Speaker 1: You are about to receive a film call from the
Speaker 1: correctional facility. The conversation will be.
Speaker 2: Recorded after the inquest into William Tirel's disappearance finishes hearing
Speaker 2: evidence in public.
Speaker 1: If you do not wish to receive this call, please
Speaker 1: hang up now.
Speaker 2: A lawyer for the New South Wales State Coroner sends
Speaker 2: me an email.
Speaker 1: This call is originating from the Shortland Correctional Center.
Speaker 2: With a link to dozens and dozens of exhibits that
Speaker 2: were tendered at the inquest, including witness statements, photographs, things
Speaker 2: we've never seen before and these recordings of Frank Abbott
Speaker 2: inside prison in November twenty nineteen, where Frank is serving
Speaker 2: time for sexually abusing children and here he's talking on
Speaker 2: the phone to a Christian pastor, Martin Parrish and his
Speaker 2: wife Jeannette.
Speaker 1: I'm really good, thank you.
Speaker 3: How are you.
Speaker 4: Days? It's not funny really, it's the.
Speaker 2: First time we've heard these recordings, which have never previously
Speaker 2: been made public, and listening to them, the first thing
Speaker 2: that strikes me, why yesterday, is that Frank who and
Speaker 2: I'll stress this, Frank's in prison for sexually and indecently
Speaker 2: assaulting children. Frank is winging.
Speaker 4: We had four full days and two days locking in
Speaker 4: the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's very good.
Speaker 2: Frank says, he's been locked up for too long. Inside
Speaker 2: his prison cell.
Speaker 4: Breakfast and they brought at luncher it.
Speaker 2: Frank complains the prison breakfast was late coming and lunch
Speaker 2: was too early. I mean Didham's.
Speaker 4: A few days ago now.
Speaker 2: But then Frank says he's spoken to his two surviving brothers,
Speaker 2: Les and David. He says the police investigating William's disappearance
Speaker 2: have been up to see them.
Speaker 4: They're in the place.
Speaker 2: Frank says the cops asked his brothers about a murder murder,
Speaker 2: a murder Frank was charged with and where he was
Speaker 2: found not guilty.
Speaker 4: And the second to half the fall half during the
Speaker 4: twelve months later, at another four and a half weeks.
Speaker 2: In, the cops are still bringing it up. Frank, sis
Speaker 2: have done this one, saying oh, he's done this, and
Speaker 2: he's done that. We think he might have done this one.
Speaker 2: The priest answers, well, that's that's that's fair thinking, and
Speaker 2: Jeanette Parish chips in not fair.
Speaker 5: I'm not guilty.
Speaker 6: You should be able to say I'm not guilty.
Speaker 2: But what exactly do the police mean by saying we
Speaker 2: think he might have done this one? Were they talking
Speaker 2: about William? If so, Frank denies it. That beat means
Speaker 2: the conversation has to end soon. You only get a
Speaker 2: few minutes on a prison phone call. In the rush
Speaker 2: to end the call, nobody seems to ask Frank who
Speaker 2: was it? He was found not guilty of murdering. I'm
Speaker 2: Dan box and from news dot com dot Au. This
Speaker 2: is witness William Tyrrell Episode thirteen. Helen Helen Mary Harrison
Speaker 2: was a teenager with dark hair and a bright smile,
Speaker 2: and she was all of seventeen years old, but looked
Speaker 2: younger as she left work at the local store in
Speaker 2: Pitttown in Western Sydney on Saturday, the sixteenth of March
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight. It was hot that afternoon, early autumn,
Speaker 2: and a storm was building up as Helen set out
Speaker 2: to cycle the few kilometers through farmland and scattered houses
Speaker 2: to her home and her family. Only she never got there.
Speaker 2: Today few people remember Helen, but among them is her
Speaker 2: brother Peter. I meet him in a cafe in a
Speaker 2: built up part of Western Sydney, where Peter brings his
Speaker 2: old handwritten notes from decades ago and fading newspaper clippings.
Speaker 2: Peter was fourteen when it happened, but today he's an
Speaker 2: old man and sitting together, it feels like he's wrapped
Speaker 2: up in grief or silence or something. He's hesitant his
Speaker 2: words stop and start or trail away. Later, we sit
Speaker 2: in the sunlight coming through a small window in his home,
Speaker 2: and I asked him to tell me about his sister.
Speaker 7: Well, being older than us, she was working, had more
Speaker 7: of her own life than her cellphone, my brother.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 2: What kind of person was she? Looking back? How do
Speaker 2: you think of her?
Speaker 7: Well, she enjoyed. She actually had to cycle to work
Speaker 7: at Pittown, which is quite a distance, four or five
Speaker 7: kilometers to Pittown. But apparently she used to sing on
Speaker 7: the bike other people who told us, and just worked
Speaker 7: in the general store.
Speaker 2: So she used to sing on the bike she cycled
Speaker 2: to and from work.
Speaker 7: Yes, and more of a social life than my brother
Speaker 7: and I.
Speaker 2: How would you describe her physically as you remember her?
Speaker 7: Oh? Maybe quite good looking and more matures than than us.
Speaker 7: That's about how as much I.
Speaker 2: Can can I and I'm sorry to do this, can
Speaker 2: I ask what you remember of what happened to her?
Speaker 7: Oh, certainly remember it all on the day where there
Speaker 7: was a big storm in Pittown, fairly hot weekend, when
Speaker 7: a hot day turns into a storm. And we believe
Speaker 7: this is maybe part of the reason she accepted a
Speaker 7: lift because of the rain.
Speaker 2: And what came next.
Speaker 7: Oh, we're waiting and waiting on the afternoon, but she
Speaker 7: didn't come out. Excuse me.
Speaker 2: Peter takes a moment looking out the window as his
Speaker 2: memory reaches back across the decades.
Speaker 7: But it was later in the day, I think four
Speaker 7: or five, and my father, he was driving around looking
Speaker 7: all through the night. Really we didn't know.
Speaker 2: What had happened, and the police became involved. And can
Speaker 2: you remember much of their investigation at the time.
Speaker 7: The police, I think only for in the beginning. They
Speaker 7: didn't think anything had happened to her. They thought she
Speaker 7: may have run off, left home, shot through somewhere, but
Speaker 7: she was happy to her no reason to do that.
Speaker 7: And they didn't try and look at all for the
Speaker 7: first early days.
Speaker 2: And how did that feel?
Speaker 7: Well, it was a bit hopeless for everyone. We didn't
Speaker 7: just kept on just driving around and talking to people
Speaker 7: and asking if they and local people told us that's
Speaker 7: any blue utility and three people in it. I think
Speaker 7: it was three or Helen in the middle. Some of
Speaker 7: had seen a bike in the back of a blue utility.
Speaker 7: That was the rumor.
Speaker 2: But this was your family doing the looking at this point.
Speaker 2: The police weren't looking.
Speaker 7: I don't think they were until the basket was discovered.
Speaker 2: That was Helen's basket.
Speaker 7: I think it was about a week later, and that
Speaker 7: was the first clue of where wish you might have been.
Speaker 2: And then they started to look.
Speaker 7: Yes, and then they found in the bush land there
Speaker 7: the shallow grove off the side of the road there.
Speaker 2: Can I ask how that was for you as a
Speaker 2: child and for your parents.
Speaker 7: Well, very traumatic of course then, but it was worse
Speaker 7: for mother anybody. There was a big loss in a
Speaker 7: lot of.
Speaker 2: Ways, and that loss is something you've lived with. Imagine
Speaker 2: your parents lived with for the whold of their lives
Speaker 2: without ever maybe being given an answer as to exactly
Speaker 2: what happened by the police and the courts.
Speaker 7: Yes, that is true. There's been no firm result about habbit,
Speaker 7: although it's been We've had two trials and a lot
Speaker 7: of do you say evidence and some stronger evidence, which
Speaker 7: is all amounted to nothing in the end as far
Speaker 7: as finding out the truth.
Speaker 2: And watching all of that over the years, and it
Speaker 2: was decades, what do you think looking back at that now.
Speaker 7: It seemed to be that this type of murder case
Speaker 7: as it was, was unknown well there anyone had heard
Speaker 7: of before in Maria district, town district, and it was.
Speaker 2: It was just.
Speaker 7: More hard to deal with, I suppose. And yes, even
Speaker 7: with a lot of evidence of some degree and opinions
Speaker 7: from other people and a missing watch which Habit had
Speaker 7: boasted about. He's told other people that he's got they've
Speaker 7: seen watching the club box of the car.
Speaker 2: Did Helen wear a watch? Oh yes, We'll come back
Speaker 2: to that watch later.
Speaker 7: And we thought the police would have been taking more
Speaker 7: action and were dividing more people that type of thing.
Speaker 2: And later when Abbott was eventually charged and taken to court,
Speaker 2: when we met, you said you had doubts about the
Speaker 2: jury system based on what you've been through.
