1 My name is David Slater. In 1992, my wife disappeared. For 19 years the police were convinced that I was her killer. Copyright Able 2017 The night was July the 12th. It was a Sunday night. We had been invited to a friend's for dinner. I got ready and went round there probably early evening, around 7 o'clock. It'd be fine! Well, you'd believe so. When we returned home, Cariad left the house. I drove around to a lake that was close by ` and I smoked back then ` I had a couple of cigarettes. (TENSE MUSIC) When I returned home, I saw that Cariad was coming out of our house and going to the neighbours'. She folded her arms and glanced at me with a rather stubborn look on her face. (TENSE MUSIC) That's the last time I saw her. (TENSE MUSIC) (TENSE MUSIC) As a police officer, I applied my skills, my skill set to the problem, and a lot of his action, um, was that of a guilty man. (TAPE REWINDS) We met in Scotland. Um, I actually met her through, um, a lonely hearts section in the newspaper. She was very artistic, and she was very proud of her art. She showed me some of the pictures she'd done. So very talented, artistic. Cariad was very sharp-witted. The only thing is she had a problem with alcohol. When Cariad drank, she would become a different person. She` She would, um, she would become single-minded and, you know, no amount of coercion or talk would`would dissuade her from drinking. She would often disappear for two or three days on end with no contact. It was a shock because I'd never experienced alcoholism before, and I didn't really understand what` what alcoholism was about. But I was prepared to handle that because of the other, um, parts of her personality that were good when she wasn't drinking. So I stuck with it. (SOLEMN MUSIC) I'm a chemical engineer by trade, and I had an opportunity to go to Australia. And I asked Cariad if she would come with me, and she said, 'Yeah, why not?' It was January 1990 when I arrived in Australia. We got married in April. The wedding was quite a small affair. We didn't know many people, so there was just myself and Cariad and`and a few close friends that we'd met over the two or three months that we'd been there. We were in Adelaide for around two years, and we loved Adelaide. Um, but I was headhunted for a position in Perth. It was a fairly senior role ` operations manager. Unfortunately, Cariad had some problems with the integration into Perth, because she'd made a few friends in Adelaide in the, um, in the AA. And I think she missed that. (SOMBRE MUSIC) I had been quite a... a keen rifle shooter. Cariad and I decided to go to the local rifle club. And I joined East Perth Rifle Club within about a week or so of arriving in Perth, and met quite a few people there. And we befriended one gentleman by the name of Mike, Mike Revell. We became` We became very close friends, actually. Oh, he was exceptionally good. Yeah, yeah. He was a`a natural shot, he had a very good eye, um, a good anticipation of the conditions, and his equipment was top rate, you know, yeah. Cariad came down to the range` I only met her a couple of times. The other times I met her at her home in Wembley. They seemed like a very nice couple. To be honest, they were` they were a normal couple. Another person we met was Ron Pennington. And we met Ron Pennington because Cariad, being an art lover, wanted to go to the, uh, the gallery. Ron Pennington was the attendant at the gallery and he worked there part-time. He invited us to his place for dinner, and we reciprocated and, you know, on a` on a number of occasions we met up with him. (LAUGHTER) Cariad was still missing her friends in Adelaide. She continued drinking, possibly even more so than she had been previously. It was starting to get rather tedious when she was drinking, and it didn't look like it was ever coming to an end. I was starting to get some feeling that perhaps we may eventually end up separating. She made comments that she may return to Scotland if we did separate. (SWALLOWS) On July the 12th, um, we had been invited to Ron Pennington's for dinner. Ron was, in fact, in a foul mood. He was drinking, and he was actually quite drunk when we arrived. Ron had very much the same issues as Cariad. He was` He was, in fact, an alcoholic. And I realised then it wasn't going to be a very pleasant evening. Just shut up! On top of that, I believe Cariad had started to drink, because her behaviour changed. She started arguing. CARIAD: What? I just wanted to get out of there. I took Cariad out to the car. We got in the car and drove back to Essex St in Wembley. When she returned, she was insisting on having drink. And I decided there and then, you know, I'm going to work the next morning, I want to get some sleep here, so I decided to get rid of all the alcohol in