Pod Insights The Case Of UPDATE: The Two Intruders | A second sting and a cancer diagnosis About this episode A defendant's cancer diagnosis can now be revealed, along with details of a second police sting that helped link one of the intruders to the crime scene.
Reporter Elizabetth Byrne explains how she campaigned the court to release more information about the two intruders, including previously suppressed stories of knuckle dusters, cable ties and a truckload of stolen cigarettes.
Liz and James Vyver return to the pod to talk through the revelations.
If you have any questions for Liz, James or Stocky you'd like answered in future episodes, please email [email protected] mailto:[email protected] .
The Case Of is the follow-up to the hit podcast Mushroom Case Daily, and all episodes of that show will remain available in the back catalogue of The Case Of.
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0:46 Speaker 04 The arrest for a million-dollar conspiracy that led police to one intruder and a health crisis of the other that almost derailed the trial. These are the uncloaked details we can finally tell you about. I'm Stephen Stockwell. Welcome to episode 16, The Case of the Two Intruders.
1:04 Speaker 03 Irma Pelazik's brutal murder rocked her family and has haunted them for 24 long years.
1:10 Speaker 05 This wasn't the average robbery. The brutality of the attack shocked the community. They were virtually tortured that night.
1:17 Speaker 03 Violently assaulted before the two men ransacked the premises and stole cash and jewellery.
1:23 Speaker 06 My grandparents were beaten and my grandmother was left to die on the lounge room floor.
1:31 Speaker 04 It was always made clear in the trial how Joseph Akoni was linked to Irma's death. They had his DNA that had been on a balaclava that was pulled off of him at an earlier robbery. But how Steve Fabrizi was linked to the house and the invasion in 1999 was a secret that was kept throughout the trial. And with one suppression lifting, we can finally answer it. To unpack these details, we're joined by the ABC's court reporter in Canberra, Elizabeth Byrne. Welcome, Liz. And we've also got ABC investigative reporter James Vyver in the studio as well. James, welcome back.
2:06 Speaker 05 Thanks, Socky.
2:07 Speaker 04 First, Liz, DNA was such a strong focus of this trial. Police linked Steve Fabrizi's DNA to DNA from the 1999 robbery where Irma Plaziks was killed. And this was a turning point in a case that was, at the time, starting to get pretty cold. It is a kind of wild story of police work. Can you tell us how they managed to do this?
2:29 Speaker 03 Well, the problem for Steve Fabrizi was that he had committed another crime and police in Victoria had his DNA. And when a 2019 review looked into whether there was any record of the two lots of unknown DNA in the Plaziks fridge, there was a hit on one of them, and that was Steve Fabrizi.
2:56 Speaker 04 It's an incredible breakthrough. And it was such a big gap in this story, as we were telling it. We were getting emails to [email protected] with people saying, hey, so we know how Joseph Accony's been tied to this, but Steve Fabrizi, he seems to be the person that's broken this open. You know, how did the police do that? And we couldn't tell anyone about that. Why did we have to keep this a secret until now?
3:16 Speaker 03 Well, that's because the way that the DNA was collected was because Steve Fabrizi had committed another crime. And if the jury had known that, it might be prejudicial information and might compromise his right to a fair trial. Now, this is fairly common. You normally wouldn't mention earlier offences when someone's on trial for another offence, whatever that offence might be. And so that's fairly run-of-the-mill. But the jury could never know about it. And some of them might be finding out about it now. Because it was important to keep that information under wraps so there was a fair trial.
4:01 Speaker 03 And that's why we weren't able to say.
4:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, and that suppression has now been lifted. But, James, this was such a huge moment. You know, the linking of Steve Fabrizi's DNA to Irma Plaziks's home in 1999. I mean, how big of a deal would it have been for investigators making that connection?
4:21 Speaker 05 Well, it was described in the trial as a sharp turn in the investigation. Just to give people a timeline of this, because this information that has now had the suppression lifted on it sort of slots into a piece of the timeline. So just very quickly, 1999, of course. This is the home invasion, the two intruders and being killed. And the robbery and the secret compartment and all of that. It's then 2008 that Steve Fabrizi commits another crime, is later convicted, goes to prison.
5:02 Speaker 05 In 2011 is when he gives his DNA as part of a statutory act that he was required to do, which is a year after the 2010 review of the case. So you've got this slight mismatch of the timeline and then it's then 2019 when the the match of Steve Fabrizi is flagged up as matching the or the hundred billion times more likely than being someone else matching the sample that was taken from the the the milk container in the fridge back from 1999. So you've kind of got this 20 year timeline of of things being on the timeline, but not quite matching up for whatever reason.
