The Frankston Serial Killer

by Vikki Petraitis

  The area containing the basins was empty and Lynch stepped further inside and turned towards the closed doors. Behind any one of them could be the man who had attacked the woman earlier. Rather than use his hand to push the doors, Lynch stood further away and kicked open the first one. It was empty. Adrenalin pumped through his system and quickened his heartbeat. He repeated the procedure on the other cubicles but they were all empty so went back outside to see if his partner had any more luck. Hower hadn't found anyone either, so both men walked around the back of the block and shone their torches around. There was no one there.

  It was important to speak to the victim as soon as possible and the officers made the short drive to Roszsa Toth's home.

  Hower and Lynch pulled into the driveway of the Seaford home and a young man who looked to be in his late teens came out to meet them. As the officers got out of the van, he introduced himself as Roszsa Toth's son. On the way to the house he explained that his mother had been attacked as she walked along Railway Parade.

  Michael Lynch's first impression of Roszsa Toth was that of an attractive woman with long black hair, who looked to be in her early thirties. He was mildly surprised when she said she was forty-one. Immediately obvious to the officers was the fact that Mrs Toth, with her thick Hungarian accent, was very difficult to understand. Danny Hower noted that she was sitting calmly on a chair and it was at first difficult for him to grasp the severity of the attack. She did most of her speaking through her son who translated for the police officers.

  Mrs Toth indicated the graze to her knee and told them she thought the man could have been someone desperate for money. She had calmed down considerably once she got home and she explained that the man hadn't really hurt her although she knew that the matter must be brought to the attention of the police. She didn't want to make a fuss. Lynch and Hower admired her strength in the way she was coping with the aftermath of the attack.

  As the interview progressed, Lynch took down the details. Mrs Toth described her attacker as being between eighteen and twenty years of age, wearing a black jacket. She told the officers that he was around 180 centimetres tall with a round face and blue eyes. He had been wearing a light-coloured beanie.

  Painstakingly leading her through her statement, Hower heard Mrs Toth mention a gun. Through her son, he learnt that the attacker told her that he had a gun and that she had felt something hard pushed against her head. She explained that it may not have actually been a gun because it didn't have the cold feeling of metal.

  This put a different light on the attack. In most of these types of offences, it was common for the attacker to be either unarmed, or armed with a knife. A gun was different. Danny Hower considered bringing in a police dog, but he realised that by the time the nearest dog could attend, it would be too late for it to be of any assistance.

  One thing that disturbed Michael Lynch was the fact that Roszsa Toth had offered the attacker her expensive ring during the attack and he had refused it. If the attacker was a drug addict after money, he would have taken the opportunity to grab the ring and run. Most attacks that Lynch had investigated were snatch-and-grab types. He had anything up to five or six a month. This attack was different. There seemed to be no reason for such a violent attack on the middle-aged woman.

  Hower and Lynch stayed at Roszsa Toth's house taking her statement for an hour then headed back to the Frankston police station to fill in the reports and alert the CIB detectives of the attack.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A young mother vanishes

  Debbie Fream - at 18.

  On the night of Thursday 8 July 1993, Russell Hayes had a dinner invitation. His friend Debbie Fream had just given birth to a son, and she had invited him over for dinner to catch up and to see her new baby. Russell had worked with Debbie whom he called 'Dee' and they had established a close platonic friendship. They talked regularly both at work and on the telephone and would often go to the same nightclubs together; Russell would drink and Debbie, who rarely drank, would drive them both home.

  Debbie Fream had left the small country town where she had grown up to take a job as a data-entry worker at a business in Clayton. Her boyfriend, Garry Blair, had stayed behind while Debbie had opted for the city with its bright lights and good job prospects. Initially Debbie shared a flat with a friend in Mordialloc and then Garry joined her and they both moved to Kananook Avenue in Seaford. Debbie would often tell Russell how happy she was with Garry.

  Not long after Debbie Fream began the job in Clayton, she discovered she was pregnant. A doctor had told her that she might have problems conceiving and although the pregnancy came as a surprise, it was a happy one. Debbie continued working into the fifth month of her pregnancy, but fatigue soon overcame her and she had resigned to await the birth of her baby.

  Debbie Fream - at 22 years old with her newborn son.

  Russell Hayes had not seen Debbie since before her son Jake was born in Frankston Hospital twelve days earlier. Finishing work in Clayton around 5pm, he clocked off and drove straight to Seaford. When he arrived at Kananook Avenue, Debbie's car wasn't in the driveway and the house lights weren't on so he waited in his car. Debbie had told him that she had a bit of shopping to do and he knew that she wouldn't be long.

  Five minutes later, when Debbie's grey Pulsar pulled into the driveway, Russell got out of his car and gave his friend a congratulatory hug. Russell unloaded the shopping, leaving Debbie to carry Jake into the house. She joked about how many extra things she needed to carry around since the baby arrived.

  Baby Jake was asleep and Debbie gently lifted him out of the baby capsule, showed him to Russell and then carried him to his cradle in the bedroom.

