Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys, said,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. When today's
Speaker 1: guest and I finished the detective's training course back in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, we were young, fresh faced, and ready to
Speaker 1: take on the world as newly designated detectives. We had
Speaker 1: no idea where our care we're going to take us,
Speaker 1: but we're excited. Our paths went off in different directions,
Speaker 1: but we got to see things in life most people
Speaker 1: don't get to see or experience. That's just part of
Speaker 1: being a detective. Today's guest, retired Detective Sergeant Bob Wells,
Speaker 1: has had an interesting career. He worked in the country
Speaker 1: at one man police stations. He worked as a detective
Speaker 1: in country areas and also as a rescue squad operator,
Speaker 1: and he also led a homicide investigation they have to
Speaker 1: say was one of the most brutal and macabre murders
Speaker 1: I've heard about in my entire time in homicide. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the murder of John Price by his partner
Speaker 1: Katherine Knight. Katherine Knight is the first woman in Australia
Speaker 1: to be given a life sentence without parole. When you
Speaker 1: hear about the nature of the crime, you'll understand why
Speaker 1: Boby's going to talk to us about his career and
Speaker 1: the personal price is paid as a frontline police officer.
Speaker 1: And I also think a listener warning is probably appropriate
Speaker 1: here given the nature of the crime Bob will be discussing.
Speaker 1: Bob Wells, welcome. Do I catch killers?
Speaker 2: Thanks Garry well I got.
Speaker 1: To say, last time it could be. The last time
Speaker 1: was probably when we walked out as newly designated detectives
Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety ninety ninety.
Speaker 2: That was it. Yes, Yes, I was pretty proud of
Speaker 2: myself that day.
Speaker 1: It was a big day, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not an academically inclined guy, so the ex
Speaker 2: course for me was quite hard.
Speaker 1: Well, we had that conversation the other day and I
Speaker 1: wanted to raise it with you because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to say it if you said no, it was easy.
Speaker 1: That was a very very hard course.
Speaker 2: It was. I think it was the last course. It
Speaker 2: was actually held in Sydney before it moved to the
Speaker 2: Academy in.
Speaker 1: Goldban And I remember, and we're talking about it the
Speaker 1: other day that if you failed the exams or the
Speaker 1: brief of evidence that you had to put through your
Speaker 1: cut from the course, that's it. You're given the tap
Speaker 1: on the shoulder and said see you later.
Speaker 2: They come Monday, and I think it's changed and so dramatically.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, yeah, we were talking about the Detective's Course
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes back, and yeah, they that they
Speaker 1: were graded or designated. But I've got to say with
Speaker 1: the course, when you did walk out as a detective,
Speaker 1: then that was one of my proudest moments in the
Speaker 1: cops because you had the work so hard for it.
Speaker 2: Oh you did, Yeah, one hundred percent. Like I said,
Speaker 2: I wasn't academically inclined, And I guess the roots behind
Speaker 2: that was I went to high school for two reasons.
Speaker 2: One was to see my mates in sport. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: I wasn't academically.
Speaker 1: You look back at those days and think, jeez, we
Speaker 1: could have paid a little bit more attention. But I
Speaker 1: understand where you where you're coming from. But yeah, well
Speaker 1: walking out there. That's not to say that we didn't
Speaker 1: have fun. But I still do not remember studying as
Speaker 1: hard as I studied during those six weeks because it
Speaker 1: was done in two blocks. But the final six weeks,
Speaker 1: I think and just study every night every weekend.
Speaker 2: Well, I was down from the country, so and I
Speaker 2: think it was half a dozen of us, and we
Speaker 2: were at the.
Speaker 1: Old you had the party house.
Speaker 2: We had the party or part of units. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but and we said had a little bit of fun
Speaker 2: at night. I mean a lot of the inner city
Speaker 2: guys sort of went home, but a lot stayed on
Speaker 2: and we had quite a few great nights at the
Speaker 2: old Elizabeth Hotel. Yeah, just across the road. So a
Speaker 2: lot of fun has had. It was a lot of
Speaker 2: fun was had. Yeah, it was good, But getting back
Speaker 2: to that the serious side of it, it was taxing
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well no, I found it the same way. And
Speaker 1: the fact that you talked about drinking it seemed to
Speaker 1: be synonymous with life as a detective and working hard
Speaker 1: and drinking hard back in those days.
Speaker 2: But yeah, idea it was. It was part of the culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a way of putting it. The culture.
Speaker 1: Now we got so much to so much to talk
Speaker 1: about your career and your career in the country and
Speaker 1: working in the one man station. Your career is a detective.
Speaker 1: But one of the cases that your career is going
Speaker 1: to be linked with, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 1: is the murder of John Price by Catherine Knight. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that was back in two thousand and I got
Speaker 1: to say, it's one of the most brutal, macabre murders
Speaker 1: heard about when all my time in homicide. We're going
Speaker 1: to delve deeply into that because I want you to
Speaker 1: take us on the whole journey through the investigation, because
Speaker 1: you led that investigation and Catherine Knight is now convicted
Speaker 1: of the murder and has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Speaker 1: With no parole. Can you just tell us just to
Speaker 1: get a sense of it, what you discovered when you
Speaker 1: first went to that crime soon.
Speaker 2: Well, basically the crime scene was fairly horrific. It was
Speaker 2: there was a lot of blood, which you would imagine
Speaker 2: would be in such a thing. But what struck me was,
Speaker 2: I mean, I've done us a couple of stabbing murders
Speaker 2: during my career. A stab as a stab, you know,
Speaker 2: once or twice, but the number of stabbings and then
Speaker 2: the sheer calculated removal of someone's complete skin and the
Speaker 2: capitation is something that you think about how crafted and
Speaker 2: how skilled a person would have been it would have
Speaker 2: done that, how long it would have taken, why it
Speaker 2: was done, and the consequences that it was going to
Speaker 2: hold for myself and my workmates as a result of
Speaker 2: that investigation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's what you were confronted with when you've
Speaker 1: come into the crime scene, that someone has literally been
Speaker 1: decapitated but also skinned.
Speaker 2: Completely, and I think you think it was to see
Speaker 2: someone's full whether you'd call it a pelt or a
Speaker 2: skin just hanging on a butcher's hook in a doorway
Speaker 2: is just a very confronting situation.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, look, we'll probably start off on a low
Speaker 1: talking about that because it's horrific crime, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the victim in that
Speaker 1: because it shouldn't it shouldn't be forgotten. But the investigation,
Speaker 1: how it played out, and what your impressions of Catherine
Speaker 1: and I were, because you got to got to interview
Speaker 1: her in an understanding of it. So let's lighten it
Speaker 1: up a little bit. And before we get into that, cops,
Speaker 1: you came from a policing family.
Speaker 2: My father was a police officer. He was a motorcycle
Speaker 2: the oldest TP before the High Patrol was renamed or
Speaker 2: rebadged so as they say. And then his brother, my uncle,
Speaker 2: was also in the police force. But so I sort
Speaker 2: of grew up around cops, mainly through the social outings
Speaker 2: of my parents, my father, those sorts of things. I
Speaker 2: was always around cops. So it was it wasn't strange
Speaker 2: to me, but it wasn't exactly something that I aspired
Speaker 2: to because of that situation.
Speaker 1: Right, So it was you were familiar with it, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't that you didn't wake up and say, I'll
Speaker 1: grow up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to be like some kids group and
Speaker 2: they want to be a want to be a fire
Speaker 2: and they want to be a policeman, they want to
Speaker 2: be whatever. I never had. That was probably one of
Speaker 2: the last things that ended into my mind as a career.
Speaker 1: So what swung you there?
Speaker 2: What's fun me there?
Speaker 1: Was?
