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Warning: some readers may find the content in this article distressing.
In August 2017, 42-year-old mother of two, Donna Steele, was reported missing from her home in Cooktown, Far North Queensland. Donna hadn’t shown up to meet her young sons at the school bus, something she would always do.
Jason Steele, Donna’s older brother, told SBS Insight about the devastation at being told her body had been found.
“I was hoping that she’d be alive, but unfortunately, she wasn’t, it was the worst-case scenario, they’d found Donna’s body," he said.
Donna's body had been found in the waters at Leggett’s Crossing near Cooktown. Her death prompted a huge police investigation.
Detective Sergeant Scott McGrath, one of the investigating detectives, described the case as suspicious from the start.
“Her body had been wrapped in a doona, her hands were bound and her body weighed down with rocks to ensure that she sunk to the bottom of the river,” he said.
Mother-of-two, Donna Steele, was aged 42 when she was murdered. Source: Supplied
On the riverbank close by, some red twine was found, the same material that was used to bind Donna's wrists. The twine was used to extract a DNA profile, that of an unknown male. As the profile couldn’t be matched on the police database, it was established that the male was someone without a criminal history. A familial DNA search was then carried out with the aim of identifying a relative of the offender, to provide a means of establishing the offender’s identity.
“We went down a path of collecting DNA samples from the wider community in Cooktown. The intention was to firstly eliminate all the males of Cooktown from that DNA profile that we found on the riverbank but also putting together a database that could be added to the National database for the purposes of a familial comparison,” Detective Sergeant McGrath said.
“There was quite a bit of motivation on the part of the Cooktown community to have the crime solved, there was perception there was a killer in the community whose identity was unknown so by and large the majority of the Cooktown community were prepared to supply their DNA voluntarily.”
There are a lot of people who never get to have closure unfortunately, but we were thankful I suppose, that we did get some sort of closure.
Results showed that the unknown male profile was the son of a person who came forward to submit her DNA. From there police were able to identify the suspect, Matthew White.
“We executed a search warrant at the newborn baby screening unit in Brisbane, we seized what’s called a Guthrie card which records a baby’s blood sample, a physical sample of the baby’s blood at birth and [we] were able to extract from it a DNA sample," McGrath explained.
"We used that sample to then compare to the DNA which was located on the red twine on the riverbank and discovered it was a match.”
Authorities put surveillance on Matthew White and made an arrest soon after.
“He confessed to committing the crime within the first few minutes of us speaking with him,” McGrath said.
“He told us that his motive for the killing was financial. He had a mistaken belief that Donna was a person who had access to significant finances. He wanted to mount a legal battle with his ex-partner to gain access to his child. His intention was to rob and extort her of that money and then use the money to mount his legal battle."
Matthew White was sentenced to life behind bars.
“It was great to have closure, it most certainly was,” Jason Steele told Insight.
“There are a lot of people who never get to have closure unfortunately, but we were thankful I suppose, that we did get some sort of closure.
"With the DNA - the way I see it is this; once upon a time it could be you and a hundred others, but these days it’s you and you only.”
