Casefile True Crime - Case 174: Vicki Arnold & Julie-Anne Leahy

Episode Date: May 8, 2021

One cold winter night in 1991, best friends Vicki Arnold and Julie-Anne Leahy vanished from their town of Atherton, Queensland. The two women had left for a late-night fishing trip but never came home. Two weeks later, their bodies were found in Julie-Anne’s car on a remote bushland track, in the opposite direction from where they’d been headed.  --- Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Erin Munro Creative direction – Milly Raso Production and music – Mike Migas Music – Andrew D.B. Joslyn With special thanks to Vanessa Stewart and Robert Reid For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-174-vicki-arnold-and-julie-anne-leahy

Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. On June 12, 1991, John Wilkinson received a strange request. John worked as a blacksmith and ran a successful engineering shop with his wife, Berget, in the small North Queensland town of Atherton. On that particular Wednesday, John walked from his workshop into the adjoining office

and spotted his wife chatting with their accountant and friend, Vicki Arnold, who was working on the couple's computer. 27-year-old Vicki was a quiet and kind person who worked hard and also volunteered at the local church. Having relocated to Atherton from the larger city of Cairns, she'd befriended the Wilkinsons quite quickly and often visited them outside of her office hours. For a little while, she'd even lived with them and helped out by babysitting their children. John joined the two women and the three of them made small talk for a while.

Then, Vicki asked John if he could help her with something. She wanted to buy a gun, specifically a .22 calibre rifle. It was for her boyfriend who worked on a cattle station. John knew that Vicki knew nothing about guns and informed her that a .22 would be too light to use on a cattle station. She simply replied that was what her boyfriend wanted. He just needed something to stash under his seat and was willing to pay around $500 for it.

John agreed to help and began looking in a local paper where people could list things for sale. Soon, he found a private seller advertising a .22 semi-automatic Ruger. It had a 10-shot magazine and the seller only wanted $300 for it, $200 less than Vicki had said she'd spend. Pleased with the discovery, John bought the rifle, then passed it along to Vicki in early July. A few days later, he asked her if her boyfriend was happy with it.

She enthusiastically responded that he was. What John didn't realise was that Vicki didn't have a boyfriend. That anyone knew about, at least. On the evening of Thursday, July 25, 1991, several weeks after buying the .22 Ruger, Vicki Arnold drove over to the home of her best friend, Julianne Lay. Although the two women had only been friends for a few years, they were already extremely close. They'd met in 1987 when Julianne and her partner, Alan Lay, contracted Vicki to handle the

accounts for their carpet-laying business. When Julianne married Alan a year later, Vicki was their bridesmaid. The women were at different stages in their lives, but this didn't get in the way of their friendship. Vicki hoped to find love, but was currently single and living alone in a rented apartment. 26-year-old Julianne had four children, three girls and a boy. She was also raising her 16-year-old half-sister, Vanessa Stewart, who moved in two years earlier after spending much of her childhood living with her grandmother.

The Lay household was a big and bustling one. That Thursday night, Vicki pulled up at the Lay's residence on Dancer Drive in Atherton. The sweet and gentle Vicki was such a regular guest at the Lay home that the children called her Aunt Vicki. As Vicki arrived, Julianne was dishing up scrambled eggs for the children's dinner and fixed a plate for Vicki as well. Then the two women headed to Julianne's bedroom to wrap some presents for her 10-year-old daughter Anitra, whose birthday was in two days' time.

When that task was finished, Vicki and Julianne joined the rest of the family in the lounge room. Julianne's husband, 28-year-old Alan Lay, was dozing in a beanbag, still wearing his work clothes, while the kids watched TV. Vicki and Julianne started a game of scrabble, and the children began to go to bed. Vanessa, Julianne's 16-year-old half-sister, was allowed to stay up later than the others, but by 10pm, Julianne told her to go to bed as well. The teenager made her sister and Vicki some tea before heading to her room for the evening.

Alan continued to snooze in the beanbag until he suddenly woke at 12.25am. The television was still on, and the two women were still in the room, playing scrabble. Alan smoked a cigarette and began to watch a movie that had started about Frankenstein's monster. The three of them chatted and joked about, until Julianne announced that she wasn't interested in watching that particular movie. Vicki and Vicki discussed going late-night fishing at nearby Lake Tinneroo instead. A pastime Alan had often known them to partake in.

At approximately 12.45am, Alan went to check on baby Kathleen, who'd woken up. Outside, he heard the engine of Julianne's white, Nissan four-wheel drive start up. The car pulled out of the driveway, and the sound of its motor grew faint as it headed off down the road. At 6.50am in the morning, Alan was woken by his sister-in-law Vanessa. She couldn't find Julianne and asked Alan if he knew where she was. Alan estimated that the fishing trip should have only taken the women a few hours. It didn't make sense that they could still be out.

Plus, Julianne had left her driver's license and cigarettes behind. Alan jumped out of bed, dressed, and went to look for them. Julianne's four-wheel drive was still gone, while Vicki's car remained parked outside the property. Alan hopped in his own white van and drove over to Vicki's apartment. He pounded on the front door. When there was no answer, he knocked on the door of Vicki's next door neighbour, a woman named Pamela Fox.

Pamela told Alan she hadn't seen or heard anything, so he headed out to Lake Teneru. There was no sign of them. He checked a couple more locations where he thought they could be, but there was no trace of Vicki or Julianne in any of the usual places. Time was ticking by and the children were at home preparing for school. Alan decided he had to go home to update them, then he and his stepdaughter Anitra went to the police station to raise the alarm. Batherton sits in the Table Lums region of Queensland, an inland area of the state with

several booming agricultural industries. It's home to a small, close-knit community, and when word spread that Vicki Arnold and Julianne Lay were missing, locals were quick to help with the search. Their friends, colleagues, and other townspeople joined Alan in scouring the surrounds of Lake Teneru. Some focused on the surrounding streets and roadways, suspecting that maybe the women's vehicle had broken down. But hours passed with no sign of the two friends or the four-wheel drive.

By 4pm, Alan Lay had officially reported both women missing. One of the first people to learn of the disappearance was Sergeant Bernard Wilkes, a local police officer who happened to be close friends with Vicki. He'd met Vicki through his wife Jane, a florist, and the couple regularly invited the young woman over for meals. She'd babysat their children and even went camping with their entire family. When Vicki had decided to be confirmed in the Anglican Church approximately 18 months earlier, Sergeant Wilkes and Jane agreed to be her godparents.

The sergeant was very troubled to learn his friend was missing, and his concern only grew as dusk fell. He knew Vicki to be a responsible person who wasn't prone to taking off without warning. Moreover, it was the middle of winter, and the temperature had dropped to minus 1.7 degrees Celsius the night before. Friday night was going to be similarly cold. If the two women were lost in the bush somewhere, they were at risk of succumbing to the elements. Accompanied by another officer, Sergeant Wilkes visited Vicki's ground floor apartment

and gained entrance via a window. Nothing appeared out of place. He walked through each room, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. Upon entering the spare bedroom, something caught Sergeant Wilkes' eye. Lying on the floor was a box of 22-caliber bullets. Its label indicated there should be 50 inside. When Sergeant Wilkes picked up the box to examine it, he saw that 10 were missing. This discovery troubled Sergeant Wilkes greatly.

He'd never known Vicki to have any interest in firearms. He didn't even think she owned a gun. Rummaging around some more, he also found a telescopic sight that belonged to a 22-gauge rifle, but there was no firearm anywhere. Sergeant Wilkes headed to the lay residence to collect Vicki's car. After driving it back to the police station, he looked through it to see if he could find anything else of note. Vicki's purse was still there, with $500 cash inside, so were her glasses, which she

needed to drive and read. There was a box of work-related files and a birthday gift she'd purchased for Julianne's daughter, Anitra. On Saturday, July 27, the day that Julianne should have been celebrating her eldest daughter's birthday, Atherton Police organised a structured search of the area. An emergency services helicopter was dispatched and flew across the region, but the pilot sighted nothing relevant. By Monday morning, the double disappearance had triggered a major incident investigation.

