Gail Karran made a recording of the attack that killed her.
She activated a secret audio device when she heard her husband, Bill Karran, arrive home from the Hervey Bay police watch house on the night of 31 October 2017. It recorded Bill banging on the door. It recorded 105 blows. It recorded Bill raping and choking his wife of 30 years.
It recorded him telling her why:
Got a little read out of what you fucking told the fucking coppers out here, what a fucking load of fucking codswallop, and why am I doing this? ’Cause I fucking read what you fucking told the fucking coppers.
Today is the day you fucking die, sweetheart.
Bill Karran was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter, rape and strangulation. A coroner found there was “very little … which would have prevented him” from killing Gail.
But Guardian Australia’s two-year investigation into domestic and family violence homicides in Queensland has uncovered shocking new evidence – including records withheld from the coroner – of serious police failures that placed Gail in danger the night she was attacked.
The Guardian can reveal that earlier on that night police issued Bill Karran with a domestic violence protection notice that included details about allegations his wife had made.
Bill was drunk when he was released from the watch house and handed the document outlining Gail’s allegations.
Police took no steps to notify Gail that her allegations had been disclosed to Bill, to advise her of his release from custody or to check on her welfare.
Gail died from a seizure she suffered several days after the attack. An autopsy revealed bruising on her brain.
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The Guardian can also reveal that detectives assigned to investigate Gail’s death initially believed Bill Karran’s false version of events, did not treat the matter as a potential homicide and failed to conduct basic investigative tasks for several months.
Potentially critical evidence was lost or never obtained.
Gail’s sister and brother, Kaye White and Greg Jurgs, were not told about many of the police failings. They only learned about them after Guardian Australia obtained the evidence.
“We’ve always had quite so many questions,” White says.
“Why did they let him out of custody? Why did they send him back home to her? Why?
“I still have nights when I find it very hard to sleep because things come back into mind … you do something and you think of Gail and then it comes back again and we don’t have all the answers.
“She was expecting to be protected.”
‘Risk of harm to others’
Records obtained by Guardian Australia show Gail Karran called police twice on 31 October.
About 7.30pm, police found Bill had locked Gail out of their home at Torquay, near Hervey Bay. Bill was drunk and slurring his words. The officers logged the matter as a “street check” and left.
Gail called again about an hour later, having locked herself in her bedroom.
When police turned up for a second time, she disclosed that Bill had tried to “suffocate” her a week earlier but that she had been too scared to call police. She recounted an attack when Bill had punched holes through a door.
Gail told police she had been keeping a code on her calendar to document Bill’s attacks. She also told them she had been using a digital device to record the assaults.
Bill Karran was arrested and taken to the Hervey Bay watch house.
Guardian Australia has obtained a copy of his custody records from that night. They reveal he had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.82 when he was released at about 10.52pm.
They also reveal that on his release officers assessed him as being a “risk of harm to others”.
A former detective sergeant, Kate Pausina – who reviewed the case files while working as a liaison to the coroner’s office – says she discovered that despite police assessing that Bill posed a risk of harm, officers had taken no steps to contact Gail about his release or ensure she was safe.
Pausina says that failure placed Gail in danger.
“[Her death] certainly could have been prevented,” she says.
After his release Bill walked more than 3km home barefoot. Gail activated her recorder as he began to bash on the door.
Wake up you, fucking bitch. Fucking walked back from the fucking watch house, bare fucking feet, thank you so fucking much.
Why am I doing this? ’Cause I fucking read what you fucking told the fucking coppers.
How police believed Bill’s story
Bill Karran was charged with manslaughter in November 2018.
Detectives had “worked non-stop in the last 12 months”, a police officer told the media after the arrest.
That claim is wrong.
Guardian Australia can now reveal that police initially did not treat Gail’s death as a potential homicide, did not obtain basic information about the circumstances for almost three months and lost potentially critical evidence due to delays in conducting searches.
Gail went to Hervey Bay hospital for treatment the day after the attack, on 1 November 2017. Bill accompanied her. She told hospital staff her injuries came from falling out of bed.
Two days later she had a seizure. Gail died in hospital on 9 November.
Coronial forms filed by police on 14 November show that Bill had admitted to grabbing Gail around the throat but not to causing her fatal injuries. He had refused to sign a statement prepared for him by police.
But a detective said in the document he believed Bill had been “completely forthcoming”.
“Gail did not detail any information to hospital staff … that would indicate [Bill] was criminally responsible for her injuries,” he wrote.
“Police believe that; given Gail called the police because William locked her out, if William had assaulted Gail, Gail would have happily advised hospital staff.”
Police did not take statements from the officers who attended Gail and Bill’s home on 31 October until almost three months afterwards.
The detective later told a court he had only become aware of critical details about the police check – including allegations that Bill had threatened, abused and choked Gail – in mid-January.
By then police had decided they did not have enough evidence to justify a search warrant to obtain Gail’s audio recorder and calendar.
The coroner’s office issued a warrant in December. When police went back to the house, they could not find the calendar documenting Bill’s abuse.
They did recover a small black Olympus voice recorder. On the device they found evidence that Bill Karran had killed his wife.
‘You just went numb’
Gail’s sister, Kaye White, learned that Bill had been charged when she heard an ABC Toowoomba news bulletin.
For more than a year she had believed Gail died from a seizure, though she had her suspicions.
Bill Karran had told police that Gail had no other family.
“We had no contact at all [from the police],” White says. “We didn’t know there was an investigation altogether.
“[Hearing about the charges on the radio] was something that I never wish to have again. You just don’t know what to do. You just went numb.”
Gail had been an air traffic controller in the air force and had worked as a triple-zero operator. She had been stubborn as a younger woman; something White says made family members believe she would stick up for herself, even as they became worried about Bill’s controlling behaviour.
“He tried to isolate her from the family but he didn’t fully succeed in that,” White says.
White received an email from Gail about three weeks before she was killed. The police and coroner have never seen it – they never asked.
It reveals that Bill had become belligerent about getting access to Gail and Kaye’s late father’s estate.
Gail wrote to her sister from a new email account: “Bill keeps asking about Dad’s investments and what’s happening about any money and the house.
“To safeguard myself I have opened a separate ANZ A/c in just my name and given the details to the Public Trustee. If he wants to keep bad mouthing my father, he can go to hell as he doesn’t deserve any benefits what-so-ever from his estate.”
A Queensland police deputy commissioner, Cameron Harsley, acknowledged there had been police failures in the case. He said the failure to speak to Gail’s family and obtain further evidence was “a missed opportunity”.
“I look at these matters and in hindsight it tells me that the system that we are trying to mature and the workforce we’re trying to build around protecting victims of domestic and family violence has come a long way but has a long way to go,” he said.
“By no means do I defend us not doing our job as well as we can.”
• Cameron Harsley retired from the role of deputy commissioner of the Queensland Police Service in September
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
Do you know more? Contact ben.smee@theguardian.com
