The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders

by I. J. Fenn

  Yeah, he recognised people in the photograph book. Twenty-nine people, to be exact. Some were graffiti artists, some hung out with the graffiti boys, all of them hung out at the beach but he knew some of them through school, he said. Forrer was the one who was into ‘bad shit’ he said. And Forrer used to hang out with Cushman, Alger and Phillips.

  v

  By the beginning of May 2002 the detectives from Operation Taradale had amassed an enormous volume of data: statements, transcripts, expert evidence. Nearly all those connected to the ‘Alexandria Eight’ and the Bondi Boys had been interviewed with only a handful of minor players to be spoken to. False leads had been identified and discounted, live leads followed up and logged, persons of interest kept under surveillance. Detective Sergeant Page was convinced that someone would, at some time or other, provide the police with the vital piece of evidence necessary for an arrest in either or both the Warren and Russell cases. In the meantime, he continued to tie up the few loose ends remaining.

  On 7 May Detectives Pincham and Hooper went to Randwick Police Station to interview the former teacher of Ron Morgan’s friend, the teacher who had been told about Morgan having possibly killed a homosexual at Tamarama and another at Randwick.

  When the officers and the teacher met, Pincham explained why they were there.

  ‘What we propose to do, he said, ‘is ask you some questions in relation to a conversation you may have had with a student [Norm, mentioned by French] whilst you were at Redfern Markets some time ago. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘This conversation related to [Norm] having knowledge of another student, Ron Morgan, being involved in murders at Randwick and Tamarama. Do you understand that?’

  ‘I don’t really remember what was said,’ the teacher replied.

  Undaunted, Pincham carried on. ‘What I propose to do, is obtain a statement from you about your knowledge of this conversation. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Listen, I can’t remember anything about it,’ she said, heatedly.

  Pincham was sure she remembered more than she was letting on, was sure she’d been warned not to say anything to him about the matter. ‘We have a report dated 10 August 1991,’ he said. ‘From Detective Sergeant SD McCann. At paragraph 34 to 37 there is mention of this apparent conversation. Do you wish to have a look at this?’

  She did, commenting that it seemed to be an accurate summary of what happened when she’d originally reported it. But now, she said, she didn’t want to give a statement because she couldn’t really remember the conversation at all.

  vi

  On the same day, Pincham and Hooper went to Auburn Police Station and spoke to Norm. When asked about the conversation he’d had with his former teacher he said he remembered it but then, when Pincham mentioned the claim that Morgan had been involved in murders in the eastern suburbs, Norm shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said. Nevertheless, he supplied a statement to the police.

  After attending St Mary’s Cathedral School between 1984 and 1985 he’d moved to Alexandria High School where he couldn’t recall having the teacher the detectives claimed he had. Nor did he ever have a girlfriend named Olivia, he said, so he couldn’t have told her to tell the teacher anything, much less than that he wanted to speak to her, to warn her against talking to the police. But he did know someone called Ron Morgan, he said. They played football together but they didn’t socialise, didn’t see each other outside, so to speak. Then, about six months after he finished school he’d seen in the papers that Morgan had been arrested for murder but he’d never heard anything about any other murders that Morgan might have been involved in. No, definitely not.

  Nor particularly helpful but at least the interview had been recorded. If more interviews had been recorded at the time of the events under investigation it was likely that results would have been considerably different. It was even likely that, whether or not the body of Ross Warren would have been found, there would have been arrests in the Russell case and, with better police handling, in the McMahon assault.

  vii

  Sitrep 2001/5/11 was submitted on 21 July 2002 exactly 13 years to the day since Ross Warren left Craig Ellis’s house in Alfred Street Redfern, never to return. It was also three years since Kay Warren had first written to the police asking for a coronial inquest into Ross’s disappearance, and 15 months since the formation of Operation Taradale to investigate the cases of Warren, Russell and McMahon.

  During the intervening period, sitrep 11 stated, officers from Taradale had amassed over 400 statements. Detective Sergeant Page’s own statement ran to more than 260 pages and outlined all the relevant stages of the investigation. The brief, sitrep 11 said, was being put before the coroner at the present time. It detailed the investigative strategies followed for more than a year, strategies which included: the re-examination and reconstruction of crime scenes; reviews of the death scenes by a specialist pathologist; the utilisation of police divers and undercover officers; new canvasses of all affected areas; suspect interviews (approximately 60 persons of interest); media releases; listening devices used in prison cells and vans; telephone intercepts on 20 telephone services (over 17,000 calls monitored); and interviews of victims/witnesses of gay-hate crime in the various areas involved.

  As a side effect of the investigation, while no arrests had been made in relation to the deaths of Ross Warren and John Russell, nor the attempted murder of David McMahon, 14 people had been arrested on multiple drugs charges including supply, cultivation and possession of a range of prohibited substances. In all, a total of 59 charges had been laid.

