Case 325: The Gilham Family

23-year-old Jeff Gilham showed up on his neighbours’ doorstep in the early morning hours of August 28 1993, with a shocking claim. His older brother Christopher Gilham had just killed their parents, Stephen and Helen, and set their bodies on fire. In return, Jeff had stabbed Christopher to death. The tragic news left residents of the Sydney suburb of Woronora in disbelief as they struggled to comprehend how this could happen to such a normal, happy family. But as the years went by, it emerged that all was not as it seemed. --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Elsha McGill Creative direction – Milly Raso Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-325-the-gilham-family https://casefilepodcast.com/case-325-the-gilham-family/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 2:24Speaker 00

  It was nearing 4:30 on the cold, misty morning of Saturday, August 28, 1993, when married couple Ted and Jan Warner were jolted awake by a loud knock on their front door. The Warners lived on Prince Edward Park Road, a quiet and leafy residential street in the southern Sydney suburb of Waranora. Sat on the waterfront of the Waranora River and surrounded by bushland, it was highly unusual to hear a disturbance at such an hour. Ted got up to open the door and was surprised to find his neighbour, 23-year-old Geoffrey Gilham, standing there, dressed in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and smelling of

• 3:09Speaker 00

  smoke. Geoffrey lived next door to the Warners with his older brother, 25-year-old Christopher, and their parents Helen and Stephen. The Gillams were a fixture of Prince Edward Park Road, having lived in the neighbourhood for over two decades. They were well-liked, with locals viewing them as a loving, warm and sociable family, always keen to lend a hand to those in need or bring a plate of food to the neighbourhood barbecues. Ted had known Geoffrey Gilham his whole life and had never seen him in such a state. Typically neatly presented and well-spoken, his pale skin was covered in goosebumps and

• 3:54Speaker 00

  he appeared to be highly agitated. He started speaking in a strange, disjointed fashion, asking Ted to call 000. "They're all dead", Geoffrey mumbled. "He's killed them, set them on fire."

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Ted was stunned as he tried to make sense of Jeffrey's semi-gibberish claims. "Mum and dad are both dead," Jeffrey continued. "He's burned them. I've killed him for what he did."

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Ted ushered Jeffrey into his house and dialed triple zero. As Ted tried to explain to the operator what was going on, the operator asked if Jeffrey had been drinking. Ted leant over to smell Jeffrey's breath, noting that it didn't smell like alcohol, but kerosene. He handed the phone to Jeffrey so he could explain things for himself. In a halting and distracted manner, Jeffrey told the operator that his brother Christopher had killed his parents and set their bodies on fire. He said that he'd chased Christopher down the stairs and killed him for what he did.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  "He killed them, killed them," Jeffrey stammered. "I don't know why."

• 5:42Speaker 00

  Like most of the other homes in the area, the Gillums lived on a long, narrow block that sloped downwards from Prince Edward Park Road and towards the riverfront. External stairs led down from the street and to their modest two-story home, which was surrounded by an assortment of towering trees and greenery. The upper floor consisted of the combined lounge, dining and kitchen space, which gave way to Stephen and Helen's bedroom.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  From the lounge room, a spiral staircase led to the downstairs bedroom belonging to Christopher, which had an adjoining en suite and rumpus room. Jeffrey lived in the converted boat shed, which was attached to the main house by a set of external stairs.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  At 4:43 a.m., a team of firefighters arrived at the property to find smoke rising from the roof. Jeffrey Gilham was waiting for them at the bottom of the external stairs, in a highly agitated and emotionally distraught state. He appeared to be disoriented and delirious, speaking incoherently about his parents being dead inside the house. The firefighters ran along the side balcony to the rear of their house. Flames roared from inside Helen and Stephen's bedroom, as well as from a second fire in the lounge room. The firefighters opened the sliding glass doors that led to the upper living space,

• 7:16Speaker 00

  but were met with a wave of heat so extreme that they couldn't enter.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  Then, the window from Helen and Stephen's bedroom shattered, shooting flames outside.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Within minutes, the team was able to get the flames under control. One of the firefighters entered the smoke-filled lounge room and found Helen's badly burned body lying face down in the southern corner near the front door. She had been stabbed seventeen times, with thirteen of the wounds to the front of her chest. The firefighter continued into the bedroom, fighting flames as he went. There, on the bedroom floor, he found Stephen's body lying face down. He had sustained a total of twenty-eight wounds, sixteen of which were to the front of his chest. Parallel to the bed was an axe.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Police officers arrived at the scene and accompanied firefighters as they kicked in the door to the downstairs rumpus room. The area was dark, except for the reflected light of a spot fire that continued to blaze upstairs.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  There, they found Christopher Gilham's body lying next to the billiard table, naked, except for a toweling dressing gown. His body was unaffected by the fire, but riddled with stab wounds. Like his mother, he'd been stabbed seventeen times, a majority of the wounds to his upper chest. Next to his body lay a knife.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  After being examined by paramedics at the scene, Geoffrey Gilham was taken to Sutherland Police Station, where at 8:22am, he agreed to participate in an electronically-recorded interview. The traumatic events of the morning had clearly taken their toll on the 23-year-old. He sat wrapped in a blanket with a somewhat bewildered look on his face. His eyes cast downwards as he quietly mumbled brief answers to all of the officer's questions. According to Geoffrey, the previous evening had been an ordinary Friday. His girlfriend Hayley had come over for dinner, leaving at around 10pm.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  After that, he watched television with his parents in the lounge room before having a shower and then going to bed. He wasn't sure exactly what time this was, but thought it was some time before midnight.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Geoffrey said he was fast asleep when suddenly he was awoken by the intercom that connected the boat shed with the main house. It was his mother Helen screaming for help.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Geoffrey couldn't understand anything she was saying, but he wasted no time thinking about it. He quickly pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and raced through the garden to the staircase that led to the sliding glass doors upstairs. This took him less than a minute. He unlocked the door and ran into the lounge room. There, he found his mother's body lying near the front door. A knife was on the floor nearby, next to the piano, and his brother Christopher was standing over her with a match in his hand.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  Christopher looked at Geoffrey from across the room and said: "I've killed mum and dad."

• 11:01Speaker 00

  With that, Jeffrey claimed that Christopher set Helen's body on fire.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  As the flames quickly started spreading, Jeffrey looked towards the bedroom and saw his father's Stephen's body on the floor. Within seconds, the fire reached the bedroom and set Stephen's body ablaze. Unable to believe what he was seeing, an overwhelming feeling overcame Jeffrey.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  All he could think was that he had to get his brother.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  He grabbed the knife from the floor and lunged towards him.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Christopher turned and ran down the spiral staircase, with Jeffrey chasing behind.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Everything from there was a bit of a haze. Jeffrey didn't know if he first stabbed Christopher while they were on the stairs, or once they reached the bottom, but by the time they were in the rumpus room, Jeffrey had him cornered. He launched towards Christopher and began stabbing him repeatedly. Christopher fell to the floor as Jeffrey continued to strike him.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  He didn't know how many times he stabbed his brother, or what he did with the knife afterwards, but he eventually ran back up the stairs. By then, the fire had spread throughout the lounge room and the air was thick with smoke. Jeffrey raced out the sliding doors and to the Warner's home next door to raise the alarm.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  As word of what happened spread around Waranora, those who knew the Gilham family were left in complete shock.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  To the outside world, they had always appeared to be a completely normal, stable family. Fifty-eight-year-old Stephen Gilham was a cheerful and easygoing bloke. He'd recently retired after decades working for the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority, and spent his spare time sailing, playing golf, and working casually at the local boat shed.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  His wife, fifty-five-year-old Helen, worked as a school nurse with the Southern Sydney Health Service. She was the more serious of the pair, known for her no-nonsense attitude when it came to raising her two sons, but she also enjoyed a good laugh and was fun to be around.

• 13:32Speaker 00

  Stephen and Helen loved their two boys and had worked hard to give them a solid upbringing.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Life on the Waranora River meant that Stephen was able to share his passion for sailing with his children. It was through their shared love of boats that Stephen and Geoffrey established a particularly close bond. They spent a majority of their weekends out on the water, honing Geoffrey's sailing skills for competition. Such was his talent that he'd once won a national championship.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  When he wasn't out sailing, Geoffrey spent his time surfing, socialising with friends, and studying for his civil engineering degree.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  He only had six months left before he was set to graduate, and the future was looking bright.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  While Geoffrey was known to be lighthearted and easygoing like his father, Christopher Gilham was more shy and reserved. He often joined his family on their boating adventures, but seemed happier to just hang around in the background. Christopher's passions lay elsewhere, in fencing, computers, and piano. He was such a talented pianist that neighbours often asked the Gillams to keep their windows open when Christopher was practising, so they could hear him play.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  One uncle described the Gilham brothers as "impressive young men who had been well brought up with old-fashioned good values".

