Casefile True Crime - Case 22: Marguerite Edwards

Episode Date: June 12, 2016

It was Wednesday the 2nd of August 1989. 41-year-old Marguerite Edwards started the day like any other. Making sure her three daughters were up, and ready for school. Marguerite was happily married to Iain Edwards, a successful orthodontist with a surgery in Bondi. They lived in a two-storey house on Victoria Road, Woollahra in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs. After getting her daughters organised, Marguerite dropped them at Ascham school, in the nearby suburb of Edgecliffe. She then made her way to an aerobics class, before doing some shopping at Bondi. She returned to her Woollahra home sometime after midday. Later that afternoon, Marguerite's three daughters were waiting. School had finished, and they were wondering where mum was… For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-22-marguerite-edwards

Have you ever tried BBQ on BBQ? Picture this. Freshly prepared crispy seasoned chicken that's tossed in a smoky barbecue glaze and topped with a creamy barbecue sauce. Can't picture it? Well you can try it now at Tim's. Get our new BBQ crispy chicken loaded bowls and wraps for a limited time. It was Wednesday the 2nd of August 1989. 41 year old Marguerite Edwards started the day like any other, making sure her three daughters were up and ready for school. Marguerite was happily married to Ian Edwards, a successful orthodontist with a surgery in Bondi. They lived in a two story house on Victoria Road, Wallara, in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Wallara is an extremely affluent suburb, five kilometres east of Sydney's CBD, a few miles, known for its quiet treeline streets and extremely expensive housing. After getting her daughters organised, Marguerite dropped them off at Ascom School. She then made her way to an aerobics class before doing some shopping at Bondi. She then returned to her Wallara home sometime after midday. Later that afternoon Marguerite's three daughters were waiting. School had finished and they were wondering where mum was. When Marguerite didn't show up to the school that afternoon, it was very unusual. Many of the other parents even commented saying don't worry, your mum is never late. She will be here soon. But she never arrived. The girls next door neighbour Marcia Osborne ended up giving them a lift home. Marcia telling them obviously something important had come up and everything would be fine.

But the girls had a feeling something wasn't right. When they got home, they saw Marguerite's car parked in the driveway. They walked inside and called out for their mum, but got no reply. As they slowly made their way to the kitchen, they saw a pool of blood on the floor, blood on the bench, blood on the fridge and that chairs had been knocked over. Realising something was horribly wrong, Marcia grabbed the girls and said let's get out of here, I'll ring the police. Police arrived soon after and found Marguerite's body upstairs, laying in her walk-in wardrobe, connected to the main bedroom. She had extensive head injuries and one of Ian's neck ties was wrapped around her neck. Another neck tie had been used to gag her. Detectives and specialist crime scene police were immediately called in and a forensic examination was conducted. No fingerprints were found, however they did find a towel with blood stains on it. It was 1989 and DNA analysis had only started in NSW that year. So there was no large database to compare the sample to and the nature of the testing was very different to what exists today. However it was possible that it would come in useful in the future to compare to a suspect if one was ever identified. It was clear from the forensic examination that the initial attack occurred downstairs, after which Marguerite was taken upstairs to the bedroom.

She was struck to the head repeatedly with what the forensic pathologist believed was a small hammer or similar tool. The injuries were extensive, causing a fractured skull and brain damage. But the cause of death was strangulation. There was no sign of forced entry to the house. Did Marguerite know her killer and let them in? When they retraced Marguerite's steps they found that she attended an aerobics class between 10.30am and 11.30am at the nearby suburb of Bondi. She was then seen shopping also at Bondi around midday. So that raised the possibility of another theory. Marguerite was known to leave the door open while she was bringing in the shopping, was her killer waiting and simply walked in behind her. Two witnesses were identified early on, both heard screams coming from the house. One was a building surveyor who looked in the direction of the house when he heard the screams, but when he didn't see anything he got in his car and drove off.

