Casefile Revisited: Pamela Lawrence

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As it near to 6pm on the evening of Monday, May 23, 1994, Peter Lawrence was starting to worry. Peter lived in Mossman Park, an affluent suburb 11 km outside of Perth in Western Australia, and that afternoon, a violent storm had hit the city.

Gale-force winds raged while thunder and lightning clashed and heavy rain pummeled down. It was the type of storm that knocked down palpoles and blocked out traffic lights.

“Worryingly, Peter's wife, 45-year-old Pamela Lawrence, still had an arrived home from work, nor had she called to say she was running late.”

Pamela owned an upscale jury store called Flora Metallica, which was located on Glide Street, a few minutes drive from the couple's home. It wasn't a typical jury store, but instead offered a variety of quirky giftware and original items hand made by Pamela in her small shed turned workshop at the rear of the property. She specialised in dipping everyday objects into decorative metals such as gold, silver or copper to create unique items that were cherished by her customers. Flora Metallica was part of a small cluster of shops near the Mossman Park train station.

Some other shops around the area had recently been broken into, and while Flora Metallica hadn't been targeted, a brick had been thrown through the front window, putting Pamela on edge. Given the recent criminal activity, she had instructed her staff that if anyone tried to rob them while they were working to just hand over whatever they wanted. Money and material objects weren't worth getting heard over. When Peter still hadn't heard from Pamela by 6.15 pm, he called Flora Metallica to see what time she thought she'd get home.

But there was no answer. His concern, increasing, Peter decided to brave the storm to go down to the store and to check on her. At 6.39 pm, her call came through to Australia's emergency services helpline, Triple Zero, requesting an ambulance to the Flora Metallica jewelry store in Mossman Park. When the paramedics arrived, they found Pamela Lawrence lying on the ground in the kitchen area near the back door, unconscious and covered in blood. She had sustained severe head wounds which were bleeding profusely, and although she was still alive, she was barely breathing.

Her husband, Peter, was kneeling by her side, trying desperately to stop the bleeding by holding a piece of material against her scalp.

A visibly shaken Peter Lawrence told the police that he derived at Flora Metallica to find the front door was locked, but the shop hadn't been closed up for the night.

The lights were still on and an A-frame sign and a pop plant which Pamela typically brought inside over night was still out the front.

“Peter had unlocked the front door using his own key and taken the items inside, at which point he'd heard a strange noise coming from the rear of the shop.”

That's when he'd found Pamela in a pool of blood clinging to life. After surveying the scene, Peter pointed out that no money appeared to have been stolen from the cash register, nor had any jewelry or inventory been taken. However, Pamela's purse, which she typically carried a couple of hundred dollars cash in, was missing from her handbag. Despite all the efforts of the Paramedics, Pamela Lawrence didn't survive her injuries, and at 7.15 she was pronounced deceased upon arrival of the hospital. Peter was allowed to return home to break the tragic news to his two granddaughters.

They were soon joined by distraught loved ones as they collectively struggled to come to terms with what had happened.

“The major crime squad was called in, with the investigation led by Detective Sergeant Malcolm Sherville.”

A curse research for the murder weapon turned up nothing, and before long a blackout hit the area, putting the store into complete darkness. Unable to properly assess the crime scene, the decision was made to lock and guard the store overnight, with a thorough forensic examination scheduled to take place the next day. Given how heavier was raining, investigators reasoned that any footprints in the ground outside of the store would already be long gone. Meanwhile, an autopsy revealed that Pamela Lawrence had died as a result of severe head wounds caused by an unknown blunt object.

All up, she had sustained 12 blows. There were no defensive injuries indicating she'd been caught off guard.

A trail of blood leading from Florida Metallica's service counter suggested she'd been hit there first, before being dragged to the space towards the back of the shop, where she was struck again.

“The forensic pathologist examined Pamela's injuries under a microscope and discovered that seven of the wounds contained specks of an unknown blue-y green material, as well as a peculiar pattern.”

He was informed that the police were considering the possibility that Pamela could have been killed using a tool taken from her workshop, such as a copper anode, a metal bar Pamela used in her jewelry making process. The forensic pathologist believed it was possible that their anode could have caused her injuries. Copper sulfate can produce a bluish color similar to the specks found in Pamela's head wounds, and the copper anodes in Pamela's workshop were partly covered in blue-green crystals. However, the coloured material was sent to a forensic chemist who identified it as an oil-based enamel paint containing prussian blue pigment.

Whatever weapon had caused Pamela's injuries remained unknown. When Pamela's co-worker, Jackie Baston, heard what had happened, she couldn't believe it. Jackie had spent the day working alongside Pamela, and it had been a completely normal workday before she'd clocked off at around 3pm. But, when Jackie's 13-year-old daughter, Catherine later arrived home from school, she had an odd story. Catherine had been picked up that day by her grandmother.

As they were driving home down Glide Street, they'd stopped at a set of traffic lights directly outside of Florida, Metallica. Catherine looked inside and saw a strange man standing behind the counter. She described him as being Caucasian, around 30-35 years old, around a six-feet tall, and of medium-build. He had a slight orange or strawberry blonde coloured beard, and it looked like he was wearing some type of scarf, like a bandana on his head. As Catherine stared at the man, the two made eye contact, and he quickly crouched down behind the counter.

Catherine had never seen the man in the shop before, and thinking it was strange that he was behind the counter, she made sure to check the time.

It was 502pm. When she got home, she told her mum Jackie about it, who agreed that it sounded strange.

When the police were informed about this sighting, the forensic pathologist concluded that the timeframe fit.

“If Pamela Lawrence had been attacked at around 5 o'clock, he believed it was possible that she could have still been alive by the time her husband Peter discovered her just after 630pm.”

This timeline was narrowed down even further after phone records revealed that Pamela had spoken to a customer between 510 and 520pm.

The man Catherine witnessed the immediately jumped into the position of Prime Suspect, and an identical drawing was created based on her description and a sent out to the media.

But there was other information for the police to consider too.

“Although husband Park was a prestigious area dotted with high-end luxury homes and well-to-do residents, it also had a share of government housing units and was home to many unemployed people who were struggling with substance abuse issues.”

Many of these people turned to crime to support their habits and reports had come in about other people who had been seen acting suspiciously in the area.

Questions were also raised as to whether the attack on Pamela could be related to one of the recent break-ins or to the brick that was thrown through the window of her store. Before long, the police had over 100 names on their list of persons of interest. Although Peter Lawrence had been at home with one of his daughters before making the grim discovery at Floromatolica, being Pamela's spouse and the one to find her body, he came under suspicion too.

“The police had allowed him to leave the scene in his blood-soaked clothing, and when the forensic team requested that he bring the clothing back in for examination two days later, there was bad news.”

