Lambs to the Slaughter

by Debi Marshall

  If Derek Percy did murder Simon Brook, how did he get to the abduction point and back on board HMAS Kuttabul, if he stayed there that night? At the time, he was attached to HMAS Melbourne, on fire sentry duty while it was in refit at Cockatoo Island. Barwick knew that crew could access small sailing boats by asking the officer of the day for permission to use them. Percy was a dab hand at sailing: did he take one of the small boats, sail it from Kuttabul and tie it to a tree-anchor somewhere on the foreshore near Glebe? Did he leave it there and return to it after the murder, using the sea water to wash away any blood stains? Or did he go on foot to Circular Quay, take the ferry to Balmain and bus to the area, leaving later by the railway cutting on foot?

  By 2 February 2005 Barwick and Newman were ready to start their long-anticipated interview with Derek Percy. Escorted under heavy police guard from Port Phillip prison the day before, he had spent the night in the cells at the Melbourne Magistrate's Court. But if they had hoped to interview him on the Brook and Stilwell matters without the media's knowledge, they were to be bitterly disappointed. On the day of the interview, a media leak threatened to derail proceedings when crime journalist John Silvester revealed that police were investigating the Wanda Beach murders and that a South Australian homicide expert had come to Victoria to help New South Wales and Victoria Police in their investigations of Derek Percy. That was enough for the media to go into overdrive: was Percy about to be charged with the disappearance of the Beaumont children?

  The Age newspaper hits the streets at 3 a.m.; by the time Barwick and Newman went to get Percy from his cell, there was a circus outside. 'We had to walk down the street to get into the cell complex,' Barwick recalls. 'There were media cameras everywhere and choppers overhead. No one had known anything about it before then, which is the way we wanted it, but now we had to run the gauntlet.' The leak, he says, caused no end of drama. 'The New South Wales Police Commissioner demanded answers as to why the Wanda Beach murders – a New South Wales matter – was being investigated in Victoria.'

  The detectives gave their official line. They wanted to see if they could clear Percy from investigations, not implicate him, but unless he could provide solid evidence to the contrary, their position was clear. They believed Derek Percy did murder Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt, may have abducted and murdered Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont, did murder Simon Brook and did abduct and murder Linda Stilwell. He remained a suspect for the murder of Allen Redston and could not be eliminated from that inquiry.

  Keen to make Percy as comfortable and relaxed as possible, Barwick and Newman engaged in small talk as he settled into the interview room. They needed to try and gain his trust, to tap into his memory from events of forty years before. The last thing they needed was for him to be spooked or uptight but they didn't have a lot of time. He had to be back in custody by late that afternoon. Percy blinked in the harsh light of the interview room and fidgeted in his chair, finally settling his frame into an awkward pose. Watching the interview via video link in a nearby room was Wayne Newman's colleague, David Rae, and Detective Superintendent John Venditto, Officer in Charge Major Crime, South Australia. Known as a copper's copper, a bloke who, if you asked him one question would ask a hundred back, Venditto was interested to hear if Percy made any admissions about the Beaumont children.

  Thirty-four years in custody had changed Percy. At fifty-six he sported a shiny bald pate with only whispers of hair on top. A clean, white beard hung to his chest, elongating a deeply lined, gaunt face. Years of chain smoking had exacerbated his dull visage, giving him the grossly unflattering appearance, Barwick later commented, of looking like Fagin from Oliver Twist. A grey moustache framed unsmiling, thin lips set in a sullen, pinched line but it was his eyes – expressionless, dead, pale as moonshine – that struck these officers. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. Not one flicker of movement.

  Naval training and years of custody had bowed Percy to authority figures. He was courteous, agreeable, obsequious. The detectives started with general questions. Family history. Travels. School memories. Inconsequential patter to loosen him up. He used to live at Milsons Point. 'Milsons Point. That sounds like a nice piece of real estate, mate. It'd be worth a few dollars now.' He was given a choice of musical instrument at school, he told them: guitar or the piano-accordion. Newman smiled. 'I can see why you chose the guitar.' What other music did he like?