Speaker 2: I was quite happy where I was working at the time,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't a straight out of school graduate into
Speaker 2: the police. I wasn't an ex cadet. I actually didn't
Speaker 2: sort of move towards thinking about joining the police until
Speaker 2: I was twenty one, and then it was through conversations
Speaker 2: with my father about I wanted to back back in
Speaker 2: the seven nineteen seventy He said, it wasn't a lot
Speaker 2: of superannuation around for people, and I always sort of
Speaker 2: wanted to have to look to my future for myself
Speaker 2: and my family in relation to financial matters and financial
Speaker 2: stability for the future. So where I was actually working,
Speaker 2: I really enjoy working there, but there was none of
Speaker 2: those benefits for the people for the people where I worked.
Speaker 2: So it was just through a casual conversation with my
Speaker 2: father one day he said, what do you think about
Speaker 2: join the cops. I've got a great set of vanuation.
Speaker 1: Scheme's some good advice.
Speaker 2: It was about the best advice I ever got from him.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so I looked at it and thought, well,
Speaker 2: i'll have a crack. So well, you drove me down
Speaker 2: to Sydney. I went in and the rest is history.
Speaker 2: You took me a couple of cracks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were telling me about that. Talk us through
Speaker 1: that the first time. You didn't make it. Well, basically
Speaker 1: visit late seventies.
Speaker 2: It's just in about nineteen seventy seven, sony, And the
Speaker 2: only entrance criteria then was to pass the spelling. Sorry,
Speaker 2: in those days we still said height, chest measurement, but
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. So I had those categories covered.
Speaker 2: The spelling. I thought I was as good speller. However,
Speaker 2: I went into this room when there was about eighty
Speaker 2: prospective young people there, and I found the spelling to
Speaker 2: be quite hard. Actually it was. I thought, jeez, I
Speaker 2: didn't expect this sort of thing. But I only failed
Speaker 2: by a couple of words. And out of that eighty
Speaker 2: odd people are in their room that day, I think
Speaker 2: only three or four past that went through. When I
Speaker 2: was given the tap on the sholder and I said, listen, mate,
Speaker 2: you weren't far away, but I just can't push it
Speaker 2: through on the couple you got wrong. So just take
Speaker 2: a bit of advice. Next time you see the advertisement
Speaker 2: in the Daily Telegraph for wanting police recruits, come back down.
Speaker 2: He said, I think you'll find the spelling a lot easier.
Speaker 1: And was that just regulating because you had eighty people
Speaker 1: there and then you're only going to take well.
Speaker 2: I only just filled the class, I think, and they
Speaker 2: didn't really want.
Speaker 1: Recruits, but they had to just kept making the words harder.
Speaker 2: Well, I think they had. I think they had a
Speaker 2: program if they would have so many interesting exams every
Speaker 2: week or fortnite, so the numbers that fronted up, they'll
Speaker 2: probably wored it out until they wanted recruits by the
Speaker 2: difficulty of the spelling. I met. That's that was my impression.
Speaker 2: So I went back when I saw an advertisement a
Speaker 2: few months later, plus I brushed up a little bit
Speaker 2: on spelling, and look, I went back in the next
Speaker 2: time and there was sixty people in the room, and
Speaker 2: everybody passed with flying colors because basically most of the
Speaker 2: words the next ting beyond six letters cats. Yes, pretty much.
Speaker 1: I forgot about the spelling tests, and I remember standing
Speaker 1: there practicing words like catch ce at c H catch
Speaker 1: harder words than that. But you had a list of
Speaker 1: words and you had to remember them as best you.
Speaker 2: Well, I think eventually and you learned. You knew why
Speaker 2: it was because there was so much paperwork in the cops.
Speaker 1: And you're typing skills. Okay, so you eventually learned how
Speaker 1: the spell cat and Matt and Sat got through that.
Speaker 1: You got through that, but then you had another hurdle
Speaker 1: fil the blood.
Speaker 2: Pressure young fit twenty one year old, high blood pressure. Anyway,
Speaker 2: to cut the story a little bit shorter, I went
Speaker 2: to see with GP about well I might have had
Speaker 2: high blood pressure. He checked my blood pressure and it
Speaker 2: was perfect. I think you're just suffering a little bit
Speaker 2: of nerves and you get a little bit excited and
Speaker 2: your blood pressure increases. He said, just try and relax
Speaker 2: a little bit when you're go in and have one
Speaker 2: of these tablets. If you want to behalf of this
Speaker 2: tablet like calm you down. I think it was a
Speaker 2: Sarah Pax, I think. Anyway, I had that half a
Speaker 2: tablet and my parts were flying colors. Eventually, the blood
Speaker 2: pressure test then went through the like test, which was
Speaker 2: very very I think Old Dr Peterson was one of
Speaker 2: the gmails on that one. So I got through that
Speaker 2: and eventually waited and actually you had to nominate some
Speaker 2: people and normally nominated the parents of good friends of
Speaker 2: yours and I were interviewed, Yeah, the usual thing, and
Speaker 2: then got to start. Got to start in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Okay, so some of the stations you worked at Eastwood,
Speaker 1: Gosford started.
Speaker 2: Off as one of the Gosford I think they used
Speaker 2: to go on the Gosford tongue in those days, because
Speaker 2: I think most people who lived in Gossip or the
Speaker 2: Central Coast area were stationed it strategically at places like Hornsby, Chatswood,
Speaker 2: Eastwood basically because of the distance to travel, and you
Speaker 2: were cooled by the locals as the Gosford tongue in
Speaker 2: those days. Anyway, I did part of my probation those
Speaker 2: first six weeks with a buddy at Gosford, then got
Speaker 2: speed back to Eastwood, where I worked for another twelve months.
Speaker 2: A bit over before coming from the country, I grew
Speaker 2: up in the coal fields area of the hunta valley
Speaker 2: in the little town called Western New Curry Curry. As
Speaker 2: a country boy, I just wanted to get out of
Speaker 2: the city. It wasn't It wasn't the game for me,
Speaker 2: and also would in those days was a bit of
Speaker 2: a It was fairly quite station, you know, so you
Speaker 2: really wanted any probation because when I first started, you
Speaker 2: didn't even want to have a day off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you enjoyed it when when you got in
Speaker 1: there there was a probation, very constable.
Speaker 2: It was a complete I ap. The camaraderie in that
Speaker 2: amongst the guys was unbelievable. But it was just that
Speaker 2: the sheer experience of seeing things that most of the
Speaker 2: public don't get to sea. It just popped up every day,
Speaker 2: you know, day in day out, and there was always something.
Speaker 2: Even for quiet a station, there was always something happening.
Speaker 2: You know, it was a dust real accident and you
Speaker 2: looked at things and thought, wow, you know, like this
Speaker 2: is just yeah, I've never seen a dead body. Before
Speaker 2: I joined the cops. I used to get to deadens
Speaker 2: and that sort of thing, and I'll never forget the
Speaker 2: first dead body ever saw, you know, it was just
Speaker 2: a guy went missing in one of the old home
Speaker 2: it's just around the police and they said you're going
Speaker 2: to climb that. You're the probation are you're going up
Speaker 2: that ladder and you're going Because he had about five
Speaker 2: double deadlocks on his door in the unit, had to
Speaker 2: go through the window, and I could see this body
Speaker 2: lying in a bed with a handkerchief over his face,
Speaker 2: of all things. But you know, I'm balancing on the
Speaker 2: windowsill trying to yell out to this guy. His name
Speaker 2: was Zeril. Anyway, in the end, I just toppled over
Speaker 2: and I've just crashed all of the Venetian blinds off
Speaker 2: the window, landed on the floor upside down, fighting my
Speaker 2: way out of the Venician blind Veoenician blinds, just to
Speaker 2: have a look at and get to the light switch
Speaker 2: to get it on. And he was just a ceasing bed.
