Murder charges

By Casey Neill
A MAN has been charged with a 24-year-old double murder in Ferntree Gully after DNA testing provided new evidence.
On Tuesday last week police charged 43-year-old Fulham Correctional Centre prisoner Russell Gesah with two counts of murder.
He appeared in the Sale Magistrates’ Court last week and was remanded in custody to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for a filing hearing yesterday (Monday 28 July).
The charges are in relation to the murder of 35-year-old Margaret Tapp and her nine-year-old daughter Seana who were found dead in their Kelvin Drive home on Wednesday 8 August 1984.
According to local newspaper reports from the week following the murders, an autopsy revealed the pair had been strangled with a thin piece of rope or cord on Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.
Seana had also been sexually assaulted.
A man arrived at the home shortly after 6pm to take Ms Tapp to the opera and found the house locked and curtains drawn.
He entered the home and discovered the bodies in their beds.
Both were wearing nightclothes and were covered by bedding.
There was no sign of forced entry, a struggle or theft.
Police appealed to the public for help in the investigation and made door to door inquiries in the area, hoping someone may have seen the killer leaving the home.
A nurse at Angliss Hospital, Ms Tapp was in the third year of a law course at Monash University when she was killed.
Knox Historical Society president Ray Peace revealed a personal connection to the case.
He and Ms Tapp were members of the Latrobe branch of the Australian Democrats and met briefly at a function in early 1984.
“We were as shocked as anyone else by what happened,” he said.
Homicide Squad Detective Senior Sergeant Jeff Maher said the murders had been a random attack.
He said Gesah was not a previous suspect and there was no evidence that he knew the victims.
“We had already eliminated all the known suspects in the case through a DNA sample but because this man was never a suspect he was never tested,” he said.
Police said re-testing of DNA found on Seana’s clothing was prompted by new information.
The DNA was compared to the tens of thousands of profiles in the national DNA database and matched that of the accused.