Читать книгу The Family Murders - Greg McInerny - Страница 1

For many, ‘The Family Murders' represents little more than an interesting and intriguing part of South Australia’s dark history, particularly to those who have an appetite for the macabre or unsolved mysteries.

For the grieving families and loved ones of the deceased who died at the hands of this criminal entity, the nightmare is eternal.

For us, the authors, our journeys to this point have been unique and complex, and at times very personal.

My own (Wendy Roles) journey began in the early 2000’s when I was involved with a victim support group formally known as ASCA (SA) or Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse. At the time, we were petitioning the South Australian Government for the abolishment of the Statute of Limitations against certain sexual offences act – an outdated act that for some bizarre reason had been amended in a way that prevented victims of child abuse from getting a successful prosecution against their offender if the abuse took place prior to 1982.

Our small army of survivors set up stools in shopping centre with huge banners above our heads that screamed ‘Advocates for survivors of child abuse’. This was in the days well before social media, and well before the topic was spoken about publicly.

Some of my fellow advocates were men and women in their 70’s and 80’s who just by being there were baring their most tightly held secrets to complete strangers. After months of collecting thousands of signatures, we presented the signed petitions to parliament, and with the assistance of Andrew Evans MP, a bill was introduced for the abolishment (amendment) of the statute.

I was given the honor of writing the submission to parliament on behalf of ASCA-SA, and the statute was removed soon after. There was little interest from the media at the time; the issue itself seemed to be taboo. Some media and even politicians would later try to take credit for the achievement, but we knew what our little group of warriors had achieved. We certainly didn’t know just how big the can of worms was that we had just ripped open. In fact, despite having written the submission to parliament, I still didn’t understand exactly why the statute had been amended in such a way that it had given offenders immunity from prosecution.

It all began to make sense over the years however. That was my first insight into something that was a much larger than I could ever have imagined.

After several rallies on the steps of parliament, I began to take a more public role as ASCA-SA’s State coordinator. I became the go to person for the media when they wanted a comment about child abuse cases. I assisted Channel 7’s Today Tonight team with quite a few of their stories on child abuse and pedophiles (including disgraced Magistrate Peter Liddy) and as a result, ended up being employed by them as a researcher for a short period, but my primary job was nursing.

I never expected that my personal and professional lives would collide the way they did, but that is exactly what happened. One of the places I worked at as an agency nurse was Yatala Prison. It wasn’t for the faint hearted, but I enjoyed the change of scenery from hospital wards and became competent and familiar with the routine.

On one particular late shift, I was tasked with checking in on a young (barely 18) man in G Division who had just been admitted on a very serious charge. He was coming down from some heavy drug use and was on 24 hour suicide watch. My first impression of him was that he looked like he was still in high school and I immediately felt nervous about his ability to survive in prison.

A couple of weeks later I was sitting outside the infirmary with one of the prison officers, sucking back a cigarette. I asked him “how’s young ***** going?” to which he replied “yeah he’s okay, but I heard that ‘Vonnie’ (Bevan Spencer von Einem) has already handpicked him”.

My response was “Bullshit, no way, how can he? Vonnie’s in B Top, ***** is in G”!

I laughed it off as ‘whatever you reckon’ at the time. B Top was a protective unit that housed serious criminals such as von Einem and the Snowtown (Bodies in the barrels) murderers. More importantly, I couldn’t see how Bevan Spencer von Einem could possibly have any influence over who shared that unit with him, but that is exactly what happened.

The baby faced barely 18 year old lad was now sitting in a cell in the same unit as von Einem. I decided to take a closer look at what was going on, and on the next early shift whilst doing the medication round, I had an opportunity to get face to face with von Einem before they were locked down in their cells.

I had heard that von Einem did art work and made greeting cards, and used that to spark up a conversation with him. Within seconds I was standing at his open cell door and he was showing off his latest ‘Banana’s in Pyjamas’ greeting card.

Whilst my head was trying to grasp the concept that a murderous psychopath pedophile was making birthday cards for children, my eyes were scanning his cell. Much to my utter disgust, he had magazine type pictures of young men and adolescents on the wall opposite his bunk. I asked him what he did with the cards and art work and he told me that he sold most to the officers, which sent me on another investigative path wondering how payment was made and who was holding the money for him.

I had also heard through the prison ‘grapevine’ that one of the officers had given von Einem women’s clothing, which didn’t mean that much to me at the time, albeit it seemed to me to be unprofessional.

So at this point, I started to see that Bevan von Einem was getting what appeared to be some special privileges however it was a side of corrections that I had little to no real understanding of or authority to deal with.

That all changed some months later when I next opened the medical files for the young lad that I had initially seen in G division, the same person that von Einem had supposedly handpicked and was now his neighbor in B Top protective unit.

At the back of his case notes were several letters that the young man had written to various officials, including to the CEO of Yatala and the Minister for Corrections. In every letter he had pleaded to be moved out of B Top stating he wasn’t gay, he had a girlfriend, and he didn’t want to be von Einem’s play thing. He even begged to be placed back into G Division where he would be in solitary. It was clear that he was being raped. What was most disturbing of all was that every letter that he had written had a red texta line through it and a notation saying ‘do not send’.

As a health professional, I took it upon myself to advocate for the young man and wrote to both the CEO and the Minister for Corrections. No response. Then one day I heard a discussion about the prisons and von Einem on talk back radio. Before I knew it, I was blowing the whistle far and wide for all to hear. I decided at that moment not to accept any more shifts at Yatala Prison, knowing that officers and prisoners alike would know that it was me that had stirred the pot. Nonetheless, I had stated what I had to say and that should have been the end of it as far as my involvement went, but it wasn’t.

