‘We’re devastated’

The discovery of Jill Meagher’s body buried in a shallow grave beside a dirt road 50km from her Melbourne home finally ended the slim hope clung to by her family both here and in Australia that she might still be alive.

Overnight the 41-year-old man who led officers to that remote grave was due to appear in Melbourne Magistrate’s Court accused of dumping the 29-year-old Irish woman’s body after raping and murdering her last Saturday morning.

Police descended on Adrian Ernest Bayley’s home at 2.30pm Australian time yesterday. They believed they had sufficient evidence to be sure that he was the man captured on CCTV footage talking to the Drogheda native on a Melbourne city street just metres from her home in the last known sighting of her alive.