Under Siege

by Belinda Neil

  When I got back to the office, I did some paperwork during the afternoon and called the SPG TOU office again. Still no one was answering the phone, and there was no word from Rob. I felt that perhaps they were organising their equipment, packing it away, perhaps having a beer to debrief after the siege, a common way for police to relax after a very stressful incident.

  At the end of the day I drove home to Ramsgate, where I was living with my flatmate. By now I was starting to get worried as I still hadn’t had any word. I called the SPG TOU office again and finally I was able to get hold of someone. Yes, Rob and the guys were there. They were having a drink as a form of stress relief.

  Rob was talking at an incredible rate, still hyped up. He had gone to Burwood and there had been a shootout with the man, who was armed. Rob was convinced he’d fired the shot that impacted and disabled the gunman’s rifle. I left him to it as he needed to talk and debrief with the others. I was just relieved that he seemed fine, though even more animated than usual.

  I rang the next day at work to see how he was. One of the Tactical operators answered the phone and the conversation went like this.

  ‘Hi, it’s Belinda. Is Rob there?’

  ‘He’s at the hospital.’

  ‘Why, what’s the matter?’

  ‘He got shot, but it looks like his body armour stopped a bullet.’

  I was dumbfounded. ‘But I was talking to him only yesterday.’

  The operator said he would find out what had happened and call me back. A short time later he came back to me: ‘He’s at St Vincent’s Hospital, they’re doing some X-rays and tests but it could have been worse. His body armour did stop the bullet.’

  He said the hospital was about to release Rob, and that he should be back in the office in an hour or so. There was no need for me to rush to the hospital if he was going to be back soon.

  When I got off the phone I just sat there, stunned. Rob’s ballistics vest had stopped a bullet. How lucky was that? All the time I just took for granted that each time we went to a high-risk job, or any job for that matter, we would do what was required, fill out the paperwork and go home. Sure, the possibility of getting hurt or killed was all part and parcel of the work. Being confronted by such a close call, however, was a shock.

  Rob had a perfectly round bruise the size of a ten-cent piece on his lower right abdomen, missing the unprotected part of his body by approximately three centimetres. He said he had indeed gone to Burwood; the man who had murdered three people was apparently about to kill a fourth. When Rob and his team arrived at the scene, local police were already involved in a shootout. The offender was shooting at police from behind a tree. It was chaotic, bullets were flying in all directions and local police had taken cover behind their vehicles. Rob and the other three Tactical police officers, seeing the danger the local police were in, quickly took up their positions and confronted the offender. Rob and the TOU operatives were armed with Heckler and Koch MP5 9mms, which they had taken because they were initially on their way to a drug buy bust, and would be working from the confined space of a vehicle. Rob would have preferred an M16 semiautomatic rifle; the offender had a high-powered 30.06 rifle and a twelve-gauge shotgun.

  The Tactical operatives quickly drew fire away from the local police and towards themselves, and the man duly started firing at Rob and the other TOU police. Rob said he heard a shot and felt a heavy blow to the lower area of the right side of his stomach. However it affected him no more than that, possibly due to the adrenalin pumping through his system. Shortly after this, the suspect for some reason came out from behind the bush and towards them, still firing. They wounded him in the leg and disabled his rifle, and he surrendered and was quickly arrested.

  With so much adrenalin running through his system, Rob didn’t even realise he had been shot until later that night. He started suffering severe cramps and pain above his right groin and next morning he noticed the circular bruise. He went to work as usual but the cramps grew worse and he was taken to the hospital. He had suffered a severe blunt trauma wound, which had compressed his stomach and vital organs. I still cannot believe he was so lucky.

  For a long time afterwards, Rob was moody and angry. For the first six months after our wedding in November 1993, we fought to the point where the marriage came close to breaking down. Rob wasn’t sleeping well and he would lose his temper at the drop of a hat. I put this down to my headstrong nature and Rob’s domineering one: I was one of very few people he couldn’t intimidate. In retrospect, I can see now that Rob had all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, we didn’t realise that then, and there was no counselling provided for him.

  Rob and I were extremely supportive of each other when it came to our jobs, our careers. I believe this was because we respected each other’s abilities, we sought advice from each other, and we could talk to each other about our work. We felt the same concern for each other, and we both knew what went on in the world in a way that the broadcast news just doesn’t convey.

  The downside was that we could not get away from work; it followed us home. We were both working long, exhausting hours, Rob with the TOU and me in drug and homicide investigation: I was also working part-time as a negotiator. Either of us could be called into work at short notice, even on rest days or annual leave, and we were often called away to situations throughout the state. Recently I found out that in the mid 1990s I was the highest overtime earner in the state police force.

  Most of our friends were police, except for some dear school friends of mine, and my time with them was rare and very special. Socialising with other police, however, seemed natural: we all worked hard, and we understood each other. We went to work functions, dinners, even sporting events and fixtures together. Rob introduced me to triathlons, we trained together and had a lot of fun.

