by Bob O'Brien
Chapter 11
The Alibi
Trevor and I drove down Port Road, which leads to Port Adelaide and Mutton Cove. At Thebarton, we turned the police car right to the appropriately named Gaol Road. We drove past the police barracks. The famous police greys trotted in their paddocks amongst the olive trees and we continued on to the remand jail where von Einem was being held. The new remand centre had not yet been completed and prisoners waiting to go to court were kept at the old Adelaide Jail. The first sections of the old Adelaide Jail were completed by 1841, five years after the State was founded, and it was the first government building of the colony of South Australia.
We parked out the front and met Helena Jasinski, who was standing by the side of her car waiting for us.
I wonder how von Einem found you? I thought. Lawyers don’t generally advertise so people don’t really know where to go. People who are involved in the court system want the best lawyer they can afford but where do you find a good criminal lawyer who is going to get you off? Legal aid lawyers are found through the system but when a lawyer is not working for legal aid, how are they found? Invariably, people must talk and lawyers’ names get passed around. She had been fair and reasonable in her dealing with Trevor and I previously, and I wondered what would happen on this occasion.
Together we moved towards the archway that held the two large wooden doors of the jail. Of all the times that I have been to the jail and run past it during various training courses at the Thebarton Police Barracks, I have never seen those two massive gates open. What does open is a much smaller rectangular door cut into the arched gate on the right side. A peephole is cut in the left-hand gate for jailers to see who is there.
After approaching the doors, Trevor pressed the buzzer. A fat face peered at us inquiringly through the peephole.
‘We’re here to speak to Bevan von Einem,’ Trevor said.
The face looked at the three of us without emotion and the keys jangled on the large stainless steel ring attached to the man’s belt. Metal hit metal and the large key turned in the lock of the access door. The guard swung open the door.
We stepped down into the sallyport of the jail. The roadway leading to the gates had been built up with layers of bitumen and now the roadway was higher than the green concrete floor immediately behind the doors. We entered the four metre by ten metre reception area of the jail; a glass and wood office which would have been built in the 1960s sat inside the sallyport. It took up a quarter of the area and provided some comfort for the jailers. There were also offices either side of the rectangular area. Access to the inner sanctum of the jail was stopped by two gates made of iron rod and bars mounted on the other side of the sallyport. They also were arched and the same size as the front gates but made of metal.
I stood with the metal bars rising up in front of me and I looked through them to the circle yard on the other side of the arched iron gates. When horses and carts were used, the circle yard allowed prison vans and carts to enter the jail, circle round and head back out. Now motor vehicles are used, the yard was filled with a fibro building, which allowed prisoners and their families to talk but not have physical contact. It was appropriately called the visitors’ non-contact building. The whole place was cold and forbidding.
A prison warder pointed to the visitor’s book lying on a sloping shelf near the left-hand iron gate.
‘Fill out the book.’
We all signed the entrance book, giving our names, addresses and reason for being at the jail. We all gave our business addresses.
‘Just a moment and we will have someone take you to the interview room.’
Trevor had rung previously to make sure that von Einem would be available. He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t involved in some jail activity that he couldn’t quickly be taken from. We didn’t want to wait around any longer than necessary in this place.
The jailer’s key opened the iron access gate built into the grill of the inner right-hand metal gate. He showed us to the interview rooms in the painted stone building immediately to the right of the circle yard, next to the visitors building. The rectangular building with fifty centimetre-thick stone walls was one of the oldest buildings in the jail, built in 1841 and originally a cell block. Its age was evident by the yellow paint flaking off the stone at the bottom of the walls, showing the white crystal which indicated rising damp.
The two tiny rooms closest to us were the interview rooms for solicitors and police. The second room was the largest and, even so, it was only three metres by 1.5 metres. We headed for it. There weren’t any windows and, while some light came in through two glass sections in the vented door, we still had to turn on the single fluoro to provide sufficient light. The walls of the room were painted the same yellow colour as the outside ones, and blended with the grey lino tiles. There were three chairs in the room scattered around a wooden desk. An old Remington typewriter sat on top. I found another chair from the room next door and brought it back. Trevor had bought a folder with foolscap paper and carbon for the interview.
A smaller man than the first brought von Einem to the room. He was the same as before — emotionless and bland — there was no obvious personality.
Trevor sat at the desk, his back to the door, facing the typewriter. Helena and von Einem were on the other side of him, their chairs pushed back to provide space between the desk and their bodies. I sat next to Trevor, facing the corner of the table with my chair also pushed back as much as possible in the compressed space.
Trevor started the interview with von Einem. He typed his own words on the paper rolled into the typewriter before he asked his first question.
‘Did you see Richard Kelvin on the evening of Sunday, 5th June 1983?’
‘I did.’
‘Would you tell me in your own words how you came to see him and what happened?’
