‘It was you’: Graham Stafford hears police review name him as Leanne Holland’s killer
The man Queensland Police say is most likely Leanne Holland’s killer, has been told their findings during a television interview 26 years after the crime.
Speaking face-to-face with Murder Uncovered host Michael Usher, Graham Stafford was eager to learn the findings of the review, which have been hidden from the public for the last five years.
“You didn’t do it?” Usher asked Stafford.
“I didn’t kill Leanne, hand on heart” he replied.
“I just found her, you know really down to earth.”
The more than 500-page review details new evidence which concludes that Stafford, the man first convicted then cleared as the killer, is the person most likely responsible for Leanne’s murder.
Stafford says he was at Leanne’s house on Alice St, Goodna where he had lived with her older sister, when he heard sirens that indicated something was wrong.
“We were sort of concerned … I think the police came not long after that, told us that they’d found a body.”
Leanne’s body was discovered by police trail-bike riders in bushland not far from Redbank Plains Road, about eight kilometres from the house.
She was found less than 100m from the road. She was naked from the waist down and her face had been battered almost beyond recognition.
Two days after her body was found, Stafford was arrested over the murder. He was jailed for life after a jury took almost three hours to find him guilty in 1992, but almost 15 years later the conviction was quashed and he found himself a free man.
The review, which followed that decision, saw more than 300 people interviewed and managed to narrow 16 suspects to one, Stafford.
It was detailed and ruthless, exposing the failings and achievements of the first investigation.
New evidence detailed in the report refers to a pattern evident on the 12-year-old’s left buttock and thigh.
This pattern was found to be identical to the boot mat of a Holden Gemini car. Stafford had a Holden Gemini at the time of the murder and Leanne’s blood was found in the boot of his car.
When asked if he could explain how her blood was found there, Stafford said he couldn’t.
“You have to take this into context. I mean it was less than three mls. To this day I can’t explain how her blood came to be on my tool bag.”
The police case states Leanne was put in the car boot after she was killed.
Stafford argued that it was unlikely he would’ve been able to carry her body to the car and not be noticed, considering a pub was across the road.
The publican disagreed, saying a set of toilets blocked the pub’s view of Leanne’s house.
Police suggested Stafford had driven with Leanne’s body in the boot for up to two days before her body was dumped in bushland.
Speaking for the first time since working on the case, former Detective Peter Slatter said police suspected Stafford had desired to have sex with Leanne and got carried away with his desires.
He felt the idea that Leanne might tell her father Terry, possibly triggered a violent outburst.
“I think he (Stafford) panicked and then it all got out of hand,” he said.
Slatter thought Leanne suffered a “brutal” death.
“She’s smacked around the head with some heavy object by someone with a warped mind,” he said.
When asked who could possibly do that to a 12-year-old girl?
Slatter responded: “Someone who’s got something to hide and needs to get rid of her.”
Stafford accused police of trying to paint him as a “deviant” who attacked his then-girlfriend’s child sister.
“This this is why I keep pushing, this is why I want to get hold of the report. This is why I want an inquest or a re-trial, whatever,” Stafford told Usher.
The detectives considered Stafford to be a man that couldn’t handle the truth.
Former detective Ralph Knust said he wished he could understand why in the face of the evidence, Stafford maintains his innocence.
After spending months investigating the case, Michael Usher sat down with Stafford one final time to read him the new evidence.
After being allowed time to read the summary of the review, Usher informed him of the conclusion:
“There is significant incriminating and circumstantial evidence that you, Graham Stafford, murdered Leanne Holland on the 23rd September 1991,” he said.
“No,” Stafford responded.
“It recommends you go back to trial that there’s a re-trial. It says there is no-one else capable of doing it; it was you,” Usher told him.
“Well that’s what they said to begin with,” Stafford said.
Stafford was informed of new evidence, which found Leanne had applied peroxide bleach to her hair but had not been able to fully spread the bleach through before the process inexplicably ceased.
A forensic expert gave the inference Leanne or someone else was in the process of spreading the dye in her hair, when she was fatally assaulted.
“Rubbish, absolute rot, Michael absolute rot,” Stafford said of the finding.
“I can tell you now unless she’s gone to somewhere else to have it done, she certainly did not have peroxide put in her hair and I certainly didn’t do it… because I hadn’t got a clue how to use the stuff.”
“They have and they’ve eliminated anybody else. She was not anywhere else dyeing her hair,” Usher informed him.
Stafford rejected the finding “absolutely”.
When told about the boot mat finding, Stafford denied Leanne was in the boot of his car.
“No she wasn’t [laugh], so if she’s been in the boot of my car, why is there not copious amounts of blood?” he said.
The review also analysed the shower curtain from the bathroom where Leanne was said to be dyeing her hair before her death.
“It found blood of which there were about 50 spots on one side and 10 spots on the other side up to a distance of 180cms above floor level, almost six foot,” Usher told Stafford.
“Yeah, well I’m just being you know stitched up again,” Stafford said in response to the finding.
The blood found on the curtain and on the showerhead was confirmed as being “projected human blood”.
Leanne’s DNA was identified from the blood.
“Projected blood means sprayed blood… can you explain that?” Usher said.
“I don’t need to; I know I didn’t murder Leanne. Why do you think I’ve been fighting this all this time Michael? Why would I be putting myself in this position if I’d actually committed the crime? Wouldn’t I have just gone to ground and kept quiet?”
“Perhaps you believe your lie? This entire review says that you’re a liar…” Usher responded.
“So you think I’m guilty?” Stafford asked.
“Based on this it would suggest firmly that you did it; that you killed Leanne,” Usher said.
“I’ll summarise it for you. The DNA tests confirm it was Leanne’s blood splattered in the shower. It was Leanne’s blood drops on the front steps of the house. It was Leanne’s blood in the boot of your car. She had commenced dyeing her hair. The mark on her body matches the boot mat in your red Holden Gemini. That’s why the review strongly concludes that there’s new and admissible evidence in a court to support your guilt of this crime. Well who is it then? Who is it then if it’s not you?”
“I look, I don’t know,” Stafford responded.
Graham Stafford maintains his innocence.