Peter had already thrown the clothes in and outside bin, and had been raining heavily ever since, thwarting any chance of a reliable blood-potten analysis. The police looked into Peter and Pamela's relationship and learned that they'd been happily married for 23 years. Their two daughters aged 17 and 20 were both university students who still lived at home. They told the police they had never been any violence or any other issues in their household, and that their parents were still very much in love.

By all accounts, Pamela was a friendly, bubbly, and well-liked person. Naturally caring and affectionate, she was a former theater nurse who had decided on a career change several years earlier, opening Floromatolica with the full support of her husband. Pamela's creativity and talent was well regarded and her store had recently attracted state-wide attention. With the police concluding that she was in a loving and stable marriage and had no known enemies, the motive for her murder remained unclear.

Money seemed the obvious reason, but nothing besides Pamela's purse had been taken, despite a container of cash being visible on a shelf behind the counter. An examination of Floromatolica revealed several fingerprints, but all of these were successfully attributed back to employees of the shop, although who had attended the crime scene. The only unidentified print was a partial bloody palm print that was found on top of one of the glass service counters. This couldn't be attributed to anyone. Police continued searching for the murder weapon and for Pamela's missing purse, but with no luck. Three days after the murder hunt Thursday, May 26, they continued their extensive door knock of the surrounding area.

Each officer was armed with a question air, and the identity kids sketch made up using Katherine's description. Detective Sergeant David Cable knocked on the door of 23-year-old Michelle Engelhard, a woman who lived in a unit block just a few minutes walk from Floromatolica. It turned out, she had an interesting story to tell. A couple of weeks earlier, Michelle had met an English backpacker who introduced himself as Andre, and said he needed somewhere to crash while he waited for some money to be transferred from England.

Michelle allowed Andre to sleep on her couch for a couple of nights, but he quickly outstayed his welcome. Whenever Michelle started hinting that it might be time to move on, Andre did whatever he could to find her some cannabis. Michelle enjoyed a smoke, and when she was stoned, she stopped talking about Andre moving out.

When she confronted him about it, Andrew said he was really an agent from Interpol, working to break an organized crime syndicate and free mantle.

He said his real name was Michael Faraday, and that the resume for Andrew Mellard was part of his cover. Michelle accepted this story and reluctantly agreed to let Andrew stay at her house. But after telling him about a former friend who had recently stolen from her, Andrew tried to impress Michelle by getting the items back. On Sunday, May 22, he went to the Franz Unit block and started bashing on the caretaker's door, demanding to be led into Michelle's Franz Unit. Andrew claimed he was a drug squad detective who had just received information that were drugstashed inside.

“When the caretaker told Andrew she didn't have a key, he broke into the unit instead.”

Andrew didn't find Michelle's stolen items, but he did steal a guitar, a pushback, and a few jackets. It didn't take long for Michelle's old friend to piece it all together, and very soon the police came looking for Andrew. He was arrested the next day, Monday, May 23, for the break-in, as well as impersonating a police officer. He was taken to the East Perth lock-up before being granted bail and released to later that afternoon. Michelle told the police that Andrew didn't get home until around 630 that night.

She recalled that he hadn't been wearing a bandana or any other head gear and that the cap he typically wore had been on a hook at her home. Shortly after arriving home at around 7pm, Andrew left Michelle's place with another friend and caught a train to free mantle.

“Detective Caporn wanted to speak with Andrew, but he was no longer living at Michelle's. He had already attended court for the break-in charge,”

and if the judge had recommended that he be sent to the Franklin to Center, a state-run mental health facility within Grayland's psychiatric hospital that provides involuntary treatment of patients within the criminal justice system. There, he was required to undergo a 28-day assessment. Detective Caporn's interest was officially peaked. 31-year-old Andrew Mallard was born in England to parents Roy and Grace Mallard. His father Roy had a long career in the Army, and the Mallards were a hard-working, well-respected, and law-abiding family.

Andrew also had a sister named Jackie who was 10 years his senior. The Mallards had left England in 1967 and moved to Western Australia, but Andrew struggled to feed into his new country.

“He was exceptionally tall for his age, which combined with his British accent, made him a target for bullies.”

Kids would mimic his accent, call him names, and a sum even attacked him physically.

As a child, Andrew never felt like he belonged, and in high school, things got even worse.

Bullies felt safe hitting him because they knew he would never fight back. Andrew left school at 16, with no plans or career path in mind. As he got older, he started hitting the nightclub scene, where at 6 foot 6 inches tall, he stood out in a crowd. It was through this scene that he was introduced to cannabis, which he started smoking regularly. Andrew's parents didn't approve of where their sum was heading in life.

He was broke, unemployed, and living at home.

In a bid to impress them, he enlisted in the Army at the age of 20, but he never made it through basic training,

instead being offered a medical discharge due to a mild case of the sleeping disorder, narcolepsy. Andrew returned to Perth, and back to his old ways. With no sense of purpose, he felt lost in life. Convince he didn't belong in Australia, he passed at his parents to buy him a plane ticket to England. They eventually agreed, but he didn't do much good over there either, and it wasn't long before his parents were paying for his airfare back to Perth.

By this stage, Andrew's mental health was declining, and he was on the verge of a complete breakdown. He suffered from extreme anxiety and panic attacks and could barely go outside. Andrew also struggled with personal relationships and a general feeling of inadequacy.

It really helped him, and got him back on track.

“He stopped smoking cannabis, and felt like he was ready to move out of his parents' house and face the world again.”

Andrew moved into a sharehouse in South Perth, but his newfound optimism was short-lived when he was unsuccessful at a number of job interviews. When one of his housemates lit up a joint, Andrew couldn't resist his old habit. Within a few months, he was broke and borderline homeless, wondering the streets of Perth, and telling fans of all stories in order to secure a place to sleep for the night. By the time he was living at Michelle's house, Andrew was in the middle of a manic episode.

He survived off social security payments, and by selling items that he either came upon or stole.

He dressed oddly in layers, and spoke often about his interest in Celtic design and spiritualism, telling people he was a Viking or a warrior who could speak multiple languages. He came under the attention of police due to his ever-increasing erratic behaviour. While at the East Perth lock-up after he's arrested for the break-in, Andrew was left at a desk unattended for a period of time. He helped himself to a police typing and a badge, thinking they would come in handy

to help bolster his interval story to Michelle and impress her.

A sergeant from the East Perth lock-up nominated him as a person of interest in Pamela Lawrence's murder,

“telling the detectives that he was "a bloke you need to be interested in."”

Detective Kaper went to the Franklin Center to speak with Andrew Melod. Upon seeing him, he thought he bore a resemblance to the identical picture of the man Catherine had seen in the store. Asked for his whereabouts at the time of Pamela Lawrence's murder, Andrew said that after being released from the East Perth lock-up at around 345pm, he'd waited around for a while before catching a taxi back to Michelle's unit in Mossman Park, arriving about 5pm. This contradicted Michelle's account that Andrew had returned home around 630pm.