‘I arrived in North Adelaide from my home with the intention of buying my tea at one of the fish and chip shops there in O’Connell Street. I pulled in to park the car but there were no vacant spaces on either side of the road. I drove to the lights and turned left into Ward Street and left again into . . . I don’t know the name of the street, do you want me to go on?’
‘Yes, without the map at this stage if you wouldn’t mind.’
‘A lad ran from a side street on my left, across the street in front of the car. I braked and stopped and wound my window down and told this person that he was lucky I didn’t run into him. He approached my door resting his two arms on the roof.’
Von Einem then showed Trevor how Richard Kelvin rested his arms on the roof of his car. He demonstrated with his hands together and elbows out.
I kept a straight face while thinking to myself: Yeah, you bastard, you are just trying to cover your tracks. When you dragged Richard into the car, he would have put his hands on the roof to try and stop himself being pushed and dragged into the car. I tried not to show any emotion in my face.
Von Einem continued.
‘I was drinking a can of beer. He asked me for a drink. I didn’t offer him a drink. I asked him his age and he told me sixteen. I said that he could hop in the car if he wanted a drink but not in the street, to drink out of the can that is. He got in the car and I drove up the street to Archer Street and turned right into Archer Street and asked him if he wanted to drive around and he said “Yes”.’
I don’t get elated very often but a wave of relief washed through my body at this point. My face and body did not show it, I hope, but I was elated. Von Einem had blown it. Our concerns about problems with juries and scientific evidence were over.
As that wave of excitment passed through my body, Trevor impassively continued to ask questions of von Einem. My partner’s body language did not give anything away but I knew what he was thinking.
Great! Great! Just keep talking. You think you’re smart enough to get away with murder. You’re not as smart as you think.
Von Einem continued to tell his story about how Richard
Kelvin told him that he was having trouble at school and trouble with skinheads.
Yes, this is all information that was in the newspapers, I thought to myself. You would have picked up this information from the media after he went missing.
He then said that he took Richard Kelvin to his home at Paradise.
‘He came in the front door into the passage, walked into the lounge and sat on the long lounge, the settee. In the lounge room he kicked his shoes off. I can’t recall whether he put his shoes on to walk elsewhere or not. From the lounge, he turned right into the passage and left down the passage to my bedroom. He sat on the bed, [walked] back into the lounge room the same way, then leaving the same way as he came, through the front door.’
Later during the interview von Einem said: ‘The conversation would have got around to hobbies but I can’t recall what he did as a hobby.’
No, you can’t say about his hobbies because you don’t know about them. Nothing was in the papers about his hobbies.
‘I mentioned my harp to him and that I had one and we went into my bedroom where I showed him the instrument. We sat on the bed; I played the harp . . .’
Yes, more lies to explain how fibres from your bedspread and bedroom carpet were on Richard Kelvin’s clothes. What fifteen-year-old boy would go with a stranger to his home to listen to him play his harp in his bedroom?
‘While Richard was at your place did you touch each other at all?’
‘Yes.’
‘To what extent exactly, repeat exactly, did you touch each other?’
‘I put my arm around him as he was upset with his friends he was having problems with.’
Now he is trying to explain how fibres from his cardigan were on Richard’s clothes.
‘How upset was he about the matter?’
‘He was fairly upset.’
‘Crying?’
‘He could have been crying, yes.’
Anything you are asked that you had not thought about before, you are vague with your answer. You were definite about how Richard’s hands were on your car.
‘Was he crying or not?’
‘Well, from what I can recall he was sniffling.’
He finally said that he spent two hours at his home with Richard Kelvin before he took him back into town and dropped him off at the Palais car park opposite the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Von Einem said he gave him $20 to catch one of the taxis parked outside the hospital.
Yes, you like giving money to boys to get them home in taxis. Just like you did with the hitchhiker, George. But Richard never made it home.
When he was first interviewed on 28 July 1983, four days after Richard’s disappearance, von Einem denied any personal contact with Richard. Trevor asked questions about this.
‘You have during earlier interviews told some untruths then, is this right?’
‘Yes.’
‘From memory now, what parts were untruths?’
‘My mother was not at home. I also said that he [Richard Kelvin] was not in my home.’
So, eight months after he first denied knowing anything about Richard Kelvin and part-way through the preliminary hearing, he changed his story. Von Einem was trying to give an alibi to us at the Adelaide Jail. Von Einem now said that Richard voluntarily got in his car, he happily went for a drive with him and spent two hours with him at his home before he was dropped off at North Terrace and given $20.
Trevor continued the interview.
‘Did he give you any indication that he was a homosexual or bisexual?’
‘His appearance gave me the impression that he could have been bisexual.’
‘What gave you that impression?’
‘By his actions.’
‘What actions?’
‘The way he spoke.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
That didn’t work. Trevor was trying to get him to talk about the dog collar. If von Einem admitted that he saw the dog collar then he could show that he was lying during this interview as well. We knew that Boris got him to take the dog collar off at the bus stop. If von Einem said that he saw the dog collar, then he must have seen it in O’Connell Street or later whilst he held him captive and put the dog collar back on him.
