The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders

by I. J. Fenn

  Saxby called the emergency services from his car phone before accompanying Smith to where the body lay. A quick look told Saxby that Smith was right: the man was dead. They walked back to Fletcher Street to wait for the Police who arrived shortly before 10.15am.

  Sergeant Ingleby listened to their story before they were joined by other police officers and two ambulance officers from Randwick Ambulance Station. They all made their way to the scene at the foot of the cliff where they saw the body lying near a large square-shaped rock. Ingleby noted that the body couldn’t be seen from above as it was located in the ‘dead ground’ concealed by the rock face. The ambulance officers examined the body, confirming that it was, as suspected, deceased. They then left.

  Being an experienced police officer with 20 years of service behind him, Ingleby took in the details of the scene: the body was lying face down, the head turned slightly to the right. The head and upper body pointed towards the cliff face and the left arm was beneath the torso, across the body. There was blood in the water to the right of the body and a total of four dollars sixty lying nearby: a two-dollar coin, a one-dollar coin, two fifty-cent coins and three twenty-cent coins. He noted the exact position of each coin in relation to the body, thinking that the money had presumably fallen from the victim’s pocket when he fell. There was also a Peter Stuyvesant cigarette packet lying beneath the cliff overhang with a blue disposable lighter close by, and an empty Coke bottle on top of the big square rock next to the body. One strange item that caused Ingleby to pause for a moment was a small clump of blond hair attached to the back of the victim’s left hand just behind the index finger: the victim was dark haired.

  As Ingleby was taking in the scene he and the others were joined by plain-clothes Constable Dunbar and Detective Owens.

  Sally Dunbar also took in the details of the scene, the red jumper with its coloured motifs, the light denim jeans, white socks and black boots all worn by the dead man. She saw the coins but, when she made a formal statement in February 1990, she failed to mention the hair on the back of the man’s hand.

  One of the other detectives to arrive at the scene, Constable Barrett, also catalogued the items found on or near the body, including the hair behind the left index finger, before the Crime Scene Unit arrived in the form of Sergeant Cameron and Detective Rivera. By now, at 11.30 in the morning, the tide had risen sufficiently to be lapping over the rock shelf on which the body lay. Rivera took a series of photographs at the scene and the detectives took possession of all the items of physical evidence found in the vicinity. Sergeant Cameron then removed a red plastic bank wallet from the right back pocket of the dead man’s jeans and found that it recorded an account in the name of JA Russell.

  Having preserved the scene in photographic form, the detectives could then move the body, turning it onto its left side to expose a number of injuries: blood escaping the mouth and nose, a two centimetre gash running from the left eyebrow to the hairline, ripped jeans. The height from the top of the cliff to where the body lay was estimated to be 11.6 metres, a height great enough to cause instant death on impact.

  Barrett booked the body of John Russell into the morgue at Glebe just after one o’clock that afternoon.

  ii

  John Alan Russell was a part-time barman at Coogee Bowling Club and a part-time school yardsman in Double Bay. He was living in Oakley Road, North Bondi. He’d moved there from Ocean Street, Bondi, with his brother Peter, 11 days before his death. He was ‘a happy-go-lucky guy’ with lots of friends and he was about to inherit enough money from his grandfather to build his own kit house on his father’s farm at Wollombi. In fact, in anticipation of the move, he had organised a going-away party for himself: it was supposed to take place on the Thursday, 23November – the day he was found dead.

  On Wednesday evening, 22 November, John Russell – ‘Johnno’ – left home with his best friend of 13 years, Peter Redmile. They usually met two or three times a week, drinking in the local pubs around Bondi, talking about their futures, their plans. At about 7pm that Wednesday they were in the Emerald Wave Bar of the Bondi Hotel, drinking middies of Powers. Johnno was excited: his grandfather’s inheritance money was going to change his life. He would travel around the country – the whole of Australia – before settling in Wollombi … his own home … of course, he would lend his ‘best mate’ the deposit for his own home, too … ten grand? Fifteen? Johnno bought more beers. In fact, Johnno bought the beers all night as Peter Redmile wouldn’t be paid until the following day: about a dozen middies each, maybe 15. Not that John Russell was drunk exactly, just … happy, in ‘good spirits’.

