Peter Dupas, 65, has been charged with the murder of 95 year old Kathleen Downes. The Office of Public Prosecutions issued an injunction against him, paving the way for a trial without the usual requirement of a committal hearing. Dupas, is charged with the 1997 murder of Kathleen Downes and will appear at the Supreme Court on March 14.

Dupas was questioned over the cold case in 2013. According to a report on Channel 9, Victorian Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said the case breakthrough had been a long time coming.”We’ve been trying to bring justice to the victim for some time,” he said. “There’s been some really good investigative work done.”

The crime took place at the Brunswick Lodge Aged Care Facility, on Loyola Avenue on December 31, 1997. Kathleen Downes’ body was discovered lying in a pool of blood in her room early in the morning. The 95 year old woman, remembered by family and friends as “a dear old lady with a wonderful nature, who was considered the matriarch of the nursing home,” had been stabbed three times in the neck and her throat was cut, presumably by an intruder. The investigation at the time found that, in more likelyhood, the murderer had entered the building through a wind-out window, apparently stepping on stacked up milk crates, after using bolt cutters to sever the chain section of the winding mechanism. No identifiable fingerprints nor murder weapon were found at the scene.

In December 2000, police announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Kathleen Downes’ killer.

According to several media reports, Police investigations revealed Dupas had telephoned the nursing home some time before the murder.