by Justine Ford
Fortunately the men worked on an outback station so the sight of bones wasn’t altogether unusual. Not that they’d stumbled upon human bones before. ‘The men contacted police, who established a crime scene,’ Karen says. ‘Forensic police came to look at the scene and the skeletal remains were conveyed to the State Mortuary for examination.
‘The review of the scene suggested that the deceased had most likely been drifting with the high tide. On low tide, it appeared that the remains had become snagged on a bush, preventing him from drifting further.’
The tidal drift had also brought the dinghy towards the shore. ‘It was a total coincidence,’ Karen says. ‘If it weren’t for that tidal flow we might never have found those remains.’
The post-mortem showed that the skeletal remains belonged to a man who was fifty-five years of age or older and of Aboriginal or mixed ethnic ancestry. He was described as ‘edentulous’; that is, he had no teeth. It was also noted that he’d had previous trauma to his lower legs and ‘a significant arthritic change’ to his right hip. It sounded like a man who’d walked with a limp…just like Fred.
Due to the extent of decomposition, fingerprints couldn’t be taken from the dead man and scientists were unable to extract DNA, but it probably didn’t matter because the investigators believed they had something that can often take a long time to ascertain – a name.
Yet for some time, even that wasn’t enough.
•••
Searching their database, police found a photo of Fred Marriott dating back to Australia Day 1992, when he’d committed a minor traffic offence. The information on the form suggested he was of Pacific Islander descent. Bank checks revealed that he’d held an ANZ bank account that had last been used on 5 January 2005. He didn’t seem to have a record with Medicare but had previously received Centrelink benefits.
Police found out his previous addresses, but only one – his last known address – gave the investigators anything to go on. ‘It was ascertained that he’d rented a room in the inner south-eastern Perth suburb of Lathlain between April 2004 and January 2005,’ Karen says. ‘The landlord confirmed that Fred had been in possession of the blue XE Falcon sedan and a small wooden blue and red boat when he left in January 2005. He told the landlord he was going to travel up north and set sail from there.’
The landlord’s information further confirmed that the man whose family police needed to find was Fred Marriott. ‘But Births, Deaths and Marriages in all states and territories came back negative for Fred Marriott,’ Karen says. ‘They had no record of him.
‘Immigration records also came back negative and overseas inquiries quickly came to a dead end,’ she adds. ‘So despite their efforts, police at the time were unable to locate any next of kin, medical records, birth records or missing persons reports for Fred Marriott and he remained unclaimed and officially unidentified in the State Mortuary.’
•••
In July 2009, the Western Australian Missing Persons Unit launched a review of the Fred Marriott file to see if they could finally track down his family. That’s when Karen Clarkson became involved and saw for herself how unusually difficult it had been to find Fred Marriott’s loved ones.
‘The Missing Persons Unit reviewed all the police files from Shark Bay, Carnarvon, Major Crime and our own original records,’ she says. ‘We repeated inquiries with Centrelink, HIC and Immigration but those checks again proved negative.
‘Further inquiries were made with Fred Marriott’s last landlord and he was able to identify Fred from the police photograph and also identify photos of the vehicle and remains of the boat as being the same as the ones Fred had left in.’
But no-one – not even Fred’s old landlord – seemed to know much else about him and Karen found herself constantly wondering, ‘Who is Fred Marriott?’ Then it clicked: Fred Marriott had needed to provide 100 points of ID, just like everyone else, in order to hold his accounts.
A few phone calls later and bingo! Karen was looking at the front of Fred Marriott’s passport…from Fiji.
•••
Even though Fred Marriott’s family in Fiji hadn’t heard from him in years, Karen Clarkson still saw it as a matter of urgency that they be informed of his untimely demise.
‘Agent Anthony Hall from the Australian Federal Police in Fiji gave us a great deal of assistance,’ Karen says. ‘He worked closely with the police in Fiji to locate Fred’s family, who naturally were very emotional and keen to get him home.
‘Although there was no DNA, no fingerprints, and no dental and medical records available, we were able to positively identify Fred by speaking to his family as well as witnesses who helped us to piece together some of the story of Fred’s life.’
•••
So who was Fred Marriott?
Fred Marriott was born in Suva, in Fiji, in 1946.
In 1968, aged twenty-two, he got married and his wife had two children named Collin and Melinda. It was a happy life until Fred’s legs were badly injured in a serious traffic accident, resulting in him walking with a limp for the rest of his days. ‘The injuries were consistent with the recorded leg injuries from Fred’s post-mortem,’ Karen reveals.
In 1973, Fred travelled to Australia to find work. It was so long ago that the accounts of what happened after that are sketchy. ‘We are unsure how Fred arrived in Australia and it is unlikely that he ever returned to his homeland,’ Karen explains. ‘Fred’s itinerary between 1973 and 1998 is mostly unknown; however, it’s believed that he was constantly travelling around Australia and not staying in any one location for long.’
Fred’s son Collin, forty-four, travelled to Australia to see his dad on a couple of occasions, the last time being in 2000 when he stayed with his father in Sydney. ‘Collin confirmed that his dad had a distinct limp and was able to inform police that Fred had also pulled out all his own teeth as he had been having trouble with them and it was too expensive to go to the dentist. Again, this was consistent with the post-mortem records,’ Karen says.