Speaker 2: So that's my experience of the first dead person I've
Speaker 2: ever seen.
Speaker 1: They're bizarre experiences and they're hard to prepare you for them,
Speaker 1: aren't they You You're really You're going there with your
Speaker 1: eyes open, and it's just okay, this is the world,
Speaker 1: the world that a lot of people don't get to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Well, a lot of reliefs. I get to
Speaker 2: find the elderly relatives to cease those sorts of things,
Speaker 2: but that's more personal for them. But this sort of
Speaker 2: started the ball rolling where this became a you know,
Speaker 2: it was just in the end, it was just there's
Speaker 2: nothing to be worried about. There was nothing to be
Speaker 2: nervous about. There's nothing to be shocked about. Yeah, throughout
Speaker 2: the career.
Speaker 1: And did you your personality type, did you feel like
Speaker 1: the job fitted you? Like it it was something that
Speaker 1: you were glad you discovered it.
Speaker 2: I think so well. I think so, Yeah, because most
Speaker 2: of the guys I worked was you know, ninety percent
Speaker 2: of the guys I worked with were just fantastic people.
Speaker 2: You've got to have a sense of humor. I thought
Speaker 2: I thought I had that so and I think that's
Speaker 2: part of you do briefing to have a sense of humor.
Speaker 2: Some people who bottle things up from the word go,
Speaker 2: we're going to struggle with this with that particular lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a positive. Like police often get criticized
Speaker 1: about the culture, and yeah, there was problems with the culture,
Speaker 1: but there's also some positives about the culture. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: black humor that we have, the way that you deal
Speaker 1: with the tragedies that you confront each day in the cops.
Speaker 2: And you only used that amongst your workmates. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it was. It is an exclusive club what everybody says.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably like the military. It's probably like
Speaker 2: the ambas and the fieries. They have that exclusivity about
Speaker 2: the culture within their organization, and.
Speaker 1: It's in the terminology like you join the police, you
Speaker 1: join the army, you join the ambulance. You know o it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they ain't describe it that way.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. You do join it. And they put
Speaker 2: a bit of discipline in my life early life, you know,
Speaker 2: especially in your junior ranks, and sometimes that's a thing
Speaker 2: a lot of people like because it lessens them on
Speaker 2: making certain decisions. They just learn to follow and do
Speaker 2: as they're told and do quite a good job. It's
Speaker 2: when you move on to the supervisory roles that things
Speaker 2: can be a little bit harder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you did you have a good role model
Speaker 1: people that you identified and thought, that's the type of
Speaker 1: cop I want to want to be.
Speaker 2: I did when I went to Gold And actually they
Speaker 2: had a mentor that I worked a lot with was
Speaker 2: a sergeant by the name of Pat Carle who ended
Speaker 2: up at the academy where he deserved to be because
Speaker 2: he was just that sort of guy who can get
Speaker 2: across the poop. But I really worked a lot in
Speaker 2: uniform with Pat, and hence he was my man station
Speaker 2: from down to Southern Highlands before he got a sergeant
Speaker 2: job at Goldban and how I really looked up to
Speaker 2: Pat Cole and his style of policing and just a
Speaker 2: person he was also and that sort of bumped me
Speaker 2: along too, wanting that one man station and working.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said that before we started the podcast, that
Speaker 1: you wanted the one man station. I can understand the attraction.
Speaker 1: There's something about it, but it's also a little bit
Speaker 1: daunting them very lanely with the responsibility that comes with
Speaker 1: a one man's station.
Speaker 2: I think the Southern Highlands is not a busy place,
Speaker 2: whether you.
Speaker 1: Okay Southern Highlands for people that we're talking around the
Speaker 1: Golbin exactly.
Speaker 2: It's a terribly cold placing winner there's not a lot
Speaker 2: of crime during There wasn't back in these days the
Speaker 2: late seventies and early eighties. The Collector was a very
Speaker 2: very quiet, little my man station. But I was also
Speaker 2: lucky enough to be on one man station when you
Speaker 2: didn't when you were at your station seven days a week, thround,
Speaker 2: sixty five days ye, it was your station. You weren't
Speaker 2: called in to fill holes in the roster at Gulbin,
Speaker 2: you weren't. You weren't simp to any other stations to
Speaker 2: fill in a gap just because of staffing issues. That
Speaker 2: was your station and that's where you worked.
Speaker 1: How long had you been in the cops before you
Speaker 1: took on a one man station.
Speaker 2: I was just under four years.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, the four years you get trained in the
Speaker 1: deep end, you start the nay, you trade after four years.
Speaker 2: Well, I got my first hook when I was at
Speaker 2: when I was at Collector.
Speaker 1: So because I haven't spoken to someone running it like
Speaker 1: a one man station. So Collector described the town.
Speaker 2: Very, very small town, mainly farmers, farming families. There was
Speaker 2: a couple of garages in town. The old Federal Highway
Speaker 2: ran right through the middle of town. Summer was generally
Speaker 2: extremely quiet. Winter it hotted up a little bit because
Speaker 2: of the sheer volume of traffic that flows through that town,
Speaker 2: especially around around that first week in June, the avenue
Speaker 2: of the school season. It was just headlights from as
Speaker 2: far as you could see from Collector Hideny woos Queen
Speaker 2: Bean along Lake George, and that was the busy time.
Speaker 2: That was the times when people were impatient, they overtook
Speaker 2: when they shouldn't have head on collisions, a lot of
Speaker 2: fatal accidents, a lot of accidents with extremely severe injuries.
Speaker 2: And in those days there was no radio coverage. When
Speaker 2: you were along Lake George. You had to rely on
Speaker 2: as a police officer getting someone in a car that
Speaker 2: could get into collect that to get to the public
Speaker 2: phone to bring you an ambulance from garb and so
Speaker 2: you could be anywhere on the side of the road
Speaker 2: with severely injured people for quite a long time without
Speaker 2: you've got any assistance from the ambulance. And in those days,
Speaker 2: as a young guy with people severely injured and people dead,
Speaker 2: to see a set of ambulance lights coming across that
Speaker 2: straight along Lake George to where you were was just
Speaker 2: a huge relief.
Speaker 1: So Bobby talking here, I would assume one man's station.
Speaker 1: You're responding to these accidents on your own. You go
Speaker 1: there and you find people decease, people injured, and just
Speaker 1: say confronting the people needing urgent attention, and you're stuck
Speaker 1: there and you're not You're not on a radio, You've
Speaker 1: got no no coverage.
Speaker 2: Oble Phanes and those days, those days, and you know,
Speaker 2: and and everybody wanted a piece you you know, people
Speaker 2: who weren't injured, who pulled up, witnesses, those sorts of things.
Speaker 2: They wanted your attention all at the same time. So
Speaker 2: it was sort of, you know, a little bit daunting, you.
Speaker 1: Know, because you're wearing the blue uniform. They expect you
Speaker 1: know everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can do everything, just sometimes you can't.
Speaker 1: I spent a long time in homicide, and I saw
Speaker 1: some horrific things in homicide. But I still remember the
Speaker 1: accidents I went to where you see people dying or
Speaker 1: the trapped in cars and screaming out for help. But
Speaker 1: how did that affect you?
Speaker 2: Well, it didn't really affect me at the time, and
Speaker 2: you realize as you go through your career that and
Speaker 2: looking back, that was the start. That was the start
Speaker 2: of the undoing.
Speaker 1: Of most police officers, right build up of the stress and.
Speaker 2: Exactly and the pressure that you eventually get to that
Speaker 2: twenty year, twenty year plus period in your career when
Speaker 2: you've made the cops of career. I don't think many
Speaker 2: people make the cops of career anymore. They don't go
Speaker 2: to it. The people like I'm talking about current time now,
Speaker 2: don't really go to looking to say I'm going to
Speaker 2: spend thirty to forty years in this job and make
Speaker 2: it a career and call my way to the top.
