It would be some time before prison officers realised what was on those computers; a long time for someone in the system to realise they had been duped, though the details of how they worked it out have never been revealed. A long time to realise the cricket scores were really his own code, with the numbers manipulated to represent letters and the letters forming sentences and the sentences spelling out his sordid fantasies. What he would do to babies and pregnant women and children; what he would force them to do to each other and for this, he was given minor disciplinary action, nothing more.
A long-retired warder from Ararat prison, who guarded Percy through much of his time there, and cannot be named, tells me, 'He was – is – a weedy, solitary little fart who did the accounts by computer in the industry section. The authorities wouldn't let him go to J Ward, where they housed psychiatric prisoners under the Mental Health Act and where prisoners escaping the death sentence were sent, because they were seriously looking at him for other crimes, including the Beaumont abductions, and they needed him in a prison, not a mental health environment.'
Mount Beauty High School photo, 1965. Percy is in the back row, third from right. (source: Mount Beauty High School Magazine, yurnga, 1965)
Mount Beauty High cricket team, 1965. Percy is in the back row, third from right. (source: Mount Beauty High School Magazine, yurnga, 1965)
Twelve-year-old schoolgirl Yvonne
Tuohy, who was murdered in Warneet
by Derek Ernest Percy in 1969.
(© Newspix)
Shane Spiller (eleven years old) led police
to the killer of his twelve-year-old friend
Yvonne Tuohy in 1969 at Warneet,
a small Victorian fishing village in
Westernport Bay.
(© Newspix)
Crime Scene photograph: Warneet, Victoria, the location of Yvonne Tuohy's abduction, 1969. (© Victoria Police)
Derek Percy (20) re-enacts
the 1969 murder of Yvonne
Tuohy in Warneet, showing
police where he kept his knife
hidden under his seat.
(© Newspix)
Crime scene photograph: The back of Percy's car, 1969, where Percy forced Yvonne Tuohy to hide. (© Victoria Police)
Crime scene photograph: The stained and slashed female underpants that Percy wore. (© Victoria Police)
The Beaumont children (L-R)
Arnna (7), Grant (4) and Jane (9),
who went missing from Adelaide's
Glenelg beach on Australia Day
in 1966.
(© Newspix)
Police search Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock's murder scene at Wanda Beach in Sydney's south, 12 January, 1964. (© Newspix)
Christine Sharrock and
Marianne Schmidt, 1964.
(Photo courtesy Elizabeth
Schmidt)
Six-year-old schoolboy
Allen Redston of Curtin, an
outer suburb of Canberra,
murdered 29 September,
1966.
(© Newspix)
Donald and Simon Brook, 1967. Three-year-old Simon was abducted and murdered on 18 May, 1968. (Photo courtesy Donald Brook)
Karen, Gary and Linda Stilwell,
a few months before Linda's
abduction. Her body has never
been found. (Photo courtesy
Karen Stilwell)
Karen and Gary Stilwell
at Gary's 10th birthday,
eight days after Linda's
disappearance, 1968.
(Photo courtesy Karen
Stilwell)
Convicted child killer Derek Ernest Percy, c. 2000. (© Newspix)
28
As a student at Adelaide's Flinders University in the late 1970s, I lived just five kilometres from where the Beaumont children were abducted from Glenelg Beach. My unit fronted the cobalt waters of Gulf Saint Vincent, where catamarans skipped over gentle swells and children made castles in the sand. The pall of the Beaumont, Gordon and Ratcliffe abductions still looms over this orderly, insular city, with her magnificent bluestone Victorian buildings, a city whose wide leafy streets were ill-lit, silent and vaguely menacing at night. By the late seventies, doubts were openly voiced that the mystery of these children's abductions would ever be solved.
Then came Truro. Two months after I arrived in Adelaide in February 1978, a couple picking mushrooms near the town of Truro, 80 kilometres north of Adelaide, stumbled on the body of 18-year-old Veronica Knight. Knight, a girl my own age, had vanished from a city street more than a year before. After her body was found, a horrified city watched as the remains of another six women, aged between fifteen and twenty-six, were uncovered in various locations. Jamie Miller, the sallow-faced, toadying lover of the girls' killer – the charismatic bisexual psychopath Christopher Worrell – led police to their bodies after Worrell's death in a car accident in which his final intended victim, held captive in the vehicle, was also killed.