A full-scale ground and air search ensued and lasted for several days. Police honed in on surrounding bushland and mountain ranges, but found no sign of the women or Julianne's car. Police were both baffled and daunted by the situation. If the women had just broken down somewhere, surely they would have found them by now. But it had been days since they were last seen. If they'd decided to just head off somewhere together, they could be hundreds of kilometres away by now.

The women's families were certain they hadn't just taken off. Vicky was a reliable employee who kept to a regular routine. It wasn't in her character to run away on a spontaneous adventure. Although Julianne was more outgoing and outspoken than her friend, she also took her responsibility seriously. She was a dedicated wife and a loving mother who diligently looked after her children and half-sister. There had been no signs that anything was wrong, and the day before they vanished had

been completely normal. Only one of Julianne's daughters, 9-year-old Sandra Sue, could think of something strange that had happened. After that day, Vicky had taken a break from work to have lunch with the Julianne, something she did quite often. Sandra Sue hadn't been at school that day, so she'd been there when Vicky arrived, bringing sticky buns as a special treat. Not long after she arrived, though, Julianne told Sandra Sue to go to her room so she and

Vicky could speak privately. This had never happened before. The 9-year-old was curious and couldn't resist leaving her room to see if she could find out what they were talking about. She saw Vicky and Julianne engaged in an intense conversation. When Julianne caught sight of her daughter, she angrily ordered, get back to your room. Two weeks later, at around 4pm on Friday, August 9, five teenagers wound their way through a remote area of the Herbeton Range, 15km southwest of Vatherton.

This bushland was perfect for trail bike riding. It was off the beaten path, but the low, scrubby vegetation was easy to navigate. As the teens sped through an area called Cherry Tree Creek, along a bulldozed bush track that was almost one kilometre long, they spotted something up ahead. Near the end of the dead-end track was a white, two-door Nissan Patrol four-wheel drive with red markings on its side and the registration 371 ADM. It was parked facing the nearby highway, which set about 800 metres to the east. Both of its doors were open, as was the rear window that hinged up above a metal door.

A small and skinny tree was caught underneath the vehicle. It looked as though whoever had been driving had run off the track and into the bush. The vehicle had run over a small tree, before coming to a stop on another tree that had already been felled. The teens approached the vehicle, but suddenly stopped when they were within 10 metres of it. On the front passenger side, they could see a woman's legs stretching out of the car, her feet dangling just above the ground.

Sitting in the driver's seat was the beaten and bloody body of another woman. Both were clearly dead. The five teenagers lived in the area and knew about the disappearance of Vicki Arnold and Julianne Lay. Realising they had likely stumbled across the two missing friends, they hastily left the scene and contacted the police. Sergeant Michael Morrison was working at the police residence in the small town of Herbeton, when he learned that a vehicle had been found with bodies inside.

He drove the six kilometres to Cherry Tree Creek, arriving shortly after 5pm. As soon as he spotted the Nissan Patrol, he knew it was Julianne Lay's. He slowly walked around to the car several times, observing everything closely. Although the bodies of both women were badly decomposed, Sergeant Morrison was certain they belonged to Vicki and Julianne. It was obvious they'd suffered violent deaths. Julianne was in the driver's seat, sitting firmly upright. She was held in place by her seatbelt.

It looked as though she'd been beaten. She had also been shot twice in her left temple and slightly lower down near the corner of her mouth. On the left side of the car, Vicki, who had a heavier build, was squeezed into the front passenger footwell, having been shot multiple times. Her back was against the dashboard and her legs were sticking out of the car with her bare feet almost touching the ground. Her head had fallen forward onto the front right corner of the passenger seat.

Her left arm was also on the seat, as were four scratcher lottery tickets and what looked to be the murder weapon, a .22 caliber Ruger self-loading rifle with a 10 shot magazine attached to it. Vicki's right hand was touching the firearm, with three fingers curled around its grip and her index finger resting on the trigger. Sergeant Morrison radioed for detectives to attend the scene. It was somewhat surprising to find the women and their car in this area. Cherry Tree Creek was located about 13 kilometers south of Atherton.

Tinneroo Lake, where they were said to have been going, was in the opposite direction. Sergeant Morrison was soon joined by Atherton officers, Detective Sergeant Michael Hayes and Senior Constable Willem Hendricks. By now, night was falling and had started to rain. District Officer Inspector Francis Wagner and Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Campbell also drove over from the nearby town of Meriba. It was their department's responsibility to supervise Atherton's detectives. The district's scenes of crime officer was also summoned to take photographs and dust

for prints. He didn't check the vehicle's cabin, but he did fingerprint the car's exterior and rear tray area. No prints were found in those areas. With the help of floodlights, further details began to emerge. There was a baby capsule fitted into the middle of the back seat. Two fishing rods and buckets filled with tackle and bait were found in the back of the Nissan. The blood-spattered car keys were in the ignition, which were switched on.

The car's headlights and heater were also on. The women had clearly been dead for some time. The maggots were found on their bodies as well as throughout the car. Both women were fully dressed, Vicki in a black and grey jumper and light yellow trousers, Julianne in a jumper, a light shirt and a short pink and grey skirt. These outfits seemed surprisingly light for two people heading out on a late-night fishing trip in winter. Julianne was wearing thongs, but Vicki's white slip-on shoes were discovered behind

the rear of the car. They were lying about four metres apart from one another, one by the track and the other near a creek bed, where the property's owner had recently constructed a dam. The dam was only a few inches deep and was very muddy, not a place where people could go fishing. Although the only tyre prints visible in the immediate vicinity were from the Nissan, the rest of the track had marks left by various cars and motorcycles over time. The car's interior was covered with blood, as was the ground beneath Vicki-Arnold's

feet. Under the passenger seat was a grapefruit-sized rock, which was covered in dried blood and hairs. It had been used to beat Julianne's face and hands during the attack. Police theorised that Vicki had gone up the track to find the rock and had lost her shoes there in the process. A blood-stained serrated knife with a wooden handle was lying under Vicki's left thigh. Its blade was bent at a 45-degree angle.

It was later identified as matching a set of steak knives that the lays owned. The rifle used had been significantly cut down and a portion of the stock was also removed, reducing it from its original size of almost 1 metre long to just 33 centimetres. Such modifications to a firearm were illegal. Bangled in the gun side of the rifle was some of Julianne's dark hair. A spent cartridge case was located near the firearm and there were two more in the back seat. One month later, another would be found by an officer who returned to the area, near

the spot where Vicki's feet had rested. This cartridge had markings on it that indicated the rifle had jammed during the shooting and had to be cleared before being fired again. Within an hour of arriving at the scene, officers had come to a conclusion. They were dealing with an open and shut case of a murder suicide. Sergeant Bernard Wilkes was tasked with notifying Julianne's family, accompanied by the local priest. He arrived at their home and braced himself to break the news.

As soon as Julianne's sister, Vanessa, saw the two men, her gut instinct told her something was wrong. Alan ordered her and the other children to go to one of their bedrooms. The five of them sat together in a nitra's bedroom, waiting. After a little while, Alan joined them. They found mum, Alan said. Before he could say another word, 11-year-old a nitra blurted out. Well good, where is she, can we go and see her, is she in the hospital?

No, Alan replied. She's dead. A wave of shock washed over Vanessa. This information was impossible to process. Then screaming reverberated throughout the room as the children absorbed what Alan had told them and began crying out no and what repeatedly. After the initial horror died down, the kids remembered Vicky, kind Aunt Vicky, whose calm and soothing presence had almost been a part of their family.

What about Vicky? Was she okay? No, said Alan. Vicky's dead too. She killed your mother, then she killed herself. Within a couple of hours, the police had decided to take the women's bodies for autopsy. When they attempted to remove Julianne, they discovered that her seatbelt had been looped around her neck twice.

