14 The Two Intruders | What we really think
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What led to the brutal murder of Irma Palacic?
Sometimes our futures turn in an instant. Someone we meet, a phone call, a flyer on a notice board. It's like the butterfly effect. And it's not until later that we see the signs.
We're all vulnerable.
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One woman died a brutal death, two men were charged with her murder, a jury convicted them of manslaughter. Now we can tell you what we really think. I'm Stephen Stockwell, welcome to episode 14 of The Case of the Two Intruders.
Irma Palacic's brutal murder rocked her family and has haunted them for 24 long years.
This wasn't the average robbery.
The brutality of the attack shocked the community. They were virtually tortured that night.
Violently assaulted before the two men ransacked the premises and stole cash and jewellery. My grandparents were beaten and my grandmother was left to die on the lounge room floor. During the trial, we can only tell you what the jury hears. But now the verdict is in. We've got much more freedom. We're going to break down the trial that found out who killed Irma. To do this, we're joined by ABC court reporter Elizabeth Byrne. Liz, I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts on this trial. Thank you for joining us.
Hi, Stockie.
And as well as Elizabeth, we're joined by ABC investigative reporter, James Viver. James, good to have you here as well.
Hi, Stockie.
First question when we get into these episodes is, were you surprised by the verdict? Liz?
No, not at all. The evidence against them was quite strong. It was a circumstantial case. And of course, circumstantial cases are made up of strands. 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.
James, how about yourself? Were you surprised by the verdict that the jury reached?
Honestly, it's hard to say because I've not done a murder trial before. So I kind of had nothing to base it on. A lot of the evidence felt pretty strong, just from a news sense, comparing it to, I suppose, a news sense and a common sense. And a lot of the arguments, which I know we'll get into from the defense side, felt a bit far-fetched, to be honest.
What were the significant pieces of evidence in the trial?
And so they convicted them I suppose I wasn't surprised, but I would qualify that as sort of a relatively inexperienced opinion.
Yeah, James, I was a bit like you. I have this real recency bias when I'm listening to arguments. So I'll hear the prosecution opening and I'll be like, oh, well, look, this seems pretty open and shut, doesn't it? And then I hear the defence and go, oh, actually, well, you know, there's some good points there. The thing that sort of surprised me a little bit was that manslaughter was an option. You know, I wasn't expecting... the jury to be kind of given that option. Given what we talked about with the family, the history of this case, I thought that maybe the prosecutors wouldn't allow the jury to kind of make that selection. But Liz, as you've explained, it's sort of the next step down basically from murder.
And so that option was given to the jury. And I think the thing I was wondering was whether or not the jury would have reached murder if manslaughter wasn't on the table. I mean, Liz, do you think they would have?
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.
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Chapters
4 chaptersSpeakers
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