5:47 Speaker 05 And it wasn't until two decades later that it then started that subsequent chain of events that we've talked about on the pod, which is the undercover investigation and then the naming of a coney and everything all sort of then fell into place to result in the conviction.
6:02 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, it sort of fills that gap in the middle of this timeline that just has existed for the entire time we've been covering the case of the two intruders. It's such a significant moment, but the thing I've kind of wondered about with this, you know, Steve Fabrizi is arrested in 2008, you know, DNA goes in 2011. I just sort of imagined this as like a big flashing red light in some police headquarters somewhere that, you know, the DNA matches up and ping, off goes a bulb somewhere. But what's happened, Liz? Why is there this, why is there this delay between the link being made? Well, we're not quite sure when Canberra's police asked anyone to look.
6:41 Speaker 03 For a match. I mean, it might have been before Victoria actually had collected it.
6:46 Speaker 05 Um.
6:46 Speaker 03 That's one thing. The more likely thing is that the police forces in the States and the Commonwealth took a while to, just as as DNA technology was advancing, they took a while to reach agreements about sharing information and that sort of thing.
7:06 Speaker 05 Um.
7:06 Speaker 03 So in the end, the DNA appeared on this national database. And, you know, there hadn't been any testing for a while to see if there was a match. And there was this critical moment in twenty nineteen when the police decided to review Irma's case again. And it was during that review when they looked for a match on the national database that it actually popped up. So it could have been administrative, um, the delay.
7:38 Speaker 05 Um.
7:39 Speaker 03 But it it that information could have been available in twenty fifteen if they'd reviewed it.
7:44 Speaker 05 Yep.
7:44 Speaker 03 But they didn't. And so I I think it was most likely bureaucratic delays.
7:51 Speaker 05 The interesting thing is the evolution of the database, because we talked about in in the previous episodes um, of the pod about the very early database, in the very early days of this DNA analysis, being a few hundred people. And most of them were either police or forensic.
8:07 Speaker 03 Um.
8:07 Speaker 05 Officers, because you could, the database is only as good as the crimes that are fed into it. You know, doing a bit of research for this episode, the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database, or the N C I double D now has something in the order of one point eight million samples.
8:24 Speaker 03 Wow.
8:24 Speaker 05 So it would be interesting to know in that twenty nineteen scenario. Is it a question of you almost running a script of going, does this person match anything else? Or is it stock your big red flashing light scenario where the database automatically finds matches? I I suspect it's the former, not the latter, but it would be interesting to find out from police.
8:47 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:47 Speaker 05 At some point in the future, how do you do you go about it? Is it like the movies where you type? One's naming or does does it sort of work on it in the background or just flag things up?
8:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, I'm not usually in a position of giving advice to law enforcement agencies, but I think a big red flashing light might have really helped. You know, not just in this case, but maybe in others. So we'll see where that goes. Now, we can't talk about previous criminal convictions during a trial. We obviously don't have that restrictions now because, you know, the trial's finished and this suppression has been lifted. And Liz, the details of what Steve Fabrizi did in two thousand and eight is actually kind of incredible.
9:22 Speaker 03 Well, it is quite a quite a tale. Steve Fabrizi at the time, and remember this is like less than ten years after this incident in Canberra. He'd not been pinged for that, obviously, but at the time he'd been driving for a fairly well-known trucking company. That was his job and they transported a lot of cigarettes, so high value. Anyway, he got caught up in a situation where someone else gave him a quantity of cigarettes, which he then supplied to someone who on-sold them and was paid some money for that.
10:04 Speaker 03 Subsequent to that, he set up a sting of his own to steal a million dollars in cigarettes from a shipment. And he made this arrangement with another driver and a third person, the person who'd in fact helped him with the first crime. Now, he was eventually charged with conspiracy. What he did was to arrange for his workmate to go and hijack the truck, knock out the driver and he gave him knuckle dusters and cable ties and snips to cut the wires of the GPS so the truck couldn't be found. And then then he received a call to say it had all happened. So he went and collected the
10:50 Speaker 03 the goods and transferred them to the person who was going to sell them and then got arrested. And then to his surprise, he found out his workmate had gone to the security people in there with their employer and was actually working for the police by then. And that third person was an undercover police officer.
