A piece of duct tape believed to be used to bind the hands of missing mother Kath Bergamin may be the key to finally catching her killer after 15 years.
Detectives will re-examine evidence in the 2002 cold case, including the tape tied into a figure-eight found in her backyard, using new DNA technology to find clues.
A coroner found Ms Bergamin was murdered and her body dumped in a secret location after she was kidnapped from her home on August 18, 2002.
Kath Bergamin disappeared from her Melbourne home on August 18, 2002, and a coroner found she was murdered and her body dumped in a secret location after she was kidnapped
A piece of duct tape believed to have been used to bind her hands may be the key to finally catching her killer after 15 years as police will test it with new DNA technology
But he could not name her killer and the case has confounded police ever since they arrived at her husband’s rural house in the rugged Victorian hills to investigate.
The 37-year-old’s estranged husband John, whom she left an alleged ‘abusive relationship’ with earlier that year after a suicide attempt according to friends, quickly became the prime suspect.
‘She had enough and somehow, God knows how, she found the strength to leave,’ Retired senior constable Mick Harvey told Sunday Night.
‘That was the key to what she thought was her new life, her freedom.’
But a 2006 murder case against him was dropped due to lack of evidence and no other suspects have been charged in the decade since.
The 37-year-old’s estranged husband John, whom she left an alleged ‘abusive relationship’ with earlier that year after a suicide attempt, was charged with her murder by the case dropped in 2006
Mr Bergamin claimed he got home by 6pm on the night of the murder then cooked dinner and watched TV with their eldest son Steven, then 19.
However, his mobile phone bounced off a tower near Wangaratta, where Ms Bergamin was now living – 50km from his farm in Cheshunt.
The next morning Steve’s car was burned in what Mr Bergamin said was an accident caused by him setting the grass on fire with embers from a welder.
‘No, I believe it was torched,’ Senior Constable Harvey said – the the insurance company, police arson, and the coroner agreed.
Police swarmed the farm, combing the property and nearby bushland for a body and even digging up the ground with earthmovers.
Rumours circulated that she’d been fed to wild pigs, and her daughter Renee told friends her mother ran away with another man.
Ms Bergamin’s husband and their three children took no part in media appeals led by her mother and brother
Ms Bergamin’s husband and their three children took no part in media appeals led by her mother and brother.
Mr Bergamin answered ‘I don’t know’ or ‘no comment’ 186 times in a police interview and he and Steven refused to give evidence at the inquest on grounds they might incriminate themselves.
When cornered by Sunday Night, Steven said his mother’s disappearance was ‘devastating’ and ‘terribly distressing’ but didn’t know anything that would help find her.
He claimed he didn’t speak at the inquest on legal advice.
‘It affects everyone in a big way and it’s, you know, it’s terrible,’ he said.
Detective Sophie Leete is confident a new team of investigators can prevail with DNA technology and the offer of a $1 million reward.
Ms Bergamin’s family and friends are still desperate to find out what happened and bring her killer to justice, and carry the horror of what happened to her.
‘I really believed the best years of her life were ahead of her, and he took them away.’
Detective Sophie Leete is confident a new team of investigators can prevail with DNA technology and the offer of a $1 million reward.
Senior Constable Harvey is similarly optimistic, and believes he knows who killed her: ‘The matter will be resolved one day, it will.’