  Alone in the lounge room, Debbie and Russell chatted about the baby, life in general and the omelette she was going to make for dinner. Debbie was in good spirits; she told Russell that although a lot of people had told her it was difficult coping with a new baby, she was finding it really easy. Debbie also explained that Garry was working an afternoon shift so it would just be the two of them for dinner.

  As the time went on, the two friends moved into the kitchen and Debbie began peeling vegetables and cracking eggs for the omelette.

  The telephone rang and Russell heard Debbie answer, 'Hi Mum, how are you?' Debbie's mother had come down from the country when Jake was born and had kept in regular contact by telephone when she returned home.

  They discussed the baby and Debbie told her mother that if Garry wanted another one, they would get married. She told her mother how wonderful her cousin Sara had been since Jake's arrival and then voiced concerns that her mother sounded tired. They chatted a couple of minutes more before Debbie told her mother she had to go because Russell was visiting for dinner.

  While dinner was cooking, the two friends went out onto the front veranda for a smoke. When they went back inside Debbie realised that she needed some milk. She told Russell she'd just pop down to the local shop and would only be a couple of minutes. It took her a few moments to find her keys, then she grabbed her purse out of her handbag and headed out the door. She had assured Russell that Jake was asleep and would be fine until she got home.

  Russell, settled comfortably in front of the television, heard the Pulsar pull out of the driveway as he switched the channel to watch Home and Away. Engrossed in his favourite television program, Russell barely noticed the time pass and suddenly it occurred to him that Debbie had been gone a lot longer than a couple of minutes. He wandered into the kitchen and turned off the vegetables that she had left boiling on the stove.

  After half an hour he began to wonder what was taking Debbie so long. He even wandered outside, and walked to the end of the driveway to see if he could see her car coming.

  After a while Russell really began to worry. He didn't know Seaford very well and didn't know which shop Debbie would have gone to, so he couldn't go and look for her. Besides, he certainly couldn't leave the tiny baby asleep in the bedroom.

  An hour after D
ebbie had left, Russell rang the Frankston police station to ask if any accidents had been reported in the area. A policewoman he spoke to suggested telephoning the Frankston hospital because, she explained, there was often a delay between an accident and the police receiving the report. Russell rang the hospital and they told him that no one by the name of Debbie Fream had been admitted and that they had no unidentified accident victims. Russell then tried calling a girlfriend of Debbie's who lived in Seaford. If this woman could come and mind Jake, he could go out and look for Debbie. The friend didn't answer.

  Finally, Russell telephoned Garry Blair at work. Garry told Russell not to worry; that Debbie had probably just run out of petrol. This didn't put his mind to rest. Surely Debbie would have telephoned him if that were the case. Garry suggested Russell ring another friend, Jeanette, who lived locally. She agreed to come around immediately and told Russell she would look out for Debbie on the way over.

  Ten minutes later, Garry rang back to say he had organised to leave work early and was on his way home. Jeanette arrived a few minutes later; she had seen no trace of Debbie or her car. She told Russell she would drive up to the Seaford Safeway and look around there but she was back ten minutes later. There was no sign of Debbie.

  When Garry Blair arrived home just before 9pm, Debbie had been gone nearly two hours. The worried young man asked Russell to drive around to the Food Plus store on the Frankston-Dandenong Road, which he did. Debbie's grey Pulsar wasn't there and Russell searched surrounding streets before returning to the house in Kananook Avenue.

  Leaving Jeanette to babysit, Russell and Garry drove to the Frankston police station to report Debbie missing. The police wanted a photo of her so the two men returned home, found a recent photo and drove back to the police station. By the time they finally returned home, it was nearly midnight and Debbie still hadn't come back. Russell stayed for a while before reluctantly leaving. He had to work the next day but he gave Garry his telephone number and made him promise to call as soon as Debbie came home.

  Garry telephoned Debbie's brother Troy, with whom he been working that afternoon. He had told Troy that Debbie was missing as soon as Russell Hayes had called. Troy had finished work around 10.30pm and telephoned Garry asking him to ring him if Debbie wasn't back by midnight. When Garry finally called, Troy was so worried about his sister, he came around immediately. Garry asked him to drive to the ATM in Seaford to check the balance of his account to see if Debbie had withdrawn any money. Troy drove to the Westpac ATM in Frankston and got a print-out of Garry's balance.

  Back at the Kananook Avenue house, Garry figured that there was around fifty dollars less in the account than there should have been but that Debbie had probably withdrawn the money for shopping. There was still over two hundred dollars left in the account.

  Garry, Troy and Jeanette spent an anxious all-night vigil waiting for Debbie to come home. She never did.

  Russell Hayes was woken early the next morning when an officer from the Frankston police station telephoned to ask him if he had heard from Debbie. He hadn't.

  Milk bar proprietors in the area also received early morning visits by detectives. The closest shop to Debbie Fream's home was on the corner of her street and McCulloch Avenue. The proprietor, however, said he couldn't remember whether he had served her or not.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The four day wait

  Garry Blair couldn't understand where Debbie had gone. The previous day he had slept in because he was working an afternoon shift. Debbie had given Jake his four-hourly feeds and Garry had noticed that she seemed a bit weary, but she hadn't complained. In fact she had chatted about visiting her friend Jeanette and about how they had planned to go shopping. Debbie also spoke about Russell coming for dinner that evening.