Apparently Vicky had tried to strangle her with it. Once the seatbelt was removed, the police also saw that her throat had been cut three times. As the car reeked with the stench of decomposing bodies, the police decided to tow it to the smaller Youngerborough police station instead of Atherton. It was obvious to the pathologist that Julianne endured a particularly brutal attack. She'd been beaten, strangled and cut before being shot twice in the head. A closer examination of Vicky Arnold revealed she was shot once beneath her chin and again

approximately 4cm behind her right ear. The shot to Vicky's chin had shattered her jaw. It would have been extremely painful but probably wouldn't have caused her to lose consciousness. The wound to the back of her head likely killed her instantly. A third gunshot wound was subsequently discovered in Vicky's left thigh after both women's bodies were x-rayed. The pathologist had completely missed it due to Vicky's severe state of decomposition. Ammunition had already been found in Vicky's flat during a search right after Cheyenne

Julianne disappeared, which came as a surprise to most of those who knew her. As far as they were aware, Vicky had never shown any interest in guns. But a few of her friends knew otherwise. John Wilkinson came forward, explaining how Vicky had asked him to buy a .22 rifle for her boyfriend. He didn't realise that this boyfriend didn't exist. Some of Vicky's other friends were aware she'd bought a gun, but she'd given them different stories.

She told a colleague that she'd bought it to hunt kangaroos and planned to join a gun club soon. She explained to other friends that she wanted it for self-protection, and just three days before she went missing, Vicky mentioned to some relatives that she'd purchased a rifle but decided to give it back to her friend John so he could sell it. Police believed Vicky had another motive all along. She'd bought the rifle intending to use it against her best friend Julianne before turning it on herself.

They theorised that the two women had been driving along when Vicky suddenly attacked Julianne, cutting her throat. This caused Julianne to veer into the small tree found beneath the car. Vicky started strangling her with her own seatbelt and simultaneously reached into the back seat for her rifle. In the tussle, she accidentally shot herself in the leg. Julianne continued to fight back. Vicky got out of the car and picked up a large rock which she used to beat Julianne.

Then she shot Julianne twice, killing her. Finally ready to kill herself, she first angled the rifle beneath her chin. When this shot only wounded her, Vicky placed the gun at the back of her head and pulled the trigger. When the rifle was recovered at the scene, it had two cartridges stuck in its receiver. One of these was a live round that was being fed into the rifle's chamber when the firearm jammed, while the other had been in the process of being ejected. Photographs were taken of the weapon before police removed the stuck cartridges.

John Wilkinson was adamant that the ruger hadn't been sawn off when he gave it to Vicky. Investigators were left wondering, had she modified it herself, and if so, where were the missing parts? On August 23, two weeks after Vicky and Julianne's bodies were found, Vicky's neighbour, Pamela Fox, who lived in the same building as Vicky, received a call from their landlord. The landlord had supplied a lawn mower to Vicky before she disappeared and asked Pamela if she could return it. Pamela agreed and went to Vicky's carport, which joined her own garage to fetch it.

The carport was almost entirely empty. There was a wooden wardrobe, a step ladder, and an outdoor furniture set. Pamela easily spotted the lawn mower amongst these sparse belongings. She immediately noticed that there was a white bag perched on top of the mower's left rear wheel with some objects clearly inside. Pamela lifted it up. It was a pillowcase, and it was damp and heavy. Looking inside, she spotted what looked like a hacksaw and the barrel and butt of a rifle.

She had found the missing pieces of Vicky's rifle. Pamela reported the discovery to police, who took the gun parts and pillowcase in as evidence. When Vicky, Arnold, and Julianne lay first went missing, rumours began to circulate that the two had been secretly dating. After their bodies were found and words spread that Vicky killed Julianne before taking her own life, the gossip mill went into overdrive. No one could understand why a woman would kill a friend, unless they were romantically involved. Investigators immediately dismissed this theory as absurd.

There was no evidence pointing towards a romantic relationship between the pair. Instead, they suspected Vicky had been a sad and lonely woman who envied what Julianne had, her husband and kids. So she'd killed her best friend in a violent fit of jealous rage. Life hadn't always been easy for Vicky, Arnold. Born on October 3, 1963, to parents of Vida and Richard Arnold, she'd been particularly close to her father, but he died of cancer when she was 13. Vicky was devastated by the loss.

For months afterwards, she stayed in her bedroom as much as possible, only leaving when her mother insisted she eat something. Vicky grew up in Cairns and applied to join the military after leaving school, but she needed to wear glasses most of the time, and her poor eyesight led to her being rejected. She began working at an accounting firm, and in her early 20s, she was offered the chance to manage the firm's new branch in Atherton. Not long after settling in her new town, she befriended Sergeant Bernard Wilkes and his wife, Jane. The trio grew so close that the Wilkes even planned to build a new house with a separate,

self-contained unit for Vicky. They viewed Vicky as a sweet and introverted young woman who felt awkward around strangers and longed to find true love. Although Vicky was kind, generous, and successful in her career, she was sometimes inclined to make up stories. She told the couple she was battling kidney disease and also claimed she had a boyfriend who died. Neither of these things were true. Gradually, Sergeant Wilkes began to notice Vicky had romantic feelings for him. He and Jane suspected that her strong attachment to him and to them as a couple was simply due to her own desire for a husband and family. When they began to find Vicky's constant visits

overwhelming, they politely asked her to stop. Vicky was very hurt by this, but did as she was asked, staying away for several months. They were later able to repair their friendship. Vicky's friendship with the Lays had followed a similar pattern. She spent lots of time at their home and eventually started showing interest in Allen. About a year before the women went missing, Julianne began to feel overwhelmed by Vicky's constant presence and had asked her to stop visiting. This led to an argument and the two stopped seeing each other. But before long, they made up and resumed the closeness they'd had before. Investigators obtained diaries that Vicky had kept from her teenage years on. She hadn't written in them often and the final entry was dated March

27, 1991, four months before she died. These journals were passed along to a human services officer from the Queensland Police Service for further examination. Investigators also gave the officer some poems and notes Vicky had jotted down, as well as a true crime magazine titled Murder Casebook, which Allen Lay had handed in. After the women's bodies were found, Allen repeatedly visited the police station to check in on the investigation. On one occasion, he brought in this magazine, explaining that Vicky had borrowed it from him quite recently. Inside was an article about an apparent murder suicide. The human services officer scoured these materials, looking for possible insights into Vicky's state of mind. She concluded that Vicky had

suffered from unsolved grief relating to her father's death. This had caused her to become unstable and increasingly suicidal. The two women were both laid to rest on August 14, 1991. A year after their deaths, an inquest was held in Atherton. After examining police reports, the coroner came to the same conclusion as the investigators. Vicky Arnold had been a disturbed woman who murdered her best friend, then took her own life. With the perpetrator dead, there was nothing else to be done. It was a tragic case, but an open and shut one. Vicky Arnold's family refused to believe the police's version of events. The Vicky they knew was a gentle person with no history of aggression or violence. She might have been quiet and lonely

at times, but she certainly hadn't been depressed or given any indication she was suicidal. Vicky had made a number of plans that indicated she expected to be around in the days after she went missing. She'd organised to meet her friends, the Wilksers, at 6am on Friday, July 26, to help them complete their tax returns. She'd withdrawn cash to pay John Wilkinson for the rifle he'd bought her. Vicky had also arranged to attend a training seminar in Cairns with some colleagues and had spoken excitedly about the impending event. Vicky had little experience with firearms. It was possible she'd shot a rifle previously, but she wouldn't have known how to modify one like the weapon used in the crime. And even if Vicky had secretly been homicidal, the attack against Julianne had been

so vicious there was no way she had the physical strength to carry it out. It also seemed strange that the ever responsible Vicky would dress so lightly and leave the glasses she always wore behind if she was going on a fishing trip. Julianne's outfit hadn't been consistent with going night fishing either. Although Alan Lay said it wasn't unusual for the women to go fishing at night, most others who knew them disagreed with this. Julianne's sister Vanessa Stewart and Julianne's children remembered family fishing trips that lasted until dusk fell, but couldn't recall the two women ever going out fishing after it was already dark. Julianne's siblings and her kids struggled to comprehend the crime. Vicky had loved them,

and their mum. Why would she hurt them this way? It didn't make sense. Even Julianne's brother James, who had only met Vicky once, was certain she was innocent. Vicky had not seemed like someone capable of killing anyone. She didn't have the temperament or the physical strength required. James had also noticed how strangely Julianne's husband was behaving. Alan Lay was refusing to let his wife's family see her children and had entirely shut out his in-laws. Alan Lay was one of the few people who never had any hesitation in calling Vicky guilty. He explained to his children how she was a deeply troubled person who never got over her father's death. She wanted the life Julianne had and became enraged with the jealousy.

