The toll of a cold case: Family of murdered Maria James hopes court will clear the way for new inquest
By
Rachael Brown
Seven families of cold case victims are in legal limbo, waiting for Victorian courts to clarify a legal grey area that will determine whether cases involving their dead relatives can be reinvestigated.
Single mother Maria James was stabbed to death at the back of her Thornbury bookshop in June 1980.
Last year,
the ABC's true-crime podcast Trace revealed that on the day of her murder, she was set to confront the local parish priest, Father Anthony Bongiorno, who had been sexually abusing her youngest son.
The podcast also revealed this priest was wrongly eliminated as a suspect because the DNA sample Victoria Police thought was the killer's was actually from a different crime scene.
James's sons, Mark and Adam, thought these bombshells would be ample grounds for a new inquest.
"This is a matter of accountability and transparency," Mark James told 7.30.
"Some big questions need to be asked in a new inquest about the exhibits that were held in my mother's case. What happened to those exhibits?
"Also, some specific questions about witness testimony in relation to a Catholic priest named Fr Bongiorno."