things
that his brother got away with. As far as investigators
were concerned, the tape proved that Jeffrey Gillum had a
motive to kill his entire family. Uncle Tony Gillum agreed
he had come to learn that Helen and Stephen Gillum

(53:34):
had apparently been very tight with their money. A longtime
friend of Stevens told Sydney Morning Herald journalist Shelley Gare
that quote money was important in that house, overly important,
and there was no need for that. He recalled that

(53:54):
when Helen and Stephen had lent Jeffrey money to buy
a car, they also charged him interest. While this was
intended to be character building, Tony believed it likely fueled
Jeffrey's hatred of his parents. He had been spending time
with the sailing fraternity where most of the other members
came from welloff families, and Tony thought that Jeffrey came

(54:18):
to resent his parents' financial habits. This was a hate crime,
the lead detective told Shelley Gare with certainty, a very
passionate hate crime. Jeffrey hates his family with a motive.
Established investigators believed they had a clearer picture of what

(54:42):
transpired at the Gillham home in the early morning hours
of Saturday, August twenty eight, nineteen ninety three. Having spent
the last couple of weeks voicing concerns about Christopher's behavior
to his friends and girlfriend, Jeffrey Gillum had essentially been
laying the groundwork for the account he later planned to
give the police. The fact that Jeffrey had told his

(55:06):
friend Wayne that he had to go home on the
night of the attacks to keep an eye on things
between his brother and father wasn't a premonition, but part
of the plan to make it look like Christopher was
in a disturbed mental state at home. The unexpected visit
from his girlfriend Hailey gave Jeffrey one final chance to

(55:26):
proclaim Christopher's so called psycho behavior. After Hailey left. Jeffrey
then waited in the main house until his family was asleep,
before creeping into his parents' bedroom shortly before four a m.
He brought an axe with him as backup, just in
case the stabbing was unsuccessful, or in case Christopher heard

(55:49):
the struggle and came to interfere. The position of Stephen's
body next to the bed and the lack of any
defensive wounds indicated that he'd been stabbed while he was
still asleep. The location of Helen's body indicated she had
only managed to move a short distance from the bedroom
to the lounge room before she too was attacked. Once

(56:12):
he had killed his parents, Geoffrey went down to kill Christopher,
only to find him already coming up the stairs. Seeing Jeffrey,
Christopher immediately retreated back down, where Geoffrey launched his third
fatal attack. Afterwards, Jeffrey showered, cleaned the knife, and planted

(56:33):
the panadole, paste and associated items in Christopher's laundry basket
to make it look like his brother had intended to
take his own life. After committing the murders, Jeffrey then
attempted to siphon petrol from his car to use as
an accelerant, but finding this too hard, he grabbed some
mineral turpentine instead. He doused the bodies of his mother

(56:57):
and father to destroy any evidence and to then set
them alight. When Jeffrey arrived at the Warner's home next door,
they noted that he hadn't been out of breath and
was cold to the touch. Yet in the recording of
his triple zero call made from the Warner's phone, Jeffrey

(57:17):
sounded breathless as he spoke to the operator to the police.
This indicated that Jeffrey had likely waited outside to make
sure the fire had really taken hold before going next
door to raise the alarm. He feigned breathlessness on the
triple zero call to make it look like he had
immediately ran from the blazing house to call for help.

(57:41):
He then tried to prevent one of the first responders
from fighting the fire by saying someone in the house
had a knife. While Jeffrey's story had remained mostly unchanged,
there were some small discrepancies when he called triple zero.
He told the opera that when he first went upstairs

(58:02):
after hearing his mother's cries for help, his brother was
standing there with a knife. He told the same thing
to a detective on the scene. However, during his police
interview and a subsequent video walked through of the crime scene,
Jeffrey claimed the knife had been on the floor near
the piano. Then there was the matter of Jeffrey's keys,

(58:25):
which had been found on a table near the glass
sliding doors upstairs. In the video walkthrough of the crime scene,
Jeffrey initially told the police that upon hearing his mother's screams,
he'd locked the boat house behind him out of habit
and had placed the keys in his pocket. When shown
the keys on the table, he said he must have

(58:47):
placed them there upon entering the house, but had no
memory of doing so. The police found this hard to believe.
If he really had walked in on Christopher about to
at their mother's dead body on fire, surely the keys
would be the last thing on his mind. They thought

(59:07):
it was more likely that the keys were on the
table because Jeffrey had stayed in the main house all
night and had never even gone down to the boat
Chad at all. Speaking about the case to ABC's Australian
story Tony Gillum explained Jeffrey's story was fanciful. We know