• 15:08Speaker 00

  This made it all the more difficult for their friends and family to believe what had happened.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  According to Geoffrey Gilham, that winter had been a bit rough on Christopher. Having completed a degree in chemical engineering the previous year, he was struggling to find a job in the wake of the recession that hit Australia in the early 1990s. His parents had urged him to study a one-year teaching degree as backup, but Christopher wasn't particularly enjoying it and also had doubts about his future employment prospects. He'd done some practical teacher training at a tough Western Sydney high school and didn't feel particularly cut out for the role. To make matters worse, Christopher's girlfriend had recently broken up with him.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  He retreated further into himself, spending most of his time at home on the family's computer.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Geoffrey claimed that in the weeks leading up to the murders, Christopher had been acting strangely. Tensions seemed to be boiling over between him and their father, and they'd been arguing constantly. Geoffrey told his girlfriend Hayley that Christopher had lost it and that he'd been going off at their parents, throwing things and pushing and shoving their father. About two weeks before the murders, Hayley was on the phone to Geoffrey when she overheard an argument in the background.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  When she asked Geoffrey what they were fighting about, he responded: "I don't know what's going on, but I think it's to do with money. If there is a fight, I'll have to break it up."

• 16:58Speaker 00

  At around 5pm on the night before the murders, Geoffrey had gone to the beach with his close friend Wayne to check out the surfing conditions. Geoffrey told Wayne that his brother had been acting strangely and had been going off at the drop of a hat.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Wayne had known the brothers for several years and was shocked to hear that Christopher had been pushing and shoving Stephen Gilham. He asked what the fighting was about. Jeffrey said he wasn't sure, but he thought it could be over money, given that Christopher wanted a new car.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  Jeffrey declined an invitation to watch a movie at Wayne's house that night. He said his dad was due home from golf and he wanted to be there in case Christopher acted out again.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  When Jeffrey got home at around 8pm, his girlfriend Hayley was there, having arrived unannounced. While she'd been waiting for Jeffrey, Hayley had briefly crossed paths with Christopher when he came out of the computer room to grab a coffee.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  While Hayley hadn't observed anything out of the ordinary, she thought she could sense some underlying tension between Christopher and his parents. Jeffrey and Hayley ate dinner together and then played billiards before Jeffrey walked Hayley out to her car at around 10pm.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Again, he repeated his concerns about Christopher's behaviour. "What am I to do about my brother?", Jeffrey asked.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  "It's pretty serious, I've never seen him so psycho. He is pushing my father around, I don't know what to do."

• 18:47Speaker 00

  In the bathroom attached to Christopher's bedroom, police found two empty packets of Panadol brand paracetamol in the clothes basket, along with a 25mm syringe filled with a white paste, a glass cup with a white substance on it, and a knife containing the same white substance. Each of these items tested positive for paracetamol, leading to the presumption that Christopher had likely prepared this high-dose mix of Panadol ahead of time with the intention of taking his own life. What he hadn't accounted for was his mother calling Jeffrey for help on the intercom, thus foiling his plans as he died by his brother's hand instead of his own.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  Post-mortem examinations of Stephen and Helen's bodies were unable to determine in which order the two had died, or their times of death.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  All pathologists could say for sure was that the stab wounds had been inflicted while the two were still alive, and that they'd both died within minutes of being attacked.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  Samples taken from the carpet of the upper floor of the Gillums' home tested positive for mineral turpentine, or a similar flammable hydrocarbon liquid, indicating that Christopher had used an accelerant to start the fire. Searches of the property didn't turn up any such containers, but given that mineral turpentine was sold in lightweight plastic bottles, investigators reasoned that any evidence relating to this would have been readily consumed by the fire without leaving a trace.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  For the death of his brother, Jeffrey Gilham was charged with murder and denied bail. He spent a month in the psychiatric unit of Long Bay Jail as he struggled to accept the magnitude of the situation. Friends and family rallied around him, providing whatever support they could to get him through this tragic time.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  Jeffrey was eventually granted bail on the condition that he undergo psychological counselling and move in with a family friend who had been supporting him since his arrest. He faced trial for Christopher's murder in April 1995, where he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Two psychologists found that Jeffrey suffered from no ongoing mental disorder, psychiatric condition, or violent tendencies. He'd simply reacted, albeit in a very extreme manner, to the circumstances he was presented with at the time. They were both of the view that there was minimal risk of Jeffrey offending again,

• 21:37Speaker 00

  that he showed deep remorse, and that his prospects for rehabilitation were excellent.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  The Crown accepted Jeffrey's manslaughter plea, and he was sentenced to a five-year good behaviour bond, with the judge describing the whole situation as "a remarkable human drama". Two months later, a coronial inquest was held to formally solidify the circumstances of Helen and Stephen's deaths. The coroner found that the couple had died by stab wounds inflicted by their son Christopher, and the case was officially closed.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Jeffrey Gilham did his best to move on with his life, focusing on one small task at a time. He completed his engineering degree with honours and secured a stable job. His relationship with Hayley ended, and he started dating a friend of his from university named Rebecca. The two developed a deep bond and began making plans for their future together, with a house, marriage and children on the horizon. After everything Jeffrey had been through, he worked hard to create the life he'd always envisioned for himself prior to the tragedy. Many admired the way in which he was able to pick himself up and carry on.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  But for Jeffrey's paternal uncle, Tony Gilham, things weren't sitting right.

• 23:13Speaker 00

  Ever since the funerals of Stephen, Helen and Christopher, Tony Gilham had felt like something was a little off.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  He'd watched Jeffrey during the funerals and was surprised to see that he hadn't shed any tears. Even the sight of his family's coffins hadn't sparked any visible emotion.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Tony had been in such a state of shock after the murders that he had taken half a year off work. Meanwhile, he felt like Jeffrey was carrying on as though he was unaffected, completing his university degree so quickly and with flying colours.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  When it took Jeffrey six months to collect his family's ashes, Tony started to get really suspicious.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Tony found the allegations that Christopher had killed his parents over disputes about money to be completely without logic. Although Tony lived interstate and didn't visit his half-brother and his family often, he had caught up with Stephen and Helen just six months before the murders, and everything had seemed perfectly fine. If there had been tensions between them and their eldest son, they certainly hadn't shown it. Tony was also a bit taken aback by Geoffrey's claims that Christopher was the more shy and withdrawn member of the family. As far as Tony was concerned, it was Geoffrey who had always been the aloof one, whereas

• 24:43Speaker 00

  he'd always found Christopher to be friendly and talkative. If anything, Tony thought that Geoffrey was jealous of the extra care Christopher received from their parents, and could be a bit of a bully.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  When the crime scene was examined, investigators had found a 25 litre jerrycan containing roughly one litre of petrol in the small alcove at the front of the house where the bins were kept. There was also a freshly cut length of garden hose which appeared to have been cut from a longer hose that ran from an outdoor tap to a boat in the carport.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  Geoffrey explained that on the night before the murders, he and his father had cut the hose in an attempt to siphon some petrol out of his car to use in one of their motorboats for an upcoming trip.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  They wanted to make two-stroke fuel, but then realised the car contained the wrong kind of petrol, so they aborted their mission and put the jerrycan back near the bins.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Tony found this hard to believe. Not only was it likely that Stephen Gilham would have the proper equipment needed to pump petrol without having to use this crude method, he had been scheduled to enter a golf tournament that Saturday. If there was no sense of urgency to get the boat ready, why would the two be outside so late on a cold winter night undertaking such an arduous task? A thought began to form in Tony's mind. Was it possible that Geoffrey was actually responsible for all three deaths and had created the story of his brother's so-called psycho behaviour to set Christopher up for the crime?

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Tony wasn't the only one who felt this way. Tad and Jan Warner, the couple who lived next door to the Gillums, had been suspicious of Jeffrey's story ever since he knocked on their door on the morning of the murders. Despite claiming to have just stabbed his brother to death, there didn't appear to be any blood on him. Tad had looked at Jeffrey up and down, and the only blood he'd seen was on the little toe of Jeffrey's right foot and the shin of his left leg. There was also a spot of blood on one of his fingernails. Jan had noticed this too.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  In her view, the blood on Jeffrey's legs looked pale pink in colour, as though he had tried to wash it off. While Jeffrey had been at the Warners' home waiting for the firefighters to arrive, he'd switched between sitting on their light-coloured leather couch and lying on their kitchen floor in the fetal position. Jan gave him a jumper to wear, but instead of putting it on, he just hugged it to his body. Afterwards, the Warners didn't notice any blood residue on the couch, floor, or their white-coloured telephone.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  After the police had taken Jeffrey in for questioning and cordoned off the house as a crime scene, Jan had turned to her husband and said, "I think he's making it up."

