'Can you tell me what you did yesterday?'
'When yesterday?'
'Just run through what you did all day.'
'From when I got up you mean?'
Hughes nodded.
Denyer told the detectives that he had got up around 7.30am and driven Sharon to work because she was running late. He dropped her off at a quarter to nine and then went to the ATM in Hartnett Drive in Seaford to withdraw 40 dollars. He had then driven the old Corona around Brunel Road to the car wreckers to hunt for a spare wheel for his car. He found one and it had cost 30 dollars.
Denyer guessed that he had arrived at the wreckers around 10am. Back home around 11am, he said he had telephoned Sharon at work to tell her he had bought a wheel. Denyer told the detectives that he had worked on his car and then gone to another wreckers in Langwarrin to look for a speedo cable, calling in to visit his mother on the way. Denyer said that his mother wasn't home so he had a coffee with her boyfriend, Jim.
Denyer then told the detectives that, as he was heading to the Langwarrin car wreckers, his car had overheated and he had to pull over into the car park of the Langwarrin Flora and Fauna Reserve to top the water up. While waiting for the radiator to cool, he had smoked a cigarette and gone for a walk.
'Where did you walk?' asked Hughes.
'Not far,' replied Denyer, 'just around the general area where I was stopped.'
'Did you see any police cars in the area?' asked Hughes. He knew that Brown and Aiello had checked the car at the reserve and hadn't seen anyone near it.
Denyer said he hadn't, although he did recall a number of other cars in the car park. He said that when his car engine cooled, he filled the radiator, started the car and headed home along Skye Road, but that the car had overheated again, forcing him to pull over across from the golf course.
Mick Hughes asked him what he had done after the car overheated. Denyer explained that he had checked under the bonnet and noticed that a hose had come loose and that the hose needed a Phillips head screwdriver to attach it back on again. Not having a Phillips head screwdriver among the other tools in his car, he had to walk home and get one and then walk back to his car. Hughes asked him why he didn't just fill up the radiator with water and make the short drive home before the car overheated a third time. Denyer said that although he carried a couple of plastic bottles of water, he had used them back at the Flora and Fauna Reserve.
'Why didn't you just go to someone's house and get some water to fill your car up?'
'I don't like going into other people's houses,' Denyer replied.
When Mick Hughes asked him why he didn't get some water from the golf course, Denyer said that he hadn't thought of it.
Asked why he didn't just drive the car the short distance home, Denyer said that he wouldn't have driven the car without filling the radiator.
'When you were in Skye Road, did you see any police cars?' asked Hughes.
Denyer said that he hadn't and then explained that by the time he had walked home, picked up the screwdriver and bottled water and finally returned home with the car, it would have been around 3.30 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Later that afternoon, Denyer told them, he had driven to Sharon's work in Highett to pick up her pay cheque and then drove to a bank in Rowans Road in Highett to cash it. After withdrawing some money, he had collected Sharon from her other job and the two had driven to Sharon's mother's house in Karingal, stopping at the Edithvale McDonalds to grab a bite to eat on the way.
They had arrived at Sharon's mother's house around seven o'clock and stayed until nearly midnight.
Senior Sergeant Rod Wilson spoke to Denyer for the first time. Wilson couldn't fail to notice the plethora of scratches on Paul Denyer's hands and asked him about them. Denyer held up his hands and the detectives all saw several cuts on his fingers and thumbs as well as a larger cut on the inside middle finger of his left hand.
'Paul, how did you get those cuts?' Wilson asked.
'Working on my car, and when I was pulling parts off the cars at the wreckers,' he replied.
'That's a decent cut on your middle finger. How did you do that?'
Denyer was evasive. 'I don't remember; I'm cutting myself all the time.'
Hughes asked Denyer what clothes he had been wearing the previous day and the suspect told him that he had worn black tracksuit pants, a red polo shirt and a green jumper.
'Did you have any type of hat on?'
