Elizabeth Byrne

They're described as strands of a rope.

And in this particular case, the strands all came together and the strongest bit of it was the DNA evidence.

So it was very hard to get past that.

It's possible.

The final question the jury asked was they wanted some clarification of the elements of the charges, particularly manslaughter and murder, in circumstances where it's unclear who attacked Irma.

So this goes back to the Joint Commission charge.

But that question said to me that that's what they're struggling with.

Is it murder or is it manslaughter?

I may be completely wrong because the jury can't tell us, but that's what it suggested to me.

And I've seen this a few times.

They may not have gotten to murder because it was unclear who attacked Irma.

And quite often with juries,

who are faced with a circumstance like this and it's drummed into them, you have to find it beyond a reasonable doubt that they end up saying, we can't reach a verdict on that particular question.

I think all the other charges about the burglary and the assaults, that all stood up and I think they had already made up their mind on those charges before they got to this final bit.

The thing that Irma's grandson, John Makita, said outside the court was, someone's been held to account after all these years.

And the family was very relieved about that.

Well...

probably unlike you, I remember 1999.

And I had already been covering courts for quite a while at that time.

And we thought DNA evidence was, you know, quite advanced.