(59:28):
neighbors heard guttural screams before four am. That was when
the murders were taking place. The triple zero call was
made at four point thirty four am. For Jeffrey's story
to be true, his mother would have had at least
have been alive for twenty minutes before making a call
over the intercom to Jeffrey in the boat Chad with

(59:50):
serious stab wounds to herself. Now, I don't think so.
In two thousand five, the homicide squad submitted a brief
of evidence to the Department of Public Prosecutions to see
if they had sufficient evidence to charge Jeffrey for the
murders of Helen and Stephen Gillum. The DPP not only

(01:00:14):
went ahead with the chargers, but served Jeffrey with an
ex officio indictment, meaning that the case would go to
trial without the need for a committal hearing. By this point,
Jeffrey had married his girlfriend, Rebecca, and the two had
one young daughter and another on the way. He requested

(01:00:35):
a stay on the indictment, arguing that a trial would
be oppressive, unfair, or in breach of the rule against
double jeopardy. The request was rejected and the trial went ahead.
In February two thousand eight. The prosecution's case was that
Jeffrey Gillum had been financially motivated to kill his parents

(01:00:57):
and then frame his brother for the crime. They presented
witnesses who testified to Christopher's good character. None of them
had ever seen him act aggressively towards his father or
anyone else for that matter. Christopher's ex girlfriend spoke about
him with the genuine affection, describing him as a gentle

(01:01:18):
person who didn't have a hostile bone in his body.
Nobody close to Christopher could imagine him fighting with his
parents over money, particularly for the purpose of buying a car.
The prosecution submitted that Christopher couldn't have pulled off the
attack without his glasses on. Furthermore, video demonstrations were presented

(01:01:43):
by a fire expert who said that if the fire
had been started by Christopher, like Jeffrey claimed, it would
have started out small, slow moving, and easy to put out.
Jeffrey would have had ten to fifteen seconds to try
and stop it, Yet in his version of events, he
did nothing. The prosecution told the jury, Jeffrey didn't do

(01:02:08):
a thing to try to stop that fire, and that's
not what an innocent man, a man who had not
killed his parents would do in those circumstances. They also
presented testimony from various experts who said that it was
very rare to see such a high number of stub
wounds on all three victims, particularly when the wounds were

(01:02:31):
concentrated on the chests with none to the abdomen. One
expert noted a distinct pattern of injury in each of
the victims that implied there was only one perpetrator. The
prosecutor told the jury that the similarities in the stab
wounds were so remarkable that it defied logic to believe

(01:02:53):
that two brothers independently got into a homicideal rage using
the same knife in the same way. But the defense
posited that the events had played out exactly like Jeffrey
Gillum had always maintained. They said the evidence didn't suggest

(01:03:15):
that this was a carefully planned crime, but a frenzied
attack committed by a deranged individual as the result of
a spur of the moment emotional or psychiatric disturbance, with
Christopher becoming increasingly with a drawn in the months leading
up to the murders. They put it to the jury
that the person more likely to have snapped that morning

(01:03:37):
was Christopher. The fact that Christopher's glasses were in the
bathroom wasn't a tactical move by Jeffrey, but indicated that
it was actually Christopher who had taken a shower after
killing his parents. In one of the crime scene photos,
it appeared as though Christopher had a soap bubble in

(01:03:58):
his ear, and a towel with his name monogrammed onto
it was also found rolled up into a ball in
his bedroom. This suggested that Christopher had stabbed his parents
and then gone downstairs to shower under the assumption they
were both dead. It was only when he heard his
mother screaming for help on the intercom that he realized

(01:04:19):
she was still alive. He quickly threw on his dressing
gown and raced upstairs to stab her repeatedly in the back,
just seconds before Jeffrey arrived. Christopher's off thalmic surgeon testified
that while Christopher's uncorrected vision was below average and he
certainly would have benefited from wearing his glasses, he would

(01:04:42):
have been able to negotiate a familiar environment and perform
everyday tasks quite well without them. The surgeon felt that
Christopher would have been capable of going upstairs, taking a
knife out of a cutlery drawer, and distinguishing between his
mother and fire. The defense said that any similarities in

(01:05:04):
the stab wounds was pure coincidence. If Helen's blood was
on Jeffrey's feet, this was simply because he had come
into contact with her blood when standing alongside her body.
A blood spatter expert also said it was possible that
Jeffrey had brushed against something that was soaked in Helen's blood,
or that a drop of her blood had fallen from

(01:05:26):
the knife when he picked it up. He also said
it was possible the blood spatter on Christopher's neck and
chin could have resulted from stabbing his parents. As for
the lack of blood or fingerprints on the knife, reports
from first responders showed inconsistencies regarding the knife's original location.

