Arrest in 22-year mall mystery
LONG-TIME suspect Karl Hague has been charged with murder in a dramatic breakthrough in the 22year-old Ricky Balcombe cold case.
Homicide Squad Cold Case detectives yesterday arrested and charged Mr Hague with one count of murder following the fatal stabbing of the 16-year-old in Market Square Shopping Centre in May 1995.
The 44-year-old appeared before Justice Lex Lasry at Melbourne Supreme Court yesterday and has been remanded in custody.
The arrest comes only months after the cold case was thrust back into the spotlight in a series of articles in the Geelong Advertiser and a television special earlier this year.
Ricky’s mother Christine Loader told the Addy last night she was grateful to Cold Case investigators for their hard work.
“It’s so uplifting, I’ve been waiting many years for this to happen but there’s still more to go,” Mrs Loader said. “I can’t comment too much because I don’t want to jeopardise the case. All I can say is that I’m so grateful to the police, to the Cold Case investigators for all the work they’ve done.
“It was a shock (that this has occurred). When you wait so long, you sometimes don’t think it will ever happen.” The investigation was reviewed by Victoria Police in 2016 and formed part of a Channel 7 show about cold cases, which went to air earlier this year.
“An extensive investigation by Crime Command detectives over the past 22 years has led to today’s arrest,” Sergeant Anthoula Moutis said.
Police charged Mr Hague with Ricky’s murder in October 1996, but the case against him was abandoned a week before his 1998 Supreme Court trial after one witness hung himself, another overdosed and a third had a mental breakdown.
The police case focused on a fight in a carpark that took place about a fortnight before Ricky’s murder. Mr Hague appeared in the Gee
long Advertiser on the 20th anniversary of the murder and denied being in the shopping mall at the time of the stabbing.
He will appear again at the Supreme Court on August 30.
The murder is one of Geelong’s most high-profile cold cases.
Scores of shoppers at Market Square, including a large number of students, watched on in horror but were unable to identify the hooded killer.
The stabbing occurred in a corridor off Little Malop St near what was then the Safeway supermarket, which has since closed.