'Yeah, a blue baseball cap.'
'What type of shoes were you wearing?'
'Black Aerosport runners.'
Hughes asked to see the runners and Denyer obliged by getting them from the front passage.
Then Hughes cut to the chase. 'Paul, Deborah Fream disappeared on the night of the eighth of July 1993, and her body was found the following Monday. Can you remember what you were doing on the eighth of July?'
Without hesitation, Denyer replied, 'Yeah, that was a Thursday night wasn't it?'
'Yes, as a matter of fact it was. What made you remember that?' Hughes was alert to the fact that most people don't usually remember their movements, especially three weeks later. It was highly suspicious that Denyer remembered the date down pat.
The fact that Denyer hadn't once protested their presence also didn't escape the detectives' notice. Usually, people begin with: 'What do you want?' or 'You don't think I had anything to do with this?' But Denyer sat calmly answering questions with the confidence of someone enjoying the attention.
'I remember the night because I was supposed to meet Sharon and I missed the train, so I met her at the Kananook railway station.'
Hughes asked Denyer what he knew about Debbie Fream's disappearance.
'Just that she was abducted from the Food Plus and taken up to Taylors Road and murdered.'
'How do you know that?'
'Just from the news and that.'
'Do you remember what you were doing that night?'
'Yeah.'
Hughes knew that it was time to take Paul Denyer to the Frankston police station. He wanted the interview to be properly recorded. They had a suspect with cut hands who had, by his own admission, put himself at the scene of two murders. He and the other detectives had a strong feeling that they had finally caught their killer. But this had to be done by the book.
'Paul, I would like you to come back to the Frankston police station with us now as I have some further questions I would like to ask you and it may take a while. Are you prepared to come with us to answer some further questions?'
'Yeah, sure,' Denyer told them.
'Before we go, I think I should advise you of the following rights. It is my intention to interview you in relation to the deaths of Natalie Jayne Russell and Deborah Anne Fream. I must inform you that you are not obliged to say or do anything but anything you say or do may be given in evidence. Do you understand that?'
'Yes,' replied Denyer without emotion.
Hughes had to make sure. 'What do you understand that to mean?'
'I don't have to answer your questions or do anything unless I want to.'
'That's right,' said Hughes. 'You may communicate with a friend or relative to inform that person of your whereabouts. Is there anyone you want to ring to let them know where you are going to be?'
'Can I let Sharon know where I'm going?'
'Sharon knows. She has already gone back to the police station. Is there anyone else you wish to notify?'
'No.'
Hughes then explained that Denyer could call a legal practitioner if he wished, but he declined. The young man put on a dark jumper with a coloured pattern on the sleeves but when he went to put on the black runners he had shown the detectives earlier, Hughes asked him if he would mind wearing some other shoes as the police might need to examine the black runners later on.
At 6.20pm, Wilson, O'Loughlin, Hughes and Denyer drove to the Frankston police station to begin a formal interview that would last until the next morning. Within hours the detectives
knew for certain that their hunt for the Frankston serial killer was finally over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The initial interview
Less than 24 hours after he had video-taped Natalie Russell's body and the surrounding crime scene, Senior Constable Stephen Batten set up his camera in one of the interview rooms at the Frankston police station. As a member of the State Forensic Science Laboratory audiovisual section, it was Batten's job to make a video recording to back up the audio recording that was made as a matter of course during an interview.
As soon as Mark Woolfe had seen the suspect brought into the police station, he checked his hands and saw the cuts, noting in particular the skin missing from Denyer's middle finger.
'Look at his hands,' he whispered to Wilson. Even though they weren't experts, the cut looked exactly the same size as the piece of skin pathologist Tony Landgren had taken from the throat of Natalie Russell.
While the audiovisual equipment was being set up, the detectives kept Denyer waiting while they worked out tactics for the interview.
Three hours after Paul Denyer was brought to the Frankston police station for questioning, Sergeant Rod Wilson and Senior Constable Mark Woolfe from the homicide squad began the formal interview.