Andrew also said that he used the wear band owners, but had stopped doing so several months earlier. Detective Kaper visited the taxi company that Andrew had used and spoke to the driver who had picked him up on the evening of Monday, May 23.

“The driver had no trouble remembering Andrew because he told him that he was a rock star from England.”

And he hadn't dropped him off at Michelle's unit, but at a different unit block, a little further down Michelle's street. They'd arrived at 5pm, and Andrew had told the driver he was just running in to collect some friends and would be right back. When Andrew still had him returned by 520pm, the driver realized that Andrew had done a runner on him. He'd get a question Andrew about this new information detective Kaper and returned to the Franklin Center the following day. He wanted to know more about the 90-minute gap between when the taxi driver dropped Andrew off, and when Michelle said he arrived home.

Andrew came clean, admitting that he'd run off without paying the taxi, and that he got him dropped off at that particular unit block, because he knew people there he could score dope off of. He gave the names of numerous people who he said could vouch for his wearabouts. Detectives canvassed the unit block to verify Andrew's story, but none of the people he mentioned remembered seeing him during the time in question. Police obtained a warrant to take his clothes for forensic testing.

There was no blood on any of his clothing, but he's right shoe tested positive for two different blood groups. One was undetermined, the other was type of B. On average, type of B. blood is only found in 4% of the population. It just so happened to be Pamela Lawrence's blood group. Case fire will be back shortly.

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By supporting our sponsors, you support Case File to continue to deliver quality content. The discovery of the blood combined with Andrew Mellard's inconsistent stories,

“lack of alibi, had admitted a drug use and recent criminal history, had detective”

Capel and convinced that he'd found Pamela's killer. While the blood was tested for DNA, he briefed the rest of the team about what he'd so far uncovered. Then, on Friday, June 3, the results of the DNA test came back. It was the moment the detective Capel had been waiting for. But, the initial tests showed that the blood wasn't Pamela's.

It was Andrew's.

A week later, on Friday, June 10, Andrew Mellard was released from the Franklin Center,

two days later than scheduled, with the diagnosis of manic depression and bipolar disorder. His condition was deemed manageable, so long as he agreed to keep up regular appointments for treatment. Andrew was put back before a magistrate with the result and was officially free to go.

Detective Capel and was waiting for him outside the courtroom. He approached Andrew and asked if he was prepared to go back to the station to answer a few more questions. If so, Capelon said he would give him back the clothes and shoes that had been confiscated for forensic testing. Having no other clothes of his own, Andrew agreed and was taken to an interview room at police headquarters.

Given that he had agreed to the police interview voluntarily and wasn't under arrest, he's right when read to him, and despite his mental illness, he wasn't offered a lawyer or support person. Although the interview room was equipped with recording equipment, the police did not record their conversation.

Asked again about his movements on the evening of Monday, May 23, Andrew Mellard reiterated his story about taking a taxi to the unit block in Mossman Park, where he did a runner and tried to score some cannabis before returning to Michelle Engelhardt's flat. He also informed the detectives that he'd actually been inside Flora Metallica in the days leading up to Pamela's murder. He said he was trying to sell some of his jewelry, but was told they weren't that type of store.

The detectives started questioning Andrew's story, saying they'd spoken to the people he said could verify his alibi and to no one recalled seeing him at the unit that Monday evening. They prodded him with questions.

“How come you can't remember where you were or what you were doing, Andrew?”

Why you lying, Andrew? What are you trying to hide, Andrew? Just make it easier on yourself and tell us the truth about what really happened. We can help you. Pressed about the inconsistencies in his story, Andrew said he was either confused or couldn't remember.

He also claimed that he was a police informant, described himself as a flim-flam man and made grandiose statements about his skills and intelligence. The detectives knew about the type in and police badge that Andrew had stolen to impress Michelle. Asked about these items, Andrew said a friend had given them to him, not knowing that they had serial numbers which proved he was lying.

The interview went on for about 5 hours before it was put directly to Andrew that he might be responsible for Pamela Lawrence's murder. He emphatically denied it, stating, "I didn't murder her, I didn't do it. I swear to God, I didn't murder her."

Andrew said,

“"You can put me in the store when I asked to that woman about jury,”

but no way did I do the murder." He became increasingly upset saying, "I have been cooperative and you were trying to pin me for the murder. That's it, I didn't do it, I'm innocent, I swear I didn't do it." As the pressure continued to mount, Andrew told the detectives

that he had gone into Flora Metallica on the night Pamela was killed but only to case it for a potential robbery. He claimed to have locked eyes with a girl in a passing car before hearing a noise and a leaving. Andrew then immediately retracted this story

saying that he'd made it all up to get the detectives off his back.

“"As to then how he knew about the girl in the passing car," Andrew said.”

"I'm a very intelligent man, I'll work it out from the things you said to me." By the time the interview had reached the six or seven hour mark, Andrew had reached a breaking point. He started crying saying that the person who had murdered Pamela Lawrence was very scared and didn't want to get caught.

He then started giving a strange third person account

of what he believed could have happened, saying that he could get into the killer's head, and that the person responsible was evil. According to Andrew, the killer had just kept hitting Pamela and couldn't stop. With that, the detective capel and began reading Andrew's rights, but Andrew continued talking about the hypothetical killer.

“Andrew said that the killer was looking to steal something”

and had entered the store via the back door only to find that Pamela Lawrence was still there locking up. The killer got scared and started hitting Pamela on the head with a wrench. Once he started, he couldn't stop. He then looked outside and saw the teenager in the car looking at him

so he realised he had to get out. He dragged Pamela's body to the back door and realised she was making gurgling noises so he hit her again before running out. He murdered her, he's very scared. He doesn't want to get caught, Andrew said.

This person, the evil person. I don't know his name. When the detective's asked where the wrench was, Andrew said the killer had caught a train to the nearby suburb of North Fremantel and thrown it into the ocean. Outside of the interview room, lead detective Malcolm Sherville spoke to Peter Lawrence on the phone.

Peter confirmed that a 10-inch Sidcron brand wrench could possibly be missing from Pamela's workshop.

As far as the detective's work concerned, Andrew's hypothetical third-person account was actually a confession.

Detective Cable and asked if the evil person he was talking about was himself, to which Andrew responded. No, this evil person is not me. The detective's asked him to go back through the story again, wanting to know how he could possibly know these details if he wasn't the one responsible. Andrew lost it and started yelling and swearing. He amphatically denied any involvement in Pamela's murder,

reasoning that he'd just been telling the detectives what he thought they wanted to hear, so he could leave the interview room. He repeatedly protested that he's innocent, but he's aggression led to a physical altercation in which he bit the detective capable on the upper thigh. The interview was over. Andrew Malad was charged with assaulting a police officer, and after being examined at the hospital, was granted bail and allowed to leave the station.

