The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders

by I. J. Fenn

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘It’s well-known that, well, that park, where people who know it, know of it to be that.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She pushed another photograph across the table, a monochrome shot of a young man, clean, a little dated. Ross Warren, she said. ‘Have you ever seen him before?’

  Barely a glance. ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, he is the one, he disappeared in Marks Park at Tamarama in July 1989 and what happened was – his body’s never been found – but his car was found here,’ a jab of her index finger on the aerial photograph which was still lying on the table next to the smiling image of Ross Warren, ‘– in Kenneth Street. Just abandoned there. And his keys were found down here,’ sliding her finger over the glossy surface of the photo, looking up into Trindall’s face, seeing no change in his nonexpression. ‘But his body’s never been found. But that was 12 years ago so we presume he’s dead.’ A pause, then, ‘So, do you know anything about that?’

  ‘No. First I’ve heard of it. When you got in contact with me. An’ that’s the first photo I, first time I’ve seen a photo of ’im.’

  ‘Okay. So, how old would you have been back in 1989?’

  ‘Seven … 17, I think.’

  ‘So what were you doing around that time?’

  ‘Just a kid in ’89 … in the year ’89, me older son Jordan, he’s 12 now. Livin’ with me girlfriend an’ her family. Would’ve been at Stanmore I think, back then. But after that we moved to Alexandria, so … I was doin’ a garbage run. Through Rockdale. It was at Rockdale Council … An’ playin’ junior representative football for South Sydney.’

  ‘So, did you leave school … at what age would you have…’

  ‘I would’ve left probably about 16. Yeah, Year 10.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll just show you the other photos of the people we’re talking about. I’ll show you a photo of John Russell. He’s the guy, we actually found his body down here.’ Finger on the aerial again. ‘Have you ever seen him before?’

  ‘No, never seen him before.’

  ‘Okay. So, have you ever heard anything about him?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. That’s down in the park. Can I just, I’ll show you a picture of David McMahon. He is the gentleman who, this is a picture of him now and … Anyway, he was actually assaulted there in the park and attempts were made to throw him off the cliff. Have you ever seen him before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever heard about a David McMahon?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘Okay. So, getting to schooling … where did you go to school?’

  ‘High school? I started, like, at Punchbowl Boys.’

  ‘Punchbowl Boys?’

  ‘Done Year 7 there. Left there went to Newtown Boys for two years an’ then I done two years at Cleveland Street. Then I had a big break, probably three or four years, an’ I went an’ done Year 12 at Manly Boys.’

  ‘Okay. Year 12. Okay.’ Ignoring the fact he’d already said he’d left school at 16, left in Year 10. ‘And who did you associate with when you were at Cleveland Street High School?’

  Thinking, thinking back to those times, naming three or four guys … just guys, no trouble. Kids he’d played football with, junior football for Alexandria Rovers.

  ‘Near Cleveland Street High School,’ Harrison was saying, ‘there’s a park area near there as well.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s where we trained. Alexandria Park.’

  ‘Yeah? And are you familiar with the toilet block there, that was on the park?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yeah? And what, what did you know about that toilet block? Anything in particular about it?’

  ‘Yeah. We knew that, that’s where the gay people usually went around.’

  ‘What were your feelings about that?’

  ‘Didn’t really bother us. Didn’t bother me, y’know, so.’

  ‘Did you ever hear of anybody talking about how it bothered them? Back then, you know, the kids…’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Did you have any nicknames back then? Were you known as –’

  ‘Tricky. I’m still known by that, Tricky.’

  ‘That’s your only nickname?’

  ‘That’s it, yeah.’

  Following the plan outlined by Steve Page, Constable Harrison moved on to ask about graffiti tags, if he’d been into that graffiti stuff. But he hadn’t. None of the guys he knew did graffiti. And he didn’t go to Bondi, either, not frequently. If he did ever go there, it would have been as a kind of one-off, not regular. He stayed around Waterloo, Redfern, mostly. They all did, hung out around the housing commission, around Unwin Street – unless they went to a Blue Light Disco or –

  ‘So, do you know an Adam French?’