(01:05:48):
Some said it was lying on the floor, others said
it was propped against Christopher's body. Approximately ten thousand liters
of water had been pumped into the upper level of
the head during the firefighting efforts. Footage captured at the
crime scene showed that Christopher's hair and body were wet
and that water was dripping through the roof and down

(01:06:11):
the staircase to the floor around him. Any blood from
the knife or on Christopher's body had likely washed off.
The knife was also handled extensively by the police using
cloth and paper prior to it being tested for fingerprints,
but according to one police expert, the material the knife

(01:06:34):
handle was made of typically didn't show fingerprints anyway. The
knife was never forensically examined for the presence of blood
before it was destroyed by the police years later. Based
on these various factors, the defense didn't believe the lack
of blood or prints on the knife proved anything. The

(01:06:56):
same went for the lack of prints on the syringe
filled with panic and associated items that were found in
the laundry basket in Christopher's bathroom. Testing had been done
on other items around Christopher's room, such as his fencing swords,
a beer bottle, billiard balls, and the sliding doors, and
these didn't have any prints on them either, nor did

(01:07:19):
the laundry basket in which the panadol kit was found.
This suggested the prince had simply been eliminated as a
result of the firefighting efforts, or alternatively, that Christopher himself
had washed his hands immediately before handling the panadole. Testimony
from one of the prosecution's own experts said that freshly

(01:07:41):
washed hands don't leave fingerprints. Other seemingly suspicious details, like
a Jeffrey's clothing being found in the lounge room, could
be explained by the simple fact that Jeffrey had showered
in the upstairs bathroom before going to bed that night.
He left his clothes there so his mum could wash
them for him, like he always did. While this might

(01:08:05):
show that Jeffrey was an untidy young man, it didn't
prove he was a killer. The fact that he was
cold to the touch when he arrived at the Warner's
home wasn't a sign that he'd been working outside waiting
for the fire to take hold, but a common symptom
of shock. One of the biggest weaknesses in the prosecution's

(01:08:27):
case was explaining why Christopher had stayed downstairs and done
nothing to help his parents when their screams could be
heard by neighbors over fifty meters away. Their case relied
on Christopher having never made it upstairs and being killed
at least fifteen minutes before Jeffrey started the fire. But

(01:08:49):
during the autopsies, the carbon monoxide levels of all three
victims had been tested to determine if they were dead
before or after the fire started. For a non smoker,
the normal level of carbon monoxide is between zero point
five and two percent. None of the Gillums smoked, yet

(01:09:10):
all three of them had higher levels of carbon monoxide
than usual. Helen's blood carbon monoxide level was three percent,
Stephens was four percent, and Christopher's was six percent. Such
higher levels suggested all three of them had inhaled smoke
before they died. But if Christopher died fifteen minutes before

(01:09:34):
Jeffrey allegedly started the fire, how could this be explained.
Testimony was delivered for the prosecution by forensic pathologists to
doctor Christopher Lawrence, who advised the jury not to place
any significance on this. He explained that even though the
carbon monoxide levels in all three of the deceased were

(01:09:58):
higher than average, they were still within reasonable limits. Doctor
Lawrence stated, in the normal course of things, in looking
at a person with stub wounds and fire damage, a
level of less than ten percent would be assumed to
be that the person had died before the fire started.

(01:10:21):
Appearing on the stand. Jeffrey Gillum's original version of events
remained unchanged, but with the expert testimony indicating that Helen, Stephen,
and Christopher had all been dead when the fire started,
this effectively ruled out the possibility that anyone other than
Jeffrey could have lit the fire. The trial ran for

(01:10:45):
several weeks before the jury were left to deliberate case
file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us
by listening to this episode. Sponsors a Cast recommends Hello, this.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Is blind By. Around every two years or so, I'm
contractually obligated to record an advertisement for my own podcast,
The blind By Podcast. I'm a writer and I like
to use the podcast space for writing. I write with
my mouth for you to read with your ears. I
write about curiosity, and I've delivered an episode every week

(01:11:31):
for the past eight years. I love doing it. If
you want to listen to If you don't, I'm sure
we'll be grand, but most importantly, mind yourself. The blind
By podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
A cast is home to the world's best podcast, including
Crime World, The Other Hand, and the one you're listening
to right now.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
Thank you for listening to this episode's ad by supporting
US sponsors you support case file to continue to deliver
quality content. Members of the jury were unable to agree
on a verdict and the case was dismissed, with a

(01:12:17):
retrial scheduled for two thousand and eight. This time, the
evidence presented by both sides was essentially the same, but
the prosecution made no mention of Jeffrey's financial motive. The
jury deliberated for eight days before delivering the verdict for
the murders of Helen and Stephen Gillum. Jeffrey Gillum was