• 28:05Speaker 00

  In 1996, after the coronial inquest had officially declared that Christopher was responsible for the deaths of Stephen and Helen, Jeffrey was able to apply for his share of the family's estate. He was only entitled to 50%, with his four grandparents entitled to the rest. Given everything that Jeffrey had been through, three of his grandparents wanted Jeffrey to have their share to help him rebuild his life. However, Stephen's mother, Jeffrey's grandmother, Jessie Gilham, who lived in a house under Stephen's name, did not.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  Jeffrey sought further legal advice and discovered that he was actually entitled to 100% of his parents' estate. This included their $900,000 home in Waranora, his father's boats, as well as Jessie's house in Maryong. The paperwork was sent out to all of his grandparents to formally sign it over, but Jessie refused to do so. Jessie called her son, Tony Gilham, in a state of distress, saying that Jeffrey was trying to harass her into signing her entitlements back to him. It was at this point that Tony could no longer ignore the red flags.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  He flew to Sydney and visited the detective who had been in charge of the investigation. "I've got my suspicions about Jeffrey", Tony said. What the detective told him next was shocking. Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. The holidays are always such a busy time of year, and between work, socialising and everything else going on, the last thing I want to be thinking about is what I'm going to make for dinner every night. With fresh ingredients delivered straight to your door and easy recipes to follow, Home

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  During the initial police interview with the Geoffrey Gillam on the morning of Saturday, August 28, 1993, the interviewing detectives weren't sure what to make of his account. They had a hard time believing that two separate slayings could have occurred in the same household at around the same time. If Geoffrey was capable of killing his brother, they thought it stood to reason that he could also be capable of killing his parents. They also thought it seemed highly strange that Geoffrey's first reaction upon seeing his parents' dead bodies had been to attack his brother, rather than check on his parents to confirm if they were actually dead or try to stop the fire.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  One of the detectives put these questions to Geoffrey directly. "I don't know why I killed my brother," he responded. "I was just chasing him. I don't know why." The detective pressed on. "You're saying that your brother has killed your mother and father, and I'm just wondering whether it's just a convenient ploy on your behalf to tell us that, when in fact, you've killed the whole three of them." Geoffrey kept his eyes cast downwards and mumbled back. "I haven't." He also couldn't explain why he hadn't checked on his dad or tried to stomp out the fire first.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  "I don't know why," Geoffrey said. "I just thought of other things and just did the wrong thing, obviously."

• 34:13Speaker 00

  During the interview, one of the detectives had also scribbled down a note for the other that read: "If he's just stabbed his brother, where's the fucking blood?"

• 34:25Speaker 00

  Their suspicions grew upon hearing Jeffrey's explanation for the jerrycan of petrol with its makeshift siphon that was found in the Gillums' alcove. To the detectives, it sounded like Jeffrey had been trying to use the petrol as an accelerant to start the fire with, before finding it too hard and using mineral turpentine instead. They'd also been curious about the timing of the events. A woman named Christine Shaw lived on the opposite side of the road to the Gillums, on a slope that overlooked their property. In the early morning hours of Saturday, August 28, 1993, Christine had been reading in bed at around 3:45, when she heard the screams of two people.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  One was a man making a guttural sound that reminded Christine of someone being struck by lightning. The other was a distressed sounding woman who seemed to be desperately trying to reason with someone.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Christine couldn't hear what was being said, but the voices alerted a neighbourhood dog who started barking incessantly. Eventually, at around 3:57 AM, Christine went to the window to see what was going on, but by the time she got there, the voices stopped and she couldn't see anything. The dog continued to bark, waking its owners at some point between 4:00 and 4:15 AM. They got up to try and quiet him, but didn't hear any other voices.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  It was presumed that Christine Shaw had overheard Stephen Gilham in the throes of death, and Helen Gilham defending herself against her attacker. But if that was the case, it meant that they had both been attacked at around 4:00 AM.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Jeffrey claimed that upon hearing his mother's cries for help over the intercom, he'd immediately raced to the house, which took less than a minute, and everything had happened very quickly from there. Why then hadn't Jeffrey arrived at the Warner's house next door to raise the alarm until around 4:30 AM? What had he been doing for that unaccounted-for period of around half an hour?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  While all of these factors were dubious, it was when the autopsies came back that the detectives really started to question things. Forensic examination had revealed that Stephen, Helen and Christopher Gilham had all been stabbed a similar number of times, with the vast majority of the wounds concentrated on their chests and none on their abdomens. If there had been two separate killers, what were the chances that both had struck in such similar manners?

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Testing was done of the blood found on Jeffrey's left shin and right hand to determine who the blood came from, but the samples weren't strong enough to make an identification.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  Then, there was the knife, which according to Jeffrey, had been used in all three of the killings. The knife had been tested for fingerprints, but none were found, nor was there any blood on the handle of the knife, nor the blade. There hadn't been any prints on the Panadol-filled syringe, or any of the other items in Christopher's laundry basket either.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Tony Gilham couldn't believe what he was hearing. He asked the detective why they hadn't charged Jeffrey with Stephen and Helen's murders if they believed he was guilty. The detective said that they had actually recommended that charges be laid, but the director of public prosecutions declined.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Tony refused to accept this. "I'll sort that out", he said.

• 38:26Speaker 00

  After discussing the situation with his other brother, Tony rang Jeffrey and asked him to meet with them. Jeffrey refused, questioning why, and saying he wouldn't speak to anyone about the night of the killings without his solicitor present.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Tony then decided to take matters into his own hands. He began writing letters to the Department of Public Prosecutions, urging them to charge Jeffrey for the murders of Helen and Stephen Gilham. The DPP refused, citing a lack of evidence. Tony began reaching out to journalists and other members of law enforcement, trying to raise awareness to the situation in any way possible. Eventually, his story caught the attention of the production team at the Channel 9 television programme 60 Minutes, who launched their own investigation.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  Stephen's mother, Jessie, told 60 Minutes she didn't believe Christopher Gilham played a role in the murders at all. She described him as a lovely chap with a beautiful personality, who had no malice and was bullied by his younger brother. Jessie recalled: "Jeffrey could never walk past Christopher without thumping him. They always did it. It was just a known thing. I don't think they liked each other at all. I really don't." Neighbour Ted Warner expressed his disbelief about Jeffrey's story too, saying: "To have two homicidal maniacs kind of crack out of their egg

• 40:03Speaker 00

  in the one night, in the one home, in the one suburb, is pretty scary stuff."

• 40:10Speaker 00

  In Jeffrey's version of events, Christopher had lit his mother's body on fire and the house had blazed from there. But 60 Minutes had four separate arson investigators look into the case and they found evidence to indicate that the fire had actually started in the main bedroom, near Stephen Gilham's body, thus creating further doubts about Jeffrey's story. They also consulted a leading criminal barrister who raised questions about Jeffrey's timing of the events. Jeffrey had told the police that approximately 90 seconds had passed between him hearing his mother screaming for help on the intercom, racing upstairs to the lounge room,

• 40:53Speaker 00

  and witnessing Christopher light her body on fire. If this was correct, it gave Christopher just 90 seconds to stab Helen 17 times before running around the house pouring out mineral turpentine in preparation for the fire, before Jeffrey arrived.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  The Sixty Minutes team reached out to renowned New South Wales forensic pathologist, Dr Godfrey Oakley, to examine the case on their behalf. After reviewing the crime scene photos and autopsy reports, Dr Oakley raised some questions about the lack of blood on Christopher's body. While the dressing gown he'd been wearing was soaked in blood from his own wounds, it was free of any blood spatter, as were his arms, legs and face. If Christopher had been the one to attack his parents, Dr Oakley expected that his whole body would be splattered with blood. Only a few drops were visible on his neck and chin, and forensic experts agreed this

• 41:55Speaker 00

  could have come from his own wounds. Looking at the crime scene photos, Dr Oakley noted that the knife was lying underneath Christopher's left arm. This positioning, coupled with the fact that there was no blood or fingerprints on the knife, led Dr Oakley to conclude that the knife had likely been washed and then placed there. As for the lack of blood found on Geoffrey Gilham, Dr Oakley reasoned this could only be explained by an attempt at cleaning himself or having been in contact with water. Asked if he thought the crime had been committed by one killer or two, Dr Oakley said:

• 42:37Speaker 00

  “I think the probability is that there was one killer. I think it's reasonably probable, and I don't think it is reasonably probable that two people killed in exactly the same way. I think that the evidence which was shown on the dead brother demonstrated that he wasn't involved. I think that he wasn't part of it.” Geoffrey declined to be interviewed for the programme. Without his explanation for all of the evidence Sixty Minutes had uncovered, the host of the segment called for an official coronial inquiry to be held. He also said that DNA testing should be done of the blood found on Geoffrey's body

• 43:21Speaker 00

  to determine which family member it came from.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  Stephen Gilham's family, unwilling to accept the fact that Christopher had gone to his grave condemned as a double murderer, strongly agreed. One of Stephen's brothers steadfastly stated: “All of these questions have to be answered.”

