16 The Two Intruders | A second sting and a cancer diagnosis

Added: 2026-05-23

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[00:00:36]>> [music] >> The arrest for a million-dollar conspiracy that led police to one intruder and a health crisis of the other that almost derailed the trial.

[00:00:55][music] These are the uncloaked details we can finally tell you about. I'm Steven Stockwell. Well, welcome to episode 16 of the case of the two intruders. Irma Palasics' brutal murder rocked her family and has haunted them for 24 long years.

[00:01:10]>> This wasn't the average robbery. The brutality of the attack shocked the community. They were virtually [music] tortured that night. Violently assaulted before the two men ransacked the premises and stole cash and jewelry. My [music] grandparents were beaten and my grandmother was left to die on the lounge room floor.

[00:01:31]It was always made clear in the trial how Joseph Ukoni was linked to Irma's death. They had his DNA that had been on a balaclava that was pulled off of him at an earlier robbery. But, how Steve Fabrizi was linked to the house and the invasion in 1999 was a secret that was kept throughout the trial. And with one suppression lifting, we can finally answer it. To unpack these details, we're joined by the ABC's court reporter in Canberra, Elizabeth Byrne. Welcome, Liz.

[00:01:59]Hi, Stocky. And we've also got ABC investigative reporter James Vyver in the studio as well. James, welcome back.

[00:02:06]Thanks, Stocky.

[00:02:08]First, Liz, DNA was such a strong focus of this trial. Police linked Steve Fabrizi's DNA to DNA from the 1999 robbery where Omer Placek was killed, and this was a turning point in a case that was, at the time, starting to get pretty cold. It is a kind of wild story of police work. Can you tell us how they managed to do this?

[00:02:29]Well, the problem for Steve Fabrizi was that he had committed another crime, and police in Victoria had his DNA. And when 2019 review looked into whether there was any record of the two lots of unknown DNA in the Placek's fridge, there was a hit on one of them, and that was Steve Fabrizi. It's an incredible breakthrough, and it was such a big gap in this story as we were telling it. We were getting emails to the case over at abc.net.au with people saying, "Hey, so we know how Jessica Corney's been tied to this, but Steve Fabrizi, he seems to be the person that's broken this open.

[00:03:09]You know, how did the police do that?"

[00:03:11]And we couldn't tell anyone about that.

[00:03:13]Why did we have to keep this a secret until now?

[00:03:16]Well, that's because [laughter] uh the way that the DNA was collected was because Steve Fabrizi had committed another crime.

[00:03:25]And if the jury had known that, it might be prejudicial information and might compromise his right to a fair trial.

[00:03:34]Now, this is fairly common. Um you normally wouldn't mention earlier offenses when someone's on trial for another offense, whatever that offense might be. And so, that's fairly run-of-the-mill, but the jury could never know about it, and some of them might be finding out about it now um because it was it was important to keep that information under wraps so there was a fair trial and that's why we weren't able to say. Yeah, and that suppression has now been lifted but James, this was such a huge moment, you know, the the linking of Stephen Abriss's DNA to Emma Place's home in in 1999. I mean, how big of a deal would it have been for investigators making that connection?

[00:04:21]Well, that it was described in the trial as a sharp turn in the investigation. It just to give people a timeline of this because this information that has now had the suppression lifted on it sort of slots into a piece of the timeline so I would say just very quickly, 1999 of course, this is the home invasion, the two intruders and Emma being killed and the the robbery and the secret compartment and all of that. It's then 2008 that Stephen Abriss commits another crime, is later convicted, goes to prison.

[00:05:02]In 2011 is when he gives his DNA as part of a statutory act that he was required to do which is a year after the 2010 review of the case so you've got this slight mismatch of the timeline and then it's then 2019 when when the the match of Stephen Abriss is flagged up as matching the or the 100 billion times more likely than being someone else matching the the sample that was taken from the the the milk container in the fridge back from 1999. So you kind of got this 20 year timeline of of things being on the timeline but not quite matching up for whatever reason and it wasn't until two decades later that it then started that subsequent chain of events that we've talked about on the pod, which is the undercover investigation, and then the naming of Akonui, and everything all sort of then fell into place to result in the conviction. Yeah. Yeah, it sort of fills that gap in the middle of this timeline that just has existed for the entire time we've been covering the case of the two intruders. It's such a significant moment, but the thing I've kind of wondered about with this, you know, Steve Fabrizi's arrested in 2008, you know, DNA goes in 2011. I just sort of imagined this as like a big flashing red light in some police headquarters somewhere that, you know, the DNA matches up, and ping, off goes a bulb somewhere. But, what's happened, Liz? Why is there's this Why is there this delay between the link being made?

