He began going through the investigation’s extensive records on the police database, not looking for anything in particular but hoping there might be something they’d overlooked during the past three years. It was not much of a hope, but he had nothing better to do. He looked for a long time, and then, to his surprise, found something: it was an ‘exhibit matrix’, a list of items taken from Kylie’s room at her grandmother’s house when it had been searched in the weeks after her disappearance, long before Smith became involved in the investigation. On that list was a mobile phone with a different number to the one she’d had with her when she went missing, which had never been found.
A second phone?
Smith went to the big cupboard where material from the investigation was stored. The phone was there, a Nokia. It was probably an old mobile that had been replaced by the one Kylie had used so frequently in the months before her disappearance. But still, it ought to be checked.
Back in the detectives’ office he recharged the phone and tried to get into its memory, but found it was blocked by a request for a password, or PUK code. There was a standard procedure for this sort of thing, and he made a request for the code number to Telstra, using the police IASK computer program.
On Tuesday, the code having arrived, Smith took it and the phone to the police Electronic Evidence Branch in Sydney. The unit is expert in obtaining information from phones and other devices, using procedures that ensure the results can be presented as evidence in court. After a wait, Smith was handed a seventeen-page report of information found in the phone’s memory. With growing excitement, he saw that it contained numerous text messages that had been sent between Kylie and Paul Wilkinson—she must have used this phone sometimes even after she got the new one. Some of the texts were useful in filling in small gaps. But one text message, from Wilkinson to Kylie, was more than just interesting: it was dynamite. What Smith now held in his hands was a piece of information that filled a major gap in the police case.
A week after Kylie had told Wilkinson she was pregnant, he had sent her this message: ‘2day & Wednesday then it’s DB [Dubbo] u and I are 2getha 4eva.’
As far as Smith was concerned, it was the SMS equivalent of a smoking gun. It contradicted Wilkinson’s claim that he had never been in a relationship with Kylie, and suggested he had lured her to Sutherland by promising they were going away together.
The next day, Smith walked into the DPP’s office for the meeting and handed the downloaded text messages to Janis Watson-Wood, pointing to the one about Dubbo.
‘This is pretty exciting,’ she said.
Deputy DPP David Frearson came in soon after and they went over the evidence against Wilkinson.
Abruptly, Frearson said, ‘So, why haven’t you charged him yet?’
Smith was so surprised that it took a few seconds to realise what he’d just heard.
Strike Force Bergin, like most homicide investigations, had been conducted in great secrecy. Geoff Lowe was among those who had no idea what was going on: all he knew was that Paul Wilkinson was still walking the streets and still posed a threat to himself and possibly his wife. In late 2006, having had Wilkinson’s threat assessed as low by the police force, Sue and Geoff decided he should seek promotion to inspector level, in a job far from Sydney. They would get away from Wilkinson and start a new life.
Next year, Geoff applied for a position of Commissioned Officers rank for the first time. It was quite a step: the increase in both status and salary between sergeant and inspector is considerable. But he was an experienced officer who’d handled a lot of tense situations well: he’d been involved in the ‘Strathfield Massacre’ investigation, he’d had shotguns pointed at him, he’d been the General Duties Mobile Supervisor at Cronulla during the revenge attacks after the riot in December 2005. With over two decades’ experience, he was sure he’d make a good inspector, especially somewhere well away from Sydney.
He didn’t know that soon Paul Wilkinson would no longer be a threat.
Glenn Smith’s plan was to arrest Wilkinson on 17 April 2007, just before the third anniversary of Kylie’s death. Usually on these occasions the police go in early, simply to be sure the person is at home. Smith arrived at Sutherland Police Station at 6.30 a.m., bringing a statement of facts he’d prepared and intended giving the court later that morning, after the arrest. He was joined by Andrew Waterman and Rebekkah Craig, who was on maternity leave (her second child had been born a few months earlier) but wanted to be there for the end. Also present were other homicide and local officers, including Ben Mang, who’d put in so much work over the previous year listening to Wilkinson’s phone calls. Based on Wilkinson’s pattern of phone use in recent weeks, they expected to find him in bed when they arrived at his parents’.
At 7.30 a.m. they drove to Yarrawarrah and surrounded the house. Smith walked up the concrete driveway and knocked on the front door, which was opened by June Wilkinson. He said he wanted to see Paul but she said he wasn’t there. The detectives were dubious.
‘Can we come in and have a look?’ said Smith.
June allowed him inside and he saw she was telling the truth. Given his habits, Wilkinson’s absence was a real puzzle. Smith asked her to call Paul to find out where he was; she was so nervous that she had trouble using the phone.
Not finding Wilkinson at home was frustrating for the detectives, although more because they’d been denied the satisfaction of taking him by surprise than because they expected him to get away. They returned to the police station and Smith called him. It was the first time the two men had spoken. Wilkinson was cocky and refused to say where he was. (The police later learned he’d got up uncharacteristically early to repay some money to Julie so she could take Bradley to the Easter Show.) He said he’d come in to the police station later with his solicitor, Frances McGowan, but she wasn’t available at the moment.