  Trindall shifted his position, leaned his arms on the table. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘And what about Ron Howard?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’d only know Adam French,’ he said. ‘I’ve only probably known him for 12 months or so. He was younger than I am. I only knew him because he probably came up and played a game of footy with us. Ronnie Morgan? I know him ’cause he was a student at Cleveland Street.’

  ‘And what about Alex –?’

  ‘I remember the name, now that you say that.’

  Constable Harrison ran through a list of names: did he know this one? What about …? They were all those convicted for the Richard Johnson murder. Trindall knew them all.

  ‘Alright,’ the constable said, ‘what I’ve got here, what has sort of led us to come and speak to you as well, is that in a listening device there’s a mention of your name, being involved in a bashing with another group of males. A bashing in Centennial Park.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘A bashing of a gay male. Can you tell me anything about that? Why would that come up, your name?’

  ‘The first I’ve thought – heard about that. And I don’t know where that would’ve come from.’

  ‘Did you ever bash anyone in any group?’

  ‘We probably have had some fights when we were young,’ he said. ‘And probably being young hoods, sort of hanging around together. But I never went and frequented the gay places like, you know, like you’re saying.’

  ‘Yes?’ Harrison asked, yes, and what else?

  ‘Like I said, that one before about being at Alex Park,’ meaning the beat, ‘we knew that because that’s where we trained. We trained at Alex Park. So, if ever we frequented one that would’ve been it.’

  ‘Okay. So you’ve said previously that you knew that Adam French and that group of boys got in trouble over a murder there in Alexandria Park?’ She posed the statement as a question but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘That was a guy by the name of Johnson. He was murdered there. They … a group of the boys bashed him and were convicted of that and went to jail. What did you ever hear about that? Like, did you know that that’s what they were doing?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘We heard straightaway – not straightaway but they sort of got charged pretty quickly over it.’ A pause, waiting. But nothing came. ‘So we also knew what was happening after that – it – happened. But we didn’t know that they actually went out bashing gays and set out on ’em, upon ’em like they set out … set out on that guy … when you, we got all the details on it.’

  ‘So when would the first you heard of it be? Just –’

  ‘After it happened. I don’t know who the first one was but one of the guys got arrested and it just spread around our area that there was a lot of them that’s goin’ to get done for it.’

  Harrison tapped her pen lightly on the table, drumming thoughts into line. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Have you ever heard of the letters PTK?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘PTK gang. Like in a gang?’

  ‘First I’ve heard of that.’

  What about PSK, she asked. But no, he hadn’t heard of that either. He’d heard of PIC, he said, Partners In Cr
ime, but he didn’t know who was in it, knew nothing about it, really. Just the tag. Harrison explained PTK and PSK, told him what the letters stood for and asked again if he’d heard the gang names. He hadn’t, had no idea. She pushed a book of photographs towards him, across the table, explaining that the pictures were just a collection put together by the police and asking him to mark any of the faces he might recognise, number the picture and initial it.

  Trindall studied the book page by page until he reached the end, page 9. Some people he half recognised, a few he identified with certainty, most were either unknown to him or he only knew a nickname or part of a surname. Those he knew all went to Cleveland Street High School, most lived in the housing commission blocks in the area, one or two played football with him although they weren’t necessarily those whose names he knew.

  Okay, Harrison said, was there anything that he could think of that the police might want to hear about any of this stuff: these people, these events they’d discussed?

  ‘No. Nothin’ really comes to mind. The first I heard about it was the other day when you got in contact with me.’ The people who’d vanished, who’d been killed, this was all new to him, he said. Sorry.

  Detective Dagg leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘In regards to the suspicious death of John Russell,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing you can tell us? You haven’t heard anything … boys going and doing gay bashings and throwing people over cliffs?’

