by Kim Kane
4.I knocked on the door again and waited approximately two minutes on the porch of Mr WEAVER’S residence. My associate wrote his details on a Victoria Police business card and posted this under the front door. The card alerted Mr WEAVER to our visit and asked that he contact us upon his return.
5.As we were leaving the residence I noticed there was a garage at the end of the driveway, down the side of the house. The garage doors were closed and secured with a chain and a padlock.
6.It was possible to see inside the garage through the gaps in the door through which the chain passed.
7.Inside was a silver Subaru Forester with Victorian number plate UKR 699.
8.I am aware that a car similar to this make and model was described by Hallie KNIGHT as a possible make and model of the car she was abducted in. A similar car has also been reported as ‘suspicious’ by a number of Crime Stoppers log reports.
9. In a previous interview Mr WEAVER said the only vehicle he owned was a mustard Volkswagen Transporter. He denied owning or having access to a silver Subaru Forrester.
I hereby acknowledge that this statement is true and correct and I make it in the belief that a person making a false statement in the circumstances is liable to the penalties of perjury.
Peter James DAVIS
Acting Detective Sergeant 29902
Wayne NEWBURY
Acting Detective Sergeant 27111
Acknowledgement made and signature witnessed by me at 3.35pm on 9th June at St Kilda Road Police Station, Melbourne.
STATEMENT
Name:
Sarah Wendy GRAHAM
Occupation:
Detective Constable, 29189
Address:
Homicide Squad
Level 9/412 St Kilda Road, Melbourne 3004
STATES:
1.My Name is Sarah Wendy GRAHAM and I am a Constable Detective at the St Kilda Road Police Station. On 9th June I was instructed to make enquiries with CityLink to investigate the tollway records for evidence of a silver Subaru Forester – registration UKR 699 – using tollways over the last three-month period.
2.Tollway records registered the vehicle as having used the Western Ring Road as follows.
7th April, 6.54pm – Northbound
8th April, 9.35pm – Citybound
29th April, 5.40am – Northbound
2nd May, 3.34am – Citybound
27th May, 6.21am – Northbound
31st May, 11.44pm – Citybound
3.The vehicle’s e-tag had expired on 26th April and an image of the car was captured on the tollway camera, clearly displaying a male driver and a passenger on the 27th May, 6.21am.
I hereby acknowledge that this statement is true and correct and I make it in the belief that a person making a false statement in the circumstances is liable to the penalties of perjury.
Sarah Wendy GRAHAM
Detective Constable 29189
Wayne NEWBURY
Acting Detective Sergeant 27111
Acknowledgement made and signature witnessed by me at 5.15pm on 9th June at St Kilda Road Police Station, Melbourne.
THIS IS A VIDEO-RECORDED INTERVIEW BETWEEN DETECTIVE SENIOR CONSTABLE MAURICE BELL AND RODNEY JAMES WEAVER OF BRUNSWICK CONDUCTED AT THE ST KILDA ROAD POLICE STATION ON THURSDAY 9th JUNE. OTHER PERSONS PRESENT, MY CORROBORATOR, DETECTIVE SERGEANT BEN NEWMAN AND MR WEAVER’S LEGAL COUNSEL, CHARLIE DALLING.
Q1Okay, Rodney, do you agree that the time by my watch is now 3.48pm?
AYes.
Q2Can you state your full name, address and date of birth for me?
ARodney James WEAVER. 3 Donald Street, Brunswick. September 18th.
Q3All right. Rodney, I intend to interview you in relation to your whereabouts on the weekend of the 28th and 29th May. In our last interview you told us you were at a festival – the Indie Igloofest. However, the festival director says you were not there.
AOh yer. Um, I forgot. I had a double booking. I got my mate, Andy, to fill in.
Q4And what were you doing then, Rodney?
AI was at the Princess. Yep, definitely at the Princess, working on Love Never Dies all weekend.