• 43:46Speaker 00

  The 60-minute segment reinvigorated interest in the case, and, to Tony Gilham's relief, it was announced that a second coronial inquest would be held to examine all the available evidence relating to the deaths of Helen and Stephen Gilham. Jeffrey refused to speak to the press, creating further doubt about his story in the eyes of the public. After all, if he had nothing to hide, then why not share his side of the story?

• 44:16Speaker 00

  The inquest commenced in late 1999, with hearings scheduled to be held over several months. The counsel assisting the coroner presented the court with all of the questionable elements of the case, with significant focus on the blood evidence and the similarities between the stab wounds of the three victims.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  Testimony was also delivered from various witnesses about Jeffrey’s physical appearance at the time of the crime. Some recalled that his hair had been wet or shiny-looking, suggesting the possibility that he could have washed it. But according to testimony from one blood spatter expert, the lack of blood on Jeffrey didn’t hold any major significance anyway. He told the court that it was a common misunderstanding to think that the amount of blood on an attacker was linked to the level of violence they inflicted. A detective who had attended the crime scene also gave evidence that he hadn’t been surprised by the lack of blood on Christopher or the murder weapon that was found lying beside him.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  A huge amount of water had cascaded into the downstairs space due to the firefighting efforts on the floor above. A tarpaulin had been placed over Christopher’s body in an attempt to preserve any evidence, but water had already dripped onto him before this occurred. The detective therefore assumed that any blood on Christopher or the knife had been washed away. However, DNA testing had since been done of samples taken from the drops of blood on Jeffrey's feet, and while the results were below laboratory level after five years in storage, there were some indications that the blood was Helen's. Of the four forensic experts who gave evidence,

• 46:08Speaker 00

  two believed that the number and pattern of the stab wounds indicated that only one killer was involved in the crimes.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  Dr Christopher Lawrence, the pathologist who had conducted the Gilham family autopsies, was experienced in dealing with triple homicides, and told the court, "I honestly cannot recall a group of three sets of wounds that looked this much the same." However, while he found this compelling, Dr Lawrence said it didn't necessarily prove that only one person was responsible.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  The forensic experts recommended that the knife be formally re-examined, while Christopher's dressing gown and Jeffrey's boxer shorts should undergo full chemical analysis.

• 46:56Speaker 00

  After all of the evidence and witness testimony was presented, the coroner found that there was sufficient evidence to suggest that Jeffrey Gilham could be responsible for murdering his parents, and they recommended that the Director of Public Prosecutions consider laying charges. There was just one problem.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  After Jeffrey's manslaughter plea back in 1995, key pieces of evidence including the knife, the clothing worn by all four family members, carpet samples taken from around the bodies, the piece of freshly cut garden hose from the petrol siphon, and Christopher's fingernail scrapings, had all been destroyed by the police. Other items like the jumper Jan Warner had given to Jeffrey to wear after the killings had never even been taken into evidence. Anything that could be useful for further testing was no longer available.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  In July 2000, the Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery notified his decision not to press murder charges against Geoffrey Gilham. Without these key pieces of evidence, he felt there was no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. Geoffrey’s uncle, Tony, was outraged. Refusing to accept this conclusion, Tony continued trying to attract attention to the case in any way he could. He put a sign on the rear windscreen of his car that read “The DPP is protecting a mass killer by the name of Geoffrey Gilham” and parked it out the front of Nicholas Cowdery’s office in the city.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  He even offered his own $200,000 reward for information. Tony continued the fight for three and a half years, motivated by the blatant way in which Geoffrey continued to live his life, seemingly with no consequence for his alleged actions. During this time, Geoffrey got married and bought a house in St Ives, an affluent suburb in Sydney’s upper north shore. He continued to enjoy sailing, using the sailboat he’d inherited from his father. In early 2004, thanks to Tony’s persistent efforts, the New South Wales homicide squad finally decided to reopen the investigation.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  With the key pieces of evidence no longer available, their focus was on uncovering new and compelling evidence that could convince the DPP it was worth prosecuting Geoffrey Gilham for his parents’ murders. Looking back through the case file, they noticed that several items of Geoffrey’s clothing had been found in the burned wreckage of his family’s lounge room. Geoffrey’s girlfriend from the time confirmed this was the same clothing he’d been wearing when she’d visited the Gilham home on the night of the murders. Given that Geoffrey had shown up on the Warner’s doorstep wearing nothing but boxer shorts, investigators wondered what his clothing was doing in the lounge room.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  An examination revealed there was no blood on any of the garments. This led them to theorise that Jeffrey could have hastily undressed before attacking his family to avoid getting any blood on his clothing, and had left them behind assuming they'd get burned in the fire.

• 50:32Speaker 00

  The location where Christopher Gilham's eyeglasses were found was also of interest. Christopher was short-sighted and had mild astigmatism, a common eye condition that causes blurred or distorted vision. He wore glasses at all times, except when sleeping or showering. According to his ex-girlfriend and a former flatmate, Christopher always kept his glasses next to his bedside because he needed them to move around, even wearing them to go from the bedroom to the bathroom. But after the murders, his glasses were found on the window ledge in the downstairs bathroom.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  Investigators thought it was highly unlikely that Christopher would have walked upstairs in the dark to kill his parents without his glasses on. They deemed it more probable that Jeffrey had waited until his brother was asleep before moving his glasses to put him at a disadvantage. The reason Christopher wasn't wearing them was because he'd been roused from his sleep upon hearing his parents being attacked, and had run upstairs in a panic without stopping to find his glasses first.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  Christopher's vision impairment also highlighted another crack in Jeffrey Gilham's story. Those close to Christopher said he wasn't very confident when it came to driving. He rarely borrowed the family vehicle and refused to drive at night, therefore making it highly unlikely that his desire for a car would have been a strong enough motive to kill his own parents.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  Detectives re-interviewed the first responders who attended the Gilham residence on the morning of the attacks. The firefighter who had been operating the pump at the rear of the fire truck recalled that Geoffrey Gilham had been brought over to him by another officer. When Geoffrey was about a metre and a half away, the firefighter could smell petrol on him. Given his experience in the field, he was familiar with the smell of petrol and could distinguish it from any other accelerants.

• 52:48Speaker 00

  Based on this statement, investigators felt that the odour Ted Warner had smelt on Geoffrey's breath, which he'd described as kerosene, had actually been petrol. With a second witness backing Ted's recollection, investigators cast even more doubt on Geoffrey's claims that he'd tried to siphon the petrol with his father earlier that evening. Had he done so, the smell would have been washed away in the shower he claimed to have taken before bed. They were more convinced than ever that Geoffrey had attempted to siphon petrol from his car by sucking on a garden hose in order to set fire to the house.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Another firefighter recalled that when he arrived at the Gillams' property with breathing apparatus, Geoffrey was standing near the garage by himself in a highly agitated state. He apparently said, "Don't go in there, somebody's got a knife." Investigators believed this was Geoffrey's final attempt to deflect the firefighting efforts in the hopes that the fire would obliterate all evidence that proved the real killer was him.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  This just left the question of motive. If the case made it to trial, it wasn't the prosecution's responsibility to prove motive, but it would certainly help strengthen the brief of evidence before it was presented to the DPP. The detective leading the homicide investigation decided to search the dusty storage unit attached to the Sutherland Police Station, where the Gilham family murders had first been investigated.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  Along with Christopher Gilham's student diary, he found a box containing three mini cassette tapes. It appeared that, among other things, Geoffrey Gilham had used one of the tapes to record his year 12 English homework. In it, he gave an audio review of the book Stories from Suburban Road by Australian writer Tom Hungerford, in which he likened some of the characters in the book to his own life. Geoffrey said that he had an older brother who was favoured by his parents, and that, like one of the characters in the book, he often got in trouble for things that his brother got away with.

• 55:17Speaker 00

  As far as investigators were concerned, the tape proved that Geoffrey Gilham had a motive to kill his entire family. Uncle Tony Gilham agreed. He had come to learn that Helen and Stephen Gilham had apparently been very tight with their money. A long-time friend of Stephen's told Sydney Morning Herald journalist Shelley Gare that, “Money was important in that house, overly important, and there was no need for that.”