(01:12:39):
found guilty. Jeffrey, who had been attending the trial each
day while out on bail, looked completely stunned. His wife, Rebecca,
led out a loud sob. At the subsequent sentencing hearing,
the judge, who had presided over both trials, called Jeffrey
gus Yillam a consummate liar and a brilliant actor who

(01:13:03):
had planned the killings over several weeks. He told the
packed court room there is no reasonable possibility that the
killings were a spur of the moment reaction to some
unknown emotional or psychiatric disturbance that came upon the offender
in the early hours of the morning of twenty eight

(01:13:23):
August I have no doubt that the Crown's scenario placed
before the jury contains the true account of what occurred.
While the judge had instructed the jury to ignore the
evidence about the panodole paste as it wasn't helpful in
indicating who had killed Stephen and Helen, he said that

(01:13:44):
the guilty verdict indicated the panadol was part of a
scenario manufactured by Jeffrey to paint Christopher as deranged, acknowledging
the lack of motive. The judge also questioned the decision
of the prosecutor to accept the Jeffeffrey's manslaughter plea back
in nineteen ninety three. He said that decision had to

(01:14:06):
be seen in the context that Jeffrey's entire extended family
had been supportive of him and convinced of his innocence
at that time. The judge explained, therefore, the delay in
the prosecution was not due to police or prosecutor in competence.
The offender was so convincing in his behaviour and so

(01:14:28):
unlikely to have killed his doting parents that initially he
fooled everybody by his conduct and his extraordinary accounts of
the events. Of the night. It can be easily understood
that the police and prosecutor found it impossible to believe
that he could have come up with such a plan
to kill his family as has now been uncovered. So audacious,

(01:14:51):
cunning and evil was it. The judge sentenced to Jeffrey
Gillen to the maximum penalty of life in prison for
both murders. Outside court, Jeffrey's uncle, Tony Gillum appeared vindicated
with his thirteen year long campaign for Jeffrey's guilt paying off.

(01:15:12):
He intended to have Jeffrey's inheritance recovered and redistributed among
the family. He also intended to seek compensation for the
financial and psychological costs of pursuing Jeffrey's conviction, as his
marriage had ended and he'd lost his job as a result.
With a gold medal that Christopher Gillam had won in

(01:15:33):
fencing hanging proudly around his neck, Tony told reporters Christopher
went to his grave as a convicted killer of his parents,
which is not true, and that's why I've been doing
this to clear Christopher's name. Tony also wanted a full
inquiry to be done into the initial police investigation and

(01:15:57):
whyat took so long to secure a prosecution, He told
the Sydney Morning Herald. I want some answers why this
whole fiasco took place. I want an apology from the
justice system. Sorry for wasting the last thirteen years of
your life. I want someone in authority to apologize to me.

(01:16:23):
For Jeffrey's wife, Rebecca, the conviction and sentence came as
a complete shock back in nineteen ninety nine when it
was announced that a second coronial inquest would be taking place.
Jeffrey had already served his good behavior bond for Christopher's
manslaughter and was relieved to be putting all of the
legal proceedings behind him and moving on. Jeffrey and Rebecca

(01:16:48):
had been in the throes of planning their wedding, which
went ahead while the inquest was under way. It was
as beautiful as the couple had envisioned, attended by all
of their friends and relatives. When Jeffrey was served the
ex officio indictment in two thousand and six, Rebecca was
thirty eight weeks pregnant with their second daughter, and life

(01:17:10):
had been looking good for the couple. They had never
realistically considered the possibility that Jeffrey could be charged with
his parents' murders, and the indictment had left them completely
shell shocked. While Jeffrey was out on bail awaiting his trial,
the couple welcomed to their third daughter. Rebecca genuinely believed

(01:17:32):
that her husband would be acquitted and free to return
to the happy life they had worked hard to build together.
After all, the Jeffrey who Rebeccah and their friends knew
was nothing like the Jeffrey the prosecution painted him out
to be. For starters, Tony Gillum's suggestion that he'd been
stonefaced at his parents' funerals was completely absurd. Several other

(01:17:57):
mourners who were there recalled Jeffrey sober, being uncontrollably. A
friend of Jeffrey's told Australian story he grieved deeply for
them all. I remember going up to jeff and giving
him a hug and letting him know that I was
there for him, and I just remember he was crying

(01:18:18):
and tears streaming down his eyes and he couldn't even
speak to me. He was just sobbing. Another friend agreed,
saying I was next to him, he was just in
tears the whole time. The reason it had taken Jeffrey
so long to collect to their ashes was because he

(01:18:39):
simply couldn't face the pain of it all. There was
also no validity to Tony's claims that Jeffrey had moved
on with his life unaffected after the murders. He hadn't
breezed through his university degree at all, but had fallen
six months behind. He'd only persevered because he Etwitt's what

(01:19:00):
his parents would have wanted, and he couldn't have done
it without the help of his teachers. Jeffrey had struggled
to get a job because of the criminal charge against him.
It took a lot of hard work to rebuild his life,
including regular counseling and ongoing support from family and friends.