[00:06:35]Well, we're not quite sure when Canberra's police asked anyone to look for a match. I mean, it might have been before Victoria actually had collected it. That's one thing. The more likely thing is that the police forces in the states and the Commonwealth took a while to It just as as DNA technology was advancing, they took a while to reach agreements about sharing information and that sort of thing. So, in the end, the DNA appeared on this national database, and you know, there hadn't been any testing for a while to see if there was a match, and there was this critical moment in 2019 when the police decided to review Irma's case again.

[00:07:27]And it was during that review when they looked for a match on the national database that it actually popped up. So, it could have been administrative, um, the delay, but it That information could have been available in 2015 if they'd reviewed it.

[00:07:44]But they didn't and so I I think it was most likely bureaucratic delays.

[00:07:51]The interesting thing is the evolution of the database cuz we talked about in in the previous episodes um of the pod about the very early database in the very early days of this DNA analysis being a few hundred people and most of them were either police or forensic officers because you can the database is only as good as the crimes that are fed into it.

[00:08:12]You know, doing a bit of research for this episode, the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database or the NCIDD now has something in the order of 1.8 million samples. Wow. So, it would be interesting to know in that 2019 scenario is it a question of you almost running a script of going does this person match anything else or is it stock your big red flashing light scenario where the database automatically finds matches? I I suspect it's the former not the latter, but it would be interesting to find out from police Yeah. at some point in the future how do you do you go about it? Is it like the movies where you type someone's name in or does does it all sort of work on it in the background or just flag things up? Yeah, I'm not usually in a position of giving advice to law enforcement agencies, but I think a big red flashing light might have really helped. You know, not just in this case, but maybe in others. So, we'll see where that goes.

[00:09:05]Now, we can't talk about previous criminal convictions during a trial. We obviously don't have that restriction now because you know, the trial's finished and this suppression has been lifted. And Liz, the details of what Steve Fabrici did in 2008 is actually kind of incredible.

[00:09:22]Well, it is quite a quite a tale. As Steve Fabrici at the time, and remember this is like less than 10 years after this incident in Canberra, he he'd not been pinged for that obviously, but at the time he'd been driving for a fairly well-known trucking company.

[00:09:41]That was his job. And they transported a lot of cigarettes, so high value.

[00:09:47]Anyway, he got caught up in a situation where someone else gave him a quantity of cigarettes, which he then supplied to someone who on-sold them and was paid some money for that.

[00:10:04]Subsequent to that, he set up a sting of his own to steal a million dollars in cigarettes from a shipment.

[00:10:14]And he made this arrangement with another driver and a third person, the person who'd in fact helped him with the first crime.

[00:10:23]Now, he was eventually charged with conspiracy. What he did was to arrange for his workmate to go and hijack the truck, knock out the driver, and he gave him knuckledusters and cable ties and snips to cut the wires of the GPS so the truck couldn't be found. And then then he received a call to say it had all happened, so he went and collected the the goods and transferred them to the person who was going to sell them and then got arrested. And then to his surprise, he found out his workmate had gone to the security people in their with their employer and was actually working for the police by then. And that third person was an undercover police officer.

[00:11:12]I couldn't believe this when I was reading through the the document yesterday, Liz, that you know, Steve Fabrizi had been stung by an undercover police officer prior to the investigation for for Irma's death. And yeah, we talked a lot through the trial about the Mr. Big sting that police built around Steve Fabrizi, this fake criminal network. They got him to admit being at the house in Canberra, and I actually felt a bit sorry for him at the time, which I know is outrageously naive of me, but I just felt that breach of trust, you know, being sort of drawn into that. I just felt I did feel a bit sorry for him, but the fact that this wasn't the first time really changes that, doesn't it, James?

[00:11:52]Well, yeah, the thing about it is that how the 2008 cigarette heist, failed cigarette heist influenced the construction and design of the subsequent undercover operation.

