Coroner gives Victoria Police March deadline to provide brief of evidence on Maria James’s death

Mark and Adam James pore over a photo of one of their favourite memories, camping with their mum Maria, at Lake Fyans, near the Grampians. Mark laughs: She wasn’t a natural camper, she struggled with the gas BBQ. But they were such good days.

The brothers’ memories are as clear as ever, but they worry about those whose memories are fading: crucial witnesses who might be able to help them finally solve the 1980 murder of their mum.

Maria James was stabbed 68 times in the back of her second-hand bookshop, where she lived with her young sons, then aged 13 and 11 years old.

After a series of discoveries made by the ABC’s true-crime podcast Trace, a new coronial inquest was announced.

But that was two years ago, and still the James brothers and…