WEBVTT - The ghost road of Colac 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:03.840 It is amazing how people hit by a car are 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:07.480 thrown in the air like a crash test dummy. They 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:11.000 go up in the air in a somersault and they 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:17.840 come down in a very ugly, untidy heap. The unknown 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.640 driver jumped out of the car and took a look 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.320 at his victim, and it seems, and this is where 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.840 we're getting into speculation, it seems made a terrible decision. 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.520 I'm Andrew Rules, Life and Crimes. A story that's always 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.600 fascinated me, although I have not written about it myself 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:43.839 until this month, is the story of the killing of 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:49.040 Huey Wilson just outside Kolak, back in nineteen seventy six. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.840 Now that effectively is a lifetime ago. It happened at 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.640 the very beginning of when I started work, which is 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.440 a long time ago. Huey Wilson was a World War 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.039 II veteran of fifty seven years old in that year, 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:08.680 which is interesting in itself because there are no World 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.200 War Two veterans left. Essentially, they're all north of one 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.760 hundred and I don't know that there's any of them alive. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.400 But he back in the seventies was one of thousands 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:20.920 of World War Two veterans who were still around, and 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:25.200 Huey was a local boy from Kolak. He was one 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:26.840 of a big family. I think he was one of 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.759 ten kids, something like that, big family, and he joined 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.720 up to go to World War Two. I think he 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.399 might have been engaged to a local girl. But anyway, 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.679 when he got back from war service, life had sort 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.640 of gone past him. I think his fionce or his 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:49.720 girlfriend had married someone else, and he basically just settled 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.920 down into a very quiet life and he was sort 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.600 of sidelined in a way. In a way that happened 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.040 to some veterans, guys that have been the army, They 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:03.800 were affected by and they never really resumed civilian life 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.240 with any great enthusiasm or success. And here he was 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:12.560 not particularly eccentric. He wasn't a hermit. Really, he wasn't 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:18.200 a strange derelict. He was just a local guy that 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.200 people knew and quite liked. Quite a pleasant man, quite 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.160 a kind man. Nobody said a word against him. He 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:29.000 wasn't dishonest. He didn't light fires or steel washing off 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:31.120 the line or any of that stuff. But what he 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:35.679 did do just to the south of Kolak, in the 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.880 foothills of the otways is and was a lot of bush, 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.359 thick bush, and what he did was set up camp 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:47.639 in that bush, and basically he became a stationary swagman. 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.160 He was a swagman who did not walk the highways 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.640 and byways traveling from Downtotown. What he would do was 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.840 camp at one spot where he had a bit of 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.480 a tent set up with Heshan and all the rest 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.880 of them, a camp stretcher and a little fire to 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:06.400 cook stuff and make a cup of tea. And he 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:10.919 would walk into Kolak a few kilometers decent walk might 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.880 have been five K, six K, seven k's whatever, And 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.040 he would carry a sugar bag of sugar bags, a 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.880 light Hessian bag and he'd take that with him and 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.160 he'd buys some supplies, maybe couple of times a week. 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.359 This is the road. Incidentally, he would walk down the 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.880 road to Kolak, the same road where Cliffy Young back 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.360 in the day used to run. He would run to 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.760 Kolak from Beach Forest, which is a hell of a 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.040 long way, and he would run into Kolak and then 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.480 run back out to Beach Forest. And I presume that 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:48.520 sometimes a young cliff Young would trot past a middle 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.200 aged Huey Wilson, which is just one of those funny 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:55.080 little quirks of history. So Huey minded his own business. 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.839 He lived along there for decades, basically three decades, I guess. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.840 If you go from nineteen forty six to nineteen seventy six, 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.800 that's thirty years, and nearly all of that time he 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.280 was camped up in the bush, well known around the town. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.800 People didn't mind him, they knew who he was, He 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.160 talked to people. There are photographs of him at Christmas 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.560 time having a drink with his family, his sister or 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.360 his brother in law, of that sort of stuff. Had 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.200 quite a few relatives around the place. As I say, 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:31.279 he wasn't regarded as particularly strange and certainly never a problem, 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.279 not menacing or anything like that, so no one had 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.400 a reason to hurt him. It's the point we're making now. 