• 55:51Speaker 00

  He recalled that when Helen and Stephen had lent Geoffrey money to buy a car, they also charged him interest.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  While this was intended to be character-building, Tony believed it likely fuelled Geoffrey's hatred of his parents. He had been spending time with the Sailing fraternity, where most of the other members came from well-off families, and Tony thought that Geoffrey came to resent his parents' financial habits.

• 56:21Speaker 00

  “This was a hate crime,” the lead detective told Shelley Gare with certainty. “A very passionate hate crime. Geoffrey hates his family.”

• 56:35Speaker 00

  With a motive established, investigators believed they had a clearer picture of what transpired at the Gilham home in the early morning hours of Saturday, August 28, 1993. Having spent the last couple of weeks voicing concerns about Christopher’s behaviour to his friends and girlfriend, Geoffrey Gilham had essentially been laying the groundwork for the account he later planned to give the police. The fact that Geoffrey had told his friend Wayne that he had to go home on the night of the attacks to keep an eye on things between his brother and father wasn’t a premonition, but part of the plan to make it look like Christopher was in a disturbed mental state.

• 57:19Speaker 00

  At home, the unexpected visit from his girlfriend Hayley gave Geoffrey one final chance to proclaim Christopher’s so-called ‘psycho behaviour’. After Hayley left, Geoffrey then waited in the main house until his family was asleep, before creeping into his parents’ bedroom shortly before 4am.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  He brought an axe with him as backup, just in case the stabbing was unsuccessful, or in case Christopher heard the struggle and came to interfere.

• 57:51Speaker 00

  The position of Stephen’s body next to the bed and the lack of any defensive wounds indicated that he’d been stabbed while he was still asleep. The location of Helen’s body indicated she had only managed to move a short distance from the bedroom to the lounge room before she too was attacked.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Once he had killed his parents, Geoffrey went down to kill Christopher, only to find him already coming up the stairs. Seeing Geoffrey, Christopher immediately retreated back down, where Geoffrey launched his third fatal attack. Afterwards, Geoffrey showered, cleaned the knife, and planted the Panadol paste and dissociated items in Christopher’s laundry basket to make it look like his brother had intended to take his own life after committing the murders.

• 58:43Speaker 00

  Geoffrey then attempted to siphon petrol from his car to use as an accelerant, but, finding this too hard, he grabbed some mineral turpentine instead.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  He doused the bodies of his mother and father to destroy any evidence, and then set them alight.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  When Jeffrey arrived at the Warner's home next door, they noted that he hadn't been out of breath and was cold to the touch. Yet, in the recording of his triple zero call made from the Warner's phone, Jeffrey sounded breathless as he spoke to the operator. To the police, this indicated that Jeffrey had likely waited outside to make sure the fire had really taken hold before going next door to raise the alarm. He feigned breathlessness on the triple zero call to make it look like he had immediately ran from the blazing house to call for help. He then tried to prevent one of the first responders from fighting the fire by saying "someone in the house had a knife".

• 59:49Speaker 00

  While Jeffrey's story had remained mostly unchanged, there were some small discrepancies.

• 59:56Speaker 00

  When he called triple zero, he told the operator that when he first went upstairs after hearing his mother's cries for help, his brother was standing there with a knife. He told the same thing to a detective on the scene. However, during his police interview and a subsequent video walkthrough of the crime scene, Jeffrey claimed the knife had been on the floor near the piano. Then, there was the matter of Jeffrey's keys, which had been found on a table near the glass sliding doors upstairs. In the video walkthrough of the crime scene, Jeffrey initially told the police that upon hearing his mother's screams, he'd locked the boathouse behind him out of habit and had placed the keys in his pocket.

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  When shown the keys on the table, he said he must have placed them there upon entering the house, but had no memory of doing so. The police found this hard to believe. If he really had walked in on Christopher about to set their mother's dead body on fire, surely the keys would be the last thing on his mind. They thought it was more likely that the keys were on the table because Jeffrey had stayed in the main house all night and had never even gone down to the boat shed at all.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  Speaking about the case to ABC's Australian Story, Tony Gilham explained: "Jeffrey's story was fanciful. We know neighbours heard guttural screams before 4am. That was when the murders were taking place. The 000 call was made at 4.34am." "For Jeffrey's story to be true, his mother would have had at least been alive for 20 minutes before making a call over the intercom to Jeffrey in the boat shed with serious stab wounds to herself." "Now, I don't think so."

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  In 2005, the homicide squad submitted a brief of evidence to the Department of Public Prosecutions to see if they had sufficient evidence to charge Jeffrey for the murders of Helen and Stephen Gilham. The DPP not only went ahead with the charges, but served Jeffrey with an ex officio indictment, meaning that the case would go to trial without the need for a committal hearing. By this point, Jeffrey had married his girlfriend Rebecca and the two had one young daughter and another on the way. He requested a stay on the indictment, arguing that a trial would be oppressive,

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  unfair, or in breach of the rule against double jeopardy. The request was rejected, and the trial went ahead in February 2008.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  The prosecution's case was that Jeffrey Gilham had been financially motivated to kill his parents and then frame his brother for the crime. They presented witnesses who testified to Christopher's good character. None of them had ever seen him act aggressively towards his father or anyone else for that matter. Christopher's ex-girlfriend spoke about him with a genuine affection, describing him as "a gentle person who didn't have a hostile bone in his body." Nobody close to Christopher could imagine him fighting with his parents over money, particularly for the purpose of buying a car.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  The prosecution submitted that Christopher couldn’t have pulled off the attack without his glasses on. Furthermore, video demonstrations were presented by a fire expert who said that if the fire had been started by Christopher, like Jeffrey claimed, it would have started out small, slow-moving, and easy to put out. Jeffrey would have had 10 to 15 seconds to try and stop it, yet, in his version of events, he did nothing.

• 1:04:03Speaker 00

  The prosecution told the jury: “Jeffrey didn’t do a thing to try to stop that fire, and that’s not what an innocent man, a man who had not killed his parents, would do in those circumstances.”

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  They also presented testimony from various experts who said that it was very rare to see such a high number of stab wounds on all three victims, particularly when the wounds were concentrated on the chests with none to the abdomen.

• 1:04:35Speaker 00

  One expert noted a distinct pattern of injury in each of the victims that implied there was only one perpetrator. The prosecutor told the jury that the similarities in the stab wounds were so remarkable that it defied logic to believe that two brothers independently got into a homicidal rage using the same knife in the same way.

• 1:05:03Speaker 00

  But the defence posited that the events had played out exactly like Jeffrey Gilham had always maintained. They said the evidence didn’t suggest this was a carefully-planned crime, but a frenzied attack committed by a deranged individual as the result of a spur-of-the-moment emotional or psychiatric disturbance. With Christopher becoming increasingly withdrawn in the months leading up to the murders, they put it to the jury that the person more likely to have snapped that morning was Christopher.

• 1:05:39Speaker 00

  The fact that Christopher's glasses were in the bathroom wasn't a tactical move by Jeffrey, but indicated that it was actually Christopher who had taken a shower after killing his parents. In one of the crime scene photos, it appeared as though Christopher had a soap bubble in his ear, and a towel with his name monogrammed onto it was also found rolled up into a ball in his bedroom. This suggested that Christopher had stabbed his parents and then gone downstairs to shower, under the assumption they were both dead. It was only when he heard his mother screaming for help on the intercom that he realised she was still alive.

• 1:06:20Speaker 00

  He quickly threw on his dressing gown and raced upstairs to stab her repeatedly in the back, just seconds before Jeffrey arrived.

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  Christopher's ophthalmic surgeon testified that while Christopher's uncorrected vision was below average, and he certainly would have benefited from wearing his glasses, he would have been able to negotiate a familiar environment and perform everyday tasks quite well without them.

• 1:06:49Speaker 00

  The surgeon felt that Christopher would have been capable of going upstairs, taking a knife out of a cutlery drawer, and distinguishing between his mother and father. The defence said that any similarities in the stab wounds was pure coincidence. If Helen's blood was on Jeffrey's feet, this was simply because he had come into contact with her blood when standing alongside her body. A blood spatter expert also said it was possible that Jeffrey had brushed against something that was soaked in Helen's blood, or that a drop of her blood had fallen from the knife when he picked it up. He also said it was possible the blood spatter on Christopher's neck and chin could have resulted from stabbing his parents.

• 1:07:37Speaker 00

  As for the lack of blood or fingerprints on the knife, reports from first responders showed inconsistencies regarding the knife's original location. Some said it was lying on the floor, others said it was propped against Christopher's body. Approximately 10,000 litres of water had been pumped into the upper level of the house during the firefighting efforts. Footage captured at the crime scene showed that Christopher's hair and body were wet, and that water was dripping through the roof and down the staircase to the floor around him. Any blood from the knife or on Christopher's body had likely washed off.