(01:19:21):
For those close to Jeffrey, the suggestion that he'd been
financially motivated to kill his family was ludicrous. Jeffrey had
never cared that much about money, and the money he
did inherit was mostly used to pay for his legal fees.
Far from living lavishly, He'd used the rest to buy
a house that was near Rebecca's family. It was a small,

(01:19:45):
run down property that needed lots of work. He then
invested the remainder. He'd kept his family sail boat because
it was his father's pride and joy, and it held
a lot of significant memories for him. Jeffrey had never
tried to harass his grandmother Jesse into signing over her

(01:20:06):
portion of the estate. In fact, it was the very opposite.
Stephen Gillham's will clearly stated that he wanted Jesse to
be taken care of in the event that she outlived him.
He wanted Jesse to stay in the home he had
bought for her, with Stephen's trustee paying all of her rates, taxes,

(01:20:26):
and doubt goings. Jeffrey had happily honored his father's wishes.
He continued paying all of Jesse's bills and for the
maintenance of her home until she eventually moved into a
nursing home. At this point, Geoffrey wrote to Jesse's solicitors
offering to sell the house to pay for her new

(01:20:46):
living arrangements. He never got a response. It was only
after Jesse passed away that Jeffrey sold the house in
two thousand and seven to help pay the legal costs
of his first trial. As for all of the other
claims that Tony had made against him. Jeffrey barely knew
his uncle. His refusal to get together with Tony hadn't

(01:21:11):
been because he was hiding something, but because he didn't
have a close relationship with that side of the family,
and his lawyer had advised him not to discuss the
case with anyone. There was no sinister reason for Jeffrey
avoiding the media either. Jeffrey was simply a very private person.
He had no desire to relive the traumatic events unless

(01:21:33):
forced to by the courts, and he also wanted to
protect his family's privacy. Furthermore, Jeffrey's legal team had advised
him not to engage with the media, which in turn
allowed the press to create a false image of him
that fit the prosecution's narrative. Those close to Jeffrey knew

(01:21:54):
him to be kind, honest, generous, and quick witded. He
adored his wife, daughters, and prioritized family. After he was
handed his life sentence, Rebecca told their eldest daughter that
there had been a dreadful mistake and Daddy wouldn't be
coming home for a long time. But Rebecca refused to

(01:22:16):
accept the guilty verdict. She knew Jeffrey better than anyone,
and she had no doubt that he'd been telling the
truth about what had happened all along. Rebecca told Australian Story,
I have a relationship that many people probably wouldn't have
the chance to know in a lifetime, and it's incredibly special.

(01:22:39):
If I believed that jeff was guilty, I'd be the
last person to support him, and in fact, I think
I'd be the person most angered by having been misled
for all these years. I guess, so I reject outright
the possibility that he could never be released. I don't
think I'll ever be able to accept it. I never

(01:23:01):
will accept it. Jeffrey had always had a large group
of supporters, but they'd predominantly stayed silent, convinced that he'd
be found not guilty. When that didn't happen, Rebecca enlisted
the help of a friend named to Jill, who had
a legal background, and asked her to read over the

(01:23:22):
trial transcript. Jill also read over all of the available
evidence that the jury hadn't been allowed to see. The
first thing Jill noticed was this was no clear cut,
straightforward case. If it was the first trial never would
have resulted in a hung jury, and the second jury

(01:23:43):
wouldn't have needed eight days to deliberate. Rebecca and Jill
gathered several of Jeffrey's friends and created the jeff Needs
Justice Support Group. Together, they started going through the case
in detail and share all of the information they found online.
The more they uncovered, the further convinced they were that

(01:24:07):
Jeffrey had been the victim of a severe miscarriage of justice.
At Jeffrey's trial, despite the defense's objections, three experts for
the prosecution had been allowed to express their opinions about
the similarities in the stub wounds sustained by Stephen, Helen
and Christopher Gillum. These opinions were provided without reference to

(01:24:30):
any existing scientific research. One of the experts had shown
the jury diagrams that supposedly showed the similarities between the wounds.
The Justice for Jeff's Support group studied these diagrams and
found they weren't even accurate to the wounds the victims
had sustained. There were also some important differences between Christopher's