‘Richard was physically abducted from the North Adelaide area, wasn’t he?’
‘No,’ von Einem replied.
‘Where was your mother on that evening, the 5th June?’
‘My mother was at her cousin[s]’ at Houghton.’
‘What name?’
‘Alcorn.’
‘Christian names?’
‘Beryl and Ken.’
‘When did she go there?’
‘Saturday afternoon.’
Trevor asked about the booze von Einem kept in his car. He had already told us he was drinking beer and we knew he used to put drugs in the alcohol to seduce the boys.
‘Where was your esky?’
By this time Trevor knew that von Einem would drive around with an esky full of drinks in his car.
‘On the backseat.’
‘Did you have much alcohol in it?’
‘Well it had alcohol in it but I didn’t go out on the Saturday night for entertainment because I locked myself out of the house and had to go to see my mother to get her key.’
So, that’s what he calls his activities — entertainment.
‘You are aware that your mother told us you were home at about 6 p.m. on Sunday 5th. Why did she say that, do you know?’
‘On the spur of the moment. She probably wouldn’t remember what she did on that particular date because she does visit her cousin, I don’t know how often, but at regular intervals she stays up there.’
‘Alcorn’s house is pretty close to the airstrip where Richard’s body was located, isn’t it?’
‘Er, yes.’
Later in the interview Trevor asked questions about von Einem telling lies when we spoke to him in July.
‘I’ll ask you again. Why didn’t you speak up about all of this earlier?’
‘When he was reported missing I thought that he had run away from home and that he would turn up. I didn’t want my family, mainly my mother, to know that I did have him at home. I regret not speaking up as I could not foresee into the future and what eventually happened to him.’
Trevor continued the interview because he wanted to check this alibi. Also, we believed that Richard had been kept at other places during the five weeks of his captivity.
‘Now, a last word or two about your movements in relation to Sunday 5th. You told us you returned home after dropping Richard off at North Terrace. Did you stay home for the rest of the evening?’
‘No.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I went to my sister’s house at Campbelltown with the intention to get her to pick up Mum because it was about elevenish. I didn’t go in because I couldn’t really expect my sister to drive up there at that time of night to pick my mother up, so I rang my mother from a phone box around the corner from my sister’s and spoke with my mother and said I would come up the following morning, tomorrow morning, and pick her up.’
‘Did you in fact do that? If so, what vehicle did you use?’
‘Are you referring to Monday?’
‘Sunday night. You said you phoned your mother and agreed to pick her up the next day.’
‘Monday.’
‘Yes.’
‘I did not pick her up.’
‘What is your story there, then?’
‘My sister came to my place at about 9.30 a.m. She normally comes to visit my mother. I wasn’t well.’
Von Einem then told how he was sick with the ’flu all of that week and got a doctor’s certificate from his local doctor at Campbelltown during the week. He went back to work a week later, on the Tuesday, the day after a public holiday. Trevor asked von Einem what he did the weekend after Richard went missing.
‘I stayed home Saturday and Sunday until Sunday night. I wen
t out Sunday night and I drove to the airport. On my way home from the airport I gave two hitchhikers a lift. We got into town and they were not doing anything in particular so I asked them if they would like a drink and as they said they weren’t doing anything in particular and it was a long weekend, I suggested that we go to my friend’s place, which was [the home of one of von Einem’s close associates]. At that stage I had a key to the flat. When we arrived there [he] was not home and we went inside and [he] arrived about five minutes after us. He opened some beer and we had a drink and we rang [the businessman] to come over and [he] came approximately half an hour later. We drank beer, they stayed the night. I left there about 1.30 . . .’
Well, he’s prepared to mention his friends to cover his activities. He might have something over them to make sure they say the right thing.
‘Did anyone have sex with the hitchhikers at [the male prostitute’s] flat?’
‘[The businessman] said he did but I didn’t know.’
Von Einem took about 25 minutes to read the record of interview that Trevor typed. Both he and Helena signed the document. Trevor and I signed the bottom of each page, then von Einem left the interview room to go to dinner. Helena, Trevor and I walked from the jail and Helena got into her car to drive off.
Trevor and I started talking excitedly as we walked out through those big wooden doors of the Adelaide Jail and moved towards our police car away from Helena’s hearing. Quietly but quickly we spoke about the interview.
‘What did you think about that?’
‘What about when he said that he picked up Richard? You beauty!’
The case against von Einem continued to get stronger. The discovery of Mandrax in Richard Kelvin and Mark Langley was the first break. Finding the script for Mandrax with von Einem’s name on it was the second. The hair and fibres was the third break. This was the fourth.
We got into the police car and drove back to the office. As we turned into Port Road, Trevor laughed — not his big belly laugh but a quieter laugh reflecting his happiness and understanding of what had happened.