Speaker 7: The whole thing is just hanging on a jury, and
Speaker 7: it only takes one person not to agree with it,
Speaker 7: because and then the whole jury can file. And some
Speaker 7: people possibly weren't happy with the decision and just said I.
Speaker 2: And you would have seen Frank in the courtroom.
Speaker 7: Yes, I saw him in the court and going him,
Speaker 7: but I never saw him coming out.
Speaker 2: Could you describe him now?
Speaker 7: He's a stand over me. Yeah, literally, that's what people
Speaker 7: used to say. That's a word of her. It's written
Speaker 7: them from what other people say. But he did look
Speaker 7: a bit fearsome. I suppose.
Speaker 2: Frank looked fearsome enough that even his own lawyer described
Speaker 2: him in court as someone who stands over people to
Speaker 2: get his way. But that doesn't make him a murderer,
Speaker 2: the lawyer argued. And as the jury found, looking back
Speaker 2: at what happened, what are your regrets?
Speaker 7: Oh, the time factor well landor in sixty eight, natrial
Speaker 7: wasn't until ninety one or two. That's ridicuous, twenty three
Speaker 7: or four years and literally that's that's terrible.
Speaker 2: And what have you heard from the police since that trial?
Speaker 7: Very little, if any that I can remember.
Speaker 2: It's now fifty years or more since Helen went missing,
Speaker 2: and we've heard Frank's name in the years since. In
Speaker 2: relation to the William Tyrell investigation. You said the police
Speaker 2: haven't contacted you since the trial. Do you still have
Speaker 2: any hopes that what happened to your so that can
Speaker 2: be resolved? What do you hope for now?
Speaker 7: I would like to see a resolution, But there's because
Speaker 7: there has been a lot of evidence over the years,
Speaker 7: a lot of people interviewed and provided their thoughts and
Speaker 7: some facts, and it's all come to nothing in spite
Speaker 7: of two court cases after all this time, and we
Speaker 7: know Abbott is a bad person, and the sheer amount
Speaker 7: of stories, really, it's got to be there's got to
Speaker 7: be more interest put in Abbot.
Speaker 2: You'd like to see the police pay more attention to
Speaker 2: Frank Abbott.
Speaker 7: Certainly. Yes, it's a very old case, but is not
Speaker 7: of unsold answers questions.
Speaker 2: After walking outside, Peter's bicycle is standing up against his
Speaker 2: garage wall. He says he cycles like his sister Helen,
Speaker 2: and I think of her cycling home from work on
Speaker 2: that day singing. It's an image that I can't shake,
Speaker 2: and nor can Nina, the producer.
Speaker 8: On this series, All right, thank you both.
Speaker 2: Nina has spent months now trying to find out more
Speaker 2: about Helen's death and what happened after.
Speaker 8: So what I want to do today is take you
Speaker 8: through what I've found out about this afternoon.
Speaker 2: She's asked me and Gary Jubilin to join her in
Speaker 2: the studio.
Speaker 8: And this information is based on court documents that I've
Speaker 8: been able to find and newspaper articles that were written
Speaker 8: at the time.
Speaker 2: Gary is one of the detectives who led the investigation
Speaker 2: into William Tyrrel's disappearance. He's got a checkered history with
Speaker 2: the case, which we've talked about a lot earlier in
Speaker 2: this series. But nobody disputes Gary knows police work. He
Speaker 2: spent thirty four years in the New South Wales Police Force,
Speaker 2: most of them investigating homicides.
Speaker 8: And what I'm going to try and do is present
Speaker 8: it to you in a way that's not my opinion.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm trying to color it. So if you
Speaker 8: think I am doing that, speak up let me know.
Speaker 9: Okay, just affects me.
Speaker 8: Just the facts, all right. Shall we get started, Okay,
Speaker 8: So it's nineteen sixty eight. Let's start with Frank Abbott
Speaker 8: and what he was doing in nineteen sixty eight. So
Speaker 8: Frank's in his twenties and he's living with his parents
Speaker 8: in Kingswood, which is a suburb in the west of Sydney.
Speaker 8: It's not too far from Penrith.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's far west of Sydney.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Frank's from a big family, has got lots of
Speaker 8: brothers and sisters. And he's also I guess what you'd
Speaker 8: call like a petty criminal, so car theft, burglary, break
Speaker 8: and enter, that kind of level of criminal.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: How old is he?
Speaker 8: Roughly in his sort of mid to late late twenties. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: so that's Frank at that point. About half an hour
Speaker 8: from Kingswood is pitt Town and that is where Helen Harrison,
Speaker 8: who's seventeen at the time, is working.
Speaker 9: I do Pittown then, what are we talking? Sixty eight?
Speaker 9: That would a ban A very small place, small place.
Speaker 2: It's right on the fringe of Sydney bush than.
Speaker 9: Yeah, acres and farmland and all that. Pit Town.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Helen at the time, she was really reliable, go to work,
Speaker 8: come home. On the sixteenth of March nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 8: she left work about twelve forty five pm and she
Speaker 8: hopped on her bike to ride home, as she always did.
Speaker 8: People saw her leave, but she never made it home.
Speaker 8: She was not the kind of teenager who would just
Speaker 8: go off without telling her parents, so they raised the
Speaker 8: alarm pretty quickly, there's a search and they just can't
Speaker 8: find her.
Speaker 2: How good would a search have been from the police
Speaker 2: at that time, Gary sixty eight.
Speaker 9: It would literally be driving around on the roads and
Speaker 9: they wouldn't have the communication seventeen year old girl leaving
Speaker 9: the store riding on a country road. I dare say
Speaker 9: that the search would be that she hasn't been involved
Speaker 9: in an accident or whatever. So I think it'd be
Speaker 9: a cursory drive along the roadways on the most likely
Speaker 9: path that she would have taken.
Speaker 2: So it's not flooding the area like we saw were William.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't imagine seventeen year girl on the bike sixty eight,
Speaker 9: So I think that's what the search would have been.
Speaker 8: So it's about a week later they find Helen's body.
Speaker 8: She's in a shallow grave in East Courageong, which is
Speaker 8: around the area she was murdered, and she was found
Speaker 8: naked from the waist down. I don't think that they
Speaker 8: have a cause of death.
Speaker 2: Do you know anything about You said it was a
Speaker 2: shallow grave, but where it was it.
Speaker 9: Was in the Carrageng Yeah, you've got pitt Town in
Speaker 9: the plains windsor planes Richmond East Carriageong is as you're
Speaker 9: starting to go up into the Blue Mountains, so that
Speaker 9: would have been Yeah, it's a bit wild, so that
Speaker 9: would be a place you'd take someone.
Speaker 2: It's even further out of Sydney, it's more remote. You've
Speaker 2: gone through this kind of idylic country edge and now
Speaker 2: you're getting into the mountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 8: They found the body and she had been paid at
Speaker 8: her job about twenty dollars that was missing, her watch
Speaker 8: was missing, her underwear was missing, and her bike was
Speaker 8: missing at that time. But they did find that a
Speaker 8: few months later.
Speaker 2: Gary, can I ask a question which isn't a pleasant question,
Speaker 2: or none of this is pleasant. If you find a
Speaker 2: teenager's body roughly a week after she's died in sixty eight,
Speaker 2: how do you tell she's been sexually assaulted?
Speaker 9: Could be damage around the round, the vagina or the
Speaker 9: anus that might have been because of the flesh. Potentially
Speaker 9: that the flesh is still there.
Speaker 2: So, because there's not going to be modern day forensics,
Speaker 2: there's no DNA.
Speaker 9: Maybe they'd swab for blood back then, but it's not DNA.
Speaker 8: So she was naked from the waist down.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that yeah, Okay, there's that.
Speaker 8: So there's no immediate obvious suspect for the police. So
Speaker 8: I wanted to ask you, Gary, I imagine this kind
Speaker 8: of seemingly random attack where you don't have that obvious suspect.
Speaker 8: That's got to be one of the hardest kind of
Speaker 8: crimes to solve, the most.
Speaker 9: Stranger murders are what we consider most difficult ones.
Speaker 2: But would you assume it was a stranger murder?
Speaker 9: I'm just answering them. Stranger murders are the most difficult ones.
Speaker 9: But you'd be thinking, okay, a strange murder if someone
Speaker 9: was just driving along the road, but you'd be looking
Speaker 9: at all the local people around there who knew who
Speaker 9: knew she rode that route. You're looking at people that
Speaker 9: victimology is the early part of the murder investigation, finding
Speaker 9: out what her lifestyle is, what the patterns were. The
Speaker 9: fact that the local community all knew she rode home
Speaker 9: that way, well, that would open up suspects to everyone
Speaker 9: in the community, or potential suspects.
Speaker 2: So it's a cop you'd actually on the basis, so
Speaker 2: that'll almost be walking into town and looking at potentially
Speaker 2: anybody there.
Speaker 9: And then line of a questioning. You'd speak to a
Speaker 9: family and friends, anyone that's been paying particular attention to her,
Speaker 9: anyone that stands out in the community that's a little
Speaker 9: bit strange in the behavior, So that would be the
Speaker 9: way you work the community.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and that's exactly what the police did. So they
Speaker 8: cast a pretty wide net, the following up every possible lead.
