“There needs to be an independent body set up in the Queensland Police Service as there seems to be much left to be desired in the way they conduct their investigations,” Lawrence Brooks stated.
Wendy Brooks stated “it almost went over” their heads after they heard the coroner discover their son could have been unlawfully killed after the couple had spent many years difficult the police’s authentic conclusion that his demise was unintentional.
“After all this time (the coroner) felt the same way we did… that part was what we were looking for,” Brooks stated.
Brooks, 24, was discovered lifeless with a single shotgun wound to the higher chest at 3.30pm on March 13, 1996 close to crayfish ponds on the property the place he labored as an aquaculturist at Beenleigh, south of Brisbane.
Coroner Donald MacKenzie handed down his findings at this time that Brooks died after being shot by way of unintentional discharge or by an individual or individuals unknown, and there was “reasonable suspicion” that two of his colleagues had been concerned.
“Having considered the vast array of material gathered over the past 26 years, there is sufficient information to found a reasonable suspicion that Johannes Wolfgang Hans Geiger and Regine Kjellerup were involved in the unlawful killing of Jeffrey Brooks,” MacKenzie stated.
He stated the discovering was based mostly on Brooks’ previous statements that he was in concern of his life, motive, alternative and behavior earlier than and after capturing doubtlessly incriminating Geiger and Kjellerup, however he was not stating they had been responsible of something.
There had been gasps from the general public gallery as MacKenzie learn out the discovering and stated he would refer the temporary of proof to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
MacKenzie didn’t discover any suspicion of crayfish farm employee Graeme Lloyd, who found Brooks’ physique and known as police, as he was an “honest witness”.
The coroner rejected a lot of the criticism of the unique police investigation, discovering it was enough and thorough, and gave little weight to privately funded firearms experiments that claimed to have confirmed Brooks was shot from too far a distance to be an accident.
The 1998 inquest discovered that Brooks probably died from the shotgun by chance discharging when Brooks grabbed it by the barrel, and MacKenzie stated on Tuesday he couldn’t rule this out as the reason for demise.
He handed on his condolences to Lawrence and Wendy Brooks “for their loss of a fine young man taken too soon”.
Source: www.9news.com.au