  Sometime around 11pm Russell explained he’d have to leave soon ‘because of the money’ and Redmile decided he might as well catch his bus back to Darlinghurst. When he left the hotel Johnno moved up to the bar and started chatting to the barmaid. He still had a drink in front of him.

  When John Russell had finished his beer he would have made his way home either by walking up Curlewis Street and along Glenayr Avenue, crossing Warner’s Avenue to Oakley Road, or by going along Campbell Parade to Warner’s Avenue and then turning right to reach home. In either case he would have essentially moved northwards if he was taking the most direct route. Instead, he walked south along Campbell Parade before, presumably, turning into Notts Avenue and going along the walkway to the place near Mackenzies Point from which he fell to his death. But why would Johnno go to the Marks Park area after telling his friend he’d have to leave soon, implying that he was going straight home?

  John Alan Russell was homosexual.

  iii

  On 29November 1989 a post-mortem was carried out on John Russell by Dr Sylvia Hollinger. Dr Hollinger found external bruising on both sides of Russell’s abdomen, a broken left collarbone, the gash on his forehead previously noted by Sergeant Ingleby, an abrasion on the back of the left shoulder, another on the left knee and yet another on the left elbow as well as several broken bones in the left arm. There were also three broken ribs and other injuries to internal organs. Russell’s skull was shattered.

  Hollinger’s conclusion was that the cause of John Russell’s death was ‘Multiple Injuries’ consistent with having fallen from the cliff above where his body had been discovered by Neville Smith

  A toxicology examination detected no sign of recreational drugs, cannabis, amphetamines, methadone, opiates, barbiturates or cocaine. However, a blood alcohol reading of 0.255 suggested that John Russell, even as an experienced and habitual drinker, would have been at least a little inebriated at the time of his death. It was this last detail that convinced PC Dunbar that, even though she was aware that Marks Park was a gay beat where violence against homosexuals frequently occurred, John Russell had fallen to his death because he was drunk. There were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, no signs of what might be termed ‘unnatural’ violence – ie violence other than that which could be expected to have been inflicted by a fall of 11.6 metres onto solid rock – on his body and he retained personal possessions which could have been expected to be absent in the case of robbery.[1] At no time did Sally Dunbar mention the hair that other detectives had noticed sticking to Russell’s hand.

  And neither did Constable Barrett. He too, found no evidence to suggest that John Russell had been pushed from the cliff.

  iv

  Detective Page read the documents wondering why Russell had gone to the Marks Park area when he was known to avoid ‘beats’ because he thought they were unhealthy and dangerous. He wondered why Russell had gone there without telling Redmile. And he wondered why the police saw no reason for suspicion over the death, despite the hair that had been found on the back of his hand, hair that was deemed important enough by the Crime Scene Unit detectives that it was photographed. Important enough to have cast doubts over the entire early findings in Detective Sergeant McCann’s mind.

  Once again, Page followed McCann’s investigation.

  Among McCann’s archived case files, Page l
ocated Sergeant Ingleby’s original statement from 26 February 1990. In it he explained that he had received a call at Bondi Police Station on Christmas Eve, two months earlier. Someone felt they had information that could be useful in the investigation into John Russell’s death. Ingleby arranged to interview the caller on Boxing Day at the Bondi Station.

  Rod S was a 42-year-old employment analyst living in Newtown. He admitted to having frequented the Mackenzies Bay area for about two years for ‘training purposes’ and to ‘mix with other gay’ people who went there. One of those people he ‘mixed with’ was Red, a man he’d known for four or five months without ever knowing his real name.

  Rod S met Red sometime around the beginning of December on the coastal walkway, and heard that there’d been a bit of a ruckus in the area ‘a few days ago’.

  ‘It was probably a bashing,’ Red said. ‘But I don’t know.’

