The Only Witness

Updated

A death on a lonely road, a woman shot at her own home and the one man who connects them both.

Down the long, straight country road, lone cyclist Dr Martin Pearson flew on that perfectly clear autumn day. The early afternoon of April 25, 2014 was crisp and blue, the sun dappling through the trees on the border of the Bringalily State Forest on the Millmerran Inglewood road, south of Toowoomba. The shadows were starting to fall.

Martin chose back roads like this, the roads less travelled, because they were quiet, without much traffic; because they were safe.

On this afternoon Martin was feeling pleased with himself. In peak physical condition he was in the final stages of a nine-day endurance ride which covered 1,400 kilometres across New South Wales and Queensland. Now Martin was on his way home with only 300km to go.

His wife Sandy Vigar, a town planner, had been along as support, providing food and drinks at checkpoints along the way. In a park at Inglewood where he had stopped for high-energy pasta, salad and white bread, Martin was in "good spirits", Sandy says. He was joking and fired up by the rides.

Sandy packed up all the gear and headed to Dalby where they would stop for the night. She passed two of the five riders in the 2014 Gran Turismo series who waved to her.

As she reached the town of Millmerran, she got a call from one of the front riders who had been about an hour ahead of Martin. There had been an accident. Police had closed the road.

"It was pretty horrific," Inglewood Sergeant Matt Shaw says.

"I just remember there was stuff everywhere, sunglasses and drink bottles and bits and pieces all over the place.

"The bike was pretty much entangled in the fence. And just before that was Martin."

Whoever had hit and killed Martin Pearson had not stopped.

On such an isolated road, no-one had seen the accident.

It was "daunting", Sergeant Shaw says, for a remote, under-resourced three-officer police station to try to find the driver.

"I just had this feeling that whoever did this was thinking, 'Those country coppers are not going to solve this; they are not going to know where to look, I will get away with it'."

The driver of the vehicle that had fatally crossed Martin's path was the only witness.

A person, they would later find out, who had also been the only witness in another death six years previously, in very different circumstances.

'Martin was a safe rider'

Tall, and with the lean physique of the long-distance cyclist that made him seem far younger than his 61 years, Martin was known for compassion and gentleness. Sandy says her husband's death was "cataclysmic" for his family and friends.

He was a world-renowned veterinary anaesthetist who had worked in a practice in Tamworth and was now an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland. "He had a real passion for educating vets to being knowledgeable and caring about animals," Sandy says. "It was far more than just a job."

Sandy had loved his "quirky" sense of humour. "He was a very moral person."

The rescue animals that came home with Martin were part of the family ── orphaned lambs, greyhounds, rats from laboratories. Martin loved all animals, says Sandy, "large or small".

He once anaesthetised He-Man, the elephant at Taronga Zoo, for an operation on his cracked foot pads.

His fastidious nature at work extended to his cycling.

Martin had his bikes custom-made, and he was meticulous about safety. "I have never seen anybody with so many flashing lights … Martin had everything that there was that made it as safe as possible. Even his gloves were reflective."

Before his final ride, Martin and Sandy had even worked out the angles of the sun so the cyclists wouldn't be riding into a blinding glare and be hard to see.

Amidst his bike gear scattered for about 30-40 metres along the road was a distinctive 50-watt Lightforce spotlight that had been ripped off the vehicle, suspected to be a 4WD or truck, at the moment of impact.

In their public appeals, police said there would be a vehicle missing this spotlight.

Other drivers who had been on that road came forward, but not the person responsible.

But it was this spotlight that would lead police to the hit-and-run driver and then to a shocking incident in a shed in rural Queensland where a young mother had died six years earlier from shotgun wounds.

The driver was responsible for both deaths.

Counting on country cops

The only other critical clue in Martin's death had been a blue mark on the heel of one of his bike shoes.

His brother, John Pearson, walked the streets looking for large vehicles that were blue or missing a light.