  'The Shadows. I can't sing for nuts, though.'

  'You didn't like Cliff Richard?'

  No, he didn't. He was into surf music. The Beach Boys.

  When they showed him some of his old school photos he barely recognised himself. Yes, he told them, he would like a cup of tea, thanks: white with three sugars. They commented on the amount of sugar – Mate, you like it sweet! – and he explained that he takes it that way because gaol tea is so bitter and the sugar disguises the taste. They gave him a cheese and tomato sandwich and a glass of Coke, showing him his school yearbook where he had nominated his preferred occupation as 'playboy'. Peering at the words he penned more than forty years earlier. 'Playboy?' he said. 'I don't know where that came from.'

  He had 'bachelor' listed as his probable fate. 'Well, that's turned out all right, hasn't it,' he said, with a whisper of a smirk around his mouth. They talk about the good old days when petrol cost 20 cents a gallon. And some things never change, he agreed; he was still not a morning person and where was his old school mate, Ron Anderson, these days? Was he still in the police force? 'No, he's not,' Newman answered. 'He got to the dizzy heights of Senior Constable before he left.'

  Then they moved to more specific topics, the start of a marathon interview that would cover 1535 questions. Percy admitted owning a pushbike; admitted, too, the incident in the caravan with the two small girls, though he couldn't recall their names.

  'Do you remember two school friends – or maybe associates – Bill Hutton and Kim White?' Newman asked. Percy did. 'Yes, I – Kim White was a – a good sportsman. Footballer. Hutton was our fast bowler, from memory.'

  'Yep. They say that in 1965 they saw you in the bush, you got some women's clothing that was hidden in the bush, you got a knife and you cut the crotch from the women's clothing.'

  That time, he did not agree. 'I can't remember that.'

  'You can't remember. All right. That's 1965. In 1966 – we've already spoken about the incident with the two girls.'

  'Mm.'

  'So the evidence we have at the moment is that you were acting out some type of fantasy in 1965 and then by 1966 you actually involved other children in it. 1969 is when you were arrested for the Tuohy matter.'

  'Yeah.'

  'You had these thoughts for more than four years, they involved killing children . . . the level of compulsion that you told Dr Bartholomew about is extremely rare . . . Now, are you telling me that you did not act on these compulsions between 1966 and 1969?'

  'Yes.'

  Newman wouldn't give up. 'You know that you didn't or could it be the case that you can't remember?'

  'I know I didn't.'

  'You know that you didn't? How do you know that?'

  'Basically because I can't remember. I'm sure I would remember something.' He's going to be a hard nut to crack, Barwick thought. He's going to pull the same claim of memory loss now that he did in 1969.

  Coffee breaks, food breaks, toilet breaks, cigarette breaks. No change in expression. No admissions. Were you in Adelaide when the Beaumont children went missing? they ask. I don't know. Are you blocking out these thoughts because something horrible happened in Adelaide? It's possible. Venditto curled his lip in disgust. He'd heard enough. Percy wasn't going to tell them anything.

  They moved on to Simon Brook's murder, showing Percy a photograph of razor blades found at the scene. Yes, he agreed; they were similar to the type issued through the naval stores. He also recalled the conversation with his friend, Ron Anderson and the interview with Detective Dick Knight, but he couldn't remember details of either. He di
dn't think he had a car in Sydney at the time Simon Brook was murdered and although he did have fantasies from 1965 about hurting children, mutilating and murdering them, he claimed not to have ever heard the name Simon Brook. Barwick and Newman knew that was not what he had told Anderson or Knight in 1969 but it was what he was saying now. Even when they reminded him of the publicity the case received at the time, he looked at them implacably.

  'All right.' Barwick drew a steady breath. 'I've gone through those similarities for you between the crime you did commit in '69 and your history – your behavioural history from when you began having those thoughts roughly around '65 . . . The next year you actually involved other children and that's the one at Khancoban where you got the girls to pull their pants down. Now, you were in Sydney at the time Simon Brook was murdered. It was a type of crime that does relate to the writings that you say you made in '69 and '68.'