  [1] Stephen Giles was on his way to a dinner engagement, driving alongside Moore Park, when he needed to relieve himself. He stopped the car and, instead of using the public toilets 100 metres away (which he knew to be a gay beat) he went into nearby bushes. As a gay male Giles later argued that by not using the public toilets it was evident that he wasn’t there for sexual purposes. In fact, he said, he was running late for his dinner appointment and was in a hurry. Shortly after starting to relieve himself he was surrounded by a gang of youths who punched and kicked him and beat him with a small baseball bat. One of the gang said, ‘We’ll get rid of all you poofters.’ Giles later accompanied police in a search of the area and they found the gang in Riley Street, Surry Hills. Adam French was one of the gang.

  [2] Ivan Smith had been walking along Darlinghurst Road with another male after finishing work at the Midnight Shift. He saw a short dark-haired male urinating in the street, facing in his direction. Smith turned to his companion and kissed him. The dark-haired youth called out, ‘You fuckin’ poofters’ and Smith yelled back, ‘Look who’s the poofter.’ The youth, Phillips, ran towards Smith and they started to fight while Smith’s companion ran off up the street. Within seconds, two other males appeared from behind trees and joined in the assualt on Smith, one of them, a tall blond with flat-cropped hair, smashed him in the nose with both clenched fists. Throughout the assault Smith’s attackers continually hurled abuse at him, raining obscenities onto him as they beat him almost senseless. The melee spread to Oxford Street at which point the police arrived and Phillips was arrested. The other two escaped.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Steve Page’s Conclusions

  My opinion, Steve Page wrote, based on my experience and observations is that people who for significant periods of time are considering suicide can let their financial affairs lapse. Warren, shortly prior to his disappearance, had his affairs in hand with:

  - Recent payment for car registration (Jones statement)

  - Issue of ANZ Visa card in July 1989 (Intelligence and Information Centre holdings)

  - Payment of driver’s licence on 13/07/89 (same)

  - Payment to Radio Rentals on 07/07/89 (same)

  I believe that Warren is deceased and I believe it likely that his body entered the water surrounding Marks Park. I believe it likely that the placing of the keys belonging to Warr
en on the rock shelf may have been done by Warren after being lured to that location, or alternatively, by a finder. I do not believe they were thrown into the position they were found.

  I do not believe that Warren or Russell attended Marks Park for the purposes of committing suicide, as both were gay men attending a location that they knew as a gay beat, and were likely there for clandestine sexual encounters. Both Warren and Russell appeared to be in good spirits around the time of the disappearance.

  Taking into account violence that was detected at the park against members of the gay community, which includes the Boxsell and McMahon assaults in December 1989 … and the homicide of Rattanajurathaporn in July 1990, I believe it is likely that both men met their deaths at that location as a result of violence.

  Examination of available evidence shows that the groups known as The Bondi Boys, The Tamarama Three[1] and The Alexandria Eight were involved in offences of violence targeting members of the gay community in the vicinity of Marks Park at Tamarama. After examination of all available evidence, I am not able to offer an opinion as to who I believe is likely to be responsible for the deaths of Warren and/or Russell.

  In my opinion, the [original] Warren investigation was flawed in that:

  (a) the investigation was retained by a command not responsible for the incident scene,

  (b) the positioning of the subject vehicle [Warren’s Nissan] and keys were not recorded by way of photograph,

  (c) there appears no organised canvass [was] conducted,

  (d) there was no brief of evidence submitted to the Missing Persons Unit or Coroner’s Court (as required by legislation) to assist any subsequent investigation

  (e) the Diving Unit was not utilised to conduct an underwater search in an effort to locate the body of Warren,

  (f) crime trends in relation to violence against members of the gay community were not monitored to establish whether it was likely that Warren was the victim of foul play. It was illogical that the scenario of accidental death was considered likely in the very early stages of the investigation with foul play almost eliminated,

  (g) other than the primary response controlled by Constable Robinson, the investigative follow-up was negligible

  In my opinion, the (original) Russell investigation was flawed in that:

  (a) there is no evidence of a canvass being conducted locally,

  (b) the likelihood of death by violent means discounted at an early stage,

  (c) the investigation failed to take into account the unusual positioning of the body of Russell not consistent with a forwards motion fall, the existence of hair on the hand of Russell, and the disturbance of vegetation on the cliff top above the body of Russell,

  (d) the hair evidence, which may have belonged to an offender, appears misplaced and was not submitted for further examination.

  In relation to the survivability of notebooks, duty and exhibit books, I have obtained a report from Laraine Tate, archivist at the Police Service, together with a copy of the ‘Functional Records Disposal Authorities’. Police notebooks, duty books and exhibit books are retained for five years then destroyed. I believe that continuing this practice will result in a loss of evidence by subsequent inquiries, together with a weakening of the continuity process of exhibits. These are the documents likely to show actions conducted by police, details of potential witnesses, the finding, location and continuity of exhibits. In ordinary matters, all court actions would ordinarily be completed within five years, but the matters I see that would be affected would be cold case investigations, together with those matters where an offender is not immediately identified. This would include cases, including homicide, where the offender is not as yet on a fingerprint or DNA database.

