Murder Of Margaret and Seana Tapp

On August 8, 1984, Jim Rollins came at home in Ferntree Gully, an area near Melbourne, Australia, to pick up his date for the opera. When no one replied to the door and Jim felt that all of the lights were out, he became worried and arrived at the home through an unlocked back entrance. 

He discovered his date, Margaret Tapp, folded into a bed. When Jim moved to wake her, he saw a strangulation dent around her neck and understood she wasn’t sleeping. Margaret had been murdered the night before. 

After calling the police and Margaret’s sister, Jim abruptly recalled that Margaret’s 9-year-old daughter, Seana, was thought to be home as well.

He arrived in her bedroom to discover the little girl also choked in her bed. She had been the sufferer of what detectives have called “a very awful sexual attack.” Both Margaret and Seana were neatly folded into bed by the murderer to look like they were sleeping. The murderer had utilized a string to strangle them and it was not discovered at the site.

Detectives discovered no proof of forced access or a battle, nor did they discover any unidentifiable fingerprints. Traces from a set of Dunlop Volley sneakers, a famous shoe at the time, were left on the floor of the residence and were never recognized. DNA was obtained from semen on Seana’s clothing, but a reasonable sample would not be pulled for many years. 

A neighbor revealed having listened to a softened moan at around 11 PM on the night of the 7th. Their dog had also shouted at something outside the residence at around midnight, possibly the murderer making his escape from the Tapp house. Between this observer statement and the truth that both victims were wearing nightdresses, the authority concluded that the killings had taken a spot either very late on the 7th or in the early hours of the 8th of August. 

Also, acquaintances had revealed detecting a red Ford utility car parked near the home not long before the killings. The holder of the car has never been recognized. 

Margaret had served as a nurse for several years and was also visiting law school part-time at the time of the killings, taking her into communication with several people. She also had a very healthy social life and was realized to have dated numerous, including men who were married. 

The house where the killings took place had been purchased for her by a doctor called John Bradtke she had a long-term affair. When Dr. Bradtke perished in a car accident a year before the killings, Margaret battled the doctor’s widow for the rights of the house and was finally granted half-ownership, after which she purchased the second half. Whether she began again to have an abusive connection with Mrs. Bradtke is unlikely. 

In 2008, a man named Russell John Gesah was accused of the killings founded on a DNA match. Two weeks later, the arrests were removed when it was found that the DNA sample had been violated in the lab. This disclosure brought to flash several problems with the procedure of DNA information and called into concern the authority of the action had made in last years to use DNA to rule out other suspects in the case. 

“I am now not convinced because DNA in the case was spoiled, that those recently discontinued on DNA information were correctly eliminated,” said Det-Sen-Sgt.

Suspects

In this case, the difficulty lacks suspects. With little physical proof to go on and the mere number of people, Margaret and Seana both came into connection with, the authority has had a hard time restricting the list of possible perpetrators. 

A furious wife: It’s often supposed that a spouse of one of the men Margaret dated might have gotten furious enough to commit the killings. Mrs. Bradtke is the most apparent option in this strategy. Still, this hypothesis doesn’t thee truths. Moreover, there is no proof to accuse anyone of arranging a murder-for-hire, the sexual attack of Seana points to a sexually motivated wolf. 

A rejected man or rejected lover: Ian Cook was a family friend who had lived with Margaret at the home once and had reportedly brought undesirable romantic/sexual boosts toward her. She later said that he had “come on strong” and she’d said to him she wasn’t enthusiastic. 

Margaret was also told to be taking driving lessons at the time, and her driving teacher was excited to her. When the police interviewed him, he told an untruth about having ever been in the Tapp house, where his fingerprints were discovered. 

Since Margaret dated many men and wasn’t committed at the time to any one of them, the indication of a jealous lover or ignored man committing the crimes has been one of the top hypotheses in the case. 

A troubled neighbor: Fears in the neighborhood shortly fell on a family that resided across the street from the Tapp home. The family was normally prevented in the town and considered as problematic. Margaret, still, had employed one of the teenaged sons to do some yard work for her, despite warnings from anxious acquaintances that the boy had a habit of making sexually indirect comments to older women.