‘It is known that in March 2004, Fred bought the XE Ford Falcon in Victoria,’ she continues. ‘It is unknown where and when he purchased the boat and trailer but we know he was stopped as he drove through Eucla in April 2004, and at that time he had the boat and trailer attached.’
Police now know that Fred stayed in the Perth suburb of Lathlain until January 2005, when he packed up his belongings and drove north to Hamelin Pool, where he launched his boat on the tidal flats. ‘He then sailed north and landed onshore near the Hamelin Pool Telegraph Station, where he stayed for about a week,’ Karen says. ‘Then he set sail for Darwin but unfortunately he never made it and died at sea.’
Once the coroner had conclusively identified that the skeletal remains were those of Fred Marriott, Fred’s family asked that he be cremated and returned – after almost forty years – to Fiji.
Karen arranged, with the help of Purslowe Funerals, to have Fred’s remains cremated on 1 February 2012 and the ashes sent back to Fiji, where his family was finally able to hold a funeral service for him three weeks later.
‘It was a shame that his life ended like that but it was very satisfying to finally be able to locate his family,’ Karen says. ‘It took some time but we were eventually able to answer the question, “Who is Fred Marriott?”’
Chapter 22
Prelude to a Murder
The mystery of the man in the mud
‘There were incision wounds to his wrists and elbows. The victim saw it coming.’
Detective Sergeant David Butler, Victoria Police
The young man whose body would eventually be found in a vehicle testing area at Roxborough Park in Melbourne’s north-west probably knew he was going to die.
It looked as though he’d survived one attack only to die from multiple stab wounds in another. The knife marks on his arms suggested he’d tried to defend himself, but the attack was so vicious that he would have been a dead man walking.
To this day, the ma
n’s assailant is unknown and sadly, no-one knows the identity of the murdered man either.
•••
The first and last time residents of the north-western suburb of Sunbury recalled seeing the man, he was alive, but not well.
It was between 5.50pm and 7pm on Sunday 30 April 1995, when locals saw him wandering around the streets wearing shorts and no shoes. It was a cool, damp autumn day so a man dressed for summer was always going to stand out.
But that’s not the only reason why he came to the locals’ attention.
At 6.45pm, a young engaged couple were driving home after buying takeaway when they noticed a man standing on the road about 1 metre away from a truck that was parked outside one of the nearby houses, as usual. ‘In front of the man who was standing,’ David Butler says, ‘was another man laying in the gutter. He had his hands up above his head like he was shielding his head. It was reported that the man was standing next to his neck.’
It was raining steadily at the time so the couple drove with care past the scene. ‘As they drove past, they saw the man use his foot to make contact with the back of the other man’s head,’ David says. ‘It was more like a nudge.’
At that stage, the couple didn’t see any movement from the man in the gutter and even though they might have been witnessing the prelude to a murder, they didn’t realise it at the time.
The woman later told police that she couldn’t tell the height or hair colour of the man on the ground, but the man standing up had dark hair, which was collar length, or a bit shorter. She also noticed that he was a bit shorter than the canopy of the truck, which was one of those small furniture removal trucks with a separate cabin at the front.
But the young couple weren’t the only ones to see the standover man in action that night. A father and son saw him too. That night after the news, they watched the first segment of a TV show about snakes. The father then agreed to take his son back home to his mother’s. On the way, the son saw a man with his arm around the waist of another man, who was staggering. The first man appeared to be holding the other one up.
His dad gave police more detail, which may or may not have been relevant. He noticed that the lights were off at one of the houses in the neighbourhood, which he thought was strange because their lights were always on. Sitting in the darkness were three men, crouched under cover of the veranda, presumably to escape the rain. A ute and a Datsun sedan were parked outside. ‘He also saw the two people walking close to the gutter,’ David says. ‘They were about 50 metres away from him.’
At first he’d thought one of the men was a woman in a dress, but he soon realised he was wearing shorts that billowed and gave the appearance of a dress. ‘He saw that the man in the shorts couldn’t walk without the assistance of the other man,’ David reveals. ‘He said that it looked as though the man was supporting him in one way, but forcing him in another.’
The witness also observed blood or another substance on the lower legs of the injured man and that the man holding him up, who was wearing a white jumper, ‘looked really strong’, and had a very solid upper body.
The father and son continued on their way, with the father dropping his son back home to his mother’s as planned. On his return, the father noticed ambulances and a police car parked in the street. ‘He stopped and told them what he’d seen,’ David says, ‘and the ambos said they were looking for a man who’d been injured.’
The emergency services workers knew that someone was in trouble because another resident had made an urgent call to them for help. He’d reported that a badly hurt man wearing shorts and no shoes had come to his front door at about seven o’clock and asked if he could he wash up. ‘He said that the man had a swollen face, a right swollen eye and his lip was cut,’ David says. ‘He couldn’t talk properly and it was as if his mouth was full.’
If only the man had stuck around to get help, he might be alive today.