He never got his clothes back as promised.

No longer welcome at Michelle Engelard's flat, and not wanting to go home to his parents, Andrew was forced to sleep in a park. A few days later, while hanging out in the park, he met a man named Gary. The two immediately hid it off, and Andrew was impressed when Gary drove him around to score some dope. He was even more impressed when Gary treated him to a couple of nights in a hotel room. Gary said he was writing a book about Pamela's murder, and that he wanted Andrew's help.

He was curious to know Andrew's theory about what had happened. Andrew told Gary the same story he'd told the detectives. Gary then started mentioning possible weapons, asking Andrew if he believed a Cid Chrome brand wrench could have been used in the murder.

where the killer could have got the weapon from, and where they disposed of it afterwards. Andrew was happy to speculate.

“With Gary taking note of all his answers, he said the motive of the murder was likely rubbery.”

The murder weapon was a wrench which had been thrown off a bridge into the Swan River. The killer had washed the blood off his clothes using the salt water in the river, which in Andrew's words would fuck with the forensics. It was clear that Andrew was not mentally well. Between the in-depth discussions about Pamela's murder, he was also smoking a lot of cannabis,

and his behaviour was becoming more and more erratic. He started talking about how he had passed through several dimensions, and saying that he sold could enter different bodies. He also told Gary he was really a Viking warrior.

“With that comment, Gary encouraged Andrew to participate in a makeover.”

He bought Andrew a second hand pair of boots, an army jacket, and a killed,

and then took him to get his head partly shaved. There you go, Andrew. You look much more like a Viking warrior now. In reality, Gary was an undercover police officer who had been sent to befriend Andrew. The reason Andrew had been allowed to leave the police station after being charged with assaulting an officer in the first place was that the detectives wanted to run an undercover operation on him.

Other than the unrecorded ramblings about how he believed Pamela's murder could have happened, they had no evidence against him.

“They hoped Gary could cope something out.”

But again, while Andrew hadn't confessed directly, the police believed the story he was giving contained information that only the killer could possibly know. Fearing Andrew really was the murderer and seeing his behavior becoming increasingly erratic, Gary started to fear for his safety. The undercover operation was called off with no admissions of guilt or any other evidence that could tie Andrew to the crime.

On the morning of Friday, June 14, Andrew Mullard was due to attend a court for the assault charge against him, but failed to show up. A warrant was therefore issued for his arrest, which was enacted upon by Detective Francis Brandham, an investigator who was working on Pamela's murder case. Brandham took Andrew back to the station for another round of questioning.

Again, Andrew revealed he's third-person theory of what he believed could have happened.

This time, he added in a description of Pamela's injuries, saying he was able to do so because the police had shown him a photo during his first interview. When asked to directly about the band Danna that 13-year-old Katherine had seen the man in the store wearing, Andrew said he wasn't wearing a band Danna that day, but he had been wearing a backwards cap. He agreed that when turned around, it might look like a band Danna.

The detectives then handed Andrew a piece of paper and asked him to draw the wrench he believed the killer had used. Andrew did as he was told, and remembering what Gary had told him, even wrote the brand name CidCrow on it. All up, Andrew was interviewed for 11 and a half hours, only 30 minutes of which was recorded on video.

Throughout the remaining 11 hours, the detectives merely took unsigned notes, just like they did during the first interview.

When the tape was turned on, the detectives went back over Andrew's story and asked him various questions based on the information he'd given them. Mostly while speaking in the third person, but also speaking in the first person at times. Okay, now I've told you that you don't have to be under your video, recall your regular news at correct, you've told me that. And what you're, my response to that is I want to be video recorded so that I can be clear, okay, around this. We brought you in this morning, we had a conversation in relation to the final panel of Lawrence at Mozambique.

Do you agree with that? I do. During the course of those discussions, you told us certain things. Okay, you said that you needed money, I did, okay, and that he told us that you went in the rear, went in through the rear of the shop at Flora Metallica. Is that what you told us? I told you there. Okay, I'm just going to go through that, and then I, okay, what you told us, or I will sort the rest out later and I can't see you told us that you went on the front unblastry.

And that you thought that it was closed, so it was safe to do a break. Is that what you told us?

It's correct, okay, you described the steps to us and you described the rear door, and the Flora Metallica, yes, something like that, yeah, go on. If Pamela Lawrence was looking the store up, maybe she came in through the back way, later the front door was very locked, maybe.

“And she left the key in the back door, and that's why he had easy access, and that's why she didn't hear me told you as much.”

She asked her, "Well, you told us earlier, I'd be full, we'd go into anything else." You happy with that? Very happy with that, okay, not from. You told us that she'd be kind of stereotyped and started screaming, that's right, I was saying. And that you said that you didn't mean, this is a guy in this, it's difficult, because this is what you've said.

I didn't mean to say, you didn't mean to cause any further injury, okay, because it panicked, I panicked, and at the time, I thought I was on speed or drugs, but maybe not.

You thought, I think you said initially, that you only meant to knock her out, that's right, okay. You told us that she was dressed in what? A girl got some sort of gain, being a woman of taste and sophistication she would have had to be in war. Not as good like this, but one that joins up.

“Okay, but the fact is that the fact is that you told us all these things, and you now say that that was a complete pack of lawyers, that all that things that you told us.”

So that is my, my, those, my conjecture of the war scene of the crime, okay, I'm alright, we'll leave it at that. The detectives pressed on saying, you told us you went in through the rear of the shop at Flora Metallica. Now you said you went into the shed. Yes, Andrew responded, I told you that. You told us you got a wrench. Is that correct? The detectives asked.

A wrench from the toolbox, Andrew replied. The detectives pointed out that Andrew had told them he went into the store to rob Pamela. He responded.

“This is what I imagined this person would say.”

The detectives replied, okay, what I'm saying is this is what you told us, and you said to us you hit her, how many times, to which Andrew replied. I would say 6 to 12 at the max. Although the detectives maintained that only the killer could possibly know this information, a lot of the details Andrew gave were actually incorrect. His description of Pamela's person in back were wrong, as was his description of the calf 13 year old Catherine had been in. His description of Pamela's workshop at the back of the store and what was inside was also wrong.

After the interview ended, Andrew Mallard still had to face court over the assault charges against him. Again, the judge sent him back to the Franklin Center for an assessment. Meanwhile, the detectives working on Pamela's murder presented their case to one of the state's top prosecutors, John McCackney. Their case relied mostly on Andrew's supposed confessions, which had been given mostly in the third person and without being recorded. All up, Andrew had been interviewed for a total of 19 hours, but less than an hour of that was captured on tape.