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.400 On this night, a Saturday evening, September the eleventh, nineteen 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.120 seventy six, it would seem that Hugh he's been down 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.320 to town and he's walking back up to the bush, 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.960 I think the district on that edge of like he's 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.800 called Brungarook, and it's up past the golf club, and 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.320 the racecourse and up into the hills where these days 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.719 there's a few lifestyle blocks and farm lots and that 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.680 sort of stuff. But back in the seventies pretty well 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.760 farming country by and large, and the holdings were probably 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.719 bigger then and fewer people. Are much less traffic and 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.800 all that. So about seven o'clock on this evening, and 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.360 that's about an hour after sunset, so if there's any 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.760 sort of residual evening light, it's getting pretty dark by 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.800 the time this happened. It probably happened around seven pm 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.680 or a bit later that evening. He's walking up through 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.880 Burungaruk and he's at a stretch of road just before 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.440 it hits the bush, before the Bitchumin road runs into 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.120 the bush, and his paddocks on one side, on the 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.600 west side and on the east side on his left 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.040 as he walks uphill is the old brickworks, the old 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.960 Coolak brickworks, and I think at that stage it was 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.440 still operating. I think, not that it matters. And he's 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.559 trudging up the road with his sugar bag, with his dusty, old, dirty, 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.080 old coat that used to wear and all the rest 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:09.159 of it. And suddenly and we're we'reconstructing what happened here, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.680 but we know pretty well what happened. A car speeds 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.279 up behind him. Now I don't know if it's headlights 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.880 were on or not, but you can guarantee it was 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.200 going pretty fast because they had it been going slower, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.600 the driver would have had time to react and dodge him. 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:30.480 As it turns out, it's going fast, it hit Huie Huie. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.200 And I know this because I've been close to someone 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.479 who was hit by a car once, and it is 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.800 amazing how people hit by a car are thrown in 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.240 the air like a crashed desk dummy. They go up 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.840 in the air and they somersault and they come down 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.600 in a very ugly, untidy heap, and they do not 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.440 fall softly, and they did not fall in a straight line. 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.560 They are smashed up like a rag doll, and their 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:02.360 arms and legs are everywhere, which is a relevant point 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.039 to this story. It would appear that the unknown driver 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:12.280 of this white Valiant police car, let's say it, jumped 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:17.080 out of the car and took a look at his victim. 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.720 And it seems, and this is where we're getting into speculation, 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.560 it seems made a terrible decision. It would appear that 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.480 the driver of this police car probably wasn't supposed to 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.920 be driving it that night. It would appear that the 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:38.320 driver of this police car might not have wanted anybody 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.440 to know that he was driving in that area at 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:45.120 that time. He may not have been supposed to be there. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:49.520 And the other concern here is he be facing a 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:55.080 culpable driving charge, probably particularly if it had any drinks 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.080 earlier in that day and in the nineteen seventies on 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.280 Saturdays and Saturday nights. I'm here to say that most 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:07.240 rural males, particularly police, probably had had a drink or 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.240 three or five on a Saturday afternoon in some setting 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.760 or another, if not at the football, then at a barbecue, 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.320 or at the pub, or watching the races at the pub, 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.200 whatever it might be. So these every chance that this 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.640 driver also had that incentive not to be caught because 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.600 they probably had a drink which would play against them 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.720 if they went to court. So, whatever the reasons were, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:38.559 this driver did not call in on the police radio 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.599 to say of struck a pedestrian, did not call for 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.080 an ambulance, did not go for help, did not pick 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.120 up the stricken man and drag him into the car, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.480 and drive down to the hospital to try and save 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:56.280 his life. At the very best he left him. But 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:01.960 the rumors and whispers suggests that this actually got out 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.280 and decided to do something that he and many others 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.600 have done with injured kangaroos or injured wombats over the years. 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:14.240 In bush country. When you injure a kangaroo, beyond all 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.959 help you dispatch them, you kill them, essentially and usually 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.439 by hitting them in the head with a heavy object 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.600 which people used to carry in their cars. And the 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.440 suspicion is that poor Huey Wilson was struck in the 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:34.240 head with a heavy tool of some sort, and one 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:35.840 with a bit of an edge on it, because it 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:40.760 left a very sharp wound in the head, which people, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.920 including a coroner, thought was not consistent with being struck 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.920 by a car. The car had hit him at a 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.280 certain level below the torso and thrown him in the 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.400 air and so on, but it looked as if his 0:09:55.440 --> 0:10:00.200 head had been deliberately struck to finish him off. That 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.840 is that the heart of this most terrible story. The 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:09.080 suspicion is that a driver had got out and killed 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.040 this middle aged man rather than help save him. Because 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.240 the driver in this case, wanted to save their own neck. 