Speaker 2: I don't think that is in the majority of people
Speaker 2: who go into the organization now. But back when I did,
Speaker 2: everybody sort of dominate career of this because you know,
Speaker 2: but I found out around that twenty years that those
Speaker 2: sorts of things when I didn't want to have a
Speaker 2: day off when I first joined, I said, I want
Speaker 2: a day off, want to keep going. This is fantastic.
Speaker 2: I nevers anything like this my life, you know. And
Speaker 2: then and those things, the pressure wasn't there then it
Speaker 2: was just your job, you know. And then when you
Speaker 2: get to that ten year period, your job goes, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, I like some good parts about the job,
Speaker 2: and there's jobs that I an't like going to I don't,
Speaker 2: but you got to do them because that's your job.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think you get to that point
Speaker 1: where initially everything was exciting, even the horrific stuff like
Speaker 1: I never thought I'd see this, and are you're doing it?
Speaker 1: And then when you realize I've seen this before, I
Speaker 1: don't need to see this again, and it just wears
Speaker 1: you down a lot.
Speaker 2: That starts and that starts. But you know what we're
Speaker 2: talking about, a collector. Was that was when I looked
Speaker 2: back at the start.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you.
Speaker 2: Know I did have one incident. The only other incident
Speaker 2: that really shook me a little bit was I went
Speaker 2: we had quite a large number of properties in it
Speaker 2: was a property called Leratter Station which had a number
Speaker 2: of workers working on it. And I went to a
Speaker 2: to a call of domestic one night and I went
Speaker 2: up to I knew these people went up to the
Speaker 2: house and just so I got to the front door,
Speaker 2: it was a just as I opened it, the husband
Speaker 2: stuck a twenty two straight in the stomach and it
Speaker 2: sheer instinct and I think, and he's fairly when intoxicated.
Speaker 2: I just the reaction was to grab the rifle of
Speaker 2: that gun and just point it straight in the air
Speaker 2: of which and I managed to get it off him,
Speaker 2: you know, and arresting. But that's what I started again.
Speaker 2: You know, as I look back another that was another
Speaker 2: start of.
Speaker 1: The well confronting things. They have a drunken, aggressive man
Speaker 1: with a rifle stuck in your stomach and pull the
Speaker 1: tryer and who knows what happens. That's right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: you face that on your own. What was it like
Speaker 1: in the One Man Station because you're twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven the cop. People don't look at you anything different,
Speaker 1: whether you're working or not. You're still the cop. Could
Speaker 1: you have a social life there? Could you have a life?
Speaker 2: We had great. We did have a great social life
Speaker 2: there because because of the small town, they're very they're
Speaker 2: very social, good hotel owner, you know. I sat a
Speaker 2: little bit the twigged with me with looking at the
Speaker 2: plane clothes guys. When I was at the One Man
Speaker 2: was collected was strategically placed between Golban and Queen Beyan,
Speaker 2: where you had detective's officers who just love to say,
Speaker 2: let's catch up halfway to collector come all get wellsy
Speaker 2: out the station, you'll come down have a beer with us,
Speaker 2: which was the fane would ring and say getting out
Speaker 2: of here, and there there's a blue one at the pub,
Speaker 2: you know, and of course you knew their voices and
Speaker 2: I'm on my way and off you'd go, you know.
Speaker 2: And I got to know a lot of the detectives
Speaker 2: from the Queen Beyan yes, and the Golden area fairly well.
Speaker 2: But plus working at Golbin early before I went to collector.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was. But the townspeople were really really
Speaker 2: great people, and they had lots of lots of social things,
Speaker 2: and they were money to raise money for things like
Speaker 2: the school. It was only a very small school which
Speaker 2: had one point when I was here, I think there
Speaker 2: was twelve children, and I think seven of those were
Speaker 2: from the one family. And also those were my means
Speaker 2: one manners in those days. When you went there, you
Speaker 2: automately became the president of the Pens Association, You became
Speaker 2: secretary of the cricket club, and you became another office
Speaker 2: holder with some other social club in the town, you know,
Speaker 2: and those sorts of things. So you sort of if
Speaker 2: you went there as a cop, you went there as
Speaker 2: one of the lynchpins of the town in the community.
Speaker 1: Did you have any ugly situations there where people that
Speaker 1: you were friends with you had to no?
Speaker 2: Never, oh one, yes, sorry, the publican son, I had
Speaker 2: to knock him off for a bit of pot, right, okay,
Speaker 2: which is which we which was a hurdle at the
Speaker 2: publican and I got over.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, you're going to manage your way through that exactly.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but not not seriously.
Speaker 1: Seriously, Okay, you you left there? Were you married at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: I was married at the time and went through a
Speaker 2: marriage breakdown whilst a collector, and I was there for
Speaker 2: I was there for a little while longer as as
Speaker 2: a lone person because the super at the time one
Speaker 2: of me out of the place. Virtually, I didn't care
Speaker 2: had you gone through a marriage breakdown, you might be
Speaker 2: suffering any form of sadness, you know, just get out
Speaker 2: because we need a married man in there. And I thought, oh, geez,
Speaker 2: you're such a scaring person.
Speaker 1: So you were sorry just to run this run this pass.
Speaker 1: So you were there living at the station, This accommodation
Speaker 1: was at the station, the police stations at the front
Speaker 1: of the house is out there. And then when your
Speaker 1: marriage broke up, No, we need the married man.
Speaker 2: He No, it's got to be that's a policy, right,
Speaker 2: But I'm upset married, I'm going to go where you
Speaker 2: going to send me or we don't care you have
Speaker 2: a look around anyway. Cutlong story short, is a really
Speaker 2: great guy and he's since passing a motorcycle accident. Was
Speaker 2: Ray Smith and Ray Smith was a legend amongst the
Speaker 2: high patrolling those days, especially in the Southern Highlands area.
Speaker 2: But he was also out our association rip at Golbin
Speaker 2: and he came down and sold me. He said, listen, mate,
Speaker 2: you don't have to go anywhere, he said, because something's
Speaker 2: just there's a couple of little things just slip into
Speaker 2: the organization that the organization is pushing very hard along
Speaker 2: with the state government, which is equally employment opportunity in
Speaker 2: any discrimination. So he said, leave it to me. So
Speaker 2: he went and saw the bosses. You can't just flick
Speaker 2: this bloke. You know, he's just been through an ordeal
Speaker 2: of a breakdown of a marriage. I said, he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's not traveling that well emotionally because of that reason,
Speaker 2: and you just want to flick him. And he said,
Speaker 2: he's not going anywhere until he decides he wants to move,
Speaker 2: because he's got your knacker. With any discrimination and the
Speaker 2: employment opportunities that you're now throwing around like, you know,
Speaker 2: getting yourself promoted over, I guess to throw that honey
Speaker 2: in there, yes, And so I was there for quite
Speaker 2: some time until I decided I had to make the
Speaker 2: move and an opportunity came back to to go back
Speaker 2: to my home area. Opportunity for a transfer to say's
Speaker 2: not back where my parents were, and so I took
Speaker 2: that opportunity and moved back to back to the Hunt
Speaker 2: of Alley.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you was around that time that you started
Speaker 1: to have ambitions of becoming a detective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Look, general duties is
Speaker 2: the backman and the forser, and I've always said that,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't enough once I got Mattiez into the
Speaker 2: organizer or the job, you know, and what it was about.
Speaker 2: I just wanted a little bit more than just what
Speaker 2: the general run of general duties was in those days.
Speaker 2: I just wanted that, just a little bit extra, and
Speaker 2: I thought playing clothes would give that to me. So
Speaker 2: I made application and got to start with the on
Speaker 2: the gaming squad in Newcastle.
Speaker 1: Okay, what what did that involve?
