The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders

by I. J. Fenn

  Forty-five persons of interest to be interviewed … Park Side Killers … People That Kill … The stuff of Hollywood imaginations? Hardly. The original PSK was a local gang based in the Philadelphia neighbourhood of Parkside during the early 1980s. They were essentially a group of disenfranchised black youths who hung out in the hope that one day they would make it as rap artists, ‘gangstas’ or some other stylistic successes. They adopted the tag ‘killers’ as no more than that, a tag. They were illicit boozers, dope smokers and mavericks who existed at the fringes, respected in the ‘hood’, unknown outside it. They were not killers in any sense of the word other than as used in local parlance, meaning ‘top’. (Various cultures throughout modern times have used ‘killer’ in one form or another to denote something great: killer bee, it’s a killer etc.)

  In 1986 one of the gang members recorded what was to become a yardstick rap number, ‘PSK What Does It Mean?’ in which he chronicled the lifestyle of the gang: smoking, drinking, sex. In effect, it argues the alternative world of disenchanted black urban youth in the industrial belt of the States where the only options are alcohol, drugs, women – and rap. From that one record, not only was the career of Schoolly D launched into the music business stratosphere, but a whole new sound was born, a sound as distinctive as Motown had been 20 years earlier – but meaner, uglier. It was the sound of the streets.

  Popular culture washes up on Australia’s shores long after its launch in the US or the UK and it took a couple of years before Schoolly D and his mega-hit established a hold here. But when the similarly disenchanted and largely undereducated youth of Sydney’s eastern suburbs heard ‘PSK What Does It Mean?’ it must have seemed like a clarion call to action. PSK was adopted by the Maroubra/Randwick gang as a tag, appearing on graffiti all over the city, on trains and walls, anywhere spray paint would stick. But it seemed that, maybe, the PSK was taken further, was taken literally: the new Parkside gang may, indeed, have become Killers. And the name apparently spawned competition among the other gangs in the region: the Part Time Killers were born, splintering away from the PSK (although the PTK covered themselves to an extent by claiming that the acronym stood for Prime Time Kids),[1]the BHS came into being: BHS – Blacks Have Style – was a more innocuous gang name adopted by young Maoris, Islanders and Aboriginals who created their own exclusive group whose membership was determined by race or colour, thereby putting them on an equal footing (in one sense at least) with the ‘whiteys’. In a way, though, these gangs were all second generation: the Bondi Boys had been known in the area for several years prior to 1986. They were a loosely connected group of older boys who’d been terrorising their victims in the region without reprisal for a long time. They were looked up to, respected by the younger thugs who graduated into the lower echelons as they ‘came of age’ and who eventually superseded those who had gone before. The PTK, in particular, identified themselves with the Bondi Boys and were seen as their natural heirs.

  ii

  So if the eastern suburbs were being terrorised by roaming gangs in the ’80s and ’90s, who were the gang members? Steve Page contacted the Intelligence and Analysis Section of the Police Information and Intelligence Centre for membership details of the Bondi Boys, PSK and PTK. He also drafted a plan to reinterview every potential witness he could find who might have fresh information relating to the crimes he was investigating.

  While he waited for Information and Intelligence to come back to him Page received information from Detective Inspector Mayger that he, Mayger, had previously spoken to the mother of one of Sean Cushman’s associates. She told him that she’d heard that Cushman had been involved in a murder – another murder in addition to the Hagland case of 1996 – in the area. Page rang the mother on 7 June and arranged for her to meet him and Mayger on 13June. Two days before their appointment she rang and cancelled, claiming that she knew nothing about the Cushman information. She’d previously spoken to the mother of a girlfriend of Aaron Martin, she said, and had been told that Martin had been involved in a murder in the Coogee area. Raymond Keam had been murdered in that area, Page noted.

