Marge’s biggest fan was an officer called Peter Walsh, whose job was to guard the ransom money. They played cards while Marge ensured a constant supply of food. When Mick Howe arrived at the house one night he did a double-take when he saw Walsh who, at the end of his shift , was wolfing down another of Marge’s lamb roasts.
‘God, haven’t you put on some weight?’ Howe pointed at the waistband of Walsh’s overalls.
Marge smiled; it had been one of her jobs in the horse business to fatten up show hacks.
For a while, the adrenaline of being in a house with the police kept Bernie going, but as the days ebbed away he knew they took with them his chances of finding his wife alive.
Back at the Richmond command post, the taskforce had moved into the high risk phase of the operation. Each detail was planned, down to the police station where the kidnappers would be charged, the officers who would interview them and the court they would face. The detectives drew up a list of twenty-six ‘what if ’ scenarios and procedures to deal with the situation. The myriad scenarios included the possibility that the extortionists would make contact with Bernie but refuse to allow him to speak to Kerry, or would fail to make contact within the specified time.
The taskforce had consulted Scotland Yard, London’s Metropolitan Police Service. Chief Inspector Laurie Banner, a kidnapping specialist, analysed the ransom letter and concluded that the author had tried to portray that the demand was ‘a highly planned and sophisticated operation’ by an international group. Banner also thought that the method of communication this kidnapper was using—a letter and a newspaper advertisement—was highly unusual. In nearly all cases, phone communication was used by the extortionist to make further contact.
Around 200 kilometres to the south, on the outskirts of a country village, an SPG team was covertly making its way onto Bruce Burrell’s property. Bungonia was a flyspeck on the map and Burrell lived five kilometres out of town.
Around midnight on 11 May, officers wearing dark coveralls and balaclavas crawled silently up his driveway. When they reached the weatherboard house, one officer slid up a wall until he could see through a chink in the curtains of the lighted window. It was the lounge room, and Burrell was there with his dog; they appeared to be alone, with no sign of Kerry. The officers slunk away.
In the township of Bungonia itself, surveillance police were attempting to operate covertly in a community so tiny it did not have a shop. Remaining undercover in a ten-house town would be a challenge.
7 HUEY, DEWEY
AND LOUIE
Strange things were happening down in Bungonia on the afternoon of Sunday 11 May 1997. Each time Raymond Dole emerged from his house, he could see a man poke a very long camera lens at him from a car window. It was giving Raymond the shits. Whenever he moved, he felt the lens follow him. He rang his father, Ray Dole. The phone line clicked twice and he assumed their phones were being tapped—by someone.
Around the corner, Mrs Lorraine Brooks, the schoolteacher’s wife, was staring at a car parked on the main street. Whenever Lorraine glanced up Oallen Ford Road at the dark-coloured vehicle, the driver seemed to dip his head down quickly. Bushwalkers and campers often passed through Bungonia on weekends on their way to the State Recreation Area, drawn to the beautiful but treacherous sprawl of limestone territory to the south which was cleaved by a deep and spectacular chasm. Bungonia Gorge was honeycombed with ancient caves. Lorraine Brooks knew those kinds of visitors passed quickly through the village. They did not park in the main street, or loiter in town. Few people did, apart from the population of around thirty-five who found this rural backwater charming.
Bungonia had been a township in steady decline since the middle of the nineteenth century, and while the Oallen Ford and the Lookdown roads featured grand buildings, they all dated from one brief glory period in the town’s history. A solid future seemed destined for Bungonia in the 1840s, when stonemason Patrick Kelly added what would become the Old Parsonage to the Hotel Victoria. In 1847, Kelly built St Michael’s Catholic Church, now one of the oldest standing Catholic churches in Australia. Settled by convicts and ticket-of-leave men, Bungonia once boasted butchers, shopkeepers, a schoolteacher, two pastors and a publican, as well as bushrangers who waited on the town’s outskirts and held up coach loads of visitors. Unfortunately the colony’s surveyor-general, Major Thomas Mitchell, cut short Bungonia’s prospects of becoming a major centre by relocating the main road west through Goulburn.
