logo
Shocking post-mortem update on the Coonabarabran boys found dead in their grandmother's home

Shocking post-mortem update on the Coonabarabran boys found dead in their grandmother's home

Daily Mail​10-07-2025
The case of a woman accused of murdering her young grandsons in their rural home has been briefly heard in court.
Prosecutors are still waiting for post-mortem results in the case of a woman accused of murdering her two young grandsons in their rural home.
Kathleen Joyce Heggs, 66, is facing two counts of domestic violence murder over the deaths of Max and Sam Johnson, aged seven and six.
The brothers were found dead in their home on the outskirts of Coonabarabran, in north-west NSW, on the afternoon of May 5.
Police will allege that Heggs drugged the boys before smothering them while they were asleep in separate bedrooms.
It's also alleged an autopsy found traces of a prescription medication in the boys' systems.
Heggs' case was briefly mentioned in Dubbo Local Court on Thursday morning, but she was not required to appear via audio-video link from Silverwater jail.
Solicitor Kathleen O'Keeffe, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the brief of evidence was not yet complete.
'There are a few things outstanding, the most crucial though is the post-mortem,' Ms O'Keeffe told the court.
Magistrate Margaret Quinn adjourned the matter until September, noting prosecutors have a November deadline to serve the brief of evidence.
During a previous mention in July, Heggs' solicitor Christopher Ford said her defence would relate to mental health.
'This is going to be a question of my client's mental health at the time of the offences,' Mr Ford said.
Heggs was the sole carer for the boys and the family had moved from the NSW Central Coast to Coonabarabran about a year before the alleged murders.
Two junior police officers broke into their house on a semi-rural property after a message sent to the communities and justice department triggered an emergency response.
They found the boys' bodies in their bedrooms.
Heggs, their maternal grandmother, had harmed herself and was arrested and taken to a mental health unit at Orange hospital before being transferred to the Sydney prison.
Charge sheets before the court alleged she may have killed the boys as early as 10.30am on May 5.
Police have previously said there were no weapons involved in the alleged murders.
The boys' deaths shook Coonabarabran, where they went to the local primary school and attended karate classes.
Community members held a candlelight vigil in a park by the Castlereagh River, where they planted two trees in the boys' honour and displayed the yellow karate belts they were due to receive.
Heggs' case will return to court on September 4.
Lifeline 13 11 14
beyondblue 1300 22 4636
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town
Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town