  ‘No,’ Trindall said, shaking his head. ‘The first we sort of knew about was after the guys had done the one at Alexandria.’

  ‘So the lads that you knew very rarely went to the Bondi Beach area?’ Dagg asked.

  ‘Yeah, very. We all stayed around the Waterloo area. Especially way back then.’

  Way back then when people were dying, when they were being tossed like rubbish into the sea. It was only sensible to stay in the Waterloo area. Way back then.

  vi

  Other persons of interest were interviewed on the same day, officers from Operation Taradale coordinating their efforts as best they could to prevent too many warnings being given. One of those interviewed identified 28 people, including herself, who she believed were members of the Bondi Boys. The first on the list was Sean Cushman. He was a quiet guy, she said. Kept to himself. But at school he had a temper. She was in the same year as he was at Dover Heights, they hung around together, but weren’t that close. She was quite happy to give evidence if it was needed, she said, but she didn’t know anything about the Warren or Russell deaths, didn’t know anything about David McMahon’s case. Some of the others might, she suggested, naming one or two of the older boys, but if she was asked who was capable of such offences, she would have to say that she didn’t know of anyone in the Bondi Boys who was involved in gay bashings or robberies in the area. But who did she think could have been involved in bashings and robberies? Well, there was one guy, he was rich, his parents owned a pub…

  Another POI was more forthcoming, more helpful. In 1989, he said, he lived in Bondi. Gould Street, Bondi. Went to Dover Heights School. He looked at the nine-page book of photographs and recognised 23 people. They mainly hung out at the beach on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays, he said, but they sometimes met during the week, too. They all chucked in cash at the weekends, got an adult to buy booze for them, VB or Fosters usually, then sat in the huts on the beach and got pissed. Now and then they walked up to Marks Park, he said, hung around ’til maybe one in the morning.

  Yeah, they’d all sit together, drinking, talking. Sometimes a few of the group would take off – Cushman, Ned Hajdukovic, Poppa, a couple of others. They would take off as a group and come back later telling everyone else what they’d done, how they’d rolled somebody, stolen their stuff. They’d put the money in for more booze but they kept the jewellery and other things for themselves. On one occasion, he said, he was with one of the girls and they were walking along the rocks from Bondi to Marks Park when they met one of the other guys, Jason. Jason had just rolled someone, he said, had a wallet, rings, chains, glasses. He hadn’t known his victim, he said, just bashed him and took his things. Jason was like that, he said, violent, unpredictable. Another time – when he was with Jason outside the ice-cream shop, ‘32 Flavours’, on Campbell Parade – Jason, unprovoked, had kicked a bystander, knocking him to the ground. While the man was lying there Jason kicked him again, in the head, knocking him out. He removed the unconscious guy’s glasses, cigarettes and bumbag. The victim, he said, was gay.

  The POI said these were the only incidents he’d witnessed, hadn’t been involved in any assaults himself.

  When they’d gone to Marks Park, he said, they all knew it was a beat, a gay beat. It was one of the reasons they went there: some of the guys wanted to pick on the gay people, guys like Cushman and Hajdukovic in particular. Cushman and Hajdukovic were always talking about how much they hated gays, he said. Hajdukovic was the leader of the group, was one of the oldest, and he had the real problem with gay men, even more than Cushman. Which was a bit of a problem for him, he said, because he was gay himself, had to keep it quiet really, back then, could’ve been ugly if the others had known.

  And yeah, he said, he knew the PTK tag, all these guys used it. It stood for Part Time Killers. He didn’t use the tag, he said, he wasn’t really in the group, just kind of hung out with them, drinking with them. There was another tag around at the time, PSK. But he didn’t know what it stood for. It was used by a gang in Coogee, he thought, a gang led by a Maori guy, a mean-looking guy with his ears too low on his head, a real bastard.