CCTV footage at the service station in the rural town of Inglewood only gave police vision of the bottom part of passing vehicles. It seemed hopeless. But then they realised there were traffic counters 8 kilometres down the road from the accident.

It was a revelation for Sergeant Tim Hoffman.

"I have been in the job for 30 years and I never knew what traffic counters actually recorded. Lo and behold, we actually found out they give us a lot of information," Sergeant Hoffman says.

"They are satellite-timed and give speeds of vehicles, the number of axles on that vehicle and how far they [the axles] are apart."

Using Martin's GPS that was attached to his bike, police were able to match the exact time it went from 30 kilometres per hour to zero — the moment of impact.

From the traffic counter, they could then pinpoint the vehicle that struck Martin at that moment and its rare axle combination.

Sergeant Matt Shaw remembers the moment one night when he was reviewing the service station CCTV and saw a truck passing through Inglewood at the exact time to put it on a collision course with Martin.

He had found the truck.

"You could see the wheels and the axle combination."

It was an Argosy Freightliner and there were only three white ones in Queensland. Two of them belonged to Geoffrey Sleba, member of a wealthy and influential grain storage and transporting family.

A search of his shed found a matching Lightforce spotlight that had been removed from the truck. Police allege it was an attempt to disguise the fact that the other one was missing.

When Geoffrey was arrested, he was calm. "I don't know what you are talking about," he told police.

John was "shaky and teary" when he heard a suspect had been arrested over his brother's death. "I thought they have done the impossible."

Shotgun snake hunt a 'recipe for disaster'

But then there was another disturbing revelation. Geoffrey Sleba was already known to police in the area.

Six years earlier, almost to the day in 2008, he had shot and killed his wife at point-blank range in what he said was a tragic accident. He was never charged.

Geoffrey and his lawyers have declined to be interviewed by Australian Story.

Leanne Sleba met Geoffrey at a football match and was just 20 when she married him. Thirteen years later, a devoted mother with four young children, her days were taken up with kids' activities, tennis, football; looking after her family.

Absorbed into the large, close Sleba family and their successful business Sleba Farming, built up over generations, she hadn't made many friends in the community.

April 24, 2008, was, by all accounts, a chilly night, about 11-12 degrees Celsius, at Kingsthorpe, near Toowoomba, where they lived. The family lived in the shadow of a grain silo in a large four-bedroom farmhouse on a family property of nearly 2,000 acres.

Leanne is no longer alive to give her version of what happened that night.

Geoffrey's account to police after the shooting, and in a second interview six months later, is all we have.

He told police Leanne had arrived home with the children at 8:00pm and parked the car in the four-bay garage beside the family home.

Forty-five minutes later, Geoffrey arrived home and said he had seen what he thought was a deadly eastern brown snake "just casually going into the garage".

He and Leanne took a shovel from the ute, but unable to find it they shut the garage door and went inside for a dinner of sausages, steak and boiled potatoes. But he told police Leanne was still concerned about the snake. The children's job was to set the table for breakfast in the morning and they would go into the shed to retrieve milk from a second fridge.

Geoffrey loaded a 12-gauge shotgun on the way out of the house, putting an extra cartridge in the pocket of his shirt.

As they pulled out boxes and garage junk, keeping their eyes out for the snake, the safety switch of the gun was off, the hammer cocked, the barrel pointing to the floor, his finger on the trigger.

Gun safety experts at a subsequent coronial inquiry gave evidence that it was not only an excessive way to kill a snake but reckless handling of a firearm. Firearm expert Graham Lippert called it a "recipe for disaster".

In his account to police, Geoffrey says Leanne backed the Landcruiser out, but failing to find the snake, drove it back in, walking in front of Geoffrey as she left the shed. Geoffrey stated that at this moment a 150cm snake slithered across his foot. He jumped, then slipped, pulled the trigger and shot Leanne between the shoulder blades.

