A woman who apparently ate a zooper dooper while robbing a Launceston home and then dropped the wrapper bearing her DNA was found guilty in the Launceston Magistrates Court.
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Shannon Louise Brown, 33, was found guilty by Magistrate Simon Brown of two counts of aggravated burglary and four counts of stealing from two separate residences in late 2020.
In a hearing witness Lily McGlassan said that she and two housemates left their Lawrence Street house on December 24, 2020.
When they returned on December 26 the house had been ransacked and a number of items stolen including laptops, a watch, a money box, bags, gaming console and a bankcard worth a total of $2530.
She said a lounge room window was broken, the back door was swinging open and the front door closed.
The wrapper of a zooper dooper, a type of frozen icy pole, was found on the bathroom floor.
"Did you move the zooper dooper out of the fridge?" police prosecutor Andrew Gillard asked. "No," she said. "Was it on the ground when you left?" he continued. "No," she said. Cross-examined by defence counsel Patrick O Halloran, Ms McGlassan said she had checked the freezer the same day. "Did you count the zooper doopers?" he asked.
"We didn't count the zooper doopers, but there must have been less than there were," she replied.
Another witness Tyrone Gibson said that when he left on Christmas Day they were in the freezer.
"When I saw the door open I looked around and saw the wrapper on the bathroom floor," he said.
Mr O' Halloran asked whether there were zooper doopers in the freezer on December 24.
"Yes I realised it was getting hot so I bought some recently," he said. "Were they there on December 26?" he asked. "I don't know, to be honest I wasn't too concerned about the zooper doopers at the time," Mr Gibson said.
Constable Tracey Lincoln said she took a swab of the wrapper because it was not placed on the floor by the complainants. The wrapper returned a high grade match to Brown.
"It was 1 in a 100 billion more likely that it was the defendant than it would be somebody else," Mr Brown said in his decision.
Mr Brown said that the icy pole wrapper placed Brown in the house and that any alternative explanation for her DNA was nothing more than a mere possibility.
Brown was also found guilty of aggravated burglary and the stealing of jewellery worth $11,000. He added four months to her present two-year sentence.
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Nick Clark
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