Speaker 2: It was maybe just doing all the LSP bookies, gaming,
Speaker 2: the old illegal to up games and different things that
Speaker 2: are run after race meetings, things like that. Our area
Speaker 2: was from Newcastle actually the Hawks River Bridge to Tweed,
Speaker 2: so we did all that, you know, and you know,
Speaker 2: we were sort of ostracized a little bit by some
Speaker 2: of the other squads. You know, you just picked it
Speaker 2: on the pole, this big book, this, that and the other,
Speaker 2: and we will sort of look down a little bit
Speaker 2: amongst some of the other squads, like the Artis Squad
Speaker 2: or the Breakers or the Opicide boys and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: because my mates for this book. He's like, yes, but.
Speaker 1: How dare you suggest that?
Speaker 2: I mean, but I mean to say most of that,
Speaker 2: most of the informants in that sort of crime, we're
Speaker 2: basically women with kids and no money because the husband
Speaker 2: had come in with no pay back because he just
Speaker 2: put it all on the horses, or he'd just been
Speaker 2: a two and all of a sudden, they were all
Speaker 2: the informants, I'll fix this problem, yeah, you know, And
Speaker 2: they were ringing up all the time, and they sat
Speaker 2: there's a two up game on a Bathist. You know.
Speaker 2: I remember going to Bathist one night, sneaking up and
Speaker 2: running in and with just two of us, and there
Speaker 2: was one hundred and twenty people in there after the
Speaker 2: Bathist trots, and they were all into it. They had
Speaker 2: party pies, had cater is there at the whole bottom.
Speaker 1: You're going in covertly, or you just ran through.
Speaker 2: The door maintenance. And all you've got to do is
Speaker 2: grab the kit which is the money, the bag full
Speaker 2: of money and the two up coins.
Speaker 1: That sounds like something out of the world West.
Speaker 2: Anyway, we ran. We ran one hundred people through the
Speaker 2: charge of a bathist at night.
Speaker 1: Just seal the doors off. You're all under arrest, that's it.
Speaker 1: But there's only two of you.
Speaker 2: That was another half a dozen outside, all right, okay,
Speaker 2: but yeah, those sorts of things. So but it was
Speaker 2: and that was another eye and they did just see
Speaker 2: some people what they do for entertainment. But there was
Speaker 2: some big money getting thrown around. And especially we did
Speaker 2: a lot of work with the Telstra guys for people
Speaker 2: using home units to take big books.
Speaker 1: That's when they had all the all the line set up,
Speaker 1: all the lines.
Speaker 2: Set up on the phones. And there was some like
Speaker 2: huge amounts of money going through all of that, you know.
Speaker 2: And and there was one little one, if you want
Speaker 2: to hear it, there was another Baptist job where there
Speaker 2: was a huge book working on the on the bedding. Yeah,
Speaker 2: on the Saturday on the races. I'm talking probably money
Speaker 2: that would be up around the half mion dollars on
Speaker 2: a Saturday going through these phone lines and it was
Speaker 2: to an old house just out of Baptist an old
Speaker 2: old house, just faking blocks either side and faking blocks
Speaker 2: at the back. Anyway, Well, the Telstra guys that were said, mate,
Speaker 2: that's it, that's going on right in there. So we
Speaker 2: stuck up to the front door with a sledgehammer and
Speaker 2: a warrant and I said open the door or we
Speaker 2: will break it down because we hear the races on inside.
Speaker 2: The radio is blaring, so we smashed the door down
Speaker 2: because no one with ends the door. When we got
Speaker 2: in there there was an eighty two year old woman
Speaker 2: lying in the bath with the radio one and she
Speaker 2: had four tab tickets.
Speaker 1: It just okay, that's a big arrest, Bob. It was huge,
Speaker 1: the biggest arrests I've heard cat killers. It was.
Speaker 2: It was massive. But it shows you that the corruption
Speaker 2: that was in Telstra at the time, because what they did,
Speaker 2: they just diverted the lines into that house. And we
Speaker 2: eventually got the book about two hours later, and it
Speaker 2: was in It was all in the back of a
Speaker 2: small goods factory there, so they just dive ot the
Speaker 2: fund of poor little old woman's house and the tilt
Speaker 2: was with us, said, mate, that's the place it's all
Speaker 2: happening in here, that's where the phone line goes in.
Speaker 1: That we laugh about it, and you think, and you
Speaker 1: do think victimless crime. But yeah, as you said, it's
Speaker 1: usually the ladies at home that can't feed their kids
Speaker 1: because hubbies put the he's got a gaming on the horses.
Speaker 2: They call it a gambling addiction these days. Back in
Speaker 2: those days, I just it was an addiction, but that
Speaker 2: word wasn't used. You know. They were just hopeless.
Speaker 1: Didn't see the damage.
Speaker 2: They didn't see the damage that and we look, we
Speaker 2: did a lot of travel, had a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: And I said, my retirement function really about the only
Speaker 2: thing the gaming squad did for me. It was low
Speaker 2: on a golf handicap, a couple of shots. Well, but
Speaker 2: it was a lot of fun. It was a lot
Speaker 2: of fun, and we did do some good jobs. We'd
Speaker 2: got some big books and those sorts of things. But
Speaker 2: that was just we still look back and I talked
Speaker 2: to guys sometimes, mate, do you remember that time of
Speaker 2: Baptist the poor old lady in the bath. The biggest
Speaker 2: part of the job was getting the door fixed on Saturday.
Speaker 1: After you hit it with a sledgeh exactly. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: an overkill, were Bob?
Speaker 2: Just a touch?
Speaker 1: Okay? But look, these are some of the fun aspects
Speaker 1: of policing. Like you've gone from telling funny stories and
Speaker 1: getting your golf handicapped down because you're doing so much travel.
Speaker 1: You've had a gun stuck in your in your belly
Speaker 1: when you're attended a domestic situation, and you've been the
Speaker 1: car accidents where you're there on your own and people
Speaker 1: are dying and severely injured. You've got to take the
Speaker 1: good times of the bad times. So after feeling your
Speaker 1: way in the gaming embedding, where did you go to?
Speaker 2: I've got a bit of a start on a list
Speaker 2: At Maitland. Frank Trace was a detective, so.
Speaker 1: We just to explain what a list is. That's the
Speaker 1: start of your detective training you had to get and
Speaker 1: they just called the position aid.
Speaker 2: List and you'd share the A list position around with
Speaker 2: a number of other uniform constables who wanted to who
Speaker 2: were interested. And also it was it was an opportunity
Speaker 2: for the detectives to see whether you were suited as
Speaker 2: much as you thought you might have been suited to.
Speaker 1: That style of policing.
Speaker 2: Policing, you know. So that's how the A list works.
Speaker 2: I'm going to start on the A list at Maitland,
Speaker 2: and then an opportunity came. They were just up in
Speaker 2: the strength that Ceses Knock detected his office to to
Speaker 2: another position, adding a position to it, a detective sergeant
Speaker 2: and three constables. So that was offered to me, which
Speaker 2: I took. And then from there it was from Sessknock
Speaker 2: that I I worked with Alex Pollock, who was a
Speaker 2: fantastic mentor to me and and a great friend and
Speaker 2: still and still is today. We're still yeah, great guy. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we got to start there and that's Wherebert designated, and
Speaker 2: that the detective course.
Speaker 1: Detective course came came there. And after when was it
Speaker 1: that we finished the tech dis course? I think May
Speaker 1: nine ninety, I think it was.
Speaker 2: I think it was June a bit ran, a bit
Speaker 2: ju because we're starting to get a bit cold in anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember.
