Gerard Ross: Police ‘actively investigating’ handful of ‘primary suspects’ in case of murdered schoolboy

Police are “actively investigating” a handful of “primary suspects” over the 1997 abduction and murder of Gerard Ross. And Special Crime division boss Det-Supt Rod Wilde is “confident” his team will catch the schoolboy’s killer. “We have a number of suspects that the team is working very hard on investigating,” he said. “We’re working on our primary suspects.” Last year, The West Australian revealed more than 1300 people had been put forward as having possible involvement in Gerard’s murder. During the most recent cold case review, the Special Crime Squad reinvestigated every person linked to the case, including those who were cleared, had alibis or had died. Unsolved homicide detectives have now narrowed their focus on a “low number” of primary suspects. “We may have already identified as a suspect the person responsible for Gerard’s murder but do not have that one piece of evidence to prosecute that person,” Supt Wilde said. “That could well be the case, but we are not closed to new information because it could be someone totally foreign who we haven’t identified yet. What we do is systematically investigate all of these persons.” The developments come with the State Government announcing a $1 million reward to anyone who can provide a breakthrough in the cold case. Police hope information received from the public will confirm their current lines of inquiry. “Certainly, we’ve still got many investigative leads that we’re working through,” Supt Wilde said. “We prioritise individuals based on what we know about the likely offender and we work through that checklist. We receive new information and we quantify it, verify it and continue to investigate it until we can implicate or eliminate the person identified.” During the filming of investigative documentary The Boy in the Blue Cap, about the Newman schoolboy’s baffling abduction and murder last year, Supt Wilde said Gerard’s killer was most likely a “psychopath”. The “opportunistic” offender also must have had access to a vehicle and a reason to be in Rockingham around 9.30am on Tuesday October 14, 1997. “It’s highly likely that the offender was alone, given what we know about people who commit these types of offences,” Supt Wilde said. “We’re still very confident about the type of person who we believe has committed this offence and we are really appealing to someone close to the perpetrator to come forward with new information.” Supt Wilde said there were a number of variables, including the offender profile, which determined which suspects come under intense scrutiny. “Fortunately, it hasn’t happened again to a child in similar circumstances, we know that,” he said. “I don’t want to surmise whether it’s happened to any other person but fortunately it hasn’t happened to a child like that. “So, we know that this was quite a unique crime.” The investigation of the 11-year-old’s case has become one of the biggest in WA, second only to the probe into the Claremont serial killings, and has generated more than 10,000 police job logs. Police Minister Michelle Roberts said extra resources had been allocated to Operation Footlight, the taskforce investigating the murder. The Special Crime Squad recently completed a review of the case and have launched a fresh investigation. “We’ve got a large team working on resolving this and getting justice for Gerard,” Supt Wilde said. “It’s taken a long time obviously but I’m confident following our processes that we’ll resolve this.”