Musings about Debi Marshall - The Devils Garden
I've never been interested in reading this book until recently because my perception was that there was a fair bit of misinformation in this book and that the book focused too much on criticism of Macro.
I'm half way through it and have learnt some interesting things that I was unaware of.
Some thoughts and clarifications;
Page 7: JR definitely went to Hollywood SHS. I've seen a lot of the tin foil hat brigae claim all girls went to
Iona. Later in the book I noticed DM does say JR went to Iona but if you read the sentence again it's pretty obvious she wrote JR's name when it was meant to be SS.
Page 34: JR was naked. Later on DM claims CG was semi naked. At some point around here DM claims the police told her there was no sexual assault. Certainly possible but I'm unconvinced. Potentially police providing DM misinformation.
My understanding is that JR was too decomposed to ascertain whether or not she was sexually assaulted, but she was found naked. Sot it begs the question did she participate is a voluntary sexual encounter with her murderer? Or was she murdered, stripped of her clothes and deposited?
CG was actually found fully clothed I believe, and I'm confident she was not sexually assaulted
Page 34: Apparently JR's watch was found not far from here body but much later. I also struggle to believe they didn't find it in their initial search. The grass was 1m long but still, you think after a thorough search they'd be in their with a wipper snipper and having another crack?
Page 35: DM claims that when police inform JR's parents they have found her body, they tell them that it appears her throat has been cut. The body had decomposed so much they couldn't see the actual cut but swarms of ants on her jugular vein is consistent with a slashed throat.
You'd be surprised just how accurate that information is, my guess it is from a reliable source.
Page 85: After the CG discovery, the then Head Of Macro Paul Ferguson asked the public, "Did anyone arrive home agitated between 3am and dawn?" suggesting their time line for the dump was same night and potentially reasonably early.
Some insects scavenge dead flesh or lay eggs in dead bodies. Forensic entomologists study the kinds of insects found in and near bodies, and by knowing the life cycles of the different insects, and the stages of decomposition when different insects populate dead bodies, can determine the time since death (post-mortem interval) or the length of time the body has been there, if it has been moved since death.
The first insects on bodies are usually flies, including houseflies. Different flies arrive at different stages – some are attracted to newly dead bodies, others will only arrive three to six months after death. Beetles tend to arrive as the body decomposes.
The succession of flies and the length of their life cycles will depend on the location, time of year, weather, and whether the body was on the surface or buried.
Some bees and wasps predate flies and their larvae, and can cause difficulties by removing the insects used by forensic entomologists to study the crime scene.
These sort of observations would have been made by a Forensic Entomologist and passed on to Paul Ferguson quite quickly.
Page 88: "Mick Buckley tells of another informant who nominated three men and a woman as responsible for the killings and who passed the information to a university professor. 'One of the men was a atxi driver and the woman used to travel with him. She had been a patient at a drug rehab centre 2 km's from Wellard, where JR's body was dumped. The cabbie had been driving the nightJR weent missing and couldn't explain his movements between critical hours late that night. The professor passed the information to police, but to my knowledge nothing was done about that. They ignored it'."
Matches Droc's story.
** Mick Buckley was ex-cop and a PI at the time this happened. From what I can tell, he was hired by either CG's
boss or The West Australian (newspaper)
Page 108: Apparently the taxi incident where the woman was grabbed from someone in the back happened in Bay View Tce and not Princess Rd. Can anyone clarify this?
Page 108: The Karakatta attack - man jumped out, put bag over head, put her in his van, and he never spoke. Obviously the victim can't provide description of offender or his car.
Page 108: There was another one in the same year. Girl got into taxi,, he drove her to Lake Claremont Golf Course, and ripped her clothes off before she escaped.
Page 152: DM claims a former senior Macro insider told her that LW has been involved in "very serious and extreme acts of violence in the past".
DM has exaggerated on this one, I would say "acts of violence" would be more accurate.
Is it true or is this an attempt to justify their tunnel vision on LW?
Is LW the "known sexual pervert" referred to on CIA? Because if what is written about him in this book is true, LW is a "known sexual pervert".
Yes he is
Can't recall what page this is on, but LW drove a white Hyundai Excel at the time.