[00:12:05]Ultimately, we don't we don't know because we weren't in the room, and those details didn't come out in court, but it would be interesting to know how they designed the second undercover operation with the information drawn from the first. Because when you think about it there are a few similarities to do with, you know, driving trucks and his sort of life experience and how perhaps some of the tasks might have been incorporated into this fake crime syndicate and what they were asking him to do. You remember he picked up UCO Danny from the airport, well, not in a truck, we presume, in a car, but still driving. So, there's some sort of similarities there. But the the thing they must have had to have been really sure on and perhaps why the undercover operation ran for the best part of 2023 is you know, he his hackles may have been up.

[00:12:55]He may have been thinking, "Oh, is this another undercover operation?" You know, they must have had to have their backstories and their scenarios and every tiny little brushstroke of this undercover operation really designed and planned out ahead of time so that he didn't smell a rat, as it were, and disappear off into the ether, and the whole thing would fall over.

[00:13:16]Given that, they would have known he'd been stung by an undercover operation before. So, it's it's interesting to wonder and to pose how they would have considered the UCO 1.0 in UCO 2.0 and UCO Danny and the syndicate and all of those things, how one influenced the design of the other.

[00:13:35]I just can't believe he got caught twice by undercover police officers, that he didn't spot it.

[00:13:41]Yeah, it is really surprising. I mean, yes, some of the language that was used in the the undercover operation that you know, we we heard during the trial did sound a little bit police-y. So, I think you know, James you're talking [clears throat] about I think he must have been maybe aware of it and yeah, my sympathy for being caught up in the in the Mr. Big in the the investigation of Irma's death, again, while incredibly naive, is dramatically reduced knowing all of this. But Liz, you know, talking about this arrest in 2008, as you mentioned, this isn't long after Irma's death in in 1999, that that home invasion. You know, we're we're less than a decade at this point.

[00:14:14]Yes, it was surprising that it was really not It's not that long after the 1999 home invasion. The thing that struck me is the level of violence that he had intended to happen. The person that was supposed to do that, who had the knuckle dusters and and the cable ties, was he told him, "If you don't knock him out the first time, make sure you you know, you do knock him out the second time so he doesn't know what's going on during the hijacking and can't prevent anything." So, I just thought that was interesting that he had contemplated such a It was a terrible level of violence. And it was mentioned by the judges in the court of appeal when they increased his sentence. Initially, he was a sentenced to about 2 years and that was increased to four. Mhm.

[00:15:07]James, what do you think about the kind of the similarities between these acts or or the fact that Steve Fabrizi was, you know, kind of in this period of committing these offenses through that that window of the you know, late '90s to to late 2000s?

[00:15:21]The particulars of the crime are pretty different, obviously, but the consideration about the victims, or lack thereof, to me is similar. You are willing to assault and cause harm to someone else for the betterment of yourself. You know, so that's what we saw when it came to the 1999 burglary. There was what we have re reflected on as quite extreme violence when it comes to an old couple, an elderly couple in their 70s, just sat at home watching the telly. The level of violence that was involved there seemed disproportionate, and we've talked about that before, and they've obviously since been convicted of those crimes.

[00:16:08]>> [gasps] >> But in 2008, it's not a million miles away. You know, this guy's just driving a truck. Do you really need to hit him in the face with knuckle dusters, you know, the cable ties, and so on and so forth. And so, I suppose on a human level, that's the thing that strikes me is the similarities there of that willingness to use violence and to put yourself above the person who may be harmed in that process. James, you're an investigative reporter. It's your job to kind of reveal the things that you know and you learn to the public. Um we've known about this, you know, for the entire time we've been recording this podcast, making this series, covering the trial, um but we couldn't mention it because of the suppression. I mean, how have you felt keeping a secret like this?

[00:16:54]Uh fine. You know, >> [laughter] >> part of the course.

[00:16:57]Um pretty good at whilst you know as a sort of professional gossips, really. We are good at keeping the secrets that matter. There's another secret that we really need to talk about. This is one that threatened the trial on a number of occasions throughout it. This is the health of Joseph Acorn, the the other accused, the man guilty of the manslaughter of Emma in 1999 and of assaulting her during an attempted robbery in 1998. How sick was or I suppose is he, Liz?

