TO CATCH A KILLER
THE boy didn’t say a word, but the look on his face and the fear in his eyes told Ron Iddles his investigation was on the right track. It was May 16, 1995, 11 days after the bloody murder of teenager Ricky Balcombe in Geelong’s Market Square shopping centre, and Detective Senior Constable Iddles and his colleagues in the Homicide Squad were closing in on prime suspect Karl Hague. The boy, Paul Bellia, witnessed the murder, and had just participated in an identification parade, where Hague was lined up alongside nine young men unconnected to the crime. It was a confronting experience for the traumatised teenager, and the three other witnesses asked to take part. They were face-to-face with the ‘suspects’, so close they could feel their breath. There was no glass divider. Bellia was asked to say if he’d seen the killer, but refused to look the ‘suspects’ in the eye. Neither he, nor the three others, nominated Hague. But Detective Iddles felt the teenager’s silence was telling. “I spoke to him (Bellia) after it. Coppers work off gut instinct, and I thought ‘you know what, he’s seen the person in there’,” Mr Iddles recalled. “He basically hung his head. He did stop near Karl. I know he was asked a question, I’ve spoken to the inspector who ran it (the line-up), saying ‘is there anyone you want to identify’ and he (Bellia) says ‘no’.” Today marks 23 years since Ricky Balcombe was killed.
Ron Iddles was the lead investigator on the case for 19 long years.
Karl Hague was the prime suspect the whole time, and remained so when Mr Iddles retired from Victoria Police in 2014 with the reputation as Australia’s best detective.
At the time Ricky Balcombe was murdered, the detective was a senior constable, having recently returned to the force after a five-year career hiatus driving trucks.
Knowing Hague had beaten up Balcombe a fortnight before the murder and vowed to friends he would soon do a better job of it, the detective interviewed him as a suspect three days after the killing.
The man struck him as “very confident, cocky, and somebody who probably didn’t have a lot of respect for the police”, but Mr Iddles said he didn’t let this attitude, his own gut instinct or the public pressure to find a culprit circumvent a thorough investigation.
“I think in any investigation, and this one, you have a pretty open mind,” Mr Iddles told the Geelong Advertiser after Hague was found guilty.
“I think Karl would say I wanted him from day one, (but) the name Karl Hague means nothing to me.
“It’s not until we do two identification parades; he’s not picked up. Then I have a conversation sometime with Paul Bellia. He says ‘look, I was at the Geelong Show. I saw a person, that person was identified to me as Karl. That’s the person who I saw stab Ricky’.
“And then I think the thing that really confirms it.is I took a statement from Lee Witcombe, so we’re about seven months into the investigation, where he says ‘I saw Karl in the mall at 3.20pm (on the day of the murder). So, I think when we get to that point you’re reasonably confident you’re
on the right track.”
A circumstantial case was being built, but more time and evidence was needed.
In September 1996 a young jailbird told the detective Hague had confessed to the murder of Balcombe while they were cellmates in Geelong.
A month later Hague was charged, cuffed and frogmarched into the Geelong Magistrates’ Court with a jacket over his head.
A trial was set for early 1998, but as it drew near Paul Bellia seemed to waver and was battling mental health issues, and witness Corey Munn died died.
Detective Iddles took the gutwrenching decision to drop the charge and set Hague free.
“We made a decision that rather than proceed and probably get an acquittal we would have it withdrawn, which we did. Now if we had not have done that we may not have ever charged Karl again, because double jeopardy comes in and then you’ve got a situation where you have to have substantially new evidence … so in hindsight it was the right decision.
“Back then the family were upset it didn’t proceed. It took a long time (to get a trial) but I think they got the result they deserved.”
Mr Iddles was retired by the time the case was re-ignited with $1 million reward and a TV show last year that helped draw out four new witnesses.
But he was a key figure at the trial, detailing the extensive investigation that led to the original murder charge against Hague.
The accused man entered the witness box shortly afterwards, and made a number of serious allegations against the retired policeman, including claims he’d coached a witness and overlooked an alleged bashing he copped at the Geelong Police Station before his first interview, just three days after the murder.
The fact these claims were aired but not put to him by Hague’s lawyers, clearly irritated Mr Iddles.
“I think his defence team would’ve known full well what he was going to say. They didn’t have the moral fortitude to actually put it to me,” he said.
“Not once has Karl ever made a complaint against me. Not once has any witness ever made a complaint about me. Yes, people did change their statements, but we were open and transparent about it.
“Karl was never beaten up on the day of his first interview.
“If anything ever happened like that he could’ve complained.
“It’s a total fabrication, and why did it only come out in the last six or eight months? … I think after that TV program he realised that maybe his number was up.”
Karl Hague will be sentenced for the murder of Ricky Balcombe on June 15.