These days in Bungonia, there was nowhere even to buy bread and milk; the closest shop was in Marulan, 15 kilometres away. Bungonia’s quiet rhythm included a weekly sew-in of the Patchwork and Quilters Group at the village hall, a biweekly meeting of the Country Women’s Association and the Progress Association’s powwow. The intruders on the streets of Bungonia on Sunday 11 May knew they would stand out, but Detective Sergeant Dennis Bray thought it would be foolish for his officers to pass themselves off as adventure seekers or bushwalkers.
At first, the locals thought the car in Oallen Ford Road had broken down. But Raymond Dole had seen a second vehicle near St Michael’s Church and a sports car parked below the Anglican Church at the other end of Bungonia. He dubbed the three drivers ‘Huey, Dewey and Louie’. Residents noticed four other unmarked cars spread out on the arterial roads north to Marulan and west to Goulburn.
By late Sunday afternoon, Lorraine Brooks had had enough. The plain-clothes officer from the State Technical Intelligence Branch sitting in the car on Oallen Ford Road watched with resignation as she approached him. Lorraine was pleasant enough, though a little exasperated, but she listened as Senior Constable Malcolm Smith delivered a story concocted by Chief Superintendent Rod Harvey.
Smith told Lorraine he was investigating a drug gang trucking supplies through Bungonia and beyond. ‘Please keep this to yourself Madam,’ Smith told her and he knew she wouldn’t. Smith watched now as she went from house to house, her eyes alive with his tale and he smiled—it had gone perfectly to plan. As she retold the yarn, she might have added something about the possibility of Bungonians caught in a shoot-out; with every account, the story grew and by sundown the town was sure Bungonia would erupt, at some point, in a fiery high noon. Smith was relieved. As Bray had warned, the risk of the locals revealing the officers’ true purpose was great and could impact on the safety of Mrs Whelan, who was possibly a prisoner of Bruce Burrell, although in time, the residents ditched the drug gang story as ‘bulldust’.
So far there had been no sign of Burrell in the village, but on the morning of 12 May, a grey Jaguar turned onto Inverary Road, cut through the ghost gums and stringy-barks and neat rows of pine plantation and drove to Bungonia. Just after 10 a.m. the driver came into the view of the officer parked near the Catholic church. When the officer radioed through to Smith, he had already spotted Burrell at the wheel of the car, which turned right from Inverary Road and was heading towards Goulburn. For the next 22 kilometres, Smith loosely tailed the suspect.
In Goulburn, Smith found it easy to follow Burrell as he moved around the shops wearing jeans and a yellow jumper. Burrell remained in Goulburn for thirty minutes and then Smith tailed him back to Bungonia where Burrell turned left , heading towards his property. A police check of the Jaguar’s registration number revealed the plates were from a stolen Suzuki Vitari, yet despite this latest revelation, the taskforce still did not know whether Burrell was involved. A car thief he might be, but a kidnapper who was trying to pull off Australia’s biggest ransom demand?
Tomorrow was day seven, when Bernie Whelan’s advertisement would appear in the Public Notice section of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, as directed by the ransom note. Bernie had phoned the Telegraph’s advertising department and submitted the ad. It read: ‘Anyone who witnessed a white Volkswagen beetle parked beside the eastern gates of the Sydney Olympic site at 10.30 p.m. on Tuesday 8.4.97 please call . . .’ The Whelans’ home number lay at the end of the ad.
According to the ransom note,
the kidnappers would make contact within three days of this with further instructions. The investigators were hoping Burrell would make a move—and he did. Around 9 a.m. he drove to the BP service station at Marulan, just outside Bungonia but did not buy a newspaper. A decision was made to continue to run the advertisement for the next seven days.
That night Smith stayed behind the Catholic church where the 24-hour surveillance team had set up a command post in the unfenced grounds of the old building. It was the only place from which they had a radio signal through to Richmond. Detective Allan Duncan and Detective Senior Constable Ricky Agius and a couple of technicians were camped in the churchyard in cars wired with equipment, waiting for Burrell. One advantage of Burrell’s isolated locale was he had to drive some distance to get a newspaper.
The next day around 9.20 a.m., Burrell motored up the road, this time in a Mitsubishi Pajero. The Pajero was filthy, covered in mud and dust. Smith followed Burrell up Mountain Ash Road, past the gates of properties—Kangaga, Pinelea, Storyvale—and radioed ahead for his fellow officers to join in the covert pursuit.
