Detectives from WA’s Special Crime Squad and forensic officers have been searching a property in Badgingarra
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Detectives from WA’s Special Crime Squad and forensic officers have been searching a property in Badgingarra in an effort to locate the remains of Hayley Dodd.
Key points:
- The Wheatbelt property was once occupied by Francis Wark
- The 65-year-old was last week jailed over Hayley Dodd’s death
- He can not get parole unless he reveals the location of Hayley’s remains
The Wheatbelt property was once occupied by Francis Wark, who was recently found guilty of the manslaughter of the 17-year-old.
Last week he was sentenced to 18 years in jail for the offence.
It is understood police conducting the search are acting on new information.
Police searched the property in 1999, after Ms Dodd disappeared, and again in 2013.
Francis Wark was last week sentenced for the manslaughter of Hayley Dodd.(ABC News)
The property is near where Ms Dodd was last seen alive, walking along a road.
Police say there have been “no significant developments” and search activity will continue on Wednesday.
‘No body, no parole’
Wark, 65, was made eligible for parole after 16 years.
But with new “no body, no parole” laws — introduced in WA at the instigation of Ms Dodd’s mother — he faces the prospect of serving the entire sentence behind bars if he does not reveal the location of the teenager’s remains.
When Wark was sentenced, Ms Dodd’s mother Margaret pleaded with him to reveal the location of her daughter’s remains.
It is the second time Wark has been jailed over the disappearance of Ms Dodd.
In 2018, he was found guilty of her murder after a judge-alone trial, and sentenced to life with a 21-year minimum term.
Police have searched the Badgingarra property several times.(Supplied: WA Police)
But two years later, his conviction was quashed and a retrial was ordered after the WA Court of Appeal ruled the judge had made an error of law.
The retrial, before a Supreme Court jury, took place earlier this year and ended with Wark being found not guilty of Hayley’s murder, but guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