[00:17:27]Well, Joseph Ukoni has liver cancer and he was undergoing quite tough treatment during the trial and that required him, I think it was one Wednesday every four weeks to go and have treatment.

[00:17:44]But on a number of occasions he was very unwell. Twice he was taken from the court by an ambulance to be checked out at hospital and for many days during this trial he was allowed to remain at the jail in a special room listening to the trial from there and the jury could see him on an audio-visual link but he wasn't there in person quite a lot. Yeah. How did he look, James?

[00:18:14]I've had people who have been in my family who've had cancer. Some have survived, some hasn't. They all have a particular gray that people might be familiar with this. There's a sort of a grayness to people sadly, you know, that are suffering from that disease and as soon as I saw the the way that he looked I I I recognized that. There were definitely times when he was unsteady on his feet coming into the dock. He's quite a tall man, you know, and he was being helped to his position in the court by the corrections officers.

[00:18:49]It was around about a week or so in in the early days of the trial where as Liz mentioned that he was went off to hospital a couple of times. I moved around the public gallery a bit just to sort of get different perspectives and watch different people and different interactions and so on. That day I happened to be sat right really close, really a couple of meters away from the dock and I could see that he was struggling and he was telling the interpreter that you know, he he was struggling to breathe. I can't breathe.

[00:19:14]I can't breathe, he was saying and then everything came to a screeching halt and and off he went. So, the extent to which it was the treatment, the disease that that he is suffering from, um, you know, the gravity of the situation, a combination of all to we obviously we don't really know that. Um, Justice Mossop was frustrated by the interruptions, not of Falcone's illness per se, but just at the interruptions to the flow of the case that he was trying to get up and running at that stage.

[00:19:42]Mhm. And And Liz, I mean, you've described the the ambulances, you know, coming to to pick up Joseph Falcone on a number of occasions and I mean, talking about Justice Mossop, there was there was one day that that really kind of frustrated him, wasn't there?

[00:19:54]Yes, this was because Joseph Falcone had come to court and then had become unwell. And so, before Justice Mossop even came on the bench, but without telling the judge, the prison officers took called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital before anyone could do anything.

[00:20:15]And, uh, Justice Mossop was quite cross about that because he hadn't been informed. Mhm. Uh, but there were numerous interruptions from this as Joseph Falcone's health was deteriorating. So, there was first of all, these two occasions in court, then we'd have to have a day off here and a day off there and this is what led to him being able to listen to the trial from the jail. Yeah, why was this hidden from the jury? Why was this suppressed?

[00:20:46]Well, the only reason I can sort of see is that, you know, there could be undue sympathy for him, although it must have been clear to jury members that there was something seriously wrong. Mhm. Uh, but it was not explained to them that he wasn't just unwell, that he was suffering from liver cancer. Yeah, and you know, as we've talked about, he was appearing via the audio-visual link, via the AVL, for for large parts of the trial, and you know, he he wasn't even in the room when the jury returned their verdict, was he?

[00:21:20]No, he wasn't in the room. He was actually at the Canberra Hospital after one of his treatments. In fact, the prosecutor asked for a delay in the verdict, but the judge said no, if if they've got a verdict, we need to hear it now. So, he actually heard it from the hospital. Mhm. Yeah. You know, it's such a big moment in a trial, you know, for him to not be in the room for that, for us not to be able to describe how he's responding or how he's reacting, and also not be able to explain why we're not doing that because of this suppression was a um was a really a challenging moment, and I did feel like we were leaving something out when we were doing that episode. These these suppressions have only just been lifted.

[00:22:01]They were lifted on Thursday this week, so so yesterday. How hard was it to have this information revealed, to to get these lifted by the court so we could talk about them?