  Jeanette and her two children had called in around 11.30am for a half-hour visit, promising to return in the early afternoon for the shopping trip.

  Debbie, cradling Jake in her arms, had kissed Garry goodbye as he left for work just after one in the afternoon. She seemed cheerful, standing there on the front porch, and she told him she would see him after work.

  Now she was gone; and no one knew where.

  Early Friday morning, Senior Detective Michael Glowaski drove to the house on Kananook Avenue to talk to Garry. The distraught young father repeated the information about Debbie going to buy milk around 7pm the previous evening and that no one had heard from her since.

  Glowaski took down Debbie's description and Garry described the black skirt and white windcheater she had been wearing the day before. He also gave the detective a description of Debbie's grey Pulsar and the registration number. Glowaski returned to his office at the Frankston police station and began to make inquiries.

  In light of the young mother's disappearance, the attack on Roszsa Toth the night before was seen in a more sinister light.

  Senior Detective Andy King had begun work at 6.30am on Friday morning in preparation for an early-morning drug raid. When he arrived back at the CIB offices, he checked the crime reports in-tray and read the report about Debbie Fream's disappearance and Roszsa Toth's attempted abduction.

  Thinking that there could be a connection, King, together with an officer from the Frankston community policing squad called around to interview Roszsa Toth again. The morning after the attack, the woman looked ragged. She told King that she walked along Railway Parade every night and nothing like this had ever happened before. Mrs Toth repeated details of her ordeal and accompanied the two officers to the toilet block at the Seaford Reserve to reconstruct the events of the night before. She showed them where the man had been standing when she had first seen him and where he had grabbed her.

  Mrs Toth was then driven to the Victoria Police complex on St Kilda Road where she described her attacker to a photo-fit expert. Her injuries were also photographed for police records and she was examined by a police doctor.

  Andy King felt there was a strong likelihood of a connection between Roszsa Toth's attack close to the Seaford railway station around 6pm and Debbie's disappearance from near the Kananook railway station an hour later. And of course, there wasn't a cop worth his salt who could ignore the connection to the disappearance of Sarah McDiarmid from the Kananook railway station in 1990. Every police officer in the district remembered the unsolved McDiarmid case from three years earlier. Debbie Fream's disappearance from the same area was alarming.

  Also concerned for the safety of Debbie Fream was Detective Inspector John Noonan from the Frankston police. As head of the district's six detective divisions, Noonan was informed on Friday morning that the young mother had vanished. He too made the link with the assault on Roszsa Toth, and put all his available resources into finding the missing woman.

  Senior Sergeant Chris Jones from the missing persons squad was lecturing new recruits at the police academy on Friday morning when his beeper sounded. An officer from his squad informed him that they had a missing woman in the Frankston area; last seen around 7pm the night before. The woman had left a 12-day-old baby with a friend and gone to the shop in the middle of cooking dinner. Both the woman and her car were missing.

  Chris Jones headed straight to Frankston thinking about the case he was about to investigate. Since his squad had been set up a year earlier, they had dealt exclusively with old missing persons cases, going over files trying to find a new perspective. This was their first call to investigate a fresh disappearance.

  At Frankston police station Chris Jones met with Inspector John Noonan for a briefing session and, together with other detectives, had a round-table discussion about the various possibilities. Debbie Fream was missing and so was her car. She could have suffered post-natal depression and sought refuge with a friend. She could have had a nervous breakdown, or she could have vanished in some sort of suicide bid. More sinister was the possibility that she had been abducted.

  Chris Jones knew that the missing person squad worked at a disadvantage compared to a normal homicide investigation
. When a body is discovered, detectives can look for evidence to match the clues found on and around the body. If the victim is shot, the detectives look for bullets, bullet holes and a gun. But when a person is missing, there may be no evidence of a crime even when a crime is the most likely explanation.

  Chris Jones remembered his boss, Chief Inspector Peter Halloran's favourite saying - always go back to the facts. The facts in this case were: Debbie Fream was missing, her car was missing and she left a 12-day-old baby in the middle of cooking dinner. After dismissing the more innocent possibilities, it didn't take long to conclude that the most likely explanation was that something untoward had happened to her.

  The first priority was to co-ordinate a search for the missing woman. John Noonan telephoned Brian McMannis at the State Emergency Service office, ironically located on McCulloch Avenue not far from the milk bar closest to Debbie Fream's home.

  Brian McMannis had been an SES volunteer for seventeen years and had been in charge of the Frankston branch of the SES for the past eight. Inspector Noonan had great respect for the work the volunteers did and had called on them often to assist in searches and to provide lighting for crime scenes and road accidents. With 62 volunteers, the Frankston SES worked closely with the police. Various police experts would lecture the volunteers at their Monday night training sessions to keep their methods up to date. What Noonan appreciated most was the enthusiasm of the volunteers. If he asked them to search an area, they did it immediately and thoroughly. They also brought with them much needed equipment and even food and hot coffee.