Flustered now, Burrell tried to backtrack. ‘All I know is that I had to speak with my solicitor to confirm a time to meet him on the following Tuesday . . . and I had to speak to him prior to ten because he goes into court . . .’ Burrell was talking fast. He ran his fingers through his hair.
‘I know you’re getting frustrated,’ Bray said, ‘and so am I because I don’t know Goulburn, Bruce. You’ll have to excuse me.’
Burrell pointed to the tape recorder. ‘Can we turn it off for a second, please?’
‘Well, you can talk openly on it.’
‘No, I’d rather you turn it off, please.’ Burrell recognised that he had lost control of the situation and he did not like it.
‘All right. The time now is nine thirty.’
The tape was paused for three minutes while Burrell went to the toilet, perhaps to gather his thoughts—the detectives did not hear the toilet flush. When the interview resumed, Burrell appeared to have recovered his composure and he agreed to show Bray the phone boxes and the shops in Goulburn.
‘The only purpose of that is so I know myself where you say you went on that day,’ Bray said. His words were designed to make Burrell think they already knew, and they worked.
Burrell nodded and agreed to run through the time sequence of that morning in Goulburn. He told Bray he had arrived there at twenty to nine, gone to Macs Liquor store to buy beer and paid cash and the receipt would have recorded the time.
Walsh butted in, ‘It was eight thirty-one on the receipt.’
Burrell made his first phone call just after nine, but could not get through. Twenty minutes later he made his second call. ‘Within half an hour, tops,’ Burrell said. He spoke with his lawyer about setting a time for a meeting for the following Tuesday.
‘Okay, did you make any further phone calls after you’d spoken to your solicitor?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘No calls from that telephone box?’
‘None at all.’
‘Or any other phone box?’
‘Nup, no.’ Burrell looked more confused, his tone was short and his chin was tucked into his chest in a defensive manner. It did not matter. Bray had got all he wanted.
‘Is there anything further you’d like to say, Mr Burrell, about these matters?’ The three detectives were looking at his eyes. Would he confess? Bray knew there was not a chance.
‘No,’ he said, ‘only that I’m terribly frustrated . . .’
‘I’m sure you are,’ Bray said, before adding, ‘you must appreciate, too, the Whelans’ position with the loss of their mother.’
Bray was not going to get any more and cared little. The detectives strolled to their car, dodging potholes in the driveway. Burrell did not bother putting the outside light on for them. As they drove through the Hillydale gate, Bray turned to his offsider: ‘I think we’ve got him, Walshie. I think we’ve got this bastard.’
19 RABBIT EARS
In July 1997, Elsie Virgona, secretary of the Randwick Lantern Club for Deaf and Blind Children, heard some interesting gossip from a fellow member about Dottie Davis. Elsie was still troubled about her old friend Dottie, who had been missing for more than two years.
Norma Dwyer told Elsie she had been at the hairdresser’s having a set when she heard someone talking about Dot having lent a man called Bruce Burrell money. Not just any money, a hundred thousand dollars! Elsie was surprised; in fact she could not believe it. Dot was generous. Years ago, she had sponsored Elsie’s daughters on overseas sports trips, a thousand dollars each. And she had always been one for buying extra raffle tickets for the club, or giving gifts, because she could afford it. Dot wasn’t silly with money, though, and she wasn’t showy, she was a very sensible and astute woman, the furthest thing from eccentric.
Yes, Norma said, Dot had lent money to the same man who was under suspicion for the Kerry Whelan kidnap. Elsie was dumbstruck.
Some time later at the Lantern Club, one of the ladies told her that this Bruce Burrell had lived around the corner from Dot and had wanted the money for a house. Elsie had a sudden flash, remembering how Dottie’s mood had changed over the last six to twelve months before she disappeared. It was only a slight change, but Elsie had seen her old friend worry and become irritable. She had seemed faintly depressed. It was unlike the old Dottie.