The Independent

time11 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town

A temple town, a mystery whistleblower and a chilling confession: allegations of rape, murder and the secret burial of hundreds of women and girls over two decades have shocked the quiet holy town of Dharmasthala in southern India 's Karnataka. His face hidden behind a black hood, a whistleblower appeared before a local court earlier this month carrying skeletal remains that he claimed were taken from a mass burial site of sexual assault victims. The man claimed to be a former sanitation worker at the Dharmasthala temple and alleged he was forced into secretly disposing of hundreds of bodies, many of which showed signs of brutal violence and sexual assault. In a written complaint to the police chief of Dakshina Kannada district, the man, whose identity is being withheld for his safety, said he worked under duress for nearly 20 years before fleeing into hiding with his family in 2014. Driven by guilt, remorse and haunting nightmares, he had returned after more than a decade to expose the 'horrific crimes' he allegedly witnessed during his time working at the temple. According to his testimony and redacted complaint seen by The Independent, the alleged rape, torture and murder of girls and women and the disposal of their remains occurred between 1995 and 2014. The whistleblower demanded exhumation of the hundreds of corpses he claimed to have buried and an investigation so that justice could be ensured for the victims 'who were denied dignity even in death'. His lawyer, KV Dhananjay, told The Independent this was an 'unprecedented' case where the witness had come forward not only with his testimony but also evidence, demanding accountability. 'Here is the individual who says that it is not the fear of law but the fear of conscience and fear for morality that has brought him back,' Dhananjay said. 'In the last 100 years of court judgments, you don't find a parallel.' The emergence of a whistleblower has put the spotlight on hundreds of cases of women and girls who were found dead or reported missing in and around Dharmasthala over the years, many of which were ignored or not formally investigated by police. Nearly two weeks after the man filed his complaint, Karnataka's state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the allegations. Nestled in the lush Western Ghats on the banks of the Nethravathi river, Dharmasthala is a major Hindu pilgrimage site. The medieval Shri Manjunatha Temple, dedicated to the deity Shiva and managed by a family, attracts millions of devotees to the small town every year. The whistleblower said he was from the Dalit community, the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system, and worked at the Shri Manjunatha Temple from 1995 to 2014. 'What began as regular employment later turned into work of covering up evidence of extremely horrific crimes,' he alleged. He fled in 2014 when 'the mental torture I was experiencing became unbearable'. The tipping point came after a young girl was sexually harassed, he alleged, prompting him to run away. He and his family went into hiding in a neighbouring state, he claimed, constantly changing residences for fear of their lives. In a chilling first-person account, the man said he found corpses wash up on the riverbank and assumed they were suicides or accidental drownings. But he soon noticed that most of them were women, and many were naked or semi-naked and showed signs of violence. It was in 1998 when he was first asked to "secretly dispose of the bodies", he alleged. When he refused, he was allegedly beaten and threatened. 'We will cut you into pieces. Your body will also be buried like the other corpses. We will sacrifice all your family members,' he alleged he was told. He claimed that many of the victims he ended up burying in secret were minor girls and women subjected to brutal sexual violence. They bore torn clothes, acid burns, and other injuries. In a particularly distressing case in 2010, the man said he was ordered to bury a girl he estimated was 12 to 15 years old. 'She was still wearing her school uniform shirt but other garments were missing. She had a school bag. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,' the whistleblower said in his testimony. 'They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.' He also claimed that destitute men were murdered at Dharmasthala and similarly buried. The man alleges that he was a witness to these murders. According to the lawyer, the corpses were not buried in designated cemeteries but on open lands. 'These were not organised interments sanctioned by any authority but random burials, hidden and illegal,' he said. The whistleblower said he kept silent for years out of fear but the 'insurmountable sense of guilt' and recurring nightmares became too much to bear. 'I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses that I received and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them,' he said. Dhananjay said the whistleblower's claims described a place where 'ordinary laws just don't work at all'. 'Now if it is true, one must assume that if somebody goes missing in such a place, the police are simply not going to record it,' he said. 'But just because we are unable to explain the past, the rocks should not blind us to the present.' The lawyer said the whistleblower took matters into his own hands because he expected little from police. 'Before coming to us, he went to one such burial site, exhumed the remains, and handed them over to the court,' he said. 'So now, the court has half the picture. The other half is for police to take him to the site where the recovery was made. They have not done that either. This man was not wanted. There were no pending investigations against him. No one was even looking for these bodies. By not acting, police are sending a message to the world – that this man may be telling the truth.' In a statement issued on Sunday 20 July, the temple authorities said they support a 'fair and transparent' investigation. 'Truth and belief form the foundation of a society's ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light,' said K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala. The whistleblower hasn't named any of the people he claims are responsible. He has sought protection from the court first, saying he will disclose more details once he and his family receive proper protection. Should anything happen to him before he is able to reveal the names, he has said, Dhananjay will open a sealed version of his full testimony. 'The truth about these tragedies must not die with me,' he said in his testimony. Karnataka State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary told The Independent that the appointment of a Special Investigation Team was a 'significant step'. She referenced the anguish of families still waiting for answers. 'An old woman is still hoping to recover the remains of her daughter just so she can perform her last rites,' she said. 'That's why I wrote to the Karnataka government, and within four or five days they constituted the SIT.' If you are a child and you need help because something has happened to you, you can call Childline free of charge on 0800 1111. You can also call the NSPCC if you are an adult and you are worried about a child, on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adults on 0808 801 0331.

