On New Year’s Eve 1998, a 91-year-old woman was horrifically attacked in the regional town of Wee Waa. She quickly notified the police but after months, the case went cold.
Two years later, then-detective Robin Napper was asked to investigate. Napper was at the forefront of the DNA revolution in the UK, and he brought his skills to New South Wales.
Ex-detective Robin Napper unpacks the case on the Crime Insiders podcast:
The town of Wee Waa was terrified following the attack; some locals even hosted community sleep-ins.
All Napper needed to do was link DNA from the crime to a donor, but he would need the community’s help.
“That was the easy part,” Napper said, “Ninety-nine per cent of the Wee Waa community wanted this person caught.”
Napper conducted an intelligence-led DNA screen and approached the town with 1,900 residents for DNA samples.
“There were 600 males, of which ninety-nine per cent of them volunteered to come in and give a sample,” he said.
The community’s overwhelming efforts prompted the offender to reveal himself.
“We flushed out the guy that actually did it,” Napper said, “Before his sample was tested, he came in and presented himself at the police station and said, I’m the one you’re looking for.”
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