• 1:08:20Speaker 00

  The knife was also handled extensively by the police using cloth and paper prior to it being tested for fingerprints. But according to one police expert, the material the knife handle was made of typically didn't show fingerprints anyway. The knife was never forensically examined for the presence of blood before it was destroyed by the police years later. Based on these various factors, the defence didn't believe the lack of blood or prints on the knife proved anything. The same went for the lack of prints on the syringe filled with Panadol paste and associated items that were found in the laundry basket in Christopher's bathroom.

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  Testing had been done on other items around Christopher's room, such as his fencing swords, a beer bottle, billiard balls and the sliding doors, and these didn't have any prints on them either. Nor did the laundry basket in which the Panadol kit was found.

• 1:09:22Speaker 00

  This suggested the prints had simply been eliminated as a result of the firefighting efforts, or alternatively, that Christopher himself had washed his hands immediately before handling the Panadol. Testimony from one of the prosecution's own experts said that freshly washed hands don't leave fingerprints.

• 1:09:44Speaker 00

  Other seemingly suspicious details, like Jeffrey's clothing being found in the lounge room, could be explained by the simple fact that Jeffrey had showered in the upstairs bathroom before going to bed that night. He left his clothes there so his mum could wash them for him, like he always did. While this might show that Jeffrey was an untidy young man, it didn't prove he was a killer. The fact that he was cold to the touch when he arrived at the Warner's home wasn't a sign that he'd been lurking outside waiting for the fire to take hold, but a common symptom of shock.

• 1:10:23Speaker 00

  One of the biggest weaknesses in the prosecution's case was explaining why Christopher had stayed downstairs and done nothing to help his parents when their screams could be heard by neighbours over fifty metres away.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  Their case relied on Christopher having never made it upstairs and being killed at least fifteen minutes before Jeffrey started the fire.

• 1:10:47Speaker 00

  But during the autopsies, the carbon monoxide levels of all three victims had been tested to determine if they were dead before or after the fire started. For a non-smoker, the normal level of carbon monoxide is between 0.5 and 2%. None of the Gillums smoked, yet all three of them had higher levels of carbon monoxide than usual. Helen's blood carbon monoxide level was 3%, Stevens was 4%, and Christopher's was 6%.

• 1:11:24Speaker 00

  Such high levels suggested all three of them had inhaled smoke before they died, but if Christopher died fifteen minutes before Jeffrey allegedly started the fire, how could this be explained?

• 1:11:40Speaker 00

  Testimony was delivered for the prosecution by forensic pathologist Dr Christopher Lawrence, who advised the jury not to place any significance on this. He explained that even though the carbon monoxide levels in all three of the deceased were higher than average, they were still within reasonable limits. Dr Lawrence stated: "In the normal course of things, in looking at a person with stab wounds and fire damage, a level of less than 10% would be assumed to be that the person had died before the fire started."

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  Appearing on the stand, Geoffrey Gillam's original version of events remained unchanged. But with the expert testimony indicating that Helen, Stephen and Christopher had all been dead when the fire started, this effectively ruled out the possibility that anyone other than Geoffrey could have lit the fire. The trial ran for several weeks before the jury were left to deliberate.

• 1:12:56Speaker 00

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• 1:15:15Speaker 00

  Members of the jury were unable to agree on a verdict, and the case was dismissed, with a retrial scheduled for 2008. This time, the evidence presented by both sides was essentially the same, but the prosecution made no mention of Jeffrey's financial motive. The jury deliberated for eight days before delivering the verdict. For the murders of Helen and Stephen Gillam, Jeffrey Gillam was found guilty.

• 1:15:46Speaker 00

  Jeffrey, who had been attending the trial each day while out on bail, looked completely stunned. His wife Rebecca let out a loud sob.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  At the subsequent sentencing hearing, the judge who had presided over both trials called Geoffrey Gilham a consummate liar and a brilliant actor who had planned the killings over several weeks. He told the packed courtroom: “There is no reasonable possibility that the killings were a spur-of-the-moment reaction to some unknown emotional or psychiatric disturbance that came upon the offender in the early hours of the morning of 28 August. I have no doubt that the Crown’s scenario placed before the jury contains the true account of what occurred.”

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  While the judge had instructed the jury to ignore the evidence about the Panadol paste as it wasn’t helpful in indicating who had killed Stephen and Helen, he said that the guilty verdict indicated the Panadol was part of a scenario manufactured by Geoffrey to paint Christopher as deranged.

• 1:16:57Speaker 00

  Acknowledging the lack of motive, the judge also questioned the decision of the prosecutor to accept Geoffrey’s manslaughter plea back in 1993. He said that decision had to be seen in the context that Geoffrey’s entire extended family had been supportive of him and convinced of his innocence at that time. The judge explained: “Therefore, the delay in the prosecution was not due to police or prosecutor incompetence. The offender was so convincing in his behaviour and so unlikely to have killed his doting parents that initially he fooled everybody by his conduct and his extraordinary account of the events of the night.

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  It can be easily understood that the police and prosecutor found it impossible to believe that he could have come up with such a plan to kill his family as has now been uncovered. So audacious, cunning, and evil was it.”

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  The judge sentenced Jeffrey Gilham to the maximum penalty of life in prison for both murders.

• 1:18:06Speaker 00

  Outside court, Jeffrey's uncle, Tony Gilham, appeared vindicated. With his 13-year-long campaign for Jeffrey's guilt paying off, he intended to have Jeffrey's inheritance recovered and redistributed among the family. He also intended to seek compensation for the financial and psychological costs of pursuing Jeffrey's conviction, as his marriage had ended and he'd lost his job as a result. With the gold medal that Christopher Gilham had won in fencing hanging proudly around his neck, Tony told reporters:

• 1:18:43Speaker 00

  "Christopher went to his grave as a convicted killer of his parents, which is not true, and that's why I've been doing this: to clear Christopher's name."

• 1:18:55Speaker 00

  Tony also wanted a full inquiry to be done into the initial police investigation and why it took so long to secure a prosecution. He told the Sydney Morning Herald: "I want some answers why this whole fiasco took place. I want an apology from the justice system. Sorry for wasting the last 13 years of your life. I want someone in authority to apologize to me."

• 1:19:26Speaker 00

  For Jeffrey's wife Rebecca, the conviction and sentence came as a complete shock. Back in 1999, when it was announced that a second coronial inquest would be taking place, Jeffrey had already served his good behaviour bond for Christopher's manslaughter and was relieved to be putting all of the legal proceedings behind him and moving on.

• 1:19:50Speaker 00

  Jeffrey and Rebecca had been in the throes of planning their wedding, which went ahead while the inquest was underway. It was as beautiful as the couple had envisioned, attended by all of their friends and relatives. When Jeffrey was served the ex officio indictment in 2006, Rebecca was 38 weeks pregnant with their second daughter, and life had been looking good for the couple. They had never realistically considered the possibility that Jeffrey could be charged with his parents' murders, and the indictment had left them completely shell-shocked. While Jeffrey was out on bail awaiting his trial, the couple welcomed their third daughter.

• 1:20:34Speaker 00

  Rebecca genuinely believed that her husband would be acquitted and free to return to the happy life they had worked hard to build together. After all, the Jeffrey who Rebecca and their friends knew was nothing like the Jeffrey the prosecution painted him out to be.

• 1:20:52Speaker 00

  For starters, Tony Gilham's suggestion that he'd been stone-faced at his parents' funerals was completely absurd. Several other mourners who were there recalled Jeffrey sobbing uncontrollably.

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  A friend of Jeffrey's told Australian story: "He grieved deeply for them all. 'I remember going up to Jeff and giving him a hug and letting him know that I was there for him. And I just remember he was crying, and tears streaming down his eyes, and he couldn't even speak to me. He was just sobbing.'

• 1:21:29Speaker 00

  Another friend agreed, saying: 'I was next to him. He was just in tears the whole time.'

• 1:21:37Speaker 00

  The reason it had taken Jeffrey so long to collect their ashes was because he simply couldn't face the pain of it all.

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  There was also no validity to Tony's claims that Geoffrey had moved on with his life unaffected after the murders. He hadn't breezed through his university degree at all, but had fallen six months behind. He'd only persevered because he knew it's what his parents would have wanted, and he couldn't have done it without the help of his teachers. Geoffrey had struggled to get a job because of the criminal charge against him.

• 1:22:15Speaker 00

  It took a lot of hard work to rebuild his life, including regular counselling and ongoing support from family and friends.