the house. And I found some whiskey that she'd been drinking and I found a full bottle of wine, and I tipped them both down the sink. (TENSE MUSIC) Just to sort of get my head together, I went` drove round to a lake that was close by to the house called Lake Monger. And I smoked back then, and I had a couple of cigarettes. I was probably away about half an hour. (TENSE MUSIC) When I drove back from the lake, I saw Cariad. Um, she folded her arms, we`we glanced at each other for a few moments, and she had a stubborn expression on her face. And I realised there's not much point in doing anything here, so I just let her go. And it looked to me like she was going to the neighbours. That was the last time I saw her. (TENSE MUSIC) In the morning, I didn't give it another thought, I just needed to get to work. And I got myself ready for work and`and left the house. Cariad normally would be away for two or three days when she was binge drinking. So I didn't really get concerned until, possibly, Tuesday night, maybe Wednesday. When I reported Cariad missing, the police were very cynical and very, um, abrasive. It was coming up for four days, and they thought it was rather unusual that I'd waited so long to report her missing. Some of David's behaviour was very weird. Going out to have the smoke was` was very unusual. Also, the next morning he got up, his wife, uh, Cariad, was not home, and he went to work as though nothing was wrong. But certainly the police would've seen it as, uh,... suspicious, I would venture to say. 1 Our statistics show us that in a vast majority of murder cases involving wives, the husband is the prime suspect and perpetrator of that crime. (TENSE MUSIC) The constable reportedly said that my actions were blase about her disappearance, cos it was coming up four days. As the days wore on, there was a`a concern, a real concern. Cariad didn't show up anywhere. Her bank account wasn't used and she had one. Her passport wasn't used. I think it was still in the house. So therefore, they came to interview David. I didn't really get concerned until Tuesday night, maybe Wednesday. I then tried to find out where Cariad was. I did approach the neighbour's house. He told me that she had left the house at around 6.30 on the Monday morning and gone to Ron Pennington's house. I called Ron Pennington and asked him if he'd seen Cariad, and Ron says, 'No.' So I went back to the neighbour's and I said to him, 'Ron said she didn't go there.' And the neighbour said, 'That's bullshit. She took a cab there.' (EERIE MUSIC) The cab driver stated that`that yes, he'd got the call to take her to the house, uh, in Woodlands. Um, she was dressed in a dressing gown, um, a nightdress and slippers ` exactly as she had left the house with David. The cab driver had watched as she got out of the cab and walked towards the front door. When she was on property, he felt his job was done and he drove away. And so I called Ron back, and Ron said to me, 'That's right. I didn't want to upset you. 'She called me, but I...' He said he didn't let her in. I moved into 67A Rosewood Ave in Woodlands on the 19th of July 1992. Uh, was the day that my first wife and I split. Ronald Pennington, um, was the person who had the lease on it, and, uh, he sublet two of the rooms. From Ron's side of things, what he says, that he, 'Half woke up, heard a hammering on the door, 'told her to F off and went back to sleep.' All kinds of possibilities came to my mind. I thought, 'Has Cariad gone off with someone else?' I got angry, and I thought, 'This marriage is a sham,' and I tore up some of our wedding pictures. He also changed his will, which was, again, a very strange behaviour. And I believe he` Now, I believe he took Cariad out and put his two sons as being the beneficiaries to his estate. And then towards the two- or three-week mark, for some reason, he decided he'd go and join up in a singles' club. My view at the time was ` and I suppose it still is ` is that for David to behave like that, uh, seemed, to me, bizarre. Um, your wife goes missing in`in unusual circumstances, to put mildly, and then, um, suddenly you're out with other women. And, um, (CHUCKLES) I find that hard to, uh, to take at the time. (TENSE MUSIC) Ron would, from time to time, make a comment about David. Ron had suggested that David might have stashed her down either at Jackadder Lake or`or Herdsman in the reeds there. And he'd point at the lake and said, 'I wonder if the F'ing cops have had a search in the lake 'or looked through the reeds,' and what have you. There were strong suspicions that it was a murder case, otherwise the resources they used would not have been channelled into that. We're now looking at Major Crime taking this over. A senior police officer approached me and he asked me, um,... how I felt about David being the prime suspect in a murder case, cos that's what it had grown into. I... (SIGHS) didn't really believe the police were going to come after me until the first interview, when they gave me a really hard time,... Come on, Davey! ...at the end of July 1992. It was only after his first real interrogation by the police that he came to me and said how worried he was. During the interview they told me that I was the suspect ` the prime suspect ` in Cariad's disappearance or murder. And that's quite` that was very scary. 