After the first inquest was complete, the family members who disagreed with its findings became more outspoken. They weren't satisfied with the answers they'd received and campaigned for the investigation to be reopened, prompting two more reviews over the next three years. The same conclusion was reached each time. Vicky Arnold had killed Julianne Lay. But there was at least one police officer who didn't think this was the truth. Senior Constable Willem Hendricks had been one of the first officers to attend the crime scene. He'd arrived with Detective Sergeant Michael Hayes after the first responding officer had radioed for backup. As Hendricks and Hayes took in the grisly scene, they felt a creeping sense

that something wasn't right. The other officers were already talking about the crime as a murder suicide, but the victims and their injuries didn't match that scenario. Neither Hendricks nor Hayes knew of another case where one woman killed another than herself. Why would Vicky Arnold cut, strangle, beat and then shoot her best friend? Why would she shoot herself three separate times in three different places? And why were her shoes roughly 20 meters behind the car? Although Vicky's finger was on the rifle's trigger, the pose felt staged and the position of her body seemed unnatural for someone taking their own life. Plus, the rear window of the car was open, as though someone had used it as an exit. In Hendricks's opinion, it looked as though

a third party had attacked both women from the backseat of the car. The scene was complex enough that Hendricks and Hayes thought it should be looked at by homicide detectives from the state capital of Brisbane. As night had fallen and the weather was bad, they offered to light a fire and camp there overnight so the area could be preserved for examination the following day. But the district officer, Inspector Frank Wagner, refused. They were dealing with an obvious murder suicide and no overtime was necessary. As far as Wagner was concerned, a thorough investigation could be completed within one hour. That same night, Julianne's Nissan Patrol was towed to Youngerborough police station,

where it was left out in the yard with a tarpaulin draped over it. Officers wouldn't attempt to examine it until after the weekend. Over the three nights that it was left outside, condensation formed beneath the tarpaulin, washing away possible fingerprints and blood spatter formations inside the front of the car. Shortly after the women were discovered, a young man named Shane Feeney reported something to Sergeant Michael Hayes. He'd been driving through Atherton on the evening of Thursday, July 25, 1991, after visiting a friend who lived in the area. Shane was heading towards home, and as he approached a roundabout that was situated on Atherton's main street,

he noticed a white Nissan Patrol with red markings to his left. Shane recognised the car as belonging to Julianne Lay, who he'd met once before at a barbecue. As the Nissan pulled into the roundabout and drove past Shane, he saw that Julianne was driving, and Vicki Arnold, who he also knew, was next to her in the passenger seat. A third person also caught his eye. Leaning forward from the back seat was the silhouette of a man. Shane couldn't make out who it was, but noticed how the silhouette stayed perfectly still. Shane couldn't be certain of the exact time he'd seen the women, but he thought it was around 9 or 9.30, 10.30 at the latest.

If Shane was correct in his identifications, he'd seen both women out with a man at least two hours before Alan Lay said they left home to go fishing. This not only placed a third person with them immediately before the crime, but also completely altered the timeline police had been working with. Sergeant Hayes had listened to Shane's story quietly, then told him not to worry about it. They knew they were dealing with a murder suicide. Though Hayes publicly supported the murder suicide theory, Hendricks later told journalist Robert Reed that he only did so to placate his superiors. He was under enormous pressure to go along with the higher ups, who were insisting that the case was closed. In private, Hayes didn't believe this theory at all.

He and Hendricks began conducting their own investigations. Of particular interest to them was what had happened to the missing gun parts from the Saunoff rifle. They were sure Vicki hadn't cut it down herself. Just as they began making inquiries on the subject, the parts were suddenly discovered by Vicki's neighbour in her carport. But Vicki's home and carport had already been searched multiple times. None of the officers had ever seen the gun parts or the pillow case they were found in. When the case was re-examined multiple times after the inquest, officials from outside the district were assigned to investigate. To Hendricks, it just looked as though they retraced the original investigation then went back home again. That all changed six years after

the crime. Around the time of the first inquest, a journalist named Robert Reed began looking into the case. He was convinced there was more to it than met the eye. Over time, he built relationships with the women's friends and family. In 1994, Robert broke a story that shocked Queensland. On the morning of August 14, 1991, the day that both women were laid to rest, two police officers paid a visit to Atherton's funeral parlor. They needed to obtain fingerprints from Vicki and Julianne as some smudged prints had been discovered on the 22 Ruger. Without telling the families, the officers took in a set of garden secateurs and a surgical scalpel, removed the women's hands and took them away for testing.

Vicki and Julianne were buried without their hands. After a funeral parlor employee told Robert Reed about the incident, it made headlines across the state. Public outrage ensued. The women's bodies were subsequently exhumed and police returned the hands to be buried with them. Public anger around the matter led to it becoming a political issue. Queensland's opposition police spokesman pledged to order yet another review if his party won the next state election. They did, and a new investigation was announced in mid-1997. Retired high-ranking officers Carl Mangler and Franco Gorman were appointed to lead it

and spent five months diligently examining every aspect of the case. While scrutinizing photographs of the crime scene, they noticed an indentation in the ground just outside the car's passenger side that matched the rock used to beat Julianne. This must have been where the rock came from. The original investigators had suggested Vicki wandered up the track in the dark to find a rock, losing her shoes along the way. It quickly became clear to them that how difficult it would have been for Vicki's injuries to be self-inflicted. There was a bullet hole in the lower left side of the passenger seat that aligned with the wound in Vicki's left thigh. The angle of this shot ruled out the possibility that she'd accidentally

shot herself during a tussle. It indicated Vicki had been shot by someone else who was in the back of the car, possibly as she was trying to get out and run away. Her shoes being found at some distance behind the car suggested that an attacker had jumped out the back, then chased Vicki and grabbed her as she attempted to flee. The seatbelt that was wrapped twice around Julianne's neck was also consistent with someone trying to strangle her from behind. The shots to Vicki's thigh and jaw would have resulted in immense pain and confusion. It seemed highly unlikely that after receiving those wounds, she could have then administered the fatal shot to the back of her head, an angle which would have been difficult to reach even without injury.

The fact that Vicki was found in the footwell instead of the passenger seat was another problem. Not only did it seem a bizarre choice for her to make, but Vicki couldn't have logistically used the firearm from the footwell. Such a manoeuvre would have been difficult and she lacked the physical strength to perform it. Some partial bloody prints had been recovered from the rifle. Mangler and O'Gorman held the rifle so their hands would align with these prints and found the position awkward and unnatural. In their opinion, the placement of the prints seemed more like staging than how someone would have held the gun. The position of the rifle on the passenger seat also seemed wrong. The trajectory of the bullets suggested it should

have fallen out of the car after being fired. One matter Mangler and O'Gorman couldn't get to the bottom of was the issue of the jammed cartridges in the murder weapon. One was definitely a live round being loaded, but it was unclear from the photographs whether the cartridge being ejected was live or spent. It looked as though it might have had a firing mark on it, which has led some to argue it was spent. But firing marks can also be left on live cartridges. If both cartridges were live, then there was no way Vicki Arnold could have killed herself. A third person must have attempted to reload the rifle after both women were fatally shot. Contemporaneous police reports about this matter were conflicted. Detective Sergeant Hayes told

the first inquest that both rounds were live and was so tightly jammed that he had to use extreme force to remove them. When this inquest was later reviewed, Hayes said he'd made a mistake and the cartridge being ejected was spent. Some suspect he only made this amendment due to pressure from higher ups to stick to the murder suicide story. Although Julianne had been shot twice and Vicki was shot three times, only four empty cartridges were ever recovered. If one of the jammed cartridges was spent, then this would account for the fifth one. Yet, police later went out with metal detectors and performed grid searches in an attempt to find the final cartridge, something they wouldn't have needed to do if it was already accounted for.