The second was a woman who was walking past the house with her child. She heard screams about 1.30pm but decided not to report it as she believed it to be just another domestic. She kept walking completely ignoring what she had heard. When Ian asked the police if he could have Marguerite's jewellery back, there was no jewellery to give him. She regularly wore a diamond ring and a watch, but the killer had taken it. The ring alone was worth $20,000. It looked like a robbery had gone wrong. Marguerite had no enemies, so it was the only thing that seemed to make sense. It made even more sense when police learnt that extensive renovations had been carried out in the family home over the last few years. Ian wasn't able to offer much assistance with exactly who was hired, as Marguerite handled all of that while he was at work. So did one of the tradesmen like what he saw inside the house and decide to come back.

It seemed to fit when you think about the forensic pathologist stating the weapon used looked to be a small hammer or similar tool. Police felt like they might be onto something. There were no records kept of what tradesmen attended, so police got to work questioning as many of them as they could. Builders, carpenters, painters, tillers, plumbers. It all amounted to nothing though. They never tracked down anyone who had completed work in the Edwards home. As good as the theory looked, it wasn't gaining any momentum. Police even spent days searching every hardware store they could find, trying to find a hammer or similar tool that could have inflicted the injuries. It was hoped that if they could identify the tool, it would help narrow down the search for the tradesmen.

But that also amounted to nothing. They couldn't find anything that matched. Ian made an emotional appeal to the media, asking anybody with information to come forward. Photos of the stolen jewellery were also released to the media, in the hope that somebody would recognise them and they would turn up. They were expensive, unique pieces. But this didn't get the police anywhere either. As much as they liked the robbery theory, they couldn't ignore the fact that the majority of murders are committed by somebody close to the victim. Everything suggested Ian and Marguerite were in a loving marriage, with no problems at all. Ian was quoted as saying,

To my knowledge, my wife had no enemies. We had a perfect relationship for the 20 years of our marriage, and we were very much in love. We have three children, and we are very close and happy family. Ian went on to describe Marguerite as happy, graceful, always smiling, always laughing, and never angry. Saying their marriage was perfect bliss. And Ian had an alibi. He was at work the whole day. But it was when police started to look a bit closer, they realised that maybe Ian's alibi wasn't as solid as it initially seemed. Ian's orthodontic surgery was 2.2 kilometres away from the family home, roughly 1.3 miles. Through their investigation, they learnt that Ian was supposed to go home and have lunch with Marguerite the day she was killed.

But he says he got too busy and had to cancel. Instead, he sent his nurse out to buy him a sandwich. The nurse was out for 25 minutes, and Ian didn't have any patients during that time. So there was a 25 minute window that Ian didn't have an alibi for. Ian was a fit man, who was known to regularly go for a run during his lunch break. Police were able to confirm that his car never left the parking lot of his surgery. Could he have run home, killed Marguerite, and made it back to his surgery in time? Two detectives completed the challenge, running from Ian's surgery to his house, and then back again. Factoring in the time it would have taken to commit the murder.

And the fact Ian was definitely back seeing a patient straight after lunch, showing no signs he had just been for a run. Police were able to rule it out. They kept an open mind. Ian wasn't ruled out completely, but the idea he physically had anything to do with it was extremely doubtful. That pretty much left them back to square one. The tradesman theory had gotten them nowhere, and Ian didn't look likely. He didn't stop the public's opinion though. Ian felt the suspicious eyes on him everywhere he went. His business partner of 17 years suddenly ended their relationship.

And people in the area even held dinner parties to sit around and discuss theories about how Ian could have pulled it off. Police freely admitted the investigation had stalled, and it was going cold. It was nine months later, in May 1990, that a $50,000 reward was offered for any information that led to the case being solved. Not only that, the government took the step of offering a pardon to any person who may have assisted, so long as they weren't directly involved in the killing. Police did get plenty of calls and tips and names to check out, but none of it was useful. The case continued to run cold, and it looked destined to remain on the unsolved shelf. But on the 23rd of August 1991, they got the break they were looking for. 35 year old Christopher Anthony Lorenzo was in Long Bay Jail in Sydney, waiting to be sentenced on several armed robbery charges.