• 1:22:24Speaker 00

  For those close to Geoffrey, the suggestion that he'd been financially motivated to kill his family was ludicrous. Geoffrey had never cared that much about money, and the money he did inherit was mostly used to pay for his legal fees. Far from living lavishly, he'd used the rest to buy a house that was near Rebecca's family. It was a small, rundown property that needed lots of work. He then invested the remainder. He'd kept his family sailboat because it was his father's pride and joy, and it held a lot of significant memories for him. Geoffrey had never tried to harass his grandmother Jessie into signing over her

• 1:23:09Speaker 00

  portion of the estate. In fact, it was the very opposite. Stephen Gilham's will clearly stated that he wanted Jessie to be taken care of in the event that she outlived him. He wanted Jessie to stay in the home he had bought for her, with Stephen's trustee paying all of her rates, taxes, and outgoings.

• 1:23:32Speaker 00

  Geoffrey had happily honoured his father's wishes. He'd continued paying all of Jessie's bills and for the maintenance of her home until she eventually moved into a nursing home. At this point, Geoffrey wrote to Jessie's solicitors, offering to sell the house to pay for her new living arrangements. He never got a response. It was only after Jessie passed away that Geoffrey sold the house in 2007 to help pay the legal costs of his first trial.

• 1:24:05Speaker 00

  As for all of the other claims that Tony had made against him, Jeffrey barely knew his uncle. His refusal to get together with Tony hadn't been because he was hiding something, but because he didn't have a close relationship with that side of the family, and his lawyer had advised him not to discuss the case with anyone. There was no sinister reason for Jeffrey avoiding the media either. Jeffrey was simply a very private person. He had no desire to relive the traumatic events unless forced to by the courts, and he also wanted to protect his family's privacy. Furthermore, Jeffrey's legal team had advised him not to engage with the media,

• 1:24:48Speaker 00

  which in turn allowed the press to create a false image of him that fit the prosecution's narrative.

• 1:24:56Speaker 00

  Those close to Jeffrey knew him to be kind, honest, generous, and quick-witted. He adored his wife and daughters and prioritized family. After he was handed his life sentence, Rebecca told their eldest daughter that there had been a dreadful mistake and Daddy wouldn't be coming home for a long time. But Rebecca refused to accept the guilty verdict. She knew Jeffrey better than anyone, and she had no doubt that he'd been telling the truth about what had happened all along. Rebecca told Australian Story: "I have a relationship that many people probably wouldn't have the chance to know in a lifetime,

• 1:25:40Speaker 00

  and it's incredibly special. If I believed that Jeff was guilty, I'd be the last person to support him, and in fact, I think I'd be the person most angered by having been misled for all these years. I guess I reject outright the possibility that he could never be released. I don't think I'll ever be able to accept it. I never will accept it."

• 1:26:09Speaker 00

  Jeffrey had always had a large group of supporters, but they’d predominantly stayed silent, convinced that he’d be found not guilty. When that didn’t happen, Rebecca enlisted the help of a friend named Jill, who had a legal background, and asked her to read over the trial transcript. Jill also read over all of the available evidence that the jury hadn’t been allowed to see. The first thing Jill noticed was this was no clear-cut, straightforward case. If it was, the first trial never would have resulted in a hung jury, and the second jury wouldn’t have needed eight days to deliberate.

• 1:26:51Speaker 00

  Rebecca and Jill gathered several of Jeffrey’s friends and created the Jeff Needs Justice Support Group. Together, they started going through the case in detail and sharing all of the information they found online. The more they uncovered, the further convinced they were that Jeffrey had been the victim of a severe miscarriage of justice.

• 1:27:16Speaker 00

  At Jeffrey’s trial, despite the defence’s objections, three experts for the prosecution had been allowed to express their opinions about the similarities in the stab wounds sustained by Stephen, Helen and Christopher Gilham. These opinions were provided without reference to any existing scientific research. One of the experts had shown the jury diagrams that supposedly showed the similarities between the wounds. The Justice for Jeff Support Group studied these diagrams and found they weren’t even accurate to the wounds the victims had sustained.

• 1:27:55Speaker 00

  There were also some important differences between Christopher’s wounds and those of his parents, which were never highlighted to the jury.

• 1:28:04Speaker 00

  Stephen and Helen’s stab wounds were more or less vertical, while the majority of Christopher’s were horizontal and closer together. Stephen and Helen also had wounds to their necks, while Christopher did not.

• 1:28:20Speaker 00

  The group reviewed over seventy scientific research papers on stab wounds, and discovered that the expert opinions presented at trial had no scientific merit. The stab wounds were no more similar to each other than they were to stab wounds sustained by victims of multiple stabbings in unrelated cases. There was also nothing unusual about the lack of wounds to the victims' abdomens. According to the research, the chest is the most common site for stab wound injuries.

• 1:28:55Speaker 00

  It turned out that the prosecution had also sought opinions from an internationally recognised leading forensic pathologist named Professor Stephen Cordner. He had given evidence at the second coronial inquest, saying the only thing similar about the stab wounds was the number of wounds, and the fact that they were likely all inflicted with the same knife.

• 1:29:20Speaker 00

  Professor Cordner had said: "I do not think it is safe to conclude that the three deaths were by one hand."

• 1:29:30Speaker 00

  The prosecution had refused to call Professor Cordner at Jeffrey's trial, claiming he was unreliable. Jeffrey's support group got hold of this report, and discovered that Professor Cordner argued that aspects of the prosecution's evidence was both factually wrong and scientifically unsound. He also expressed the view that the prosecutor's arguments based upon that evidence were unfounded and misleading.

• 1:30:00Speaker 00

  To the group, the prosecution's decision not to submit Professor Cordner's evidence had been a calculated move, as it would undermine a significant argument of their case.

• 1:30:14Speaker 00

  One of the things that most astonished the group was the prosecution's claims that there was nothing significant about the higher carbon monoxide level in Christopher Gilham's bloodstream. His level of 6% was significantly higher than that of his parents, and over four times the upper limit of normal. All the scientific research on carbon monoxide suggested that Christopher had been alive near the fire and inhaled smoke before he was killed, just like Jeffrey had described. They sought an opinion from a specialist American toxicologist named Professor David

• 1:30:54Speaker 00

  Penny, who had been studying the effects of carbon monoxide for over 30 years. He found that the levels of carbon monoxide in the bloodstreams of all three members of the Gilham family indicated they had all still been alive when the fire started. Professor Penny provided an affidavit discrediting the evidence presented by Dr Lawrence at trial, stating it was "preposterous" to assert that the person died before the fire started. Based on Christopher's 6% carbon monoxide level, Penny said he would have been inhaling smoke for between 2 to 4 minutes prior to his death.

• 1:31:37Speaker 00

  The group examined the video demonstrations presented by the fire expert, who claimed that Jeffrey would have had up to 15 seconds to try and stop the fire if it had indeed been lit by Christopher like he claimed. The demonstrations were made using bare timber and PVC pipes to represent Helen and Stephen's legs. They didn't take into account the clothing they were wearing, which would have acted as a wick and accelerated the fire. In the demonstrations, mineral turpentine had been poured around the bodies rather than directly on them, and the fire was lit some distance from where the turpentine had been poured.

• 1:32:21Speaker 00

  In Jeffrey's version of events, Christopher had poured the turpentine directly on to his mother's body and then lit her directly.

• 1:32:31Speaker 00

  The group consulted some fire experts who added that the body temperature of the victims would also play a significant role in how the fire developed in its initial stages. They conducted their own demonstrations taking these missing elements into account and found that the fire travelled quicker, further and higher than in the demonstrations shown to the jury and fit with Jeffrey's description of what happened. As for the jerry can of petrol, the group had no doubt about Jeffrey's claims that he and his father had tried to siphon it the Friday night before the murders.

• 1:33:11Speaker 00

  While they didn't plan on going boating that Saturday, they did have plans to take the boat out on Sunday. With both of them already tied up with other arrangements on Saturday, Friday night had been their only chance to get things ready. The prosecution claimed that Jeffrey gave up on siphoning the petrol after it became too hard. Yet, the jerry can contained one litre of petrol.

• 1:33:38Speaker 00

  If Jeffrey had really wanted to start a fire, he could have easily used this rather than sourcing the mineral turpentine. Also, if he had been responsible, it didn't make sense that he'd have left the jerry can out in full view for investigators to find.

• 1:33:57Speaker 00

  The fire officer who claimed he had smelt petrol on Jeffrey hadn't come forward with this information until 2005, 12 years after the fact. This statement had been one of the fresh pieces of evidence that contributed to Jeffrey being charged with his parents' murders. Yet, petrol hadn't even been used in the fire. So, what relevance did it hold?

• 1:34:24Speaker 00

  The same went for the allegation that Geoffrey had warned one of the firefighters not to enter the house because someone inside had a knife.

• 1:34:33Speaker 00

  Again, this statement wasn't given until 2005, and it directly contradicted the original statements from witnesses back in 1993, who said that Geoffrey was largely incoherent when the firefighters arrived.