  Cushman’s name kept cropping up. McMahon had identified him, now he’d been nominated by the mother of a close associate (even if she did recant soon afterwards, presumably because someone, maybe a lawyer, had suggested to her that she ought to think twice about what she was going to say). Page requested an undercover operation be put in place in addition to the telephone interceptions already in action. He would have someone try to get close to Cushman, someone who might be able to join the inner circle of whatever coterie of evil he currently presided over. At some point, whether it took weeks or months, Page believed that Cushman would brag about his past to assert his leadership, to establish his status. It was hopefully only a matter of time.

  Meanwhile, Page arranged for Detective Sergeant Nicholas to take a fresh statement from Peter Russell, the brother of John. On 15June Peter Russell attended Paddington Police Station.

  Russell quickly went over the facts from his original statement: he was John Russell’s brother … they’d lived in Oakley Street when John died … he’d identified the body in Glebe morgue and then made a statement at Bondi Police Station later the same day. He and John were close, he said. They were a tightknit family – he, John, their grandfather and Peter’s 11-year-old son. He’d become aware that his brother was gay, he said, when John was about 18: it was obvious from the places he used to drink and the people with whom he associated socially. From 1978 John started working in bars and clubs, including Charlie Brown’s in Kings Cross, a bar known as a gay hangout – although not exclusively so (especially given that homosexuality was still illegal in New South Wales at that time). After 1984 John worked at exclusively gay bars on Oxford Street as well as taking casual bar jobs at venues like the Bronte Bowling Club. Sometimes, Peter said, John was obliged to eject disorderly patrons from the premises: he was quite capable of looking after himself as he was fit and active, and had a history of having done judo and boxing. He had, on occasion, matched blow for blow with his elder and much bigger brother following heated arguments that got out of hand.

  The brothers used to drink together three nights a week at the Rose Bay Hotel, sometimes quite heavily if they fell into company. But, Peter stressed, John never drank to the point of incapability, never liked being out of control. And he did have an apparently enormous tolerance for alcohol: he would often bring home a bottle of scotch after work and the brothers would finish it in two or three hours before John went out clubbing in Darlinghurst. Which clubs? The Taxi, the Flinders, the Vault, the Albury. In fact, John Russell’s life seemed to revolve around the Darlinghurst area: he worked there, he socialised there, many of his friends lived there. Sure, he knew – as did his brother – that Marks Park was a beat – had been for years – and sure, he went there sometimes, on a couple of occasions, but he was never a regular, never…

  John Russell was not a drugs user, Peter said. He might occasionally smoke a bit of pot at a party but he wasn’t really into it, never smoked at home. There was no dope smoking stuff in his room when it was cleared out after he’d died and no evidence to suggest he’d ever smoked there. No, he wasn’t a drugs user.

  Nor did he publicise the fact he was gay. Anyone who knew him from outside his gay circle wouldn’t know, for instance. Not that he was secretive about it, it just wasn’t an issue for him. Inside the gay community it was a different story, though. John had been involved in the Mardi Gras from the beginning, Peter said. He was one of the founder members of the ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ float and was well known throughout Sydney’s gay population. Through one of his gay contacts he’d also come to know Robert ‘Dolly’ Dunn, since convicted of paedophilia, and he used to visit Dunn’s chicken farm near Wollongong occasionally. But that was hardly relevant, was it?

  Probably not but Steve Page was taking no chances. Dunn was transported from Silverwater to Surry Hills where he was interviewed by Page and Detect
ive Constable Pincham in the presence of two other police officers.

  Detective Page showed the prisoner a photograph of John Russell, asked him to take his time looking at it. ‘Are you able to tell me whether you’re an associate, or you were an associate, of that person?’

  Certainly not an associate, Dunn said. It was impossible to say for sure that he hadn’t met him but…

  What about the name, John Russell, Detective Page asked. Was that familiar?

  It wasn’t.

  Nor was Marks Park familiar to Dunn who answered all the detective’s questions politely and with consideration. To his knowledge, he’d never been to Marks Park.

  Where was he living in 1989, Page asked?

