by I. J. Fenn
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Phone Tapping the Alexandria Eight
i
For convenience Detective Sergeant Page had from the outset dubbed those convicted of the Richard Johnson murder, ‘the Alexandria Eight’. On 14December, while interviews with the Bondi Boys continued, the Alexandria Eight were talking among themselves, making calls that they didn’t know were being recorded. The first recorded call came in at 2pm when one of ‘the eight’ rang his parole officer.
‘Good. I’ve been wantin’ to talk to ya,’ the PO said. ‘I’m just really concerned that the coppers weren’t gonna, what were they, what were they wantin’ you about?’
‘Uh, they were just here and I missed ’em by about 10 minutes. Something to do with an incident that happened 12 years ago or somethin’. In the Moore Park area of Sydney. So I don’t know what they’re up to but they want to talk to every one of us that was involved in our incident, so.’
Our incident, the kicking to death of an innocent civilian. ‘So, they’re goin’ back over old ground, are they?’
‘Yeah. I’d imagine that’s what they’re doin’.’
‘Mate, you, you’ve got no probs though?’
‘Nah,’ dismissive, nonchalant. ‘Don’t even remember it. No, I’ve got nothin’ to tell ’em. I’ll just say, look I don’t even know what youse are on about. I did my time, basically … And boot off back up to Sydney, boys, ’cause you’ve got no, you’ll get no help from me. I’ve got nothin’ to tell ’em.’
‘Yeah, sounds like they’re just goin’ back tryin’ to clear, clean up a few old cases or somethin’, are they?’
‘Yeah. That’s what I think they’re doin’, but. But everyone of us, when we were, y’know, out … we all said to each other, look you know they’re gonna come an’ ask us questions even in 40 years friggin’ time. I said, it’s just the way it’s gonna be. Just prepare, y’know, and we all sort of knew that. That’s why it’s not botherin’ me. It’s just old ground an’ I knew that’s what they’d be doin’.’
The Parole Officer agreed, told him to say nothing, to maybe tell the truth if there was nothing to tell, but. It’d blow over, he said. Couple of weeks, a few scare tactics. It was nothing.
At seven o’clock that evening he rang his mate Vance.
‘Yeah, guess who shows up on the fuckin’ door today,’ he said, laughing into the phone, sounding to the Taradale detectives like he was saying, as if I give a fuck, ‘when I went down to Lakehaven? Two D’s – two detectives … Oh yeah, wantin’ to ask me a question. Just one, one single question. Drove all the way from Sydney to ask me one single question of something that happened 13 fuckin’ years ago.’ More laughter, sneering and thin, filled maybe with hate and disdain. ‘But see, I didn’t talk to ’em. They can go and get fucked, mate. If they want me, they can chase me.’
• • •
Two hours later, at one minute past nine, a male voice left a message with Ron Morgan’s answering service. ‘Hey, Ron! Give us a call, mate,’ Then speaking to someone in the background, ‘no, it’s a message. No.’ Back to the phone, ‘Give us a call, um, there’s a … there’s a fuckin’ investigation goin’ on. Give me a ring back. I’ll let you know.’
In the background, the other voice called out. ‘Hey Ron, you’re a pirate. You’re a Captain Feathersword! An’ I caught ya. At Moore Park toilets with Alex Mihailovic and Justin King.’
The message was left because Ron Morgan was, at that very moment, on the phone with Mihailovic, was discussing exactly the same thing, the investigation.
‘There’s a fuckin’ thing goin’ on now, man,’ Mihailovic said.
‘Yeah? I don’t care,’ Morgan said. ‘I couldn’t care less.’
‘They think they’re round up everyone, just like we never … so it doesn’t …There’s nothin’ to worry about.’ Inarticulate with panic? Or maybe just the uneducated parlance of the streets.
‘Yeah,’ Morgan said. ‘Well, 12 years ago, who knows?’
ii
Justin King, mentioned in the message left with Morgan’s voicemail, had been interviewed that morning at Waverley Police Station. Justin King aka Sharkhead.