11:13 Speaker 04 I couldn't believe this when I was reading through the document yesterday, Liz, that, you know, Steve Fabrizi had been stung by an undercover police officer prior to the investigation for Irma's death. And, you know, we talked a lot through the trial about the Mr. Bigstein that police built around Steve Fabrizi, this fake criminal network. They got him to admit being at the house in Canberra. And I actually felt a bit sorry for him at the time, which I know is outrageously naive of me. But I just felt that breach of trust, you know, being sort of drawn into that, I just felt, I did feel a bit sorry for him. But the fact that this wasn't the first time really changes that, doesn't it, James?
11:52 Speaker 05 Well, yeah, the thing about it is that how the 2008 cigarette heist, failed cigarette heist, influenced the construction and design of the subsequent undercover operation. Ultimately, we don't, we don't know because we weren't in the room and those details didn't come out in court. But it would be interesting to know how they designed the second undercover operation with the information drawn from the first. Because when you think about it, there are a few similarities to do with, you know, driving trucks and his sort of life experience and how perhaps some of the tasks might have been incorporated into this fake crime syndicate and what they're asking him to do. You remember, he picked
12:33 Speaker 05 up UCO Danny from the airport, well, not in a truck, we presume, in a car, but still driving. So there's some sort of similarities there. But the thing they must have had to have been really sure on, and perhaps why the undercover operation ran for the best part of 2023, is, you know, his hackles may have been up. He may have been thinking, oh, is this another undercover operation? You know, they must have had to have their backstories and their scenarios and every tiny little brush stroke of this undercover operation really. Designed and planned out ahead of time so that he didn't smell a rat, as it were, and disappear off into the ether and the whole thing would fall over.
13:16 Speaker 05 Given that, they would have known he'd been stung by an undercover operation before. So it's interesting to wonder and to pose how they would have considered the U C O one point O in U C O two point O and U C O Danny and the Syndicate and all of those things, how one influenced the design of the other.
13:35 Speaker 03 I just can't believe he got caught twice by undercover police officers that he didn't spot it.
13:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, it is really surprising. I mean, yeah, some of the language that was used in the undercover operation that, you know, we heard during the trial did sound a little bit policey. So I think, you know, James, you're talking about, I think he must have been maybe aware of it. And yeah, my sympathy for being caught up in the Mr Big in the investigation of Irma's death, again, while incredibly naïve, is dramatically reduced knowing all of this. But Liz, you know, talking about this arrest in two thousand and eight, as you mentioned, this isn't long after Irma's death in nineteen ninety nine, that home invasion, you know, we're less than a decade at this point.
14:13 Speaker 03 Yes, it was surprising that it was really not, it's not that long after the nineteen ninety nine home invasion. The thing that struck me is the level of violence that he'd intended to happen. The person that was supposed to do that, who had the knuckle dusters and the cable ties, was, he'd told him, if you don't knock him out the first time, make sure, you know, you do knock him out the second time so he doesn't know what's going on during the hijacking and can't prevent anything. So I just thought that was interesting that he had contemplated such a, it was a terrible level of violence.
14:55 Speaker 03 And it was mentioned by the judges in the Court of Appeal when they increased his sentence. Initially, it was a sentence to about two years and that was increased to four.
15:07 Speaker 04 James, what do you think about the similarities between these acts? Or the fact that Steve Fabrizi was in this period of committing these offences through that window of the late 90s to late 2000s?
15:20 Speaker 05 The particulars of the crime are pretty different, obviously, but the consideration about the victims, or lack thereof, to me is similar. You are willing to assault and cause harm to someone else for the betterment of yourself. So that's what we saw when it came to the 1999 burglary. There was what we have reflected on as quite extreme violence when it comes to an old couple, an elderly couple in their 70s, just sat at home watching the telly. The level of violence that was involved there seemed disproportionate and we've talked
16:03 Speaker 05 about that before and they've obviously since been convicted of those crimes. But in 2008, it's not a million miles away. This guy's just driving a truck, do you really need to hit him in the face with knuckle dusters? The cable ties and so on and so forth. And so I suppose on a human level, that's the thing that strikes me is the similarities there of that willingness to use violence and to put yourself above the person who may be harmed in that process.
16:34 Speaker 04 James, you're an investigative reporter. It's your job to reveal the things that you know and you learn to the public. We've known about this for the entire time we've been recording this podcast, making this series, covering the trial, but we couldn't mention it because of the suppression. I mean, how have you felt keeping a secret like this?
16:53 Speaker 05 Oh, fine. Apart from the course. Um. Pretty good. Whilst Jono's a sort of professional gossips, really, we are good at keeping the secrets that matter.