Speaker 1: We finished on the Friday. I remember I was at
Speaker 1: that Sunday night, first job as a detective, hadn't even
Speaker 1: had the weekend off, and I was called out to
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn train disaster where six people two trains collided
Speaker 1: and on a Sunday night and called out to that
Speaker 1: and that was my work as a detective for the
Speaker 1: next six months. I was working on that inquiry. You
Speaker 1: just didn't know what was going to happen. Where did
Speaker 1: your life go after we were designated and walked out.
Speaker 2: Well, I stayed at Cesnoch in a couple of years,
Speaker 2: and we did. We had a bit of a biking
Speaker 2: problem there for a few years. It was a bit
Speaker 2: of a bit of doing and fronying with the with
Speaker 2: the Bandudos and the common Ciro's moving into that Hunter
Speaker 2: Valley area. So we did a lot of work on that.
Speaker 2: We pride of just getting designated. We had the Woodcock murder.
Speaker 2: He was murdered in his own home and had his
Speaker 2: head or mast severed by a machete attack. And which
Speaker 2: which which was a long protracting inquiry.
Speaker 1: What was the go there?
Speaker 2: Well, Woodcock had come home from the it was an
Speaker 2: alcoholic came home from the club one night of the
Speaker 2: pub one night and he'd won a fish pack at
Speaker 2: the pub raffles and cooked those fish up. And when
Speaker 2: we got to the mercery the next day, the fish
Speaker 2: the fish had been cooked. It was left in the
Speaker 2: pans on the stave and the stave was turned off. Sorry.
Speaker 2: Georgie Woodcock was found in the is a local from
Speaker 2: my is in my hometown at Weston and he was
Speaker 2: found the front bedroom with terrific injuries and almost severed
Speaker 2: head in relation to the attack on him. And a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of work went into that case,
Speaker 2: and it went on and dragged on, and we always
Speaker 2: had a suspect in our sites. It was really a
Speaker 2: lot of listening devices we used. We had a guy
Speaker 2: in our sites, but we just couldn't get out of
Speaker 2: the line with listening devices. He's interviewed a couple of
Speaker 2: times and probably about it was a bit over to it.
Speaker 2: And that's where I was introduced to Dennis Miles o'tool.
Speaker 1: Sorry, sorry, not a n in Jack Well. It is
Speaker 1: a bit of a Dennis otol Miles miles O two.
Speaker 1: He's been on the podcast. He was in the first season.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love the man. I actually work some the
Speaker 1: murders up round sasnok And I don't know what you're
Speaker 1: going to say about Dennis Miles o'tool, but I tell
Speaker 1: you everywhere we went so many people, Oh do you
Speaker 1: know Dennis? He left an awesome reputation up in around
Speaker 1: your way.
Speaker 2: We became very good friends and part of this investigation
Speaker 2: he ended up being christened within the Hunted Valley's toga
Speaker 2: Otol because of an after investigative day soiree under the vineyards,
Speaker 2: you might say, which ended up.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he won so going which ended up.
Speaker 2: Which ended up wedding reception somewhere with us all wearing
Speaker 2: tigers and ended up in the swimming pool. But anyway,
Speaker 2: he was a fantastic guy. And that was when I
Speaker 2: was first introduced to the I don't know if you
Speaker 2: remember the old Merz, the old Merz program.
Speaker 1: No, what was that one?
Speaker 2: The Merz program was invented by two young cops. It
Speaker 2: was as computers were coming into the organization. Because when
Speaker 2: I first joined it like there was a computer that
Speaker 2: had been installed on the desk at least would and
Speaker 2: no one went near it. Well you never were near
Speaker 2: it now he's no one knew what to do with it.
Speaker 2: It was just put there. And then when I went
Speaker 2: to gold and the same thing and no one went
Speaker 2: near it until you got some training on it. So
Speaker 2: everything was done by tele x or the phone in
Speaker 2: those days. But the MERZ was invented m w I
Speaker 2: r S and it was the long name was Murder
Speaker 2: Investigating Indexing System. Yes, they break it in into category,
Speaker 2: so too young and this is more a way to
Speaker 2: show out the cops operated in those days and probably
Speaker 2: still do today. Was it was quite a quite a
Speaker 2: good system, but it was still seven categories within it.
Speaker 2: So it was my job in that murder investigation to
Speaker 2: run the MERVEE system. And I just got a down
Speaker 2: pat when the two young cops had invented it were
Speaker 2: still waiting to get paid by the organization because they
Speaker 2: had copyright on it. An organization told them to where
Speaker 2: to go, and they simple things, go and find your
Speaker 2: own Mourder Investigation Indexing system by someone else, because you're
Speaker 2: not using OURSE. So I was halfway through that.
Speaker 1: So we had because that TIMS must have been before TIMS.
Speaker 1: TIMS came after you, Yeah, because we're on the card system.
Speaker 1: And so that got a short run and then.
Speaker 2: Well there was that there was that little period between
Speaker 2: MERS and TIMS until someone invented TIMS. But the MURS
Speaker 2: guy said that's the ours, mate, you can't.
Speaker 1: Use it, okay.
Speaker 2: So that was my on that particular murder and it
Speaker 2: was only that what.
Speaker 1: Was for the murder?
Speaker 2: Well, we still really don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, you found you found your way out around Burke now.
Speaker 2: Hal found my way to Marie after did a couple
Speaker 2: of jobs out there and I thought, oh, you know
Speaker 2: where I was going to be. Cesnock was part of
Speaker 2: the Old North region. It was part of that Newcastle
Speaker 2: area and there was a certain attachment to the New
Speaker 2: South Wales Police which was Newcastle, Newcastle, Sydney, Woollongong, and
Speaker 2: there was I didn't see a lot of advancement for
Speaker 2: myself promotional wise around that Hunter Valley, Maitland, Sesmock, Newcastle area.
Speaker 2: It was very competitive like it would be in the city,
Speaker 2: but there's more opportunity here. There's less opportunity and more
Speaker 2: staff in that area. So I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was a brain snaper or a crazy idea or whatever,
Speaker 2: but an opportunity came up. They're looking for a detective
Speaker 2: at Marie where they only had a detective sergeant, but
Speaker 2: all the guys in the officer all PC's and were
Speaker 2: well off being designated. So I had an offer to
Speaker 2: go out there as a designated officer that I would
Speaker 2: get all the relieving to sort of boost my career
Speaker 2: to experience in supervisory level. So I had a chat
Speaker 2: to them wife and said she was a teacher. She said,
Speaker 2: let's go. So we went went to Maury, which, which
Speaker 2: I've always said to people, Maury, for all the for
Speaker 2: all the bad publicity, for the bad name that it has,
Speaker 2: was probably the best country station I ever worked at
Speaker 2: because everybody that went there was tight. It was a
Speaker 2: very tight station.
Speaker 1: They had to support each other, that was and they
Speaker 1: were very loyal and very tight.
Speaker 2: Had the odd ones that you know, didn't fit in,
Speaker 2: had a high turnover rate. But people went there they
Speaker 2: knew they had three years. There was a goal for
Speaker 2: them at the end of the three years was to
Speaker 2: move on to it. It was sort of one of
Speaker 2: those stations where guys from the North Coast and mid
Speaker 2: North Coast went down and joined the cops eventually wanted
Speaker 2: to get back to where they were born and bred.
Speaker 2: The only the way. Most ways, they were told, mate,
Speaker 2: go to Maury Burke, Well can you?
Speaker 1: And they were considered like punishment not punishment stations, but
Speaker 1: you if you spent your three years out there, because
Speaker 1: they are hard positions to feel that's you then had
Speaker 1: a choice to go pick.
Speaker 2: You're giving a preference, You're you're giving, You're getting your
Speaker 2: preference basically, and it works for most for you know,
Speaker 2: ninety percent of time, it worked that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So you enjoyed your time out there.
Speaker 2: It was, it was tremendous.
Speaker 1: Did a lot of what sort of crime were you investigating?
