Mad Dog Moxley

by Peter Corris

  Kellow is a much smaller man than Devine, less well dressed, altogether in his shadow. It's rare for him to win a point. He touches his glass to Devine's and smiles. ‘You're on, mate. I'm with you all the way.’

  By arrangement, Devine, Kellow and Duncan meet Moxley at the Newtown Hotel in King Street. They have a drink and go out to where Moxley has parked a Vauxhall Tourer in Parramatta Road.

  ‘Nice car, Snowy,’ Devine says. ‘How'd you come by it, mate?’

  Moxley winks. With his bulging eyes, the gesture looks obscene. ‘People are careless,’ he says. ‘Hop in, we'll go for a spin and youse can tell me what's on your mind.’

  They drive down Parramatta Road, stopping at several hotels along the way. Devine points as they pass the Homebush tip.

  ‘There's a few planted there, eh, Jim?’

  ‘Just rubbish,’ Duncan says.

  Moxley joins in the laughter uneasily. When they reach Auburn, Devine produces a pistol.

  ‘What's that for?’ Moxley says.

  ‘Turn here, Snowy. We're going to knock over the Commercial Bank.’

  Moxley turns but stops the car. ‘No fear, I'm not going to be in that.’

  Devine suddenly jams the pistol against Moxley's head. Moxley yells but Duncan, sitting behind him, locks an arm around his head, cutting off the sound.

  ‘I'm gonna ram this down your throat, you fuckin’ dog, and pull the trigger.’

  Moxley has been doing pick-and-shovel work on the roads for the dole. He is strong in the hands and wrists and he breaks Duncan's grip. He opens the door and stumbles out of the car. Devine is surprised and angry. He points the pistol and fires. Moxley staggers as he runs back to the main road. With blood pouring from his head he waves frantically at an approaching car. The car swerves, seems to be going past him, but stops. Moxley jerks open the back door.

  WILLIAM MOXLEY'S HOSPITAL ADMISSION CARD AND WARD REPORT, OCTOBER 1930

  ‘Take me to a hospital, mate,’ he gasps. ‘I've been shot.’

  The motorist, whose name is Murray, is worried that a man who claims to have been shot might have a gun himself. He drives Moxley to the Parramatta District Hospital.

  THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTERS

  In regard to the condition of the

  county, as far as undergrowth

  is concerned, I should say it was

  rather heavily scrubbed country

  DETECTIVE SERGEANT T HILL

  Two young people had gone missing, and the story of their disappearance captured the attention and imagination of Sydneysiders. The papers carried reports of the couple with their photographs as well as statements from their relatives that they had not eloped and had no reason to conceal themselves. Following a report that a couple answering the description of Frank Wilkinson and Dorothy Denzel had checked into a Singleton hotel for one night, the police briefly entertained the idea that the couple had run away together, but the lead proved to be false.

  The police did not find it difficult to identify Moxley as a suspect after the violent crime and his movements were not difficult to track; they were not calculated to save him from capture. With possession of the Alvis sports car and lorry he had a need for petrol so stole some, leaving traces of his presence. The tin he used to steal the fuel was kept in the Alvis.

  At the time, Moxley was living in Burwood as a lodger, in a house rented by a woman named Linda Fletcher, with whom he had a friendly relationship – although some people thought it was rather more than that. He had a 14-year-old son named Douglas, whom Mrs Fletcher minded a good deal of the time. It is not known whether Douglas was Moxley's son by the woman he had married in England.

  Moxley left his lorry in the yard of the Burwood house and drove the Alvis to Ashfield, where he rented a garage. He began the process of stripping the car of certain parts – the carburettor, the tyres, the generator, the magneto – and offering them for sale to mechanics and garages in the area. He left the torn rug and the hessian mask in the rented garage. His appearance was distinctive enough, with his mop of fair hair and prominent ears, but he also had a noticeably damaged hand. Several of the people he encountered at this early stage – when the alarm was raised about the missing couple - observed that his fingers were bruised and a nail was torn away. He explained the injury by saying the cranking handle on his truck had kicked and struck him.