17:05 Speaker 04 There's another secret that we really need to talk about. This is one that threatened the trial on a number of occasions throughout it. This is the health of Joseph Fakoni, the the other accused, the man guilty of the manslaughter of Irma in nineteen ninety nine and assaulting her during uh, an attempted robbery in nineteen ninety eight. How sick was or I suppose is he, Liz?
17:26 Speaker 03 Well, Joseph Fakoni has liver cancer and he was undergoing quite tough treatment uh during the trial. And that required him, I think it was uh one Wednesday every four weeks to go and have treatment.
17:43 Speaker 04 Hmm.
17:43 Speaker 03 Uh. But on a number of occasions, he was very unwell. Twice, he was taken from the court by an ambulance to be checked out at hospital. And for many days during this trial, he was allowed to remain at the jail in a special room, listening to the trial from there. Uh. And the jury could see him on an audio visual link.
18:08 Speaker 04 Hmm.
18:08 Speaker 03 But he wasn't there in person quite a lot.
18:11 Speaker 04 Yeah. How did he look, James?
18:14 Speaker 05 I've had people who have been in my family who've had cancer, some have survived, some hasn't. They all have a particular People might be familiar with this. There's sort of a grayness to people, sadly, you know, that are suffering from that disease and
18:32 Speaker 05 as soon as I saw the the way that he looked, I I I recognised that. There were definitely times when he was unsteady on his feet, coming into the dock, quite a tall man, um, you know, and he was being helped to his position in the court by the corrections officers. It was around about a week or so in, in the early days of the trial where, as Liz mentioned, that he was went off to hostel a couple of times. I moved around the public gallery a bit, just to sort of get different perspectives and watch different people and different interactions and so on. That day I happened to be sat right really close, really, I mean, a couple of metres away from the dock. And I could see that he was struggling and he was telling the interpreter that, you know, he he was struggling to breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, he was saying, and then everything
19:16 Speaker 05 came to a screeching halt and and off he went. So. The extent to which it was the treatment, the disease that he is suffering from, you know, the gravity of the situation, a combination of all two, obviously we don't really know that. Justice Mosse was frustrated by the interruptions, not at Vicconi's illness per se, but just at the interruptions to the flow of the case that he was trying to get up and running at that stage.
19:42 Speaker 04 And Liz, I mean, you've described the ambulances, you know, coming to pick up Joseph Vicconi on a number of occasions. And I mean, talking about Justice Mosse, there was, there was one day that, that really kind of frustrated him, wasn't there?
19:54 Speaker 03 Yes, this was because Joseph Vicconi had come to court and then had become unwell. And so before Justice Mosse even came on the bench, but without telling the judge, the prison officers took, called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital before anyone could do anything. And Justice Mosse was quite cross about that because he hadn't been informed. But there were numerous interruptions from this as Joseph Vicconi's health was deteriorating. So there was first of all, these two occasions in court, then we'd have to have a day off here and a day off there. And this is what led to him being able to
20:39 Speaker 03 listen to the trial from the jail.
20:41 Speaker 04 Yeah. Why was this hidden from the jury? Why was this suppressed?
20:45 Speaker 03 Well, the only reason I can sort of see is that, you know, there could be undue sympathy for him, although it must have been clear to jury members that there was something seriously wrong. But it was not explained to them that he wasn't just unwell, that he was suffering from liver cancer.
21:09 Speaker 04 Yeah. And, you know, as we've talked about, he was appearing via the audio visual link, via the ABL for, for large parts of the trial. And, you know, he, he wasn't even in the room when the jury returned their verdict, was he?
21:19 Speaker 03 No, he wasn't in the room. He was actually at the Canberra Hospital after one of his treatments. In fact, the prosecutor asked for a delay in the verdict, but the judge said, no, if, if they've got a verdict, we need to hear it now. So he actually heard it from the hospital.
21:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, you know, it's such a big moment in a trial, you know, for him to not be in the room for that, for us not be able to describe how he's responding or how he's reacting. And also not be able to explain why we're not doing that because of this suppression was a um, was a really challenging moment. And I did feel like we were leaving something out when we were doing that episode. Liz, these suppressions have only just been lifted. They were listed on Thursday this week, so so yesterday. How hard was it to have this information revealed to to get these lifted by the court so we could talk about them?
22:10 Speaker 03 Well, it was really a question of time, I think. I tried very hard to get it lifted. You know, at the end of the trial, when the verdicts were delivered, I wrote to the judge and said, would you consider lifting the suppressions when the jury has delivered its verdict? And the judge didn't answer me until he got into court when he said that there's been a request from the ABC. I wrote to him again and again. And then I received a note a few days ago saying, uh, this will be listed in court this week. And I went along thinking I might have to argue it, but I didn't.
