Bill Potts comments on homicides involving balconies, cliffs and other heights
Extract from News.com.au, click here to view the original article.
CHILLING new Queensland research has revealed there could be a “dark figure” of people who have gotten away with murder after falls from a height were dismissed as accidents.
QUT school of justice senior lecturer Claire Ferguson found the numbers of homicides involving balconies, cliffs or other heights could be higher than reported because determining if a fatal fall was an accident, suicide or homicide was often impossible based solely on medical evidence.
The forensic criminologist also found that in a number of cases the death was originally misclassified as an accident before being reclassified as a homicide, making them more difficult to prosecute.
Criminal Lawyer Bill Potts agrees that murder from a height was an “extraordinarily difficult crime to prove”. Picture: Mike Batterham Source:News Corp Australia
“The trouble in determining the manner of death in fatal falls from a height ensures that murders perpetrated by causing someone to fall are not easily discovered by death investigators,” Dr Ferguson said in the article she co-authored with Tiffany Sutherland, which was published in March.
“This means that there may be a dark figure of homicidal falls from a height that are not recognised as such by police, or that can never be brought to a criminal court.”
The research comes after several cases in Queensland that included deaths from a height, including that of Gable Tostee, who was acquitted of the murder of Warriena Wright after she plunged from the 14th floor balcony of his Surfers Paradise apartment in 2014.
Dr Ferguson also found murders where a person fell from a height were often motivated by the perpetrator’s desire to gain access to insurance money, a divorce settlement or freedom to move on with a new relationship, as in the case of convicted Queensland wife killer Louis Mahony, who claimed his wife Lainie Coldwell fell from a ladder while putting up Christmas lights.
Queensland wife killer Louis Mahony (left) is appealing his conviction for the murder of his wife Lainie Coldwell. Picture: Jamie HansonSource:Supplied
Mahony took out two life insurance policies for $2.25 million just months before Ms Coldwell’s death. He is appealing his conviction.
Dr Ferguson found 75 per cent of victims were spouses.
“In the cases that I looked at, they were almost always intimate partners,” she said.
“Often there was elaborate stories about the extent to which the offender tried to save the victim and there was this extreme level of planning.”
Veteran criminal lawyer Bill Potts said murder from a height was an “extraordinarily difficult crime to prove”.
“This is because it is not about suspicion, belief or probability but proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is often missing in these cases because most of these crimes occur in private where there is very little evidence to prove the motive or whether someone jumped or was pushed,” Mr Potts said.
