NSW: Kirk murder mystery finally solved after 19 years
NEWCASTLE, Aug 6 AAP - A 19-year-old murder mystery was closed today when a NSW coronerfound teenager Stacey Lee Kirk was murdered by a man who has since died.
Coroner John Abernethy found 16-year-old Stacey was strangled and suffocated by IanRaymond Sargent at Maitland Showground, in the NSW Hunter Valley, on February 16, 1984.
Sargeant was killed in a car crash last year.
Mr Abernethy today said DNA obtained from blood taken from Sargent's body followinghis death was matched with seminal fluid found in Stacey's body.
"The prospects of the DNA belonging to a person other than Sargent are fewer than onein 10 billion," he said.
"Sargent is now dead and it is not my function to try him in absentia.
"I simply have to be satisfied as to manner and cause of death of Stacey Kirk, to thebalance of probabilities - and I am comfortably satisfied."
Stacey's body was found two days after the murder under a tarpaulin behind a toiletblock at the showground.
Her jeans were down around her knees, her top pulled up, and around her neck was apair of men's underpants. Her own were stuffed down her throat.
Various investigations were held over the years into her death, and this was the secondcoronial inquiry.
AAP dr/nf/was/jlw
KEYWORD: KIRK
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