1 At the end of July, the police came and got me out of bed about 5.30, 6 in the morning. It was quite a frightening experience. Banged on the door and they said, 'Get ready, you're coming with us.' And four detectives took me down to the police headquarters. The strategies they applied to him they would have applied to anybody. Did they, uh, interview him, uh, vigorously? Yes, they did. They focused on the guns. And I don't know where they were coming from with that because, um, there was just no way that you could fire a gun off in Perth without being heard. They had to be vigorous. It's no good going in very softly. That wouldn't have worked with David. They made all sorts of crazy accusations like, 'You're a scientist, 'you're a chemist,' you know, 'you could put a body in acid and dissolve it in a drum.' And I thought, 'Man.' You know? I worked in an office. They were trying to rattle him. You did it because you were jealous, Davey. I understand that. Do yourself a favour, David. They didn't see anybody else as a suspect. And the words of one of the detectives was, when I said, 'You need to be out there looking,' you know, 'there's someone out there who's killed her.' And he said to me, he says, um, 'There are no Hannibal Lecters out there. You're the killer.' Time to face up to it, mate. We can all get on... I actually posed the question to him ` had he done it. And he answered me that, no, he hadn't. And I believed him. Tell me the truth. It was important that I believed David myself, but it was also important David understood that if there was anything untoward, I would report it back. You have to understand David has some strange ways ` the changing of the will, the joining a singles' club so soon. But then lots of people have strange ways. At one point I offered my hands up like that and said, 'Just stop this. Take me away. 'I haven't done anything, but I can't tell you anything.' And that's what it came to. I just` It basically mentally broke me. Bullshit. I do know David was upset, because he came to me. He said, 'I am upset with the way I'm being treated.' I tried to explain to him, 'David, this is a very serious game that's being played. 'You have got to expect,' you know, 'this sort of treatment.' Um, 'This is just the way the game is played. And through no fault of your own, 'you're in this game, you know? Right up to your neck.' Mike always said to me, um, 'Location will give clues.' He says, 'The main thing in detective work,' he says, 'if they find her,' he said, 'the location will exonerate you.' And I found that a little bit hard to swallow because if they had found her out in the bush or somewhere they could have easily just come back and pinned it on me. I could see paranoia creeping in. And it stayed with him for quite a while. Luckily I was there, that he could talk. Um, you know? It might've been a very different story if I hadn't have been. Mike was like a brother to me. He was just a real soul mate and he was, um` had it not been for Mike, I don't know how` I would've cracked up. I would even say that I lost friends and family, because I know for sure that Cariad's remaining family were, um, brainwashed by the Perth Major Crime Squad into believing that I was her killer. And even my own family, I believe they may have had some underlying suspicion that it could've been me. My career never really took off after that because I was very depressed. Um, I just couldn't really focus properly on my work. People didn't want to deal with me, because a lot of people just read what they read in the newspapers and saw on the TV. I ultimately took a retrograde position in Brisbane, just so I could get away from Perth. I hated Perth and everything about it because of what had happened. I just felt very... I suspected that Perth could never be a home for me because` because I couldn't feel at home in a place where people were pointing the finger at me all the time. The lead detective called me up in Brisbane on an anniversary of, um, of Cariad's disappearance and asked me if I had anything to tell him. And I told him, 'Of course not. 