Lori Vallow Daybell stoked tensions with judge in her Arizona murder conspiracy trials
Lori Vallow Daybell stoked tensions with judge in her Arizona murder conspiracy trials

The Independent

time41 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Lori Vallow Daybell stoked tensions with judge in her Arizona murder conspiracy trials

Moments before the Idaho mother with doomsday beliefs was given two more life sentences in prison, she complained about jail conditions and the legal system, saying the rules of evidence do not allow two sides of the story. Judge Justin Beresky abruptly interrupted, saying: 'Actually, they do.' It was a moment that further highlighted the tension between Lori Vallow Daybell, who represented herself in two murder conspiracy cases in Arizona, and Beresky, who pulled no punches when the time came for him to address the court. Beresky said Vallow Daybell was not truthful when she claimed she was prevented from telling her side of the story and was unable to get a fair trial. The media attention she craved, he said, will fade into obscurity now that her trials are over. 'The amount of contemplation, calculation, planning and manipulation that went into these crimes is unparalleled in my career,' said Beresky, who has been a Maricopa County Superior Court judge since 2017 and has presided over other high-profile cases. Friday's sentencing ended the legal saga of Vallow Daybell, 51, who will likely spend no time in an Arizona prison because she already was serving three life sentences in Idaho for killing her two youngest children and conspiring to kill a romantic rival. In Arizona she was convicted of conspiring to kill her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, and her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux. Charles Vallow was fatally shot, while Boudreaux survived. Vallow Daybell maintained that she did nothing wrong and said the string of deaths were simply tragedies. She turned to her own religious beliefs in saying she believes she is among servants who Jesus is sending into prison to become warriors and who, ultimately, will be released to serve him. Beresky implied that she got the meaning wrong when she referenced a verse about prisoners going free. 'That is a verse about people that accept Jesus can be in prison and they will go free when they die and go to heaven, but it will take an act of God for you to go free,' the judge said. 'In short, you should never be released from prison.' Vallow Daybell's trials in Phoenix were infused with her religious beliefs, including that people in her life were possessed by evil spirits. She routinely sparred with Beresky, occasionally leaning over to consult with her advisory counsel. Charles Vallow's sister, Kay Woodcock, praised the judge's demeanor outside the courtroom. 'I don't think we could have had a better judge," she said. "He is a better man than a lot of people putting up with her like he did.' Mel McDonald, a retired Maricopa County judge who was not involved in the trials but watched them, said Beresky did an exceptional job of maintaining courtroom decorum and demonstrated extraordinary patience despite obstructive tactics from Vallow Daybell. 'He gives her latitude,' McDonald said. 'But he doesn't let her run wild.' Last month, during the trial over the conspiracy to kill Boudreaux, Vallow Daybell falsely accused Beresky of yelling at her after he explained that her efforts to introduce favorable evidence about her character could open the door to jurors hearing about her convictions in Idaho and for Vallow's death. 'You don't need to talk to me that way," Vallow Daybell said. 'Take her out,' Beresky told a security officer, who led her from the courtroom. In defending herself, Vallow Daybell struggled with legal matters that most lawyers consider routine, such as lining up witnesses to testify. She insisted on exercising her speedy trial rights and rejected the judge's offer for later dates, yet complained about not having enough time to prepare. She also tried to get Beresky removed from the case, arguing that he was biased against her. In another moment emblematic of the tensions between judge and defendant, Beresky expressed skepticism during jury selection for her second Arizona trial when she claimed she was too sick to move forward. The proceedings were postponed for the day. But the trial continued, with Beresky later saying there was no objective evidence to support her claims. ___ Associated Press writers Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Sejal Govindarao in Phoenix contributed.

The touching family album snaps that reveal how accused childcare monster grew up in the embrace of a loving home - which is now reeling at the growing list of charges against him
The touching family album snaps that reveal how accused childcare monster grew up in the embrace of a loving home - which is now reeling at the growing list of charges against him

Daily Mail​

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

The touching family album snaps that reveal how accused childcare monster grew up in the embrace of a loving home - which is now reeling at the growing list of charges against him

