The Kill Jill Mar

Gillian (Jill) Mar (nee McKeon) was born on October 30, 1982 in the city of Droeda ( County Louth , Ireland ) ^[1] . She spent the first years of her life in the village of Termonfekin north of Droeda.

Mar moved to Australia at the age of 9 when her father, George McKeon, got a job in Perth . She spent several years in Perth, studied at Bull Creek Elementary School and Rossmoyne High School, and in 1996 returned with her family to Ireland ^[2] . In Ireland, she attended the Drode Grammar School and St. Oliver Community College, then received a bachelor 's degree in art from University College Dublin . After graduating, Mar worked for the Irish national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann .

Mar returned to Australia in 2009 after meeting a year earlier in Ireland and married Tom Mara. After arriving in Australia, she settled in Melbourne and began working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Mar kept in touch with her parents, who by then had again moved to Perth ^[3] . In September 2012, she went to Perth to visit her sick father.

Mar worked as an administrator on ABC and sometimes appeared on the air of 774 ABC Melbourne ^{[4] [5]} .

After working on September 21, 2012, Mar and her colleagues went from the ABC Radio studio to the Brunswick Green bar, which was located on Sydney Road, then they went to Bar Etiquette (along the same street). Jill left the bar at about 1:30 in the night and headed home, where her husband Tom ^{[6] [7]} was at that time.

On the way home, Mar called her brother, Michael Mackin, and talked with him about her father for a while. Meanwhile, the husband woke up in the apartment and, finding that his wife was not at home, began to look for her ^{[6] [7]} . Unable to reach her, he turned to the police.

The search for Mar has attracted widespread media and social media users. Over the next few days , Victoria State police retrieved and examined surveillance video recordings. In a video recorded in front of the facade of the Duchess Boutique wedding store at about 1:43 on the night of Mar’s disappearance, she was seen talking to a man in a blue hoodie . The latter was also photographed near the store four minutes earlier ^[8] . This was the last video Mar was still alive.

Thanks to recordings from surveillance cameras, the police came to Adrian Ernest Bailey, a 41-year-old resident of the Melbourne suburb of Coburg, a pastry chef by profession, who was first questioned and then arrested. Adrian Ernest Bailey (surname at birth Edwards) was born on July 14, 1971, in 1993 received the qualification of a pastry chef and had a permanent job. The first time he married at the age of 18 after his girlfriend became pregnant. Later, the couple had another child. However, his six-year marriage ended in divorce in 1995. In the same year he met another girl, in his second marriage he had two more children: a son and a daughter. Shortly after this marriage broke up, in July 2000, he changed his surname from Edwards to Bailey. Later he lived in a boarding house in the suburbs of Melbourne Wyndham Vale. Bailey visited the local gym, was fond of cinema and music ^[9] .

It turned out that it was Bailey who was the very man in the blue hoodie. During interrogation, he eventually admitted that he had strangled Mar in the alley with his own hands, and then buried the corpse ^[10] . Around 10:00 p.m. on September 28, five days after Mar disappeared, Bailey led the police to a place (Black Hill Road, Gisborne South), where her body was buried in a shallow grave. Mar was strangled ^[11] . Bailey was accused of rape and murder, he was detained pending trial. In addition, it turned out that he was under parole for a series of sexual crimes ^[12] . While in custody, he tried to commit suicide ^[13] .

At a preliminary hearing in January 2013, the case was scheduled for March 12 in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. According to media reports, at that time the accused intended to prove his innocence ^[14] . On April 5, 2013, Bailey pleaded guilty to rape and murder of Mar. On April 26, he refused to plead guilty to a number of other sexual crimes committed in Melbourne since 2000. On June 11, 2013, he appeared in court for a preliminary sentence hearing ^{[15] [16]} . Judge Jeffrey Nettle overturned the decision to hear the case in closed court so that the “rich history of sexual and other violence” by Bailey would be made public ^[17] . On June 19, 2013 Adrian Bailey was sentenced to life imprisonment with the right to parole no earlier than 35 years later ^[18] .

In September 2013, Bailey appealed the verdict through a local legal aid organization. The document stated that the minimum period was too long and that he did not receive “perverse pleasure” from the murder of Mar, as Judge Nettle pointed out. On September 26, 2013, the appeal was rejected in less than 10 minutes ^[19] after “hearing the arguments from the lawyers on both sides [within about an hour and a half] in the previous days” ^[20] .