  Marriage, at that time, had curbed my wild drinking ways after the deaths of Tim and Dana. In fact, Rob had had a steadying influence on me: after these tragedies I had continued my cycle of late nights and drinking. Rob and I both enjoyed a social drink but our increased workloads and on-call periods at that time meant that alcohol wasn’t an issue. However, work was. We did not see each other at work often, sometimes only when we were called out to high-risk operations together. When we did have time together outside work we were often tired and decided to spend a night at home. We had occasional trips away in the Hunter Valley, Blue Mountains, or Central Coast, mainly on weekends, and we always stayed in lovely, romantic accommodation. Apart from our honeymoon in Vanuatu, we never again went overseas together.

  After one particular afternoon shift Rob, due home about 11.30pm, didn’t arrive. He would always contact me if he was working overtime, so I started to worry. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t contact him and when I tried ringing the office there was nobody there. About 7am the next morning he turned up at the front door. He was in a foul mood and one of the legs of his jeans was ripped to shreds. Apparently his team had had an urgent last-minute call from the Crime Squad to help them carry out a high-risk search warrant at a bikies’ clubhouse. There had been no time for them to change into the overalls they usually wore to such incidents, and they had left the office quickly to get into position. The operation had continued into the night, which meant that he couldn’t contact me until the job had finished. While they were moving to surround the premises a police dog had latched on to Rob’s right calf, ripping his jeans. He was furious: they had been a good pair. I couldn’t have cared less about the jeans, I was just thankful he was all right.

  CHAPTER

  6

  The De Gruchy murders

  By mid 1994 I had spent almost five years at the DEA. It was standard policy for staff to be transferred out after a maximum of five years there, and I was ready for a move. When an opportunity arose to transfer to the Major Crime Squad South I didn’t hesitate. Unfortunately the only vacancy available was in the Drug Unit. I had already had enough of drug investigation and wanted to try so
mething new. I wanted to go to the Squad’s Homicide Unit. However, the opportunity to get a ‘foot in the door’ at the Major Crime Squad was too good to pass up – and worth spending almost two years in drug investigation again before I was able to transfer to Homicide.

  As a detective who was a Homicide investigator, I believed I had reached the pinnacle of my investigative career. I felt it was a privilege to investigate the death of one human being at the hand of another, to use all available resources at my investigative disposal, to prepare briefs of evidence for the Supreme Court in helping bring murderers to justice.

  The investigation of a murder is very challenging. The first forty-eight hours are particularly demanding because there is usually an overwhelming influx of information from potential witnesses and suspects, with clues and evidence. Evaluating the information and deciding on which avenues of inquiry to follow and which tools of investigation to use is extremely interesting. The downside to homicide investigation, of course, is exposure to sickeningly violent human behaviour and some of the most horrific crimes imaginable.

  The inspector in charge of Homicide was one of the most experienced homicide investigators in Australia. He had been an investigator in the case of Anita Cobby, the twenty-six-year-old nurse who had been abducted, raped and murdered in western Sydney in February 1986 – still considered one of Australia’s more horrific crimes. Five men were found guilty of her murder.

  At 8am I was on duty for my first shift in Homicide and busy moving some of my files from the Drug Squad over to my new desk. About 11am, the phone rang.

  ‘Good morning, Detective Neil, Homicide Unit,’ I answered for the first time. ‘How can I help you?’

  The voice on the other end said, ‘This is John Smith from the Daily Telegraph. Has Homicide sent anybody down to that triple murder at Albion Park?’

  Yeah right, I thought and looked around the office for the practical joker to appear. No sign of anyone playing a joke, yet none of the investigators knew anything about this case. I told the reporter I needed to make further inquiries and ended the call. It was unusual to be contacted by the press prior to police; normally local police contacted us as soon as they had been to a crime scene to assess what resources might be required. In this case, however, reporters more than likely intercepted initial police radio calls to the scene.

  Local police confirmed that three people had been murdered at Albion Park Rail about an hour and a half south of Sydney. A short time later I was asked to go to Warilla police station, which covered the Albion Park area, with other Homicide police to assist local investigators. We were told that the officer in charge of the investigation would brief us when we arrived.

  I had never been to a murder scene before. The only bodies I had encountered, in general duties at Waverley, had been people who died of natural causes. As probationers, we had been taken to the city morgue and shown the room where autopsies were held, but none were being conducted that day. Even when I was in drug investigation I had not seen anyone who had died from an overdose. I felt a little apprehensive. I was one of four Homicide investigators and I knew that because this was my first day in the unit I would be expected to watch what happened closely, learn, and give help where needed.

  At the police station we were told that Jennifer De Gruchy, her thirteen-year-old daughter Sarah and fifteen-year-old son Adrian had been brutally murdered in their home at Albion Park Rail. Matthew De Gruchy, the eighteen-year-old brother of Sarah and Adrian, had found the bodies of his mother and sister. He was to be interviewed by the police, and so was Wayne De Gruchy, Jennifer’s husband and the children’s father.

  After preliminary inquiries it was believed that Wayne was not involved in the murder. Questioning him so closely after what had happened might seem callous, however, while police are generally respectful in dealing with bereaved relatives, family members cannot immediately be ruled out as potential suspects. At the beginning of a murder investigation everyone is a suspect.