  'Yeah.' Casual, unperturbed.

  'You say that you don't remember the incident at the Gorge?'

  'No.'

  'Do you remember what Bartholomew gave evidence about at your trial?'

  'No.'

  'He said that he believed you had a type of hysterical repression where an incident is so repulsive to others or may cause you embarrassment in front of your peers that you won't re-member it . . . Did that sound like an accurate assessment of you in your mind?'

  'Possibly.'

  'Right. So how can we explain that you don't remember the incident at the gorge where you cut up the women's clothing . . . the crotch from the women's clothing?'

  'I don't know.'

  'How can you be so sure then that you didn't kill Simon Brook?'

  'I'm just sure that something like that I would remember something about it.'

  'Well, did the incident at the Gorge happen?'

  Percy appeared to be coolly assessing the situation. Thinking. 'Apparently. But I would consider that is considerably minor compared with the murder.'

  'Right. So you will consent that the minor incident possibly happened, but the murder . . .'

  'If . . . if . . . if there are witnesses . . .' Percy was stumbling over his words now but his expression did not change. 'If . . . if there are witnesses that said it, said that, then . . .'

  The detectives were flint-eyed now. Time was running out and there was much to cover before Percy was taken back into custody. They took a gamble. 'What if there were witnesses to the Brook murder?'

  'If there were and they're sure that it was me, it must have happened, but I can't remember it happening.'

  They had to admit their bluff. 'See, I don't want to mislead you and tell you there are witnesses because I can tell you there are no witnesses here that will identify you for the Brook murder, but the point I'm discussing here is that you will accept then that it did happen. You will accept that the incident at the Gorge happened because there are witnesses.'

  'Yes.'

  'And hypothetically speaking, which is exactly what it is, that if there were witnesses for the Brook murder, you would then accept, "Well, then it did happen and I just can't remember it." Is it because one matter is more serious than the other that you're so sure you didn't commit the second one?'

  'No.'

  'Can you explain, then, that if you don't remember either of them, why are you willing to accept that one did happen and not the other?'

  'Given the seriousness of the circumstances, I'm sure I would remember something about it.'

  Percy couldn't remember the details of the Tuohy murder, either, he says, the 'bad parts', the mutilation, but Barwick and Newman noticed he has become visibly different, his lip quivering for the first time in the interview. He admitted he hoped one day to be released and that media speculation that he might be responsible for other murders concerned him.

  Then they showed him what he had written, the dark fantasies he had committed to paper: his terrible desires to torture and mutilate and murder children. The writings police found in his navy locker all those years ago were passed to him across the table and the detectives watched for his reaction. And it was instant; like a shutter being drawn on a window, a curtain dropping. He had gone, retreated into his own world, out of reach.

  32

  Percy's former shipmate Tim Attrill was given an honourable discharge from the navy in 1971 and in 1972 joined the police force, retiring in July 2007 with the rank of Inspector. Sharp and highly articulate, he is used to summing up crims, analysing their characters and dissecting their stories, and equally adept at breaking down the alibis provided by girlfriends, mothers or wives. Over his thirty-five-year police career, he saw pretty much everything a person could see and heard a lot of stories: too many, he says. These days, he would rather pursue the gentle pleasures of fishing and camping than be shut up in a room listening to a career criminal spin him yet another bullshit yarn. But a life of leisure did not suit him and like many former police officers, in early 2009 he relinquished retirement and turned his skills to becoming a licensed private investigator.

  At the beginning of their cold case investigations, Newman and Rae had circulated an email throughout the police force enquiring whether anyone had had any contact with a particular female witness to Linda Stilwell's disappearance. Attrill had not, but he made contact with them anyway, sharing his knowledge of Derek Percy from his days spent with him in the navy. As a trainee detective in 1979, he had also read some of Percy's writings which were used as a police tool in profiling deviants.