A man accused of sickening child sex offences in daycare centres was the product of a loving home and family. It can be revealed Joshua Dale Brown, 26, grew up with his parents Doug and Tracey and a younger sister whom Daily Mail Australia has chosen not to name. Doug Brown, 56, nicknamed Dinosaur, is a respected member of Victoria's baseball community, where he continues to coach children at a club in Melbourne's western suburbs. Several officials from the Sunshine Baseball Club were contacted by Daily Mail Australia on Friday, but no responses to a series of questions were provided. On Tuesday, Joshua Brown again fronted Melbourne Magistrates' Court where details of 73 child sex offences were made public. Charge sheets released to the media showed police allege Brown is accused of committing 18 offences on a single day while working at a Point Cook centre, in Melbourne 's west. The charges linked to that day include multiple counts of sexually touching an unknown child aged under 16, engaging in a sexual activity in the presence of an unknown child under the age of 16, and the production and transmission of child abuse material. Among the most shocking allegations is that, on December 2, 2022, the former childcare worker contaminated food with bodily fluids. It is this alleged crime that sparked a massive public health warning, with the parents of 2,000 children urged by authorities to have them tested for infectious diseases after Joshua Brown's alleged offending was revealed on July 1. It can be revealed that the alleged sex offender's family continues to live in the family home in Point Cook where he grew up. On Friday, his younger sister was seen leaving the home just after dawn. While Daily Mail Australia attempted to make contact with the Brown family, no one answered the door and a calling card was ignored. The Brown family's social media pages indicate Joshua Brown had been a loved and treasured member of the family. Images show a young Joshua Brown, before the distinct arm tattoos he now bears, at family events. In one, he appears to be enjoying a camping adventure with his father and friends. In another, he poses alongside his sister and a group of girls. Another shows Joshua Brown in the arms of his mum alongside his sister. It is understood Joshua Brown did not share a love of baseball in the same way as his father and younger sister still do. Mr Brown is local baseball legend after he started playing the sport at the age of six and continued on for 39 years before retiring in 2014. He made a name for himself at Footscray before moving to Sunshine in the 1990s. A player profile indicated his preferred fielding positions were third base and catcher. He also represented Australia in the Provincial League. He was named one of the club's top 21 players of all time in 2013. Mr Brown continues to be an active member of the club where he has played a leading role in coaching junior teams. Joshua Brown's mother was previously outed as a prison guard who became involved in a tragic death in custody case. Images captured of her in 2022 showed her alongside Doug and her daughter. The image was captioned by their daughter: 'I'm their favourite'. In 2022, in an unrelated case, Ms Brown appeared at an inquest into the death of Veronica Nelson, 37, an Indigenous woman who died in her cell at Melbourne's Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in January 2020. Ms Brown was the last person to speak to Ms Nelson, and the inquest heard she lied to the inmate 'multiple times' about medical help coming to help her. The inquest said Ms Nelson's death was preventable, but an autopsy found her cause of death was attributable to Wilkie's Syndrome in the context of opiate withdrawal. It made no findings againt Ms Brown. In an interesting twist, Ms Brown had been grilled during that inquest by top Melbourne barrister Rishi Nathwani, KC, who acted for Aunty Donna Nelson at the time. On Tuesday, Mr Nathwani was now acting for Joshua Brown, arguing that his client's charge sheets be withheld from the media. During that hearing, Mr Nathwani revealed the case against Joshua Brown remained very much 'in flux'. An affidavit supplied by detectives to the court said the investigation was incomplete and needed more time to compile the final brief of evidence against Brown. 'Your honour has had the benefit of the affidavit which indicates that the police are working very hard,' Mr Nathwani said. Brown's co-accused, Michael Simon Wilson, 36, faces 45 charges ranging from rape to possession of child abuse material, transmission and production, as well as 'sexually penetrating an animal, namely a dog'. Doug Brown was named a junior coach in April The relationship between Wilson, who is not a childcare worker, and Brown remains unclear. Charge sheets indicated both men are facing charges that were allegedly committed on the same dates, including on April 28, 2022, when Brown allegedly committed multiple counts of producing child abuse material, and Wilson allegedly committed multiple counts of possessing and accessing child abuse material. Both men will reappear in court on separate dates, with Brown not due back until February next year.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store