Detective Sergeant Page and Detective Pincham ran through the introductory preamble to the interview, asking name, address, date of birth and so on. King answered the questions without any apparent emotion, one word answers where one word would suffice, more where necessary. After a brief interlude when the video equipment broke down, the interview continued with audio recording only.
The procedure with the booklet of photographs was quickly under way with King identifying all the members of the ‘Alexandria Eight’, all friends from school, some had lived nearby back in ’89. The aerial photographs of the Marks Park area followed but King claimed he’d only been there once before.
‘And when,’ Steve Page asked, ‘you say you’ve been there once, where have you been?’
‘In that park,’ King said. ‘Probably four years ago. Playing cricket, barbecue. But prior to that I wouldn’t, didn’t know it was there.’
‘Are you aware it’s a gay beat?’
‘No.’
‘In 1989 would you have been aware there was a gay beat at Bondi?’
He wouldn’t. Nor did he recognise the photograph of Ross Warren, had no idea of anything about his disappearance. He didn’t recall hearing or reading anything in connection to Warren, he said. Adding, ‘Sir’. The same answers to similar questions regarding John Russell, David McMahon. Never heard of them, never seen them, knew nothing.
‘Where were you residing in 1989?’ Page asked.
‘Mother’s house in Waterloo.’
And was he working then? He was, he said. He was a porter in a hotel in Kings Cross, shift work, days and nights, weekdays and weekends. At the end of Year 12, it was. Year 12 at Cleveland Street High School. Who did he associate with at school, the detective wanted to know. Everyone, King said. He had a wide variety of friends, different groups. Had he been a graffiti artist? No. How did he feel about gay males back then? Not a problem, he said.
‘What knowledge do you have in relation to offences against members of the gay community in 1989 in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney?’ Page asked evenly.
‘I heard about it, but. Yeah.’
‘When you say you heard about it, what areas did that involve?’ Page wanted to know.
‘Waterloo area, I suppose.’
What about Marks Park? No. What about PTK? No idea. PSK?
‘PSK? Park Side Killers or something … Some Maroubra mob … graffiti boys doing their stuff. And that was what they were known by, I think.’
‘Were you ever a member of that group?’
‘No.’ And, ‘no’, he didn’t know anyone who was and ‘no’, he never used those letters as a tag. And, ‘no’, he knew nothing about the death of Ross Warren, the death of John Russell, David McMahon, wasn’t involved, wasn’t present, didn’t know who killed them, no, no, no. No.
‘Right. Are you able to tell me the current whereabouts of Adam French or Ron Morgan?’
‘It’s up to you to locate them. I’m sure the Parole Board will know somewhere down the line.’
iii
Little more than an hour later Detective Sergeant Page waited for another person of interest in the foyer of Paddington Police Station: he and Detective Nuttall were going to interview the youth who allegedly stubbed out a cigarette on the penis of a homosexual at Marks Park.
When he arrived, the POI was informed as to the nature of the inquiry, told about the investigation into the deaths of Warren and Russell, the assault on McMahon. Steve Page also explained that he had reason to believe that he, the POI, was involved in the cigarette incident. Nonchalantly, the accused informed the detectives that he would wait until his legal adviser arrived before he said anything and all three waited until the solicitor walked through the door. The solicitor was the brother of the accused and his advice was to refuse to be interviewed. They left the p
olice station together.
• • •
Possibly not the best way to end the week but that was okay, they had enough information to collate and assimilate for the moment. And there would be more to come, of that the police were certain. Not least of all because they’d already lined up interviews with Ron Morgan and Alex Mihailovic for Monday, 17 December, three days hence.
iv
On the Monday morning Detective Dagg travelled to the Entrance Police Station with Detective Fountain. The day was bright and warm, the traffic light. They made good time, talked about the case, discussed the possibility that Morgan might not show. He did. And by 11.10 the interview was under way.
Following the usual routine, the detectives ran through their introduction, explaining Morgan’s rights, confirming that he was under no pressure to speak to them, ensuring he’d been offered no inducement, hadn’t been threatened in any way. They explained that they were investigating the cases of Warren, Russell and McMahon and started their questioning proper.