  THE HOUSE AT 29 ARCHER STREET, BURWOOD, WHERE WILLIAM MOXLEY WAS LIVING IN APRIL 1932

  Moxley paid 5 shillings rent for the garage and managed to sell one spare part for 10 shillings and another for £1. Asked to sign a receipt for this amount, he said he was unable to on account of his hand and he had the buyer sign it in his stead as C Heath Each of the people he approached regarded his manner as suspicious. Urged by one of these contacts and by Mrs Fletcher to have his hand attended to, Moxley went to the Parramatta District Hospital where the wound was dressed and bandaged. According to the doctor he had contusions to the third and fourth fingers of one hand and severe bruising to the little finger. The nurse later reported that his manner was nervous - but that was nothing unusual in her experience. He gave his name as Fletcher, his correct address, and the same account of the cause of the injury.

  Frank Wilkinson's father offered a reward of £200 (perhaps the equivalent of $20 000 today) for information leading to the discovery of the couple, alive or dead, and in the latter event for the capture of whomever was responsible. The police announced that foul play was suspected. At this time Moxley began to follow the newspaper reports and his anxiety mounted.

  Four days after the crime, he left the Burwood boarding house and rented a room in Belmore, paying 8 shillings for the room and breakfast and agreeing to pay 1 shilling for any other meals he might have. He carried a kitbag and something wrapped in a grey blanket. When asked what it was, he said it was a gun. Rabbits abounded then in the outer suburbs of Sydney and were welcome additions to the table during the Depression. And a timber hauler might well need a gun to deal with snakes. George Bakewell, the owner of the house, made no comment.

  FRANK WILKINSON'S ALVIS CAR

  Moxley attempted to conduct himself in a normal manner. He said his hand injury kept him away from his work as a wood cutter and hauler, had a haircut and shave, and left a pair of shoes to be mended. He ate several meals at the Belmore house. But he knew he was on borrowed time. He knew that the earth covering the bodies was a mere 3 inches thick and that the area where they were buried, though concealed, was not remote and was subject to traffic on foot and by horse and motor. On reading the Daily Telegraph report on the search for Dorothy and Frank, Moxley remarked to Bakewell, ‘People never know what can happen when they get off the main road.’

  Under increasing pressure from the newspapers, the police mounted an intense search for traces of the missing couple. Pieces of physical evidence began to be found: the covering of a car's internal light wrapped in a woman's beret, a garden spade in the middle of Milperra Road. Reasoning that the Alvis was a distinctive car - likely to be seen and difficult to conceal - the police published a detailed description of it, including its number plates. The strategy paid off as sightings began to filter in, from those who had seen it at Strath-field and Moorebank, and from the garage attendant who had sold Moxley the petrol in the early hours after the murder. Within a couple of days two of the people Moxley had approached to sell spare parts came forward, as did the man who rented him the garage. Their physical descriptions matched. Moxley was well known to the police as a habitual criminal and his wounding in 1930 was fresh in some memories. His photograph appeared in the press.

  WILLIAM MOXLEY, 1925 PHOTOGRAPH RELEASED TO NEWSPAPERS

  Police found the hessian mask in the garage along with the torn and bloodstained rug. A sharp-eyed detective expressed the opinion that dirt on and in the car resembled that in the vicinity of the Holsworthy Army Reserve. The police search concentrated on that area and on 11 April a party of police from Liverpool searched the scrubland in the vicinity of Illaw
arra Road and its adjacent tracks. A constable reported that they saw car tracks and followed them:

  I then saw stains under a tree which resembled blood stains. I then saw bushes piled up 5 or 6 feet from the tree…I pushed these bushes aside and with a stick I was carrying I dug a hole about 2 inches into the ground. I saw three human fingers.

  The constable alerted a detective and a guard was placed at the site. Later that day Frank Wilkinson's body was uncovered. It was lying face down. Hardened police were shocked at the injuries.

  THE BODY OF FRANK WILKINSON IN GRAVE

  The discovery of the body had a dramatic effect on people and places of business in the Moorebank area. Several shops and factories closed out of fear that a killer was on the loose, but some members of the public took it upon themselves to search for Dorothy Denzel's body. One such person was Philip Albert Hanley, a railway ganger from Liverpool, who rode his horse to the area where Wilkinson's body was found and searched the scrub. (Why the police did not conduct an extensive search themselves is not clear; probably they were working on the assumption that Dorothy Denzel had been abducted and taken elsewhere.)