At 9.22pm on Saturday July 31, Rod Wilson explained to the suspect that he and Mark Woolfe would conduct the interview and that the two other officers present were from the audiovisual branch. Denyer nodded.
For the record, Denyer was asked to state his name, address and employment status.
'I'm 21 years old. I was born on the 14th of April 1972.'
Wilson restated Denyer's rights to contact a legal practitioner or a friend and that he wasn't obliged to answer any questions.
Paul Denyer told Wilson that he did not wish to exercise any of his rights.
Formalities over, Wilson began the questioning. He asked Denyer to run through his movements again starting from the previous day. Glancing at the camera, Denyer hesitated, half smiled and said that he had never been in front of a camera before. Wilson told him to take his time and offered him a cigarette.
Denyer repeated the story that he had told the detectives at the flat. He had got up around 7.30am and driven Sharon to work. Wilson asked him what kind of car he drove and Denyer told him that he drove a Toyota Corona Mark II which he had bought a couple of months earlier. Initially it was unroadworthy and unable to be driven but Denyer had worked on the car since he bought it. A couple of weeks before he had obtained a permit to drive the car, provided that he register it within 28 days.
It was in this car that he had driven Sharon to her job at a charitable organisation in Springvale where she worked as a telemarketer from 8.30am until 3pm each day. On Friday morning, they had both slept in and they had arrived in Springvale around nine o'clock. Denyer also repeated how he had gone to the automatic teller machine in Seaford on his way home and then to the wreckers to buy the spare wheel. He guessed that it must have been around a quarter to eleven by the time he finished at the wreckers.
Denyer described returning home and telephoning Sharon and then her mother Pauline with whom he chatted for around 20 minutes. After topping up the oil and water in the car, Denyer said, he went out around 11.30am to visit his mother who wasn't home. He had stopped to chat with his mother's boyfriend, Jim. After that, he went to Harvey's Wreckers.
Denyer again described the car overheating and stopping at the Flora and Fauna Reserve car park to top up the water with one of the two bottles he had in the boot.
Wilson asked a lot of questions to establish the exact course of events and backtracked often to make certain of times and motives. Why did you visit your mother? Does she work? Why did you think she'd be home? Did you think Jim would be there? Why did you stop at the flora reserve?
Denyer answered all the questions calmly, painstakingly going over details of the previous morning. He told Wilson that after leaving the flora reserve, he had driven down Skye Road and the temperature gauge again registered that the engine was overheating. He described pulling the car over near a bus stop opposite the golf course.
Wilson questioned him in great detail about the car and the hose that had come loose; the details were vital because the split hose and its loose clamp put their suspect at the scene of Natalie Russell's murder.
Wilson asked Denyer what type of screwdrivers he carried in his car and why he couldn't have used one he had instead of walking home. Denyer said that he wasn't very good with tools and decided to make the 20-minute walk to his house.
Wilson ascertained that Denyer had in fact worked in a garage a couple of years before and that part of his job had been to fix cars. Now Denyer was telling him that he couldn't improvise with a screwdriver to tighten a hose clamp? Wilson pressed the point.
'You don't think you're qualified enough to tighten a clamp?' he asked.
'Yeah, yeah,' Denyer contradicted himself.
'But you just said you didn't know much about tools.'
'Well, I wanted to get the proper tool for the proper job.'
'But it's only a screwdriver,' persisted Wilson in a quiet even voice.
'Well I've got two sizes. I've got a small one and a big one,' Denyer said before explaining that the small screwdriver was bent and the other one was unsuitable.
Wilson asked about two red-handled ones he had seen on Denyer's dashboard earlier outside the flat. Denyer told him that they weren't in the car when it overheated.
Questioning him about the water in the radiator, Wilson again asked Denyer why he hadn't filled the bottles from the golf course or from someone's house.