Speaker 8: By the time the case goes to trial decades later,
Speaker 8: the court hears that the police have spoken two thousands
Speaker 8: of people in relations.
Speaker 2: Thousands, thousands in sixty eight. The cops said that much
Speaker 2: work into.
Speaker 9: It, you'd be astounded. Like some of the old school investigations,
Speaker 9: they were fascinating the amount of detail. We didn't have computers.
Speaker 9: It wasn't electronic, but there was a card system in place,
Speaker 9: and you'd have boxes of cards and a bit of
Speaker 9: information be stored alphabetically in the system.
Speaker 2: Like cross reference between cards.
Speaker 9: Yeah, there was a lot of collating to be done.
Speaker 9: But yeah, they were thorough because they didn't have the
Speaker 9: benefits that we've got currently, like we've CCTV for the
Speaker 9: phone records all that. So it was just that legwork.
Speaker 9: You had to go out and speak to people and
Speaker 9: that was the thing that solved cases.
Speaker 8: Well, that's definitely what they were doing. And as far
Speaker 8: as I can tell from the court records that I
Speaker 8: have access to, Frank Abbott first comes onto their radar
Speaker 8: when a sixteen year old boy goes to the police
Speaker 8: in the weeks after Helen's murder and he tells them
Speaker 8: that about two weeks before Helen's disappearance, he'd spoken to
Speaker 8: a passenger in an old white Courtina sedan who expressed
Speaker 8: an interest in Helen and her whereabouts.
Speaker 2: And so that's all from court records.
Speaker 5: Yeap.
Speaker 8: So a teenager goes to the police and said, hey,
Speaker 8: saw this guy in this car and he asked me
Speaker 8: about Helen.
Speaker 9: When he asked him about Helen. That was prior to
Speaker 9: helen disappearance. Okay, yeah, okay, Well that's definitely a line
Speaker 9: of inquiry that you'd be wanting to follow up.
Speaker 8: So they do, and they go to Frank and they
Speaker 8: ask him about it in April of nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 8: so it's about a month after the murder, and he
Speaker 8: confirms that, yes, he was a passenger in that white
Speaker 8: Courtina and he says his friend Trevor was driving, but
Speaker 8: he says he doesn't remember asking about Helen, he tells
Speaker 8: the police that he had met Helen a few months
Speaker 8: earlier at a dance and he'd seen her around since then.
Speaker 8: So when the police then asking about his whereabouts on
Speaker 8: the day that Helen went missing, he said that he
Speaker 8: and his brother John visited a hotel in Penrith about
Speaker 8: ten thirty am, had a couple of beers left. By
Speaker 8: twelve thirty pm, John drove Frank to his home in Kingswood,
Speaker 8: where he stayed until about four thirty when his other
Speaker 8: brother came and picked him up.
Speaker 2: So that's again court records.
Speaker 9: That's all in break that down at ten thirty am
Speaker 9: to twelve thirty pm at the pub, at the pub
Speaker 9: and then his brother dropped him home.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so he's at the pub with his brother John.
Speaker 8: John drove him back to Kingswood and then another brother
Speaker 8: came and picked him up.
Speaker 9: She disappeared. What time she's sat at twelve forty five
Speaker 9: she's riding the bike came, so he's given basically he's
Speaker 9: with his brother John at the critical stage.
Speaker 2: So what time was she last seen?
Speaker 9: Twelve forty five?
Speaker 2: Twelve forty five, so he's left the pub just before
Speaker 2: then with his brother so the only alibi witness at
Speaker 2: the crucial time would be his brother.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so that's my next question. Gary, you get that
Speaker 8: alibi given to you from a person of interest, who
Speaker 8: do you speak to?
Speaker 9: Go to the pub see if they were together. That
Speaker 9: would be the first thing. And then I would be
Speaker 9: grabbing the brother as quickly as I could and lock
Speaker 9: him in and then speaking to other people, say, say
Speaker 9: with the brother and associated with Frank, to see if
Speaker 9: they corroborate it.
Speaker 8: So the police don't speak to John, which is Frank's brother,
Speaker 8: don't speak to John. In fact, no one speaks to
Speaker 8: John until decades later when it goes to trial, and
Speaker 8: at that point John has no memory of any of it.
Speaker 2: So again it's court records saying absolutely the cops do
Speaker 2: not speak to the person Frank nominates as his alibi witness.
Speaker 8: Yes, and just as Slattery will later say in court,
Speaker 8: such an interview might have been expected after the applicant
Speaker 8: told police here and his brother John had visited a
Speaker 8: hotel in Paris for several hours up to twelve thirty pm.
Speaker 9: An understatement is it definitely should have been spoken to
Speaker 9: and you'd be checking his hourbie like that.
Speaker 2: Does that make any sense to you. If the cops
Speaker 2: are working this hard enough that they speak to thousands
Speaker 2: of people, but they don't speak to the brother who
Speaker 2: Frank says he was with at the time, why are
Speaker 2: you with that?
Speaker 9: It comes down to I think leadership sometimes directions and
Speaker 9: sheer volume of information comes in and like, we're looking
Speaker 9: at it now, knowing what we know about Frank and
Speaker 9: the type of person he is at that point in time.
Speaker 9: He was in his mid twenties, might have the criminal history. Okay, well,
Speaker 9: two blokes they go for a drink at the pub
Speaker 9: that might have had that urgency.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so he's a potentially just someone who's come
Speaker 2: up just okay, we've checked what he says he was doing.
Speaker 2: We ticked that box. Move on, because they might have
Speaker 2: been looking at someone they might have had.
Speaker 9: So I'm always cautious when we're looking at old investigations
Speaker 9: at what the information did they have at the time.
Speaker 8: We're not done with the allibis. So the police do
Speaker 8: speak to Trevor, who was the driver of the Courtena
Speaker 8: hang on, So this is the guy who was in
Speaker 8: the car with Frank when they spoke to that teenager who.
Speaker 2: Said Frank was asking about Helen.
Speaker 8: So Trevor said that he did remember Frank asking the
Speaker 8: teenager about a girl who lived nearby.
Speaker 9: Okay, so you're ramping Frank up a little.
Speaker 7: Bit there, a little bit.
Speaker 8: And then they speak to another of Frank's brothers, So
Speaker 8: not John, who said he said he was at the
Speaker 8: pub with but Ted. Ted is the brother that Frank's
Speaker 8: said came by in the afternoon and picked him up.
Speaker 8: So Ted says that he was at work from six
Speaker 8: thirty am until four pm in Penrith, and then he
Speaker 8: went to his mum's place in Kingswood, which is where
Speaker 8: Frank was living at four point fifteen pm, and he
Speaker 8: said Frank was there with his parents and a friend
Speaker 8: named Rodney. They also speak to Frank's mum and so
Speaker 8: there's a record that she told police that Frank was
Speaker 8: home with her that afternoon.
Speaker 2: Well that might be why they don't speak to the
Speaker 2: brother who Frank actually says he was with.
Speaker 8: But you'll notice that Ted has said that Frank was
Speaker 8: at home with a friend named Rodney. Yeah, Frank didn't
Speaker 8: mention that in his first alibi.
Speaker 9: So the problem is if they've not spoken to John,
Speaker 9: but they've spoken the ted so that they have got
Speaker 9: interest in him. Yeah, and then so that they've missed John.
Speaker 2: John's the crucial And you're right, you've spotted a contradiction
Speaker 2: in Frank's own account of what he was doing.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 8: So at this point the alibi is a little bit muddy.
Speaker 9: Well it's not it's not confirmed. That's non alibi all
Speaker 9: over the place.
Speaker 2: And just to stress, everything that you're saying is coming
Speaker 2: from court records that you've got, that you've been through.
Speaker 2: So this is evidence the court has heard. Because yeah,
Speaker 2: it does sound like if I was a cop working
Speaker 2: that one, I'd want to go back to Frank again and.
Speaker 8: Say, yeah, I was looking at that, going gee, if
Speaker 8: I was a cop, I think maybe I would have
Speaker 8: confirmed this. They didn't. At this point, what.
Speaker 2: Do you reckon to that?
Speaker 9: Again? Who knows what was operating on their minds. But
Speaker 9: if you're looking at the gold class, Yeah, let's do
Speaker 9: it right. Obviously you speak to John. And the moment
Speaker 9: if Frank was a suspect, the moment Frank nominated John,
Speaker 9: I would be prioritizing getting someone to speak to John
Speaker 9: before Frank has an opportunity.
Speaker 2: And the moment you notice the contradiction between what his
Speaker 2: other brother says and what Frank said.
Speaker 9: You want to go back, Yeah, but you'd be getting
Speaker 9: to that person straight away, and don't let them be
Speaker 9: able to I wonder.
Speaker 8: If you're speaking to thousands of people, if you just
Speaker 8: have this running list of these are things we have
Speaker 8: to get to, you've got to confirm that person's well.