When the police arrived, Geoffrey was lying on top of Leanne crying, distraught. His father called his lawyer from the scene.

Just hours after the shooting, he said in a police interview that began at 1:53am, "It's simply come across me foot … [I] jumped, panicked and the gun's gone off … Leanne's gone".

Experts say Sleba's snake account 'unlikely'

Three years after the shooting, a coronial inquest began in Toowoomba, an inquest that Geoffrey's lawyers argued had been "improperly embarked upon".

After an investigation, police asked Coroner Tina Previtera to make findings around motive, murder, manslaughter and criminal negligence.

By then Geoffrey Sleba was too mentally unwell to give evidence, according to his psychiatrist Andrea Boris-Lavack. He was suffering an "acute psychotic disorder" which required hospitalisation.

He was, Dr Boris-Lavack said, "unlikely to withstand the stress of attending court, recall the events of his wife's death, think and act rationally or give coherent testimony". He was "reluctantly" excused by the coroner from giving evidence.

The coroner heard a range of evidence about the Slebas' relationship, snake behaviour, and the choice and handling of the firearm used. Four snake experts gave evidence. All agreed that it would be "extremely unlikely" that events occurred as stated.

The late Jeanette Covacevich, senior curator of vertebrates at the Queensland Museum, said that no expert would ever have seen an eastern brown snake active at that time of night, in temperatures that low. Asked if a snake could have been disturbed by a dog, she said: "That dog would be a dead dog".

But after Geoffrey Sleba's lawyers put a number of scenarios to the experts, they said they could not rule out 100 per cent that a snake might have found a heat source, like under a fridge, or under a car bonnet and been disturbed and moved.

Two gun experts testified at the inquest.

Reviewing their evidence for Australian Story, licensed arms safety instructor Steve Walsh gave his opinion that a 12-gauge gun was "far more powerful than you need to kill a snake, and totally unsuitable".

"You would never, ever want to use that type of gun firing at the ground because the risks are just too high in terms of pellets ricocheting on a concrete floor," he says. "It is just not the right tool for the job. And of course, you would never allow someone to walk in front of you."

In his police interview in the coroner's brief of evidence, Geoffrey had said he took the 12-gauge because he thought it would give him a greater chance of hitting the snake if it was either moving fast or he couldn't get close enough to it.

He stated he used a gun 12 to 20 times a year, mostly for snakes, and that he had no firearms training.

Leanne had left Geoffrey previously

The state of the marriage was also examined at the coronial inquiry. Leanne had left Geoffrey for a week the year before, taking the children with her.

Leanne's mother had told police in an interview that Leanne had written to Geoffrey to tell him she had, "had enough of his long hours, shortness with her and the children, and if he was going to continue that treatment, he should leave".

Geoffrey told police that his workaholism had been an issue and that Leanne was tired with being left at home with the kids while he was out working long hours. "It was always about not helping with the kids."

Leanne had wanted to go back to work and was looking for a job with flexible hours. A friend told the inquiry she wanted to be more independent, financially and otherwise from the Sleba family. Just before her death Leanne had opened her own bank account and transferred $20,000 into it.

Geoffrey told police it was a term deposit and he had known about it. The coroner found a "discrepancy" between Geoffrey's statement to police and the statements of two female friends "in relation to his knowledge of this money".

There was evidence at the inquest that Geoffrey had pursued another woman. He told police, "I wanted to talk to someone outside the family and she seemed a really nice person to talk to." He began calling her at work and sending text messages.

The woman had asked him to stop, and a male had answered her phone telling him to leave her alone.

"There was no relationship or anything. She had taken it the wrong way and I had made a mistake," Geoffrey told police.

Leanne had confronted him and accused him of having an affair.

The Sleba family gave a different account of the marriage. One by one they stated it was "happy" and "normal". Geoffrey's brother Mark described the relationship as "healthy". Geoffrey's cousin Geraldine described Geoffrey and Leanne as a "loving couple, devoted to their children".