Photographs of the firearm also show the cartridge being ejected is facing the opposite direction that a spent cartridge would typically face. Firearms experts have pointed out that if a breech jams with one live cartridge and one spent one, experienced shooters can usually tip the spent one out easily and reload the gun automatically. A cartridge usually only becomes tightly jammed when someone tries to manually eject it, something Vicki could not have done, because by this point, she would have been dead. On March 16, 1998, Carl Mengele and Franco Gorman interviewed Julianne Leigh's half-sister, Vanessa Stewart, who had been 16 years old at the time of Julianne's murder.

Vanessa and Margaret, Julianne's other half-sister, had been raised in the New South Wales city of Lismore by their grandmother, as their mother wasn't in a position to take care of them. As their grandma grew older, some family members suggested they move in with Julianne for a while. The girls agreed. First, 13-year-old Vanessa joined the Leigh residence, followed by 15-year-old Margaret a little while later. But, after just three months of living with her sister, Margaret abruptly left to go and live with her boyfriend. But Vanessa had loved living with her half-sister. For the first time, she was part of a busy, young family unit. The youthful and vibrant Julianne was more like a mother than a sister,

but she also encouraged Vanessa to speak up and share her opinions on things that mattered to her. At regular family meetings that Julianne initiated, she wanted to hear what all of the children were thinking and feeling. She was a fun parent who took a joy in family celebrations, played video games with the kids, and joined them in mudfights after heavy rain. Vanessa also adored her nieces and nephew and was extremely close to them. Alan Leigh became a kind of father, though he could be domineering and controlling. But everything abruptly changed in February 1991 when Vanessa was 15. One day, while Julianne was in hospital giving birth to her youngest child,

Vanessa was folding laundry in the master bedroom when Alan approached her and began caressing her neck. Though Vanessa was a very naive and inexperienced teenager, she immediately realized that Alan's touching was more intimate than the affection of a father. Over the next few months, Alan continued to touch Vanessa inappropriately. The grooming that began with him stroking her neck progressed to touching her entire body and eventually having her perform oral sex on him. Alan kept trying to coerce Vanessa to have sex with him, but she refused. She felt sick, dirty, and ashamed. When she went to school, she felt as though everyone there knew what was happening to her at home. The shame of the sexual abuse kept her quiet.

By July of 1991, Alan was abusing Vanessa multiple times a week. It wasn't the first time Alan had done something like this. After Margaret moved in with the family, Julianne noticed that Alan seemed to pay her a lot of attention. Julianne confronted both of them and a fight followed, resulting in Margaret leaving to live with her boyfriend. Alan vehemently denied any interest in Margaret, but Julianne still decided to leave him. She and the kids found a place of their own. However, she agreed to reconcile with Alan a few weeks later. In the months leading up to Vicki and Julianne's disappearance, Vanessa noticed how critical

Alan was of the two women. He accused Julianne of being a poor housewife and a bad mother. He didn't like Vicki and said the only reason he tolerated her frequent visits was because she was useful and handled their business accounts. The morning before the two friends vanished, Julianne asked Vanessa to stay home from school. Vanessa was scared that her sister knew what was going on with Alan and planned to speak with her about it. Terrified that her sister would hate her if she knew about the abuse, Vanessa lied and said she had an important exam that day. That night, when Vicki and Julianne were supposedly out fishing,

Alan went to Vanessa's room and woke her up, then had her perform oral sex. Vanessa had no idea what time it was, but Alan told her it was around 12.30 or 1am. He said he'd had to reset all the clocks in the house after a circuit breaker tripped out shortly after Vicki and Julianne left to go fishing at 12.45. They spent a couple of hours together at most before Vanessa went back to sleep. Vanessa woke the next morning to discover Julianne was missing. Following her sister's disappearance, Vanessa struggled with feelings of guilt. She worried that the things Alan had been doing to her had created a kind of negative karma that caused Julianne to vanish. Alan ordered Vanessa to tell no one about what was going on between them.

If she did, she would be judged and blamed for it. He also told her to tell police that she'd woken up by herself on the night of the women's disappearance. She was to say that she'd got an up to use the bathroom and saw that some lights were on. She'd gone to check who was still up and wound up having a conversation with Alan. Approximately four or five days before Julianne's body was found, Alan began raping Vanessa. He convinced her that they were in love and they became a couple, though they concealed this from the children. Alan expected Vanessa to care for the kids and perform all of the housework Julianne had previously managed while still attending high school. This ended in mid 1992, immediately after

the first inquest was over, when Alan moved to Western Australia to be with another woman. He initially tried to convince Vanessa to join him, telling her she'd have no further contact with the kids if she stayed in Queensland. Vanessa refused, despite being devastated by the separation from her nieces and nephew. In the years that followed, Vanessa grappled with many painful feelings. Over time, the more she reflected on what had happened, the more she became convinced that Alan had something to do with Vicki and Julianne's deaths, and he had used her for an alibi on the night of their disappearance. The statement she gave to Carl Mangler and Franco Gorman was the first time she'd told any police officers what Alan had done to her. Although other members

of the family had told previous investigators there was something wrong with the way Alan treated Vanessa and Margaret, it had never been looked into before. One family friend who visited the Lays home to help out while Julianne was missing became concerned when she saw how physically close Alan and Vanessa seemed. Occasionally, the two of them went into Alan and Julianne's bedroom together. They'd shut the door behind them and stay in there for quite some time. Several times, she also overheard Alan say to Vanessa, just keep your cool, it will be alright. Everything will be alright. Another time, Julianne's daughter Sandra Sue came home from school and couldn't find Alan.

Her mother was still missing and it was a distressing time for the young girl. Alan's truck was out the front, so she was sure he must be around. She began looking throughout the house for him. When she walked into her parents' bathroom, Sandra Sue was shocked to see Alan and Vanessa in the shower together. She ran from the room crying. Vanessa followed to comfort her and Alan made up an excuse to explain what she'd seen. Mengele and O'Gorman made a point to interview Alan on multiple occasions. While he admitted to having had a sexual relationship with Vanessa, he said it began spontaneously after Julianne's body was found. By that time, Vanessa was 16 years old and over

the age of consent. Alan denied ever grooming Vanessa or raping her. Following their conversations with Alan Lay, Mengele and O'Gorman observed, he is extremely well-presented, well-dressed and well-spoken. He is competent, manipulative, patronizing and sought on both occasions to endear himself to his interviewers. He tends to avoid answering direct questions and seeks to skirt around, seeking to learn the extent of the knowledge of the investigators before answering. At times, he will claim no recollection on simple issues when it's considered his memory should not have failed him. What some people didn't know about Alan Lay was that he had a criminal record

under another name. When Alan was a child, his father left Atherton for Aberdeen, Scotland. Alan's mother remarried, and when Alan was 18, he adopted his step-father's surname of Souter. A couple of years later, he began getting into trouble with the law. Throughout 1983 and 1984, Alan committed multiple break-in-enters. On one occasion, he hid in a camping goods store until its employees had closed up for the day, then stole a rifle and ammunition before exiting via the front door. Another time, he stole credit cards from a victim's home and used them to spend up big. He was arrested several times and once assaulted a police officer by pushing him over to escape

as he was being led to a cell. Ultimately, Alan spent two years in prison until he was paroled in 1986 at the age of 23. He switched back to using his birth name and not long after his release, he met Julianne. Alan maintained his criminal connections. His closest friend was a cellmate he'd met while incarcerated. In conversations with Vanessa, Alan bragged about his criminal history and told her he knew how to carry out the perfect bank robbery. Because of Alan's record, he was barred from owning guns. Investigators Mangler and O'Gorman also discovered that the lays had been struggling financially when Julianne disappeared. Some years earlier, she and Alan had started a carpet-laying

business together. Vicki Arnold had been their accountant, but by 1991, the business wasn't doing well and the lays were heavily in debt. Exactly one month before Vicki and Julianne disappeared, the lays bank threatened to foreclose on their home due to Mr. Mortgage repayments. Alan and Julianne were in such dire straits, they agreed to sell Alan's truck and Julianne's Nissan four-wheel drive, the vehicle her body would later be found in. Four days before they disappeared, Vicki and Julianne took Julianne's Nissan to a car yard in Cairns to be valued. After Julianne's body was found, Alan Lay received a life insurance payout of $121,785. He and Julianne both had policies. It had been her idea and they'd purchased them in February 1990,