At 9.43 a.m., Burrell arrived in the main street of Goul-burn and turned off to the Woolworths shopping centre and into a petrol station, where he filled his vehicle. Smith could see a dog, Burrell’s grey kelpie, Rebel, in the back seat. Smith filmed Burrell from the car as he paid for the gas and drove to another petrol station, where he bought a sandwich and a Daily Telegraph. Was he looking for the advertisement, Smith wondered as he followed the suspect back to Bungonia.
Detective Sergeant Allan Duncan reported to Smith that their mobile command post was the talk of Bungonia and that they must move to a new location, an old tip site off Marulan Road. The team lived there out of one vehicle, with only basic provisions and no running water; each afternoon with the change of shift, a new car would be brought in via Marulan Road, to try to keep the locals guessing.
For the next two days there was no movement through Hillydale’s gate and detectives and the State Technical Intelligence Branch team were uptight. Burrell was holed up inside his house, but what was he doing in there? Destroying evidence, perhaps. Surely he needed milk and bread, beer at least. Police needed to get into Hillydale to look for some sign of Mrs Whelan. Everything was in place for a covert search of the farm.
At 9.35 a.m. on the morning of Friday 16 May, Senior Constable Smith radioed through to Richmond that Burrell was on the move. He was in his Pajero driving towards Goulburn. Bray alerted Goulburn Highway Patrol officers of Burrell’s pending arrival in town. Smith followed; on Goulburn’s main street, he watched Goulburn Highway Patrol Senior Constable Paul Morsanuto activate his police lights behind Burrell, who pulled the Pajero into the kerb.
Burrell wound down his window. ‘Good morning, fellas,’ he said to the officer who had alighted from the police vehicle, ‘what’s the problem?’
Morsanuto said, ‘Is this your car, sir? According to our computer systems, you have the incorrect numberplates on the car and the vehicle is not registered.’
‘It should be.’ Burrell looked surprised.
Morsanuto asked him again.
Burrell’s face was turning red. ‘Okay,’ he said eventually, ‘the plates are off an old car that I had on the farm. It’s not registered.’
Morsanuto informed Burrell that he was now under arrest and would have to go to Goulburn police station for an interview. ‘Lock up your car and leave the dog there,’ Morsanuto told him. ‘We’ll be a couple of hours.’
Parked a short distance away, Senior Constable Smith watched Burrell take one long look around him before he bent down to get into the police van. Smith radioed through to taskforce HQ. The covert search could begin.
With a car full of SPG officers tailing them, the search group drove towards Hillydale. In the four-seater utility were Allan Duncan, Ricky Agius and two female scientific officers. The team’s job was to ascertain whether Kerry was somewhere on the property, or at the very least find evidence which would convince a magistrate to grant police a formal search warrant.
Allan Duncan parked at Hillydale’s gate and they began the walk up to the house. Dressed in jeans and T-shirts the group members posed as two couples walking arm in arm, pretending to chat and laugh on their way to visit their friend, ‘Charlie’. Duncan looked at Agius and the women. They all seemed composed, but if they were like him, their pulses were racing and their palms sweaty. Duncan had no idea what he was walking into—the so-called ‘international’ team of thugs implied in the ransom note, or perhaps an armed gang guarding a tied-up Kerry? The foursome had guns in their ankle holsters and the SPG parked just up the road as back-up, but still they felt vulnerable.
As they neared the house Duncan yelled out, ‘Charlie. Mate! You home? We’re looking for ya.’
No reply. Duncan listened at the door. Not a sound. The detective knocked. ‘Charlie. Wake up! . . . You been on the piss again? Let us in.’ Duncan could feel his heart pounding. He looked at the others. Was someone watching them? Ricky Agius raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
The scientific officers got to work on breaking in. With a soft waxy material and some metal, they began to fashion keys for the house. Duncan and Agius pressed their faces up against the windows of Burrell’s house, peering into the gloom for any sign of life. The men smoked and then Agius dug a hole in the lawn to bury their cigarette butts. The place felt eerie and isolated.
Once the detectives were inside, Duncan waited for his pager to beep, as per his instructions from the taskforce HQ. ‘Pick up the phone Al. Hendo,’ the text on the pager read. Two seconds later, Burrell’s telephone rang.
Duncan picked up the receiver with a rubber-gloved hand. It was Detective Sergeant Brett Henderson.
