A man was arrested on June 17 by Australian police and charged with murder for crimes committed more than twenty years ago. According to channel 9 News, the man, now 52 years old, was arrested when he left work after having lived for twenty years with the weight of this homicide. Jason Palmer, a 34-year-old British national, was found dead in a river west of Sydney, the country’s largest city.
His body had been placed in a sleeping bag and weighted with large stones, before being thrown from a road bridge overlooking the river. It was kayakers who discovered the body in March 2004. The autopsy revealed that the victim had been stabbed several times in an apartment in Sydney.
“Like his own daughter”
According to the police, the suspect had a relationship with the victim’s ex-partner. After killing the ex-companion, he went to live in Indonesia and Queensland with the latter, even raising Jason Palmer’s daughter “like his own daughter”, reports the Australian channel. The couple finally separated in 2018 and the woman returned to Australia. According to local media, there are no charges against her.
Long at a standstill, the case was reawakened two years ago when detectives unearthed evidence, notably telephone recordings implicating the main suspect. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the accused would have been located on his return to Australia, where he had just found work as a worker. He is expected to be presented to a judge in August.