a year and a half before Julianne's murder. Alan also sued Vicki Arnold's estate for $200,000 compensation. Her elderly mother, Vita, was ultimately forced to pay Alan Lay $45,000. The subject of the murder weapon was another interesting factor for investigators Carl Mengele and Franco Gorman. No one who knew Vicki could recall her expressing an interest in firearms and she'd given various explanations as to why she wanted a rifle. The weapon had also been significantly cut down, a modification that Vicki didn't have the knowledge or physical strength to perform. Some people suspected her friend John Wilkinson, who purchased the gun for Vicki, also cut it down for her. But he firmly denied doing so and the job hadn't been done well enough

to look like the work of a blacksmith such as himself. Vicki's next door neighbour Pamela Fox had discovered the parts in Vicki's carport after going in there to fetch her landlord's lawnmower. In 1998, Pamela gave Mengele and O'Gorman a new statement about this incident that included some brand new details. On the night of August 22, 1991, Pamela went to bed at around 10.30. She'd been asleep for a few hours when she suddenly woke at 3am. She could hear a rattling sound from the direction of her lounge room. Instantly, Pamela suspected someone was trying to break in. There was a door in her lounge that led to the external carport and it sounded as though someone was attempting to open it. Frightened, Pamela jumped out of bed and turned on the light.

Then she carefully walked over to the lounge room window, which was about 12 feet from her bedroom. From one side, she gently pulled back a corner of the lace curtain. Now she had a clear view of the front yard. Through the dark shadows of the night, Pamela saw something. It was the figure of a grown man running away from her house. He was of average height and build and he looked to be wearing a dark shirt and trousers. Within seconds, he was gone, having raced off down the street. Although she'd only seen him briefly, Pamela couldn't shape the thought that he looked like Alan Lay. The following day, Pamela found the gun parts in Vicky's carport.

Around the same time, Pamela began receiving hang-up phone calls. She believed the caller was Alan. Although Pamela had a silent number, she'd previously given it to Julianne and knew she had it saved in the family phone. Pamela believed Alan was trying to intimidate her and it worked. At the first inquest, she hadn't mentioned anything about the running man she'd spotted outside her and Vicky's property the night before the gun parts were found. The pillowcase that the gun parts had been stashed in was damp and police officers failed to retrieve any fingerprints from it. But scientific tests had revealed a name and address scribbled on it in faded ink.

It belonged to Anitra, one of Julianne's daughters, and listed a previous address where the lays had lived. Two of the original officers, Senior Constable Willem Hendricks and Detective Sergeant Michael Hayes, had been suspicious when the gun parts appeared right after they started asking questions about them. Their suspicions only grew when they learned where the pillowcase came from. Years later, investigators Mangla and O'Gorman were equally intrigued. Vicky's friend, John Wilkinson, surely wouldn't have bothered to stash the parts in Vicky's carport if he'd been the one to cut the rifle down and he wouldn't have had access to linen owned by the lays. A ballistics expert had determined the rifle had been held in a vise while a hacksaw was used to

cut it down. According to multiple witnesses, Alan Lay kept the vise and several hacksaws in a cellar beneath his home. And, unlike Vicky Arnold, Alan was very competent with firearms. Just a few days before the women went missing, he'd gone to Vicky's aunt's home to deliver some carpet. Vicky and Julianne went too, as did Vanessa and Anitra. While they were there, Vicky's aunt asked Alan to test fire a .22 rifle of hers. The women stayed inside chatting while Alan went out with the rifle and shot it repeatedly. When they concluded their investigation of the case, Carl Mangla and Franco Gorman put together a 188 page report in which they criticised police handling of the case. The crime scene,

which they described as baffling and complex, didn't fit with the early conclusion officers had reached. They noted that significant evidence they'd uncovered hadn't been available during the original investigation, and if there were another coronial inquest, they believed it would likely result in an open finding. A second inquest was ordered and began in April 1999 before Brisbane coroner Gary Casey. 24 witnesses gave evidence, including Vanessa Stewart, but neither Mangla nor O'Gorman were called upon. On February 21, 2000, Mr Casey's findings were delivered. He agreed with the original inquest, finding that Vicky Arnold murdered Julianne Lay, then killed herself. He didn't believe there was any evidence pointing to a third

party's involvement, nor did he think the original officers had jumped to a particular conclusion. He failed to provide reasonings for most of his findings, leaving crucial matters unexplained. Vicky's family were devastated. Mr Casey had deemed her guilty again, without even trying to explain what her motive could have been or why she would behave so wildly out of character. After the second inquest, Vanessa Stewart went out for dinner and drinks with her sister, Margaret. As the two women chatted, the conversation turned to Alan Lay. Suddenly, Margaret broke down and said, it happened to me too. When Vanessa asked what she was talking about, Margaret replied, Alan

In early 1990, 15-year-old Margaret had visited Julianne's home in Atherton, before deciding to join Vanessa by moving there permanently. Alan offered to help out by driving Margaret back to Lismore to collect her possessions. It was a long journey, covering almost 2,000km each way. On the way back, the two of them broke up the trip by stopping at a hotel in the central Queensland city of Rockampton. Early the next morning, Margaret awoke to a heavy weight on top of her. It was Alan. He was raping her. She froze in shock, and as she described it, went into survival mode. This was her brother-in-law, the man whose home she was moving into.

Scared and panicked, Margaret closed her eyes and waited for the assault to end. After it was over, Margaret never discussed the rape with Alan, nor did he bring it up. Margaret claims Alan never raped her again, but she only lived with him and Julianne for a few months, before Julianne noticed how much attention Alan seemed to pay her. Margaret soon escaped the household to live with her boyfriend, whom she later married. In the years that followed, Margaret and Vanessa hadn't always been close. When Vanessa came forward to share her story with the police and the court system, Margaret grappled with feelings of guilt. She wasn't ready to speak out about her own ordeal,

only after the second inquest did she finally tell her sister. Over the decade since the Arnold Lay case first made headlines, journalist Robert Reed fought to keep it in the spotlight. His interest had been piqued since the first inquest, and he was sure there was more to the story than police were claiming. In 1997, he published a book about the case titled Third Party to Murder. Seven years later, he wrote a sequel. Robert grew close to Vicki and Julianne's families as they lobbied for the case to be reopened. As he made a name for himself as an expert on the case, witnesses started coming forward with tip-offs. In June 2005, former senior constable Willem Hendricks gave Robert an exclusive

interview, exposing how his superiors had forced the murder-suicide line through laziness and a fear of going over budget. The story was featured in the Weekend Australian and The Cairns Post newspapers and on television program 60 Minutes. Vicki's mother, Vyda Arnold, told the program how Alan had sued her deceased daughter's estate, demanding financial compensation for Julianne's death. When the interviewer asked, did you think that was reasonable, Vyda fell silent for several seconds, then wordlessly shook her head. She placed a hand over her mouth and began to cry. Vanessa Stewart also appeared on 60 Minutes, telling her story to the public for the first time. As well as detailing Alan's abuse, she revealed how he'd coached her into being

his alibi for the night of her sister's murder. The episode concluded with Vanessa imploring Alan to speak up until the truth and say what it is you know and stop hiding. After the episode aired, Vanessa wrote a letter to the Queensland Attorney General and the Minister for Justice, repeating her assertion that Alan had used her to cover for himself. Vanessa's letter triggered yet another review that eventually resulted in a third inquest being called. It began before state coroner Mr Michael Barnes in November 2011, more than 20 years after the women's deaths. The case's original investigators had always claimed that Vicki must have been suicidal. In order to test these assertions, the coroner asked Professor Diego

DeLeo, a psychiatrist and expert in the study of suicidal behaviour, to go over all of the evidence. Professor DeLeo found nothing in Vicki's history or writings to indicate she'd experienced suicidal ideation. Neither was there anything to suggest she had a mental illness such as depression or a personality disorder which might increase her risk of suicide. Her life had been stable and she had made plans for the future. Professor DeLeo went so far as to say, quote, there are elements in Vicki Arnold's history that could point to a lower risk of suicide than that of the general population. Only a tiny percentage of individuals who take their

own lives commit murder as well. Of that percentage, very few perpetrators are women. Professor DeLeo scoured all the available information about Vicki and Julie Ann's relationship. There was nothing to suggest they'd been romantically involved. And even if they had been, he could find no cases in Australia where a woman killed her same-sex partner before killing herself. Nor were there any cases of a woman killing a female friend and then herself. After ruling out relationship issues, financial difficulties, psychiatric conditions, and finding Vicki had no history of aggression, Professor DeLeo concluded that a murder suicide was highly improbable.

