Australia Australia - Maria James, 38, Thornbury, Vic, 17 Jun 1980

Breakthrough in 34yo murder cold case provides new leads for retired investigator's first case

23rd April,2014

As Australia's most experienced murder investigator, it is fair to say Ron Iddles does not give up easily.

Despite leaving Victoria's homicide squad early this month, Mr Iddles is still working behind the scenes to solve the first murder he was ever assigned to - 34 years ago.

In 1980, when he was a 24-year-old detective senior constable, Mr Iddles was sent to a bookshop in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury.

The bookshop's owner, mother of two Maria James, had been killed while her two sons, 13-year-old Mark and 11-year-old Adam, were at school.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-...-breakthrough-in-a-34-year-old-murder/5407564

Iddles confident murder will soon be solved

In Australia, there are currently more than 1,300 unsolved murders, with 280 of them in Victoria.

In the past week, a new witness has come forward about the Maria James case and given police a statement.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-...-breakthrough-in-a-34-year-old-murder/5407564

marlywings said:

Iddles confident murder will soon be solved

In Australia, there are currently more than 1,300 unsolved murders, with 280 of them in Victoria.

In the past week, a new witness has come forward about the Maria James case and given police a statement.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-...-breakthrough-in-a-34-year-old-murder/5407564

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I love when you read stuff like this! How fabulous that they look likely to catch Maria James' murderer, so many years later. He/she would have definitely thought they were home free!!

I love cold case work!!!

Oh wow, so glad this case is open again. Have read a bit about this case. Such a sad and horrible story. I remember reading somewhere, that Father Bongiornos sister was asked to give her DNA sample via saliva swab and she refused. Hence why they are now seeking to exhume his body. Filthy priest he was, hope this gets solved. Cant hide your sins forever.

just found the link, which is more in depth
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s-of-mums-murder/story-e6frg6n6-1226600093368

another link
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2007/07_08/2007_08_30_Moor_PoliceReopen.htm

What is taking so long about getting an exhumation order and gathering the required DNA?

This suspected pedophile priest seems to have enough accusations against him to warrant it.

Maria James and her sons deserve justice for her brutal and horrific murder.

Enough of the covering up already!!

OMG! That's the worst nightmare possible!

bookshop murder victim Maria James answered this telephone and asked her former husband, Fitzroy town clerk, John James, to hang on while she attended to an inquiry. He heard his former wife being killed. Picture: HWT library

they'll get you said:

OMG! That's the worst nightmare possible!

bookshop murder victim Maria James answered this telephone and asked her former husband, Fitzroy town clerk, John James, to hang on while she attended to an inquiry. He heard his former wife being killed. Picture: HWT library

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s-of-mums-murder/story-e6frg6n6-1226600093368



Poor guy ... he could probably hear a lot with the phone placed like that. I'm guessing help was able to get to Maria quite quickly then, but that it was to no avail.

Wow someone was pissed ..

They sound like they are on the right track, definitely someone known to the victim, wasn't planned

Id like to see them get DNA from the priest,

Id almost be willing to bet the binding was done post mortem, and the offender was in the process of staging the crime scene, possibly to look like a rape or a robbery when he was interrupted.

Covered in the victims blood, he would've been noticed, so its likely he drove to and from the location.

Most likely there'd be inadvertent blood transfer, from the offender to his vehicle, and most likely to his residence as well.

Post offensive behavior, would be pretty evident

NOW I will say that receiving a phone call from her Ex -husband WHILE she was being killed, raises BIG red flags, (at least with me ) a bit. That seems a little too coincidental, though it absolutely could be just that . But in criminal investigation coincidences are a RARE occurrence... so ID make sure I clear that VERY thoroughly.

This investigator sounds like a pit bull.. once he gets the DNA from the priest it would be interesting to see where it goes from there .

Yes, if it is the guy, he can't be arrested but at least they'll know not to spend any more precious time and money on the investigation.

One thing that causes me pause though; why didn't she tell her former husband the priest was there when she was about to lay down the phone, if it was indeed the priest? In that case, it seems odd to me that she would just indicate that some unspecified person was there for an inquiry.

Ron Iddles -was- a pit bull, what a pity we cannot clone him. He's solved so many of these neglected older cases, or at least got them moving again. One of the best -- he's in a position at the Police Union now AFAIK.

Poor Maria and family. This case is a can of worms that's needed to opened for so many years. What a shame they can't force that filthy pedo's sister to give up her DNA -- what's she scared of??? Tarnishing his good name?? What a selfish wench.

I don't find it much of a coincidence that Bongiorno was charged that same year. Acquitted of course, but they all were back then. It'd be a different story these days, one would hope.

Here's a lovely story on Ron's retirement, detailing some of the 300+ homicide cases he's investigated, including Maria James:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/homi...an-police-association-job-20140322-35afb.html


"He was the best thief-catcher I've seen in my whole life,'' the 80-year-old former senior sergeant reveals. "He was fearless. Tireless. It's unbelievable to think someone could be that good."

Sometimes, Iddles would even turn up to work with a crook in tow, having caught them in an illegal act on his way to the station.