• 1:34:49Speaker 00

  Two other firefighters had told police that when they arrived, it was actually neighbours who warned them not to go into the house because someone was down there with a knife.

• 1:34:59Speaker 00

  The prosecution had never disclosed that they intended to present this evidence at the trial, which meant that offence had no opportunity to counter this point.

• 1:35:10Speaker 00

  The cassette tapes found by the homicide squad that allegedly captured Geoffrey Gilham talking about his disdain for his older brother, had been ruled inadmissible at trial because they'd been recorded at least five years before the deaths.

• 1:35:26Speaker 00

  However, they'd formed an important part of the DPP's decision to charge Geoffrey with the murder of his parents in the first place. It took two years before Geoffrey's support group were finally allowed to listen to them for the first time. As they pressed play on the book review of Stories from Suburban Road that supposedly suggested Geoffrey's motive, they were dismayed to realise that the voice on their tape didn't sound even remotely like Geoffrey. Furthermore, Geoffrey had no memory of ever reading Stories from Suburban Road by Tom Hungerford, nor did any of his classmates from the time.

• 1:36:09Speaker 00

  Later on in the tape, a second male had recorded himself talking about his job as a road safety engineer. The group managed to track this man down, and he confirmed the voice was his. He had absolutely no link to the Gilham family. Justice for Geoff members discovered that the tapes hadn't been entered into evidence during the crimes in 1993, and that none of the original investigators recalled having seen them. Therefore, the tapes could have come from anywhere.

• 1:36:45Speaker 00

  Another piece of evidence that had been deemed inadmissible was a statement from one of Helen's work colleagues. She stated that on the afternoon of Thursday, August 27, 1993, the day before the killings, Helen had seemed agitated. She expressed concerns about one of her sons, saying she was very worried about him and didn't know what to do. Helen was uncharacteristically abrupt with one of her clients and left work two hours early, presumably to go home and meet with this son. The prosecution had wanted to call Helen's colleague as a witness,

• 1:37:25Speaker 00

  believing it was evidence that Helen had been worried about Jeffrey's behaviour in the lead-up to her death. The evidence was ruled inadmissible because Helen had never mentioned which of her two sons she was worried about.

• 1:37:41Speaker 00

  Rebecca Gilham sent out a group email to a large number of former students who had studied engineering at university with Jeffrey. One of them found an old timetable that confirmed they had a lecture scheduled between 1.30 and 4.30 on Thursday afternoons in August 1993.

• 1:38:02Speaker 00

  A friend of Jeffrey's recalled that both he and Jeffrey had attended the lecture together on Thursday, August 27, indicating that the son Helen had voiced concerns about was in fact Christopher.

• 1:38:17Speaker 00

  A member of the Justice for Jeff support group, named Paula, was tasked with going over some of the scientific evidence. She sat down and watched the crime scene video for the first time. As Paula watched the glove investigator point to key items, she noticed something next to the call button on the intercom of the Gillams lounge room. It was quite obviously a bloody fingerprint.

• 1:38:46Speaker 00

  The investigator in the video swiped right past it without mentioning a thing, and the intercom was not taken into evidence or subject to any form of testing.

• 1:38:59Speaker 00

  To Jeffrey’s support group, this bloody fingerprint was clear evidence that Jeffrey’s story was true. Helen had been stabbed in the chest, neck, and arm, meaning she had seen her attacker. So, if Jeffrey had been the attacker, there would have been no need for her to use the intercom to call for his help.

• 1:39:23Speaker 00

  In 2011, Jeffrey’s legal team used the new evidence uncovered by the Justice for Jeff group to appeal against his conviction on 18 different grounds. At a subsequent hearing at the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal, Dr Christopher Lawrence, the forensic pathologist who told the jury there was no significance to the carbon monoxide levels in the victim’s bloodstreams, admitted he was not fully qualified to give evidence when it came to carbon monoxide levels. According to Dr Lawrence, he had warned the prosecution that it would be more appropriate to have a toxicologist to give this evidence.

• 1:40:04Speaker 00

  He said that he’d changed his view over time, and now believed it was possible that Christopher had been alive for at least a short amount of time after the fire was lit.

• 1:40:17Speaker 00

  The panel of three judges was highly scathing of the prosecution’s carbon monoxide claims. With this evidence discredited, it called their entire timeline into question. The new evidence that disproved that similarity of the stab wounds as indicating there was only one killer also significantly weakened their case.

• 1:40:41Speaker 00

  In December 2011, having spent over three years behind bars, 42-year-old Jeffrey Gilham's double murder conviction was quashed, and he was released on the condition of a $100,000 surety. A statement released by the panel said: “It is inevitable that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.”

• 1:41:05Speaker 00

  Geoffrey walked out of the courthouse arm in arm with Rebecca as a 50-strong group of his supporters applauded wildly. His aunt Claire, who had supported him since the beginning, told reporters: “We can’t quite believe this has happened, that Geoffrey is actually free and here with us. This has been a black cloud hanging over us for nearly 20 years. Today, that cloud is lifting.”

• 1:41:35Speaker 00

  But his ordeal wasn’t over, as the Court of Appeal still had to decide whether he would be subject to a retrial. It was a painful six months for Geoffrey and his supporters as they awaited the decision. As the panel deliberated in late June 2012, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald stated: “An acquittal decision would mark the end of a 19-year-long saga that has involved nearly a dozen court cases and coronial hearings, occupying hundreds of hours, thousands of newspaper column inches, and an extraordinary emotional rollercoaster for the members of the extended Gilham family and their friends.

• 1:42:19Speaker 00

  It would also raise further questions about the way alleged offenders are tried in New South Wales. In particular, it would raise questions about the use of forensic scientific evidence to prove a person’s guilt or innocence, and the ability of juries to understand this evidence and its fallibility.”

• 1:42:43Speaker 00

  The panel was divided, but with a majority decision of two against one, Geoffrey Gilham was acquitted of all charges and officially declared a free man.

• 1:42:55Speaker 00

  Tony Gilham was outraged. As Geoffrey was leaving the court, Tony yelled: "It's not over yet, Geoffrey. I'll fix you." But Geoffrey was unfazed. Squeezing Rebecca's hand, he told reporters: "This has been a horrendous experience for us. I'm glad today that I have been acquitted of the charges. I would just like to thank all the supporters that stuck by me, most importantly, my wife Rebecca and my children, and everyone that's fought for the truth to be told. I am very happy to be going home a free man, and that's just all I want to do: go home."

• 1:43:44Speaker 00

  Three weeks after Geoffrey's acquittal, Tony Gilham died of a heart attack at the age of 60. A close family friend told reporters Tony was completely burnt out after the legal fight. He'd spent too many hours going over the case in painstaking detail, chain-smoking and downing beer after beer. Several members of law enforcement and the legal world attended Tony's funeral to pay their respects, where he was remembered as a compassionate, caring, and tenacious man. The lead prosecutor from Geoffrey's trial read a psalm to the packed chapel that said:

• 1:44:26Speaker 00

  "Hear, Lord, my plea for justice; pay heed to my cry."

• 1:44:32Speaker 00

  She told reporters. In the face of the tragic loss of his three beloved family members, Tony Gilham had the strength of character, integrity, and decency to apply all his energies toward honoring their lives.

• 1:44:49Speaker 00

  Tony's crusade had not only deeply impacted his health, but it also cost Jeffrey Gilham three years of his freedom.

• 1:44:58Speaker 00

  Galway Jail, where he'd served his time, was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from his home in St. Ives. While Rebecca and their three daughters had visited him on most weekends, Jeffrey had missed out on so many milestones, including many of his daughter's firsts. After his acquittal, Jeffrey remained as tight-lipped as ever with the media, eager to move on and live a quiet, happy life with his family.

• 1:45:28Speaker 00

  For those who knew the Gilham family, the entire saga was difficult to comprehend regardless of the legal outcome. With Jeffrey being acquitted, the horrifying reality was that the seemingly normal Christopher really had snapped and killed his parents, and that Jeffrey's instinct had been to kill his brother in response. His auntie Claire had discussed the case with her former doctor. She told journalist Shelley Gare that she'd asked him: "How could this possibly have happened in a normal family?" The doctor's response was abrupt: "Normal people don't kill people."

• 1:46:14Speaker 00

  But when Shelley Gare spoke to a forensic psychiatrist about the case, they disagreed. "Anybody can do anything," he said. "Whenever I start lecturing a new bunch of students, I always say, 'Don't for a moment think you're immune from being a criminal, or that your father, or your mother, or your sister won't end up in jail.' Our motives vary, but that aptitude to kill is within us all in the right circumstances."

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