He also pointed out that the positions the women were found in were inconsistent with a murder suicide, noting, if Vicki had killed Julie Ann, she was not in a hurry to suicide thereafter. She could have been sitting normally in the front seat of the car, the most logical position for a murder suicide, or outside the car, but not in the footwell of the vehicle. I cannot see any reason for doing so. Vanessa Stewart testified in front of a silent courtroom that hung on her every word. At one stage, she held up a large photograph that had been published in The Cairns Post on July 30, 1991, four days after Vicki and Julie Ann went missing.

It showed Alan Lay sitting with baby Kathleen on his lap and one arm wrapped around his son, Alan Jr. Anitra, Sandra Sue, and Vanessa huddled close around him. Vanessa stood directly behind Alan, dressed in a white t-shirt, her eyes gazing off into the distance. Her young face was undoubtedly that of a child. Vanessa told the court, I've been referred to as being somebody that's been having a relationship or an affair with Alan Lay, and I brought that photo to show everybody, to prove the point of how I was actually a victim of child abuse. After she'd finished giving evidence about the abuse she'd endured and the

circumstances surrounding her sister's murder, she was applauded by the gallery. Her sister Margaret also detailed how Alan had raped her when she was 15 years old. Shane Feeney spoke of how he'd seen Julie Ann and Vicki in Julie Ann's car on the night they disappeared and how he'd seen the silhouette of a man in the back seat. Vicki's neighbour Pamela shared how she'd found the gun parts in Vicki's garage the day after she heard someone moving about in her carport and saw a man running away down the street. When the barrister representing Vicki's family asked if Pamela was frightened of anyone,

she answered yes. When asked who she was afraid of, Pamela refused to name them. All she would say was, sitting behind you. The barrister inquired as to whether she was referring to Alan Lay who was seated behind him. Pamela simply replied, yes. Alan sat listening as the entire courtroom turned to look at him. His face was completely blank. Eventually he too was called to the stand. Alan denied abusing Vanessa and Margaret and said he hadn't woken Vanessa for oral sex on the night of his wife's disappearance. He stuck to the same story that he'd always told, that Vicki and Julie Ann had decided to go fishing

that night, despite the freezing cold weather, their lack of proper clothing or a torch, and the fact that they'd left belongings behind that they usually took everywhere, like Vicki's glasses and Julie Ann's cigarettes. Early investigator, Detective Sergeant Mick Hayes, had previously written a report detailing how Alan had visited the station in the days after his wife's body was found. He brought a magazine titled Murder Casebook with him, claiming Vicki had borrowed it from him not long before the crime. Inside was a feature article about the White House farm murders, in which five family members were murdered in Essex, England, in 1985.

Police initially considered the case a murder suicide. It was later revealed that the only surviving family member murdered everyone else, then staged the scene to implicate his sister. Vanessa Stewart remembered this magazine well. It was part of a series that Julie Ann and Alan subscribed to. They often talked about the publication's crime stories, which Vanessa found horrifying. Despite this, Alan denied owning it, and claimed he couldn't recall handing it in to the police. When it was put to him that had been taken to the police station, he said that police. When it was put to him that he had been inspired by the White House farm murders and framed Vicki for the double homicide, he repeatedly replied, no.

In making their final submissions, the two councils assisting were direct. As they saw it, there could only be two suspects in this crime, Vicki Arnold or Alan Lay. The primary reason to suspect Vicki was because she had purchased the rifle, but what if she had done so for somebody else? Vicki had never given any indication she was interested in firearms, yet had been very specific about the model she needed, claiming her boyfriend had told her that was the one he wanted. It was posited that someone with a criminal record asked Vicki to buy the gun on their behalf, someone like Alan Lay. That way, he could get around legal restrictions preventing him from purchasing a firearm, while also casting more

suspicion on Vicki. It was pointed out that Vicki had zero motive for murdering her best friend. On the other hand, Julianne might have discovered her husband was abusing her sister, as Vanessa suspected. When Vicki visited Julianne for lunch on the day they disappeared, the two women had an intense and private conversation. Julianne's daughter Sandra Sue tried to listen in on them, but her mother sent her back to her room. Council assisting theorized that the women had been discussing Alan's abuse of Vanessa. Then, Julianne had confronted Alan that night after all the children were in bed. She may have threatened to report him to the police, which would have resulted in him losing

his business, his home, and being charged with child sexual abuse. Due to his criminal history, he'd likely be incarcerated while investigations were ongoing. Being charged with child abuse would place a significant target on his back in prison. But Alan realized that if Julianne were dead, he would not only be safe, he'd receive a $120,000 life insurance payout. Using the threat of violence, he ushered the women out of the house and into Julianne's car. Then, Alan directed them to drive to Cherry Tree Creek, an area he knew from four-wheel driving expeditions. Once they reached the location, Alan murdered both women, then staged the scene to frame Bickey. Then, he either made his way home on foot

or on a bicycle that he'd stashed on the back of the vehicle. At midday on March 1, 2013, state coroner Mr Michael Barnes was ready to hand down his findings. As he ran through each of his findings from the coroner's court in Brisbane, his words were broadcast live to the Cairns Courthouse via video link, where members of the women's families and their advocates were closely packed in. Everyone listened closely as Mr Barnes finally declared. As the evidence stands, I consider a properly instructed jury could exclude beyond the reasonable doubt that Ms Arnold carried out the killings and determined that no one other than Mr Lay did.

Accordingly, I am obliged to commit Mr Lay to stand trial. The coroner also made a point to apologise for the botched investigations and previous inquests, stating, Those to suffer most acutely from these failures were the families of the dead women. They have my sincere condolences for their loss and my apologies for the way in which the coronial system failed to adequately search for the truth. Vicky and Julianne's families applauded and cheered. Vyder Arnold, Vicky's mother, sobbed with relief.

With the coroner issuing a pending warrant for Alan Lay's arrest, police urged him to come forward and hand himself in. He did so, but was later granted bail as he was deemed a low flight risk. Alan subsequently lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court of Queensland, requesting that the coroner's order that he stand trial be set aside. The court ultimately found in favour of Alan Lay, ruling that Mr Barnes had used an improper exercise of the law in committing Alan to trial. The director of public prosecution still had the option of charging Alan Lay.

Ultimately, he decided against doing so, concluding that all of the evidence against Alan was circumstantial. Authorities had no physical proof definitively tying him to the crime. And with that, it seemed the exact truth would never be known. At around the same time as the third inquest was drawing to a close, a 66-year-old woman named Hazel Scarrett was reading Robert Reed's second book about the Arnold Lay case. Hazel was a resident of the Atherton Tablelands region, with a story to share. She tried passing it on to crime stoppers on numerous occasions, but never heard back from them. She finally knew who might be interested in hearing what she had to say.