'I never knew anything and I still don't know anything.' And he said to me` he said, 'David, if I was wrong about you, would you ever forgive me?' And I just replied to him, 'John, if I did to you what you did to me, would you forgive me?' And then I hung up on him. (TENSE MUSIC) It's pretty depressing when you know you're innocent and yet there are people believe` believe otherwise and you can't do anything about it. I had a new job. And that company ` one of my first jobs was to go to Perth to go offshore. When I arrived in Perth, my heart was not in it at all. I just thought, 'Here I am, back again. Never thought I'd come back to this place.' I met David 2001 in Novotel Hotel. I was working there in the night shift in the Gustavia restaurant. I had a glass of red wine with my dinner and` and then, um, I saw Cora and she` I just took to her straight away. Before the end of the night when he was gonna settle his bills and then, um, we just start talking. And we kept on talking. (CHUCKLES SOFTLY) After he left, you know, and I call my cousin. (LAUGHS) And I told my cousin Janet, I said, 'Oh, um, I met this guy. His name is David, and I think he's a lovely guy,' you know? And I said, 'I never give my phone number to anybody and I give it to him.' (LAUGHS) I told Cora about what had happened to Cariad, um, pretty well immediately once we` once we started communicating with one another. He told me the story about his past. He said, 'Sit down', and he told me about Cariad. He had, um` His second wife was murdered. And I said, 'Oh. Murdered.' I was nervous, um, when I was getting ready to tell her. But there was something between us that I`I believed that she would understand. And I said, 'I don't see you as a murderer.' I said, 'I don't see you at all as a murderer.' Because I have` within me I have a very good judgement with the people and characters. I knew when I was talking with her that she was believing me, because just the way she looked at me. 'Well,' I said, 'But that's your past.' I said, 'We have a new beginning.' I said, 'We're starting a new relationship.' And I said, 'That's your past, and I'm here if you need me.' David has a sadness in his eyes, always, you know, thinking, 'Oh, somebody's pointing finger.' He said, 'You don't understand. You know, I'm the number one suspect, Cora. 'How can you say? You're not in my shoes.' I said, 'I may not be in your shoes, but I feel your pain.' (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) Cora and I came to New Zealand for a visit to, um, for a holiday, and we just fell for the place. And I was 57. And we just did it. We just took the plunge and came here. The idea was for us to sort of retired in here. We just sort of settling down our peaceful life, and then when they found Cariad, then everything turned (LAUGHS RUEFULLY) chilly again. (TENSE MUSIC) In February 2011, I was an investigative reporter for the West Australian newspaper. I remember that, um, a body was discovered at a property in Woodlands. The house on the property was being demolished to make way for a new development, uh, and, uh, the bulldozers were going through and obviously turning the soil, and I believe a passer-by pointed out that, uh, they could see that there was a skeleton that had been turned up by the` the bulldozers. Obviously, the police knew pretty well straight away that the body was that of Cariad Anderson-Slater, who` who'd gone missing some 19 years earlier. 1 DAVID: The information about Cariad being found was a shock. When I discovered where they'd found her, it was 67 Rosewood Avenue, where` the former dwelling of, uh, Ron Pennington. I was shocked. But I was also relieved ` the fact that they'd found her in his yard, and I thought, 'Well, it's Pennington. It's definitely him. Can't be anybody else.' He said, 'After all these years I always thought he was my friend.' The next day, uh, the` the police from WA turned up ` the detectives, and they said, 'You're going to have to come down to the station with us.' So we got ready. And of course everything is sort of` Inside us, it was going crazy, you know? We arrived in Havelock, and they took me into the police station there and they read me my rights. And Cora just started` she broke down, because she really felt` and of course I had a feeling they're` they're going to arrest me. Do you understand the rights as I've read them to you? Make no mistake, the, um, the four hours I was in Havelock police station was pretty scary because Cora had been made to go outside; she couldn't stay with me, of course; and, um, I didn't know what was gonna` how it was gonna end up. SEAN: There wasn't much to be found at the scene because the property had been turned over by the bulldozers, uh, and there was nothing else of any real significance around the body to indicate who the killer might've been. She'd last been seen heading towards that Woodlands property, uh, that