Plea For Clues To Baby's Murder
THE murder of Charlotte Rose Keen has torn a family apart as the search for her killers intensifies.
Grandparents Bob and Lesley Keen say their son Graeme is close to a breakdown over the brutal killing of his daughter, just three days before her first birthday.
Charlotte was taken off life support on December 17, after a five-day battle with massive injuries that police say were intentionally inflicted.
She was sent to Wodonga and Albury Hospital on December 12, then airlifted to the Royal Children's Hospital where she died.
Mr Keen said his son was suffering greatly and they were desperate to get justice and peace of mind.
"All this is breaking us apart, Graeme's devastated. Charlotte was an only child and she was precious to him."
Graeme and his former partner Renee Jones, 22, split just months before the tragedy and had dual custody of Charlotte. Ms Jones was living with another man, Brett Penrose.
Mr Keen said his son was so distraught he had isolated himself. "He won't even talk to me at the moment," he said. "He's so upset, he's not handling it well at all."
The suspicion about her killers has led police to call for witnesses, but Charlotte's grandparents say they aren't sure what happened that fateful night.
"To coin a phrase, there's no smoking gun, there's no hammer with blood on it," Mr Keen said. "Because it's such an intensive investigation we have to wait for police to do their work.
"If she had've died of a serious illness, it's a different matter because you have time for something like that, but this you can't prepare for."
Lesley Keen said her son was to pick up his daughter on the night of her death, but arranged to let her stay at her mother's Phefley Court home, because of another commitment in Wodonga.
"He's a broken man," Ms Keen said. She described Charlotte as a happy girl just starting to walk and talk.
They have pleaded for public help to give their family some closure in this case.
"If we even suspected for one minute something was wrong, we would've had her out of there in nothing flat," Mr Keen said, "but it came like a bolt out of the blue."
Detective Inspector Steve Francis of the homicide squad yesterday described the injuries sustained by Charlotte as non-accidental.
"The fact she was transferred from the local hospital to the intensive care unit to the Royal Children's hospital indicates the extent of those injuries," he said.
Det-Insp Francis said family members and people known to them had been interviewed.
Police also revealed the 34-year-old de facto has two children to another relationship who visited the home where paramedics attended to the injured Charlotte.
Herald Sun (14-2-2005)
Anthony Dowsley and Holly Lloyd-McDonald
Friday, December 17, 2004
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Kylee Ann SCHAFFER
Sex: Female
Year of Birth: 1985
At Time of Disappearance on 11 September 2004
Age: 19
Height (cm): 165.0
Build: Solid
Hair Colour: Coloured/dyed
Eye Colour: Brown
Complexion: Medium
Nationality:
Racial Appearance: Caucasian
Circumstances Kylee was last seen at Willawarrin.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Kylie Maree LABOUCHARDIERE
Convicted:Paul Wilkinson
Kylie has not yet been recovered
Sex: Female
Year of Birth: 1980
At Time of Disappearance on 28 April 2004
Age: 23
Height (cm): 175.0
Build: Thin
Hair Colour: Coloured/dyed
Eye Colour: Blue/Grey
Complexion: Light Brown
Nationality:
Racial Appearance: Caucasian
Circumstances: Kylie Maree Labouchardiere, last seen at her Erina home in 2004. Her lover Paul Wilkinson was sentenced for 24 years in May 2009 for the her murder. Kylie was last seen in Erina.
_______________________________________________________________
Police worker on murder charge
Article from:
By Kara Lawrence
April 18, 2007 12:00am
A FORMER NSW Police Force employee has been arrested and charged over the murder of a young student nurse who disappeared three years ago.
Police yesterday charged Paul James Wilkinson, 31, who was dismissed from the police force last year, with the 2004 murder of Kylie Labouchardiere, a 23-year-old from the Central Coast,.
At the time Ms Labouchardiere went missing, Wilkinson was an Aboriginal Community Liaison Officer – a civilian police force employee – based at Redfern police station.
After a lengthy investigation police early yesterday went to Wilkinson's Yarrawarrah home in the Sutherland Shire, but he was not at home.
About 2pm Wilkinson walked into Sutherland police station to be questioned over Ms Labouchardiere's disappearance.
