Barrel murders: third person hunted: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Dan Box, John Stapleton. The Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 31 Jan 2006: 5.
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Abstract
Mr [Stacey Lea-Caton] arrived alone at Nowra police station about 2.30am on Sunday and was later taken into custody. Acting on information he provided, homicide detectives arrived at the pair’s house on Calymea Street at about 5.30am, where Mr Lea-Caton had arranged to meet Ms Snibson later that morning.
The two bodies were found after a triple-0 call was made to Tomerong Rural Fire Service about 11am on Sunday, hours after Ms Snibson and Mr Lea-Caton were taken into custody. It is not yet known who made the call.
“I think he (Lea-Caton) was her boyfriend but we can’t think about the murder. It’s a mystery. We don’t know anything about where her kids are. We just want to know where they are,” Ms [Frida Conaty] said Ms Snibson and Mr Lea-Caton were remanded in custody to appear in Nowra Local Court on April 10.
Full Text
POLICE are searching for at least one more person allegedly involved in the murders of a well-known couple whose bodies were found burning in barrels on the south coast of NSW at the weekend.
Mother of two Kim Leanne Snibson, 36, and Stacey Lea-Caton, 27, appeared in Nowra Local Court yesterday. Both have been charged with two counts of murder. They did not apply for bail.
Magistrate Doug Dick ordered the names of their victims not to be published until they were formally identified.
The corpses, believed to have been carried to the nearby Tomerong State Forest in a ute, had been crammed into two 200-litre drums and set on fire. The grisly scene was discovered at midday on Sunday when volunteer firefighters were called to a small bushfire.
Neighbours of the pair, who lived at the same address, said a third person was seen at the house where the accused lived on Saturday afternoon, the day the murders took place.
A burnt-out vehicle fitting the description of the utility he was driving was recovered by police about 10km from where the bodies were found. Tearful neighbours expressed horror at the incident.
A friend of the murder victims, Helen Kuiper, told the Seven Network that “everybody is phoning and nobody can believe it, such a horrible thing that happened, so gruesome”.
She said the murdered couple’s 11-year-old son, who is believed to have spent the night alone at his parents’ house before being collected by relatives, still didn’t know what had happened.
Mr Lea-Caton arrived alone at Nowra police station about 2.30am on Sunday and was later taken into custody. Acting on information he provided, homicide detectives arrived at the pair’s house on Calymea Street at about 5.30am, where Mr Lea-Caton had arranged to meet Ms Snibson later that morning.
Residents said there was a party at the house during the previous afternoon, with music loud enough to rattle windows in the houses opposite.
Waking neighbours and asking them to leave their homes, police lay in wait for Ms Snibson and took her into custody about 8.10am on Sunday.
The two bodies were found after a triple-0 call was made to Tomerong Rural Fire Service about 11am on Sunday, hours after Ms Snibson and Mr Lea-Caton were taken into custody. It is not yet known who made the call.
After a full day of questioning at Nowra police station, both were charged with two counts of murder at 1.40am yesterday.
One neighbour, who also asked not to be identified, said Mr Lea- Caton had been renting the house from Ms Snibson since she moved out about a month before.
“She arranged with Stacey to come back and pick up the animals and that was when the police were waiting for her,” the neighbour said.
Another neighbour, Frida Conaty, said Ms Snibson had lived at the house with her husband Paul and two daughters since she inherited it in April 2003.
Last October, Ms Snibson, who used to visit regularly, said she was separating from her husband, Ms Conaty said.
“I think he (Lea-Caton) was her boyfriend but we can’t think about the murder. It’s a mystery. We don’t know anything about where her kids are. We just want to know where they are,” Ms Conaty said Ms Snibson and Mr Lea-Caton were remanded in custody to appear in Nowra Local Court on April 10.