Woman beaten and soaked in petrol, the case that still haunts veteran crime scene cop

News.com.au

4 hours ago

On an afternoon in November in 2005, 18-year-old Lauren Huxley was savaged by a random intruder who was inside her home in northern Sydney when she returned from TAFE.
She was beaten and soaked with petrol as her home burned.
Doctors gave Lauren a five per cent chance of survival. Her injuries were among the worst they had ever seen, so horrific that she was barely recognisable.
The sometimes forgotten police, the crime scene officers, had the mammoth responsibility of making sense of the horror, finding clues in the charred remains to who had committed such a heinous and random crime.
'We have over 60 homicides a year in my section but this one really sticks with me,' Inspector Charles Agius told news.com.au.
'This young woman had her life in front of her and then this random attack by this unknown person that significantly changed her life,' he said.
'Ultimately it was the forensic evidence that came out of that crime scene that identified the perpetrator, there was nothing else to put him on the radar.
'Once that evidence could ID him, that really kickstarted the investigation.'
Inspector Agius was part of the team who recovered samples of the wanted man's DNA off the lid of the fuel tin used to start the blaze and DNA evidence off the bed rail Ms Huxley's bedroom and off her light switch.
The samples matched up with a man who had landed himself in the police database for an offence previously committed.
Robert Farmer was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to 24.5 years in jail.
A jury took less than three hours to find him guilty of charges including attempted murder, but he maintained his innocence.
'It was a very significant job and a huge amount of effort went into that investigation and it's about those results that keep you going. The end result doesn't fix things, doesn't make that poor victim better, doesn't heal them but it is about certainly swiftly bringing people to justice for their crime and hopefully getting innocent people closure.'
Inspector Agius, who is operations manager at the NSW Police Crime Scene Branch, says his section sees over 60 homicides a year.
Another standout was the shocking triple murder in Sydney's west in February last year.
Taekwondo instructor Kwang Kyung Yoo admitted murdering Min Cho, 41, and a seven-year-old child at a North Parramatta taekwondo studio, as well as Ms Cho's husband, Steven Cho, 39, at a Baulkham Hills home.
But solving homicides is only a snippet of his work.
Described by first responders as a scene straight from a horror movie, Inspector Agius led the team in the morgue responsible for the painstaking and unenviable task of identifying the multiple, maimed victims after the Greta bus crash.
'That stage of the operation really focuses on managing and co-ordinating the medical professionals and police teams to collect identification evidence from the deceased so they can be compared to evidence collected from relatives desperate for news on their loved ones,' he said.
'While the gravity of that situation is very serious I really see our role as privileged enough to be able to give some peace to the family.
'I always try to stay focused on bringing that family some peace and respectfully dealing with remains. The scenes are confronting but we take consolation from the fact we might have assisted in the healing in some way.'
'At a scene like the bus crash we spare a thought for the first responders who have no idea what they are walking into. We at least at the mortuary can prepare ourselves for what's to come.'
Inspector Agius is receiving an Australian Police Medal for his services but he insists 'success does not come in isolation'.
'Each incident, each response is more than me, it's a lot of people who contribute to it. I like to share in success.'
Nevertheless his troops will agree he is the man you want on the difficult jobs.
In 2005 he deployed to Thailand to assist with the post mortem phase of victim identification after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami disaster and was instrumental in the recovery efforts after the Nias island helicopter crash in 2005.
He has also led and managed crime scene responses as part of Operation Ironside, a three-year AFP-led operation monitoring criminals' encrypted communications over a secret Encrypted Communications Platform and Operation Silves, which was an investigation with AFP about the 2017 Islamic State Sydney plane plot.
More recently he was involved in the Whalan explosion investigation, not to mention he manages the drug sampling unit's lab operations and field drug testing.
What he loves most about his job is the scope to think critically.
'As first responders we go and have to deal with things in an urgent manner. What this job has allowed me to do is focus more on the lead up to a crime, what happens, what does the evidence tell me. It's not just collecting and recording things, it's trying to reconstruct a scene based on the evidence,' he said.
'It's very rewarding when you see if you do your job well it can really shape and form an investigation and ultimately give some victims some resolution.'