Coroner to probe 1978 Queensland outback murders in October

A date has been set for a coroner to probe the cold case deaths of three people who were gunned down in the Queensland outback. Photo / Supplied

A date has been set for a coroner to probe the cold case deaths of three people who were gunned down in the Queensland outback, with a court being told an “extensive” brief of evidence would only be ready one month before the hearing.

More than 40 years after Australian woman Karen Edwards, 23, her Kiwi boyfriend Timothy Thomson, 31, and their Kiwi friend Gordon Twaddle, 21, were found dead in the Gulf Country region of Queensland, Coroner David O’Connell is set to examine the mysterious circumstances surrounding how they died and the adequacy of the police investigation.

Edwards, Thomson and Twaddle were found in bush with gunshot wounds at Spear Creek, near Mt Isa, in October 1978.

The trio were on a motorcycle trip around Australia when they were killed.

Cold case investigators, with the assistance of Mount Isa Criminal Investigation Branch, began a review into the unsolved 40-year-old homicide investigation in 2018.

A year later, Bruce John Preston, a retired senior prison officer at NSW’s Goulburn Supermax jail, was arrested and charged with the group’s murders.

But in 2023, the Crown dropped all charges against him after determining it could no longer prosecute the case.

Preston has denied any involvement in the trio’s deaths and maintains his innocence.

A second pre-inquest conference into the murders began on Tuesday afternoon at the Brisbane Coroners Court, where dates were formally set for the renewed inquest to go ahead.

Amelia Hughes, counsel assisting the coroner, said the preparation of the brief of evidence was still under way because of ongoing investigations.

It was initially indicated the brief would be ready by July.

However, Hughes said it would now be ready by September 8 – a month before the nine-day inquest would start, on October 7.

The court was told one of the issues the coroner would need to consider was the adequacy of the police investigations into the deaths of Edwards, Thomson and Twaddle both at the time and during the renewed investigation in 2019.

A further date for oral submissions was set down for October 22.