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The Wodonga Café Arson: How an ex-cop solved a mystery fire

What at first seemed like an electrical fault quickly escalated into one of Sydney’s most baffling arson cases.

It was Detective Graeme Simpfendorfer’s first day back after some time off when he was called to the scene of a commercial building fire.

Detective Graeme Simpfendorfer walks listeners through his investigation of this case on the Crime Insiders podcast:

The building housed 12 businesses, and the fire began in an electrical room downstairs.
Officers told Simpfendorfer they didn’t suspect foul play, but he quickly noticed some key inconsistencies.

Damage to the electrical room didn’t match an electrical fault, and experts later found traces of accelerant used to light the fire.

After confirming the fire was deliberately lit, Simpfendorfer’s next job was to find out who and why.

The café closest to the room was the most damaged, and he noticed that it wasn’t prepared for trade the next morning. The café was missing stock, food, and coffee.

“He was very adamant that no, the business was going to open. Everything was fine. He’d just done the shopping for the morning and was ready to open up trade. And the, the fire was an absolute shock to him,” Simpfendorfer said.

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CCTV footage from a neighbouring business provided a breakthrough. A hooded figure was seen avoiding cameras near the site before the fire.

Detectives watched hundreds of hours of footage from across the city but couldn’t spot the figure anywhere else.

At first, it seemed like a dead end, until the team realised they needed to search for routes in the area that didn’t have CCTV.

This revealed an unmonitored path leading toward the café owner’s home.

When questioned, the owner and his partner provided an alibi, claiming they were home all night. While the partner’s account seemed genuine, the owner’s demeanour left investigators unconvinced.

Simpfendorfer needed to prove the hooded figure was the café owner, so he decided to go door knocking.

That’s when he found a piece of evidence that cracked the case. Listen to the full story now on Crime Insiders. 

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