‘Hi, mate,’ Hendo said, ‘What can you tell us?’
Henderson was the investigations manager from Parramatta Local Area Command and was now attached to the taskforce. He instructed them to keep Burrell’s phone line open and, for the next forty-five minutes, Duncan and Agius went from room to room relaying what they could see. There appeared to be no trace of Mrs Whelan.
Strewn over the kitchen table were bills and documents, a packet of Panadol, prescription tablets for arthritis, and four packets of Ransom brand cigarettes. Among the papers were a number of ‘Safe’ brand and ‘Tudor Blue’ brand envelopes, marked ‘Confidential’.
Allan Duncan found a note. It read ‘cervical cancer, early June operation, laser/knife. Found out two weeks ago. BB spoke to SB Friday 9.5.97’.
Another note read, ‘Sometimes we stand hand in hand and . . . you come to me and I . . . see . . . and I say to myself wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, how wonderful you are do do do oh how wonderful my love’. Duncan smirked. If this was Burrell’s attempt at a love letter, he needed an editor.
In a walk-in wardrobe in the main bedroom, the officers found a metal gun cabinet. Among half a dozen or more firearms, Agius made an intriguing find. It was a brown chloroform bottle. Empty.
Back at Richmond, Hendo was revealing the news to the taskforce. Dennis Bray nodded, but he was too tense to smile.
Duncan and Agius began to search more feverishly. Agius photographed each exhibit, although he did not know how to use the camera and the pictures would prove useless, blurred and out of focus. In Burrell’s bedroom, there was a Canon typewriter and Duncan put in a sheet of paper and tapped on all the keys for the analysts to compare with the ransom letter. Then he and Agius returned to the stack of weapons—Burrell clearly was a gun nut.
Duncan laid a gloved hand on the phone receiver again and told Hendo to prepare for taking down an inventory. Duncan began: ‘a part-filled box of .44 calibre Magnum rounds, a number of 308 calibre rounds, one .222 Remington brand Magnum pistol, several 44/40 Winchester rounds, .22 calibre sonic rounds . . .’ He paused. Ricky Agius pointed out the firearms and listed the makes.
‘Let’s see,’ Duncan spoke into the receiver, ‘um . . . a Bennett brand Veloci Nash speed crossbow, one .303 rifl
e, a .223 calibre rifle, a .44 Ruger Magnum carbine with a single barrel, a .222 rifle with scope, a Winchester model bolt action .22 rifle, a double-barrell shotgun, a Sako .308 calibre rifle with scope and, last one, a Boito shotgun.’
The officers moved outside. Duncan and Agius were the eyes of the taskforce, waiting impatiently in its Richmond bunker. They began a search of the outbuildings, first the hayshed and then an old slaughterhouse. In it was a large mincer. Duncan looked at Agius. No, it was covered in dirt and rust.
Agius wandered into the first of two shearing sheds. Seconds later, Duncan heard a commotion and saw the terrified city cop racing to the far end of the shed, pursued by a charging wombat. Duncan started laughing, then banged on the shed wall to distract the animal. A Jaguar was parked in the middle of the shed, a blanket half-draped over its bonnet.
Back at the house, Hendo was concerned about the time it was taking. It was after midday. ‘How much more you got to do?’ he asked.
Duncan ran his hands through his hair. ‘It’s a huge place, mate. We’ve covered a lot. Unless you want us trampling over hill and dale.’
‘There’s enough for the search warrant,’ Henderson said, ‘get out of there.’
As they strolled back to the ute, a mix of emotions washed over them . . . relief that the job was done without incident, elation at the ‘treasure’ haul of guns and documents—but despondency that they had found no sign of Kerry.
Back at Goulburn police station, police were winding up the interview with Burrell, who was charged with receiving a stolen vehicle, driving it while unregistered and uninsured, and with having numberplates ‘calculated to deceive’. Burrell was angry and refused to admit he knew the car was stolen. At 1.51 p.m., Burrell strolled out, unaware that Taskforce Bellaire was closing in on him.
That afternoon, the streets of Bungonia were devoid of police. Dennis Bray had called off the surveillance; the officers were to make their way back to Richmond. The risks were too great to remain in Bungonia; it might be best to just let Burrell Bruce run and see where he led them.
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