1. Daniel Morcombe case
Once they’d arrived at Cowan’s house, the two officers began questioning the paedophile about his whereabouts on the day of Daniel’s disappearance.
Former detective Dennis Martyn has revealed the slip-up that immediately gave away Cowan during their first interview with him. Picture: Mark Calleja
After admitting he “might have gone in and picked something up at Nambour” around the time Daniel was last seen on the Nambour Connection Road, Martyn says Cowan was “acting cocky.”
“He was a skinny sort of fellow, and every movement was accentuated, that’s sort of the way he was,” Martyn recalls. “He was very cocky and straight away I didn’t like him. I said to Ken, ‘just keep an eye on this bloke, mate’.”
“I said, ‘did you happen to see a little child with black hair on the underpass from the other side near the bus stop?’ [Cowan said] ‘No, no, no. Not at all. Never saw anybody.’ I said, ‘well, did you see a white 4WD with a snorkel on it?’
‘No.’
“I said, ‘do you think it is a coincidence that you drive a white car with a snorkel on, and it’s a four wheel drive, and someone’s saying they saw something similar on that side of the road?’”
Martyn decided it was time to apply more pressure. [what sort?]
“I said, ‘you’re a paedophile. A bad one by the sounds of it. And Daniel is in your [preferred] age group’.
And he goes: ‘well, he looked it.’”
“I said, ‘did he? That’s strange. I thought you said you didn’t see anyone,’ [and he said], ‘oh, well I might have pulled over.’”
“I said: ‘so now we’ve established two things. First, you’ve pulled over and you reckon you’ve seen Daniel, and [second] you’re a liar. But we all know you’re a liar, because paedophiles are liars.’ And then he started to get cranky.”
In spite of this, and the officers’ conviction that Cowan was responsible for Daniel’s abduction, it would be another eight harrowing years for the Morcombe family before their son’s remains were found, and Cowan apprehended after a lengthy undercover sting operation which became the subject of the 2022 Netflix film The Stranger, starring Joel Edgerton
2. Joshua Brown case
But some of Brown’s employers also failed to pick up glaring errors on his resume at the time of hiring him, according to former workplaces and associates of Brown, who say his CV exaggerated or “fudged the details”.
In March 2024, Brown was fired from D.O.T.S Occupational Therapy for Children at Footscray after five weeks of work, the clinic’s director Hannah Dunn told this masthead. The resume Brown gave at the time did not align with the work history later released by authorities, she said.
While Dunn noted people were rightly asking questions about why someone with so many job changes would be hired, she stressed all his previous positions were listed “for more than a year on the copy of the resume we hold and some as long as five years”. She said Brown was not part of the clinical occupational therapy team at D.O.T.S and was let go because “he was not a good fit for our practice”.
“He wanted to help me teach, but I said no, I didn’t have the work for him. He had blue hair, tattoos and painted nails by then, and he told me he’d been working in childcare. He didn’t come back.” [identity / self-narrative / maturity]
The Dance Network in Hoppers Crossing, where Brown’s CV claimed he’d done administration work since 2019, also denied he had ever been an employee.
“The resume is misleading and inaccurate,” a spokesperson said. Brown only attended the school four years ago alongside his parent and sister, who was a student at the time, they said.
In another recent case reviewed by this masthead, a Google search revealed that a childcare applicant was the same woman who defrauded another centre of tens of thousands of dollars. But the provider said they received no warning about her, outside media reports. [Google search?]
“He was a bit socially awkward, even then he’d gravitate more to the younger kids a couple years below him, but there was nothing to suggest any of this.” [um]
G8 did not respond to detailed questions on whether it gave references or passed on information about investigations into Brown to other providers in the sector.
ASX However, the ASX was unconvinced by G8’s assertion, saying it “does not accept that information cannot be material because it is publicly available”, and gave G8 a deadline of before 9am on Monday to provide more information justifying its reasoning, or risk its share put on a trading halt. [so it is a G8 issue]
G8 The childcare giant also questioned whether it was the allegations against Brown in one of its centres and revelations it had employed him for years across multiple branches, and not the “uncertainty over potential changes to the regulatory landscape and negative public sentiment towards the childcare sector generally” that had contributed to its wounded trading price. [so it’s not a G8 issue?]
3. Greg Lynn case
"He said, 'Good day Andrew, nice to meet you? He was in crisis management and completely calm."
His interview with police continued over several days and would later be criticised in court with much of it deemed to be inadmissible.
Stamper defends the process. "If we had stopped the interview, he would have walked away and would still be flying at Jetstar. We would never have known what happened to Russell and Carol.
"Lynn believed he was the smartest person in the room [self-narrative] and was enjoying the [cognitive] challenge.
He gave a version along with selective no comments [what’s missing?]. When we entered the challenge phase we told him certain things he said couldn't have happened. Painted into a corner he went with Plan B as he always had a contingency plan.” [be ready for plan B]
4. Erin Patterson / Mushroom case….
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