The next few hours involved various attempts to track Wilkinson down. Police were driving around the area trying to locate him while Smith maintained occasional phone contact. Wilkinson rang Julie to tell her what was happening and she panicked: she’d thought the police would let her know before the arrest so she could go away for a few days. Now she became terrified and called Smith to say she wanted to withdraw all her sworn statements. He told her that was not an option and sent some officers to her house, in case Wilkinson turned up. As the morning progressed, he rang Carol and John Edwards and told them what was going on.
Just after 2.00 p.m., Wilkinson arrived at Sutherland Police Station with his parents, his brother and Frances McGowan. He was wearing a baggy blue T-shirt and dark cargo pants, white socks and joggers, and clasping an empty Coke bottle. He had put on weight and his belly was visible beneath the T-shirt but he was still a good-looking man, with strong features and an intense gaze. In comparison, his parents—Ron with a pair of glasses hanging from a cord around his neck—were large, lost-looking people. Over the coming years, they would continue to believe in their son’s innocence.
The detectives were out the back of the station, and Craig reluctantly decided not to be present when the arrest was made. The situation would be intense and she didn’t want Wilkinson’s dislike of her to flare up and interfere with what was about to happen. Smith and Mang went out to the foyer and saw Wilkinson and McGowan, a thin woman with long, dark hair, in a black dress. Wilkinson looked at them blankly.
Smith cleared his throat and said formally, ‘Paul, I am Detective Senior Constable Glenn Smith from Gosford Detectives and this is Senior Constable Mang from Sutherland. Paul, you are under arrest for the murder of Kylie Labouchardiere. I must warn you that you are not obliged to say or do anything, as anything you do say or do will be taken down and may later be used in evidence. Do you understand that?’
‘Yep,’ said Paul Wilkinson, who seemed calm.
Smith searched him and then left the charge room while Wilkinson was read
his rights by the custody officer. Smith returned and was told by McGowan that Wilkinson was exercising his right to silence. Smith recorded this and formally charged Paul Wilkinson with murder, and with the arson of the house in Picnic Point.
Later, they went across the road to Sutherland Local Court—the same place where, years before, Robert McCann had been convicted for his assault on Kylie’s mother. Wilkinson applied for bail and was refused. McGowan criticised the police because their ten-page statement of facts, prepared the day before, claimed Wilkinson had been arrested at home. Smith was embarrassed to realise that after finding Wilkinson was not at the house that morning, he’d been so preoccupied with searching for him that he’d forgotten to amend the statement.
‘Shoot me now,’ he thought as he listened to McGowan.
The magistrate handed the statement back to the police to be corrected, which meant it was not available to the media then or when Wilkinson was brought before Central Local Court to make his formal bail application the next day. This is one of the reasons that the case, despite its many sensational aspects, received little public attention for a long time.
There was no police celebration following Wilkinson’s arrest. By the time they’d finished with the court appearance and other matters that had to be attended to, it was dark and Smith walked out of the station alone to his car. He made the long drive home to the Coast, back across the Mooney Mooney Bridge. He felt a sense of achievement but it was mixed with anti-climax and just plain weariness. It had been a long day, and he knew a lot more hard work lay ahead, probably including a tough court battle, if Wilkinson was ever to be convicted. Today was good but it was only the first step. He got home late, as he had so often before, had a few beers in front of the television and went to bed.
The news that someone had been charged with Kylie’s death was both devastating and consoling for her family. There is no such thing as closure for people who have lost a family member in this way, but there can be changes to the intensity of grief. Only now did some of the family accept that Kylie was dead.
Carol was shattered by the news. Leanne had to tell her own daughters, aged seven and ten, that their aunty was up with God. The children broke down and cried. They asked their mother questions—‘Why did this happen?’—which she could not answer. For Leanne, the reactions of her children made it all much worse.
Glenn Smith rang John Edwards and told him what had happened. Until that moment, John had never been sure it was Wilkinson, had never fully accepted Kylie was gone. His thoughts had still been all over the place, wondering if Sean had had something to do with her disappearance or if Wilkinson might be hiding her because she’d learned too much about the death of TJ Hickey. But he could no longer believe these things, or any of the other theories he’d come up with over the past three terrible years.
‘Mate,’ Smith said, ‘the facts are there.’
The detective couldn’t tell him what those facts were, not yet, but John trusted him. He knew that it was over.
After Wilkinson’s arrest, the DPP asked the police to do more to strengthen the Crown’s case. This included reinterviewing witnesses and searching the grounds of the Kelvin Parade house (which, since the fire, had been repaired at a cost of $38,000) for Kylie’s body. Further information came to light, including an intense relationship Wilkinson had had with another woman outside his marriage, just before he’d met Kylie. As so often with Wilkinson, the more you look, the more patterns emerge.
On 7 February 2008 a uniformed police officer, whom I will call Anna Simons, made a statement about this. Her story was fascinating because of its similarities with what we know of Wilkinson’s relationship with Kylie. In December 2002, Simons, who was almost the same age as Kylie and Julie Thurecht, finished her trainee course at the police academy and was sent to Redfern Police Station, where she met Wilkinson. They soon became friendly as he advised her on how to handle the Aboriginal people she dealt with in the job.