Around the same time, journalist and producer Steve Barrett, known in the business as ‘Bar-Rat’, was courting Bruce Burrell for an interview on Channel 9’s flagship program, 60 Minutes. Barrett was a 39-year-old veteran police reporter with a tendency to talk out of the side of his mouth in vowels only half-polished by the Channel 9 voice coach. Twenty years of covering crime, sport and general news for papers and television had made him unrivalled for police contacts. He knew the way the world worked, and in particular, Sydney, and was hot-wired into all its joys and treachery. And he was skilled in coercing people into interviews when they really would have been better off keeping their mouths shut.
‘Mate, we just want to have a chat,’ Barrett said in a message left on Bruce Burrell’s answering machine. ‘We feel as though there’s been far too much focus on you, and they’ve got nothing to go on. That’s where we’re coming from . . . hope I’m not destroying your State of Origin, if you’re watching it. Bye bye.’
It was Wednesday 25 June and a search of the bush beyond Burrell’s property was continuing. Burrell listened to Barrett’s message and made some notes on how he would frame his response to Barrett. He envisaged himself in the interview: leaning forward in a confiding manner, the undulating hills of his estate stretching back behind him, the innocent man tête-à-tête with a 60 Minutes star.
‘There have been several gross inaccuracies published since the media became aware of the search’, Burrell scribbled. ‘The unfortunate portrayal of my role in this case . . . has to date created for me an appearance of guilt and contamination by association’. He removed the word ‘guilt’ in a later rewrite, but retained the next paragraph, which stated that he felt compelled ‘to make it very clear to you that I will not answer any questions that may infringe in any way whatsoever upon the police investigations. Their job is hard enough without the waters being muddied . . .’
At some point during the ensuing weeks, Burrell contacted celebrity agent Harry M. Miller and asked him to manage his affairs. Miller declined.
In late July Burrell finally agreed to meet Barrett. It was a cold evening around 6.30 p.m. Under one arm Barrett carried a sure-fire conversation starter: a case of VB stubbies he had bought in Goulburn.
‘If you are saying you are innocent, 60 Minutes is happy to hear what you have to say,’ Barrett said to Bruce as they sat by the lounge room fireplace. ‘You have been under siege down here and I don’t have to tell you that you and I are being listened to in this house, but I’m offering you the opportunity to put your side of the story.’
Bruce nodded as he sucked on a beer. He had suspected the telephones were bugged, but not the house itself. He chose his words carefully when he outlined what he would like to achieve in the interview.
Barrett was a little startled at Bruce’s pronouncement that he would only tell his story to Liz Hayes; the program’s glamorous female reporter was out of town.
‘Listen, Bruce,’ Barrett said, pulling his chair forward and lowering his voice to a whisper, ‘every show has its black duckling. Richard Carleton happens to be ours. Whether you agree with him or not, Richard is hard-hitting and believable. He is the right person for you.’ In fact he was the only one for Burrell—every other reporter was away on assignment—but, in any event, Carleton would be perfect for the job.
Burrell nodded thoughtfully back at Barrett, who grinned inwardly: he had the rat in the trap. All that was left to be negotiated were the topics they could cover in the interview. For two hours, they argued the points.
Barrett asked Burrell: ‘What about the chloroform?’
Burrell responded that it was to clean father-in-law Les Bromley’s
trousers.
‘What about your visit to Kerry Whelan on 16 April?’
Burrell said he was looking for work.
What about Dot Davis? She had to have met foul play, hadn’t she? A woman wouldn’t leave meat on the sink to defrost if she didn’t intend returning home.
Poor Auntie Dot, Burrell said, she probably wandered off and fell down the cliffface. ‘Have you ever studied the flow patterns of the Pacific Ocean?’ Bruce asked, and went to great lengths to explain how the tidal drift could have ferried her from Lurline Bay to the shores of New Zealand.
Burrell drained beer after beer and chain-smoked. He offered a toothy grin when Barrett pointed out the cigarette brand was Ransom. Both men were exhausted and there was a long pause in which Barrett wondered if he was too drunk to drive.
Suddenly Burrell’s fist crashed through the silence onto the table. Bang! He took a theatrical drag on his cigarette, squinted, and shouted in triumph: ‘Rabbit Ears!’
Barrett groaned. What the fuck did he mean? Was Burrell nuts? Well, obviously if he killed women for money, he was, but . . .
