The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders (27 page)

‘That’s Sean Cushman.’

‘How do you know him?’

‘Met him a few times down the beach,’ she said, her voice flat, dead. ‘And just recently he was my next door neighbour.’

The detective showed no sign of already knowing or not knowing anything she said. ‘The photograph marked number 2, who is that person?’

‘Tim. I don’t know his last name. He was somebody that come down the beach. He had a crush on me,’ she said.

Detective Sergeant Nuttall glanced at the picture of a small, skinny kid, dark-haired with ears sticking out and a prissy little mouth.

Steve Page was asking his next question. ‘The photograph you’ve marked number 3, who is that person?’

‘A guy by the name of Darryn. He used to go out with a girl I used to know.’

And number 4, and 5 and on and on until number 24, the last she’d marked. Who were they? How did she know them? And she answered as best she could, saying little, the words falling from her mouth, spilling into the room: she only knew his nickname, he hung out at the beach … hanging around Bondi … He was hanging around, went out with Shari … Don’t know his last name either, just hung around the beach, too … I know Graham. I used to go to school with him … I met him at the Bondi Youth Centre … I knew her from the Youth Centre … His dad used to drink with my stepfather. My stepfather was a Maori and the Maoris are sort of, just pushed together … the beach … the beach … school … Kylie. I met her, she was hanging out with a girl who broke into my house and when I went to confront her, Kylie was there. So that’s how I met Kylie.

‘And that’s how the friendship was formed?’ Page asked.

‘It wasn’t a friendship first,’ she said. ‘It took a while. But, yeah.’

‘Okay. I’m just going to ask you some other questions. But we’ll come back to that book. Have you ever heard of the street gang, the Bondi Boys?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you at any stage a member of the Bondi Boys?’

‘I wasn’t a member, no.’

‘Did you associate with the Bondi Boys?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do the letters ‘PTK’ mean to you?’

‘They had two meanings,’ she said. Could she remember the other one? ‘Prime Time Killers and Part – what was it? Prime … I don’t know. Prime Time Killers, and there was another one … No, I can’t … It’ll probably come to me … Sorry, I’ve just drawn a blank.’

The detectives waited, looking at her while she shook inside and wiped at the sweat on her face. The camera capturing her every move, her every expression.

‘I’ll suggest some phrases,’ Page finally said, ‘and I’ll ask you to tell me if you’ve ever heard them before. Prime Time Kings?’

‘I haven’t heard the … Kings.’

‘Prime Time Kids.’

‘I think I’ve heard that.’

‘Part Time Killers.’

‘I think that’s what I said.’

‘From those photographs that you’ve, you’ve identified in this, in this book, are you able to tell me what people identified themselves as members of, or first of all, I’ll go back a step. That PTK, do you understand that to be a gang? Or a graffiti tag?’

‘I just thought it was, yeah, like a tag. It, it came around when I was … like, I don’t know, Bondi Junction Youth Centre.’

‘Do you know what people associated themselves with that tag of PTK? From this book? If you could identify them by number.’

She seemed unsure as to what he meant. Associated? How did he mean, associated with the tag?

‘When I was, like, 16?’ she asked. ‘I don’t, y’know, I don’t remember anyone going by, by PTK.’

‘The people that you’ve nominated in this book, are there any of them that you know to be members of the Bondi Boys?’

He seemed more interested in asking questions than listening to her answers. He’d ignored what she said about PTK, almost kind of didn’t hear what she’d said, moved onto the next bit. The Bondi Boys…

‘Well, most of them, I guess,’ she said. ‘They were all hanging around.’

‘Alright. When you say, most of them, I’ll ask you to flick through the book and identify by number the people who were members of the Bondi Boys.’

She started going through the booklet again, looking at the faces she’d known back then, looking at some she still knew, still saw from time to time, their faces young and clean. Children, really.

‘1,’ she said, ‘2, 3 – I think 3 – 4, 21, 23, maybe 24. I don’t know. There wasn’t really a gang thing, like, you know, I don’t, what you mean. I think he did
’
cause he was into graffiti and, and things like that.’ She looked up from the page she’d been staring at, looked from one detective to the other.

‘When you say, “he”, you’re identifying …?’

‘Number 8,’ she said. ‘Yeah, number 8.’ She stumbled on, half indicating number 10 … number 12…

‘The ones I’m interested in,’ Steve Page said, ‘are the ones that you know to be members of the permanent Bondi Boys. Not people that may just blow in and associate with –’

‘What? People that lived there and were there all the time?’

‘Or that identified themselves as the Bondi Boys.’

She sat back in her chair, scraping the legs across the floor a couple of inches. ‘See,’ she said, ‘nobody actually identified themselves to me as, I’m a Bondi Boy. D’you know what I mean? Like, there was people that hung around there, that were there all the time, but…’

The detectives stared at her with blank faces, giving nothing away, watching her discomfort as she continually wiped the sweat from her face. They appeared to have all the time in the world, all the time it would take.

‘I’ll go back and start again,’ she said. She flipped pages in the book, looked at the pictures, again. Again! Reeled off numbers, yes, number 1, number 2 …

Of the 24 images she’d initially recognised, she now read out 21 numbers, identifying those she knew to be members of the Bondi Boys. If Page was grateful, he didn’t show it, didn’t change the expression on his face.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Where were you living throughout 1989?’

Where was she? ‘Up until October ’89 I was living with my boyfriend at Randwick,’ she recalled after a few seconds.

‘And after that time?’

‘I was living at Brighton Boulevard with my mother and my two brothers, my stepbrother and her boyfriend.’