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.040 They had other problems and they wanted to avoid it, 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:25.240 and they made this terrible decision in a matter of seconds. Now, 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.040 how do we know about this, Well, Hughey Wilson is 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.720 found early next morning, I think at dawn, about six o'clock, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:37.040 six thirty. I think a lady's driving down from Baron 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.720 Garrook and she sees the body lying beside the road. 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.640 She goes down or calls whatever, She gets to a 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.000 phone or she drives to the police and Colac police 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.960 turn up. Now the policeman on duty, he is a 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.359 fellow called Peter Gonon and Peter Gournon at this stage 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:00.679 was a twenty three year old constable. From eleven pm 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:05.400 until seven am. He was the watchhouse keeper who was 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.680 basically the only go on duty apart from another placeman 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.319 called Gary Thayer who was out driving the divvy van 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:16.400 patrolling in the divvy van. Gunham was on duty. Goonan 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.960 is sent or called or whatever, goes up, jumps in 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.520 the car, drives up to Baron Grook, takes five minutes 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.080 and he inspects the body of Huey Wilson and what 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.280 he found was interesting in view of what was later 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.680 thought about this. He found it a little disconcerting. He thought, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:40.320 what's wrong with this scene? What's wrong with what's happened here? 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.319 If this bloke's when hit by a car, why is 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:48.319 he laying out so straight and neat and true, sort 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.400 of beside the road in a straight line, I think, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.480 with his arms beside his body and his feet together. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.000 And he was laid out as if he'd been laid 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.959 out ready to put in a coffin. And even though 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:06.079 he was only a young copper, he realized that if 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.320 you've been struck by a car and left the way 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.800 you fell, you don't look like that. You don't fall dead, 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.160 straight and neat and rick and mortis had already started 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.640 to set in. And this Huey Wilson, his body had 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:23.480 stiffened sufficiently straight that he could fit into a coffin. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.559 And this, I think stuck in Peter Gounon's mind. He thought, 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.600 this isn't right. There's something wrong. He's been arranged. That 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.559 body's been arranged. Now was it arranged here where he fell? 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:41.440 Or has he been taken away and then brought back? 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.440 Because if he was taken away, maybe somebody thought they 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.720 were going to bury him or get rid of him, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.240 and then they've thought about it perhaps and brought him 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.400 back and dump him beside the road. Again, these are 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.720 all valid speculations in the case of Peter Godon. Now 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.120 Peter Gournon, as a said, he was only twenty three. 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:07.000 He is quite concerned about this, the irregularities about this matter, 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.480 and he made his concerns felt. But he's only young. 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.480 He's very junior at the station, and he soon realizes 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.760 that there's a bit of pushback about this. Pettigoon is 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.720 not happy about that, and some other people are not 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:27.320 happy either, because the rumor goes around Kalak that strange 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.319 things happened on that Saturday night. Later that night, a 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:36.120 man working at the local cream factory and I think 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.719 it's a cream factory and a nice creamery actually now 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.840 owned by Buller Dairy Foods. I think he was a 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.240 security guard or similar, and he saw a tow truck 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.560 come down the main street which is the Princess Highway 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.120 with what he thought was a white police car on 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:57.080 the back and disappear into the big roller door entry 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:01.959 into a local panel shop. The panel shop is called 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.880 lane Way Panels. Was called and it had the unique 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.880 advantage for Colak Police of having a very close relationship 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.520 with them. In fact, the locals, being local and funny guys, 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:23.320 they called lane Way Panels Coolak West Police Station because 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.160 so many of the coppers at Kolak would go down 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.480 to Laneway Panels where they would nighttime might have a drink. 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.160 They would perhaps or night shift meet there for coffee 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.720 or beer and have something to eat, and many of 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.440 them were very close to the proprietor or proprietors of 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.160 lane Way Panels because of course Kolak is a highway 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.280 town on the Princess Highway and in those days in 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.120 the seventies, it was peak road crash time in Australia. 