  Rod, not having heard about John Russell at that time, said nothing. However, he was told by a friend on Christmas Eve that Russell had been murdered at Bondi rocks. (Interestingly, the friend categorically said ‘murdered’ rather than ‘found dead’. The majority of the gay community seemed to have reached this conclusion despite police indifference to the case). Shortly afterwards he – Rod – was running around the walkway when he saw Red near the Fletcher Street steps.

  ‘I just heard a guy was murdered here a few weeks ago. You remember you told something about a bashing or something? Do you remember?’

  ‘Not really,’ Red said. ‘I was with someone and we were talking. We heard a lot of shouting but we didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Did you hear anything they yelled? How many voices were there?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell. I don’t know.’ Red seemed reluctant to say much, seemed not to want to talk about it.

  ‘Why don’t you at least tell the police what you heard?’

  ‘There’s no point. There isn’t much to say.’

  ‘But it would help them if they knew there were a lot of voices. It would mean there was a group.’ Couldn’t he see how important this was?

  ‘No. Look, I’m not getting involved. If they found out at work…’

  Red’s anxiety stemmed partly from a desire to keep his homosexuality a secret and partly, Rod believed, from an incident that had happened to him only a couple of months earlier when he’d been approached by someone – again, near the Fletcher Street steps – who ‘wouldn’t take no for an answer’ and tried to push him off the path and over the cliff. ‘Some middle-aged loony. A crazy guy,’ he’d said. ‘It happens.’ But if Red had had these experiences, they were alien to Rod, who’d never witnessed any violence in the area. He did admit, however, that he was aware of the potential for such violence and, with that in mind, he only went to the walkway early in the evening when there was less likely to be trouble.

  At the end of Rod’s statement he examined photographs of the dead man and assured Ingleby that he’d never seen John Russell in all the times he’d been to the area.

  After the Boxing Day interview, Ingleby accompanied Rod to the Marks Park area on a number of occasions at night to try to find Red, but they were unsuccessful. During these patrols, though, Ingleby noted that the light along the walkway was good even on cloudy nights, seeming to reflect off the water and filter up from the beachfront: it was difficult to imagine anyone wandering off the cliff without seeing that they were getting close to the edge.[2] He also saw ‘many men’ in the area, sitting on the rocks or walking along the footpath. At one point he saw a man sitting alone on a ledge at the edge of the cliff and Rod suggested that this was common practice when someone wanted to be alone for the moment: he would probably move onto the footpath later when he was ready to make contact with another person, Rod said. Contact, he explained, was usually made by means of ‘eye contact’ or ‘body language’. Ingleby had also heard that ‘rattling’ was a common method of announcing availability – anyone wishing to indulge in sex would rattle coins in their pocket or jangle keys as they walked. But Rod didn’t know this method of signalling, he said; he only knew about those he’d mentioned, those involving ‘body language’.

  Ingleby’s statement also included an account of an attack on another homosexual during the same period. On the evening of Thursday, 21December 1989, David McMahon, a 24-year-old chef from Bondi, jogged along the promenade to North Bondi. When he reached the barbecue area at the northernmost extremity of the promenade he turned and ran back to South Bondi and Notts Avenue, before running up the steps to the footpath leading around the cliff edge to Mackenzies Bay and Tamarama Beach. As David McMahon ran up the various sets of steps leading to the footpath he saw no-one: the area seemed to be deserted. However, once at the top of the steps near the lookout point he noticed a group of youths, maybe a dozen or so, including at least two females, blocking his path. The youths were aged between 14 and 18 years old, he guessed. One of them stepped in front of him and asked, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Going for a run,’ David said.

  One of the others, a Maori sitting on a nearby wall, called out, ‘You got a cigarette? Or two dollars?’

  A little tense and anxious, David ignored the group and quickly resumed his jogging until he reached Tamarama Beach. On his return run he avoided the area where he had encountered the youths, running instead across Marks Park to Fletcher Street and then to Sandridge Street. From there he ran down through Hunter Park (an adjacent park to Marks Park with access to the southern end of Campbell Parade) and past a block of units, rejoining the footpath around the water’s edge near Notts Avenue. Suddenly, he was thrown to the ground.