Speaker 2: Just generals? C I, if it was if there was
Speaker 2: a if there was a murder, sexual assault, gbh's, stealings,
Speaker 2: just just general So I okay, from starting to finish.
Speaker 1: And upskilling your yourself there, So how do you find
Speaker 1: your way back to cessnock?
Speaker 2: No, I went to I got I did get promoted
Speaker 2: as a.
Speaker 1: Result of that, you're sold out, decided to So I went.
Speaker 2: I went to burke is It a technic sergeant.
Speaker 1: And I thought through the application process and I.
Speaker 2: Went through the interviews, the whole day's the systems that
Speaker 2: was then. That was about nineteen ninety three, and was
Speaker 2: successful in getting a spot there. Noah, pearls, what so
Speaker 2: many of pearls, But I would imagine anyway. So but
Speaker 2: when I first got there, I sort of fell into
Speaker 2: a situation where not long after I went there, the
Speaker 2: young Sandra who the nurse was murdered at Walgut.
Speaker 1: And Lynch Glenn Richson, I think.
Speaker 2: A couple of well, I think it was Ali Polls
Speaker 2: did the brief because Alec then.
Speaker 1: Going the on call response I'm talking about, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a horrible murder.
Speaker 2: Alick had just gone to which was our district station
Speaker 2: as the detective senior sergeant there and sort of only
Speaker 2: in the place where not long after Sandra was murdered
Speaker 2: and the Fernando.
Speaker 1: Cousins which were.
Speaker 2: Charged by Alec and convicted, all of the all of
Speaker 2: the technie staff from Walgart left on transfer out, some
Speaker 2: went off sick. So virtually Walgert was without detectives for
Speaker 2: quite some time, only twelve months before they got there.
Speaker 2: And they had a particular little place in there.
Speaker 1: Because of the nature of that crime, and I think.
Speaker 2: So yes, yeah, and there was other roots, some with
Speaker 2: you for transfer anyway, and no one they couldn't get
Speaker 2: anywhere to go there, So they had a place at
Speaker 2: at called Lightning Ridge, a lot of people know, which
Speaker 2: was full of which is just full of desperadoes and people.
Speaker 2: It's a place where people go to be forgotten about,
Speaker 2: not be found when they wanted. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of crime there and a lot of serious crimes. So
Speaker 2: anytime there was something that requite a bit of an investigation,
Speaker 2: I was sent across from Burke because it was a
Speaker 2: couple hunter k drive for me and a fellow by
Speaker 2: the name of Mine who I've become very good friends
Speaker 2: with and one of my best friends today. Doug Gott
Speaker 2: was a detective sergeant at Dubbo and we would normally
Speaker 2: go and do those jobs at like.
Speaker 1: I did some fair bit of workout at Lightning Ridge
Speaker 1: and I remember when I first pulled up there, I
Speaker 1: was confused because the cops were in Khaki and the
Speaker 1: forms that was at the start, and then looking for
Speaker 1: a place to stay or have a drink, and.
Speaker 2: Will and Garret Motel was generally the place.
Speaker 1: Well, whoever was in the station said you could go
Speaker 1: to that pub there, but I reckon you'll be in
Speaker 1: a fight within five minutes of walking in the door.
Speaker 1: I'd suggest you go to the bowling club or the
Speaker 1: tennis club or whatever.
Speaker 2: The pub's been burnt down there right, it is dead.
Speaker 1: Set the wild West out there. Interesting town.
Speaker 2: I loved working up it was very interesting and then
Speaker 2: Dougie and I sawt we did. We did some good
Speaker 2: jobs there, nothing that note worthy to the world, but
Speaker 2: we did a lot of investigations there, and we had
Speaker 2: a lot of fun as well. So we became quite
Speaker 2: good friends, and we've remained good friends today.
Speaker 1: Just getting back to the murder of the nurse, what
Speaker 1: do you think rock so many police because she.
Speaker 2: Was the partner of one of the police officers there.
Speaker 2: Young guys and in those small country towns, and I'll
Speaker 2: go to Burke and Walgut, those two places, your social
Speaker 2: activities generally moved around amongst the police, nurses, the fire is,
Speaker 2: the ambos, and the teachers because most a lot of
Speaker 2: guys who went there as cops their wives. A lot
Speaker 2: of their wives were teachers or nurses because they're always
Speaker 2: screaming out for nurses. And in all those places, nurses,
Speaker 2: school teachers, cops andbos faras, so they're all sort of
Speaker 2: in the linked And that's where a lot of your
Speaker 2: social activities took place amongst those, you know, functions and
Speaker 2: barbecues and fundraisers that all involved those particular people, you know,
Speaker 2: especially in those small countries I'm talking about. While geting
Speaker 2: those works there's I think three and a half thousand
Speaker 2: people in those towns, you know, And.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see then how her murder and it
Speaker 1: was such a such a brutal crime would have impacted
Speaker 1: on people.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was. It had a huge impact, Yeah,
Speaker 2: as it does in most of those small towns. You know.
Speaker 1: The two that were convicted, didn't one of them murder
Speaker 1: the other in prison?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Eventually, Yeah, yeah, just a horrific story all around. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: have you ever wondered what goes on behind the headlines
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Speaker 1: listen to crim City. Join crime reporters Mark Murray and
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts Today. Okay, how did we get you back
Speaker 1: to the Hunter Valley area?
Speaker 2: My tenure was nearing at Burke and I know there
Speaker 2: was no guarantee that I would be on a three
Speaker 2: year tenure, but most people ain't do three years here
Speaker 2: and I thought it was and after the seven years
Speaker 2: combined between Maury and Burke. I just had enough of
Speaker 2: that isolated Yeah, you've got an extra week's holiday, you
Speaker 2: got a few other little bits and perks with it.
Speaker 2: Not nothing heard in those days, not like there is today.
Speaker 2: It's completely different. And the kids had two young daughters
Speaker 2: who were coming to school age when it had already
Speaker 2: started kind again, and I thought, well this they deserve
Speaker 2: more than you know. They need a little bit more
Speaker 2: in their life than just Burke, which was great, but
Speaker 2: when they were toddlers and young kids, but they were
Speaker 2: of the age where they needed a little bit more
Speaker 2: stimulation socially and probably academically as well. So I sort
Speaker 2: of put a few feelers out here. I am a
Speaker 2: Newcastle and Maitland would have liked I've gone back to
Speaker 2: that area. My wife at the time was a few
Speaker 2: some Newcastle areas, so I'd like to go back there.
Speaker 2: And of course I was told them you might be
Speaker 2: coming back here as an ad tective sergeant. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: well what about it as a sageant. Well, really, mate,
Speaker 2: you can pick anywhere you like, between Paul Malcrrey and
Speaker 2: Tweeteds and more. You can go there. Whatever would have
Speaker 2: a position you want. I don't want to go here,
Speaker 2: and so that's where I'd like to go. So I
Speaker 2: think I've put enough hard yards in seven years in
Speaker 2: the Western area, in far western area. So you always
Speaker 2: like to think they do the right thing, but do
Speaker 2: a little, do a little, do you a little favor.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it wasn't It wasn't to be, and I
Speaker 2: was just latly told me you won't be coming here anyway.
Speaker 2: A vacant position came up for the detect your siget Singleton,
Speaker 2: and I just applied for it. And I spoke to
Speaker 2: the patrol commander there and said, listen, I'm going to
Speaker 2: throw my hat in the ring for that as a
Speaker 2: sideways move. Now I've got to go through the I've
Speaker 2: got to go through the system again, you know, the
Speaker 2: interview said, but I'm going to have a crack at it.
