Inside the Law. Vikki Petraitis
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also casually asked the police officer, ‘What’s the go with the body on the beach at Rye?’ When the police officer asked why he wanted to know, Lucas replied that he was ‘just curious’.
That same morning, Lucas collected wages owing to him from a building site where he had been working and vanished again. He stayed in hiding with a number of friends until February 1990. He bleached his hair blonde, used an alias, told people he was a doctor of biochemistry from Sydney, and began a liaison with the 17-year-old stepdaughter of the friend he was staying with.
Three days after Jimmy Pinakos’ body was discovered, police carried out an exhaustive search at the Reservoir home of Ron Lucas. When detectives had checked the property months earlier, the garage had been full of junk; now it was empty.
Crime scene examiners and a team of forensic science experts focused on the garage with its old carpet and its cement sheet walls. Biologists tested the dirty carpet and walls for the presence of blood. Using Hemastix – a preparation that changes colour when rubbed against a blood stain – marks on both the walls and the carpet tested positive. The experts scoured the garage for any other evidence linking Ron Lucas with the murder of Jimmy Pinakos.
The house in Reservoir had changed hands since Lucas had fled and the new owners had given police permission to examine it. However, even if permission hadn’t been obtained, the Victoria Coroners Act gave investigators the right to “enter and inspect any place and anything in it” and “take possession of anything which the coroner reasonably believes is relevant to the investigation and keep it until the investigation is finished”.
Accordingly, when Gamble and his team discovered splatters of blood on the garage wall, they simply cut out a huge section of the wall and took it with them back to their laboratories. Large sections of the garage carpet were also removed.
From the moment the body was identified as Jimmy Pinakos, Mark Newlan’s investigation led clearly to the doorstep of Ronald Lucas. Suspicion and innuendo became fact.
On the day following the body’s discovery and identification, Newlan went to the Reservoir home and was given the crossbow in its camouflage carry case by a neighbour who had been storing it for Lucas.
Newlan lodged it at the State Forensic Laboratory where a firearm and toolmark examiner tested the weapon. He found that the crossbow could only be fired after it had been loaded, cocked and with considerable pressure – 4.5kg – applied to the trigger. In simple terms, the crossbow couldn’t be fired accidentally.
Another scientist at the forensic science lab was given documents belonging to Ronald Lucas. He analysed the handwriting on a Diners Club receipt from a Dandenong sporting goods store for the purchase of a Barnett Brand Crossbow and carry case. He identified the signature on the receipt as that of Lucas.
Ronald Lucas was eventually apprehended in Cairns on 19 March 1990 as a result of information given to police by the stepfather of Lucas’ young girlfriend. When Lucas was picked up, he said resignedly, ‘I suppose this is about Jimmy.’
Detective Mark Newlan flew to Cairns the following day. Within 24 hours, following a successful extradition hearing in the Cairns Magistrates Court, he made the nearly six-hour flight by light plane to Melbourne with Ron Lucas.
This was Newlan’s first chance to chat with his suspect. He found Lucas to be an amiable fellow, but with a childish habit of boasting about everything. Looking out the aeroplane window, Newlan asked Ron Lucas if he had ever done any parachuting. Lucas told him that he had made hundreds of jumps. Later, when Newlan spoke of diving, Lucas told him that he was a diving expert. Newlan reflected wryly that it seemed that there was nothing Ron Lucas wouldn’t brag about – except, of course, killing Jimmy Pinakos.
New legal and scientific grounds were broken in the realm of forensic evidence during the murder trial of Ronald Lucas, over the admissibility of DNA testing – specifically for the purpose of linking Jimmy Pinakos with the crime scene in Ron Lucas’ garage.
When Leicester University geneticist Alec Jeffreys discovered the means to isolate the elusive genetic material in 1984, one of the first tests he performed was to see whether DNA patterns were inherited. His tests on family groups clearly showed that half the bands and stripes of DNA of offspring were from the mother and half were from the father.
The Melbourne courts argued this point at length because, owing to the advanced state of decomposition of the body of Jimmy Pinakos, DNA tests could not be conducted on his remains. The prosecution therefore conducted a series of DNA tests on blood samples from Pinakos’ parents and compared the DNA profiles with blood samples taken from the garage. The results showed a 65 per cent probability that the blood in the garage belonged to Jimmy Pinakos – not certain enough for the court to accept as evidence.
It was vital for the conviction of Ron Lucas, to connect him to the body, or the body with his house. There was plenty of circumstantial evidence, but detectives were looking for solid forensic evidence.
Fingerprint expert Sergeant Sean Hickey provided that link by carefully examining the material in which the body had been wrapped. On a piece of masking tape used to bind the tarpaulin, Hickey discovered a clear latent fingerprint. It belonged to Ronald Lucas.
The masking tape, with its still clearly distinguishable fingerprint, held pride of place in a display cabinet at the St Kilda Road Fingerprint Branch offices.
Ronald Lucas was found guilty of killing Jimmy Pinakos. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
A decade into his 20-year sentence, Ron Lucas hit the headlines again when he and another prisoner escaped from the Ararat jail. At around 11.30am on Saturday 16 June 2001, the two scaled a wire fence but were recaptured after farmers reported them roaming through paddocks. They were back in custody before 5pm. Before the escape, Lucas was due for parole in 2006.
5. The Ride-Alongs
In researching stories with different squads, some suggested I do a ride-along so I could get firsthand experience in police work. I had to apply for permission to police command, then sign a paper saying something to the effect that if they killed me, they bore no responsibility; and then off I went around the streets of Melbourne in a variety of police cars.
One place I wanted to visit to get a story was the police Air Wing. I ended up interviewing an Air Wing observer called John Williamson. John was a natural storyteller which was handy because I needed him to describe what it was like to work in a helicopter. While I got a general idea, I couldn’t quite capture it in the story. Finally, he said, ‘You really need to come up in the helicopter and experience a shift for yourself.’
‘Well, if you insist,’ I said casually. On the inside I was jumping up and down saying, yippee!
The first time I sat in the helicopter ready for the shift, one of the crew handed me a sick-bag and said there was no shame in being air-sick, as long as I did it in the bag and didn’t mess up the helicopter. In a voice designed, I think, to make me feel nervous, he asked if I’d been in a helicopter before.
‘No, but I’ve been in a really tall building. Does that count?’ Coming from a family of five kids, I was no shrinking violet, even though I might sometimes look like one. The truth was I had never suffered from motion sickness and didn’t imagine I’d start now. The only thing that did make me feel a little nervous was the crew made it very clear if they got a job outside the metropolitan area, they would deposit me onto the nearest sports field and I’d have to find my own way home.
I sat in the back, wearing headphones and a mic so I could hear the chat between the three crew members. Once the rotors were thumping at fever pitch, the helicopter lurched forward then rose straight up into the air.
Senior Constable Tim Morgan was the shift pilot. He