-With AAP.
1. How one police officer’s memory caught Aiia Maasarwe’s alleged killer.
The arrest of Aiia Maasarwe’s alleged killer may have taken longer, if it weren’t for the good memory of a local police officer.
Murder suspect Codey Herrmann was arrested two days after the Palestinian student with Israeli citizenship’s death, which according to an exclusive article by The Age, was due to a police officer stationed at Heidelberg recognising a distinctive ‘1986’ cap and two-tone grey t-shirt dumped outside the shopping centre where Maasarwe’s body was found.
The local police officer remembered stopping Herrmann four days earlier while he was wearing the same clothing.
Herrmann was on bail for minor offences.
Under proposed legislation that stalled in Victoria’s upper house before the state’s November election, Herrmann’s DNA would have been taken during his previous arrest, speeding up the process of his arrest as it would have immediately matched DNA found at the crime scene.
A spokesman for the Victorian government told The Age the legislation would be reintroduced when Parliament returns in February.
The Victorian coroner is expected to release the body of international student Aiia Maasarwe on Monday.
Maasarwe’s body is expected to be given to a funeral director for repatriation.
Her father, Saeed Maasarwe, had asked for his daughter’s body to be released so he could lay her to rest.