Speaker 9: Literally up until the electronic systems come in. We'd have
Speaker 9: a job book and a book and task number one,
Speaker 9: go speak to Dan, box number two, go speak to Nana.
Speaker 9: And you just have to keep that the whole time.
Speaker 2: And if all of these little contradictions or missing persons
Speaker 2: that you haven't spoken to, we're all in a card index,
Speaker 2: and there's going to be shelves of those cards, isn't
Speaker 2: there quickly? If you're speaking to a thousand people, you're
Speaker 2: going to have boxes of cards and cross references. Stuff
Speaker 2: is going to get lost.
Speaker 9: It's not fool proof, but you can't justify not speaking
Speaker 9: to John if Frank was a suspect and said he
Speaker 9: was driving.
Speaker 8: So the investigation continues. They haven't given up. They're still
Speaker 8: casting this really wide net. They're still speaking to people
Speaker 8: all around the area. They find Helen's bike in September
Speaker 8: of nineteen sixty eight in Berkshire, which is not where
Speaker 8: her body was found.
Speaker 2: Berkshire Parks half an hour's drive from East Korea. It's
Speaker 2: a fair way away and you'd have to have a
Speaker 2: car to move a bike that distance.
Speaker 8: They keep doing interviews. One of the people that they
Speaker 8: interview is a man named Gary Grimson, who will come
Speaker 8: relevant later on. Gary gives a statement to the police
Speaker 8: and I can tell you, according to court records, that
Speaker 8: in nineteen sixty eight, when Gary Grimson spoke to the police,
Speaker 8: he did not say anything to implicate Frank. They're thinking
Speaker 8: at that point is that the offender is a local person.
Speaker 8: And they also in an article of a time flagged
Speaker 8: their interest in a pale blue hold and utility vehicle
Speaker 8: that was seen in the area of Helen's disappearance at
Speaker 8: the time. But I can tell you that they speak
Speaker 8: to Frank again in September, so a few months later,
Speaker 8: so this is nineteen sixty nine by this point, and
Speaker 8: in that interview Frank finally corrects his alibi.
Speaker 2: This is a quote Nina reads from Frank's own evidence
Speaker 2: read out and court by the judge.
Speaker 8: I made a mistake. What I'd done on that day,
Speaker 8: sixteenth of March is as follows. On that morning, I
Speaker 8: got up about eight or eight thirty am, went out
Speaker 8: and helped my friends Brian and Rodney and my father
Speaker 8: in the backyard. We were pulling Brian's car to pieces.
Speaker 8: He said. He stayed in the backyard attending to the
Speaker 8: vehicle until about eleven thirty am. And then this is
Speaker 8: another quote, the four of us went up to the
Speaker 8: shell station at Penrith to get some parts. On the
Speaker 8: way back, we went to Woodruf Street to see my
Speaker 8: brother Ted, and I stayed there until about twelve thirty
Speaker 8: or a bit after. Then went home for lunch. And
Speaker 8: I stayed at home with my father, brother, mother and
Speaker 8: fixed the car. And later Brian and Rodney left. And
Speaker 8: he said he thought that was about two PM. And
Speaker 8: then he stayed at home and worked around the shed
Speaker 8: with his father and his brother until about six thirty
Speaker 8: or seven pm.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and he's nominated how many people that he was
Speaker 9: hanging out.
Speaker 8: With his father, his mother, his brother, Rodney and Brian
Speaker 8: he said were there. They left about two pm.
Speaker 9: Okay, the crucial time twelve forty five to one forty five,
Speaker 9: however long. So that's yeah, whether whoever he's claiming he
Speaker 9: was with, that's a crucial time of the alibi.
Speaker 2: What do you make of the fact that he's changed
Speaker 2: his version of events completely? So within weeks of her
Speaker 2: disappearance he gives one version of events, but months later
Speaker 2: he changes his version of events completely. Do you read
Speaker 2: anything into that.
Speaker 9: For anyone that changes an alibi? But to come out
Speaker 9: strongly and say I was at this pub ten thirty
Speaker 9: to twelve thirty and then driving with my brother.
Speaker 2: Because that's the thing is precise that the first.
Speaker 9: By that to me, something jumps out. I'm not sure
Speaker 9: if it's just the way it's been recorded, because at
Speaker 9: the pub ten thirty to twelve thirty, and then with
Speaker 9: my brother.
Speaker 8: So this correction of Frank's alibi is in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2: Nine, the year after how goes messing.
Speaker 8: So going back to Ted's statement, he doesn't mention Frank
Speaker 8: visiting him that day. In the statement that Frank gave
Speaker 8: in nineteen sixty nine, he said that about eleven thirty am,
Speaker 8: the four of us went to the shell station at
Speaker 8: Penrith and got some parts. On the way back we
Speaker 8: went to Woodruff Street to see my brother Ted, and
Speaker 8: I stayed there until about twelve thirty. So Ted had
Speaker 8: said he went to work at six thirty am and
Speaker 8: worked all day till four pm, didn't mention Frank coming
Speaker 8: to visit him.
Speaker 2: So Frank gives one version of events, which is essentially
Speaker 2: contra addicted by his brother Ted. Then Frank gives a
Speaker 2: different version of events, which also contradicts what his brother
Speaker 2: has previously said.
Speaker 8: Yep, yep. So again you would think you checked the alibi.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 5: One.
Speaker 9: The only way you can prove or disprove it is
Speaker 9: other people's accounts that can support it.
Speaker 2: Do they do that?
Speaker 8: Frank's father, Frank's brother John that we mentioned, Rodney Plackett,
Speaker 8: who was the man that he said he was with,
Speaker 8: Brian Stockman, who I think was another person who was
Speaker 8: at the house.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 8: They were never interviewed by the police.
Speaker 2: Kidding. So the again, that's all from the court.
Speaker 8: Yep, this is all court.
Speaker 2: Right, So those are people that Frank said he was with,
Speaker 2: They're never interviewed by police.
Speaker 8: I'm not speculating or offering opinions here this, No.
Speaker 2: I'm offering opinion. That's really bad. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: not got anything to say about Frank, but in terms
Speaker 2: of the police investigation, that's really bad.
Speaker 8: And this was criticized in court, and this was used
Speaker 8: as to form part of the defense in court. So
Speaker 8: decades later in court, Frank's lawyer will assert that at
Speaker 8: that point in the investigation, so say nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 8: on the available material, there was no forensic evidence linking
Speaker 8: the applicant to the crime. There was no identification evidence
Speaker 8: and no eyewitness evidence. So at this point the police
Speaker 8: he didn't have anything solid.
Speaker 2: Well, that's fair enough. There is actually no evidence linking
Speaker 2: Frank to the murder at this point at all. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 8: At this point Frank seems to be out of the investigation.
Speaker 8: Over the next few years, he gets married to a
Speaker 8: woman named Katrina. He's also in and out of jail
Speaker 8: for various crimes, none of them violent crimes, minor crimes. Yeah,
Speaker 8: so again break and enter, stealing cars. So he and Katrina,
Speaker 8: they seem to have a bit of a tumultuous marriage
Speaker 8: in that various reports from that time seemed to say
Speaker 8: they're together. Then they're not together. They have two children together,
Speaker 8: I believe, But again, on and off he's in and
Speaker 8: out of jail too in nineteen seventy seven, So we're skipping.
Speaker 2: Ahead here almost ten years now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, okay, two women related to Katrina Abbott go to
Speaker 8: the police.
Speaker 2: So two women related to Frank's wife. Yeah, okay, go
Speaker 2: to the place.
Speaker 8: So one is Katrina's cousin. And what she tells the police,
Speaker 8: and this is from court records, is that Frank took
Speaker 8: her and Katrina, his wife, to the bush site where
Speaker 8: Helen Harrison was found. And she said along that drive,
Speaker 8: Frank was beating his wife, Katrina as they drove.
Speaker 2: So as he's driving out to the site where Helen
Speaker 2: Harrison's body is found, with at least two women in
Speaker 2: the car with him, he is beating his wife.
Speaker 8: That's what she said in her statement.
Speaker 2: Which was hurt in court.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This evidence was heard in court during an part of
Speaker 2: the legal process called a committal hearing, and it was
Speaker 2: heard again during the trial where Frank was found not guilty.
Speaker 8: And she said he bragged about the killing, talked about
Speaker 8: it as if it was a big joke, and said
Speaker 8: that he'd scruffed the girl and he'd raped her. And
Speaker 8: she also says he showed them a watch in his
Speaker 8: glove compartment that he said was Helen's watch. She says
Speaker 8: that Abbot told her that he tried to date Helen
Speaker 8: Harrison at the shop where she worked in Pitttown and
Speaker 8: Helen had refused him. Abbot also allegedly boasted to his
Speaker 8: wife about how the girl had not stopped screaming while
Speaker 8: being driven away from her home into the bush.
Speaker 2: That's what that's what I caught, would lay her hair, yes, yeah.