Could he remember back to 1989? they wondered.
‘No, not at all, to be quite honest.’
He wasn’t going to make this easy, wasn’t going to do their work for them. ‘Okay,’ Dagg said. ‘Were you, around that time, were you around the Bondi area?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘The only time I believe I went to Bondi would’ve been to the beach during the day. That’s about it.’
The detectives remained placid, unemotional. ‘I’m just going to, to try to get your memory back there,’ Dagg said. ‘I’ve just got a couple of pages from the Daily Telegraph. This is Friday, 21July 1989 and this one’s Saturday, 22July 1989, 23 November 1989 and 24 November 1989 and 21 December 1989.’ He paused a second arranging the copies of the newspapers on the table. ‘These photocopies aren’t real good,’ he resumed, ‘but if you just look through them it might sort of draw you back to around that time. Does that help you at all, or …?’
Morgan glanced over the sheets of paper in front of him. The Sioux City aircraft crash, killing 115 people … the Australian soldier accused of selling secrets to the Soviets … the Drury shooting … Kylie Minogue ‘too sexy’ for TV … more on the Drury case, including the implication of Roger Rogerson … the US invasion of Panama … Did any of it help?
‘One name does,’ he said. ‘Rogerson. I think everyone knows who he is.’
Was he taking the piss? Was he just saying it because the story involved a corrupt police officer? It didn’t matter.
‘Yeah,’ Dagg continued. ‘So, that’s the time period we’re trying to sort of think about. I understand it’s pretty hard. It’s like, it’s 12-odd years ago. Sometimes quite hard to go back, to think back that long.’
‘It is.’ Noncommittal, blank.
‘So, you’ve said you’ve never been down to the Bondi area, Bondi Beach or –’
‘To the beach.’
‘Yeah? And how often would you go down there?’
‘In summer we’d, yeah, pretty much go all the time.’
‘Okay,’ Dagg said, reaching for a manila folder and pulling out a number of photographs. ‘The area that we’re looking at, the disappearance and attempted murder of those persons I’ve spoken to you about, is a place called Marks Park. I’m just going to show you a couple of photographs of that area and to give you a rough idea of the location of it. This here’s Bondi Beach.’ Finger pointing, tapping a spot at the centre of Campbell Parade. ‘And that’s the northern end up on Bondi Beach and I think there’s Icebergs just there. And there’s a walkway … there. And this is Marks Park. Does that ring a bell? That park or that walkway or …?’
‘Yeah. The beach and the Icebergs do for sure.’
‘Yeah, okay. Have you ever been around this –’
‘Yeah. Gone for walks with girlfriends in the past around there and stuff. Yeah, sure. I think everybody has.’
Dagg was pointing again. ‘This area here’s Marks Park,’ he was saying. ‘And this is renowned, what they call a gay beat area where gay men go to meet during the night. Or day. At different times. Did you know anything about that park?’
‘No, not that park. No.’
‘Did you know it was a gay beat area?’
‘No.’
Dagg moved his finger across the photograph, stopping at various locations: this is where Warren’s car was found … his keys found in the rock shelf, here … Did Morgan know anything about that? Did he recall anything at all –?
No. No, he knew nothing.
‘If we go up around to this area,’ Dagg said. ‘Just to the stairs that come down here, from that block … There’s a set of stairs down there, that flow down that path, and Mr Russell’s body was found at the, near the base of the cliffs there. And we believe he was thrown from that cliff. Is there anything you can tell me about that?’
‘No.’ Nothing more. Just the single word denial.
Undaunted, Dagg continued as though he expected nothing else. ‘And Mr McMahon was assaulted in this area here,’ he said, his finger now a little further along the walkway. ‘On that ledge there. And then he was dragged some 200 metres up around the cliff to the point where I just showed you where, near to where Mr Russell’s body was found. He was thrown, they tried to throw him from that cliff. Can you recall anything about that?’
‘No.’
‘Okay.’ The predicted answer. ‘I’ll just show you a photograph now. That’s a photograph of Mr Ross Warren. He was a news presenter in Wollongong. Have you ever seen this person before?’