(01:24:55):
wounds and those of his parents, which were never highlighted
to the jury. Stephen and Helen's stab wounds were more
or less vertical, while a majority of Christophers were horizontal
and closer together. Stephen and Helen also had wounds to
their knacks, while Christopher did not. The group reviewed over

(01:25:19):
seventy scientific research papers on stab wounds and discovered that
the expert opinions presented at trial had no scientific merit.
The stab wounds were no more similar to each other
than they were to stub wounds sustained by victims of
multiple stabbings in unrelated cases. There was also nothing unusual

(01:25:41):
about the lack of wounds to the victim's abdomens. According
to the research, the chest is the most common sight
for stub wound injuries. It turned out that the prosecution
had also sought opinions from an internationally recognized leading forensic
pathologist name to Professor Stephen Cordner. He had given evidence

(01:26:04):
at the second coronial inquest saying the only thing similar
about the stab wounds was the number of wounds and
the fact that they were likely all inflicted with the
same knife. Professor Cordner had said, I do not think
it is safe to conclude that the three deaths were
by one hand. The prosecution had refused to call Professor

(01:26:30):
Cordner at Jeffrey's trial claiming he was unreliable. Jeffrey's support
group got hold of this report and discovered that Professor
Cordner argued that aspects of the prosecution's evidence was both
factually wrong and scientifically unsound. He also expressed the view
that the prosecutor's arguments based upon that evidence were unfounded

(01:26:54):
and misleading. To the group, the prosecution's decision not to
say admit Professor Cordner's evidence had been a calculated move,
as it would undermine a significant argument of their case.
One of the things that most astonished the group was
the prosecution's claims that there was nothing significant about the

(01:27:17):
higher carbon monoxide level in Christopher Gillum's bloodstream. His level
of six percent was significantly higher than that of his
parents and over four times the upper limit of normal.
All the scientific research on carbon monoxide suggested that Christopher
had been alive near the fire and inhaled smoke before

(01:27:40):
he was killed, just like Jeffrey had described. They sought
an opinion from a specialist American toxicologist named Professor David Penny,
who had been studying the effects of carbon monoxide for
over thirty years. He found that the levels of carbon
monoxide in the bloodstreams of all three members of the

(01:28:02):
Gillum family indicated they had all still been alive when
the fire started. Professor Penny provided an affidavit discrediting the
evidence presented by doctor Lawrence at trial, stating it was
preposterous to assert that the person died before the fire started.

(01:28:22):
Based on Christopher's six percent carbon monoxide level, Penny said
he would have been inhaling smoke for between two to
four minutes prior to his death. The group examined the
video demonstrations presented by the fire expert, who claimed that
Jeffrey would have had up to fifteen seconds to try

(01:28:42):
and stop the fire if it had indeed been lit
by Christopher. Like he claimed, the demonstrations were made using
bare timber and PVC pipes to represent Helen and Stephen's legs.
They didn't take into account the clothing they were wearing,
which would have acted as a wick and accelerated the fire.

(01:29:05):
In the demonstrations, mineral turpentine had been poured around the
bodies rather than directly on them, and the fire was
lit some distance from where the turpentine had been poured.
In Jeffrey's version of events, Christopher had poured the turpentine
directly on to his mother's body and then litter directly.

(01:29:27):
The group consulted some fire experts, who added that the
body temperature of the victims would also play a significant
role in how the fire developed in its initial stages.
They conducted their own demonstrations taking these missing elements into account,
and found that the fire traveled quicker, further, and higher

(01:29:48):
than in the demonstrations shown to the jury, and fit
with the Jeffrey's description of what happened. As for the
jerry can of petrol, the group had no doubt about
Jeffrey's claims that he and his father had tried to
siphon it the Friday night before the murders. While they
didn't plan on going boating that Saturday, they did have

(01:30:11):
plans to take the boat out on Sunday. With both
of them already tied up with other arrangements on Saturday,
Friday night had been their only chance to get things ready.
The prosecution claimed that Jeffrey gave up on siphoning the
petrol after it became too hard, Yet the jerry can

(01:30:31):
contained one leader of petrol. If Jeffrey had really wanted
to start a fire. He could have easily used this
rather than sourcing the mineral turpentine. Also, if he had
been responsible, it didn't make sense that he'd have left
the jerry can out in full view for investigators to find.