Lorenzo was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on the 2nd of July 1956. He had a history of drug use, break-ins and armed robberies. Lorenzo had gotten the word out he had information that would be of interest to homicide detectives. They paid him a visit and became very interested in what he had to say when he told them he knew who killed the dentist's wife in Wallara. Prison inmates generally don't give information to police out of the kindness of their heart. There is always a motive, and Lorenzo was no different. He wanted to be moved to a jail that was a bit easier to do time than Long Bay, and he wanted police to have a word to the judges so he could get a reduced sentence for his armed robbery charges.

He was facing a five year sentence, but he didn't want to do that long. Lorenzo had made a handwritten statement for police, detailing everything he knew about Marguerite's murder. This was his story. The day Marguerite was murdered, Lorenzo was at a local pub having lunch and enjoying a few beers. His friend David Anelzac approached him and wanted to borrow his car. It was actually Lorenzo's girlfriend's car, but he agreed. When Anelzac returned the car a few hours later, there was blood in it, and blood on Anelzac himself. Lorenzo asked him what the fuck happened.

Anelzac told him he broke into a house, but it went wrong. A woman saw him and started screaming, so he had to silence her. Anelzac pointed out a replica pistol in the boot and told Lorenzo to drown it. But Lorenzo didn't get rid of the gun. He decided to keep it for insurance. While he was cleaning up the blood in the car, he found an expensive looking gold bracelet underneath one of the seats. He decided to keep that too, and he later gave it to his girlfriend. Police believed Lorenzo's story had merit. Anelzac was well-known to them.

At the time of Marguerite's murder, he wasn't long out of prison after doing time for a manslaughter charge. But they needed to do some background work to try and verify the story. Lorenzo said he could actually help them with that. He could give police the replica pistol that Anelzac told him to get rid of. In his words, The gun has been right under your nose for years. The armed hold up boys have got it. It's a police exhibit.

When Lorenzo was arrested for the armed robberies, police searched his house and took a number of items, including a replica pistol. As Lorenzo's charges weren't finalized and he was still waiting to be sentenced, the replica pistol was still locked away in police evidence. The pistol was immediately sent to forensics to see if they could link it to the murder. And they could. Marguerite's head injuries were a match to the wrist sight on the replica pistol. So the weapon used wasn't a small hammer or similar tool as previously thought. Not only that, the pistol tested positive for blood.

They also managed to track down Lorenzo's girlfriend, Josephine Tapani. Not only did she confirm Lorenzo's story, but she still had the bracelet. It was a bracelet that Marguerite had custom made. Nobody had realized it was missing until Lorenzo gave his story to police. Josephine said it was Lorenzo who actually wore it around initially, but he said it was too tight for him, so he ended up giving it to her. His story was that somebody had given it to him at a takeaway shop in Surrey Hills, a suburb not too far away from Wallara.

Lorenzo seemed genuine and authentic, and now there was some evidence to back up what he was saying. It looked like he was telling the truth, and the lure of a reduced sentence and a softer prison to do his time was enough for him to give up his friend. David Anelzark became the prime suspect. Lorenzo hadn't had any contact with Anelzark for a little while, so there was no suspicion when police put their plan into action. They took Lorenzo out of jail and placed him into a motel room at Bondi, where they had installed both video and audio surveillance.

Police were monitoring in the next room. The plan was simple. Lorenzo would lure his old buddy to the motel and get him talking about the murder of Marguerite. As much as they believed Lorenzo was willing to help, they didn't completely trust him. They couldn't handcuff him, that would give the game away. So what they did was put a plaster cast on his leg, making it impossible for him to run or to drive. Just as a bit of insurance, so he wasn't tempted to try and escape. Anelzark arrived as planned, and Lorenzo got to work.

