Young Blood

by Bob O'Brien

  A disgusting video that we did find was titled Fist Fuckers of America, which graphically showed men inserting their whole hands into the anuses of other men. The film showed what some people will do and just what some people are into. Also, it showed just how much the muscles of the anus would stretch. A man who regularly experienced anal sex could have an enlarged anus but we had a different situation here and the experts were still talking about a bottle being used on the local victims, although we couldn’t discount other possibilities.

  The search for the elusive caravan, the EJ Holden sedan, the investigation and trial of Dr Millhouse, as well as the search for snuff and S & M movies were all potentially important leads that consumed a lot of time and effort. They were just some of the leads that were investigated that did not provide any more clues to help solve the murders. They led nowhere, but one benefit from carrying out these enquiries would be to help negate defence efforts to confuse a jury if we were successful. We could provide answers to defence suggestions that the boys may have been used in snuff movies in any trial. I have been describing some of the efforts of the detectives but there was just as much effort put into the examination of the boys’ bodies. The efforts of the forensic scientists were just as time consuming.

  Crime scene examiner Ivan Sarvas, had lifted Richard Kelvin’s body onto a stretcher with the pathologist, Ross James, and placed him in the coroner’s van. At the mortuary, Des Phillips supervised the removal of his clothing and placed it into paper bags, rather than plastic, so it could breathe and not go mouldy. He marked the clothes with the name ‘R. KELVIN’ and put the date and name of the items on the bag. Des took the bags for examination but he had to dry the body fluids from the clothes before he could properly examine those. The clothes were placed in a drying cabinet which has a stainless steel base. The exhaust fan at the top of the cabinet draws air over the clothes and they dry naturally. Both officers recorded on their own files the time when the items changed hands. Ivan and Des were meticulous with their work, which later received strong praise from the Crown prosecutor.

  Des was looking for paint, hair and fibres on the clothing that did not come from Richard’s home environment. He was looking for ‘trace evidence’. The words are derived from Lochard, a scientist, who stated that every contact between two objects leaves a trace of that contact. Trace of that contact can be shown by the evidence left behind.

  Other crime scene examiners did the same for the clothing of Alan Barnes and Mark Langley. They did the examination of the clothing by vacuuming it inside and out when it was dry. They used tape lifts to remove foreign objects from the clothes. Clear adhesive tape is placed on the garments and then lifted off. Obviously, a lot of tape is used to cover all of the clothing. It has to be done for each different piece of clothing and for different sections of it. ‘Tape lifts’ and the vacuuming are done both outside and inside the clothing. But first the tape has to be visually examined to make sure that no foreign objects are adhering to it — if that was the case, then the evidence would be contaminated.

  If hair was found on some clothing then the location at which the hair was found on the clothing becomes important. If head hair was found on the shoulders of a shirt, then, naturally, the first thing to check would be the hair of the person who was wearing the shirt. Most likely it would have come from the person wearing the shirt. If the hair was on underpants, then a comparison of pubic hair would be made first to determine whether or not it came from that location. Naturally, if the hair did not belong to the person wearing the clothing we then asked: ‘Where did it come from? Whose hair was it?’

  Trace evidence was found on the right palm of Alan Barnes. It was a paint chip but it was similar to the yellow paint from the railing of the bridge over the reservoir. Also, on his clothes, he had red, blue, yellow and white spray paint. There was vegetation on his clothes, which consisted of minute traces of a common weed, a type of bracken, moss, thistle weed and a rare gum nut. This type of nut was only found in the Adelaide Hills north of the River Torrens and does not grow 1.5 kilometres north of Williamstown. Probably, it came from the nearby area. Silt was in Barnes’ clothing. However, as mica was not present in the silt, the Warren, South Para, Millbrook Reservoirs in the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Reservoir were discounted. We worked on the possibility that he had been washed and cleaned in a dam or catchment area in the Adelaide Hills where the vegetation was found. We wondered whether or not the caravan that might have kept Richard Kelvin captive was near that dam or catchment area. We didn’t check around the location where Mark Langley was found as it was south of the River Torrens but we checked various locations around the airstrip and the Kersbrook/Williamstown area. We were trying to find a place where Alan Barnes could have been held and subsequently washed.

  Des Carroll, a tall police officer who now works in the Forensic Science Centre, came with us. He was young and educated. He had gone to university to study botany to help with the identification of cannabis plants, which were becoming more and more prevalent during those years. Now, his training in botany was being used to investigate murders. One possible location where Alan Barnes could have been cleaned was a small roadside park about four kilometres south of Williamstown on the road between Kersbrook and Williamstown. The roadside park looked like it had been created when the new bitumen road had been straightened, allowing the bend to become a roadside park. All the relevant plants were present, including specimens of the rare gum tree. Water was held in low-lying sections of the roadside area, washed from the road and drained from the slopes of the adjacent paddocks. Alan Barnes or his clothes or both could have been washed in the pool of water before he was thrown from the bridge. Why would that have happened? Why would the murderers have wanted to wash the boys?