(01:30:53):
The fire officer who claimed he had smelt petrol on
Jeffrey hadn't come forward with this information until two thousand
and five, twelve years after the fact. This statement had
been one of the fresh pieces of evidence that contributed
to Jeffrey being charged with his parents' murders. Yet petrol
hadn't even been used in the fire, so what relevance

(01:31:17):
did it hold. The same went for the allegation that
Jeffrey had warned one of the firefighters not to enter
the house because someone inside had a knife. Again, this
statement wasn't given until two thousand and five, and it
directly contradicted the original statements from witnesses back in nineteen

(01:31:38):
ninety three, who said that Jeffrey was largely incoherent when
the firefighters arrived. Two other firefighters had told police that
when they arrived, it was actually neighbors who warned them
not to go into the house because someone was down
there with a knife. The prosecution had never disclosed that
they intended to present the evidence at the trial, which

(01:32:01):
meant that defense had no opportunity to counter this point.
The cassette tapes found by the homicide squad that allegedly
captured Jeffrey Gillum talking about his disdain for his older
brother had been ruled inadmissible at trial because they'd been
recorded at least five years before the deaths. However, they'd

(01:32:23):
formed an important part of the DPP's decision to charge
Jeffrey with the murder of his parents in the first place.
It took two years before Jeffrey's support group were finally
allowed to listen to them for the first time. As
they pressed play on the book review of Stories from
Suburban Road that supposedly suggested Jeffrey's motive, they were dismayed

(01:32:48):
to realize that the voice on the tape didn't sound
even remotely like Jeffrey. Furthermore, Jeffrey had no memory of
ever reading Stories from Suburban Road by Tom Hunger, nor
did any of his classmates from the time. Later on
in the tape, a second male had recorded himself talking

(01:33:09):
about his job as a road safety engineer. The group
managed to track this man down, and he confirmed the
voice was his. He had absolutely no link to the
Gillum family. Justice for jeff members discovered that the tapes
hadn't been entered into evidence during the crimes in nineteen

(01:33:30):
ninety three, and that none of the original investigators recalled
having seen them. Therefore, the tapes could have come from anywhere.
Another piece of evidence that had been deemed inadmissible was
a statement from one of Helen's work colleagues. She stated
that on the afternoon of Thursday, August twenty seven, nineteen

(01:33:53):
ninety three, the day before the killings, Helen had seemed agitated.
She expressed concerns about one of her sons, saying she
was very worried about him and didn't know what to do.
Helen was uncharacteristically abrupt with one of her clients and
left work two hours early, presumably to go home and

(01:34:15):
meet with this son. The prosecution had wanted to call
Helen's colleague as a witness, believing it was evidence that
Helen had been worried about Jeffrey's behavior in the lead
up to her death. The evidence was ruled inadmissible because
Helen had never mentioned which of her two sons she
was worried about. Rebecca Gillums sent out a group email

(01:34:40):
to a large number of former students who had studied
engineering at university with the Jeffrey. One of them found
an old timetable that confirmed they had a lecture scheduled
between one thirty and four thirty on Thursday afternoons in
August nineteen ninety three. A friend of Jeffrey's recalled that

(01:35:00):
both he and Jeffrey had attended the lecture together on Thursday,
August twenty seven, indicating that the sun Helen had voiced
concerns about was in fact Christopher. A member of the
Justice for Jeff's support group named Paula was tasked with
going over some of the scientific evidence. She sat down

(01:35:23):
and watched the crime scene video for the first time.
As Paula watched the glove investigator point to key items,
she noticed something next to the call button on the
intercom of the Gillum's lounge room. It was quite obviously
a bloody fingerprint. The investigator in the video swiped right

(01:35:45):
past it without mentioning a thing, and the intercom was
not taken into evidence or subject to any form of testing.
To Jeffrey's support group, this bloody fingerprint was clear evidence
that Jeffrey's story was true. Helen had been stabbed in
the chest, knack and arm, meaning she had seen her attacker,

(01:36:09):
so if Jeffrey had been the attacker, there would have
been no need for her to use the intercom to
call for his help. In twenty eleven, Jeffrey's legal team
used the new evidence uncovered by the Justice for jeff
group to appeal against his conviction on eighteen different grounds.