Speaker 8: Where he grabbed her by the throat and strangled her.
Speaker 8: So all of this was what Katrina's cousin told the police.
Speaker 8: She also said that Abbot had told her he had
Speaker 8: sex with the girl before killing her, and again when
Speaker 8: she was dead, and she said, I thought he must
Speaker 8: be sick in the head.
Speaker 2: You said there were two women, Yeah.
Speaker 8: So that's the first woman. So the other woman that
Speaker 8: went to the police in January of nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 8: was Katrina's sister, and she told the police that Abbot
Speaker 8: had lured her into his car where he made a
Speaker 8: move on her, and she'd refused his advances and was
Speaker 8: crying and she was pleading him to let her go.
Speaker 2: Again. This evidence was heard in Frank's committal hearing and
Speaker 2: his trial.
Speaker 8: But he took her out into the bush and he said,
Speaker 8: you're like that other stupid bitch. I took her out
Speaker 8: to the bush and I soon shut her up. So
Speaker 8: she pleaded to be allowed to go home to attend
Speaker 8: to her young baby. But Abbot took her out into
Speaker 8: the bush, and she says in her statement to play
Speaker 8: at knife point. It was a night long ordeal where
Speaker 8: she was savagely rapped four times.
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, bragging about crimes, I carry a little bit
Speaker 9: of weight to it, but not It's not a deal
Speaker 9: clincher for me. Someone bragging about a crime, he gets
Speaker 9: off on terrorizing people. It might be part of his fantasy.
Speaker 9: What interests me that he does know her and newer
Speaker 9: in the area, it would have been a very small community.
Speaker 9: Knowing that he knows her disappeared, he's alibi. And then
Speaker 9: if we accept we're seeing the type of person he is.
Speaker 9: He's a predator. He's a rapist.
Speaker 2: And again, look he's not convicted of that, but that
Speaker 2: as a detective, if you were looking at that, that
Speaker 2: would be what this is.
Speaker 9: How I'd be talking as a briefing. Okay, So whether
Speaker 9: we got we've got a blake that newer. His names
Speaker 9: come up early in the investigation. His alibi hasn't been
Speaker 9: fully tested. We're now getting information that hasn't been improved
Speaker 9: to care. But we've got the statement from the victim.
Speaker 9: He is saying she was raped at knife point.
Speaker 2: He'd be someone you would want to pursue.
Speaker 8: She also said in a statement that he showed her.
Speaker 9: The watch, that's the thing, and that we said that
Speaker 9: the watch, the clothing was watch was money taking. Ye.
Speaker 2: That suggests he has got physical evidence that would link him,
Speaker 2: because that would be a clincher.
Speaker 9: Yeah, on that information, you could execute a search.
Speaker 2: Warrant and if you got the watch, you'd almost be looking.
Speaker 9: At your watch. I'd say you've got circumstantial, but the
Speaker 9: strong circumstantial brief.
Speaker 2: So you'd be potentially charging.
Speaker 9: At that point, you've got him linked to the crime.
Speaker 2: Did they find the watch?
Speaker 8: So this is a quote from one of the court
Speaker 8: records I found after the women came forward. It seems
Speaker 8: that the police did not initiate any further investigation into
Speaker 8: the matter.
Speaker 9: I can't pinpoint who I would criticize over that.
Speaker 2: Now you might say you don't want to criticize, but
Speaker 2: there's a witness saying there might be physical evidence that
Speaker 2: would directly link him to the crime, which you said
Speaker 2: just on her account, you could get a search warrant.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the cops would be able to within honestly
Speaker 2: hours maybe day, get a search warrant. Yeah, get his
Speaker 2: car and see if that watch is there.
Speaker 9: And where I think potentially you're failing just knowing the organization.
Speaker 9: Everyone's operating in silos. That might be information passed on
Speaker 9: to a local detective. You then got homicide squad station
Speaker 9: somewhere else and information like that because of the manner
Speaker 9: in which it was stored, like it's not you can't
Speaker 9: access a computer. It would have been the old card system.
Speaker 9: So to be me picking up speaking to pitt Town
Speaker 9: Police station is a detective on can you get him
Speaker 9: to check that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I will flag that the two women that came
Speaker 8: forward to the police were Aboriginal women.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Well that's the make you think, Well, you'd like to
Speaker 9: think it doesn't count, but victims get judged, whether we
Speaker 9: say or not. And I don't want to tarnish the
Speaker 9: police that they dismissed him. I'd like to think it
Speaker 9: wouldn't happen but I've got to say, in my experience,
Speaker 9: I've seen things like that happen.
Speaker 2: You've worked cases well, witnesses have been dismissed or not
Speaker 2: listened to who happened to be Aboriginal. And I've reported
Speaker 2: on cases murders, serial killings where Indigenous women have come forward,
Speaker 2: and in fact, there was a government inquiry two years
Speaker 2: ago into the murders of Indigenous women and children in
Speaker 2: this country.
Speaker 9: It gave evidence that the inquiry, well, I can tell
Speaker 9: you that they don't really know why it wasn't followed up.
Speaker 8: By the time the case did go to trial in
Speaker 8: the mid nineties, one of the two officers involved had
Speaker 8: died and the other officer said that the one who
Speaker 8: was now dead was the one that had been left
Speaker 8: to handle everything post interview, and he didn't.
Speaker 2: Know what happened, so we can't ask him.
Speaker 8: We do know Frank wasn't interviewed or even informed about
Speaker 8: those allegations.
Speaker 2: So that's again the court records records.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he wasn't charged. We know at the time everybody
Speaker 8: of those allegations. Frank's wife also wasn't interviewed at that time.
Speaker 2: Because she was a witness. According to her cousin. She
Speaker 2: was in the car when Frank being beat up. When Frank,
Speaker 2: So the cops have an interviewed Frank or the other witness. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we can't say that those two witnesses have come
Speaker 2: forward were telling the truth because Frank hasn't been convicted
Speaker 2: of those offenses or charged.
Speaker 5: Gary.
Speaker 9: Oh, look, if you're asking you plain and simple, shouldn't
Speaker 9: have been followed up? The clear answer is yes, should
Speaker 9: have been followed up.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Years later in court, Frank's lawyer would argue the women
Speaker 2: had an axe to grind due to an ongoing family dispute,
Speaker 2: though the women themselves denied this. Either way, nothing happened.
Speaker 8: So again things go quiet at this point, and that
Speaker 8: next decade is pretty similar to the decade before for Frank.
Speaker 8: He's in and out of for minor crimes. He's on
Speaker 8: and off with his wife.
Speaker 2: So that's twenty years when Helen's family are just waiting
Speaker 2: no answers.
Speaker 8: By nineteen ninety, Frank's definitely separated from his wife and
Speaker 8: is living in Tari with his teenage daughter, and he's
Speaker 8: doing odd jobs for work. And that's when the next
Speaker 8: thing happens that pushes Frank back into the spotlight of
Speaker 8: the investigation. So that thing is a man named Gary Grimson,
Speaker 8: and you may remember I told you earlier to remember
Speaker 8: that name. Gary is in jail. I think he's in
Speaker 8: jail for break and enter. And he makes a confession.
Speaker 8: He tells police that prior to Helen's murder, he went
Speaker 8: to Frank's home in Londonderry with the intention of going
Speaker 8: with him and his brother Les to steal a car.
Speaker 8: He says that before the car theft, he, Frank and
Speaker 8: Frank's brother Les drove to the dog track and picked
Speaker 8: up a blue green.
Speaker 2: FJ holden ute, as in they stop.
Speaker 8: Well, he doesn't say that the statement they picked one
Speaker 8: up before they.
Speaker 2: Went to So this is the day when Helen goes missing.
Speaker 8: No, this is prior to it, prior.
Speaker 2: To Helen goes missing. He says that he and Frank
Speaker 2: picked up a pale blue potentially holding.
Speaker 8: Blue green FJ holding ute which Frank and he drove
Speaker 8: into the bush and covered with a tar poland then
Speaker 8: they went to a dance and Frank apparently went, according
Speaker 8: to this statement, went outside with a blonde woman age
Speaker 8: at eighteen to twenty. Gary says five minutes later he
Speaker 8: heard a commotion outside and he went outside and saw
Speaker 8: Frank with this woman on the ground near a wall,
Speaker 8: pulling at her clothes.
Speaker 2: And this is all heard in court.
Speaker 8: This is all heard in court and in Gary Grimson's statement,
Speaker 8: so that's prior to the murder. He says that in
Speaker 8: the days after Helen was murdered, Frank's brother Les came
Speaker 8: to Gary and told him that police would be coming
Speaker 8: to talk to him about a girl that had been killed,
Speaker 8: and if he mentioned the Holdute he said he would
Speaker 8: fire bomb his parents' home. So, according to Gary, Lairs
Speaker 8: is saying this to him, not Frank.
Speaker 2: Again, it's worth knowing that all this evidence from Gary
Speaker 2: Grimson and his statement is what he said in court
Speaker 2: during Frank's committal, and it's right there in the transcript
Speaker 2: of the hearing which was released to Nina by the
Speaker 2: New South Wales Supreme Court.
