CHAPTER 2

NO JUSTICE FOR JAIDYN

In October 2006, every fair-minded Australian was left wondering how the coroner at a belated Coronial Inquest held nine years after the crime, could find that Greg Domaszewicz weighed down the tiny dead body of 14-month-old Jaidyn Leskie with a crowbar and threw it into the freezing waters of Blue Rock Dam where it was found six months later, yet not find that Domaszewicz had also killed the child. After all, we couldn’t be blamed for assuming that one finding leads to another.

In any other case it probably would have. But the murder of the toddler Jaidyn wasn’t your ordinary case. It would have been if Domaszewicz had have been found guilty at his 1998 trial for Jaidyn’s murder, as most people believed he should have been.

But the jury instead found that his defence proved that there was a slight, however so small, reasonable doubt. Now, instead of spending the rest of his life hiding in protective custody from the other convicts who believe that toddler murderers should be killed on sight, Domaszewicz is wandering the streets a free man.

The indisputable facts and implications of that fateful night in Moe, rural Victoria in 1997 all seem to suggest that the then 31-year-old Domaszewicz brutalised little Jaidyn and disposed of his body. Here are some of those facts:

• Domaszewicz was at home babysitting Jaidyn for his girlfriend Bilynda Murphy when the baby disappeared. Jaidyn was healthy and well when dropped off by his mother.

• When Jaidyn’s body was found in the dam six months later, his arm had been badly broken and he had been bashed to death with a brick.

• There is no evidence of any other person entering Domaszewicz’s house that night.

• Domaszewicz could offer no conclusive alibi as to his whereabouts at the estimated time that Jaidyn’s body was thrown in the dam.

• If Jaidyn died after some accident in which Domaszewicz played no part, why wouldn’t he just say so rather than be charged with murder and subject himself to a trial?

• Why would Domaszewicz weigh Jaidyn’s body down with a crowbar and throw it in Blue Rock Dam if somebody else either deliberately or accidentally killed Jaidyn?

• And, in the unlikely event that Domaszewicz took the risk of disposing of Jaidyn’s body for someone else, he surely would have come clean and dobbed that person in when faced with the prospect of a long jail term.

However, in his finding, Victorian State Coroner Graeme Johnstone said that he only needed the ‘balance of probability’ to be satisfied that Domaszewicz disposed of the body, not the far greater ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ needed for a guilty finding. And in his conclusions Mr Johnstone did not go that one logical step further and say, ‘on the balance of probability’ that Mr Domaszewicz killed Jaidyn. Mr Johnstone said:

However, as a helpless 14-month-old infant, requiring total support, care and protection by an adult, ultimately it was Mr Domaszewicz who failed to provide that adequate and very necessary level of protective supervision, care and support to look after the infant, otherwise he would not have received the injuries from which he died.

Whatever happened to result in the injuries that were occasioned to Jaidyn, occurred on Mr Domaszewicz temporary watch. Thus, he has contributed to the death. No satisfactory alternative explanation of the circumstances has been given by Mr Domaszewicz. After Jaidyn’s death, Mr Domaszewicz disposed of the little boy’s body in nearby Blue Rock Dam. Clearly he had the opportunity and time to do so.

Greg Domaszewicz was charged with murdering Jaidyn and stood trial in late 1998. The circumstantial evidence against him was damning: his lack of alibis, his lies that Jaidyn had fallen in a heater and he had to take him to hospital, the evidence at his home. Australia watched as it looked as though a baby-bashing murderer was going to get his just deserts.

But the Crown hadn’t counted on a bunch of hillbillies who went by the name – for the purposes of the trial – of the ‘Pig’s Head Team’, which consisted of Kenny Penfold and his sister Yvonne, Darrin Wilson and Dean Ross. It seems as though Kenny Penfold was the leader of the many thugs in Moe and had a grudge against Domaszewicz, who had allegedly regularly bashed his sister, Yvonne, when they were an item some time ago.

As luck would have it for Domaszewicz, later on the night Jaidyn disappeared, Kenny and his gang of morons drove past Domaszewicz’s house and threw a freshly severed pig’s head at one of the front windows. Up until a few hours earlier, the porker had been the Penfold’s family pet, Darren, but Kenny had found a much better use for it, having killed it and severed the poor creature’s head for use as a missile.

Greg Domaszewicz’s council pondered the endless possibilities that could have arisen from the incident and then pulled their trump card – the pig’s head gang in person. The members of the pig’s head gang could have been straight out of a cave. Kenny Penfold had waited two days to swagger into the witness box and show everyone in town who was the king gangster around Moe.

Domaszewicz’s counsel cleverly goaded Penfold and his cohorts in the witness box until they were shouting, swearing and gesticulating as if they were down at the local pub sculling schooners. It worked. The jury members watched the angry antics and no doubt compared them with the meek and mild appearance of Mr Domaszewicz as he sat quietly in court in a suit.

Just before jury members left the jury box to consider their verdict, Domaszewicz’s counsel, Mr Colin Lovitt QC, reminded them of the disturbing performance of Kenny Penfold and the other pig’s head throwers.

‘Who is more likely to have gratuitously injured Jaidyn Leskie or panicked when they found that he had been accidentally injured?’ Mr Lovitt asked the jury, blatantly planting the seed of reasonable doubt. ‘Could it be Greg Domaszewicz or a fellow like Ken Penfold? Who is more likely to find the child as being just an inconvenience, a nuisance, something that we have got to do something about?’

Even though the court had already heard that police had been able to quickly clear the pig’s head team members of any involvement in the death of Jaidyn early into the investigation, the seed had been planted. It must have swayed at least one jury member – and that’s all it takes in a murder trial –because the jury came back with a not guilty verdict. The most surprised person in the court was Greg Domaszewicz who had brought along his toothbrush, expecting that he wouldn’t be home for a long, long time.

• • •

But at least the coroner got it half right in October 2006, simply by dealing with the facts and not court theatrics. And no matter what, many, many people still believe that Greg Domaszewicz shouldn’t be breathing the same air as decent citizens and should be where they reckon he belongs: in prison for the rest of his life.