Mad Dog Moxley

by Peter Corris

  (In the interest of thoroughness, the police searched the 1st Australian Imperial Force (AIF) records and reported that no one by the name of Mumby was registered as having served. Presumably, these records were less organised and accessible in 1932; a search of the now digitalised and complete records shows that several people named Mumby served in the 1st AIF, but none approximate to the individual described by Moxley.)

  Referring to Linda Fletcher, the woman he boarded with and whose name he sometimes used, Moxley said, ‘wonder what Lin is thinking about this matter. I don't suppose she'll want to see me again.’

  ‘Well if I'm any judge of a woman,’ MacKay replied, ‘Lin would come and see you if you wanted to see her.’

  It was evening by then and MacKay offered to fetch Mrs Fletcher in a car because it was too late for her to catch a tram. Moxley expressed his gratitude and MacKay travelled to Burwood and brought her back to the police station.

  This solicitude seems out of character for MacKay, a hard-bitten detective with a reputation for severity. It suggests their earlier relationship had been close, even friendly, or possibly that MacKay was careful to give Moxley no grounds for complaint about his treatment that could affect subsequent proceedings. He and another detective sat in the same room as Moxley and his visitor, but at a distance. MacKay testified, ‘ A sad scene took place between them and they then conversed in low tones, which I could not overhear.’ MacKay told Moxley he was to be taken to a cell and he escorted Mrs Fletcher to a car.

  The police took Moxley's naming of his accomplice seriously enough to permit him to conduct them on a tour of the inner-city locations he mentioned, but not seriously enough to prompt a detailed investigation. It is not clear whether Moxley thought his accusation would hold together, but in any case he soon abandoned it in favour of another tack.

  In a curious conversation, Moxley encouraged MacKay and another detective to reveal what they thought when they heard that Moxley was linked to the murders. The detectives said that they were dumbfounded; MacKay said, ‘Moxley must have been off his head to do something like that.’

  Moxley said, ‘You're right, I must have been.’ He then admitted to MacKay that he'd been lying.

  ‘This is a terrible thing I'm charged with. Look, Mr MacKay, what I told you today about Mumby was all wrong, and I don't want you to waste your and the police's time investigating along those lines. I realise my position. As you said, I must have been mad and I want to tell you the truth so far as I can remember it.’

  In the presence of MacKay and Detectives Walsh (who interposed some searching questions) and Hill, Moxley then made a long, rambling statement, the thrust of which was that he admitted that, acting alone, he had held up the couple and taken them to the house in Moorebank – but that his mind was a blank from that point on. A stenographer took down the statement in shorthand and had it typed up. Moxley read it, signed it and was charged with murder.

  GRAVE OF DOROTHY DENZEL (ABOVE) AND FRANK WILKINSON (BELOW) WHEN FIRST DISCOVERED

  The next day, this time without newspaper reporters in attendance, Moxley was taken back to Moorebank and shown the grave of Dorothy Denzel. If this was an attempt to get him to say more or revise his statement, it failed. He made no comment and even asked if it was necessary for him to get out of the car. It wasn't.

  Moxley was held in the cells at the Central Police Station. He asked for a Bible, which he read over the weekend. He was then taken in handcuffs to the Central Court in Darlinghurst, where a large and hostile crowd had assembled. The charge was read to him and when the magistrate asked if he had anything to say, he replied ‘No’ in a whisper. His manner was quiet throughout the proceedings. He wore a lumber jacket and grey trousers and was clean-shaven. He was remanded to Long Bay Gaol pending further investigation and was ordered to appear again in court on 3 May. On that date he was further remanded pending the inquest into the deaths of Frank Barnby Wilkinson and Dorothy Ruth Denzel.

  There was not a vacant seat in the Central Criminal Court when the inquest was opened. Moxley was represented by William Niland, a court-appointed solicitor who later appeared for him at his trial. ‘ E J Hayes of the Crown Law Office presented the police case, beginning with medical evidence about the discovery and state of the bodies. Dorothy Denzel was said to have been ‘outraged’.

