Article courtesy of ABC – view online here.
The grandson of a Canberra woman murdered in 1999 has pleaded for more police in the national capital to help solve ACT cold cases.
John Mikita lost his grandmother Irma Palasics more than two decades ago when she and her husband Gregor were bound and beaten in a Canberra home invasion.
Mrs Palasics died at the scene and Mr Palasics was hospitalised with severe injuries but died within a year of losing his wife.
The investigation ran cold for many years before police made a breakthrough earlier this year, arresting 68-year-old Melbourne man Steve Fabriczy.
Mr Fabriczy has pleaded not guilty to the murder.
Mr Mikita said recent progress in his grandparents’ case was positive but he had previously worried the investigation was neglected.
“We felt as a family that we weren’t getting justice in terms of the resources that were being allocated to investigating my grandmother’s [murder],” he said.
He said he had been contacted by the loved ones of other ACT homicide victims who had echoed his concerns.
“They are feeling a lot more dejected because they don’t have [the outcome] we have received,” Mr Mikita said.
“The families who I have talked to are amazed we have gotten so far by pushing the police.”
He said he attributed any neglect of cold case investigations to “insufficient” police numbers in the ACT.
‘Families of victims in an information void’
Australian Federal Police Association (AFPA) president Alex Caruana said staff within ACT Policing’s unsolved homicides team did “a fantastic job managing a heavy and often complex workload”.
But he said members of the team were often moved to other areas of ACT Policing to bolster different investigations or operations.
“This puts a strain on remaining staff within the team and may leave the families of victims in an information void while the investigators are deployed elsewhere,” Mr Caruana said.
“This all ties back to the ACT having the lowest amount of police officers per 100 [thousand] population.”
Earlier this year, the ACT government pledged $107 million to recruit 126 additional police officers over the next five years.
But the AFPA said those officers were needed sooner.
Mr Mikita said some ACT families, who had lost loved ones to unsolved homicides, were unable to maintain their fight for justice, as his family had done, and that was why he was calling for more police on their behalf.
The grandson has been erecting signs around Canberra featuring his grandmother’s face for years.
“We are trying to make sure that my grandmother’s murder, and also the violent bashing of my grandfather, are not forgotten by the ACT community,” he said.
“And we still do have at least one other person that we know of who needs to come forward and claim responsibility for what happened to my grandparents.”