  Attrill served with Percy on the Queenborough but in the time he knew him, he only saw him behave animatedly once. 'We had tied up at Port Lincoln and conned the officer of the day to take out the bosun's dinghy, a 14-footer that we would rig with sails. The trouble was we didn't know how to sail it. Percy was almost an Olympic-class yachtie in small boats and I asked him if he could help us rig the thing. He was very friendly and gave us clear instructions how to use it. Usually, though, if he thought he knew more than you, he'd assume a superior position.'

  Now, prior to their 2 February interview with Percy, Newman and Barwick sought Attrill's technical expertise on nautical matters and his knowledge of Percy's naval service or character. 'Don't let him know that you don't know things,' Attrill advised them. 'Don't give him any opportunity to gain an edge on you. This bastard is very shrewd. Flatter his intellect and don't forget he's got prison-yard cunning.' Newman showed Attrill Yvonne Tuohy's crime scene photographs. 'In all my years in the force,' Attrill later tells me, 'I have never seen anything like the death mask on that poor child's face. There is no doubt she died in absolute agony.'

  They were hopeful, too, that Attrill would elicit some responses from Percy after they had finished their interview with him. Alone together in the interview room, Attrill struggled to hide his shock at Percy's jaundiced face and sad wisps of hair. 'Hello, Perce,' he greeted him. 'Do you remember me?'

  Percy stared hard at his one-time shipmate. 'No, I don't.' You lying prick, Attrill thought. My appearance has barely changed in forty years. You remember me, all right.

  Attrill pulled out two photographs of the Queenborough: one leaving Sydney Harbour, and the other when she was about to go under the bridge. He passed the latter to him. 'Perce, do you recognise the ship we were on?'

  'Yes. It's the Queenborough.'

  'Yep, it is. Which direction is that ship going in?'

  Percy peered at them. 'I don't remember.' Likely story, Attrill thought. This is a bloke who sailed whenever he could, and he knew Sydney Harbour intimately. There is no way he wouldn't know which way that ship was headed.

  Percy had shut down, his face frozen, but Attrill had very little time left. 'Perce, you're hoping to get out of prison one day?'

  'Yes, I am. I've grown in the time I've been inside.'

  'Well, no one will ever accept that unless you help us close matters. Police know what you've done, even though you steadfastly refuse to admit anything. You need to make some admissions, to show us you've recovered. People
get trapped in lies and human pride won't let us admit it. But there are consequences of standing on your pride. Help us out. Tell us what you've done.'

  Percy stared at him, eyes cold, lips pursed. 'I'm not deliberately lying. I don't remember anything.'

  'Righto, Perce.' Attrill stood, a flash of anger betraying his usually composed features. 'I'll leave you with these photos to keep in your cold, lonely cell. You're going to have a long, long time to look at them. You'll never sail Sydney Harbour again and never join your mother at her Christmas table.' Attrill half-turned at the door, muttering under his breath, 'I hope you go back to your cell and hang yourself, you bastard.'

  By the end of the interviews, when Percy was returned to the holding cell under heavy guard, they realised they had gained nothing more from him – the Ghost, the Spook – than vague rationalisations that perhaps he had committed other offences, after all; perhaps he had, but he couldn't remember. He just couldn't recall.

  Barwick was convinced that Percy no longer showed any symptoms of major mental illness or other impairments, and he was sure that today he would satisfy the criteria to be found fit to stand trial. Percy showed no difference with short or long term memory and could remember precise details of many facts. His reliance on having no memory of events, Barwick felt, was a mechanism to avoid admitting to events or even discussing them. In short, Percy had told them a heap of lies when answering their questions.

  On 18 April 2005 Wayne Newman made a breakthrough, locating the file containing the original Victoria Police interview with Percy, as well as a number of Shell touring maps marked with pink texta. On one he had highlighted the route from the rear of Cockatoo Island Navy Dock in Sydney, to Parramatta Road, Leichhardt – a short distance from Jubilee Park, near where Simon Brook was murdered. There was also a map of Melbourne, with highlighter marking two distinct routes from the location where Linda Stilwell was last seen alive.