  The inquest lasted for two days and the police took care to spirit Moxley into and away from the court to avoid curious and angry crowds. Witnesses were called to establish Moxley's presence in the Moorebank area at the time of the crime and his connection to Frank Wilkinson's car, the hessian mask and the torn travelling rug. Moxley's initial statement was read to the court and detectives testified to his later comments in interviews about his involvement. Moxley made a statement that attempted to account for his behaviour. He claimed that his father had been shot dead when he was young and that he had accidentally killed his own brother, and so it was ‘fated’ that he should be involved in this kind of violence. He also said that he had been shot in the head himself two years earlier. He maintained that after his second fight with Frank Wilkinson his mind was a complete blank and that he was not aware of having killed the young couple.

  As a result of his head wound, he said, I've never been the same man. I'm unable to control my temper. The only thing that I can put it down to is that unconsciously I've done this thing. That is the only explanation I can make.’

  The coroner expressed his disbelief in Moxley's account and committed him for trial on two accounts of wilful and felonious murder.

  FOOTPRINTS AND A

  CONVERSATION

  I pushed these bushes a side and

  with a stick I was carrying I dug a

  hole about two inches in the ground.

  I saw three human fingers.

  CONSTABLE CYRUS CHASEL1NG

  Handcuffed, Moxley is led by two uniformed policemen to a car where Walsh and MacKay are waiting. Another car is lined up behind the first and both have their engines running. Moxley tries to hurry towards the car as he sees a mob of shouting people being held back by police. There are women in the crowd and their voices rise above the others in threatening shrieks. The police keep a firm hold on him; the pace is slow and the onlookers get a clear sight of Moxley as he is bundled into the back of the car beside MacKay.

  They set off and Walsh, in the front seat, turns his head and sees several cars in pursuit. He doesn't say anything. He lights a cigarette.

  ‘How about a smoke?’ Moxley asks.

  ‘Later,’ says MacKay.

  ‘Strathfield, Constable,’ Walsh says to the driver. ‘The prisoner will tell you where to stop.’

  The cars drive to a grassy area near the Strathfield golf course. Staying in the car at MacKay's instruction, Moxley points out where he left his truck and where he came upon the young couple.

  ‘Were you wearing a mask?’ Walsh asks him.

  Moxley doesn't answer.

  ‘Did you have a gun?’

  Again Moxley is silent. He is upset and shaking and MacKay gives him a tailor-made cigarette, which appears to calm him. The second car carries four uniformed police, who form a barrier to keep a group of journalists and photographers at a distance.

  As the cars move off, Moxley asks MacKay for paper and a pencil. MacKay tears a sheet from his ringed notebook and hands over a silver propelling pencil. Moxley waits until they reach a straight stretch of road and sketches a map. He marks the map with a cross.

  ‘This is where I left ‘em.’

  MacKay nods, folds the paper and puts it in his pocket. He takes back the pencil and carefully retracts the lead. They drive to Moorebank and stop on Illawarra Road. Moxley leads the police over a decrepit fence and through an overgrown front garden to a cottage in poor repair with a shed set some distance behind it. Encumbered by the cuffs, he stumbles as he steps over roots and fallen branches.

  ‘Should be able to see some of the girl's footprints round here somewhere,’ Moxley mutters. He bends
to look closely at the ground.

  ‘Play-acting,’ Walsh says quietly to MacKay.

  ‘Give him some rope,’ MacKay says.

  Walsh hawks and spits. ‘That's what he'll get all right.’

  ‘We'll have to send a photographer out here,’ MacKay says.

  Walsh looks exasperated and says nothing. They return to the cars. The press contingent has drawn closer.

  Moxley tries to shield his face with his cuffed hands. ‘Can't you get rid of that mob? They give me the creeps.’

  FRANK WILKINSON'S

  DEATH CERTIFICATE

  MacKay signals to the uniformed men to keep the reporters at a distance. The two cars branch off Illawarra Road and take the track to where the bodies were found. Moxley is sweating. He leans back against the seat with his eyes closed.