Speaker 2: You saw that by the mate is getting that job,
Speaker 2: he's been here mark, Is that right? So anyway, I
Speaker 2: put an application in and won the position sideways and
Speaker 2: went back to Singleton.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Well, you've got to seven years out in
Speaker 1: the West and then then coming back to the area
Speaker 1: you wanted. You probably probably deserved it. I want to
Speaker 1: start taking us into the crime that again, and I'll
Speaker 1: keep saying that it's one of the most my carb
Speaker 1: and brutal crimes that I've heard about in all my
Speaker 1: time in homicide, and you hear some shit there. I
Speaker 1: want you to take our listeners right through what happened
Speaker 1: on that day because I want to understand the investigation
Speaker 1: right from the start. So was it a normal day
Speaker 1: when you got a call?
Speaker 2: It was just a normal day. I'd started working single
Speaker 2: actually at that stage staffing issues again, they had no
Speaker 2: crime manager at Musclebrook, which was the head station, and
Speaker 2: we'd gone to Lacks by this time, was in two thousand.
Speaker 2: Are commands locally in commands after what I said was
Speaker 2: the failed government experiment with the Commission at the time
Speaker 2: that took us from where we were.
Speaker 1: Bringing the gentleman over from the UK, yes, and.
Speaker 2: Into structure in the restructure in the structure anyway, we'd
Speaker 2: already moved. We'd moved to that in ninety seven and
Speaker 2: we're now in two thousand and so there was no
Speaker 2: detect your sergeant at Musclebrook. There was no prime manager
Speaker 2: at Musclebrook at the time, so I was filling that role.
Speaker 2: Plus I was a senior detective in that command and
Speaker 2: on that particular day he was in Musclebrooks area, not
Speaker 2: Singleton's that that murder took place at Aberdeen and the
Speaker 2: young guy who was there was just just a PC
Speaker 2: who was working for the day and he said, made
Speaker 2: this is too much of murder handle. He rang me out.
Speaker 2: I said, well, what's the problem, he said, mate, you'll
Speaker 2: find out when you're giddy. He said just get here,
Speaker 2: because he said I need you away. So I was
Speaker 2: with my side of Mick Prenis, fantastic guy, Mick, and
Speaker 2: so we jumped and think he said it's at Aberdeen.
Speaker 2: So we jumped in the car and roughed up to Aberdeen.
Speaker 1: And how far away was that.
Speaker 2: Aberdeen's Probably it was probably a thirty minute drive with
Speaker 2: the siren going, you know, and the magnetic light on
Speaker 2: the roof. So we got there and I spoke to
Speaker 2: Graham Furlonger and Scotty James out the back and there
Speaker 2: was an ambulance and they were just loading someone into
Speaker 2: it with Judy Simpson was the police lady who was
Speaker 2: going to go as a custody person because this person
Speaker 2: being laded into the that I was lad to find
Speaker 2: out was Catherine Knight was the suspect at a stage and.
Speaker 1: Just whine you're back there for a bit. What happened
Speaker 1: to the first police when they turned up at the scene.
Speaker 1: How did people get notified about?
Speaker 2: Okay? John Price was a hard work and hard drinking
Speaker 2: coal miner work for a coal company in Aberdeen, and
Speaker 2: irrespective of what his drinking habits were, it wouldn't matter.
Speaker 2: He would be the first work every day. But I
Speaker 2: was leaving a couple of weeks leading and he formed
Speaker 2: a relationship with with Catherine Knight, and she had her
Speaker 2: own home in Aberdeen down the main highway. John Price
Speaker 2: had his own home a few streets away, and they
Speaker 2: would sort of She would spend some nights of the
Speaker 2: week at his home, some nights at home in her
Speaker 2: own am so they was sort of partially I guess,
Speaker 2: partially colabitating together. That stage things were a bit rock
Speaker 2: He was a happy, gay, lucky sort of guy, and
Speaker 2: I think she was starting to get a little bit
Speaker 2: shitty with his with his behavior towards wanted to go
Speaker 2: to the pub be out. I think she wanted a
Speaker 2: more homely style relationship. From memory, but things had started
Speaker 2: to see our works before. And John Price was the
Speaker 2: type of guy who confided in his workmates, and he said,
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks before, he said, listen, I was
Speaker 2: there the other night and I went to better man,
Speaker 2: she wasn't here, and she anyway, she turned up with
Speaker 2: herd a noise, and I sat up in bed, he said,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure I saw her standing at the foot
Speaker 2: of the bed with the hands behind her back, and
Speaker 2: there was a mirror on a dresser and behind her,
Speaker 2: and he said, I'm sure she had her knives in
Speaker 2: her hand. And he said, but by the time I
Speaker 2: fully wake up, she was there but had mad knives
Speaker 2: and hadst watched what she was doing. Anyway, she stayed
Speaker 2: the night, and then he started to worry because of
Speaker 2: the way she was sort of carrying on with him
Speaker 2: and their attitude towards him. So he said, made if
Speaker 2: I didn't turn up for work one day, ringing the
Speaker 2: cops because because something's happened to me. Anyway, On the
Speaker 2: first of March two thousand, he didn't turn up for work,
Speaker 2: and the guys went back to the week before when
Speaker 2: he said, mate, I think she's going to do something
Speaker 2: to me. So they raced up to his house and
Speaker 2: they got to the front door and on the front
Speaker 2: door the architrave, there was a splatter of blood. Front
Speaker 2: door was locked, so they just rang the cops straight away.
Speaker 2: His work boots were beside the front door and seeing
Speaker 2: the blood and the outthought shot something's happened. Was parked
Speaker 2: in the driveway. He was obviously there, but they couldn't
Speaker 2: raise him. The air conditioning was going on in the
Speaker 2: bedroom part of the house, so they rang the cops,
Speaker 2: and the cops turned up, and of course the back
Speaker 2: door was unlocked, so they went in through the back
Speaker 2: door and were confronted bercherly into the kitchen at the
Speaker 2: back door, went into a small laundry area, then into
Speaker 2: a kitchen dining area, the doorway into the into the
Speaker 2: lounge room, and they thought, sort of struck us a
Speaker 2: little bit strong, what is this thing hanging in the doorway?
Speaker 2: And because I'm making a noise and trying to yell
Speaker 2: out for anybody who was around. And when they actually
Speaker 2: got right to the doorway, they realized that it was
Speaker 2: a human skin hanging on a nice stirl butcher's hook
Speaker 2: hooked over the top of the architravee. I think it
Speaker 2: was Graham Phirl like I pushed that thinking skin aside
Speaker 2: and looked in and saw the mutilated body of John Price.
Speaker 2: And then they went down the hallway of the house,
Speaker 2: which was quite severely splattered in blood, to find Catherine
Speaker 2: Knight a can to taste in the bed and managed
Speaker 2: to wake her up and to take her down the
Speaker 2: hallway and sit her on the back steps.
Speaker 1: I'll just hold you there because we might take a
Speaker 1: break because I I want to deep dive into this
Speaker 1: as horrific as it is. And yeah, without with the
Speaker 1: respect to the victim, but this is a horrific crime,
Speaker 1: and you know, people need to understand what sometimes are
Speaker 1: confronted by police and what can happen in this world.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're talking a person that's been skinned.
Speaker 2: Yes, which is highly irregular.
Speaker 1: And this is and that's what was hanging hanging from
Speaker 1: a hawk. Yes, As the police went in there and
Speaker 1: they pushed that aside. Yeah, and that's what they saw. Yep. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: let's have ended on a hard note, but let's take
Speaker 1: a break and when we get back, I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about that investigation. You led that investigation, Yes,
Speaker 1: and it went through the interviews, search, warrants and trials,
Speaker 1: everything and your impression of night when you sat down
Speaker 1: and spoke with it. Because I think it'll be fascinating
Speaker 1: to get tried to get an inside into a person
Speaker 1: that's capable of committing a crime of this nature. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we'll talk about that when we get back on
Speaker 1: part two, for sure,