  The bodily fluids from the decomposition of Mark Langley caused problems in obtaining much trace material from his clothes but small quantities of various metals were found on the clothing. As he worked as a plumber, they were explained away. No clothes were found on Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff. Crime scene examiners Ivan Sarvas and John Parkes sifted the area around where Peter was found but if his clothes were dumped with him then the fire destroyed any sign of them.

  Des Phillips’ tape lifts from the clothes of Richard Kelvin produced a great deal of trace material. There were many fibres foreign to the clothes and he painstakingly recorded their locations before separating them. The foreign fibres were separated into different colours. He separated blue, turquoise, purple, orange, yellow, black, brown, red and green fibres before handing them to Sandra Mattner, forensic scientist, from the Chemistry Section for analysis. Hairs, not belonging to Richard, were recovered and handed to Dr Harry Harding of the Forensic Biology Laboratory.

  These materials had to be examined and those analyses are often slow, painstaking tasks. But as the months passed we learned the importance of the fibres and hairs. Examinations of Richard’s organs also produced clues, and it was these that could be used much sooner.

  Things happen at post-mortem examinations which I have not explained previously. Obviously, the body is examined to note and record the physical injuries but there is an examination of the brain and internal organs as well. Examination and tests conducted on different parts of the body help determine the cause of death, which proves whether a killing is deliberate or accidental — obviously, an essential thing to prove in a murder case.

  To examine the brain, a scalpel is used to cut across the top of the head and the scalp is pulled to the front and the back, exposing the top of the skull, which is cut using a Hall oscillating saw. The circular blade oscillates rather than rotates. Oscillations of the blade cut bone but do not damage soft tissue. If anyone has had a cast on a broken bone, a saw is used to cut plaster from the limb. The saw does not cut the skin and, in a post-mortem, the saw allows the top of the head to be lifted, exposing the brain and fluid around the brain without it being damaged. The brain is removed and sliced by the pathologist to check for ob
vious damage. Bruising to the brain and brain stem indicate a knock to the head.

  Samples from the body’s organs, blood and urine are taken for examination for any sign of drugs in the system, while there is also checking for damage to ligatures and bruising to the skin and tissues surrounding the throat as well as checks for evidence of strangulation.

  The skin over the chest is cut down the line of the breastbone, exposing the ribs, which are cut in line with each side of the body with implements that look like large secateurs to allow access to the organs of the body. Samples from the organs and blood from the abdominal cavity are taken for examination and testing to determine whether or not drugs were in the body and whether or not death may have been caused naturally. Although people may be horribly injured, sometimes death may have been caused by a heart attack or stroke. If this is the case, then proving murder is complicated as the prosecutor then has to show that the heart attack was directly a result of the injury that the assailant caused — a very difficult task.

  The post-mortem examination of Alan Barnes revealed that he had most likely been killed on the Friday, a relatively short time prior to his dumping on the Saturday. The absence of decay of his body also indicated this to the pathologist. He had been eating and drinking just before he was killed — about two to three hours — as something similar to a fried egg was in his stomach. Also, he had been drinking, as his blood alcohol level was high at 0.19% compared with the driving limit of 0.05%. As well as alcohol, tests revealed that he had trichloroethanol in his blood, liver and stomach. Trichloroethanol is produced when chloral hydrate metabolises in the body. Chloral hydrate is the active ingredient of Noctec. Noctec is a drug in capsule form. It is a sedative and hypnotic drug used since the 1970s for treating sufferers of insomnia. The drug allays anxiety and induces sleep but the taking of the drug can become habit forming. Alcohol increases its potency. That made things interesting. Here we were with Alan Barnes full of booze with a knock-out drug in him.

  We believed he was experimenting with drugs but was the food given to him to hide the fact he was being given drugs or did he take them voluntarily? Either scenario was a possibility, I speculated.

  With the other bodies, we were also left with little to go on but speculation. The internal organs of Neil Muir were missing but the brain was still present in the skull. Without the stomach and organs, the police were unable to test for the presence of drugs. We wondered whether or not the stomach was taken out to remove the presence of any drugs or food in the stomach that might have given us a lead. But that was pure speculation. The cutting up of Neil Muir, which could only be described as a complete mutilation, was still a mystery.

  The same situation applied to Peter Stogneff. No examination of the organs and brain was possible with Peter Stogneff because only his skeleton was found.

  Mark Langley had a stitched incision in his abdomen. The thread used to stitch the wound and the Johnson & Johnson tape provided some evidence to go on. John Woite, the other sergeant on Glen Lawrie’s team, spoke to the media after checking with different companies about which one made it. When he found that it was Johnson & Johnson tape, he showed a container of the tape to the media and asked for publicity on it, trying to stir somebody’s memory or conscience — requesting information from members of the public. Obviously, publicity about the tape also allows murderers to get rid of their supplies of their tape but we were desperate for leads and we had to take a chance.