‘No, I can’t say that I have, to be honest.’
Nor could he tell the police anything about Warren’s disappearance and he couldn’t recall seeing the newsreader on TV or of having read about him in the newspapers. He’d never even heard anyone talking about the disappearance, he said. It was the same with John Russell and David McMahon. He looked at the photographs, knew nothing, had heard nothing, had seen nothing. He couldn’t even remember where he was during that period, he said, it was too long ago.
Dagg nodded understandingly. ‘The time you used to go down to Bondi Beach,’ he said equably, ‘and the persons or friends you’d meet – at any time did you speak of – or anyone speak of, say, attacking homosexual men there?’ Asking in a tone that you’d expect if he was asking about the weather: and was it warm when you went to Bondi?
‘No,’ Morgan said. ‘Definitely not. We’d just talk about what was on the beach.’ Then seeming to turn to Detective Fountain. ‘Which was women.’
‘No-one came up to you and said, you know, let’s try and roll someone, or I just rolled someone, or –’
‘You hear people pass comments like that all the time,’ Morgan said. ‘I robbed this bloke or that bloke. You just didn’t take no notice of it, to be quite honest. I never did.’
What about gay-bashing, Dagg asked? Did Morgan ever hear about gay-bashing?
‘Sure. Yeah.’
‘Okay. Back in those times, d’you recall anyone … going out specifically to bash gays?’
‘Well,’ Morgan said, ‘you’d have to be lying to say that you didn’t. I mean, you lived in the area – not the Bondi area, but. Just in, near the city.’ He stopped, maybe not sure where he was taking this, not sure if he’d said too much. After a moment he carried on. ‘A bit of it went on there, too,’ he said, meaning, the city. ‘So, yeah, just like I said, you’d hear people passing comments, y’know? Like, meet up with your set group of mates, and then you’d hear other people, y’know, “yeah, we did this today”. Like I said, I just pass it with a grain of salt. Just didn’t take no notice.’
‘The reason I’m sort of asking,’ Dagg explained, ‘is that Mr Warren, Mr Russell and Mr McMahon were all gay men.’
‘Yeah, I understand that,’ Morgan conceded.
‘And they all frequented this Marks Park area, which is a, like I said before, is a gay beat area. So I’m trying, we’re trying to establish that … if you can assist us regarding anyone that you might kno
w who was into gay-bashing, or did that kind of thing. Especially around Bondi and the Marks Park area?
No, he didn’t know anyone, he said. Couldn’t remember anyone.
What about the graffiti artists around at that time? Had Morgan heard of the tags used in Bondi back then? PTK, for instance?
‘PTK? Yeah,’ he mused, ‘I think I’ve seen it written on the side of buses and on trains and stuff.’ He’d seen it but he didn’t know what it stood for: it was just a tag.
‘If I told you that we believe it may mean ‘People That Kill’, have you heard that term before?’
No, but he’d heard of PSK, knew it stood for Park Side Killers. It was written everywhere, he said, buses, trains, bus stops. Everywhere.
‘Do you know anyone who was a member of that gang?’ Dagg asked, his tone unchanged, even and flat.
‘No, not now,’ Morgan answered. ‘No.’
‘Do you think you’d recognise those people again if you bumped into them?’
‘I’d imagine probably, because of my past. I’d imagine they’d remember me probably … But not if I bumped into them ’cause, like I said, I’ve tried to put my bad past behind me and move on. And that’s what I’m trying to do.’
So, was this PSK just a tag? Or was it a gang?
Morgan hesitated. Yeah, he admitted, he was led to believe it was a gang. And, yeah, he thought there’d be a gang leader but he didn’t know who it would be.
Dagg produced the photo booklet, went through the routine: write the names, where you know them from. All that. Morgan looked at the pictures, identified those he’d been convicted with, one or two others from the area where he’d been living at the time, some he’d played footy with, cricket. School.
Any of them involved in gay-bashings, Dagg wanted to know? Any of them involved in any way with the cases under investigation?
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t. Only the ones that, the only assault I know we were involved in, we were involved in. No-one else or … nothing else…’