  Essentially, Page was saying, the system is a shambles and it has cost the state at least one conviction in relation to the present brief: had all the procedures been in place – and working properly – then the perpetrators of John Russell’s murder would almost certainly have been arrested following examination of the hairs found on the back of his hand. As it was, however, unless the system was drastically overhauled, these crimes would continue to go unpunished.

  [1] The McAuliffe brothers and Matthew Davis were together referred to by detectives involved in Operation Taradale as the ‘Tamarama Three’, a shorthand reference for the purposes of police convenience

  SECTION THREE: EPILOGUE & PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A Thorough and Impeccable Investigation

  i

  Under the Terms of Reference for Operation Taradale Detective Sergeant Page’s remit was fairly straightforward: he was to investigate the disappearance of Ross Warren, the death of John Russell and the assault on David McMahon ‘With a view to establish any links between these matters.’ While the remit was simple enough, the investigation had proven as complex as Page thought it would be: 2500 documented pages of evidence, cross-referenced and annotated, had established to his satisfaction that there were links between the incidents. Location, the targeting of specific groups identified by sexual orientation, the fact that they were only three instances within a far broader picture of hitherto unrelated incidents – all these suggested that the cases were linked.

  Which wasn’t to say that the crimes against the three men named were commited by the same person or persons. In fact, while the Russell and McMahon cases were very possibly perpetrated by at least some of the same people (offending gang members threatening to throw McMahon off the cliff, ‘where we threw the other one’, the description of one of McMahon’s attackers being blond-haired and the fact that Russell had blond hairs adhering to his hand when his body was found, and so on) it is quite possible that they weren’t. The culture of gay-hate crime was so widespread in the eastern suburbs in the late ’80s and later that it’s even quite likely that youths from various gangs would have talked about their violent activites, real and imagined. The word – including that on methodology – would have spread. Adam French wouldn’t have been the only one who was ‘young and dumb’: there would have been plenty of other insecure adolescents bragging about fantasy exploits to gain the approval of their peers (witness a workshop conducted by Sue Thompson at Cleveland Street High School in the early ’90s during which boys, when asked to graphically describe how they saw homosexuals, drew pictures of gay men being thrown off cliffs). It was possible that two separate groups of thugs had embarked on similar crimes along simliar lines, the throwing of their victims from the cliffs having become the accepted method of concluding a bashing. This, after all, had been the finale to Kritchikorn Rattanajurathaporn’s savage beating, but those convicted of his murder, Page was convinced, weren’t responsible for the Russell or McMahon attacks.

  But if the attacks on Russell and McMahon might – were even likely to – have been the actions of the same gang, or part thereof, Ross Warren’s case was slightly different, different enough to believe that other persons were responsible for his disappearance. And murder.

  Not only was Warren never found (this in itself, is of minor significance as it’s certainly credible that he could have been thrown into the sea and his body carried away on the tides) but there are two other factors that point to an unrelated group of people being involved: time and keys.

  Ross Warren disappeared in July 1989, the middle of winter. The Russell, McMahon and Richard Johnson incidents all occurred during the summer months, in fact, they occurred within a two-month period between the end of November 1989 and the middle of January 1990. They are ‘grouped’ by time. Warren’s disappearnce is far enough outside the time grouping to cause doubt as to a link by perpetrator. Of course, there’s the possibility that Warren was murdered as a kind of ‘tester’, a trial killing to see if they – the killers – could really go through with it. During the following months gang members would have to deal with their fear (of being caught), their guilt (some at least would have nighmares and other manifestations of psychological trauma) and, in some cases, their remor
se. There would be endless talk until they’d become used to the fact that they had killed, until they had reduced their act to the level of being mundane, an ordinary act which could be repeated four months later.[1]

  The second, and more compelling factor, however, is the key ring. If Ross Warren had been beaten and thrown from the cliff top, his keys – which it may be fairly assumed he’d been ‘rattling’ to attract a sexual partner – would have fallen to the ground beside the walkway or would have fallen with him. In which case they would either have been found on the rock shelf or, having gone into the water, might not have been found at all. Detective Sergeant Page concluded that the keys could only have been ‘placed’ in the position in which they were found, either by Warren himself or by a ‘finder’. It seems unlikely that anyone who found the keys on the rock shelf would half conceal them in a hole in the wall: a fairer assumption is that Ross Warren put them there deliberately, possibly while he committed sexual acts with someone else, someone who murdered him afterwards.

  Of course, without corroborating evidence this is mere speculation, speculation that throws up as many questions as answers: why would someone murder a stranger they’d just had sex with (the placing of the keys suggests that sex had at least started) when the express purpose of their being together is that very act? How could someone have overpowerd Warren without leaving signs of a struggle (blood, scuff marks etc)?