‘Fucking Rabbit Ears! That’s where I was!’ Burrell shouted in triumph, banging his fist on the table again.
Burrell went off on a lengthy and convoluted story about being at the neighbours’, and thereabouts, before and during the time of Kerry Whelan’s disappearance. He led Barrett out onto the verandah and although it was pitch black, pointed into the gloom and said a patch of land on his property was so named because, well, it was shaped like a rabbit’s ears.
Barrett tried to get his head around the story. ‘So, Bruce, you’re saying that you had some sort of plan to grow trees on this Rabbit Ears paddock and somehow your neighbours, the Coopers, were involved because their son’s a forestry expert?’
Burrell nodded.
Barrett continued: ‘And you say that on the day Kerry Whelan disappeared you were home with a bad back and talking to the Coopers on the phone about the Rabbit Ear plantation and that proves you were here, not up in Sydney committing a kidnap?’
Burrell beamed at the reporter and Barrett immediately felt he had just been had. He’s alibi-ing himself, Barrett thought, all in aid of the microphones in the wall. Barrett had seen a lot of conmen in his job, but Burrell was right up there . . . a very smooth talker, almost believable, if you didn’t know he was accused of killing two rich women.
What Barrett did not know was that six days earlier, Burrell had rung Beryl and Kevin Cooper, who lived a few farms up the road, and initiated a conversation about when and where they had discussed the Rabbit Ears area of land. A police telephone intercept had recorded the conversation. Burrell asked Kevin to cast his mind back to the day he had telephoned the Coopers about putting in a pine plantation on his land.
Kevin Cooper: ‘I remember it, yeah, but I wouldn’t know the date.’
Bruce Burrell: ‘I’ve got a feeling it was around a specific date . . . apparently Telecom keeps records of local calls . . . I’ve got a feeling it was 6 May that we spoke.’
Cooper: ‘I’ve got it in the diary, “Bruce Burrell. Rabbit Ears”, 6 May.’
Burrell: ‘You’re fucking joking. Are you serious?’
As Barrett was later to discover, Burrell ‘certainly had the wood on those Coopers’.
Before giving his final agreement to the Channel 9 interview, Burrell told Barrett he would have to undergo the scrutiny of Bruce’s sisters, Tonia and Debbie, and his father, Allan. The following week at Allan Burrell’s home in North Balgowlah, the three listened to Barrett’s spiel and gave the interview their endorsement. Allan and Bruce’s sisters saw the story as the big interview that would ‘save Bruce’s arse’.
Barrett made a telephone call to Dennis Bray to mine some new facts about the taskforce investigation. Bray was immediately interested. The police had conceded privately that the Dorothy Davis matter had never been properly investigated, along with numerous other murders.
Crime Agencies boss Clive Small had re-opened cases dating back to 1987. More than three hundred investigations were unfinished. In the opinion of Small, homicide was ‘a frigging mess’. The investigation into three young women who had gone missing in Newcastle in the 1970s, had been ‘botched’. Backpacker killer Ivan Milat, now incarcerated and not talking, was high on the list of suspects, following a reinvestigation by the New South Wales Police’s Strikeforce Fenwick. Many of the investigations had not been undertaken by homicide detectives and the case of Dorothy Davis was one of them.
On the morning of Tuesday 19 August, two Channel 9 cars, headed down the Hume Highway for Bungonia. The crew in one car was under instruction to buy beer, lots of it; Barrett figured they were on a two-case job. In the other, producers Barrett and Allan Hogan were briefing the reporter, Richard Carleton, for the interview.
Around five minutes before the Bungonia turn-off, Barrett’s mobile phone rang. He signalled for Hogan to pull over and listened, interrupting the caller’s flow only to curse or blaspheme, in delight not disappointment, and to take down a number. Barrett hung up and dialled the number. This time, he was much more polite. He was talking to a woman.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ Barrett said when his phone conversation had ended.
Carleton pursed his lips. ‘Believe what?’ he said.
Barrett recounted Maree Dawes’ startling revelations about the money her mother, Dottie Davis, had lent Bruce Burrell and the pressure she believed he had exerted on Dottie afterwards. Maree said it was not just a matter of $100 000. Originally, Burrell had tried it on Dottie for five times that.