‘The person then walked off,’ David says. ‘The resident had tried to get help for the guy but he obviously didn’t want to talk to police.’
Concerned about the man’s welfare, the resident went looking for him around the neighbourhood. But neither he, the police nor the paramedics could find him. It wasn’t until the next morning that they’d hear about where he ended up – but by then it would be too late.
At ten o’clock on Monday 1 May 1995, two men were test-driving a recreational vehicle on different terrains at Clifford Road near Roxborough Park, about 30 kilometres from Sunbury. It was an area that was routinely used for the testing of cars, being close to the Ford factory at Broadmeadows.
The men discovered the man’s clothed but bloodied body in the mud near the road about 300 metres from the Hume Highway. ‘With it being the Hume Highway, it’s a major thoroughfare between Melbourne and Sydney so I don’t think whoever dumped him there necessarily had to be familiar with the area,’ David says.
The drivers reported the body to their supervisors at the Ford factory, who immediately called the police. When police arrived at the scene it was painfully clear that the man had been murdered, by someone who wanted to make sure he’d never take another breath.
The police also noticed tyre marks near the body but were unable to ascertain how long they’d been there.
After the examination at the scene, the body was taken to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine where Professor Stephen Cordner conducted the autopsy. He noticed that the man’s body was dappled with a light coating of mud, and his top was pulled up to reveal fatal chest injuries. His hands had also been covered by paper bags, which David says ‘probably happened at the scene in case any forensic evidence could be preserved’.
The professor found that the man had died after being stabbed multiple times to the chest. There was heavy blood staining on his back from the incision wounds, which were up to two and a half centimetres in length. There were also incision wounds to the man’s wrists and elbows, indicating, as David Butler says, ‘the victim saw it coming’. He goes on to say, ‘It appears he’d copped a bit of a battering and was then stabbed at a later time.’
Whether the victim had been killed at the scene or dumped there, Professor Cordner could not say, but David Butler has a theory. ‘The distance between Sunbury and Roxborough Park is at least twenty minutes’ drive so it’s probable the man was killed at Sunbury and then dumped at Roxborough,’ he says.
The autopsy showed that the man’s shoulder also appeared to have been torn and there was a mild amount of ‘washerwoman’ on his feet and hands; that is, they appeared ‘pruny’ after having been exposed to moisture. There were also millipedes on his hands.
(The odontologist, Dr Tony Hill, later noticed severe facial fractures as well, which fits with the account from the resident who’d seen the man’s swollen and bruised face.)
The examination also revealed that the man was approximately 179 centimetres or 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed about 89 kilos. He was Caucasian, with medium-length, slightly receding brown hair and brown eyes. His pubic hair showed signs of having been shaved in the past and there was a very small amount of alcohol in his blood.
He’d been wearing Stasi brand fashion shorts, a long-sleeved royal blue windcheater, and a grey, blue and white Nike T-shirt. He wore no jewellery and had no scars or tattoos. The pathologist noted that the man had been dressed in clothes that were ‘in direct contrast to the prevailing weather conditions’.
As for why he was dressed for warmer weather, David Butler can only speculate. ‘We’re talking May so we were going into colder weather in Melbourne. It might be that he came from somewhere else and that might be interstate or even overseas.’
In order to work out who the man was and ideally catch his killer, the Homicide Squad conducted an extensive investigation starting with a residential canvass of the neighbourhood and later extending to the greater area of Sunbury and the Goonawarra Estate. Unfortunately, however, there were no new leads.
‘The investigators also sp
oke to transport authorities to find out how the man might have travelled to the area, and they contacted all the accommodation nearby as well,’ David explains. ‘They also got in touch with the local council, Centrelink, the Office of Fair Trading and the State Trustees but none of those avenues led to an ID.’
The investigators reviewed all missing persons databases to see if someone matching the dead man’s description had been reported missing and asked the Australian Dental Association to help find out if any dentists had treated him.
There was one lead – but it didn’t advance the investigation very far. Police discovered that sometime in April, a young man had tried to get a prescription filled for a strong painkiller at a chemist in Sunbury. He had an injured foot or toe. (If it was the man who was later murdered, a foot injury might explain why he hadn’t been wearing shoes.) For an unknown reason, the pharmacist did not fill the prescription and the man left the premises, leaving no personal details behind.
Police strongly suspected that the man with the injured foot became the victim of the fatal stabbing because the pathologist found a quantity of the same painkiller requested at the pharmacy in his blood.
With no other leads, police launched an extensive media campaign with national reach, in which they showed a morphed image of the dead man’s face. Still, no-one seemed to know who he was, let alone who killed him. ‘A large number of people were spoken to but there was insufficient information to launch any criminal prosecution,’ David says.
When David’s team of detectives at Taskforce Belier re-investigated the case years later, they again scoured old records of missing people in the hope that one of them might finally stand out. ‘Detective Senior Constable Tony Combridge, who spent a lot of time on this case, had some people who he thought might have been potential matches but none of them ended up being him,’ David says. ‘We just drew a blank.’
But until the man is given a name, his body will lie surrounded by others in an unmarked pauper’s grave.