New police lead in wheelie bin murder
 
DETECTIVES are set to identify a person of interest in the murder of Katherine Schweitzer, whose body was found stuffed in a wheelie bin at her Sydney home on Boxing Day in 2006. An inquest is expected to start next month into the killing of Mrs Schweitzer, an 81-year-old Holocaust survivor dumped in a fire escape at her apartment block in Bellevue Hill.
Homicide police will reveal at least one “person of interest” in evidence presented before the State Coroner, although a motive for the widow’s murder still eludes investigators. ¬† ¬† ¬†
Detectives will not confirm if the person in their sights is a resident in Mrs Schweitzer’s apartment block, or a passerby who managed to gain entry to the secure complex. ¬† ¬† ¬†
Police are in the final stages of preparing a brief with the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions. A date for the inquest is yet to be announced, but the hearing is pencilled in for July. The Hungarian-born Mrs Schweitzer was found strangled on December 27. She was dressed in her nightie.      
Her body was in a plastic bin left outside the front door of her fifth-floor Bellevue Hill Road unit possibly because the killer was disturbed when trying to move her body. Officers from Strike Force Miriam concluded she had been murdered in her bed some time in the afternoon. Mrs Schweitzer, an accountant, moved to Australia with her husband Paul in the 1950s. He has died. 
Jewish charity groups had been made beneficiaries of her will because she had no family. Apart from interviewing 40 neighbours and asking them to give DNA and fingerprint samples, police also looked at the possibility her killer may have been seeking money and been unaware that while she was asset rich, she kept little cash.      
Mrs Schweitzer’s life centred around Bellevue Hill. She rarely left her neighbourhood except to do her banking, post letters and go shopping.¬†Police have speculated that her killer may have entered her unit after she left the door unlocked while waiting for her doctor to visit. ¬† ¬† ¬†
Mrs Schweitzer called her doctor at 2.15pm. Neighbours told police they called on her between 3pm and 4pm with no response. Police believe her killer strangled her then took the lift to the basement, where he found the wheelie bin. 
Report courtesy of The Sun-Herald/Fairfax Media  
 
Photo:¬†Katherine Schweitzer … murdered in 2006. ¬† ¬†Photo by: AJN file