Daniel Morcombe murder: Brett Peter Cowan guilty of killing Queensland teen

Updated

Serial child sex offender Brett Peter Cowan has been found guilty of murdering Queensland teenager Daniel Morcombe.

After seven-and-a-half hours of deliberation, a Supreme Court jury in Brisbane found the 44-year-old guilty of murder, indecent treatment of a child and interfering with a corpse.

Cowan was emotionless when the verdicts were read out to a packed court room. In contrast, the Morcombe family, including Daniel's twin brother Bradley, burst into tears.

The killer was asked if he had anything to say in response. Cowan replied "No", and the court was adjourned.

In his victim impact statement to the court, Daniel's father Bruce said he remained haunted by thoughts of how long his son was held captive and what was done to him.

He told Cowan: "Ten years ago you made a choice that ripped our family apart. You have robbed (Daniel) of 70 years of life.

"I often wonder about the other victims you have left in your wake. Sitting in the same room as you revolts me."

Cowan stared straight ahead as Mr Morcombe spoke. The court room burst into applause as Mr Morcombe finished his statement.

A statement by Daniel's mother Denise was read to the court by prosecutor Michael Byrne.

"I made a vow to Daniel I would find out where he is and that justice is done," the statement said.

"This day doesn't bring closure, but the streets are safer."

Bradley Morcombe's statement recalled milestones that should have been shared with his twin.

"I am not the person I could've been. Daniel cannot join me for a beer or be my best man at my wedding," he said.

Cowan abducted Daniel while the 13-year-old waited for a bus at Woombye on the Sunshine Coast on December 7, 2003.

The jury accepted the Crown's case that Cowan drove the boy to a demountable building in a secluded bushland area about 25 kilometres away at Beerwah, before choking him to death and disposing of his remains at an old sandmining site.

Cowan confessed to the crime in a secret recording made by undercover police posing as criminal gang members.

The prosecution has asked that Cowan be given the harshest possible sentence.

"What Brett Cowan did is every parent's worst nightmare," Mr Byrne said. "But it goes further that that, it's everybody's worst nightmare."

Justice Roslyn Atkinson has reserved her decision on sentencing.

"There's nothing I can say that can assuage the pain and hurt," she said.

Outside court, Assistant Commissioner Mike Condon said he is happy with the verdict and thanked all police involved in the case.

"This has been a lengthy, complex and very protracted investigation," he said.

"I would like to thank the community for their assistance and the many, many people that rang in with pieces of information that eventually formed a jigsaw that was able to progress the investigation to where it is now.

"And I'd like to thank the Morcombe family for their patience, their ongoing belief in the investigators and our thoughts are with them right at this moment.

"I'm sure that they will be happy with the events today and the verdict, although their journey is not over."

Cowan's criminal history can be revealed

The true extent of Cowan's criminal history can now be revealed.

The second youngest of four brothers, Cowan had a relatively normal upbringing, despite being bullied at school.

At a 2011 coronial inquest into Daniel's disappearance, Cowan admitted he had been abusing children since he was a child of nine or 10 years old himself.

By the time he was 18, he had preyed on up to 30 children.

Many of them were targeted at a local swimming pool in fleeting encounters in order to avoid detection.

His first conviction for child sexual offences was for an attack on a seven-year-old boy in Queensland in 1987.

While performing community service at a playground, Cowan took the boy into the public toilets and molested him.

After two years on the run, he was arrested and sentenced in 1989 to two years in jail for indecent dealing.

Four years later, while living at a caravan park in Darwin, Cowan attacked again.

A six-year-old boy was looking for his sister, but when he approached Cowan, Cowan took him into bushland and molested him so violently the victim suffered a punctured lung from choking.

Cowan left the boy to die in an old car, before the child staggered into a service station naked, dazed and bleeding.

Cowan initially denied any involvement, at one stage telling detectives: "I hope you catch the bastard."

He confessed only after police told him they had found DNA evidence.

In September 1993, Cowan pleaded guilty to gross indecency, grievous bodily harm and deprivation of liberty, and was sentenced to seven years in jail.

When he was released on parole in 1998, Cowan moved to the Sunshine Coast to live with relatives and became involved in the Christian Outreach Church, through which he met his former wife.

The pair married in 1999, and by December 2003 they were living in Beerwah with their baby son, but Cowan had cut ties with the church and the marriage was strained.

On December 7, 2003, Cowan spotted Daniel Morcombe on the side of the Nambour Connection Road waiting for a bus.

Cowan once looked into the eyes of Daniel's parents and said: "I had nothing to do with Daniel's disappearance, nothing at all."

He told the lie while giving evidence at a coronial inquest into the teenager's disappearance in March 2011.

The guilty verdicts bring to an end the biggest police investigation in Queensland's history and Australia's biggest missing persons case.

Topics: courts-and-trials, murder-and-manslaughter, brisbane-4000, woombye-4559, maroochydore-4558

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