He was successful in getting Anelzark talking. They went at it for three hours. Unfortunately, not one second of the conversation had anything to do with the murder of Marguerite Edwards. Lorenzo didn't bring it up at all, and Anelzark wasn't volunteering anything. Lorenzo failed miserably. He acknowledged his failure and apologized, saying he was scared and he couldn't work out how to bring the murder up without making it obvious. But the conversation didn't sit right with detectives. It led them to become suspicious of what exactly his motive was.

They decided to go back and have a closer look at that handwritten statement he gave them. There just so happened to be a world-renowned document profiler in Sydney at the time. He was getting ready to fly back to the USA, but detectives just called him in time at the airport. They handed him Lorenzo's statement, along with the background of the case. A few weeks later, detectives received a detailed 30-page report analyzing Lorenzo's statement. Every word and every phrase was looked at, as was the way Lorenzo's story changed from the first to the second person. The conclusion? If Christopher Lorenzo wasn't the murderer, he was at the very least present when the murder was committed.

Police had a new number one suspect. Lorenzo had a unique blood type found in just 3% of the population. He matched the blood type found on the towel at the crime scene. Given that Lorenzo was cooperating with police on a murder investigation, he had been moved to a special part of the jail reserved for police informants. The rats, the snitches, as they are commonly known. He became a little too friendly with his cellmate, whose identity is protected. But he was given the nickname Mr Smith.

Lorenzo couldn't help but brag how he had put one over the police. He obviously forgot what part of the jail he was in, because Mr Smith notified the police, and they quickly arranged for him to wear a wire. On the 19th of June 1992, Smith got him talking again. Lorenzo claimed there were actually two other men present during the murder, and they were all off their faces on heroin. Lorenzo said, the woman came home and John pointed the gun at her, and she started screaming. He grabbed her and started hitting her in the head with the butt of the pistol until she shut up.

See what sparked him off was her screaming, because he told her to shut up. He pointed the gun at her. She screamed, and she kept screaming. The more he hit her, the more she screamed. Smith, so he would have hit her in a frenzy. Yeah, because she was screaming. Smith, so she was screaming and he's baster in the head. Lorenzo, and she wouldn't stop screaming.

Smith, why did he hit her? He could have put his hand over her mouth. Lorenzo, we had just had a shot of smack before going there, and John just panicked and started hitting her in the head. Then she was taken upstairs to her bedroom. She came to and started screaming again. John hit her in the head a few more times. She kept screaming, so this other guy grabbed the tie and strangled her with it, and left her lying in the wardrobe.

Smith, why did he strangle her? Lorenzo, because she could identify the other guy. This next passage will give you an idea of who the other guy was. Smith, is Dr. Edwards well off? Lorenzo. When I did the tiling at their house, I used their phone so I could check out the house. They were loaded. The tradesman theory was right all along.

Christopher Lorenzo had been to the Edwards home during their renovations. He had completed tiling work there over a number of days in September 1998, about one year before the murder. Police were unaware of that before Lorenzo's taped conversation. Lorenzo was trying to say there were other people involved, so it was like a confession, but he couldn't come out and directly say it was just him. So he described it as someone else who attacked her. The guy who was scared Marguerite could identify him was of course Lorenzo.

He was talking about himself. Lorenzo then bragged how he stole Marguerite's watch, ring and bracelet. Smith asked him if he had much trouble getting the ring off. Lorenzo said, No, none, none. But I mean she had blood all over her hands, over her head. Why do you think I couldn't sleep for six months? Smith, did you have to turn her over or anything like that to get the rings?

Lorenzo. No, no, no, no. She was just laying there with... Her hands were tied behind her back, so it was easy. So she was laying face down. Yeah, it was easy. It wasn't hard. Then Lorenzo started talking about the bracelet. They could never charge anybody with that.