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.640 It's when people were crashing cars all the time. And 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.880 if you were a copper out on the highways, you know, 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.760 several times in a week probably there'd be some sort 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.640 of car crash and if you were friendly with the 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.320 local panel Better guy or one of them, if they 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:14.000 were competitive, you would tip off their tow truck and 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.440 that tow truck would come out, get the job, take 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.880 the car back into the panel shop, and of course 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.480 that panel Better would get the big insurance job and 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.600 make money by repairing the car. And this symbiotic relationship 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:32.080 between coppers and panel betters existed. I'm here to say 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.080 in every major regional town, probably in Australia, anywhere big 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.480 enough to have a dominant Panel Better would have a 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.240 relationship with the local police. They'd either be very friendly 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.040 with them or they'd be not friendly with them because 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.400 another Panel Better was friendly with them. So in Kolak 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.520 there are actually two Panel Better shops and the other 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.280 one were on the outer with the police because they 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.920 weren't slinging the police cash or beer or whatever it 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.440 was that the police were getting. Of course, this symbiotic relationship, 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.000 you know, it's become social. You know. They were friendly, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.960 literally friendly with each other. They might have been involved 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.520 in footy or cricket teams with each other, the Panel 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.840 Better guys and the police and some of the police 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.600 being handy blugs always out to make an extra dollar, 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.880 as many of them did. They were young blugs buying houses. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.800 Some of them would actually do work there as casual workers. 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.520 They'd help rub down cars and they would work on 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:36.880 their own vehicles. If they had a scrape or a scratch, 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.080 they'd work on their own cars and spray paint them whatever, 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:45.040 and everybody got along very well. But of course the 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.400 dark side of this could be if a policeman runs 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:52.840 over a citizen in a police car that he wasn't 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.520 supposed to be driving that night, then it might be 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.560 taken to the panel shop and they will work on 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.240 it all night, and they will get it fixed up 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.840 enough to go back to the police station, and he 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.960 put in the police garage or the police car yard, 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.680 and the keys from that valiant sedan would be then 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:17.280 put back on the key rack or key cabinet inside 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.679 the police station as if nothing had ever happened, Please 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.520 move on. That is the local rumor in a nutshell. 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.960 But Peter Gunnon was a bit different. Peter Gunan was 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.040 a local boy. He wasn't a copper from somewhere else. 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.760 He was from a solid dairy farming family just outside 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:40.560 the town. His wife was Heather, was also from another 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:45.440 dairy farming place just outside town. They were really strong 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.280 local family. They were really strong local families, both of them, 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.600 and they had the sort of values that come with that. 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.480 They believed in justice and doing the right thing, and 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:01.000 they would have grown up there knowing Wilson's, various Wilson 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:06.639 family members, and young Peter Gurnon thought it's stank that 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.720 this might have been what happened. And of course he 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.080 heard rumors and he would hear whispers both in and 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.159 outside the police station. He might have contributed to some 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.640 of them rumors and whispers. But the feeling was that 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.720 early on that evening of September the eleventh, the Saturday night, 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.240 that a particular policeman who was off duty at the time, 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:35.040 it is alleged, had come in because he wanted to 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:39.600 use a car to do something. Maybe he was supposed 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:41.840 to be walking the dog, or maybe he was supposed 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:46.320 to be playing golf or whatever. But the reality is 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.200 that he came into the police station and he took 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:53.320 the keys to the white ves in sedan which wasn't 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.480 being used then, and he jumped in it and went 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.040 off to do whatever it was he wanted to do. 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.080 Now it's open to speculation what that would be, but 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:05.520 there are those who would suggest, well, he was visiting 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.520 a woman other than his wife or something like that, 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:15.159 and that would account for a few things. A driving 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:17.520 fast because he was in a hurry one way or 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.600 the other to go there or to come back be 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.119 it would account for him not wanting to be caught 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.560 at the scene of an accident, at the wrong place, 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.000 at the wrong time, in the wrong car. It would 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:36.160 give him motive to do what it is alleged happened 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:38.680 to Huey Wilson, that is that he was not only 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:45.120 run over but then killed. So this dreadful rumor, it's 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.960 like something out of the Deep South in America, has 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:54.200 hungover that town of Kolak and that whole district for decades, 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.960 and it's very well known down there, and people to 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.520 this day a very quiet about it. I know this 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.120 because I actually went down there at least a month ago, 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:08.479 it might be five weeks, and it was a very 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:10.879 hot day, and I went up to the scene of 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.840 the incident, and I was able to reconstruct exactly where 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.439 the body was because I'd seen the old photos with 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.840 Peter Goo and the policeman in them pointing at the ground, 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.119 and I could line up the road signs. Still to 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.359 this day, you can line up certain road signs and 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.119 fences and work it out where it happened. And I 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.280 went down into the town and I went around to 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:37.320 visit a woman who it is said had driven past 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:42.400 that night and seen momentarily seen a white police car 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:48.000 white police sedan at that spot. Her statement, I'm told 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.520 by a former policeman who has come to me about this. 