  Food was also in the stomach of Mark Langley. It was corn but because he was killed fairly soon after he disappeared and because corn was a favourite food of his, we felt that the food came from the party that he went to on the Saturday night or was already present in his stomach.

  Richard Kelvin also had undigested food in his stomach, but it was hard for the scientists to determine the type. Chris Pearman, another police botanist, believed that he might have eaten an apple before he was killed. He also thought there were starches in his stomach and later tests showed those starches most likely came from cornflakes.

  At the same time tests were being conducted by the chemists of the Forensic Science Centre. The initial tests were conducted on the Monday and Tuesday after Richard was found. On Wednesday, 27 July 1983, three days after Richard was found, we were called to the Forensic Science Centre. Bob Lokan, chief chemist, spoke with us.

  ‘We’re getting indications of drugs in Richard Kelvin.’

  ‘What sort?’ Trevor asked.

  ‘We’re still doing tests but it looks like Richard Kelvin was given chloral hydrate, just like Alan Barnes.’

  ‘Can you check with his parents to see if he was taking any drugs?’

  The remains of the drug Noctec was found in his system — exactly the same as Alan Barnes. More similarities were found and all of these similarities indicated that the same people could be involved. The chemists weren’t wasting any time. They knew that these cases were generating an enormous amount of interest and concern.

  Trevor and I drove to Rob and Betteanne’s home. They had taken time off work after Richard was found. Trevor wanted to tell them about the finding of the drug and to check about Richard’s drug use. We didn’t believe that he was a drug user but we needed to let his parents know what was happening and also to check whether or not he was taking Noctec and ask about his use of alcohol.

  Betteanne confirmed our beliefs. He wasn’t taking Noctec or any other drugs but he had tried alcohol, although not to excess to their knowledge — nothing unusual there. He had tried beer but didn’t really like it; he may have had a social sip of wine.

  The same afternoon we returned to the Forensic Science Centre. One of the chemists, Domenic Vozzo, of the Toxicology Section, was working on a hunch. In October 1982, a young boy had reported to the Port Adelaide police that he had been picked up by a person in a car and taken to a house somewhere in the Port Adelaide area. At the house, he thought that he had been drugged, because he passed out there. Port Adelaide detectives interviewed the boy and arranged for a doctor to take blood from him so it could be analysed. Initial tests proved negative. Domenic used his initiative and decided to test for other drugs. Methaqualone and dyphenhydramine were found in the boy’s blood. Methaqualone and dyphenhydramine were the active ingredients of the drug known as Mandrax, which was a common drug in the 1970s.

  Mandrax was used as a substitute for barbiturates, but the drug also was abused. Because of the effects of the methaqualone component of the drug, it was regulated in January 1978 by the Narcotic and Psychotropic Drugs Act. Placing the drug under the Act increased control over it: chemist shops had to record the level of their stocks every three months, and the Central Board of Health had to approve the prescribing of Mandrax to a patient if it continued longer than two months. This regulation was included to try and reduce addiction to the drug. By 1983 stocks of Mandrax in Australia were reducing and the drug was prescribed less and less.

  The chemists working on Richard Kelvin remembered the excellent investigatory work by Domenic Vozzo nine months before. They tested for Mandrax and found it present in samples taken from both Richard Kelvin and Mark Langley. Also, with more testing, traces of other drugs were found in the blood of Richard Kelvin.

  Richard Kelvin had been given a huge mickey finn. There were four different drugs. The drugs that were used on Richard were Mandrax, Noctec, and a diazepam such as Valium, and ‘Amytal’. Amytal was the common name for Amytalobarbitone, which is a long-acting barbiturate used as a sedative and an hypnotic.

  Later, we would learn that a fifth drug may have been present in Richard Kelvin’s system but the traces were too small to be sure. He may have been given a dose of Rohypnol at some time during his captivity. Rohypnol was a common benzodiazophine of the day. The drug was called ‘rollies’. It was a sedative and hypnotic used for the treatment of insomnia. The drug had a popular name because people abused it. Users enjoyed its impact on their bodies. People also enjoyed its impact on other people’s bodies and it was
obviously used to ‘drug’ people.

  From my time in the Drug Squad, I had heard of Rohypnol tablets being used by men to spike women’s drinks. Men would pick up women at discos and offer to buy them drinks. This gave a man the opportunity to pop some rollies in the drink while he was away from an unsuspecting woman. Later, when a woman was affected by the drug, bouncers or barstaff would see the man take the women from the disco but the guy could just say he was taking home his girlfriend who’d had too much to drink. What pub worker would stop someone from taking a friend home who had ‘obviously’ drunk too much?

  Once a woman was out to it, she could be abused in any way.

  Now, I had seen the impact of this drug on boys and young men. Rollies were like Noctec but came as a white tablet with a cross on it rather than in a capsule. The drug was quick acting and acted more powerfully when alcohol had been drunk. An overdose of the drug would cause extreme drowsiness and respiratory depression.

  All of the drugs found in the boys were ‘knock me outs’.