'I just didn't feel right about it,' Denyer told him and then described walking home, getting a screwdriver and a bottle of water and walking back. He said he would have been gone for around an hour.
When Denyer guessed that he was in Skye Road around 2.30pm, Wilson knew the times didn't match. Denyer had said that he had stopped at the flora reserve around midday and stayed for 20 minutes while the engine cooled. It was only a 10-minute drive from the reserve to Skye Road. According to his own statement, Denyer should have broken down again, there in Skye Road, at about 12.30pm - not two hours later.
The detective again took him back over the day's events to try to clarify the times that Denyer had been at various places. Bringing the questioning back to when Denyer would have been parked opposite the bike track, Wilson told him that it would have been more like 12.30pm when he had pulled up opposite the bike track.
'Is there somewhere else you might have gone?' he asked.
'No, I don't think I went anywhere else.'
Denyer then replied to further questions by Wilson, by describing the walk back to the car to fix the hose clamp.
Wilson asked Denyer that if he had indeed arrived around 2.30pm, walked to his house and back and then fixed the car, would it be fair to guess that it would have been around 3.30pm when he finally got into the car to drive home. Denyer agreed.
Step by step, Wilson led the young man over the events of the rest of the afternoon: collecting Sharon's wage cheque from her second job, going to the bank and then picking up Sharon from work. Wilson asked if the car had overheated when he drove it in the afternoon. Denyer said that the temperature gauge had gone half way but the car hadn't overheated again. Wilson again pressed the point.
'Having started the car from your mother's place… it overheated between the reserve and Skye Road. It didn't overheat for a 40-minute trip to Highett?'
Denyer said that the repairs he had made to the clamp had fixed the problem, but admitted that he had topped up the water when he arrived at Sharon's work.
'I had to go borrow a tap from the factory but there was no one there so-'
'But you were a little bit apprehensive about getting tap water from residents,' Wilson interrupted.
'Yeah, well,' admitted Denyer, 'in a residential area, especially at this time, I mean people get suspicious of anything so I really don't like doing that.'
Rod Wilson decided to bring the interview to the murder of Natalie Russell. He asked Denyer if he was aware that a girl had been murdered in Frankston yesterday.
'Yeah,' replied Denyer, 'I've heard a lot about it.'
'When did you first become aware of it?' asked Wilson.
'Well, I saw some police cars and everything when I was driving up Skye Road this morning, and SES workers. And I spoke to Sharon's mum just before that. You know, she told me they found-'
'Sorry, you said you saw SES workers? In Skye Road?'
'Yeah, and they had some white tape across the walkway.'
'Mm-hmm,' nodded Wilson.
'And I saw you,' said Denyer.
'Sorry, you saw me?' asked Wilson, surprised.
'Yeah, I saw you and I saw the other guy who I was talking to in there. I saw yous, you guys standing next to a van.'
When Wilson again asked what he had been wearing the previous day, Denyer repeated what he'd said at his flat. Wilson asked about the cuts on his suspect's hands - in particular the large cut on the middle finger of his left hand - and asked Denyer to put his hand flat on the table. Denyer obliged, which enabled the video camera to get a better view.
Wilson asked him about the large cut and Denyer told him that he had got it the day before while working on the car. Wilson asked on which occasion: at the flora reserve, Skye Road or at his flat?
Denyer began to say that he had cut his finger on the fan when he was topping up the water but Wilson reminded him that he had said the engine wasn't running when he topped up the water. Denyer backtracked, explaining that when he filled the radiator at home he had left the motor running while he checked the alternator and it was then that he had cut his hand. Clearly, under any kind of scrutiny, his story wasn't stacking up.
Denyer gestured with his hands to show how the injury had occurred, and described reaching into the car's engine and catching his hand on the fan. Wilson asked him why he had left the motor running and Denyer simply replied that he was a clumsy worker where cars were concerned and that he had cut himself heaps of times.
The Frankston Serial Killer Page 15