  ‘You all right, Bert?’ MacKay says.

  Moxley nods.

  ‘You know where we're going?’

  Moxley shakes his head. ‘No.’

  Back in his cell at the Central Police Station, Moxley drinks tea and eats bread and butter liberally spread with Mira plum jam. He has a Bible open on the narrow bunk. He finishes eating and takes up the book to stare at a passage he has stumbled upon in the Book of James:

  23 For if any be a hearer of the word and not

  a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his

  natural face in a glass:

  24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his

  way, and straightway forgetteth what manner

  of man he was.

  He doesn't know what the passage means but it gives him an idea, or perhaps two ideas. He is muddled about what happened that night. He has tried to force the events from his mind and memory and they have become confused and scrambled. In moments of clarity, before he screws his face up and hammers his head to try to achieve the blankness, he sees things happening but they seem to be happening to another person, not him exactly, not quite him. But like him, possibly him. He thumps his head until it aches and a curtain of pain comes down and obscures everything.

  The police take him out again the following day and this time they go to the spot where Dorothy Denzel was buried.

  ‘Been here before?’ Walsh asks.

  Moxley shakes his head. ‘No, never.’

  ‘You're camp's just a little way off.’

  ‘Left that camp a while back. It was waterlogged. Do I have to get out here?’

  ‘No,’ Walsh says, ‘we just brought you here to protect you from the newshounds.’

  ‘Stop baiting him, Walsh,’ MacKay says. ‘The poor devil's under enough pressure.’

  DOROTHY DENZEL'S

  DEATH CERTIFICATE

  Moxley attempts to stand and bangs his head against the roof of the car. He falls back and everything spins around as his vision blurs. As if through a London fog, he sees someone, a fair-haired man, a soldier…

  MacKay shakes him. ‘Snap out of it.’

  Moxley looks him straight in the face. I have to tell you, Mr MacKay. There was someone else in this with me.’

  Linda Fletcher is a thin, almost gaunt woman in her early forties. Accompanied by the burly MacKay, she looks almost frail. She wears a long grey coat, a scarf and a short-brimmed hat. Moxley is sitting in a chair near the far corner of the room and another chair is drawn up near him. MacKay nods to Mrs Fletcher and takes a seat in the opposite corner. He unfolds the Daily Telegraph. Mrs Fletcher sits across from Moxley, who is staring at the floor. She touches him on the shoulder.

  ‘Oh, Bill, what have you done?’

  Moxley lifts his head and looks direcdy at her. He is freshly shaven and has cut himself; there is a spot of dried blood on his chin.

  ‘I don't righdy know, Lin. They reckon I killed them two young people.’

  ‘Did you, Bill?’

  ‘I think I must've but I wasn't in my right head if I did. You know about them fits I have.’

  ‘The dizzy spells, you mean, when you have to sit down?’

  ‘Fall down, more like. Don't you remember?’

  She doesn't answer. She takes a handkerchief and twists it in her fingers. Moxley bends forward towards her and keeps his voice low.

  ‘You have to help me, Lin.’

  ‘How can I help you? I don't know anything about it.’

  ‘But you know about me, how I am and that.’

  ‘What d'you mean?’

  Moxley glances at MacKay. Raising his voice a litde, he says, ‘How's Dougie?’

  ‘He's all right. He's been wondering where you've been.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him you went bush.’

  ‘I went bush all right, like you told me to do, but it was too bloody late.’

  ‘Watch your language, Bill. You don't want these policemen to get a bad impression of you.’

  Moxley stares at her with his bulging eyes. He almost laughs but can't quite manage to. They sit in silence for a short time.

  ‘What's going to happen now, Bill?’

  ‘I reckon they'll put me on trial for murder. I've got a bad record.’

  ‘It wasn't your fault, you told me. You got into bad company. But does that mean you'll go to gaol again?’

  Moxley shakes his head. ‘They'll hang me, Lin.’

  ‘No, they don't hang people any more, do they?’

  ‘Nothing to stop ‘em. And there's that young girl.’