The rest of his account relied on detectives' notes.

Given that Andrew had never signed to those notes, it meant he hadn't corroborated what was said, but McCackney felt that what was captured on tape was enough to proceed with a murder charge.

On July 19, eight weeks after Pamela was killed, Andrew Mallard was released from the Franklin Center and into the custody of detectives. He was charged with the murder of Pamela Lawrence. This time, he wasn't sent back to the hospital. He was sent to prison. At a subsequent preliminary hearing, the judge ruled that the unsigned records of Andrew's supposed confessions would be admissible at trial, and that, therefore, the prosecution had enough evidence to proceed. A trial date was set for November 2, the following year.

Given that Andrew had no money, he was represented by a government-appointed public defender. Not convinced that the public defender assigned was up to the task, Andrew requested the more specialized skills of a senior barrister. The public defender actually agreed with him and applied for funding to get a barrister onto the case. But, because they had left it so late to make that happen, they would need an adjournment.

When the trial commenced, the case was prosecuted by Kent Bates.

“In his opening address, he presented Pamela's murder as a robbery gone wrong.”

Bates' case was that Andrew went to the jury store with the intention of breaking in, thinking no one was there. He was surprised to see Pamela still there working late. He panicked and bludgeoned her to death with a ranch. He stole her purse, but then juda his panicked state, he left before he could steal anything else. The video of Andrew's police interview was presented.

Although the video started and ended with Andrew protesting his innocence, Bates described it as a confession,

intricate in nature, with details only the killer could know.

Detective Kaeporn took the stand and gave evidence over several days.

“He went through the first aid hour interview with Andrew, reading his unsigned written notes.”

Bates didn't call the undercover officer Gary as a witness. In fact, the undercover operation wasn't mentioned by the prosecution at all. And it wasn't mentioned by the defense either, because they didn't know what had ever happened. Andrew Mellard took the stand and gave evidence in his own defense, denying everything the prosecution was alleging. At one point, he even looked at Peter Lawrence directly and said, "I did not kill your wife, Mr. Lawrence.

I had nothing to do with it." Andrew denied saying that he had killed Pamela with a ranch, claiming it was just his theory about what the killer might have used. The trial lasted for two weeks, and it didn't take the jury long to reach their verdict. guilty.

“Andrew Mellard was sentenced on December 21, 1995, with the judge declaring,”

"You showed no sign of remorse during your trial or now. At trial, you displayed confident assertive behavior and displayed clear evidence your manipulative individual prepared to lie, state, steal, and defraught if the need arose." You went to the shop to commit burglary, but when you realised that you would be identified, you panicked and struck Pamela Lawrence repeatedly with a heavy ranch.

Andrew stood up and screamed, insisting, "I did not." But the judge continued. The blows were delivered until you were satisfied she was dead. Your sentence will be 20 years of strict security, life imprisonment. Andrew continued to scream and protest his innocence as it was dragged away.

The 20 years sentence was just the non-parallel period, which meant it was possible that Andrew would never be released,

especially when a big factor in securing parole is remorse. Andrew mallard appealed his sentence, and it was heard at the Court of Criminal Appeal in June 1996 before three Supreme Court judges. By this point, Andrew was being represented by a barrister, who attacked the so-called Confessions. He labelled them as unreliable, given that although a video camera was available in the room the entire time, less than one hour was recorded out of the 19 hours that Andrew was interviewed.

He also heavily attacked the inaccuracies of Andrew's supposed Confession, such as the descriptions of Pamela's purse, the car Catherine was driving past in and Pamela's store itself. He highlighted the fact that there was no forensic evidence, no positive ID, and no murder weapon to tie his client to the crime. The barrister also said it was extremely unlikely that Andrew would have had enough time to exit the taxi at the unit block in Mossman Park at 5pm, only to make it roughly 350 meters to Florida, Metallica, to be seen by Catherine at 502pm.

The prosecution relied on what they called the 15 things in Andrew's Confession that only the murderer could have known. But some of these details had been told to Andrew, such as the fact that the murder weapon was acid chrome wrench. There was no proof that a wrench had been used, and no murder weapon had ever been uncovered, but this detail formed part of the 15-point case against Andrew regardless. The appeal judges listened to both sides before retiring to reach their verdict.

However, the ruling did come with a warning to police.

“Unrecorded confessions would no longer be allowed.”

The ruling also stated that while there had been some unsatisfactory aspects of Andrew's case, there had been no miscarriage of justice. This ruling meant there was only one court left for Andrew to go, the High Court. But you couldn't just take any old case to the High Court. And generally speaking, the High Court is only interested in severe miscarriages of justice, all matters of national importance. Andrew would have to convince three judges that his appeal had grounds to be heard there.

His barrister pleaded the case to the judges, but they weren't convinced that the case had merit to be heard in the High Court. With that, it was done. Andrew Mullard would be imprisoned for life. Andrew struggled to cope with the ruling. He demanded to take a lie detector test, and even demanded to be injected with the truth serum.

As time went on, he started to believe he was the victim of a big conspiracy.

“He was convinced the authorities must be trying to brainwash him.”

The real killer must be a powerful man, and Andrew was set up as a patie.

He started to believe that everyone was in on it. The murderer, the police, the lawyers, the judges, the prison guards, everyone. He became convinced that the long police interviews were actually brainwashing sessions, designed to convince him he was responsible for Pamela's murder. He went to the prison library trying to find anything he could about brainwashing and hypnosis,

convinced this could be the only explanation. The idea continued to grow in Andrew's head. He started to see the jail as a brainwashing facility in which the lights were actually cameras recording his every move, and the life feed was being sent back to Detective Caperone. The distress alarming he saw was a speaker where messages were whispered to him in his sleep.

“He saw other prisoners as actors whose job was to convince him he was imprisoned,”

when really they were part of the brainwashing conspiracy. Andrew became obsessed with this idea, refusing to speak to any other prisoners and even cutting off all visits from his family. He even put a sign in his cell that read, "My name is Andrew Mark Mallard.

I will not speak to any police or member of the Justice System, prison's department or any other authority, without proper legal representation. I have nothing to say." Despite this, Andrew was known to be a passive, well-behaved prisoner who kept himself, and he was therefore generally left alone.

Andrew's parents, Roy and Grace, as well as his sister Jackie, never believed that Andrew was guilty.

Convinced that the story didn't add up, Roy dedicated himself to studying court transcripts, witness accounts and illegal books to try and find a hole in the case against his son. While obsessing over Andrew's case, Roy started to experience pain in his stomach. A trip to the doctor's revealed it was cancer, and that Roy didn't have a long to live. Roy told Grace not to tell Andrew,

already concerned about his mental state, he didn't want to give him something else to worry about. Grace agreed, and Roy died less than four weeks later. Having cut off all visits, Andrew hadn't seen his family for years. When his mother broke the news to him about his father's death, Andrew didn't believe her. Still running with his conspiracy theory, he believed the powers of play had gotten to his family,

and the story of his father's death was designed to finally make him a crack.