A few weeks after blowing the whistle, I had two police officers at my front door with a search warrant. They stated that the same medical files that I had referred to when raising the issue of the unsent letters had gone missing and they had been instructed to search my premises. The officers were very kind and apologetic, I’m quite sure that they could see what was really going on.

Nothing was found of course and again I thought ‘that’s the end of it’, and again I was wrong. A friend whose relative was an inmate at Yatala contacted me and said ‘von Einem wants to see you’! Apparently I had been put onto his visitor list already. I was starting to feel like I was being baited, but still reaming from the police raid I thought ‘okay, I’ll bite’.

So off I trotted with my messenger friend in tow (she visited her relative at the same time) and for the first time I entered Yatala Prison as a visitor. Naturally I was expecting to sign in like every other visitor and was a bit unnerved when told I didn’t have to. The visitors room was a large common room with tables and chairs, my friend sat at the far end with her relative. I was directed over to the left where von Einem sat waiting for me. Strangely, there were three officers standing together four or five metres behind von Einem, rather than spread out around the room.

I had already decided that I wasn’t going to play friends with the psychopath. I sat down and bluntly said “what do you want?” He counteracted my blunt statement with his own, saying “where are the files?”

My reply was “police have already searched my place as you obviously know, I don’t have them”.

My brain was turning over at a hundred miles an hour, coming to the rapid conclusion that somehow; von Einem had been informed about my ‘whistle blowing’ and even more alarmingly seemed to be running his own investigation from inside the prison!

Being a bit defiant I had to have what I thought would be the last word, so as I stood up to leave I stared him down and said “good luck with it, I’m guessing you won’t be getting out any time soon”, to which he replied “why would I want to, I’ve got everything I need right here”.

That was the end of that chapter, but it wasn’t the end of my own personal dealings with The Family.

It was around this time that I came to know former bikie boss Steve Williams. Steve was involved in setting up a group originally called ‘Bikers United Against Child Abuse’ or BUACA at the time, and was looking for some guidance as to how they could be a positive influence in child protection. The friendship that I developed with Steve is whole other story within a story and deserves far more than just a mention in an introduction; however it is incredibly relative to the topic. Steve, by his own choice, became fundamental to the recovery of some of the assets of disgraced ex Magistrate pedophile Peter Liddy. His assistance didn’t end there though, he had gathered up enough information and evidence to blow the remnants of Liddy & The Family right out of the water. So much so, that at the time that Steve disappeared, he was set to meet with a detective friend of mine who had worked extensively on the Liddy case.

Shortly after first meeting Steve, I left my researcher role at Today Tonight and commenced as a volunteer for the then Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Peter Lewis. My role was to meet with victims of child abuse and to gather statements which would be used to establish the need for what we hoped would be a royal commission into child sex abuse. This seemed to be the natural passage to take considering the abolishment of the statute of limitations. The flood gates had opened, victims who were abused prior to 1982 that were previously unable to get a prosecution against their offender were now able to tell their stories again with the hope of a prosecution (if the offender was still alive). What we ended up with was a Commission of Inquiry into sexual abuse of children in state care headed up by former Justice Ted Mullighan (otherwise referred to as the Mullighan Inquiry). Sadly, the terms of reference excluded the broader issues that needed addressing including The Family murders. It seemed that their ‘immunity’ would continue beyond any commission of inquiry. It hadn’t stopped the hundreds of victims, witnesses and informants from coming forward however, many had already divulged all that they had experienced well before the inquiry was established, and some would continue through from the Speaker’s office to the Commission of Inquiry regardless of the terms of reference.

Having heard the various stories over many years that all shared a commonality, I knew that I was looking at the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that somehow needed to be put together. One day whilst at the Adelaide Supreme Court, I was approached by Judy Barnes (mother of Family Murder victim Alan Barnes). Despite my initial embarrassment at not knowing who she was, she thanked me for what i was doing and said “you’re on the right track, just keep going but stay safe, they’ll (The Family) get you”. At that point I still had no real understanding of what she meant; there was just the awkwardness of actually meeting one of the victim’s relatives and not really knowing what to say. Sadly, Judy has since passed and her son’s murder retains the status of a ‘cold case’.

It was also during this period whilst assisting in Parliament that I first met Greg McInerney, the main author behind this book. I consider myself privileged that he should allow me assist as co-author. From our first meeting until now, Greg had spent nearly a decade studying the court files at length. He could recite almost every date, every event and every outcome. Greg has provided valuable research to other authors such as Tom Mann and Professor Robert Moles, and more recently assisted with background information on The Family Murders documentary produced by Graham McNiece for Crime Investigations Australia, and we thank Graham wholeheartedly for his continued support and encouragement.

So the time had come for us both to collaborate and analyse the vast knowledge that we had, and to present it in book form. Although Greg’s experiences were less hectic than mine, they were no less personal and he made it his life goal to step beyond the role of researcher into author. Greg’s expertise in the matter went well beyond any other person I had ever met throughout the course of my journey in child protection, media, parliament and the commission of inquiry that followed. I cannot emphasize enough that although we are co-authors it is Greg, with the support of his amazing wife and family, that has done the hard yards over many years which has brought us to this point.

We the authors will endeavor to dissect the myths from the facts, and to bring forth our collective research which spans over two decades. Our information is derived not only from thousands of court documents made available to us, but from face to face meetings and interactions with surviving victims, deceased victim’s relatives, detectives, legal professionals, authors, media and even members and associates of ‘The Family’ including Bevan Spencer von Einem himself.

To this day, von Einem remains the only person to be convicted for the abduction and murder of Richard Kelvin. The murders of Alan Barnes, Mark Langley, Peter Stogneff and Neil Muir remain unsolved. This book is for them.