20 YEARS OF AGONY

Justice remains elusive in a shocking child murder mystery that continues to haunt a nation

20 YEARS OF AGONY Justice for toddler Jaidyn Leskie remains elusive.

Two decades after the murder of her tiny son Jaidyn Leskie, Bilynda Williams sat down on June 7 and finally read the autopsy report into his death—then bawled her eyes out. The pain of his loss never goes away. Birthdays are the worst but small, everyday things—watching her other kids eat the corn chips Jaidyn loved—are a constant reminder of the boy she last saw alive on June 14, 1997. “I’m going to get justice. I truly believe that. I won’t stop until I do,” the mother of five tells WHO. “Jaidyn never had a voice in any of this. I will make sure someone hears him if it’s the last thing I do.”

On the 20th anniversary of the brown-eyed toddler’s mysterious death, Bilynda, 41, who is about to become a grandmother for the second time, is calling for the Victorian government to put up a $1 million reward for Jaidyn’s killer. Jaidyn was found dead in 1998, nearly seven months after disappearing while in the care of her then-boyfriend Greg Domaszewicz; he was charged with murder but acquitted by a jury. “All credit to her that she has never given up the fight for justice for Jaidyn,” says Melbourne journalist Keith

Moor, who has followed the case since 1997. “I think she is an incredibly powerful woman to have maintained the rage for 20 years now.”

Adding fuel to that fire, last month a former detective involved in the original inquiry went public with explosive claims a crucial piece of evidence—a roll of tape—was mistakenly returned to Domaszewicz at the time; tape was found on the boy’s severely injured body. “It is surmised this roll of tape most probably would have identically matched the tape used to bandage the child’s broken arm,” former sergeant Max Hill told the Sunday Herald Sun.

From the beginning, the Jaidyn Leskie case—and its dark cast of characters from small-town Moe in the Latrobe Valley—both horrified and fascinated Australians. On the evening of June 14, 1997, single mother Bilynda Murphy—later Williams—went for a rare night out with sister Kaydee, leaving boyfriend Domaszewicz, a self-taught mechanic, to babysit 13-month-old Jaidyn at Domaszewicz’s home.

Domaszewicz has always said Jaidyn was tucked up in bed when he left him about 2 AM to collect a tipsy Bilynda from Ryan’s Hotel in nearby Traralgon but missing when he returned. Jaidyn must have been taken by a local gang, he surmised, and in a bizarre coincidence that night, Domaszewicz’s home was vandalised, windows broken and a pig’s head left on the lawn.

But that story rapidly unravelled. The “pig’s head team”—a rough bunch led by circus worker Kenny Penfold, the vengeful brother of Greg’s ex-partner, Yvonne Penfold—were soon cleared by police. Suspicion fell on Domaszewicz, and stayed there. Why did he lie that Jaidyn was in hospital, having supposedly burnt himself on a heater, when he first picked up Bilynda? Why didn’t he raise the alarm about the toddler’s disappearance when he was stopped by RBT police early the next day?

Jaidyn’s battered body, shrouded in a sleeping bag tied to a 1.8m crowbar, was eventually fished from Blue Rock Dam, 20 minutes from Moe, on New Year’s Day 1998. His skull was fractured and two broken bones in his arm had been inexpertly bandaged. In December Domaszewicz was found not guilty of murder.

But Bilynda, then battling for custody of daughter Breehanna, 3, was not content to drop the matter, campaigning tirelessly for an inquest. In 2006 Coroner Graeme Johnstone ruled Domaszewicz put Jaidyn’s body in the dam, but stopped short of finding him the killer. Today the case is unsolved, and the once prime suspect could be tried again only if significant new evidence emerges.

Domaszewicz, 49, now lives as a recluse in Melbourne with a 13-year-old son. He continues to protest his innocence and maintains the Jaidyn Leskie case ruined his life.

Bilynda, meanwhile, copes quietly in the Gippsland town of Sale with husband Jeremy Williams and their four children. She has no contact with Jaidyn and Breehanna’s father, Brett Leskie—her sister Kaydee’s former husband—who keeps a low profile in nearby Bairnsdale. On April 30, the day Jaidyn would have celebrated his 21st birthday, she shut herself in her bedroom and cried, as she does every year. Said Bylinda: “It never goes away.”

After the death of her son, “I cried so much I vomited,” Bilynda Williams told WHO.

“It still frustrates me that I went out that night,” said Williams (at Jaidyn’s grave in 1999). Jaidyn was a creative boy, says his mum. At Blue Rock Dam police also found a white plastic bag that contained clothing, nappies, a green apple and other items.