Don't worry, Mom, Andrew said, "I know you've been told to say this. Tell Dad I know he's all right. Don't worry about me, okay?" His sister couldn't convince him either.

In Andrew's view, his dad was the strongest man he knew, and was in great health. There was no way he was dead. Although Andrew was upset that the authorities had gotten to his family, he was determined not to let them break him. "Casefile will be back shortly.

Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors."

By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content."

(music)

“Grace Mallard never waved from her belief that her son was innocent.”

She spoke to anyone she could about his case, including Colleen Egan, an investigative journalist, for Channel 7's Karen Affairs program today tonight. While Colleen wasn't interested in covering the story for today tonight, she was interested in it personally. What caught her attention was a letter that a well-known barrister named Malcolm McCusker had written to the mallard family.

As a former court reporter, Colleen knew who was who in the legal circles, and McCusker was well-respected.

He had written that he found Andrew's case very unsettling, but nothing could be done unless fresh evidence emerged. Only then, if presented to a jury, might the outcome change. That was enough to encourage Colleen to take a look at the court transcripts. She soon became convinced that Andrew had been given a raw deal, and agreed to help, enlisting the assistance of his defense barrister who offered his services for free.

When Andrew's family went to tell him that a reporter was interested in helping them, he was far from impressed. Convince to this was just another part of the conspiracy, he refused to talk, saying that he didn't want any help. Colleen advised Andrew's family that they should worry about getting Andrew's psychiatric help before they worried about fighting the case against him. The prison was initially reluctant to force Andrew into any treatment. Sure, he's behaviour was odd, but he wasn't violent, and he wasn't causing any trouble. Eventually, they changed their stance,

and Andrew was once again sent to the Franklin Center for an assessment by a psychiatrist.

Being in the hospital for the third time seemed to snap Andrew back to reality.

He realized there was no way his fellow patients could be actors, and that he was in a real hospital. It suddenly became clear to him that this was not a conspiracy. This was real. The switch was flipped. Andrew was back. Putting an end to his conspiracy thinking, Andrew wanted to cooperate with the psychiatrist and prove he was innocent. After a few months of treatment, his condition greatly improved, and he was sent back to prison.

“Andrew apologized to his family, saying his conspiracy theory was the only way he could rationalize what had happened to him.”

Andrew's sister Jackie called Colleen Egan and told her the good news. Andrew was ready. But it was a long process. Colleen worked on the case for four years with the help of Andrew's barrister and many others, but they couldn't find the fresh evidence they needed to launch a new appeal. At a standstill, Colleen decided to approach an unlikely ally. John Quickly was a well-known lawyer who spent 25 years working with the police union, defending police officers accused of wrongdoing.

Rarely losing a case, he turned an exceptional reputation as one of the best lawyers you could get. He was also a big personality who didn't mind the linelight. Quickly knew everything there was to know about police procedures and practices.

“That's what made him such a good person to approach, but it was risky.”

Having spent 25 years defending police officers, he developed some solid relationships into contacts. He was the only non-police officer to be given a life membership of the police union. Colleen knew this from her crime reporting days, and she also knew that Quickly had recently quit law and taken up politics, becoming a labor party backbencher. During the four years she'd been working on Andrew's case, Colleen had also changed to jobs. It just so happened she was now working for the Australian newspaper, covering politics.

Colleen approached Quickly and let him know that she strongly believed an innocent man was behind bars. What better start to his career in politics than to help get an innocent man out of prison. Although Quickly didn't make any promises, he told Colleen he would have a look at the case and get back to her. Quickly immediately saw a problem. The case against Andrew relates strongly on the belief that he had killed Pamela using a sitcom wrench.

and that he hadn't yet seen a wrench that would cause the injuries she had sustained.

“Something else didn't sit right with Quickly.”

After Andrew's first police interview when he was charged with assaulting a police officer, he'd been allowed to leave despite having nowhere to live at the time.

It was very unusual for an accused of fender to be released on bail if they were experiencing homelessness. Quickly compared this fact with the evidence given by Detective Francis Brandon, who had arrested Andrew after he failed to show up in court for the assault charge. According to Detective Brandon, he'd just been driving around when he happened to see Andrew in the park he'd been sleeping in. So he'd arrested him on the warrant and conducted the second interview in relation to Pamela Lawrence's murder.

Quickly was able to put two and two together pretty quickly.

“He realised that Andrew had initially been released because the police were running an undercover operation on him and that they knew where he'd been the entire time.”

He also found it unusual that there had been no mention of the undercover operation at Andrew's trial. Caline's idea to approach John Quickly had paid off as these were things that stood out to him that Caline and the others hadn't seen. Assuming that more had probably been hidden, Quickly decided to meet with the forensic pathologist Dr. Cook. Quickly asked him how it came to be that a wrench was determined to be the murder weapon. Dr. Cook said he had no idea. He told Quickly the same thing he had told the detectives in charge of the case as well as the prosecutor.

I find it hard to believe a wrench would have caused these injuries.

“Quickly showed him the sketch that Andrew had drawn of the Siedgram wrench that had been presented as evidence during his trial.”

Dr. Cook had never seen it before.

Despite having testified himself, the sketch had never been shown to Dr. Cook nor had he been asked on the stand if a wrench could have caused Pamela's injuries. This was enough for the ball to start rolling. Coline Egan started writing articles about the potential miscarriage of justice while John Quickly started making some noise about it too. Up until that point, all they had were the court transcripts, so he used his political connections to get a hold of the prosecution file. One thing immediately stood out. Back in 1994, tests had been done on a pig's head to see if a wrench could make the same wounds suffered by Pamela Lawrence.

They didn't match.

The results of this test were never disclosed to the defense or mentioned at the trial.

Given that the wrench was the only weapon ever mentioned in Andrew's so-called confession, and it was incapable of inflicting Pamela's injuries. This alone was enough for quickly to realize that there were some grave doubts about the reliability of Andrew's confession. The prosecution file also confirmed quickly suspicion that an undercover operation had taken place. By this point, several years had passed since Andrew's trial, and the prosecutor Cam Bates was now highly respected and esteemed in his field.

John McCackney, who was the top prosecutor in the state of the time, and who gave the detectives the go-ahead to charge Andrew was now a serving Supreme Court judge. Detectives Sherval and Caporn, who had been central in the case against Andrew, were now a system police commissioners. Detective Bradham, who arrested Andrew and conducted the second interview, was now a superintendent. Not surprisingly, there was resistance to what quickly was saying about the case. Headlines read that quickly was trying to get a vicious murderer off on a non-disclosure technicality.

