Murder inquiry bungle: the secret's out?

The victims, Pam and Bill Weightman, with their son, David.

AFTER bungling the original investigation of the deaths eight years ago of the Sydney couple Pam and Bill Weightman, which were wrongly attributed to a car accident, police fought a legal battle all the way to the High Court to keep confidential what they claimed was their top secret method with which they caught one of the killers.

In sentencing Terry Mark Donai, 40, a concreter from Berridale in the Snowy Mountains, to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment for the murders, Justice Elizabeth Fullerton yesterday criticised the "forensic ineptitude" of officials in failing to discover the "unprofessional and amateurish" murders. Not only did police and the forensic pathologist miss the fact that the couple had been murdered, Dr Allan Cala performed an autopsy on the wrong brain.

Donai's sentencing had been delayed since November due to legal action on behalf of the NSW Police Commissioner, but now "the technique" can be revealed, that the police fought so hard to keep under wraps.

Their secret appeared to be Undercover 101: that is, during a covert operation, police pretended to be part of a crime gang and, having won the confidence of the murderer, got him to confess.

Donai's taped partial confession was played at his trial but the public was excluded from hearing it. "OK he [David Weightman] killed his parents, I helped him get rid of them, and that was it," Donai was recorded saying to the undercover officers.

Eight years ago Pam Mrs Weightman, 50, and her 51-year-old husband, Bill, the owners of a child-care centre, were drugged and then asphyxiated in their Glen Alpine home by their adopted son, David, then 20, and his friend, Donai.

They then pushed the couple's car, with the bodies in it, over an embankment at Heathcote.

Within days of the Weightmans' deaths Pam's sister, Margaret Urwin, and her husband, Alan, were convinced their nephew, David, had murdered his parents.

Having broken the news of the deaths to him, the Urwins found it odd that David did not ask for any details about how his parents had died.

Even more startling was his rush to put the family home on the market. "He finds out at 3am his parents are dead," Mr Urwin said. "By 2 o'clock that same afternoon their house is up for sale."

Police remained unconvinced but in mid-2001, when Dr Cala was asked to review his original autopsy, he discovered he had made an "incredible error", as he later told his misconduct inquiry.

When he concluded that Mrs Weightman died of massive head injuries, he had been examining someone else's brain. When he discovered his error, he immediately contacted the coroner.

Finally, in February 2004, four years after the deaths, Weightman confessed to his aunt and uncle that he and a friend, Terry Donai, had killed his parents.

When Weightman appeared in court, charged with the murder of his parents, every detail surrounding the case was suppressed. The public never heard that Weightman had not only confessed to the drugging and smothering murders of his parents but he had also named Donai as his accomplice. That Weightman was jailed for 22 years was also suppressed.

For the next two years, Strike Force Tenos, in which police posed as members of a crime syndicate, targeted Donai. They sounded out his attitude to contract killings. "Is there anything that you wouldn't be prepared to do with us? Like, where would you draw the line?" an undercover officer was recorded saying.

Donai replied: "I'd never kill a child," he said. "I wouldn't find it hard to kill someone. As long as it wasn't someone too close."

Weightman gave chilling evidence at Donai's murder trial that Donai had come up with plan to drug and then smother the Weightmans in return for $17,000 so he could buy a motorcycle.

On the night of January 8, 2000, Weightman stood outside his house smoking a cigarette, while his mother screamed and struggled for her life.

Donai emerged from the house sweating profusely, short of breath and with the veins on his neck bulging. Donai "was stinking like death", Weightman said in court. Weightman told the court that Donai said to him: "Gee, that took a lot out of me. I'll need a hand with your dad."

The pair then murdered Bill Weightman who, according to his son, shouted "You bastards" at them as he "put up a big struggle".

David Weightman never did pay his mate the $17,000.

Quote: The police undercover methods of manipulation leave little to be desired like 'entrapment to some degree and are a little bit flimsy. There must have been demerits in the police investigation and this article has only produced ‘out of context’ what was allegedly an admission by Donai Quote: "OK he [David Weightman] killed his parents, I helped him get rid of them, and that was it," Unquote: What led up to this statement is very important. Like was he skylarking, big noting himself or just being honest? The article then leads straight into the heart-felt details of the pair killed. Not with logic for Donai's alleged confession but with empathy for the victims. Then implicates David, with this statement Quote: “ Within days of the Weightmans' deaths Pam's sister, Margaret Urwin, and her husband, Alan, were convinced their nephew, David, had murdered his parents. Having broken the news of the deaths to him, the Urwins found it odd that David did not ask for any details about how his parents had died. Even more startling was his rush to put the family home on the market. He finds out at 3am his parents are dead, Mr Urwin said. By 2 o'clock that same afternoon their house is up for sale.” Unquote: Then followed by the gory details and then this further alleged statement by Donai Quote: Donai replied: "I'd never kill a child," he said. "I wouldn't find it hard to kill someone. As long as it wasn't someone too close." Unquote: That statement sounds bad for Donai and doesn't help him, seeminly making it sound worse but is that all logical really in relation to his quoted admissions? Questions: Can the police encourage people to say things that can then be quoted out of context? Does the reader expect to hear the material in its proper context to be able to form a view that police conduct in investigating crime in relation to those who were found guilty was sound?