she'd been dropped off there by a taxi driver, uh, so we had the taxi driver's name, we had her husband's name, and Ron Pennington's, so they were probably the three key characters that we started to chase at that time. I found, uh, Ron in Tasmania. And I picked up the phone and I called him. When I called him, he had no idea there'd been a body discovered. He, um, yeah, he took it all right at the start, but, yeah, I think the enormity of it grew as the phone call went. He became quite distressed, I think would be the way to describe it. Um, he would` he would stop what he was doing and say something like, 'Oh God. This is a hell of a blow.' There came a point where he decided he didn't really want to talk about what he thought had happened unless I got on a plane and went to Tasmania. I arrived at Hobart around 7 or 8 o'clock the next morning, local time, uh, and went straight out to Ron's place. I knocked on the door and nothing happened. And I thought it's a hell of a long way to fly and a lot of money to spend for me to come here and not get any story. And I think I knocked three or four times before finally` There was a window on my left, and I saw the curtain sort of flick open and a man's face staring at me, and then the curtain closed. And, um, eventually he opened the door. I've got nothing to hide because I didn't... I didn't kill that lady. He did. And I'll tell you why. But right now, I'm gonna have one of these, because I'm starting to get the shakes. I could see that he had a, um` some bruising around his face and some heavy cuts around his ear. I asked what had happened and he said he'd fallen over, cos he'd drunk a bottle of scotch after hearing the news yesterday. The entire interview, in relation to Cariad and David, was about how David was the killer. What I think is that when she left that neighbour's place, he followed her. And I know one thing ` Yeah? She didn't come into the house that night, or that morning. Definitely did not. Yeah. Probably wouldn't have been able to open the bloody door, anyway. (SIGHS) Ron would, um, would take to a bit of drinking, and he would always go up to the snib on the front door. He'd say, 'She didn't come in that F'ing door.' And he'd tap it, and this would go on for about five, 10 minutes. And then once he'd, I think, convinced himself, then he would come back and continue with his drinking. But, uh` And this would happen on a regular basis. There's an old saying, I think ` 'Methinks he doth protest too much.' That was my view. He also showed me his diary. The diary tells us that, um, on the` the Sunday night that Cariad called, um, and that the next day Ron Pennington didn't go to work, um, that he was too ill to work at the gallery. And then they go on to tell us that Cariad's missing or that David's reported to Ron that Cariad's gone missing. Um, and he expresses, um, no real surprise at that. So, the body being buried in the yard of the place you lived in... that's` that's, uh, Slater trying to sort of point the finger at you? He's` He's` He's set me up. It was a calculated thing. And` And why? Why me? He is convinced that David Slater's the murderer, and that he has, um, not buried her in the back yard that night, but come back at some later stage and come in through the back gate and buried the body in the yard. And his rationale for that is that the police dug over his back yard and did a thorough search, and that if the body had been there at the time they would have found it, so it must have been placed there at a later stage. I struggled to believe that, and so at some point during that interview... I can't say that I became convinced it was Ron Pennington, but if I was to have to put money on one or the other, I think at that stage it would've been Pennington that I would have put my money on. When I was speaking with the two detectives in Havelock, I said, 'Off the record, do you really think that I would be so stupid as to try and a) kill my wife, and b) bury her body in someone else's yard, with probably a 99% chance that you're gonna get caught doing that in a busy suburb? And they just said, 'That's what we figured.' And that` that felt good. They took, um, DNA samples and another statement. Halfway through the statement, one of the detectives came in and he basically was smiling and he said, 'We've got Pennington. We've arrested him. 