Those who had been involved in the investigation and trial maintained that the case against Andrew Mallard was strong. They argued that he had made a solid confession and a jury had been convinced to be on a reasonable doubt that he was the killer. But enough had been uncovered for the case to be referred back to the court of criminal appeal. Prosecutors were determined to fight. While they conceded that they should have disclosed all of the information, they maintained it was just an oversight and wouldn't have affected the outcome of the trial.

Barristan Malcolm McCusker, whose letter had initially sparked Colleen Egan's interest in the case, was defending Andrew.

Michelle Engelhard, the woman Andrew had been living with at the time of Pamela's murder, had given several statements to police.

Each one was slightly different to the one before it, with details either added in or taken out to benefit the theory that Andrew was responsible for the crime.

“Only Michelle's last statement had been given to the defense, which conveniently made no mention of crucial details that Michelle had previously given.”

Such as the fact that the baseball cap Andrew often wore had been hanging on a hook at her home at the time Pamela's murder took place. This was the same cap that the prosecution alleged Andrew had been wearing backwards at the time he killed Pamela, which 13-year-old Catherine had mistaken for some type of bandana.

Catherine had made her own sketch of the suspicious man she'd seen in the store as soon as she'd arrived home, and had also written her own account about what she'd witnessed.

In those, Catherine had described the man's bandana as being blue, green, and creamy color with an orange border. Eight weeks later, when giving another statement, she was shown Andrew Melard's cap, which was red, yellow, and black, with gold braiding around the edge.

“After this, a detective had had a note to her statement, which read, "I have been shown a cap by the police, and I cannot say if it was what I saw on the man in Florida, Metallica, on Monday, 23 May, 1994.”

I can't say that it has the same colors of what I saw the man wearing in the shop of that day." Catherine's final statement simply described the suspects' headwear as being mixed colored and patented, and had made no mention of the original sketches she had drawn in the immediate aftermath. Andrew was also taller than the man Catherine had described, and didn't have a beard, but a mustache. When Catherine had been shown a photo line up that included Andrew, she had failed to pick him out as the man she'd seen.

None of these details were mentioned in her final statement, nor were they presented at Andrew's trial. Some vital information had also been removed from a forensic report, and to only the amended version had been supplied to the defense and presented as evidence at Andrew's trial.

“The information that had been removed was that there was no trace of salt water on Andrew's clothing.”

This was significant because when Andrew had given the police his theory about Pamela's murder, he said that the killer had washed his clothes in the swan river because the salt water, "fucks with the forensics." Given the investigators had treated Andrew's third-person ranps as a confession, the fact that there was no salt water on his clothes, nor any of Pamela's blood, didn't look good for their case against him. Prosecutor Camp Bates had told the jury that Andrew had washed his clothes in the river regardless.

Andrew's new defense team, therefore argued that evidence had purposely been withhold, altered or emitted in order to strengthen the prosecution's case.

The case was heard for the second time in the Court of Criminal Appeal on December 3, 2003, by which point Andrew had spent eight years in jail.

Neither detective's shovel or capon were called as witnesses by the prosecution during the appeal, meaning the defense could not cross examine them. The panel of judges ultimately agreed that there had been non-disclosure issues, but they didn't think these details would have affected the outcome of the trial. Their ruling was unanimous, appealed dismissed, conviction upheld. Undeterred, Andrew's defense team applied to have their case heard in the High Court, and to this time, their application was successful.

On October 27, 2004, almost a year after their appeal was rejected, the High Court judges granted special leave to hear Andrew's case. While this meant his legal team had gotten a foot in the door, there was still a long road ahead, and it would still be another year before the case was heard. The High Court operates separately to the state systems and is located in Canberra the nation's capital. Andrew's team were far more optimistic that they'd get a fair hearing outside of Western Australia. The High Court hearing went ahead on October 6, 2005, and Andrew's team outlined the same evidence and issues which they believe amounted to a wrongful conviction.

they believed that the only evidence linking Andrew to the crime were admissions to police, which they labelled as bizarre and fanciful statements,

“and concluded that he had indeed suffered a miscarriage of justice.”

Andrew's conviction was quashed, and a retrial was ordered, with the corruption and crime commission subsequently launching an investigation into the allegations of misconduct by the lead detectives and the prosecutor. The prosecution didn't back down, declaring they had every intention of pursuing the retrial.

But their attitude changed when a judge ruled that Andrew's alleged unrecorded confessions and the accompanying unsigned interview notes would not be admissible in the second trial.

On February 20, 2006, the prosecution cited this ruling as their deciding factor not to go ahead with a retrial. The police agreed, saying that the case would remain closed, and that Andrew Mallard remained their prime suspect in Pamela's murder, and that he'd only been let off on a technicality.

“After being locked up for 12 years, Andrew Mallard was free.”

A blood-spatter expert was in Perth testifying in an unrelated trial when he saw the media coverage about Andrew's release. In Tread, he studied the photos of Pamela's bloody clothing and formed an opinion about who had killed her. He believed the real person responsible for her murder was her husband, Peter Lawrence. Despite the police saying the case would remain closed, public pressure mounted, and they were forced to reopen the case and have another look. A special crime squad was formed to rigs them in every piece of evidence using technology that didn't exist 12 years earlier in the hopes it would uncover new information and to dead.

The partial palm print that had been found on the glass countertop at the crime scene was fed through the computer system, and it quickly produced a match.

“But it wasn't what anyone was expecting.”

In July 1994, just seven weeks after Pamela's murder, an English backpacker named Simon Rochford was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Brigida Dickens. Simon had been in Perth for only six months at the time, having met local woman Brigito shortly after he arrived. Simon had spun a whole heap of lies to Brigito about who he really was and what he was doing. He told her grand tales of being rich and successful, when really he was a criminal who would overstate his tourist a visa. Brigito had caught onto his lies and confronted Simon, threatening to report him to immigration.

But Simon was the prime suspect in a stabbing murder backing England, and he didn't want to risk being deported. To save himself, Simon had a bludgeoned Brigida to death with a crude instrument he had made himself using a white collar and an old sore handle, causing traumatic brain injury. He then dumped her body in the boot of her car, along with the murder weapon, which he had painted blue. Simon didn't put up much of a fight when he was arrested for Brigida's murder.

He was interviewed by Detective Bradam, the same detective who had conducted Andrew Mallard's second interview just a month earlier,

during which Simon made a full video tape to confession. Simon Rochford was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with a non-peral period of 15 years, which was five years shorter than what Andrew received. Brigida's wounds were the same as Pamela's. The unknown pieces of blue material in Pamela's wounds were a perfect match to the paint from Simon's handmade weapon. Brigida's autopsy had been conducted by the same forensic pathologist who conducted Pamela's, and some of the same detectives had worked on both cases.

