New true crime series in development on Bowraville murders

A new true crime series, Bowraville, is in development for ABC.

The project, which has development funding from Screen Australia and the ABC, will follow the latest chapter in the 26-year story of three Aboriginal children who were murdered in Bowraville, in 1990-1991.

Mint Pictures and Jumping Dog have been filming recent hearings in Newcastle and Sydney, which is assessing if the cases should be retried and overturn double jeopardy laws.

Whilst the production is yet to be formally picked up by ABC, it will track what happens next as events unfold, if it is greenlit.

The bodies of two of the children and the clothing of the third were all found off the same dirt road leading out of town.

There has always been only one suspect – a white man who was seen in the company of all three kids before they disappeared. But after an investigation that the police later themselves declared inadequate, he was tried in separate cases for two of the murders and acquitted by all-white juries. 

Now, after a quarter-century battle for justice by the families of the murdered children, the NSW Criminal Court of Appeals will determine if there is enough fresh and compelling evidence to retry the suspect for all three murders in the Supreme Court. If this historic case proceeds to trial it will overturn centuries-old double jeopardy laws and allow a jury for the first time to consider the facts from all three murders together.