Who Murdered Margaret and Seana Tapp?
On August 8, 1984, Jim Rollins arrived at a home in Ferntree Gully, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, to pick up his date for the opera. When no one answered the door and Jim realized that all of the lights were out, he became concerned and entered the home through an unlocked back door.
He found his date, Margaret Tapp, tucked into bed. When Jim went to wake her, he noticed a strangulation mark around her neck and realized she wasn’t sleeping. Margaret had been killed the night before.
After phoning the police and Margaret’s sister, Jim suddenly remembered that Margaret’s 9-year-old daughter, Seana, was supposed to be home as well. He entered her bedroom to find the little girl also strangled in her bed. She had been the victim of what investigators have called “a very sickening sexual attack.” Both Margaret and Seana were neatly tucked into bed by the killer so as to look like they were asleep. The killer had used a rope to strangle them and it was not found at the scene.
Investigators found no evidence of forced entry or a struggle, nor did they find any unidentifiable fingerprints. Footprints from a pair of Dunlop Volley sneakers, a popular shoe at the time, were left on the floor of the home and were never identified. DNA was retrieved from semen on Seana’s clothing, but a decent sample would not be extracted for several years.
A neighbor reported having heard a muffled cry at around 11 PM on the night of the 7th. Their dog had also barked at something outside the home at around midnight, perhaps the killer making their escape from the Tapp home. Between this witness testimony and the fact that both victims were wearing nightdresses, police determined that the murders had taken place either very late on the 7th or in the early hours of the 8th of August.
In addition, neighbors had reported seeing a red Ford utility vehicle parked near the house not long before the murders. The owner of the car has never been identified.
Margaret had worked as a nurse for many years and was also attending law school part-time at the time of the murders, bringing her into contact with many people. She also had a very active social life and was known to have dated multiple men, including men who were married.
In fact, the home where the murders took place had been bought for her by a doctor named John Bradtke she had a long-term relationship with. When Dr. Bradtke died in a car accident a year before the murders, Margaret fought the doctor’s widow for ownership of the home and was ultimately awarded half-ownership, after which she bought the second half. Whether she continued to have an acrimonious relationship with Mrs. Bradtke is uncertain.
In 2008, a man named Russell John Gesah was charged with the murders based on a DNA match. Two weeks later, the charges were withdrawn when it was discovered that the DNA sample had been contaminated in the lab. This revelation brought to light many issues with the handling of DNA evidence and called into question the efforts police had made in previous years to use DNA to rule out other suspects in the case.
"I am now not satisfied, because DNA in the case was contaminated, that those previously eliminated on DNA evidence were correctly eliminated," said Det-Sen-Sgt Ron Iddles
In this case, the problem really isn’t a lack of suspects. With little physical evidence to go on and the sheer number of people Margaret and Seana both came into contact with, police have had a difficult time narrowing the list of potential perpetrators.
An angry wife: It’s often theorized that a wife of one of the men Margaret dated might have gotten angry enough to commit the murders. Mrs. Bradtke is the most obvious choice in this scenario. However, this theory doesn’t really match the facts. Besides there being no evidence to implicate anyone in arranging a murder-for-hire, the sexual assault of Seana points to a sexually-motivated predator.
A rejected man or spurned lover: Ian Cook was a family friend who had stayed with Margaret at the house once and had reportedly made unwanted romantic/sexual advances toward her. She later said that he had “come on strong” and she’d told him she wasn’t interested.
Margaret was also said to be taking driving lessons at the time, and her driving instructor was apparently attracted to her. When the police questioned him, he lied about having ever been in the Tapp home, where his fingerprints were found.
Since Margaret dated several men and wasn’t committed at the time to any one of them, the idea of a jealous lover or rejected man committing the crimes has been one of the top theories in the case.
A troubled neighbor: Suspicions in the neighborhood quickly fell on a family that lived across the street from the Tapp home. The family was generally avoided in the community and regarded as troublesome. Margaret, however, had hired one of the teenaged sons to do some yard work for her, despite warnings from concerned neighbors that the boy had a habit of making sexually suggestive comments to older women.
The Herald Sun: Sex tape clue in double murder of Margaret and Seana Tapp in Cold Case Files
The Age: A mother, her daughter and a murder case that got away from all
The Sydney Morning Herald: DNA blunder sinks kill trial
News.com.au: Family in shock over DNA mix-up
Million Dollar Cold Case: The Murders of Margaret and Seana Tapp (youtube video of Australian true crime documentary series)
h/t to @kannaophelia for requesting this case