Speaker 8: Gary then says in his statement that he was taken
Speaker 8: by Frank and Lairs at gunpoint and it had a
Speaker 8: twenty two caliber rifle held against him and he was
Speaker 8: taken into the bush in East Curajeong where he was
Speaker 8: forced to push the Holden Newt the same hold and
Speaker 8: ut that they had taken and put in the bush
Speaker 8: into the Hawksbury River, and Frank told Gary, according to
Speaker 8: a statement, that he was now involved in a murder,
Speaker 8: and when Gary says which murder, Frank apparently replied, the
Speaker 8: girl I knocked. He then tells him that he followed
Speaker 8: Helen home from work on her bike, grabbed her, drove
Speaker 8: her into the bush, raped her, and buried her in
Speaker 8: that location where they were standing. Gary says that Frank
Speaker 8: also showed him a pair of blue underwear that belonged
Speaker 8: to Helen, so in the end, Frank lets him go.
Speaker 2: We've tried to speak to Frank and to Les about this.
Speaker 2: We've written to Frank and driven hours to reach an
Speaker 2: empty property registered in Les's name. He wasn't there, and
Speaker 2: we've passed messages to both men through their sister and
Speaker 2: been told they don't want to talk.
Speaker 9: What year was this that Gary provided this information?
Speaker 8: Nineteen ninety and he claims that he had waited so
Speaker 8: long to tell the truth because he was afraid of Frank.
Speaker 8: So again he's talking about things that happened in nineteen
Speaker 8: sixty eight. It's nineteen ninety at this point, So that's
Speaker 8: a big accusation right.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 8: Are some issues with that statement, and all of those
Speaker 8: issues will be later raised in court.
Speaker 2: So all of this evidence is heard in court and
Speaker 2: it's interrogated.
Speaker 8: I mean the first issue that comes up again and
Speaker 8: again Gary I mentioned, is in jail when he makes
Speaker 8: that statement. Yeah, he's an informant and he's.
Speaker 9: About what they're not looked at very reliable, and there's
Speaker 9: some professional ones in.
Speaker 2: The professional informant.
Speaker 9: Don't trust anything they say because.
Speaker 2: They're trying to get something in return for informant. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And at this point when he makes this statement,
Speaker 8: he's about to be moved to another prison. He doesn't
Speaker 8: want to be transferred because he says he has enemies
Speaker 8: at the other prison, and a court heard that as
Speaker 8: a result of him giving this information, he avoids that transfer.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he does get something that does get.
Speaker 8: So this all becomes a bit of an issue in court.
Speaker 8: The other thing that gets brought up was that Gary
Speaker 8: was interviewed by police in nineteen sixty eight. Didn't say
Speaker 8: any of this at the time.
Speaker 2: But he's of explained that before being asked the question,
Speaker 2: because he said, Frank said, if you say anything on
Speaker 2: fire bomb your and.
Speaker 8: What his response to that in court was that he's
Speaker 8: been afraid of Frank for twenty years. The other issues
Speaker 8: that's brought up is that the other friends that Gary
Speaker 8: mentioned as potentially knowing about the crime, they'd also been
Speaker 8: interviewed by police back in nineteen sixty eight, sixty nine
Speaker 8: and they hadn't mentioned any of this. And then number
Speaker 8: four was kind of the most damning one for the prosecution,
Speaker 8: which was his statement said that he went to Frank's
Speaker 8: house in Londonderry. Frank didn't live in Londonderry. He lived
Speaker 8: in Kingswood, which is really close by, but it's not
Speaker 8: the same suburb. So, I mean, the police are three
Speaker 8: witnesses at that point claiming that Frank had confessed to them.
Speaker 9: And if they are looking at and I'm not sure
Speaker 9: if it came out in the court, are they independent
Speaker 9: of each other? So they're not.
Speaker 2: No, two of two of them aren't because they're related
Speaker 2: to Frank's right wife and.
Speaker 8: They went to the police at the same time place
Speaker 8: at the same times.
Speaker 2: But Gary is potentially independent.
Speaker 9: You'd look at that.
Speaker 8: So they had three witnesses claiming that Frank had confessed.
Speaker 8: They reinterviewed the relatives and the police were pretty confident,
Speaker 8: and they made the arrest of Frank in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: So they do arrest Frank, and they do charge him.
Speaker 8: It gets delayed because Frank's lawyers immediately apply for a
Speaker 8: permanent stay. You can probably explain what that is better
Speaker 8: than me.
Speaker 2: That's just where they stop charging him with murder.
Speaker 8: Yeah, please don't do the trial, right, Okay, Well, on
Speaker 8: the basis that there'd been an extreme delay on the
Speaker 8: part of the prosecuting authorities in taking proceedings against Frank.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. The reason the defense are saying don't charge
Speaker 2: Frank with murder is they're saying the prosecution took so
Speaker 2: long to do its job and there.
Speaker 8: Was an incurable prejudice which would make a fair trial impossible.
Speaker 2: So that's their argument, is that it's impossible for Frank
Speaker 2: to mount a defense because so much time has gone
Speaker 2: past that he might not be able to find the witnesses.
Speaker 8: They might have died, and those allegations there weren't put
Speaker 8: to him in nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: And all of that.
Speaker 9: I can hear that argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can hear that. But if they had interviewed
Speaker 2: Frank's brother, who Frank said was in the car with
Speaker 2: him at the time, in the weeks after the murder happened,
Speaker 2: then you might not end up in nineteen ninety one
Speaker 2: saying this thing has been delayed for so long it
Speaker 2: can't go ahead.
Speaker 8: And there's also mention of records and evidence being lost
Speaker 8: or destroyed. I don't know what that is precisely. So
Speaker 8: in nineteen ninety three the case did go ahead. So
Speaker 8: Frank's mother had.
Speaker 2: Died, so that's his alibi witness.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Frank's wife died in November of nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 8: so she couldn't testify at the trial. Are the witnesses
Speaker 8: who hadn't been interviewed at the time of Helen's murder
Speaker 8: now didn't have any recollection of things others like Frank's.
Speaker 2: Less Garry is frowning, and your frown is getting deeper
Speaker 2: and deeper as this goes on.
Speaker 8: And I've got to finish this sentence because you're going
Speaker 8: to found more evidence was missing. And the two women
Speaker 8: who went to the police, the relatives of Katrina, what
Speaker 8: I got from the records, and this is a bit
Speaker 8: of interpretation, was that they had some trouble on the stand.
Speaker 8: There was a reference in the court records to them
Speaker 8: having memory issues and the defense having issues with cross
Speaker 8: examination and being able to do it properly because of
Speaker 8: those memory issues. So it sounds like they didn't do
Speaker 8: that well in court.
Speaker 9: No, and I've got to be fair, it's a weak
Speaker 9: case at the start of it. And then if those
Speaker 9: issues that you're saying arose at court, I could see
Speaker 9: it going against the frustrating parties that the police investigation
Speaker 9: is the thing that used against the prosecution.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Frank's lawyer said that the two women who went
Speaker 8: to the police were potentially out to get Frank. So
Speaker 8: that trial ends the jury can't come to a verdict.
Speaker 8: A second trial is held in nineteen ninety five and
Speaker 8: Frank was eventually found not guilty of Helen's murder. Right
Speaker 8: so to date, Helen's murder remains.
Speaker 2: Unsolved, meaning nobody has been brought to justice decades later,
Speaker 2: and Helen's parents died without getting any answers except that
Speaker 2: Frank Abbott, as you heard in the prison calls at
Speaker 2: the start of this episode, he denies any involvement Helen's
Speaker 2: brother Peter, who I visited at his house and who
Speaker 2: stood beside his bicycle waving sadly when I left him.
Speaker 2: Peter also has had no answers about what happened to
Speaker 2: his sister, and he fears he may never get them,
Speaker 2: although I think he still hopes that one day he
Speaker 2: might do.
Speaker 9: If you had fresh and compelling evidence, now under the
Speaker 9: double jeopardy legislation, you could have him really tried.
Speaker 8: But could you, even though it's gone through two trials. Yeah,
Speaker 8: that's interesting.
Speaker 2: It's interesting partly because Gary knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: As a detective, Gary tried to take a man who'd
Speaker 2: previously been found not guilty back to court for murder,
Speaker 2: arguing there was now new evidence against him. That story
Speaker 2: is a whole other podcast. What matters is that it
Speaker 2: proved it could happen. That could be done. Though Gary
Speaker 2: is the only cop to date who's tried.
Speaker 9: It, it's going to be fresh and compelling evidence.
Speaker 8: What would count is that DNA.
Speaker 9: If let's say Frank was arrested for something and found
Speaker 9: the watch in DNA, which wasn't the viiable at the time,
Speaker 9: DNA approves that was Helen's property, that would be compelling
Speaker 9: and they'll be fresh.