'They're extraditing him as we speak, from Tasmania.' Pennington made several comments that he'd been set up and he knew who'd done it, but he would` he would tell the right people who'd done it. And at that point I, um, I didn't even know he was talking about me, that he was actually trying to frame me. It was about a year after they found Cariad's remains when they asked me to go to the first trial. The DPP is the Department of Public Prosecution. And they asked me to go to the office on the Sunday before the start of the trial. The prosecutor, he said something which was pretty scary. He said, 'Basically, there'll be two people on trial in that courtroom tomorrow.' He said, 'There'll be you and there'll be Ron Pennington.' And I thought, 'Wow. They're still at it.' So, who wants Nova's great-value energy? Heaps of people. I knocked at Dr Knox and Jock the Lock's. Doc ` check. Jock ` check. Checked the Chuck's Charcoal Chicken? Uh, checked Chuck's Charcoal Chicken Tuesday. Chook ` check. BOTH: Choice. Hey, did you ring at Kings'? Uh, yep. Kings; Keatings; Kipling's Couplings; Werring's Herrings. Rang at Huang's? I rang Huang and the gang. Met Fang. (GROWLS, YAPS) Dang. Let's nip to Nick's Taranaki Knick-Knacks next. (KNOCKS) Knock-knock, Nick. No Nick? Ah! 'Back in a tick.' It's Greg Grover from Nova. CHUCKLES: Oh, don't start that all over. 1 The discovery of Cariad's remains was` To me, I felt elated. I was` We were celebrating, Cora and I. And we thought that was going to be the end of it, there'll be a quick trial. But it wasn't to be. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God? Yes. The first trial, I believe, was in March 2012. I'd never been on the stand before like that and made to swear in and swear, you know, my testimony. The defence is out there purely and simply to try and get their client off. And the worst part is they asked the same question over and over and over again. And no matter how many times you answer it, they'll still try and twist it round to get another answer out of you. Like, they try to break you down to make you trip up. It was made a lot worse by the fact that two days earlier we'd heard that Cora's mother was terminally ill. So Cora had to go to the Philippines. She couldn't come to Perth with me, and nor could I go to the Philippines with her. I said, 'I'm so sorry that I couldn't be there for you.' You know, he was calling me at home after the court. I could see and I could feel what's going on inside him. It's basically... It's a nightmare scenario. It's... I think the mental stress of being in that situation is probably worse than any physical pain I've ever felt. ...the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Yes. Ron Pennington's only defence was the theory that I had somehow followed my wife, Cariad, got her when she got out of the taxi, killed her, and then buried her in his yard to set him up. This was all supposed to have happened within a period of about an hour and a half, because I was at work at 8 o'clock that morning. She did not come into my house. I never saw her. The verdict was, um, guilty of manslaughter, and Pennington was sentenced for eight and a half years. After the trial, the judge lifted the suppression order that was placed on the` on the trial. The suppression order was related to an offence that Pennington had committed back in the '70s where he stabbed a` a Victorian woman, I think it was in Melbourne. It was reported that he stabbed her something like 17 times. Pennington served six months in jail for that attack. So, again the jury would not have heard that evidence, because, uh, juries don't get to hear about previous convictions. However, the police would've known about it. And it may have cemented in their mind the likelihood that Pennington was at least capable of such an attack. It was a relief, um, but it was very short-lived, because soon after, they told me that Pennington was appealing. The judge had made an error in direction. Because he admitted that technicality, he got a retrial. I was` I was gutted at the idea of a second trial. The first trial was enough for me. I actually wanted to get out of the country and get away from them. I wouldn't` I was refusing to go through it. He wanted to run away. He wanted to go some other country. He even wanted to change his name, because he doesn't want to be recognised any more. He doesn't want to be David Slater any more. I said, 'No. You're not going to do that. We're going to face this.' My mental health suffered to the point that I had to go and seek help from a psychotherapist. She diagnosed me with PTSD. In fact, she actually wrote a letter to the, um, DPP to excuse me from the trial. So, I was torn between wanting to help them, not caring because I'd had enough of it, and thinking, 'Well, if I don't help them, Pennington's going to walk.' So I agreed to help them, but I agreed ` I compromised ` I agreed to do it by video link. (TENSE MUSIC) The video link was a disaster. They had problems with the sound, the video itself, the delay. It was` It just turned out to be a nightmare, and it didn't really work. Sorry, I can't hear you. What`? (STATIC HISSES) 'And that's how they got a hung