And then quickfire questions: was she working back then, going to school, who were her main associates, did she have a nickname back then, did she have a nickname now, had she ever been a graffiti artist, what were her feelings towards gay males in 1989?

Her feelings … ‘Personally, I don’t have a problem with them,’ she said. ‘I lived with my mother with one in Curlewis Street. And he was a transvestite, dressed as a woman. I don’t have any problem with them.’

‘Did you have any problem with them back then?’

‘No.’

‘During 1989 did you frequent the Bondi Beach area?’

‘Towards the end, yeah.’

‘What days of the week would you typically attend Bondi Beach?’

Days of the week? ‘No certain day. Just when I didn’t have to look after my brothers and my mum let me go out.’

‘And when you went down there, was it typically during the hours of daylight or darkness?’

‘I used to go down there at day.’ She looked directly into his eyes as she spoke. He stared directly back, unflinching until she turned her head away. ‘And sometimes early night,’ she said.

‘When you say, “early night”, what time would you leave the Bondi area?’

‘I’d probably be home by 12 o’clock, one o’clock.’

‘And when you were going down to Bondi Beach at, at night, in the latter half of 1989, did you ever go to the Marks Park area, with any people you’ve identified in this, in this book?’ He tapped the edge of the page where it still lay open on the table.

‘No.’

‘Would you say that you were ever a member of the Bondi Boys?’

‘I wouldn’t say I was a member, no.’ Not a member, no … No.

Almost casually Sergeant Page produced a sheaf of papers. ‘What I’m going to do,’ he said, fixing her with his gaze, ‘I’m going to ask you a number of questions in relation to some documents that are held by the police service.’ The documents didn’t relate to any specific offences, he explained. But they did refer to occasions when the police had spoken to her back in 1989. On 25 October, for instance, the police spoke to her and Kylie and Leah and Shari, and she’d told them she spent a lot of time down at the beach. She’d also told them, he said, that she was about to start a job on the north side of Sydney, that was starting on 6November. Did she remember telling the police that, he asked? She said she remembered moving to Manly with her boyfriend, remembered working at Woolworths in Manly but she had no idea what date it would have been. She thought it was probably 1990. On the date she’d said she was supposed to start her job – 6 November – the police had spoken to her again when she’d been seen drinking alcohol in the sheds at the beach. She’d said that Kylie was living with her at that time. She was with two local boys and two tourists in the sheds, did she remember? No, she didn’t. What about the time, 10 o’clock at night on Sunday, 3 December 1989, when she was on Park Drive behind the pavillion with a number of those she’d identified in the book of photographs. Did she recall that time? Quite possibly, she said. But not clearly: she’d been approached by the police on a number of occasions, she couldn’t remember days and dates and so on. Why would she? And on Saturday, 9 December at 4.45 in the morning? Did she remember being on the footbridge near the North Bondi end of the beach? They spent a whole load of time in the area, how was she supposed to remember times and dates? They were all the same. They were there, so what? The police used to hassle them all the time, so what?

‘Do you recall on 28 December 1989 being at Bondi with Kylie and others on Campbell Parade and either yourself or Kylie was assaulted by Ross –’

‘Yes, I was.’ Yes, she recalled that alright. The bastard tried to kill her. ‘I remember that day.’

‘The incident involving David McMahon, an attempted murder, was – at Marks Park – was about a week prior to this assault on you. I’ll speak to you in relation to the McMahon matter later. I’m just trying to get it in context as far as timing…’

‘See, I was still breaking up with Ross. I could’ve been down there, or I could’ve been with him. I’m not 100 per cent certain …’ She took a drink of water while he was placing a photograph on the table in front of her.

‘I’m now going to show you a photograph of Ross Warren who disappeared in July 1989,’ he said, his finger still on the corner of the picture. ‘Have you ever seen that man before?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I seen that in the newspaper last night … No, I’ve never seen him.’

‘What can you tell me about his disappearance?’

What could she – ‘Nothing,’ she almost shouted. ‘I don’t know anything.’

‘Are you able to tell me where you were on 22July 1989?’

‘That’s my sister’s father’s birthday,’ she said, explaining she would have been looking after her brothers while her mum and stepfather were out on the piss.

He didn’t even seem to notice, didn’t seem to care.

‘I’m now going to show you a photograph of John Russell,’ he said in the same even tone. ‘Have you seen that man before?’

‘No,’ she said quietly.

‘He died from a fall at Marks Park in November 1989. What can you tell me about his death?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Do you recall where you were on 24November 1989?’

‘No.’

‘I’m now going to show you a photograph of David McMahon. Have you ever seen that man before?’

She glanced at the photograph, didn’t seem to want to look too closely. ‘No,’ she said.

‘He was robbed at Marks Park in December ’89, on 21December 1989. Do you recall where you were on that date?’

‘No.’

‘Did you kill Ross Warren?’

‘No.’

‘Did you kill John Russell?’

‘No.’

‘Were you involved in the robbery of David McMahon?’

‘No.’

‘Were you present when Ross Warren was killed?’

‘No.’

‘Were you present when John Russell was killed?’

‘No.’

‘Were you present during the robbery and attempted murder of David McMahon?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know who killed Ross Warren?’

‘NO.’

‘Do you know who killed John Russell?’

‘NO.’

‘Do you know who tried to kill David McMahon?’

‘NO.’

Two hundred and four questions, an hour and fifty minutes: the interview was over.

v

Later that afternoon Constable Samantha Harrison and Detective Dagg recorded an interview with Darryl Trindall at Mascot Police Station. Before the recording started, Constable Harrison had briefed Trindall as to the purpose of the interview. It was, she said, in relation to the deaths of John Russell and Ross Warren, and the attempted murder, the malicious wounding, of David McMahon.