Q5That’s funny, Rodney, because you see, we have a Citylink tollway photograph that places you on the Bolte Bridge in a car of the very same make and model you denied owning or having access to. A car of the very same make and model was found in your garage and has also been linked to the kidnapping of Hallie KNIGHT. I think it’s time to talk, Rodney. Where did you go?
AI went to the shack.
Q6The shack? That’s a long way from the Indie Igloofest, Rodney, and the Princess Theatre. Where is it?
ABaringhup. South west of Bendigo. It’s an old house I inherited from my grandmother – more of a ruin, really.
Q7I see. And did you go there alone?
AYes. Yes, I did.
Q8Are you sure about that, Rodney? Because, you see, we have a theory. We believe that that’s the schoolgirl Adeline TARANTO in the front seat.
[Citylink photo of car produced]
Look at the photo, Rodney.
ANo, no. It’s not. You’re on completely the wrong track.
Q9Well, it looks like a girl, Rodney, or a very little lady, and you’ve obviously got something to hide. You’ve lied up until now.
AThat’s my girlfriend.
Q10Your girlfriend?
AYes.
Q11And what’s the name of this girlfriend?
AHhagsah [inaudible]
Q12I’m sorry, Rodney, you’re going to have to speak up and speak quickly. Do I need to remind you that this is a murder investigation and you are currently in the hot seat? You worked at two of the schools the girls were taken from.
[inaudible between WEAVER and counsel]
CMy client does not have to respond.
Q13It would assist us if he did, and if we don’t get it out of him, a court will.
AI was with Claudie, just with Claudie. Claudia SARGOOD.
Q14Claudia SARGOOD? Well that will explain why you’re driving a car registered to Ms SARGOOD.
AShe’s my girlfriend, and it is her car, but look, can we be discreet about it? There are third parties involved who could get really hurt.
Q15Third parties have already been hurt, Rodney. Terminally, in fact. Anyway, Claudia SARGOOD is a star. She was on Neighbours. She’s written books about making papier maché pigs with her family and, even if she hadn’t, why would she spend time with a lighting technician?
AAsk her.
[Points to mobile phone on table]
Q16There’s nothing under ‘C’ or ‘S’ here, Rodney.
ATry ‘B’. She’s listed under ‘Bunny’.
From: Celia Beasley [email protected]
Friday 10 June 8:08 PM
School was unnerving today. They’ve been taking all these teachers in for questioning, driving them away in police cars, and it’s pretty obvious they’re focusing on the men. Jaime said she screamed when Mr Hunter leant over her shoulder to correct her work in maths and everyone knows he’s so gentle his office is always packed with injured birds he’s saving in tissue boxes. Poor Mr Hunter.
I’m not any closer to working out who wrote on the drive. I don’t think Jaime would do it, even though she’s just the type to get ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ confused. But she writes with big loopy I’m-a-drama-student writing and this was more uptight, up and down like computer print. I just hope whoever did it thinks Dad is here – he looks pretty scary with his gun collection, although his collar’s always crumpled. Do you
think the ‘CB’ meant me? Or Cleo? At least I managed to scrub it off with Jif before Mum or Grandma saw it.
On a happier note, I’m really excited you’re coming down. It’d be great to go to Camberwell market and that Sunday’s perfect. I also love love LOVE your idea about embroidering stanzas from my poems on your tablecloth-dresses. Maybe we could also incorporate my sleeping pills somehow? Sew them on for punctuation with big cross-stitch-like buttons? I get goosebumps just thinking about it – our first collaboration!
I’ve also been doing some sewing. Grandma’s been helping me make a patchwork quilt with bits of fabric from around my room, like old dolls’ dresses, worn-out t-shirts, library bags and things. It’ll be like a fabric scrapbook of my life.
Hope all ok.
xCCB
PS What about this stanza for a dress?
A long plastic box of pills to will my Grandma’s heart,
Every M, T, W, Th, F, S, Su.