  As he fell, he turned onto his back and saw the two ringleaders from the group of youths he’d seen earlier, the one who had blocked his way and the Maori who’d asked for a cigarette. The first youth, aged about 17, was five-six to five-eight, slim, with short blond hair, longer on top than at the sides. He was wearing a white, round-necked jumper, black tracksuit trousers and was carrying a blue Caribee backpack over his shoulder. He was Australian and well spoken.

  The second attacker was roughly the same age and height but had a solid build, a round face and was fatter than he should be. He had black hair and an olive complexion and was wearing khaki-coloured shorts and tee-shirt.

  ‘You fucking maggot!’ A boot landing in his ribs … fist smashing into his face, the taste of blood in his mouth … another kick, harder, taking the breath from his lungs … tears to his eyes … ‘Poofter bastard!’ … teeth smashed … as more kicks, more punches landed … crying and screaming and begging and laughter somewhere off to his right … kicking … spittle dripping onto his face … and blood … and the pain in his side … pain in his kidney … pain…

  There were at least a half-dozen others standing around and someone was calling out ‘poofter’. The white ringleader repeating, ‘you’re gay, you’re gay’, screaming ‘you’re gay, you’re gay’, as the Maori continually punched him in the head. Screaming himself, David tried to get up but was forced back onto the ground as someone punched him in the stomach. He kept on screaming while the white boy kept telling him to shut up. He was then turned onto his stomach and punched and kicked savagely in the ribs, the kidneys, all the time calling for help.

  As they beat him they demanded his money but he had none with him, only his keys.

  Suddenly, the white thug started to drag David along the path towards another set of steps, steps beside which there was a drop of five metres onto a huge rock. And then another three metre drop into the water. And while David was being dragged, the thug was saying, ‘I’m gonna throw you over the side. You’re goin’ over the side, you poofter.’ And David knew, knew as certainly as he’d ever known anything in his 24- year life, he was going to die. He was going to be thrown from the cliff to his inescapable death. Summoning the last remaining shreds of strength, drawing on pure instinct to survive and in a state of absolute panic David broke free and ran for his life … ran up the steps near a block of
units … ran into Hunter Park … ran screaming for help as he went … hearing footsteps pounding behind him … footsteps closing in … no other sound … no shouting or threats or abuse … just the determined pounding of the predator closing in … closing in to grab him, to pull him down, to … And then a light coming on in one of the units and him screaming ‘Help!’ and a voice in the darkness, a male voice, calling to him, saving him … calling, ‘I’m not going to help you, you poofter!’

  But the light had come on, had broken the rhythm of the attack, and the footsteps behind him stopped. The chase was over. David ran home shaking and crying and knowing he was lucky to be alive. He had lost only a diamond earring, a gold signet ring, his running shoes and a disposable cigarette lighter: not much when weighed against having escaped with his life.

  • • •

  The injuries David sustained in the beating included various cuts and bruises, several loose teeth, swellings to the body and extremities and headaches, all recorded at St Vincent’s hospital where he went for treatment. He suffered nightmares and was still unable to leave his house at the time he was interviewed by Ingleby on 3January 1990, two weeks after the attack. He felt confident that he would be able to identify his attackers though, at least the main two.

  • • •

  Unknown to Sergeant Ingleby as he spoke to David, yet another assault on a homosexual had taken place earlier on the same evening as that at Mackenzies Point.

  Shortly before 8.30pm on Thursday, 21December Robert H cut through Centennial Park on his way home from shopping at Bondi Junction. It was a hot and humid evening and he stopped to regain his breath at the viewing dais at the northeastern end of the park. He’d been resting for about 10 minutes when a group of seven youths emerged from a clump of bushes some way below him. Two of the youths split from the others, moving away from the group, coming at an angle up the incline, but not directly towards where Robert was standing. Robert watched the five remaining group members who were about 15 metres from him and one of them appeared to speak to him, gaining his attention. Suddenly, he was struck from behind, pushed violently down the hill so that he stumbled and rolled towards the group. The two who had separated had circled around behind him and had approached without being seen or heard. The gang punched and kicked him and hit him over the head and arm with a metal bar. He heard one of those not directly involved in the assault saying, ‘Don’t hurt him. Just take his money.’