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Where is Jodie Larcombe?

Finding someone guilty of murder without a body is very difficult…but it does happen. Take the conviction of Lindy Chamberlain for the 1980 abduction and murder of her baby daughter, Azaria, at Uluru. Lindy Chamberlain was eventually exonerated, released and pardoned after years in jail when, by fluke, her baby Azaria’s matinee jacket was found near dingo lairs in 1986. Until then it was believed that the missing baby wasn’t wearing any such jacket and that her mother had been lying, saying that her child had been taken from their tent by a dingo.

But there was no fluke in the case of Bruce Burrell for the abduction murders of Mrs Kerry Whelan and Dorothy Davis, whose bodies were never found. Burrell was caught through diligent police work from a team of detectives who knew he was as guilty as sin and would never give up until he was caught.

Another person conviced of murder without a body is Bradley Murdoch, for the outback murder of Peter Falconio, whose body has never been found. Murdoch made the mistake of leaving his blood DNA at the murder scene, on his second intended victim, and in her car.

You can read more about both the Bruce Burrell and Peter Falconio stories later in this book.

The following story is a lesser-known case of a murder without a body, which also resulted in a conviction due to relentless police diligence and detective work.

On or around 22 December 1987, the day she was released from Pentridge Prison, 21-year-old prostitute and heroin addict Jodie Maree Larcombe went missing. Three months later, in March 1988, in an unrelated incident, police were called to an isolated property in Pooncarie in the south-west of New South Wales to investigate the sexual assault and abduction of a woman named Sophie Carni, who had escaped her assailant and informed a neighbouring farmer of her ordeal.

There, local police arrested 51-year-old Daryl Francis Suckling, a property caretaker, and charged him with sexual assault and false imprisonment. Police checked Suckling out to find that he had been in and out of jail all of his life, with 138 convictions for a huge variety of offences including burglary, stealing cars and fraud dating back to when he was 11 years old. Suckling had twice escaped from jail and in 1978, at the age of 42, the skinny, inoffensive-looking little man had been convicted of carnal knowledge with a girl aged between 10 and 16. In 1984, he had miraculously managed to get very serious charges of abduction and rape dropped.

Sophie Carni told police that her assailant had abducted her at knifepoint in Melbourne, taken her to the property in New South Wales, drugged and raped her and forced her to pose for explicit photos. In her statement she said that her assailant had told her that he had killed another woman and her body was buried nearby. But he didn’t say exactly where. Police conducted numerous thorough searches of the farm and surrounding areas but no body was ever found.

But while they found no human remains in their search, police did find jewellery, clothing and a set of dentures that belonged to a Jodie Larcombe, who had gone missing three months earlier. But it was the discovery of explicit photos of Jodie Larcombe, who appeared to be drugged or drunk and whose body appeared to be battered and bruised, that lead police to believe that she was the woman Suckling had boasted to Sophie Carni of killing and burying.

On 3 April 1989, police charged Daryl Suckling with the murder of Jodie Larcombe, along with the charges relating to Sophie Carni. On 3 June 1989, Sophie Carni died of a drug overdose, making her evidence at Suckling’s trial inadmissible, and the judge ordered that Suckling be acquitted. But Suckling still had the charges of abducting and murdering Jodie Larcombe to answer to and his trial date was set down for 25 February 1991.

Soon after, police prosecutors and Jodie Larcombe’s family were shocked to receive a letter from the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Reg Blanch, informing them that the trial of Daryl Suckling on the charge of murdering Jodie Larcombe would not go ahead. The letter from Mr Blanch said in part:

I advise you that after careful consideration of this matter, I have directed that there be no further prosecution. I have received advice from two Queen’s Counsel that the evidence available at this time is such that if the evidence which is admissible were presented to a jury a verdict of acquittal would be inevitable.

I agree with the assessment. Such an acquittal would make it impossible to prosecute the matter again. By directing now that there be no further proceedings it is open to prosecute the matter again if any relevant evidence should come forward.

Mr Blanch and the NSW Department of Public Prosecutions came under heavy fire for the decision and in February 1992, Mr Blanch provided the following facts of the case:

• • No one had seen or heard of Jodie Larcombe since she was released from Pentridge Prison on 22 December 1987.
• • She lived and worked as a street prostitute in St Kilda.
• • On 26 December 1987, Daryl Suckling withdrew $40 from an automatic teller machine in that suburb.
• • It was the same amount that Jodie Larcombe charged for sex.

In March 1988, police found in Suckling’s possession at his remote Wyrama Station home, 170 kilometres from Wentworth, Miss Larcombe’s false teeth, silver chain and watch. Police also found explicit photos of Miss Larcombe in Suckling’s car. A dress believed to belong to the missing woman was recovered from Suckling, as was a notebook with an entry ‘Jodie 27.12’. Suckling was charged and subsequently committed for trial on murder charges by Magistrate Derek Hand.

The DPP then dropped the charges.

Mr Blanch was not alone in agreeing to drop the charges. High-profile Sydney solicitor Chris Murphy said, ‘Mr Blanch would have destroyed the credibility of his office by taking the easy alternative of sending this man to trial. It would have been a lynch-mob mentality to put Suckling up for trial looking for a conviction on emotional grounds.’

But the police who had worked tirelessly piecing the evidence together against Suckling did not agree that the case should be dropped. They believed that they had enough on Suckling to convict him. In late 1991, Jodie Larcombe’s parents collected thousands of signatures on a petition calling for the prosecution of the man who was once charged with the murder of their daughter. ‘We will fight this in every way and hope someone will sit up and take notice,’ Mr Larcombe said.

Nothing came of it. But the investigating police and Jodie’s family and loved ones never gave up hope that Daryl Suckling would one day be brought to justice.

On 2 September 1996, nine years after Jodie went missing, presumed murdered, her family’s prayers were answered when Daryl Francis Suckling, now 60, faced the jury after being tried for her abduction, rape and murder. Suckling had fallen into the oldest trap of them all. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

While in prison for another offence, Suckling had made the fatal mistake of boasting to a cellmate about killing Jodie Larcombe. The cellmate went to the police and when the two men teamed up on release from prison, police fitted the informant with a listening device that recorded Suckling telling the terrible details of how he had murdered and dismembered Jodie with an axe and disposed of her body parts. This time the DPP elected to prosecute.

The jury found Suckling guilty of the murder of Jodie Larcombe, 21, on or about 27 December 1987 at an unknown place in New South Wales. Justice Bruce James said that it was a crime in the worst category and sentenced Suckling to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jodie Larcombe’s body has never been found. Police have good reason to believe that she may not have been Suckling’s only victim.

The Jodie Larcombe case is the subject of a brilliant book titled Killing Jodie by Sydney journalist Janet Fife-Yeomans.