[00:22:10]Well, it was really a question of time, I think. I tried very hard to get it lifted bef- you know, at the end of the trial, when the verdicts were delivered, I wrote to the judge and said, "Would you consider lifting the suppressions wh- when the jury's delivered its verdict?" And the judge didn't answer me until he got into court, when he said that there's been a request from the ABC. I wrote to him again and again, and then I received uh a note a few days ago saying uh this will be uh listed in court this week, and I went along thinking I might have to argue it, but I didn't. They'd had a by paperwork or emails, they'd all had a discussion, and there were some objections to things I wanted lifted, but the judge basically ruled that we could know just about everything that I'd asked for. So, I did think I was going to have to put on a wig and stand up and argue, but [laughter] I didn't this time round and he just ruled in our favor. So, here we are today. Yeah, and Liz, it's kind of incredible that you were the person kind of doing this push and you know, potentially having to stand up in court and I did some training uh actually recently with one of the ABC senior lawyers, Jasmine Sims, our legal queen who who does a lot of the the legal review for the case of and uh she was actually teaching us that look, as an ABC journo, you're entitled to stand up. You can you can fight these suppressions. We actually have a little script that we can have to to kind of push back against any suppression we don't think is appropriate and you're empowered and you often do stand up and and make these cases yourself, Liz.

[00:23:53]Yes, I do. In fact, this was probably my last suppression because I'm retiring soon, but uh I have had two big wins on the suppression front recently. Uh one of them I actually got our lawyers to argue. So, with that journalists have a place in the court. I usually foreshadow it with the judge, say to them, we would like uh this suppression lifted on whatever trial it is.

[00:24:21]And uh the judges are pretty good.

[00:24:24]They'll invite me to come forward and explain why the suppression should be lifted. I have my own script which I worked out many years ago with our own legal department where I would stand up and say explain that this was in the public interest to be known, uh that it was in the interest of open justice, that this person shouldn't be treated differently to others facing a similar charge, all sorts of things like that.

[00:24:52]Now everyone's had a listen here it, but um >> [laughter] >> I I do do this quite regularly and I did it in this case, but I didn't have to stand up. Uh the judge heard me and he just delivered his his reasons and lifted the suppressions for me. So, it was less effort than usual. That's very nice. The the scripture you're referring to there sounds very similar to the one that I was uh reviewing the other day with with Jasmine Simms. So, uh your your legacy will continue long after your retirement at the ABC uh with journalists in courtrooms across the country standing up and and pushing back against suppression orders that uh we don't believe are appropriate. Liz, we are still waiting on sentencing for Steve Fabricant and Joseph O'Connor.

[00:25:34]That's set down for for late August at this point. You know, with Joseph O'Connor being sick, does this health factor into his sentence? Will the judge consider that?

[00:25:44]Probably not. I have seen some hefty sentences imposed on people who were very unwell in in recent times.

[00:25:52]These were people who committed very serious crimes. So, uh it will be a case of the crime itself rather than uh any leniency from the perspective of Mr. O'Connor's health. Yeah, got it. Um we'll keep you up to date with that as it's handed down. As I say, sentencing is expected for this in in late August. Liz, thank you so much for for joining us and helping us break this down, for revealing this information for us. It's been lovely having you back on the pod.

[00:26:22]Well, thank you and it's been great being here and to to explain to people what this case is so interesting and so intricate and really it's it's worth knowing about and I think about Irma a lot and I have over the past 25 years and I am very glad to be able to explain what happened. We really appreciate having you as part of the pod. It's been yeah, a real uh treat having you break this down and take us into all the detail and yeah, the analysis you've offered throughout has been fantastic and James Vyver as well. It's been wonderful to have you as part of the podcast as well. It's nice to get you back to to say farewell properly before we wrap up the series and before sentencing. So, thank you for joining us.

[00:27:08]Yeah, thanks Stocky. I just a second what Liz said about Emma and the intricacy of the case. I haven't been thinking about it quite as long as Liz, but I've definitely been thinking about Emma and the family a lot. So, glad we could do this. Yeah, and I really appreciate you joining us as well. So, thank you both. We'll be back in your feed on Tuesday. The coroner link quest into the deaths of the police that Dizzy Freeman killed, Neil Thompson and Adam D'Vauz Hattat is starting next week and also the inquest into Dizzy Freeman will be on. So, we'll be covering that for you. Make sure you get around ABC listen. There's heaps of great Australian content on there and we may also have a little surprise in your feed on Monday as well. So, ABC listen is the best place for that. Grab that and I'll be back in your feed very soon.

[00:27:57]The case of the two intruders is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. It's reported by Elizabeth Byrne and James Vyver and presented by me, Steven Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Müller and our executive producer is [music] Claire Rawlinson. This episode was produced on the land of the Ngunnawal, Nyamudy and Wiradjuri people.

[00:28:15]>> [music]