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.920 He said that her statement was altered. They took out 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.760 the paragraph that referred to her seeing that car at 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:03.680 the scene. Note for that lady at her most excellent 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:08.040 and very neat tidy house in the local Housing Commission area. 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:10.879 She would win an award for a tidy house. I 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:14.399 think she looked highly organized the person I would think, 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.160 but she wasn't answering her door that day. I think 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.600 she was out somewhere and I went back several times 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.760 and I left a note, but she didn't call me back, 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.760 and obviously doesn't want anything to do with this because 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.240 it has been for her a dark shadow. I found 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.639 other people who didn't want to talk much about it, 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.959 and there were other people who didn't want to be found. 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.720 And it's intriguing that at this distance, after all these years, 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:51.320 that so many people are still so nervous of saying 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.800 anything about it. This includes the former policeman who's talked 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.679 to me about it, a policeman who went and worked 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:03.800 there at coolak around this time. He always thought it 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:09.520 was very smelly, very wrong, and even now what is 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.480 it forty eight years later when I met him to 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.720 talk about it, he was very anxious that we'd not 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.720 be anywhere visible to anybody who might be watching us, 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:25.160 which I thought was interesting that he still worried about 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:29.919 what he sees as the police brotherhood causing trouble for 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.879 the likes of him. When I set out to investigate 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:35.399 this story back early in the new year, I thought 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.639 I must track down Peter goon Peter Goonan, the honest copper, 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:44.040 Peter Gounon, the copper who over the years at least 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:49.520 twice has sought out help from the media. He was 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:53.160 the subject of an Australian story on the ABC. He 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.480 also made a series of allegations which were the basis 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:01.440 I think of our fresh inquest to Huey Wilson's death 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.200 back in the early two thousands. One way and another, 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:09.400 there's been at least two sets of inquiries into this. Interestingly, 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:16.080 the police internal investigations units of more recent years. By 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:20.480 that I mean in the early two thousands were quite 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:23.800 concerned about this and had a real red hot go 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.480 at it. Trying to get people to tell them the 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:32.200 truth about what might have happened. And those internal investigators, 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:34.439 I think they had a pretty genuine go at it, 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:38.520 and they've got a real good idea who thereafter. They 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:42.040 believe that it was a particular officer who was driving 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.159 the car that night. Lame May Panels, of course, are 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:49.040 sort of innocent bystanders in this business in a sense. 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:52.600 All they've done is help somebody fix a car up. 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:55.920 But they didn't actually go looking for people to be 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:58.959 run over, So they've been dragged into it through their 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:03.320 association with the police. In this story, the bad guy 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:07.080 is a particular placement. It would appear that this car, 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:10.840 the white car, was fixed that night and was taken 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:13.280 back to the police station, as we know when an 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:17.560 inquest was finally called or redone a second in quest. 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:22.200 Perhaps several people gave sworn evidence, and most of them 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:26.320 said they didn't know anything about it. They really didn't know. 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:29.760 They can't remember a car being repaired, they can't remember anything. 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:35.480 It's all rumors and nonsense, etc. But one Panel Better, 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:41.000 former panel Better, gave evidence that he was called in 0:24:41.040 --> 0:24:43.959 to work on that Saturday night and that he worked 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:48.960 on a white Valiant police car. I think the coroner 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:53.760 was able to deduce that Hughey Wilson was run over 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:58.440 and killed by persons unknown, but that some of the 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:03.480 injuries suffered by that deceased were not consistent with being 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:07.480 run over only. It seemed to me, after I'd been 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:09.960 to Kolak back in the New year, early in the 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:12.960 new year a few weeks ago, that I should track 0:25:13.000 --> 0:25:16.200 down Peter Goonon and I knew he was in Queensland. 0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:20.240 In fact, I knew he had been last known around 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:23.119 Harvey Bay, and I looked up a business he had 0:25:23.200 --> 0:25:25.960 up there, a caravan storage business. I rang it and 0:25:26.000 --> 0:25:28.239 they said, oh, he hasn't been at this place for 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:32.680 twelve years or something like that. He's retired somewhere, and 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:36.160