NO JUSTICE FOR JAIDYN

25 YEARS ON, ONE OF THE NATION’S MOST BIZARRE AND DISTURBING MURDER CASES REMAINS SADLY UNSOLVED

- Michael Crooks

Years after she lost her little boy, one of the hardest days of the year for mother-of-five Bilynda Williams was Christmas Day. Waking up in her home in Sale, Victoria, Williams struggled to get out of bed amid the squeals of joy echoing through the house. All she could think of was her toddler, Jaidyn Leskie, who only lived to see one Christmas. “I come out and there’s all this excitement, and you just have to put on a brave face,” she said. “What I really want to do is drive down to Jaidyn’s grave, but it takes all the joy away for the kids.”

Those kids are grown up now, and Jaidyn’s horrifying death is but a distant memory for most Australians. But the pain of his loss lingers for his loved ones.

Twenty-five years ago, on June 15, 1997, in a sad and bizarre case that gripped Australia, Jaidyn was reported missing by Williams and her then-boyfriend, Greg Domaszewicz, who was babysitting the 13-month-old boy at his home in the township of Moe, Victoria. Six months later, Jaidyn’s broken body was recovered from a dam. He had a severe head fracture and a broken arm that someone had crudely bandaged using a piece of wood as a splint. Domaszewicz was charged with his murder, but at the culmination of a sensational trial, which showcased some of Moe’s colourful locals and a curious attack involving a severed pig’s head, he was acquitted. “It was a fascinating case, with so many different people involved,” author Robin Bowles, who wrote the 1999 book on the case, Justice Denied, tells WHO. “And of course, there was the mystery of what happened to the child.”