  THE BODY OF DOROTHY DENZEL IN GRAVE

  Hanley, on horseback, could see over the scrub and he noticed a mound of piled-up dead and dry branches covering a place where the earth had been disturbed. ‘I took it,’ he testified, ‘that that was where the girl would be.’ Hanley flagged down a motorist and instructed him to contact the police. He added one detail to his otherwise matter-of-fact account: ‘The horse shied a little and sniffed when I brought it up to the mound.’

  Frank Wilkinson's body was found on 11 April and news of it was in the papers the next day. Moxley stayed in his room for most of the day and asked Bakewell's wife to prepare his evening meal a little earlier than usual. She did; he ate it, paid her and left the house. George Bakewell gave him a good character. ‘He knew his place,’ he said.

  Unaware that both bodies had been discovered and that he'd been identified as a suspect, but conscious that he'd left a trail connecting him to the crime, Moxley went, if not on the run, at least into hiding. He made makeshift camps in several places, including a railway yard, and abandoned items of clothing and other things to make his movements easier. Hunger became a pressing problem. The abandoned clothing included a threadbare coat with scraps of food in the pockets, apparently stolen from trucks or sheds in the railway yard. On 14 April he approached the property of Frank Corbett, a Chullora poultry farmer with whom he'd had friendly dealings and shared cups of tea. But Corbett had seen the newspapers. He happened to have a rifle in his hand when Moxley appeared; he levelled the rifle at Moxley and shouted, ‘Stand where you are, Bill. Don't move.’ Moxley turned and ran. Corbett fired a warning shot but Moxley continued running and disappeared into the bush.

  Corbett testified that he'd got on well with Moxley in the past, that Moxley had behaved ‘Very decently’ and appeared to be a hardworking man. But the newspaper account of the murders had erased any sympathy he might have felt for him.

  Moxley now knew how matters stood and his behaviour became increasingly desperate. Within hours he had forced his way into a house at Bankstown where a woman, her husband absent, had the care of two young children. Lillian Harding was terrified by the dirty, dishevelled, unshaven Moxley, who was carrying a gun, partially concealed by a blanket. Mrs Harding knew him vaguely by the name of Hudson, from a time when he had lived close by. He obviously knew when she was likely to be alone in the house; he offered her no violence beyond a push at the doorway but he demanded food. Mrs Harding said that the stove wasn't lit and she couldn't cook or make tea, but Moxley insisted.

  Moxley's manner was threatening. He ordered Mrs Harding to keep the children quiet and to remain in the kitchen at the back of the house.

  ‘We'll be quiet as long as you leave the children alone,’ Mrs Harding said.

  Moxley replied, ‘I don't hurt women and children.’

  When she said the butcher and baker would call, Moxley told her to deal with them at the doorway and say nothing. He prowled around the house, checking windows and drawing blinds. Apart from food, which Mrs Harding began to prepare, his urgent need was for a newspaper, but there were none in the house.

  With her nearest neighbour some distance away along a quiet street and the children becoming fractious, Mrs Harding attempted to meet Moxley's needs. But she was not without resources; at some point she advanced the kitchen clock an hour, hoping to spur his departure. She made tea and cooked chops twice, and Moxley ate voraciously. At first he said almost nothing. In an odd gesture he gave each of the children a penny and paid a shilling for his food.

  After eating and drinking several cups of tea, Moxley told the woman he needed to hide as he was being chased. He spun a tale about visiting a friend to get money, being refused and then fired at. The afternoon wore on and at almost 4 pm by the adjusted clock he asked for socks and a pair of trousers. Mrs Harding gave them to him and he prepared to leave by the back door.

  ‘Don't watch the way I go,’ Moxley said.

  Mrs Harding obeyed.