More than 20 years earlier in 1991, Hazel and her husband Jim ran a general store in Youngaburra, a rural town 13km east of Atherton. At around 7am one Thursday morning in July, Hazel and Jim were working at the store when two women walked in. One had a heavier build, was about 5'6", and had hair with a slightly ginger tinge. The other was taller and thin, with dark hair. The woman wanted to buy cream buns, but the baker who delivered them was running late. The two women said they were happy to wait. They'd been out all night fishing at Lake Teneru, so a few more minutes wouldn't make any difference. The dark-haired woman mentioned how she often went night fishing while her husband looked after the kids. He was happy for her to do so,

as long as she got home in time to see the kids off to school. While the women waited, they purchased some scratcher lottery tickets. Hazel thought they both seemed pleasant enough. They were accompanied by a man who was less friendly. Hazel's husband knew him and called to him by name, at which point the man grew very irritable. He tried to hurry the women out of the shop. One of them mentioned she had an early appointment she needed to get to anyway. In his haste to leave, the man basically pushed the women out. The three of them walked to a compact four-wheel drive that looked to Hazel to be a nissen, and the dark-haired woman got in the driver's seat. In the weeks that followed, Hazel learned

how Vicki Arnold and Julianne Lay had disappeared nearby and were later found dead. Upon seeing photos of the women, she believed that they were the two customers she'd served in the general store. But the man she'd seen them with hadn't been Alan Lay. His name was Chris Dunley. Chris Dunley was notorious in the Atherton Tablelands region. Police throughout the area knew him as a criminal involved in large-scale cannabis cultivation, but he also made a habit of stealing money and crops from other growers. Cruel, vicious and violent, he was suspected in several drug-related murders, but investigators never had enough evidence to charge him. He also sexually assaulted numerous women throughout the region.

One person who spoke to journalist Robert Reed on condition of anonymity said, He was an absolute psycho, and wherever we saw him in a pub or wherever, we'd go the other way. You never knew with Chris just what he'd do next, and you didn't want to be around when he did it. Bill Scarrett had recognized him because Bill had hired Dunley to deliver milk in the town of Ravenshoe, 60 kilometers south of Youngerborough. Dunley died in 1994, several years after the women were murdered, when two associates shot and killed him. Over the years, Bill and Hazel tried to report having seen Dunley with Vicki and Julianne, but got nowhere. After reading Robert Reed's second book about the case, Hazel decided to sit down and write Robert an email.

When Robert opened Hazel's email, he was stunned to read her account. It wasn't the first time that a tipster had contacted him to share information about Chris Dunley. In 1997, one of the men convicted of killing Dunley reached out to Robert with his own story. Gregory Dijon and his friend Rodney Bouchard were part of the same illegal underworld as Dunley, and they were terrified of him. Dunley had threatened to shoot them both along with Dijon's partner and children, and he said he'd framed Dijon for the murders, just like he'd done with the two women in Atherton. Dunley told Dijon that Vicki Arnold and Julianne Lay had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, so he killed them both, and then his mates put it down as murder suicide.

Mates was what Dunley called the police. The location where the women were found was in an area known for its cannabis crops, so it didn't seem implausible that Dunley would know the spot. Dijon took Dunley's threat seriously and decided to strike first. He and Bouchard laying weight outside the isolated farmhouse where Dunley was staying, then shot him when he emerged to turn off a generator. Both men were convicted for the execution style killing. Gregory Dijon later wrote to Robert Reed to pass on what Dunley had told him. Dijon knew what type of man Dunley was, and wholeheartedly believed he'd murdered Vicki and Julianne. He claimed he was only

coming forward because he wanted their families to have peace of mind. After receiving the email from Hazel, Robert spoke to her and Bill extensively about their encounter. He found them both credible and believable. They were initially adamant that the three people entered their store on a Thursday morning, even though that didn't fit with the timeline of the women going missing in the early hours of Friday, July 26. On reflection, Hazel changed her mind and said it had been a Friday morning. She later provided investigators with a sworn statement to that effect. As Chris Dunley had died decades earlier, investigators were unable to pursue them out of further. It's uncertain whether or not the women seen with Chris Dunley

were Vicki and Julianne. One thing that makes Robert suspect they were is the fact that no other women have ever come forward to identify themselves as having been with Dunley that morning. Robert is certain that Dunley committed the murders at Alan Lay's bidding. He's examined the timeline extensively and doesn't think Alan himself could have gotten to the murder site then home again where he cleaned up before waking Vanessa. Robert publicized the Chris Dunley theory in his third book about the case titled The Search. After its publication, more people came forward to tell Robert they agreed Chris was exactly the type of person to commit such a crime. If Dunley was involved, Julianne's brother James and sister Vanessa agreed that Alan Lay

would have commissioned him to carry out the crime. But no connections have been found between the pair and Vanessa has difficulty believing Alan would trust a stranger with such a dangerous task. He was a control freak and once told Vanessa that the only friend he trusted was his prison cellmate. She could see Alan collaborating with him but no one else. A scenario Vanessa and James have considered involves Alan's prison cellmate helping him plan the murders but being unable to participate directly due to being on parole at the time. Perhaps the cellmate knew Dunley through his criminal connections and commissioned him to do the job instead. The large insurance payout Alan received for Julianne's death has never been fully accounted for. Alan didn't use it to pay

the mortgage and those who were close to him insist that he was always broke. Perhaps the majority of the cash went to Dunley in exchange for committing the murders. But Vanessa can also believe that Alan murdered both women on his own and used her as an alibi. He may have deliberately tripped the home's electricity so the clocks weren't set and Vanessa wouldn't know what time it was when he woke her. Perhaps it was hours later than he told her it was and he had time beforehand to drive both women out to Cherry Tree Creek, kill them, return home, and have a shower. If Shane Feeney's sighting was accurate, the women were out of the house at least two hours before Alan claimed. Regardless of who pulled the trigger, Vanessa has no doubt

that Alan was behind Vicki and Julianne's murders. She believes he planned the crime weeks in advance, right down to sweet-talking Vicki into buying the rifle that would ultimately end her own life and that of her best friend. In July 2018, Alan Lay took his own life in the Northern Territory City of Alice Springs. He was 55 years old. Those who knew him were left stumped. Robert Reed told Casefile he never expected Alan would do such a thing. In his opinion, Alan was too self-obsessed and killing himself created an atmosphere of guilt that he'd always denied. Kathleen, Alan's youngest child with the Julianne, received a suicide note from her father in which he apologized for having been

absent over the years but denied having anything to do with the Julianne's murder. Almost one year later, Vicki Arnold's mother, Vida, died at the age of 93. She had always been one of the biggest advocates for reopening the case alongside her sister and niece who helped her every step of the way. Journalist and author Robert Reed had grown very close to Vida over the years and visited her shortly before she passed. In a previous conversation, Vida had told Robert how devastating it was to not only lose her daughter but have her accused of the most terrible crime possible. She remarked, I've hardly had a full night's sleep in all those years just thinking and crying about it. Vicki couldn't have done such a thing. I'm her mother and I should

know. Throughout the making of this episode, Julianne's sister Vanessa Stewart spoke at length to Casefile. She described the ongoing and layered effects of the trauma she's endured. As a victim of child sexual abuse, Vanessa struggled with shame and guilt. This guilt was later intensified by many factors. Vanessa blamed herself for the case dragging on without resolve because she'd helped Alan lie about the night of the murder. She also felt guilty for previously blaming Vicki who had always been a loving presence in her life. In describing how she felt upon realizing Alan could be the one who really killed her sister, Vanessa said, I had to deal with the concept of, has this man gone out and murdered my sister and murdered Vicki

and then come home and put his murdering hands upon me? That was a pretty hard moment, trying to deal with that. As Vanessa worked to process her experiences, she started writing everything down as a kind of therapy. Now she's working on a book telling her story and what she knows about the case. One day she hopes to publish it. These days, Vanessa's guilt has been replaced by regret. She's upset that when the story of Alan's abuse broke, the media initially portrayed her as a seductive teenager who preyed on an older man and had an affair. She's disturbed by how abuse and grooming are still so commonly misunderstood and she's angry at how the police handled the case from the very beginning.

Vanessa believes that she has found evidence proving Vicki's innocence that was in police possession since the two women first went missing. She says that if investigators had done their job properly, she, Julianne's children and both families could have avoided decades of additional trauma. Quote, What was the consideration for us kids? Had the police been investigating a double murder instead of trying to prove a murder suicide, it would have come out about the sexual abuse that I was under. All these things that came out over years and years later, bit by bit by bit, would have all been known right from the early days and how much trauma could have been prevented.

How much trauma could have been saved for us all?