  Dunn said 1989 was a bit of a mixed-up year. At the beginning of the year he’d been living in Chippendale, in Ivy Street. But then he’d moved to Warners Avenue, Bondi, to look after a friend who was seriously ill with AIDS. Sometime around Easter he’d moved to Maroubra, to Broome Street, before moving again four months later, relocating to Green Valley.

  He’d never had any connection with real estate in Wollongong?

  ‘No, none at all.’

  And he’d never been associated with poultry farms?

  ‘Poultry farms? Never.’

  • • •

  There was no reason to disbelieve what Dunn had said. He would gain nothing by lying and seemed to be quite happy to answer the detective’s questions. So Dunn’s involvement with John Russell was imaginary. Peter Russell had been mistaken or had been given the wrong information by either his brother or by one of his friends. Maybe Dunn’s name cropped up as a result of pub talk, the largely harmless exaggeration that occurs after a few too many beers among friends, stories leading to increasingly unlikely stories as mates try to outdo each other with entertaining – but fictional – episodes from their lives. Whatever the reason Dunn had been mentioned, he appeared to have nothing to offer to the investigation and, for the moment, Detective Sergeant Page moved on.

  iii

  Since reading the McCann files relating to the Ross Warren investigation, something about Rowan Legge’s statement had been troubling Steve Page and he determined to clear it up by having Constable Harrison reinterview the flight attendant named by Legge. The interview took place, once again, at Paddington Police Station.

  The 39-year-old Qantas worker explained that he’d started with the airline in 1985 and was still employed by the company. He’d first met Ross Warren in 1987 at some Channel Seven function where he’d been invited with his girlfriend, a model who worked in TV commercials, to act as a ‘filler’ to make it look as though a lot of people had turned up to whatever ‘promo’ was happening.

  Somehow Ross got the flight attendant’s phone number and would often call when he was in Sydney to arrange to meet socially. At this time the flight attendant had no idea that Ross was gay and saw their relationship as being friends. However, he was soon disabused.

  Rowan Legge invited him to a dinner party at his house in Balmain, a party the flight attendant assumed to be mixed gender. When he arrived he found a dozen gay males made up the guest list, but was relieved to see that Ross was there because he was a familiar face. They talked all night, staying together because the flight attendant felt threatened by the others, and then he drove Ross home to Bellevue Hill.

  Bellevue Hill?

  The flight attendant believed that the one-bedroom apartment was on Bellevue Road and was leased in the name of Ross’s friend, Derek, a crew member with Ansett. Ross, he said, stayed there when he was in Sydney having come up from Wollongong.

  The night of Rowan Legge’s party Ross was drunk. The attendant went into the apartment with him and decided to stay there, sharing the bed without becoming intimate. His feelings, however, began to develop for the newsreader even though he, the flight attendant, was heterosexual.

  Over the next couple of months the two men saw quite a bit of each other, going to the Unicorn on Oxford Street because it was one of Ross’s favourite bars. They quickly became intimate and the attendant explained the situation to his girlfriend who amicably agreed to separate. In the meantime, Ross and the attendant stayed in the apartment in Bellevue Hill whenever Derek was out of town.

  When they went out on the town it was always to the ‘Oxford Street Strip’, the Unicorn, the Albury, and when they wanted to be more alone they would drive to Mackenzies Point and sit on the sandstone wall beneath the lookout. They did this maybe three or four times, taking drinks with them and just sitting and chatting. It was years later, he said, that he learned that that was a gay beat. And it was years after Ross had disappeared before he went back alone.

  Sometime early in 1989 they drove home after dinner and had sex in the car before Ross told him it was over, that he didn’t want to see the flight attendant any more. ‘You’re smothering me,’ he said. ‘You’re too clingy.’ It was a hard end to the first gay relationship the attendant had had and he was extremely upset. He was even more upset when he heard from other flight attendants that Ross had only wanted to sleep with him because he was straight. They never spoke again.

  Could he describe any of Ross’s friends from that time? Derek, perhaps?