  By this time the police had visited the Burwood address and inspected Moxley's room. They found pieces of hessian to match the holes cut in the sack discovered in the Ashfield garage and the torn and bloodstained travelling rug. They also found a paperback American thriller in which a criminal discarded clothing in various locations to deceive the police. The book (the title is not recorded) was freshly bloodstained, indicating Moxley had read or handled it recently and may have adopted the strategy depicted.

  Moxley was now living and sleeping rough, with scores of people outraged by the crime hunting him. On 16 April, investigating a report of a suspicious-looking person, a police officer found a swag in scrubland near Dumb-leton railway station (now Beverly Hills). The swag consisted of a blanket, an overcoat, a shirt, collars, a tie and a pair of blackened sandshoes. He also found a double-barrelled shotgun with two live cartridges in the breech. One cartridge was wedged, rendering the barrel inoperable, but the other barrel was in working order. Moxley appears to have abandoned this camp in haste; he evidently had no further thought of using the shotgun as a threat or a weapon.

  Roadblocks were set up on major routes and aboriginal trackers and dogs (employed in an organised unit for the first time) were used in an effort to trace Moxley after he'd abandoned the Dumbleton camp. The police mounted watches at key railway stations and shipping ports. The collector of customs in Adelaide was requested to advise if William Fletcher, alias Moxley, Harris, Murphy and Moore, applied for a passport. The police circular issued Australia-wide described him and his clothing in accurate and extensive detail and noted that he was carrying a kitbag containing items of clothing, also precisely described. The circular concluded: [Fletcher] is regarded as a dangerous criminal and if armed will not hesitate to shoot to avoid arrest.

  But for almost a week no trace of Moxley could be found.

  CAUGHT

  I am the man…

  WILLIAM CYRIL MOXLEY

  William Moxley made his way on foot to Sydney's inner west where he stole a bicycle in Burwood. Passing through some road checkpoints and diverting around others, he rode across the newly opened Sydney Harbour Bridge north to Frenchs Forest, paying the toll of threepence. A standard 1930s bicycle was a heavy piece of machinery without gears and the distance Moxley travelled was at least 20.5 miles (33 kilometres), possibly considerably more depending on the detours he was forced to make. Nor was the route flat. It was a remarkable physical feat for a man under stress, with a damaged and painful hand, and weakened by hunger.

  Moxley's photograph appeared in the newspapers and an updated police circular also carried a full-length photograph of him as well as fronton and profile mug shots. Nevertheless he took the risk of buying Condy's crystals - potassium permanganate - in North Sydney, to make a solution in which to soak his injured hand, and fish and chips in Mosman.

  Frenchs Forest is now an affluent
and closely settled area, but it was mostly bushland in 1932 with widely scattered residents. Logging was carried out there and it is possible that Moxley was familiar with the area. Although he had worked in rough country as a timber cutter, Moxley was not a real bushman and he evidently had no thought of heading to a remote location. He needed to be within reach of settled areas to get food and water and possibly clothing. House breaking and stealing were more his line than living off the land.

  But hovering, alone and friendless, on the edges of settled areas was risky. Manly police received a report of a man wheeling a bicycle along a track and three officers – Detectives Newton and Tassell and Constable Gill – armed themselves and drove to where the man had been sighted. At Moxley's trial, Norman Newton's account of events was not dramatic:

  We saw some bicycle tracks leading from the road along a byway into the scrub from the left-hand side of the road and we followed them for 150 yards into the scrub. We saw the accused Moxley lying alongside a rock. Constable Gill and I got to within 10 feet of him when he jumped up from behind a rock and ran towards Middle Harbour. I called out, ‘Stop, Moxley, or I will shoot.’ He continued to run, and we chased him 40 yards and we caught him.

  But journalists teased out a more stirring account of Moxley's arrest from the police. The undergrowth was thick and Moxley was forcing his way through it, closely pursued by Constable Gill. When he came to a severe drop, Moxley hesitated before jumping. Gill did not hesitate; he leapt, landed on Moxley – who was just struggling to his feet – and fought with him until the other officers arrived.

  Newton pulled Moxley up into a sitting position and said, ‘I belong to the police. You answer the description of a man, Fletcher or Moxley, for whose arrest a warrant has been issued charging you with murder.’