-- they just do not make them like that anymore.

Priest ruled out in Vic cold case murder

"A parish priest who died more than a decade ago has been ruled out as a suspect in one of Victoria's oldest cold case murder investigations.

Father Anthony Bongiorno was regularly reported as a key suspect in the murder of mother-of-two Maria James on June 17, 1980, inside her Thornbury bookshop.

'Homicide Squad detectives can confirm that Father Bongiorno, who died on February 15, 2002, has been eliminated as a suspect through a variety of investigative techniques,' Detective Senior Sergeant Stuart Bailey said on Saturday"



http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2015/06/27/priest-ruled-out-in-vic-cold-case-murder.html

Just an update about this - ABC Radio National have produced a podcast called 'Trace' about the Maria James murder.

The link is here - http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/trace/

I am not sure how many weeks this will go on for but - it has some very interesting information in this first episode.

There are some gaps that definitely need to be filled (and can be filled) and I think this may have come about because of so much attention being placed on Father Bongiorno.

My mother worked across the road at the time and we lived nearby. There has ALWAYS been an interest in what happened in the bookstore.

Please take a listen and see what you think about the mention of the man who worked for Telecom.

After hearing about this, I did some searching and found a Herald-Sun article from 2007 that talks about this Telecom worker. The article is here - http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...84f16de41?sv=a774f46ff49577e45b5242c2d029bcbb

The quote that interested me was -

Police discovered Mrs James visited her doctor two months before she was killed and asked to go on the pill as she was about to start a sexual relationship.

She told the doctor her boyfriend was a Telecom shift worker and was a new Australian who didn't speak English well.

Her doctor said Mrs James told him her boyfriend regularly came to visit her at her shop about mid-morning after her children had gone to school.

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What he said to the detectives (that is discussed in the podcast) really does contradict what Maria had told the doctor.

The strange thing was - he committed suicide two days after being interviewed by police.

If he was a 'new Australian' who was so new he didn't speak English well, he definitely wouldn't have roots in Melbourne or stand out to anyone as displaying strange behaviour at the time. My dad worked for Telecom at the time and he remembers that he and others were told he had gone back to Greece - he just basically disappeared. They were not told at the time that he committed suicide. For the name that they can 'kinda' remember, I have searched the GMCT records for all funerals/services and have had no luck finding anything. I was just speaking to mum and as she said - maybe his body was actually returned to Greece instead. This would make sense as to why there has been no other focus on this man and his involvement.

Anyway - this Podcast is going to be really interesting I think and shine a new light on the case that had always had the focus in recent years on the Priest.

The show producers say at the end - they want to speak to anyone who knew either the Telecom worker OR the lady mentioned in that Herald Sun article above who nearly hit the man running across High Street - her name is Jeanette Hodson.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-...r-dna-bungle-in-maria-james-cold-case/8694870

"The exhibit in question had been forensically tested and used to eliminate suspects. A recent review by the homicide squad however has shown that the exhibit was in fact unrelated to the Maria James case," the statement said.

So it seems all the suspects who were eliminated by DNA could now be in the running again.

A bit more detail:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/a...in-maria-james-cold-case-20170712-gxa29s.html

That decision has now been called into question, after the ABC Trace podcast discovered that a bloodstained pillow case included in the case file of Maria James, who was stabbed to death in 1980, was related to a separate homicide investigation.
. . .
Police want to retest up to a dozen suspects, but will have to find a DNA sample on another of Maria James' exhibits to compile a new profile of the killer.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/radio/2017-09-03/the-making-of-trace-podcast/8860872

[h=1]Backstory: The making of the Trace podcast investigating the cold case murder of Maria James[/h]

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My friend and fellow journalist, Kerri Ritchie, who'd previously covered the cold case, passed on a whisper she'd heard that an electrician had seen a man covered in blood near the murder scene.

I was curious as to why this had never been publicly reported, especially given this suspect, identified by a witness as local priest Father Anthony Bongiorno, had a strong motive.

He was accused of molesting Maria James's 11-year-old son, Adam.

I felt a podcast would be a powerful medium to review this cold case.

True-crime podcasts often make the mistake of treating tragedies like spectator sports, so my early caveat for this project was getting the blessing of Maria James' sons, Mark and Adam, and former detective Ron Iddles

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[h=2]Maria James murder:[/h]

• Stabbed 68 times in her Melbourne home
• Hands bound in what police described as a 'frenzied attack'
• Youngest son abused by two local priests
• One priest seen covered in blood on day of murder
• Police cleared suspects using wrong DNA

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Trace: Family calls on coroner to consider church-police collusion in Maria James murder cold case
RN BY RACHAEL BROWN AND JEREMY STORY CARTER FOR TRACE
ABOUT 8 HOURS AGO (as at 18:13 AEST 07 September 2017)

'The family of murder victim Maria James is calling for the coroner to investigate whether collusion within Victoria Police contributed to a major DNA bungle that derailed the cold case investigation into her death.'

Read more at:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-...r-to-consider-church-police-collusion/8874042

Related:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-...t-in-maria-james-murder-investigation/8717254