  I was asked to take a statement from Wayne. It took nearly five hours. We talked about the family, his work, where he had been the previous evening. He said he had stayed at his parents’ home in Sydney, something he often did because he worked in the city. He said he had last spoken with his wife Jennifer on the phone the previous evening. His son Matthew had wanted to use the car to visit his girlfriend; either Wayne or Jennifer – Wayne wasn’t sure who – had refused permission.

  The crime scene was a typical single-storey brick suburban home. From the front of the house, nothing looked out of place except for the presence of a number of police cars. We went into the main bedroom, and that was where normality ended. This was the room where Jennifer’s body had been found. It was no longer there, having been taken to the morgue. The bed and a pillow were covered in blood, so much blood that I knew her facial injuries would have been horrific.

  The next bedroom, obviously Sarah’s, had a bloodstained pillow on the single bed. I had been told she too had suffered severe wounds to the head and arms. There was a Walkman on the floor next to her bed; I imagined her lying there listening to music, not hearing what was happening in her mother’s room. Someone had put a pillow over her face and, while she raised her arms to defend herself, she had been brutally struck again and again.

  Did the killer know Sarah? Had the pillow been put over her head to prevent her from seeing the killer’s face? I felt sick. I couldn’t imagine what kind of person could do that. However, I knew that if I wanted to do my job properly I would have to divorce myself from the horror all around me. Look at this crime scene as a canvas, I told myself. Don’t consider the human factor, don’t allow feelings to get in the way. There are no bodies, just look for the clues to tell us what took place here.

  This was more easily said than done, especially when we went into the garage. There were human teeth on the floor, blood spatters on the ceiling. On the floor was an open jerrycan, the smell of petrol intermingling with the smell of blood. This was where the first officer on the scene had discovered the body of fifteen-year-old Adrian. Like his sister, Adrian had suffered severe head wounds and lacerations. Someone had also poured petrol over him, perhaps to try and set him alight. Had Adrian caught this person in the act of killing his mother and sister?

  The rest of the crime scene provided some interesting clues. There was evidence of a burglary, but some obviously valuable items such as a jewellery box containing earrings, necklaces and rings had been left untouched. A video recorder had gone, and taken out so neatly from the television cabinet that three videos standing up on either side were not disturbed. The floors had been wiped down and pieces of carpet cut out from the main bedroom. Compared with the frenzied attacks that had taken place, this kind of care was bizarre. The whole crime scene appeared to be a poorly conceived effort by someone to make it look like a robbery gone wrong.

  Even though the bodies had been removed, my mental images of what had happened to those three people were probably more horrific than if I had seen the bodies myself. I kept going over and over them, and was almost relieved when it was time to leave the house at about one in the morning.

  To say this first day in the Homicide Unit had been an eye-opener for me was an understatement. The De Gruchy case supplied one of the most horrendous crime scenes I ever saw in my entire police career. Aspects of this crime would come back to haunt me years later.

  The next morning at nine I went into the inspector’s office with the supervisor to make my report. The boss looked at me and said, ‘Well you’ve been blooded.’ Not a great choice of words, I thought, but I took it to mean I had been initiated into the world of Homicide. He added that he heard I had done well. I hadn’t realised I was being watched so closely.

  My job that day was to go to Glebe morgue for the postmortems of Jennifer, Sarah and Adrian De Gruchy. This was fine with me; I had no idea what I was in for.

  When I got there I was shown into the autopsy room, where they gave me a hospital gown to put over m
y clothes. That day I was wearing a dark green skirt with a cream blouse and a matching dark green jacket. Amazing the things you remember, particularly those you might prefer to forget. Besides Homicide investigators, there were crime scene officers to photograph and record findings made by the forensic pathologist, Dr Alan Cala. I had dealings with Dr Cala a number of times over the next few years, and always found him very professional and intelligent. The autopsy room had rows of stainless steel benches, with taps at the ends. Three of these benches were together, with a body on each of them.

  Adrian and Sarah De Gruchy were to be autopsied first. The pathologist examined their bodies, and then their heads were shaved to ascertain the exact damage to their skulls. Fifteen-year-old Adrian’s white skin was covered in red slashes. There were twenty-one to his head and neck. His face and the base of his skull were grossly fractured, and there were also fractures to his cheekbone and jawbone. Dr Cala located teeth, roots and all, in Adrian’s nose cavity. His torso had bruises like tram tracks. (Sarah and Jennifer had similar bruising, which indicated the type of weapon used.) The skin on his arms was peeling, consistent with petrol being poured on him to set him alight. I was appalled by the viciousness of the attack on this young boy, and could see that the others present were similarly shocked.

  The ten lacerations to Sarah’s beautiful young face and head were startling red slits against her pale white skin. Like Adrian, she had suffered fractures to her skull, forehead, right side and base of her skull. What made me feel especially sick were the defensive wounds to her right arm. They were in the same tram track pattern as Adrian’s and it looked as if the weapon used could have been a wheel brace or tyre lever. The investigating police were told this so they could start looking for the murder weapon as a matter of urgency.