By March 2015, in three separate investigations in 2014-2015, Bailey was convicted of three more rapes committed before the murder of Mar. The victims were two prostitutes and a Dutch tourist, they reported what happened when the rape and murder of Mar was widely publicized. Bailey was then convicted of sex crimes against 12 people ^[21] . Later, in May 2015, District Court judge Sue Pullen sentenced Bailey to another 18 years in prison ^[22] with the right to parole after 43 years ^[23] .

On June 25, 2015, Bailey filed an unsuccessful appeal against two of the three sentences and an increase in the term without parole. ^[24]

Social networks, including Twitter and Facebook , played a significant role in publicizing the case and helped the police investigation. After Mar went missing, her ABC colleagues tried to help with searches using Twitter. Also in the hope of finding her alive, a Facebook group “Help us find Jill Mar” was created. By September 27, five days after the disappearance of Mar, the group gained more than 100 thousand “likes” ^[25] .

After Bailey’s arrest, many Facebook pages on the case declared him guilty even before the results of the investigation and the trial were announced, because of which Victoria police demanded their removal, but not all obeyed this requirement. As a result of the social media reaction, Victoria’s Prime Minister, Ted Bellew , suggested that reform might be necessary to prevent jury discussions from social media ^{[26] [27]} .

September 30 in memory of Mar was organized 30 thousandth procession along Sydney Road ^[28] . The march was also intended to underscore the growing concern about violence against women, and discussions followed on the news sites ^[29] .

By the end of June 2013, Victoria’s laws governing parole were significantly tightened, a direct consequence of the killing of women who were released early, including Jill Mar. ^{[30] [31]} For example, if the conditions for early release are violated, this can lead to a penalty of imprisonment for up to three months and a fine of up to 4200 dollars . The police can now officially take action if a person violates the conditions of early release, and criminals convicted of crimes of violence against a person will automatically return to prison if the violation was serious. In June 2013, Victoria Prime Minister Denis Naptin commented on the situation:

In August 2013, former Supreme Court judge Jan Callinan recommended a further 23 changes to the state's conditional release system. In particular, he recommended the introduction of a permanent pardon commission to replace the temporarily appointed ones and oblige prisoners to prove that the risk of new violations on their part is low, before they are released on parole. It was also recommended that an electronic database be launched instead of a paper-based personal file procedure so that the police could be immediately notified in the event of the arrest of a parole ^[33] .

In March 2015, the DNA database system used by Victoria Police was criticized. In particular, it remained unclear why Bailey’s DNA obtained from the investigation into the sexual harassment of another woman in 2001 was not entered into the Victoria Police Base ^[34] .

In March 2015, a scandal erupted when a Catholic priest told the flock at St. Christopher Elementary School in Melbourne that if Mar were a more religious person, she “would be at home in bed and would not walk along Sydney Road at three in the morning” . Later, representatives of the Roman Catholic Church apologized for the words of the priest ^{[35] [36]} .

In April 2015, the state coroner planned to conduct an additional investigation into the death of Mar in connection with the murder committed by a recently pardoned criminal in similar circumstances, but his statement was not approved. However, these plans were not implemented, and Mar's relatives told the press that they would like to close this issue and do not support the new investigation ^[37] .

An engraved 50-kilogram granite slab with a plaque was originally installed on Black Hill Road in the Melbourne Gisborne South area, at the site of the discovery of Mar's body. The local council later decided to remove the memorial "with the permission of the family and taking into account the views of the Black Hill Road community." The Council stated that the locals were unhappy with the continued attention to their area and complained about the associated increased traffic volume. At the same time, other residents of the district expressed disappointment at these council actions ^[38] .

In September 2012, at the Joseur Lane in Melbourne, an unknown artist created a memorial inscription “Rest in Peace, Jill” in the style of street art . By early November of that year, the 20-meter fresco was almost completely painted over by other street artists. Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said:

Given the temporary nature of such work, Victoria Premier Ted Bellew said:

• The assassination of Rachel Barber

• Timeline of Jill Meagher's disappearance (Timeline )