22:54 Speaker 03 They'd had a, by paperwork or emails, they'd all had a discussion. And there were some objections to things I wanted lifted. But the judge basically ruled that we could know just about everything that I'd asked for. So I did think I was going to have to put on a wig and stand up and argue, but I didn't this time round. And he just ruled in our favour. So here we are today.
23:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, Liz, it's kind of incredible that you were the person kind of doing this push and, you know, potentially having to stand up in court. And I did some training, uh, actually recently with one of the ABC senior lawyers, Jasmine Sims, our legal queen, who who does a lot of the the legal review for the case of. And uh, she was actually teaching us that, look, as an ABC journo, you're entitled to stand up. You can you can fight these suppressions. We actually have a little script that we can have to to kind of push back against any suppression we don't think is appropriate. And you're empowered and you often do stand up and and make these cases yourself, Liz.
23:53 Speaker 03 Yes, I do. In fact, this was probably my last suppression, because I'm retiring soon. But I have had two big wins on the suppression front recently. One of them, I actually got our lawyers to argue. So with that, journalists have a place in the court. I usually foreshadow it with the judge, say to them, we would like this suppression lifted on whatever trial it is. And the judges are pretty good. They'll invite me to come forward and explain why the suppression should be lifted. I have my own script, which I worked out many years ago with our own legal department,
24:36 Speaker 03 where I would stand up and say, explain that this was in the public interest to be known, that it was in the interests of open justice, that this person shouldn't be treated differently to others facing a similar charge, all sorts of things like that. Now everyone's had a lesson here. But I do do this quite regularly, and I did it in this case, but I didn't have to stand up. The judge heard me and he just delivered his reasons and lifted the suppressions for me. So it was less effort than usual.
25:12 Speaker 04 That's very nice. The script you're referring to there sounds very similar to the one that I was reviewing the other day with Jasmine Sims. So your legacy will continue long after your retirement at the ABC, with journalists in courtrooms across the country standing up and pushing back against suppression orders that we don't believe are appropriate. Liz, we are still waiting on sentencing for Steve Fabrizi and Joseph Akoni. That's set down for late August at this point. You know, with Joseph Akoni being sick, does his health factor into his sentence? Will the judge consider that?
25:44 Speaker 03 Probably not. I have seen some hefty sentences imposed on people who were very unwell in in recent times. These were people who committed very serious crimes. So it will be a case of the crime itself, rather than any leniency from the perspective of Mr Vercony's health.
26:06 Speaker 04 Yep, got it. We'll keep you up to date with that as it's handed down. As I say, sentencing is expected for this in in late August. Liz, thank you so much for for joining us and helping us break this down, for revealing this information for us. It's been lovely having you back on the pod.
26:22 Speaker 03 Well, thank you, and it's been great being here. And to to explain to people what this case is so interesting and so intricate, and really, it's it's worth knowing about. And I think about Irma a lot, and I have over the past 25 years. And I am very glad to be able to explain what happened.
26:46 Speaker 04 We really appreciate having you as part of the pod. It's been, yeah, a real treat having you break this down and take us into all the detail. And, yeah, the analysis you've offered throughout has been fantastic. And James Vyver as well. It's been wonderful to have you as part of the podcast as well. It's nice to get you back to to say farewell properly before we wrap up the series and before sentencing. So thank you for joining us.
27:07 Speaker 05 Yeah, thanks, Stokky. Just to second what Liz said about Irma and the intricacy of the case. I've been thinking about it quite as long as Liz, but I definitely have been thinking about Irma and the family a lot. So glad we could do this.
27:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, and I really appreciate you joining us as well. So thank you both. We'll be back in your feed on Tuesday, the Chronicle inquest into the deaths of the police that Dizzy Freeman killed, Neil Thompson and Vadim Devot-Hodat, is starting next week. And also the inquest into Dizzy Freeman will be on. So we'll be covering that for you. Make sure you get around ABC Listen. There's heaps of great Australian content on there. And we may also have a little surprise in your feed on Monday as well. So ABC Listen is the best place for that. Grab that and I'll be back in your feed very soon.
27:57 Speaker 04 The Case of the Two Intruders is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. It's reported by Elizabeth Byrne and James Vyver and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rollinson. This episode was produced on the land of the Nunawal, Nambri and Moruntri people.
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