Barrett assured Carleton the revelation was ‘dynamite’. Burrell would not expect Carleton to know anything about the Dorothy Davis ‘loan’. The TV star remained sceptical. He had been burnt before with unreliable information. Barrett assured him it was true, and that police were so certain about Burrell’s connection with Mrs Davis’s disappearance, they had been digging up one of his Sydney properties.
Carleton went on in his pompous way, ‘How do I trust you?’
Almost in unison, Barrett and Allan Hogan burst back, ‘Just ask him.’
Carleton remained silent for the remainder of the trip.
When the team reached its destination Bruce Burrell unlocked Hillydale’s gate with a big smile. Richard Carleton sat down with him outside. They were in front of the house, the fields and the hayshed behind Burrell as the cameras rolled.
Carleton did not take long to get to the heart of Burrell’s dilemma. ‘You were the acquaintance of two women who have since disappeared?’ he said.
‘Yes, absolutely freakish, without doubt,’ Burrell replied.
Richard Carleton: ‘Unusual?’
Burrell: ‘It is extremely unusual, yes, without doubt.’
Carleton: Probably . . . one in a million, one in a million. It doesn’t look good?’
Burrell: ‘It doesn’t look good without doubt, but because I have known them it doesn’t mean I had any involvement.’
Carleton: ‘Do police believe you are responsible for Mrs Whelan’s kidnapping?’
Burrell: ‘It certainly points in that direction, but is unfairly pointed.’
Carleton looked at Burrell with something that amounted to respect. His coolness was extraordinary. The reporter asked about his relationship with Mrs Davis.
Burrell: ‘Dottie Davis was a good friend of my wife’s parents. My wife thought a great deal of her . . . we basically all got along very well.’
Carleton: ‘You were a suspect in her case?’
Burrell: ‘No, I don’t accept I should be a suspect.’
Carleton bared his teeth: ‘If they are digging up your backyard at Lurline Bay, you are a suspect.’
Burrell: ‘There were areas they were searching around this vicinity I didn’t even know existed. What police do or don’t do is something I have no control over or ability to comment on.’
Burrell was too comfortable. Carleton threw in a curved ball. ‘Why did she
give you a cheque?’
Burrell began to blink rapidly, but his voice was calm. ‘Dottie first spoke to me in late 1993 and asked me if I’d do her a favour and I said “yes, sure”. In the middle of 1994 I did conduct a financial transaction on her behalf . . . I have been asked by police not to discuss this issue.’ This was not true, but Burrell continued, ‘I don’t know that I should canvass the issue on national TV.
’ Carleton beamed at him encouragingly. ‘I know the details of the transaction.’
Burrell: ‘I’m not imposing a gloss on it. I will give you the simple facts. Dottie asked me to deposit a cheque on my behalf in her name . . .’ Burrell’s story was that Dottie gave him $100 000 because she wanted to hide some money from her children.
Carelton: ‘You asked for a loan, didn’t you?’
Burrell: ‘False.’
Carleton: ‘She gave you a cheque for half a million, didn’t she?’
There was a slight pause before Burrell answered, ‘Correct, she did . . . the entire thing was bizarre.’
Carleton sparred with his subject for a minute. The interviewer was looking confident, smiling and jutting his chin forward, and peering down his elevated nose at Burrell: ‘You weren’t going to tell me about the half a million, were you?’
Burrell: ‘You didn’t ask me about it. And bearing in mind the police told me not to talk about it . . .’ This was another lie. Burrell made the tiniest of shrugs. ‘I rang my bank,’ he said. ‘They said, “Look, the cheque will not be honoured because there are insufficient funds in the account”, and that’s when Dottie said, “Well, that’s okay, we can do it with a lesser amount”, and I said, “Sure, not a problem”. She’d indicated to me that she wanted it kept very quiet. She didn’t want the kids to know. To me she was a wealthy eccentric family friend who wanted a problem resolved. She asked me to help her and I did.’
Carleton: ‘There was ten grand for your troubles?’
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