Coroner Tina Previtera found no evidence of domestic violence in the relationship but noted discrepancies in Geoffrey's account. However, she concluded the evidence to prove criminal negligence "fell short", there was "no motive for murder" and made no referral to the Director of Public Prosecution. In the absence of testimony from Geoffrey Sleba, she delivered an open finding.

"I am unable to determine the cause of the sequence of events by which the firearm held by Geoffrey Sleba was discharged into Leanne Sleba's back and whether or not the events occurred by accident."

Former coroner's campaign for answers

John Hutton was a Queensland coroner for 10 years between 2008 and 2017, known for his rigorous pursuit of justice in numerous cases. He had nothing to do with the case of Leanne Sleba but watched from the sidelines with interest and growing concern.

He retired at age 70 and, with time on his hands, began to "stew". He's now speaking out, believing that the matter should have gone before a jury.

"This woman has been denied justice," he told Australian Story.

"If you kill someone, you have to justify your actions by saying it's either authorised, justified or excused by law. It goes before a jury, the whole case is ventilated."

Despite the open finding, John says he expected the police to continue their investigation and lay charges against Geoffrey.

"How could someone be shot in the back in any circumstances without charges arising?" asks John.

"Had he been prosecuted for the first matter, the killing of his wife, and had he been convicted, then he may very well not have been on the road at the time Dr Pearson was killed. That is the bitter irony."

The only witness who never saw a thing

At his trial for the death of Martin Pearson in February 2018, the different worlds of the cyclist and Geoffrey Sleba came together, entwined in an absolute tragedy on a road.

Geoffrey said he had no memory of hitting the cyclist. The defence presented evidence that Geoffrey had undiagnosed severe obstructive sleep apnoea at that time and could have fallen asleep without realising it. "He drove off because he didn't know it had happened," suggested Jeff Hunter QC for the defence.

Crown prosecutor Sam Bain countered that there "would have been a very big, audible bang".

Martin's widow, his brother John, and his adult children and cycling friends were in the court for the verdict.

For the first charge, dangerous driving causing death with callous disregard, he was found not guilty.

The jury was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew he had hit Martin.

On the second charge of dangerous driving causing death, it was guilty. "My mouth actually dropped open," says Sandy now.

Judge Leanne Clare said the evidence was very strong. "Before the trial, you must have known that you and your truck were involved," she said.

The judge continued to say that as a professional truck driver he should have realised he was in a potentially lethal weapon capable of "catastrophic destruction". She noted that although she had been told he was remorseful, she had seen no visible signs of distress or remorse during the proceedings.

When reviewing his personal history for mitigation, the judge referred to the death of Leanne.

She noted a psychiatric report "refers to a great deal of stress after the death of your first wife".

"Two years later, when the inquest was on foot, you believed you would be arrested for murder. Your condition was diagnosed as a serious mental illness, namely psychosis. It abated when the coroner did not commit you for trial. You went on to rebuild your life," the judge added.

Geoffrey was sentenced to a jail term of three years, which was suspended after 13 months.

Whatever happened in the two deaths, Geoffrey was responsible for both. And the grief he has left in his wake is immeasurable. Four children left motherless, Martin's devastated family, the ripples of the pain spread wider and wider.

"There are two tragedies," John Hutton says.

"Connected by one person and the truth needs to be known. It strikes at the very heart of justice."

Watch the two-part Australian Story, The Only Witness, on iview or YouTube.

Credits

Feature writer: Susan Chenery

Australian Story Producer: Kristine Taylor

Digital producer and graphics: Megan Mackander

Photography: Chris Gillette, Queensland Police Service, Sandy Vigar

Special thanks: Tim Leslie

Executive Producer: Caitlin Shea

Topics: police, human-interest, law-crime-and-justice, inglewood-4387

First posted