How a Pair of Skate Shoes Helped Catch Daniel Morcombe’s Killer

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For eight years a pair of skate shoes belonging to schoolboy Daniel Morcombe lay buried on the banks of small pond on rural farmland outside Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The shoes were identical to those worn by thousands of other teenagers across the country. But this pair would tell a tragic story. Now that Brett Peter Cowan's murder trial is over, details about the investigation have emerged. And it turns out that the shoe company Globe helped to get the crucial evidence police needed to lock Cowan up.

Noel Forsyth, Vice President of the footwear brand, first became involved in the case only weeks after Morcombe’s disappearance. They supplied a pair of shoes for a dummy, which police placed at the site of Daniel’s disappearance, an attempt to jog the memory of passing motorists, as well as shoe-print patterns for police to use in the search. But Forsyth heard nothing more for years, and the police investigation went cold.

It wasn’t until 2011 when two criminals, Joe and Fitzy, were led by a third man, Brett Peter Cowan, down to the pond. It was a kind of Underbelly-style job interview, and Cowan was trying to convince the gangsters he was hardcore enough to work for the gang's boss on a drug deal that would earn him $100,000.

The interview was going well. His CV, after all, was impressive: robbery, rape, and multiple stints in jail. Plus, he'd murdered and gotten away with it, he boasted. The case was cold, as far as Cowan was concerned, but his new boss was afraid that if any evidence had been left behind it could come back to bite them. So Cowan took Joe and Fitzy to the scene of the crime, apparently to destroy any remaining evidence. Cowan pointed to where he left the body. Moments later, a team of police jumped out of the bushes and arrested him for the murder of Daniel Morcombe. The crime gang was an elaborate ruse, and Joe and Fitzy were undercover cops, who somehow contained the urge to deliver some on-the-spot justice, taking him to jail instead.

Now the police had a confession, and they had their man. But three days later, after an extensive search of the property by forensics police and local SES volunteers, no evidence had been found. They started to worry that maybe Cowan had made the whole story up, trying to impress his prospective employer. Such false confessions had happened before in the investigation, and they feared that without physical evidence, the case would never hold up in court.

Then, on the fourth day of searching, one of the shoes was found. Days later, they found the other one. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

The shoes were shown to Forsyth. “They were caked in mud, but they were very clearly our Mark "Occy" Occhilupo shoes.” To counter media reports that the police investigation was too slow, Forsyth said, “it did surprise me the amount of detail they went into, delving into computer records that we'd forgotten we had ourselves.” But the police told him they, “had to make sure every tiny detail was airtight, in case some other evidence was ruled inadmissible for any reason.” Forsyth found records to indicate the shoes had been purchased on the Sunshine Coast, at the same shop Daniel’s shoes had been bought.

Police then turned to a podiatrist who performed a biometric analysis of the shoes, comparing them to two other pairs Daniel had worn. The analysis showed matching wear patterns, indicating that the Globe shoes Cowan had led police to were Daniel's.

Police had the crucial physical evidence they needed to keep Cowan locked up. It took four more weeks to find any more evidence, but with the shoes, police knew not to give up on the search. Eventually they found Daniel’s body. Only 17 fragments of bone remained.

The jury convicted Cowan for murder, not falling for the most chilling defense ever which went something like, “I only rape little boys aged six or seven, not teenagers.”

In the end, Forsyth was disappointed not to be called to testify before the court, “I would have liked to see what kind of bastard is capable of doing something like that to an innocent kid.” Because of their persistence, and some clever ideas from the police, one of Australia's creepiest killers won't be harming any more kids.

Follow Reece on Twitter: @reeceajones2