  He’d met Derek, of course. He was tall, five-ten, Caucasian, slim and blond … Used to model part time for Vivian’s Model Agency … be in his early 40s, now … Other friends? Besides Derek? Rowan Legge … an ex-boyfriend – name unknown – who was a police officer at the time Ross went missing but who had since joined Qantas as a flight attendant. They talked sometime around 1994 when another flight attendant pointed out the ex-cop saying, ‘he’s the cop that used to go out with Ross’. The ex-police officer seemed not to want to talk about Ross, simply saying that the police had ‘finished with the case’ because of ‘Ross’s lifestyle’.

  So, what did he think had happened to Ross? Why did he disappear?

  ‘I always believed that Ross had gone to Tamarama Beach, not near Mackenzies Point. That’s where I thought his car was found. I thought that he must just have fallen off the rocks. He wasn’t athletic.’

  Fallen?

  ‘I don’t believe that Ross committed suicide. In the time I was dating him he didn’t appear to be a depressed person. Ross never came around to my place with more than the clothes on his back. He would have driven from Wollongong after work and still be in his suit and studio make-up. He’d borrow clothes and toiletry items off me. He never seemed to have a briefcase or bag with personal items in it.’

  No change of clothes?

  ‘He had some clothes and bits and pieces at Derek’s place in Bellevue Hill.’

  • • •

  If Rowan Legge had seemed to be less than credible a decade earlier when Detective Sergeant McCann spoke to him, the flight attendant was hardly any more so in his statement to Constable Harrison. The detectives from Operation Taradale knew that Ross Warren stayed with friends in Redfern when he was in Sydney (Ellis and Saucis, the friends who’d reported him missing precisely because he was staying with them but hadn’t returned to the house). And they knew that he’d visited other friends in Potts Point on occasion (Ken and Michael) although it remained uncertain as to whether or not he stayed overnight with them. But Bellevue Hill? This was the first mention of the apartment in Bellevue Hill. And Derek? Not the Derrick of Ruthven Street, Bondi, but another Derek, another flight attendant, one who hadn’t been previously identified by any other witness. And the ex-police officer boyfriend of Ross Warren, who was he? No-one else seemed to be aware of his existence.

  In 1994 Rowan Legge had said that the flight attendant was ‘a compulsive liar’, an ‘unsavoury character’ who was ‘malicious’. In light of his statement in 2001 there were some grounds for trusting Legge’s judgement, though with some caution: it still seemed as if Legge had had an axe to grind all those years before. Unfortunately, Constable Harrison didn’t ask about the supposedly murdered James whose body the flight attendant had reportedly transported back to Ohio. H
ad he done so, the attendant might have been shaken into telling a little more of the truth. As it was, his statement was almost worthless: he claimed even to be unable to remember the surname of Sue, the model he was with when he first met Warren at the Channel Seven studios.

  iv

  A few days later Detective Dagg was searching for occurrence pad entries relating to the death of Russell at Bondi Police Station and while he failed to locate any such entries, he did discover some information on the Robert H incident in Centennial Park in December 1989, including the fact that H had been assaulted with a water pipe – what he had referred to as a ‘metal bar’.

  The senior constable in charge of the H incident was spoken to by officers from Operation Taradale and the facts sheet was provided. Arrested with the two youths eventually charged with the assault was Darryl Trindall, the same youth who’d been named by Adam French as having attacked homosexuals in the Tamarama area. Steve Page determined to interview him when he’d had a closer look at the relevant information.

  Meanwhile, yet another statement was taken from Peter Russell, this time at the Rose Bay Police Station. Steve Page showed Peter Russell photographs taken at his brother’s crime scene and Peter was asked to look closely at the ‘peripheral’ items in the pictures. After a couple of minutes Russell confirmed that his brother had been a cigarette smoker and that his cigarette of choice was Peter Stuyvesant ‘soft packs’, the same brand as depicted in the photographs. It was likely, he said, that the pack in the picture had belonged to his brother. The disposable lighter near the body was also likely to have belonged to John Russell, Peter said.