Speaker 2: Gary speaking hypothetically, at this point, there is no new
Speaker 2: DNA evidence, But if there was, then hypothetically that could
Speaker 2: be fresh and compelling. So someone's been found not guilty murder,
Speaker 2: they can be charged again. You need fresh and compelling evidence,
Speaker 2: so fresh is something that hasn't been heard in court
Speaker 2: before and compelling speak spelling. Yeah, how much do you
Speaker 2: need do you think as a homicide cop to and
Speaker 2: this We're not saying that Frank is guilty. He's been
Speaker 2: found not guilty, but theoretically, how much do you think
Speaker 2: you would need in terms of new evidence to overturn
Speaker 2: and not guilty.
Speaker 9: I think my instinct of pushing this and really taking
Speaker 9: it to the next level. If you got Frank confessing
Speaker 9: to someone and you captured that on tape, I think
Speaker 9: that would warrant an application.
Speaker 2: At the very last we don't have Frank confessing on tape,
Speaker 2: but there is something.
Speaker 5: M h m hm.
Speaker 2: Hi is that Brian? Yeah, Brian Collier is one of
Speaker 2: the first people I speak to in John's River, the
Speaker 2: little town where Frank once lived and where we were
Speaker 2: in the last episode. Brian, my name is Dan Box.
Speaker 5: Frank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly that.
Speaker 5: Yes, Frank, I knew it well, Frank. It was very
Speaker 5: very handy A doing things he could.
Speaker 6: He could like electrician, plumber, anything and the favorite of
Speaker 6: work at my face. But he was a blake you
Speaker 6: couldn't trust if there was kids around.
Speaker 2: What makes you say that?
Speaker 6: Well, me granddaughter when Vowel living here. According it was
Speaker 6: just getting starting to get dark, and she was walking
Speaker 6: up straight coming out.
Speaker 5: He was coming the other way and he'd go behind
Speaker 5: my car. Yeah, what do you do? I said, I
Speaker 5: just kind of scare her. I thought, yeah, it'd been
Speaker 5: more than that.
Speaker 2: What makes you said it would have been more than that?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 6: He virtually admitted to me that he did kill that
Speaker 6: girl that after Windsor.
Speaker 2: Helen Harrison was last seen about a ten minute drive
Speaker 2: from Windsor.
Speaker 5: I fink she's at fourteen.
Speaker 2: She was seventeen, not fourteen.
Speaker 6: He went to court for that, but the Jerry on
Speaker 6: three occasions, I think it was.
Speaker 2: And there were only two trials, not three of them.
Speaker 5: They couldn't reach a verdict.
Speaker 2: But I've spoken to Brian on a couple of occasions
Speaker 2: now about this, and I'm sure it's Helen he's talking about.
Speaker 2: I think it was Helen Harrison.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can't remember the name, but I know he
Speaker 6: because frankly used he was an alcoholic apparently, but he
Speaker 6: stopped drinking and he was he was, Mamie Lords, actually
Speaker 6: is a stinking hot day. And I told him in
Speaker 6: the having a couple of beers, and he started loosen
Speaker 6: up a bit and he and he mostly admitted to
Speaker 6: me that he did kill her.
Speaker 5: The shadow up.
Speaker 2: What did he what did he say?
Speaker 6: Well, he did have sex with her, and then he
Speaker 6: was she was going to tell on him, so he there.
Speaker 2: And so what did he say he did, Well.
Speaker 6: He was around about way the way had come out,
Speaker 6: and then he just cleaned up then because I think
Speaker 6: he realized he said.
Speaker 5: A fair bit.
Speaker 2: Can you remember what words he used?
Speaker 6: I'm but I think he did say that he had
Speaker 6: he had sex with her a few times, okay, and
Speaker 6: he was she was riding a pushbike I think it was,
Speaker 6: I think she said at the time, and and he
Speaker 6: picked her up and through I think he said he
Speaker 6: had a ute.
Speaker 2: And what did he say he did with the pushbike?
Speaker 6: I think he did damp it.
Speaker 2: So he picked her up with her bike maybe put
Speaker 2: the bike in the back of the ute apparently, And
Speaker 2: then did you tell you what happened next?
Speaker 5: That now he cleaned up, okay.
Speaker 2: And what did you think when you heard him say that?
Speaker 6: Well, nothing he could do because he had three trials
Speaker 6: and they well, they couldn't try him again. So yeah,
Speaker 6: that's why I was. I was very careful with Frank.
Speaker 6: He was He often used to wander around John's River.
Speaker 6: I heard early ails of the morning and he wasn't
Speaker 6: very well liked over.
Speaker 2: And did the police ever talk to you about what
Speaker 2: he said about this young girl?
Speaker 5: Nah?
Speaker 6: Well, I didn't say think about it because he had
Speaker 6: free trials, so that was it. They couldn't roy arrestling
Speaker 6: after that.
Speaker 2: Brian is right about that point. At the time Frank
Speaker 2: was found not guilty of Helen's murder, the law said
Speaker 2: you couldn't be put on trial again for the same crime.
Speaker 2: So at that time the police could not rearrest Frank,
Speaker 2: even if Brian had come forward. But the law has
Speaker 2: been changed since. That's what Gary Jubilin was talking about.
Speaker 2: If you have fresh and compelling evidence, they can do
Speaker 2: if they have new evidence, so something they hadn't heard before.
Speaker 5: Now thought I didn't think they could roy arrest.
Speaker 2: How would you describe Frank?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, don't know.
Speaker 5: I got on good with him in one way.
Speaker 6: But I was careful of him also because see, look
Speaker 6: he was a bit of a day with kids, So I.
Speaker 2: Know that you'd heard that from other people or no.
Speaker 6: My grandson was another girl here she was for then
Speaker 6: Frank try to grab her.
Speaker 2: Did he ever talk about any other you know, any
Speaker 2: other crimes he might have committed anything like that.
Speaker 6: Nah, No, there was just luck. I think that the
Speaker 6: things he said to me about the girl at winter
Speaker 6: and then he shut up pretty quick.
Speaker 2: Frank did not completely shut up. In fact, he's allegedly
Speaker 2: been telling other people similar stories. At the inquest into
Speaker 2: will Tull's disappearance, there was another witness who can't be identified,
Speaker 2: who was asked if Frank Abbott ever told him about
Speaker 2: a murder back in nineteen sixty eight, the year Helen
Speaker 2: Harrison went missing and died. This witness gave evidence saying
Speaker 2: Frank told him quote borrowed his car, raped a girl
Speaker 2: and she had an electic fit and died. The same
Speaker 2: witness later said the same thing in a TV interview
Speaker 2: broadcast by seven News.
Speaker 7: And he told me he was charged with the murder
Speaker 7: over that.
Speaker 2: This witness has since died, so we can't ask him
Speaker 2: any questions. But here's the key thing. Listening back to
Speaker 2: what he says and what Brian Collier told me, I
Speaker 2: realized neither of them is actually saying Frank told them
Speaker 2: he murdered Helen. Brian claims Frank virtually admitted that he killed.
Speaker 5: Her, and he mostly matter to me that he did
Speaker 5: kill and the shadow up.
Speaker 2: But that's Brian's opinion, and actually Frank doesn't say that.
Speaker 2: In Brian's version, Frank says only that he had sex
Speaker 2: with Helen.
Speaker 5: Well, he did have sex, brother.
Speaker 2: Frank doesn't say anything else.
Speaker 6: He just claimed that then because I think he realized
Speaker 6: he said a fair bit.
Speaker 2: And the unidentified witness at the inquest his evidence is
Speaker 2: not that Frank killed Helen, just that Frank told him
Speaker 2: a couple of blokes borrowed his car, raped a girl
Speaker 2: and she had an epileptic fit and died. So this
Speaker 2: new evidence is only that at most Frank did have
Speaker 2: sex with Helen. Not sure what to make of this.
Speaker 2: Nina and I keep on talking to people, speaking to
Speaker 2: people who know Frank Abbot.
Speaker 7: Hello, Dora speaking Hide.
Speaker 2: My name is Dan Box. I'm sorry to call you
Speaker 2: about the Blue his friends and family. I'm a reporter
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to get in touch with the daughter
Speaker 2: of a man called David Abbott. That is you, oh
Speaker 2: fucking hell, including this woman who is Frank's niece, the
Speaker 2: daughter of one of Frank's few surviving brothers. It was
Speaker 2: specifically to do with with his brother.
Speaker 3: Ah, where do you start anyway?
Speaker 7: What would your love to?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: What can you tell me about Frank?
Speaker 5: Creepy?
Speaker 3: But he never touched me, He never did anything to
Speaker 3: me that I know of. Bo can remember he was
Speaker 3: in Windsor. This is another thing. My father told me
Speaker 3: he's a kid, which I was waiting for the police
Speaker 3: to do more interviews, and I've tried to tell Queensland Police.
Speaker 3: But years ago, down in Penrith, Windsor area, there was
Speaker 3: a young girl.
Speaker 5: This is going back years and years.