From: Alice King [email protected] Saturday 11 June 10:27 AM
Coooolies!! So glad you’re up for the market. I seriously feel like we met years and years ago – in the Hundred Acre Wood or something.
People in general are still tiptoeing around me in the boarding house in case I get angry or throw something again. I’ve been doing some drawings because Mrs Carmichael gave me a journal and said that when I feel heightened emotions, I could try art instead of slamming doors. So I did a whole heap of pictures of dresses and stuff with your poems on them, and I also stayed up late and scribbled over about ten pages, and I just kept going till all my Derwents went blunt – all these red shapes mostly, like fire – and I really did feel good afterwards.
Are you at all worried about meeting me? I mean, maybe you won’t like me and I’ll be this huge disappointment. Sorry. You’re probably already rolling your eyes, but you really do save my life in here.
Alice x
PS For what it’s worth, I seriously would tell the cops about what you found written in your driveway or at least your mum. It’s just dead creepy.
STATEMENT
Name:Hallie Gabrielle KNIGHT
STATES:
My full name is Hallie Gabrielle KNIGHT. I am 15 years old and was born on 30th November. I am making this, my third statement, with my mother present and her name is Sylvia Jean KNIGHT. I now have more details I want to add.
On the second day he came in with another cup of milk. I still hadn’t drunk the first cup and it had grown a skin over the top. He made me start on the weaving he had begun the day before. I did as I was told but I didn’t think about what I was making. I had to keep strong. I imagined myself as an old lady, a mother with my own family, an Olympic rower, a famous documentary film-maker, getting awards, getting married, having Christmas. Christmases. Lots of them. He sat on a chair near the fireplace and watched me take some scraps of fabric out of the basket. I didn’t want to touch the hair. Dead girls’ hair. I asked how he got my photograph. He told me he’d seen me at rowing training early one morning, loading the boats back into the Barrington sheds and then he’d seen our team at the Head of the River. That’s when he got my photo and I guess how he knew about all the other girls in the team, so he could trick me into his car. He even knew I had a sister. I was so scared I’d never see my family again, or school or anything and all I could hear was my breath as I reached into the basket. I started to feel faint and asked if I could lie down but he said we didn’t have that sort of time. He said some other things too, it was all white noise and I didn’t want to look at his flat creepy mask. My stomach was growling. The weaving was about a metre long after a couple of hours and he said I could lie down. I was only allowed to leave the room twice a day to go to the toilet, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The rest of the time I just had to hold on. When I wasn’t weaving I lay on the mattress – shivering and waiting. I knew that when the loom was full, he would kill me. Sometimes I heard voices from another room, but it also could have been a TV. There was definitely music. I was getting weaker.
The days and nights blurred into each other. One morning, after five or six days, he came in and looked at the weaving I’d done so far. I had completely filled the loom and used up all the materials even the gross bits. I had hardly slept. I was finished but I did not care. I was just so weak and cold. My hands had shrunk and were blue with cold. I thought about Mum and Dad, and how they’d have to identify my body. They had probably given up. So had I.
That morning he seemed more agitated. He said he’d seen my family on the TV, asking the public for information. The bastard was so happy with himself, boasting about how little the police knew – how much he’d got away with. It made me sick. He said some guy was making a plea to the public on behalf of my family and he asked who it was. He kept going over to the window and tugging at the blind. I couldn’t work out who would be speaking on behalf of my family. Maybe my cousin, Damian, who Mum and Dad always call, ‘the son we never had’, as a kind of joke. I got a flash of Damian’s face and it made sense that Mum and Dad would have asked him ’cause he works for Channel 9. He got all angry and came up really close and, in this evil voice, asked whether Damian was my boyfriend.
