Day six of the investigation has revealed no leads, and the investigation is now considered to have stalled. A summation of the facts is as follows:
The victim is one Arthur Freers. This has been confirmed by the identification he was carrying, an expired driver’s license. The license was then matched to his police record, where it was noted that his last period of incarceration was at Lithgow Correctional Centre for a period of three years (2002 – 2005) for possession with intent to sell or supply.
The victim’s body was found buried off the Mitchell Hwy in Vittoria Park, 25-kilometres west of Bathurst. An amateur photographer who had stopped to take some photographs discovered the body after noticing freshly turned soil and a discarded shovel.
The victim died from two gunshot wounds, one to the trunk between the fifth and sixth rib, the other to the base of the skull. The murder is characteristic of a professional assassination. Forensics has determined that the gun used fires no larger than 0.32 ACP cartridges.
Emesis was also detected by the forensics team, but was so degraded by the elements that no reliable DNA was extracted. As such, it was impossible to link the emesis to either the victim or the suspect. It is generally believed, however, that since this was a professional killing, the emesis probably belongs to the victim.
There are three witnesses; two are of dubious reliability, the other is not. However, the information doesn’t provide any news leads or avenues of investigation. The first instance involves two young men, SM1 and SM2. Both were intoxicated and were, by their admission, hiking outside of Bathurst looking for coconut milk to mix with the rum they were drinking. Both witnesses were hesitant in approaching the police when the police communicated the request for information, as they are both underage with regards to the consumption of alcohol. These two witnesses both saw what looked like two flashes, but dismissed them as they believed them to be “boong lights.” It has been established that, by “boong lights,” the two youths were referring to a paranormal activity known as “The Mysterious Min Min Lights of the Outback.” We believe that the two flashes were the muzzle flash of the gun, and they have been confused, in an instance of pareidolia, by the intoxicated youths for a paranormal event. They could not provide a time for what they witnessed.
The third witness, SM3, was driving past the place where the victim was interred when she noticed two men standing just off the Mitchell Hwy. This witness claims that one was digging. This was, by her estimation, at 0400 hours.
Written on Tuesday, 1 February 2011