Speaker 3: There was a young girl. They found her dead and
Speaker 3: she had a pushbike ye and she wrote out and
Speaker 3: they found her in the scrub years ago when I
Speaker 3: was a kid. My father, now, I don't know why
Speaker 3: he would tell me this, but he told me that
Speaker 3: his brothers took her out into the scrub and they
Speaker 3: all had sex with her and that she ended up dead.
Speaker 3: But no one knows how And I've been trying to
Speaker 3: get that looked into because if he dies, no one's
Speaker 3: ever going to know the full story, Like why would
Speaker 3: you tell your kid that?
Speaker 2: And you've told police this.
Speaker 3: Well, I've tried to Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2: Police in New South Wales or queen.
Speaker 3: No police in Queensland. When I've said, oh, yeah, there's
Speaker 3: some girl on a bike years ago, and.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It was back in the nineteen sixties. I think I
Speaker 3: think she was only sixteen or seventeen.
Speaker 7: Frank was tried, Yes, he was, that's the one.
Speaker 3: Yes, they tried to get him for it.
Speaker 2: It was the murder of a girl called Helen Harrison.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 7: That's her name.
Speaker 3: That's the name.
Speaker 2: And I think it might be quite important that we
Speaker 2: look at that because.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because my father, I can just see where I
Speaker 3: am right now in the shed within there telling me
Speaker 3: this story of this young girl that they picked up
Speaker 3: who was on a push bike. They put the bike
Speaker 3: in the back of the you and they his brothers
Speaker 3: took her out the bush and yeah, all had sex
Speaker 3: with her.
Speaker 2: Day's memory is that her father, David told her that
Speaker 2: his brothers picked up a young girl with a pushbike
Speaker 2: and had sex with her and that she ended up dead,
Speaker 2: but no one knows how. I've seen a version of
Speaker 2: that same allegation included in a witness statement Day gave
Speaker 2: to the police in November twenty twenty two. That statement
Speaker 2: describes Frank's brother David, showing off Playboy magazines and talking
Speaker 2: about the girl that went missing, but again not talking
Speaker 2: about murder. We try talking to David Abbott about Helen.
Speaker 2: I did want to ask you about the murder of
Speaker 2: Helen Brothers someone he doesn't want to talk. Hello, Hi,
Speaker 2: my name's Dan Box. Instead, I speak to some of
Speaker 2: those who were involved in Frank's trials over Helen's murder,
Speaker 2: and they say one thing that really stood out is
Speaker 2: that no one knew the actual cause of Helen's death.
Speaker 2: They couldn't work it out during the autopsy or on
Speaker 2: the evidence she was found with, which was strange. But
Speaker 2: because Helen's body was found buried in a shallow grave,
Speaker 2: everyone just thought that she'd been murdered. I speak to
Speaker 2: Frank Abbot's sister, Elaine Harding, who will be eighty seven
Speaker 2: this year, but remembers Helen's disappearance almost sixty years ago. Now,
Speaker 2: Elaine doesn't want to be recorded, so I make sure
Speaker 2: hand notes of our conversation. She says Frank would buy
Speaker 2: lunch from the local store in Pitttown that Helen worked at.
Speaker 2: She says Frank always used to chat to Helen. When
Speaker 2: I asked Elaine to describe her brother, she says Frank
Speaker 2: was a thief, that he could pick the eye out
Speaker 2: of a needle, but she never knew him to hurt
Speaker 2: a child or a woman. Elaine says she does remember
Speaker 2: her brother's saying something about a car and telling her
Speaker 2: the police were trying to pin Helen's murder on Frank,
Speaker 2: just like they did with William Tyrell's disappearance, she says,
Speaker 2: and Frank has told her that that is definitely not true. Later,
Speaker 2: reading back over my shorthand notes of our conversation, I
Speaker 2: stopped looking at something Elaine said about Helen when talking
Speaker 2: about how Frank would chat to her while buying, she said,
Speaker 2: I don't know if she was an epileptic or something,
Speaker 2: meaning if Helen was epileptic. I didn't mention epilepsy, but
Speaker 2: she's the second person now to do so, after the
Speaker 2: witness at the inquest into William's disappearance, who says Frank
Speaker 2: told him.
Speaker 7: Apparently she had an eteleptic fit and died.
Speaker 2: Nina, who's the producer on this podcast, spends weeks going
Speaker 2: back and forth with the New South Wales Supreme Court
Speaker 2: trying to get access to the thirty year old court
Speaker 2: records of Frank's prosecution over Helen's murder. Nina then spends
Speaker 2: two days reading through these yellowing pages and finds a
Speaker 2: page of transcript from Frank's committal hearing where Helen's old
Speaker 2: boss at the store says in court that she was
Speaker 2: taking epilepsy tablets.
Speaker 7: Well, I remember being surprised when I first heard about it.
Speaker 2: I call Helen's brother Peter and ask him if Helen
Speaker 2: was epileptic.
Speaker 7: Waiting just a child. I wasn't aware she had anything
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 2: He says he was only fourteen or fifteen when his
Speaker 2: sister first went missing, and he didn't know anything about
Speaker 2: epilepsy until after Helen's body was recovered and.
Speaker 7: During the police investigations. Okay, later on, I think I
Speaker 7: just heard mark parents discussing it. Yeah, brought color because
Speaker 7: my personal reaction was I just thought, in a shock situation,
Speaker 7: maybe that's how she died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just.
Speaker 7: My went through my mind. If she had a sickness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Helen being epileptic could explain why no one at
Speaker 2: Frank's trial knew how she died. I call a forensic pathologist,
Speaker 2: someone who's done thousands of different autopsies, and who tells
Speaker 2: me that if someone died with epilepsy and their body
Speaker 2: was not discovered for a week like Helen's, that fact
Speaker 2: wouldn't be something you could see during an autopsy conducted
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight, and maybe not something you could
Speaker 2: see even with today's technology. Meaning I don't think you
Speaker 2: can say for sure that Helen was murdered. I keep
Speaker 2: talking to her brother Peter, telling him about the people
Speaker 2: we've spoken to about this, like Brian Collier in John's River.
Speaker 2: This one guy who said that he'd spoken to Frank
Speaker 2: and Frank had said that maybe he was involved. And
Speaker 2: this woman, so she's Frank's niece, and she told me
Speaker 2: and Frank's sister is a woman called Elaine, and she
Speaker 2: says she doesn't think Frank was involved, but she does
Speaker 2: remember her brothers at the time talking about what happened
Speaker 2: to your sister. And the witness at the inquest who
Speaker 2: said Frank told him about a girl who was raped
Speaker 2: and had an epileptic fit and died because Helen's death
Speaker 2: came up at the inquest into William's disappearance. So I
Speaker 2: tell Peter I can't prove anything, and that doesn't change
Speaker 2: the fact that what happened to her was awful and
Speaker 2: should never have happened, and that the people involved shouldn't
Speaker 2: have been brought to justice. It doesn't change any of that.
Speaker 2: Even if Helen died from epileps whoever was there didn't
Speaker 2: call for help or for an ambulance. Instead, they buried her.
Speaker 2: And there are now three more people. On top of
Speaker 2: those who gave evidence at Frank's trial in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: there are now the two I've spoken to, Frank's niece
Speaker 2: and Brian Collier, as well as the unidentified witness at
Speaker 2: the inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance. I asked Peter if
Speaker 2: he's heard anything from the police or the coroner since
Speaker 2: that evidence about his sister came up at the inquest, nah,
Speaker 2: which I find shocking that the cops and the coroner
Speaker 2: would not want to contact Helen's family.
Speaker 7: I've just been just last night thinking a lot but
Speaker 7: the stage in my life and trying to recall the
Speaker 7: rest of where a laws were up to, you know,
Speaker 7: to jog my memory about things. Yeah, it's still just
Speaker 7: unsolved and should be got nowhere with the whole thing.
Speaker 2: And I guess you'd like that to change, yes, hm, hm,
Speaker 2: to change things. Peter knows that the police and the
Speaker 2: courts can only act on evidence, but he also expects
Speaker 2: that when they do have evidence, they do act. So
Speaker 2: Peter's surprised to hear about the other evidence we've found
Speaker 2: about Frank Abbott, evidence that was tendered at the quest
Speaker 2: into William Tyrol's disappearance, including a witness statement that nobody
Speaker 2: has mentioned to Peter and which Nina and I find
Speaker 2: among the stack of exhibits released only after the inquest
Speaker 2: hearings ended. Reading through that witness statement, we discover it
Speaker 2: links Frank to another cold case. In fact, it links
Speaker 2: Frank to two more.
Speaker 3: They were gouge Max like that someone had gouged.
Speaker 7: Skin it.
Speaker 2: That's next time on Witness William Tyrol. A lot of
Speaker 2: different people have been involved in making this series. Among them,
Speaker 2: the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design was
Speaker 2: by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar,
Speaker 2: phoebe Zakowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick,
Speaker 2: original music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs.
Speaker 2: The editor at news dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren.
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Box