Wayne Butler
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Wayne Edward Butler (born 1943) is an Australian man responsible for the 1983 rape and murder of British expatriate Celia Douty on Brampton Island, Australia. The case was the first murder case in Australian history to be solved through DNA analysis.
Biography edit
On 1 September 1983, Celia Douty travelled to Brampton Island for sightseeing. It is known that she went straight from the ferry to her room to drop off her things before heading to Dinghy Bell. Butler was following her at this time; he lost her, but had overheard that she was going to Dinghy Bay and asked for directions from a staff member.
The following day Douty was reported missing and a police investigation was launched. Her body was found in the brush behind Dinghy Bay covered with her towel, which had blood and semen on it. She had been beaten to death with a stone and her clothes and handbag were missing.
The investigation into Douty's murder focused on identifying a man overheard arguing with his wife on the ferry between Brampton Island and the mainland. The couple had been arguing over the fact that the man had been gone for several hours. Butler's brother called the Queensland Police and told them "I think I know that man who was having an argument with his wife on the Brampton Island ferry when that woman was murdered. He's my brother Wayne and he lives in Sydney". Butler was detained on suspicion of murder but was released without charge for lack of evidence.
In 1997 Butler's wife, Vija Samite Duffey, divorced him. She then went to police in Sydney and told them that her ex-husband had killed a women in Queensland and she had been unable to tell them while they were married. However she could not produce any evidence and it was not until 2001 that Butler was tried; a DNA test performed on the semen found on the towel had determined that it was Butler's semen. Butler was charged with murder and rape. His defence at trial was to argue that the DNA sample had become contaminated in the laboratory, but the prosecution demonstrated that this was not possible and he was convicted. Butler was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
On 31 July 2001 an appeal by Butler against his conviction was rejected. He appealed again in 2005 arguing that new forensic evidence showed the killer had been a different blood group to him and that samples of his blood had been allowed to mix with the killer's semen. The Queensland Court of Appeal unanimously rejected the appeal, declaring that the claims of contamination had no basis and that there was no doubt it was Butler's semen on the towel.