‘Wilkinson and I flirted during our friendship from the outset,’ she said. ‘I found him funny, charming, attractive and intelligent. He often made suggestive comments about my sexuality and I returned the banter . . . I was, like every probationary constable, under a lot of pressure to learn the intricacies of policing in a volatile, high profile command, while trying to fit in to the policing culture. Wilkinson was very friendly and supportive.’ She realised he had a strong sexual appetite, and he used to comment on the attractiveness of their colleagues.
In September 2003, their friendship became more intimate, but still non-physical: ‘I knew he was married at the time and his wife was pregnant, and I remember this concerned me, but I was attracted to him and, against my better judgement, I encouraged his advances.’ He began to send her sexually explicit text messages several times a day and late into the night. These were things like ‘U look hot today’ and ‘Ur so sexy in uniform’, followed by ‘I wanna put you over the desk. U get me hard just seeing u walk in.’
They met later that month to discuss their relationship. He wanted to have sex but she declined, because he’d told her he would not leave his wife. In October the text messages became more frequent, thirty or forty a day, and well into the night. Sometimes there were as many as eighty a day, messages like ‘I want to fuck u so bad’. They agreed to meet again for a further talk, at Waverley Cemetery. ‘I knew where that was,’ Simons said in her statement, ‘and remember thinking it was quite romantic at the time as Waverley Cemetery looks out over the ocean and is quite a beautiful spot.’
By now Wilkinson had been moved to Marrickville, and Simons told him she wanted to end the relationship. ‘I’m not really comfortable, having a relationship with you when your wife is about to have a baby,’ she said. ‘It’s wrong and I feel really bad about it.’
‘I want to have you both,’ Wilkinson said. ‘I haven’t had any in months and I want to fuck you so bad right now.’
She told him no, and the relationship faded over the next month or two, especially after Bradley was born on 18 November. Simons said Wilkinson told her he’d had sex with other people in recent months, including a man he met on Oxford Street in Darlinghurst. He also said he was thinking of moving to Dubbo with his wife and child.
A few weeks later, Wilkinson went into Sutherland Hospital for tests and met Kylie.
In January 2008, Wilkinson’s barrister, Terry Healey, told Glenn Smith that his client was prepared to reveal more information about Kylie’s disappearance, and on 13 February he was brought up to Gosford Police Station. Apparently, Kylie was not buried in the Royal National Park after all, but somewhere north of Sydney.
But when the Corrective Services van reached Gosford, Wilkinson refused to get out. Smith went out to the vehicle and had a conversation with him. Wilkinson claimed he’d never agreed to come to Gosford, where ‘that fat slut Rebekkah Craig works’, and didn’t want to be there because it had a ‘connection’ with Redfern. He refused to leave the van, and in the end it took him back to Sydney.
Two days later, Smith conducted a recorded interview with Wilkinson at the Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre at Silverwater. There he heard a new story: Julie had been present at Kylie’s murder. In fact, she had assisted: ‘Geoff Lowe choked Kylie whilst Julie held her legs,’ said Wilkinson. In this version, Julie had driven him to the murder location, following Geoff Lowe’s vehicle. After Kylie was dead, he had dug a grave and Lowe had put the body in, after which Wilkinson had replaced the soil. Julie had stood by, smoking Winfield Blue cigarettes, and as Wilkinson dug he told her she was ‘a mongrel, dog, cunt’.
Wilkinson said he was not prepared to say why Kylie had been killed, except that it involved ‘a fellow by the name of Sheik Fazi who goes to the Lakemba Mosque’ and had something to do with the theft of army rocket-launchers: ‘I’ve actually handled one of those rocket-launchers . . . we are dealing with people that don’t give a fuck.’ (A number of ro
cket-launchers had been stolen from the military, and the possibility they were in the hands of terrorists was the subject of occasional speculation in the media at the time.)
On 18 March, Wilkinson, having again announced he was prepared to reveal the location of the grave, was brought back to Gosford Police Station. Smith, who had assembled a search team, noted he was in an ‘aggressive and agitated state’. He said the body was at Mooney Mooney, under the big freeway bridge. This was interesting: it was where Wilkinson’s uncle Alan lived.
Glenn Smith legally recorded this and later conversations on a portable recorder, and they provide a fascinating insight into Wilkinson’s frame of mind. He now said, ‘You wanna go down there, let’s go down there, but you start pullin’ ya finger out and start being a fuckin’ proper copper. Start doin’ the right thing and don’t bring that fat slut near me either.’
Smith: ‘Paul, I’m not bringing her, I told you before that we wouldn’t be bringing her . . .’
Wilkinson: ‘I’m not happy with you either.’
Smith: ‘Paul, let’s just get what you want to do today over and done with. I’ve just got to organise the guys from the video unit . . .’
Wilkinson: ‘Don’t bring ’em.’
Smith: ‘The video unit?’
Wilkinson: ‘Don’t bring them . . .’
Smith: ‘All right, you’re going to have to go in the van with the guys, and we’ll follow you down there.’
Call Me Cruel Page 17