  ‘Did you…?’

  ‘I don't know. I don't remember.’ Moxley puts his head in his hands and squeezes. She takes his hands away.

  ‘Don't do that. How is the head?’

  ‘It bloody hurts.’

  ‘I brought you some Aspros.’

  Moxley looks across at MacKay, deep in his reading. He raises his voice. ‘Can she give me some Aspros, Mr MacKay? For my head?’

  MacKay nods and Mrs Fletcher hands Moxley a packet.

  ‘Thanks, Lin. Dunno what I'd do without you.’

  She is alarmed at this and draws back a little. ‘You said I could help you. Do you mean with Douglas? I'm glad to do that. He's a good boy.’

  Moxley shakes his head. He takes four of the tablets from their wrapping and swallows them dry. ‘No, I mean telling the lawyers about me.’

  ‘Lawyers? I don't want anything to do with lawyers. It's bad enough being called on by the police at this time of night. They searched your room a few days back, too.’

  Moxley nods. ‘I'm sorry, Lin.’

  He looks so dejected she is touched. ‘You've been good to me, Bill. Always paid your rent on time and never charged me for the wood and you paid when we went to the pictures. I've got nothing against you. I've done nothing. I don't suppose lawyers can do me any harm. What do you want me to say to them?’

  The door opens with a loud creak and Inspector Walsh begins to enter but MacKay waves him away. Walsh shoots a baleful glance at Moxley and Linda Fletcher and closes the door more firmly than he needs to. The interruption upsets Moxley, who loses his train of thought. He leans back in the chair. Mrs Fletcher is reluctant to continue the line of conversation.

  ‘Are they feeding you proper, Bill?’

  ‘It's all right. I've had sausages and bread and butter and tea. Tea's a bit weak – not like yours.’

  Again, she isn't happy with the domestic detail. She crumples the handkerchief into a ball and squeezes it. She pauses and then draws a breath, as if about to raise a subject she's had on her mind for some time.

  ‘Why did you call yourself Fletcher those times? You know there's never been nothing like that between us.’

  Moxley shrugs. ‘I've called myself lots of things. Keeps people guessing. There's always someone trying to get the better of you.’

  She sighs. She's heard this sort of thing from him before. ‘I don't know about that.’

  ‘I do. Look, Lin, you'd better sell the lorry. It's worth a few quid and you can use it to pay for Dougie's keep and that until I…’

  ‘I thought you still owed money on
it.’

  ‘They won't come after you and they can't get to me where I'm going.’

  MacKay folds his paper. ‘Time to go, Linda. It's getting late. I'll have someone run you home.’

  ‘Just another minute please, Mr MacKay,’ Moxley says.

  Moxley speaks loudly enough for MacKay to hear. ‘They'll let you come and see me at the Bay and I'd be glad of some baccy and papers.’ He drops his voice. ‘Tell them about my falling down fits, Lin. Tell them about me getting shot. Lay it on thick, like.’

  All three people stand awkwardly for a moment. Moxley and Linda don't touch and MacKay shepherds her from the room. As they leave, Walsh enters with a set of handcuffs. He cuffs Moxley and pushes him down onto the chair.

  ‘You're a bastard, Walsh.’

  Walsh smiles. ‘Know something, Bill? You're a very popular fellow.’

  Moxley is exhausted. He rubs his reddened eyes and scowls. ‘What d'you mean?’

  ‘Somehow word's got around about you. There's a little crowd outside. Couple of newspaper blokes and photographers. They're all wanting to get a squiz at you, ugly and all as you are.’

  ‘I don't want to see anybody.’

  MacKay comes back and Walsh, who has been looming over Moxley, steps back deferentially. ‘I've just been telling him about the people outside.’

  ‘We'll keep you here tonight, Bert. There's a lot to do tomorrow. You look like you need some sleep.’

  ‘I don't want people gawkin’ at me.’

  ‘Some of ‘em want to tear you apart.’

  ‘That's enough, Walsh,’ MacKay says. ‘Let's go.’