Mr Wilkinson told The Daily Telegraph that he went to the station in relation to the suspected murder but that the real story had yet to emerge.
Ms Labouchardiere was last seen leaving her grandmother's Erina home about 6pm on Wednesday, April 28, 2004.
She had told her grandmother she was going to Goulburn but previously had made arrangements to move to Dubbo, where she was due to meet a removalist the day after her disappearance.
Last year police said phone records indicated Ms Labouchardiere had got off a train at Sutherland station about 9pm on April 28.
The young woman, who had just been accepted into a university nursing degree course when she disappeared, had also recently separated from her husband, a Royal Australian Navy sailor.
The Daily Telegraph last year revealed that the trainee nurse had received 18,000 phone calls and text messages from one man in the five months leading up to her disappearance, and it is believed that police will alleged that Wilkinson was behind the calls.
In June last year police searched bushland in the Royal National Park in Sydney's south, hoping to find evidence to confirm her suspected murder.
Ms Labouchardiere's body has never been recovered.
Wilkinson appeared in Sutherland Local Court charged with murder yesterday afternoon where he was refused bail.
He will appear in Central Local Court tomorrow.
Man in court for murder of nurse in 2004
19th April 2007, 12:48 WST - The West Australian
After three years of investigation police should have provided at least a partial brief of evidence against a man charged with murder, a Sydney court was told.
Paul James Wilkinson, 31, a former NSW police force employee, was charged on Tuesday with murdering 23-year-old Kylie Labouchardiere.
The young student nurse was last seen alive at Sutherland, in Sydney's south, at about 6pm on April 28, 2004.
Wilkinson's lawyer, Frances McGowan, told Sydney's Central Local Court her client had been "harassed by police" during their three-year investigation and she had expected to have some information about the police case before his appearance in court.
"After three years, I would expect the defence to have a partial brief," Ms McGowan said.
"I want to establish the strength of the Crown case."
Wilkinson appeared via videolink from Silverwater Jail and his parents were in the court.
Ms Labouchardiere, an enrolled nurse, packed two suitcases on the day she disappeared and left the home she shared with her grandmother on the NSW central coast, saying she was travelling to Goulburn.
Phone records indicate she was at Sutherland railway station about 9pm that day.
Police searched a specific area of the Royal National Park but did not find a body.
The police prosecutor told the court the Crown would provide a partial brief of the police investigation to Ms McGowan by May 8.
Magistrate Alan Moore remanded Wilkinson in custody to appear in Central Local Court on May 24.
AAP
_______________________________________________________________
Paul James Wilkinson admits to killing lover Kylie Labouchardiere
Article from:
Exclusive by Kara Lawrence and Kim Arlington
November 24, 2008 12:00am
FOUR years ago, Paul James Wilkinson was making headlines with wild allegations of corruption at a parliamentary inquiry into policing in Redfern.
An Aboriginal liaison officer with NSW Police since the late 1990s, he claimed his house had been burnt down and police had threatened to kill him because of his whistleblowing.
Wilkinson was hiding his own deadly secret. Five months earlier he had strangled his young, pregnant girlfriend and would later try to pin his crimes on an innocent police officer.
Although he pleaded guilty to murder on November 12, he has led police on a $250,000 wild goose chase as they try to find the body of his victim, 23-year-old student nurse Kylie Labouchardiere.
After more than four years of playing cat-and-mouse with Gosford detectives, the 33-year-old has finally admitted to killing Ms Labouchardiere.
She was training at Sutherland Hospital as a nurse and lived in The Shire with her husband, a naval officer, until shortly before her murder.
They separated amicably and she moved into her grandmother's house in Erina. By then she had already become romantically involved with Wilkinson.
Neither friends nor family knew of Wilkinson's existence.
Their relationship began in December 2003, and he soon began bombarding her with texts and phone calls.
The pair exchanged more than 20,000 in the five months leading up to her death on April 28, 2004.
The month before she died, Wilkinson abruptly stopped turning up to work. That coincided with Ms Labouchardiere's news - doctors had confirmed she was pregnant.
It was believed to be Wilkinson's child. But he was living in Picnic Point with his wife and their newborn son.