That was when something unlocked in me. I saw Damian’s face again and he was nodding, like, ‘Say yes – say I’m your boyfriend, Hallie. Say it!’ It was like the words that came out of my mouth weren’t mine and didn’t come from me. He kept asking who the young man on the TV was, demanding that I explain. He was red with fury. He pushed his face right up close to mine. His breath smelt like salami. I told him Damian was my boyfriend and, as I said it, I could see Damian’s face smiling at me, saying, ‘Go, Hallie!’ The next thing I knew he was pulling my photo off the wall, grinding it into the floor, screaming, ‘You’re a Bad Apple after all, Hallie. You are a plain-as-day Bad Apple.’ I think he might have even been crying. I mustered all the energy I could and for the first time since I’d been with him, I wasn’t afraid. I stood on the bed and roared from a place so deep that it didn’t feel like me at all. ‘Yes, I’m a Bad Apple. Yes. Yes. Yes. Damian turned me bad and I enjoyed every bit of it. Every last bit, do you hear me, you sick creep.’ He left the room and locked it. I kept on screaming, ‘MOTHER FUCKER!’ I couldn’t stop. Then he burst back in and came at me. He had a syringe in his hand. He plunged it into my thigh and everything went black.
I hereby acknowledge that this statement is true and correct and I make it in the belief that a person making a false statement in the circumstances is liable to the penalties of perjury.
Sylvia Jean KNIGHT as guardian for Hallie Gabrielle KNIGHT
Acknowledgement made and signature witnessed by me at 12.20pm on 9th June at St Kilda Road Police Station, Melbourne.
M BELL
Detective Senior Constable 29861
STATEMENT
Name:Claudia Cameron SARGOOD
STATES:
My name is Claudia Cameron SARGOOD and I am 33 years old. I reside at 48 Maritime Street, South Melbourne with my husband, Nicholas BURNSIDE. Both my husband and I are professional actors. I am the registered owner of a silver Subaru Forester, registration number UKR 699.
I have known Mr WEAVER for approximately 14 months. I met him at the Regent Theatre, where he was a lighting technician for the musical Annie, in which I played the lead role of Miss Hannigan. Mr WEAVER and I became intimate friends. By that I mean I had an extra-marital affair. This relationship was kept a secret from all cast and crew, as my husband and I share a public profile and we have two young children.
Mr WEAVER and I would see each other a couple of times a week after the end of the musical. Usually these meetings took place at his home in Brunswick, or at his country property at Baringhup. When I told Rodney that I had a job in Sydney, I gave him the keys to my car, as his work van is unreliable. I told him that as long as the car was left
outside my house when I got back, he could use it. He agreed to this and also to having the car serviced and cleaned while I was away.
I returned to Melbourne for the week commencing 23rd May for an audition. I saw Rodney that weekend at Baringhup. That was the last time I saw him.
I am aware that Rodney has worked at a number of secondary schools. While I do not know Rodney in a wider social sense, I have no problem vouching for his character as a decent, soulful person and certainly not someone who is capable of inflicting harm.
Claudia Cameron SARGOOD
Acknowledgement made and signature witnessed by me at 10.42am on 11th June at Darlinghurst Police Station, Sydney.
L FISCHER
Detective Senior Constable 7865434
Dr Lorraine Bird
Psychiatrist & Psychotherapist
MBBS, DPM, FRANZCP
ABN 74 274 649 190
Provider No: 3389403948T
June 13th
Progress Report
Patient Name: Hallie Gabrielle Knight
DOB: 30/11/1995
Assessment and Formulation Summary
Hallie has experienced acute symptoms of anxiety over the past two days, relating to the physical and emotional trauma she has endured in revisiting the alleged site of her incarceration to assist police investigations. She is in a dissociative state, suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder.
Treatment Summary
Hallie is receiving regular sedation to assist with her recovery. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and supportive counselling will be provided to assist Hallie to develop strategies for managing symptoms.
Outcomes and Recommendations
Hallie should be fully supervised until her condition improves. Given her reaction to the alleged site of her incarceration, re-exposure is likely to be detrimental to her wellbeing. She will remain as an inpatient until she stabilises, however it is my recommendation that she is unfit to be interviewed by the police at this time, as it would be detrimental to her recovery.