It wasn't reported as missing from the scene of the crime. I could have sold on at any time I was at that house. You know what I mean? When I was toiling it. That's why there's been nothing ever on this bracelet. Smith then asked, Did anybody who went into the house cut themselves, leave any blood behind? Anything that might have been mixed with her blood? You said you cut your hand.

Lorenzo, yeah. Smith, could you have dropped any blood inside the house? Lorenzo. The only thing in the place was on the tail. Where was the tail used? To wipe down the fucking handles and shit. Lorenzo was so confident because he really believed in his alibi that he was at the pub having lunch at the time of the murder, and he never left.

He didn't think police would ever be able to crack it. My alibi, Smith, was three years ago. No one's going to even remember behind the pub. But no one's going to remember me, not being in that pub. So how long have we gone from the pub? Yeah. Nothing, that's because cop just can't present anything without one alibi. Just in case you had trouble picking that up.

My alibi is sweet. It was three years ago. No one's going to even remember me in the pub. But no one's going to remember me not being in that pub. So how long were you gone from the pub? An hour, something like that, three quarters of an hour. Cop just can't prove anything. Lorenzo saw how well off the Abud's looked and decided to go back and steal from them. Breaking in using a copied key he had from when he was tiling.

That's why there was no sign of forced entry. But Margarite came home while he was there. Instead of running away, he decided to kill her. Lorenzo's attempt to pin a murder he had committed onto somebody else in order to have his jail time reduced backfired in a big way. On the 7th of July 1992, Lorenzo was taken from Long Bay Jail to a nearby police station where he was interviewed and charged with the murder of Margarite Abud's.

He pleaded not guilty and his trial was held in the Supreme Court and commenced in September 1993. Lorenzo wasn't done with his old mate David Anelzark either. Ignoring the conversation that had been recorded, he went back to his original story that he gave police, that Anelzark borrowed his car and he was just at the pub the whole time. The recorded conversation being explained away is just bragging to his cellmate, trying to make himself look good.

This time he added an explanation for his blood being at the scene. That was that Anelzark made him go to the house after the murder to wipe it down for fingerprints and it was while wiping the place down, he cut himself. The trial lasted four weeks. They took the jury just over three hours to reach their verdict. Guilty. Ian Edwards had this to say after the verdict came through.

We spent four weeks in there listening to how somebody bashed and strangled her to death. We're glad that it's finished technically for us and that somebody has been convicted of the crime. We don't hate Lorenzo in any way. He did what he did and that was his mistake and he'll now have the rest of his life, I think, to think about it in jail. He could have at least had the courage to maybe admit what he did

and I think it would have been a lot easier on everybody concerned including himself. What he was trying to do was tell the world what he did. Only he didn't have the courage to say he did it. He used somebody else as the medium of relieving his own conscience. The judge said to Lorenzo it was a cowardly and brutal attack. A murder in her own home in broad daylight of a woman going about her own business who had done you no harm. Knowing that Marguerite would be able to identify him as the tyler from the year before,

he decided to kill her. Lorenzo was sentenced on the 26th of November 1993. He received a sentence of 22 years and 6 months with a non-parole period of 17 years. But Lorenzo had since been sentenced on the armed robbery charges and they didn't expire until October 1996 so his sentence for the murder didn't start until then meaning he would be eligible to be released in 2013.

Luckily instead of keeping his mouth shut and doing his five-year sentence for armed robbery Lorenzo decided to try and pin a murder on a friend to get out early. In doing so he implicated himself and the case was able to be solved. Instead of five he would now be in jail for at least 22 years. On the 30th of November 2010 Lorenzo made a visit to the prison doctor complaining that he had been feeling unwell for a while. Tests revealed he was suffering from advanced stages of leukemia.

He was transferred to Prince of Wales Hospital. He died two months later on the 9th of January 2011 aged 54. Two years and nine months before he was eligible for parole. you