WARNING: This story contains the name and images of a deceased indigenous person.
Mark Haines’ brothers have spent every day of the last 37 years desperately missing their beloved older brother.
An investigation that once again examines the death of the 17 -year -old has given his brothers Lorna and Ron Haines very little comfort.
“After 37 years, they still do not feel that they have answers for what happened to Mark,” said the lawyer of the Karina Hawrey Justice project outside the NSW Coronant Court in Sydney on Friday.
Lorna Haines looked at the sky and began to cry when her lawyer described the depths of the family’s torment.
“They want to know the truth about what happened to him, how he ended on those tracks in Tamworth,” Hawtrey said.
Heavy rains fell before dawn on January 16, when a train team saw Mr. Haines lying in the middle of the tracks.
A bent blanket or towel was under his head, with cardboard boxes that surround him.
Police found a white torana stolen next to the railway line, which seemed to have crashed and shot.
An initial police investigation ruled that Mark was deliberately or in a state stunned after the car accident, something that his family has never believed.
A coroner transmitted an open finding after an investigation in 1988 and 1989.
Mark’s uncle, Don Craigie, has long followed rumors that several Tamworth locals had something to do with the death of his nephew or knew more about it.
The weeks of audiences have only stirred those theories, since many witnesses pointed to other people, they could not remember key details or denied any participation.
Craigie said the investigators failed to take the suspicions of the dirty play family and police racism hindered any progress in the case.
“That train would still be there if I were a white child,” Craigie told the investigation on Friday.
“They would have overturned that train engine.”
A high police officer, Chief Superintendent Alanne Donnelly, openly fired him when they talked at a Tamworth betting store, Craigie said.
“He told me ‘Don, you never know what a 17 -year -old boy would do, you never know what a 17 -year -old aboriginal child would,'” he said.
Matthew Varley, the lawyer who represents the NSW police, showed Craigie a series of newspaper articles in which the investigators requested more information in the years after Mark’s death.
Police also interviewed several people during the next decade, chasing the leads that Craigie gave them, according to documents before the investigation.
But Craigie said the police have discussed the deaths of non -indigenous people in a very different way.
“I’ve seen some deaths around Tamworth and they have taken out all the stops,” Craigie said.
“And then there were others who did not pay too much attention.
“We want to know how our son died.”
The investigation, which was inaugurated in April 2024, had to conclude, but new audiences have been scheduled before the forensic of the attached state Harriet Grahame.
The support is available by calling 13 andarn 13 92 76 or Lifeline 13 11 14.