The same public defender who had defended Simon Rochford also went on to defend Andrew Mallard at his first trial.

Despite these factors and the short amount of time between the two crimes, no investigators had ever linked them, nor had any members of the public ever nominated Simon Rochford as a person of interest. At the time of Pamela's murder, Simon's fingerprints hadn't yet been put into the police computer system, and after he was arrested for killing Brigida, no one had checked his prints against those found at Pamela's crime scene, because the police were laser-focused on Andrew Mallard.

The blood spatter report that it named Peter Lawrence as the killer was criticised, as it was now unthanably clear that Peter had nothing to do with his wife's murder. But neither had Andrew Mallard.

“Andrew had actually crossed paths with Simon Rochford in jail.”

Although they never spoke, Andrew recalled that Simon would sit and stare at him all day.

Some of the other prisoners even got the cases the two men were serving time for mixed up, saying to Andrew, "You're in here for that girl in the boot murder, aren't you?" Andrew would reply, "No, that's the other guy. I'm innocent of my crime." A detective was sent to Albany Prison to interview 38-year-old Simon Rochford. Simon denied having anything to do with Pamela Lawrence's murder, and it was placed on temporary suicide watch.

We will never know what really happened inside Flora Metallica on the day Pamela died, and why Simon Rochford did what he did.

Because eight days after that police interview, after the media publicly named him as the prime suspect in Pamela's murder,

“Simon took a putty knife from the prison garden and hacked through his wrist and neck, ending his life.”

In 2008, the corruption and crime commission completed their inquiry, with the commission finding that Andrew's false confessions could only be explained by the mental illness he was suffering from at the time. The psychiatrist who had treated Andrew before and after he's interviews with the police told the inquiry that Andrew's bipolar disorder had been exacerbated by his cannabis use, and that he'd been having trouble distinguishing fact from fiction around the time he made the so-called admissions.

Had he been questioned about the confessions that Andrew's trial, the psychiatrist said he would have raised some serious doubts about their reliability. According to the commission's findings, detectives Malcolm Scherval and the David Caporn had been so blinded by their tunnel vision on Andrew, that they had changed aspects of the case to make it fit him better. The comprehensive report of the investigation was released to the public, which stated,

“"The commission is satisfied that detectives Caporn and Scherval, who were together involved in the process,”

either by persistent and repeated questioning, or by deliberately raising doubts in the witness's minds until they became confused, uncertain or possibly opened to suggestion. We're instrumental in causing the witnesses to change their statements by being less particular as to clothing and headwear colour, so that more general descriptions could apply to Mr. Mallard. The process demonstrates a pattern which the commission is satisfied cannot have been accidental or coincidence.

The commission ruled that detectives Scherval and Caporn, who were now assistant commissioners, be disciplined for Ms. Conduct, and that there were reasonable grounds for termination of their employment. Prosecutor Camp Bades got the same recommendation. Despite these findings, the police commissioner couldn't just go ahead and sack the officers involved. He had to conduct his own inquiry.

Before that could happen, Malcolm Scherval resigned with full benefits, while David Caporn resigned and took up another government job. Camp Bates resigned and received a six-figure payout. The judges involved in the trial and appeals process carried on with their careers.

In May 2009, it was announced that Andrew Mallard would be receiving a $3.25 million payout from the government for the 12 years he spent in prison.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General specified that it wasn't compensation, but a gift, and that if Andrew wanted compensation, he would have to continue his fight. Despite being one of the highest-expressure payments made in Western Australia at the time, it was half of what Andrew had been seeking, and he found it woefully inadequate, telling reporters he felt extremely disappointed.

His disappointment was shared by his longtime supporter, John Quigley, who told reporters, "This man was taken from the streets as a totally innocent person, imprisoned for 12 and a half years, bashed in prison, sent to a psychiatric hospital where he was injected because he wouldn't accept his guilt." This is enormous what's happened to him. For a man who was at the fight against the system, the DPP, the police and the government for over 12 years to prove his innocence,

keep on fighting sunshine. That is not fair.

“The years Andrew had spent in prison, and the entire raw deal had taken a great toll on him.”

He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, and underwent years of psychotherapy. He also continued to face scrutiny and abuse from certain members of the public, who continued to believe he was guilty.

In 2010, he told ABC's Australian story that there would always be a stigma that went with being wrongfully imprisoned.

People don't know the full story Andrew said, "They think I'm some sort of psycho, some sort of mentally ill patient. I had done nothing wrong, I was innocent, and protested my innocence from the word go." Tired of being recognized in perth, then Diga for a fresh start, Andrew moved to England. He had recently graduated from university with the degree in fine arts and planned to start a master's degree in London.

“More than anything, he wanted to meet his soulmate, someone with whom he could settle down and have a family.”

By 2019, things seemed to finally be working in his direction. 56-year-old Andrew had met a woman who lived in the United States and was head over heels in love. He travelled frequently to meet up with her, and on the evening of April 18, 2019, he called his mother and sister to say that he was getting married. The next day, his family received a call from the authorities to advise them that Andrew had been involved in a fatal hit and run accident while crossing Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard. The driver fled, leaving Andrew to die from his injuries.

For Andrew's family, friends, and those who had dedicated years to supporting him, the news came as a complete blow. Five days after Andrew's death, a 20-year-old Los Angeles resident named Christopher Smith turned himself into police.

“He faced four years in prison, but later struck a deal, receiving 30 days of weekend detention, 30 hours of community service, and three years probation.”

Andrew's family told the prosecution that what Andrew would have wanted, saying, Andrew knew only too well as the "we," the trauma, both emotional and mental that imprisonment brings. Speaking to Australian story about Andrew's death, John Quigley said he couldn't adequately explain the feeling of grief that washed over him when he heard the news. "Reflecting on the first time he'd ever met Andrew," Quigley said.

"I held that man in my arms in prison, and promised I'd never leave him.

I felt just a little bit of meat die when I heard this news. He described Andrew as a gentle man, an honest person, saying, "I just think it's so unfair, so sad what happened. I'd like to think that Andrew's soul is resting in peace." Andrew's death came as a painful shock for Pamela Lawrence's family as well.

Speaking publicly about the case for the first time, Pamela's youngest daughter, Katie, told Australian story

that before Andrew had been cleared for her mother's murder, it had never occurred to her family that the justice system could fail so dismally.

Katie said, "I have enormous regrets at how long it took me to realize that Andrew was innocent. I really want people to know that my family believe Andrew's innocent 100%. And we have nothing but regret for what he's been put through, what his family and his supporters have gone through. If it wasn't for them, I don't think we would ever have known the truth." Despite everything that the Lawrence family had endured since Pamela was truly taken from them, Katie said,

"The last thing that mum would have wanted was for the wrong person to be punished over her death, and for another family to have to be put through such an unbelievable ordeal." [ Music ]