jury on the` on the second trial.' It was very, very hard for us. It's like we failed. I thought, 'That's it. He's` He's walking.' Every time it's like they keep knocking him down. They just keep punching him, you know? And he has to get up again. I was there to say, 'Keep getting up.' Then I received a call from the DPP, um, a gentleman by the name of Justin Walley, who was determined to` to, um, sentence Pennington. He begged me to do a third trial. And he said, 'Well, this will definitely be the last one, believe me.' Third trial was going really well. Then one of the jurors during the third trial had done some internet searching, and discovered about Pennington's past and the suppression order. He actually blabbed in front of the jury in their rooms, and the judge had to dismiss the jury. So Pennington walked again. I started to really resent the legal system. I` I really felt if I had the opportunity I would take the law into my own hands. (TENSE MUSIC) That's how I felt. That's the truth. I wanted to kill Pennington for what he'd done to me and for Cariad. Every time he planned to do something with our lives, start a new business, it always get on hold. We were just` 'We give up. That's it. We're not doing any more of this.' But then a couple of weeks after the` the result, Justin called me again and he says, 'I know I told you there wouldn't be any more trials.' He said, 'But we've gotta get this guy. 'He's going round blabbing about how innocent he is and how justice has been served.' Saying, 'Oh, Slater's the killer.' And, um, 'Told you it wasn't me.' When I heard that, I said to Justin, I said, 'I'll do it. I'll do the fourth trial.' Well, I've gotta face a` a trial for the fourth time that I've pleaded not guilty to on three occasions, and I'm not guilty. The last trial was in, um, 2015. They really went to town with the jurors, because the judge in the fourth trial decided, 'We're not gonna take any chances. 'If we get any bad jurors, we'll dismiss them. So they put 15 jurors.' I was watching the jury and I see the reaction, and a lot of them are agreeing with David. They can see David is telling the truth. He's got nothing to hide. It was a circumstantial case, but quite a strong circumstantial case. You know, last time seen walking towards Pennington's place. Um, he, uh` he takes the day off the next day. The body's discovered in the back yard of his house. It's really difficult to escape the` the, um` the, uh, likelihood, the conclusion, really, that he was the killer. The verdict of the fourth trial was just stunning. It was a unanimous guilty verdict. It's` It's a huge, huge relief. I mean, I've always known and Cora's always known that I'm innocent. And... just to have it said and, you know, reported is just like` it's almost like a dream. Those years in Perth where I was a suspect, it never goes away. It's always at the back of your mind. 19 years before finding Cariad and another four years on top of that, that's 23 years of hell. Cariad is now... She's, um, become a distant memory. Um, but a lot of the... the grief was taken out of me by the way I was treated. I think that when you're broken down like that by interrogation, the rest of it doesn't matter. It's the harm it does to your mind, and you can't really feel emotion. I feel terrible for Cariad, the things that she went through there. I was thinking of her. How... How could this man do this to her? You know? I said, 'You guys got the wrong people. You meet the wrong person at the wrong time.' Cora was just a great support. She was` She was my leaning post and, um, I guess, um, without her I might have just cracked up completely. I have to make sure he knows where I am. And when I'm a little bit late from work, he worries. He panics. He get a panic attack. It's just embedded in him since Cariad. And it still is. It's never gonna go away. MIKE: David's life was going to change the day that Cariad went missing. Has it been a shocking experience? I'm sure it has. And I'm sure it's affected him in ways he didn't realise. And this is one of those experiences that he went through, he lived through it, um, he made the best of it, and hopefully now he's got all the answers he needs and he can put it to rest. I can only say that, um, looking back, I... I was blessed after what happened to me by Cora coming into my life. She's made me whole again. New start, new beginning. Court is over. Have to` Have to get on. Have to forget the past. Maybe take a holiday, see my family. Because David hasn't seen where I come from. It's a beautiful place, and I just waiting for the moment that, you know, I could take him there. It becomes Cora's time. (LAUGHS) And I will join with Cora. We will enjoy ourselves now. We hope. We will. My name is David Slater. I am innocent.