Ms Labouchardiere made plans to move to Dubbo. She booked a removalist to meet her there on April 29 but she failed to show up. The night before she left her grandmother's home in Erina saying she was going away with friends but would be back to join her family at an engagement party the following week. She caught a train south.
Days passed as he worried family could not reach her by phone. When her family went through the phone records, they found the startling amount of calls from the same number and rang it.
Wilkinson told the family he was helping with a complaint she had made to police about being sexually assaulted. He said she had been having an affair and had gone to South Australia.
In early May, her family reported her missing to Gosford police. Later that month, Wilkinson set fire to his rented home in Picnic Point, causing substantial damage. He recently pleaded guilty to the arson but shortly after Ms Labouchardiere's disappearance he told police she and a man had assaulted him, tied him up and set fire to the house.
The following year, Wilkinson approached the Police Integrity Commission and accused a serving NSW police officer of Ms Labouchardiere's murder.
Wilkinson claimed to have been present when the officer murdered her in the Royal National Park at Sutherland and buried her near a firetrail.
The officer, sources say, remains mystified as to why Wilkinson nominated someone he did not know well to undergo a gruelling investigation, only to be exonerated.
When police arrested Wilkinson in April last year, he was cocky as he told The Daily Telegraph the "real story" was yet to emerge.
Detective Senior-Constable Glenn Smith told Wilkinson's sentencing hearing on Friday police could no longer rely on him to assist with finding the remains. The court heard Wilkinson had nominated two places in the Royal National Park and three at Mooney Mooney.
The closest they have come is finding a doona in a quarry at Mooney Mooney.
Ms Labouchardiere's family have told police they can no longer deal with the cruelty of false hope of finding her remains - then being dashed again.
Killer keeps deadly secret
_______________________________________________________________
BY MARK O'BRIEN - The Leader
27/11/2008 4:00:00 AM
A YARRAWARRAH man who admitted strangling Central Coast woman Kylie Labouchardiere in 2004, has refused to help police find her body, despite awaiting sentencing in the NSW Supreme Court.
Paul James Wilkinson, 33, pleaded guilty earlier this month to the murder of Ms Labouchardiere and a charge of damaging property by fire.
Ms Labouchardiere, 23, vanished in April 2004 after leaving her grandmother's Erina home. Police were unable to trace her movements beyond Sutherland railway station, where she was last seen.
Before her disappearance, she was training to be nurse at Sutherland Hospital and had formerly lived in the shire with her husband, a naval officer. The couple had separated amicably. Wilkinson was arrested after handing himself into Sutherland police station in April last year.
He has directed police to six locations - two in the Royal National Park and four on the Central Coast - where he claimed Ms Labouchardiere's remains would be found. None of those places yielded any clues as to the whereabouts of Ms Labouchardiere's body.
Female remains discovered last month near Heathcote were not related to the case.
The matter is listed for mention in the NSW Supreme Court on December 2, when a sentencing date will be fixed.
_______________________________________________________________
Girlfriend-killer James Wilkinson facing sentence
Article from:
April 23, 2009 12:00am
WHEN Kylie Labouchardiere arrived in Sydney with two packed suitcases, the pregnant 23-year-old thought she was starting a new life with her married lover.
The student nurse had already arranged for her furniture to be sent to Dubbo, where she and Paul James Wilkinson were to set up house together.
But instead of leaving his wife, Wilkinson murdered his girlfriend in April 2004 and weeks later tried to cover his tracks by burning down the rental house he shared with his spouse.
In the ensuing years, he told lie after lie, including blaming a policeman for her murder and indicating fake spots where her body was buried.
Yesterday in the NSW Supreme Court, the 33-year-old former NSW Police Aboriginal liaison officer faced a sentencing hearing after finally admitting to her murder last November.
At one stage, he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter, and said he had been provoked into strangling his pregnant girlfriend.
He also pleaded guilty to arson and will be sentenced next month.
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Jennifer Helen Lane
Last seen: Wednesday, 31 March 2004
Year of birth: 1952
Height: 175cm
Build: Heavy
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black
Complexion: Fair
Gender: Female
Distinguishing Feature:
Circumstances
Jennifer flew from Adelaide to Alice Springs on 30th March 2004, where she booked into accommodation for 1 night. She was last seen on the 31st March and has not made contact with any family or friends since.