(01:36:31):
At a subsequent hearing at the New South Wales Court
of Criminal Appeal, Doctor Christopher Lawrence, the forensic pathologist who
told the jury there was no significance to the carbon
monoxide levels in the victim's bloodstreams, admitted he was not
fully qualified to give evidence when it came to carbon
monoxide levels. According to doctor Lawrence, he had warned the

(01:36:55):
prosecution that it would be more appropriate to have a
toxicologist to give this evidence. He said that he'd changed
his view over time and now believed it was possible
that Christopher had been alive for at least a short
amount of time after the fire was lit. The panel
of three judges was highly scathing of the prosecution's carbon

(01:37:18):
monoxide claims. With this evidence discredited, it called their entire
timeline into question. The new evidence that disproved that similarity
of the stab wounds as indicating there was only one killer,
also significantly weakened their case. In December twenty eleven, having

(01:37:40):
spent over three years behind bars, forty two year old
Jeffrey Gillum's double murder conviction was quashed and he was
released on the condition of a one hundred thousand dollars surety.
A statement released by the panel said it is inevitable
that a miscarriage of justice has occurred. Jeffrey walked out

(01:38:02):
of the courthouse arm in arm with Rebecca as a
fifty strong group of his supporters applauded wildly. His aunt Claire,
who had supported him since the beginning, told reporters we
can't quite believe this has happened, that Jeffrey is actually
free and here with us. This has been a black

(01:38:23):
cloud hanging over us for nearly twenty years. Today that
cloud is lifting. But his ordeal wasn't over, as the
Court of Appeal still had to decide whether he would
be subject to a retrial. It was a painful six
months for Jeffrey and his supporters as they awaited the decision.

(01:38:47):
As the panel deliberated in late June twenty twelve, an
article in the Sydney Morning Herald stated an acquittal decision
would mark the end of a nineteen year long saga
that has involved nearly a dozen court cases and coronial hearings,
occupying hundreds of hours, thousands of newspaper column inches, and

(01:39:08):
an extraordinary emotional roller coaster for the members of the
extended Gillam family and their friends. It would also raise
further questions about the way alleged offenders are tried in
New South Wales. In particular, it would raise questions about
the use of forensic scientific evidence to prove a person's

(01:39:30):
guilt or innocence, and the ability of juries to understand
this evidence and its fallibility. The panel was divided, but
with a majority decision of two against one, Jeffrey Gillam
was acquitted of all charges and officially declared a free man.

(01:39:52):
Tony Gillam was outraged as Jeffrey was leaving the court.
Tony yelled over yet, Jeffrey, I'll fix you, but Jeffrey
was unfhazed, squeezing Rebecca's hand. He told reporters, this has
been a horrendous experience for us. I'm glad today that

(01:40:15):
I have been acquitted of the chargers. I would just
like to thank all the supporters that stuck by me,
most importantly my wife, Rebecca, and my children, and to
everyone that's fought for the truth to be told. I
am very happy to be going home a free man,
and that's just all I want to do, go home.

(01:40:41):
Three weeks after Jeffrey's acquittal, Tony Gillum died of a
heart attack at the age of sixty. A close family
friend told reporters Tony was completely burnt out after the
legal fight. He'd spent too many hours going over the
case in painstaking detail, chainsmoking, and downing beer after beer.

(01:41:04):
Several members of law enforcement and the legal world attended
Tony's funeral to pay their respects, where he was remembered
as a compassionate, caring and tenacious man. The lead prosecutor
from Jeffrey's trial read a psalm to the packed chapel.
That's said, here, Lord, my plea for justice. Pay heed

(01:41:26):
to my cry, she told reporters. In the face of
the tragic loss of his three beloved family members. Tony
Gillum had the strength of character, integrity, and decency to
apply all his energies toward honoring their lives. Tony's crusade

(01:41:46):
had not only deeply impacted his health, but it also
cost to Jeffrey Gillum three years of his freedom. Gulban Jail,
where he'd served his time, was a two and a
half hour drive from his home in Sane Ives. While
Rebecca and their three daughters had visited him on most weekends,
Jeffrey had missed out on so many milestones, including many

(01:42:10):
of his daughters firsts. After his acquittal, Jeffrey remained as
tight lipped as ever with the media, eager to move
on and live a quiet, happy life with his family.
For those who knew the Gillum family, the entire saga
was difficult to comprehend. Regardless of the legal outcome with

(01:42:34):
the Jeffrey being acquitted, the horrifying reality was that the
seemingly normal Christopher really had snapped and killed his parents,
and that Jeffrey's instinct had been to kill his brother
in response. His auntie Claire, had discussed the case with
her former doctor. She told journalist Shelley Gare that she'd

(01:42:56):
asked him, how could this possibly have happened and in
a normal family. The doctor's response was abrupt. Normal people
don't kill people. But when Shelley Gare spoke to a
forensic psychiatrist about the case, they disagreed. Anybody can do anything,

(01:43:19):
he said, Whenever I start lecturing a new bunch of students,
I always say, don't for a moment think you're immune
from being a criminal, or that your father, or your
mother or your sister won't end up in jail. Our
motives vary, but that aptitude to kill is within us
all in the right circumstances.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Case 325: The Gilham Family

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

The Breakfast Club

All Episodes

Case 325: The Gilham Family

Stuff You Should Know