Charged after jail DNA test

Killer linked to rape cold case

A CALLOUS wife murderer languishing in a Queensland jail has been charged over a 32year-old unsolved rape in Sydney after a DNA-powered cold case breakthrough.

Richard Giardina is serving a life sentence for strangling his ex Lisa Maree Keem, 33, and then burning her body in a NSW forest in 2008 before fleeing to Italy.

But detectives allege that two decades prior to his crime he was responsible for another attack on a woman in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba.

Giardina (above) has been charged by the NSW Police Sex Crime team with breaking into a 26-year-old stranger’s home on the night of December 21, 1988, sexually assaulting her and stealing her wallet and $500 cash.

According to court documents, police will allege Giardina entered the victim’s home via a window about 9.30pm.

The charges were laid after Giardina’s DNA was swabbed as part of an inmate testing program in January at his prison in Queensland.

The details were then entered in a national crime database of unsolved cases.

NSW Police succeeded in extraditing Giardina to Silverwater Prison.

The case was mentioned at Burwood Local Court on Wednesday, but Giardina was not required to enter a plea.

Lawyer Julie Nguyen asked the magistrate for a two-week adjournment before telling the court her client was still serving a sentence on an unrelated matter.

Forensic Evidence and Technical Services Command Superintendent Grant Healey said advances in technology were helping detectives reinvestigate historical crimes.

“Technology has naturally allowed police to expand their ‘toolbox’ in terms of the collection of evidence and the identification of (suspects),” Superintendent Healey said.

For almost three years Giardina maintained he was innocent of bashing and murdering Ms Keem, from whom he was separated, at Hervey Bay in southeast Queensland.

But minutes before he was to stand trial in March 2011, he made a shock admission of guilt.

Giardina is due back in Burwood Court later this month.

He is due to be considered for parole on his current conviction in July 2023.