Networked Knowledge - Book Review

Book reviews homepage
List of Australian, UK and USA miscarriage of justice law reports
Article: Australian law on miscarriages of justice
Article: UK law on miscarriages of justice
Article: USA law on miscarriages of justice

“Killing Jodie: How Australia’s most elusive murderer was brought to justice”

by Janet Fife-Yeomans 2007 Penguin Books 280 pp
ISBN 13: 9780670029655 (paperback)

Reviewed by: Dr Robert N Moles

This is a book for those who would like to hear some good news about the police and investigations of serious crime in Australia. Janet Fife-Yeomans is one of the lead writers for The Australian and The Daily Telegraph in Sydney. She would know as much as anyone around about what can go wrong with police investigations, and how corruption stupidity or greed can cause serious crime investigations to go astray. Yet she has chosen to write a book about the “good guys” in crime investigations. Not senior officers or those involved with the “high tech” end of police investigations.

This story is about the humble sloggers. Equally remarkable is the fact that the victims were themselves humble, and to many, seriously unimportant people. They were drug-addicted prostitutes who had fallen on bad times and were about as exposed to be taken advantage of as any in our society. Yet from the mundaneness of overworked police officers and the depravity of those who prey on the most vulnerable Fife-Yeomans has worked a skilful interplay between cat and mouse which took a good ten years or more to work its way through.

The central character is not so much “Jodie” as Daryl Suckling. The sort of person who could easily have lived and died a non-entity; a life of petty crime, intermittent periods of hum drum work; a loner who had that knack of making every one around him (especially women) feel uneasy. He turns up in some small outback town with a much younger girl he is helping to get off drugs. She tells some strange tales about how she was abducted by Daryl, and how he has done a lot of very unpleasant things to her. Most busy small-town cops would probably let it pass as the deluded machinations of a drug addict. But gradually one – and then two of them – take an interest and think that there might be more to this Daryl than meets the eye.

Eventually he is suspected by the police officers of having done-away with at least a couple of such girls – and possibly more. He moves from the outback towns to the seedy suburbs of Melbourne and back again. The police officers get moved from one location to another, but all the time trying when they can to keep up their investigations into girls who no one but their own family seems to care anything about. At times matters get through the early stages of legal proceedings only to be tossed out by the senior prosecutors instead of proceeding to trial. Clearly there needs to be better communication and better interaction between the prosecution and the police officers with whom they deal.

The tale of dogged determination is skilfully told amidst the careful diplomacy which has to continue between police and family – ‘yes, we are making progress’ – ‘no, don’t get your hopes up too high that it might actually get anywhere’. Eventually progress is made, but not without its toil on the police officers themselves, who get caught up in other corruption inquiries going on at the same time.

This book is clearly written from the perspective of the police involved. It is a perspective which needs to be understood. There are clearly lessons to be learned about the toll which such work can exact from those who may be dedicated to the task, but under-resourced and under-supported. Janet Fife-Yeomans’ book helps us to understand that when the poor and disposed become victims – there are indeed some who care and who go to extraordinary lengths to try and achieve justice for them and their families. They too deserve the recognition which is their due.

With thanks to Linda Machan who kindly donated this book to the Networked Knowledge Library.   

Top of Page