  Warren, Russell, McMahon? He’d heard their names on the TV some time ago. Knew nothing about them, himself, didn’t recognise their photographs. Maybe his sister might … His sister once told him about a time in ’89 near Marks Park. Cushman and Hajdukovic had blood on their clothes after they’d rolled someone and they were crying, covered in scratches from the fighting. He knew nothing about it, he said, but his sister should be able to…

  vii

  While Constable Pincham was taking this statement, Sergeant Nuttall was typing up another interview conducted the day before. Person of interest, John, worked at the Prince of Wales Hospital and seemed only too happy to help the police with their inquiries. He was driven to Maroubra Police Station where he was shown a newspaper article about the investigation.

  ‘I remember this,’ he said. ‘My dad was staying in Sydney, at South Bondi, when this happened and he told me about it.’

  Sergeant Nuttall nodded and dropped the nine-page booklet of photographs onto the table, explaining that he’d like John to identify whoever he recognised by writing the name he knew them by next to the picture.

  ‘Yeah, no problems,’ John said. When he’d finished he looked up at Sergeant Nuttall. ‘I also wrote down where I know some of these guys from,’ he said. ‘I know heaps of them from Bondi and from school.’ He looked back down at the booklet in front of him. ‘Do you think these guys were involved, do you? We used to hang out in Bondi and stuff like that. We even got into a bit of trouble with the police and stuff because we always drank down the beach. We always drew attention to ourselves.’ He said. ‘We’d smash bottles and fight with each other but we never got involved in anything serious, man.’

  ‘What about robberies in the area at this time, in 1989?’ Sergeant Nuttall asked, his level voice polite, almost casual.

  John looked at him. ‘I never got involved in any stuff like that,’ he said. ‘There was heaps of stuff like that happening but I never got involved in that. I was always too pissed. I had a job. I think I was the only one who had one. I know the others were always short of cash so I think they did what they had to to get it. I used to hear some stuff about people getting rolled.’

  And there were other gangs around, he said. Gangs from Bankstown, Mount Druitt, Burwood. Heaps of fights. But nothing like what was in the papers, nothing like that.

  viii

  Early that evening the woman who had been inter
viewed by Detectives Page and Nuttall at Waverley Police Station that morning, rang her friend Cathy again. She was jittery but coherent, scared but not frantic.

  ‘The first – basically, the first thing they told me was, “we know Sean Cushman threw somebody off a cliff ” … like, Sean Cushman threw somebody off a cliff 12 years ago and I’ve been named as being there.’ She waited for a response, steadying her breath. At the other end of the line Cathy said nothing. ‘And, um, I’ve basically gotta prove that I wasn’t. But … but I wasn’t. They reckon I was there.’

  ‘Did they have your DNA?’ Cathy asked. ‘Like they said?’

  ‘No … ’ She paused. ‘And yet … They didn’t say they wanted to test me and that.’

  ‘Oh, he must’ve been a fuckwit, that detective that rang your mum.’

  ‘Yeah. It was the same one that I had today. The same detective. And he was so hard. He was so mean.’ She paused again. ‘I told them everything,’ she said. ‘I was honest.’

  • • •

  Listening to the taped recordings of the telephone conversations, Steve Page wondered if she had told them everything, if she had been honest. She hadn’t sounded surprised that they’d told her Cushman had thrown somebody off a cliff, hadn’t protested the ludicrousness of the idea to Cathy. Had she heard about it before? Or had she been there when it happened?

  Long but productive, the day was only the first in a series of long and productive days of interviews. And meanwhile, the phone traffic continued to offer leads, continued to open up lines of questioning.

  [1] The stabbing of a former boyfriend outside her house.

  [2] In fact, although the Russell family had kept John’s clothing in a cardboard box since November 1989 in the hope that it might one day prove useful as evidence, the clothing had been cleaned and offered up nothing of value when tested earlier in the year.

  [3] Hair samples, he omitted to mention, that had vanished at the time, never to be found again.