At his trial, Miller showed no remorse for the victims. 'They weren't worth much,' he sneered. 'One of them even enjoyed it.' While Worrell's untimely death saved him from certain life imprisonment, the obsequious Miller, who described his role as 'chauffeur and mug', blinked and gulped in the dock as he was convicted of six of the seven murders and sentenced to life without parole. In 2008, cancer claimed Jamie Miller, whose association with Worrell had earned him the label of the pathetic sidekick of South Australia's first serial killer.
In the winter of 1979, as hungry seagulls braved the swells of Gulf Saint Vincent to scavenge for food and squally weather hurled fists of wet sand against my windows, the savagely mutilated body of seventeen-year-old Alan Barnes was found on the banks of a reservoir north of the city. He had died from blood loss resulting from anal injuries. Barnes' horrendous murder was only the start of a killing spree that would make headlines worldwide and earn Adelaide, once known as the City of Churches, the unflattering sobriquet 'the City of Corpses'. Between 1979 and 1983, the bodies of five male victims aged between fourteen and twenty-five – some dismembered, all mutilated, drugged, tortured and held captive before their deaths – were found dumped in and around the city. As the manhunt for the perpetrator – or perpetrators – hit high gear, long-held suspicions of conspiracy, corruption and homosexual paedophile activity supported by society's elite from the big end of town – judiciary, police, politicians and medical practitioners – spilled over from whispers behind cupped hands to overt questions and allegations. Who was covering for whom? What was going on behind the rose-covered arbours and high bluestone walls, beyond the solid front doors and velvet-curtained windows, of homes where the wealthy and educated sipped crisp Barossa Valley whites and ate exquisite canapés from delicate china?
In 1984, a nondescript, bleach-faced thirty-nine-year-old accountant named Bevan von Einem, who sported large spectacles, beige cardigans and lived with his overprotective mother in a modest home north of the city, was found guilty of the rape and murder of fifteen-year-old Richard Kelvin, the son of a popular Adelaide newsreader. While sexual sadist von Einem was implicated in the other murders, attempts for a further two to bring him to trial collapsed amid his defence argument that he would not receive a fair trial. As the cell door at Adelaide's notorious Yatala Prison closed on von Einem after he was sentenced to a record thirty-six years in gaol, the questions persisted. Did he work alone or was he just one member of a depraved and well-connected homosexual gang, the so-called 'Family'? Was he part of a network of people in high places? And was he telling the truth when as a mealy-mouthed criminal associate of his, known only as Mr B, later claimed in court, he had boasted of being responsible for the Beaumont children and Ratcliffe and Gordon abductions?
In 1989 Major Crime Squad detectives prepared a report, based on von Einem's known activities, his expertise in drugging people's drinks with undetectable sedatives and his residential addresses prior to the Family murders, naming him as a suspec
t in the Beaumont case. But Percy's writings about abducting multiple children, his one known victim and his admission, though uncorroborated, to Ron Anderson that he was in Adelaide at the time the children went missing also makes him a frontrunner for their abduction.
None of the inmates at any of the prisons befriend Percy. He has always moved among them silently, watching their power plays and tussles, the interactions between inmates and gaolers, the edgy testiness of men struggling against a system designed to control and subvert. He does not enjoy their company and has not sought it. The only exception, a volunteer social worker who appeared to like chatting to him, retired long ago. After almost forty years of incarceration, Derek is used to prisons, the routines and cyclical movements of officers on changing shifts, but three of the gaols in which he has been incarcerated have now closed down – Pentridge in 1997, Beechworth in 2004 and Castlemaine in 1990.
Apart from the lewd, dark writings found in the raid of his cell in 1971, for which he received minor disciplinary action, Percy has an exemplary prison record, save for a $60 fine he incurred in 1995 when it was discovered he was hoarding excess educational tapes. He remains mute. He will still not talk to psychiatrists. He will still not discuss those other abducted and murdered children. The seasons turn. Their parents grieve.
29
Percy has become hot political property. At his incarceration, Yvonne Tuohy's parents were assured he would never be released and any wrong move, the government knows, will result in enormous outpourings of anger by a community desperate for him to remain behind bars, a lynch-mob mentality that will erupt in street protests and be borne along through a relentless media campaign.
From 1978, Percy's custodial situation has been assessed by the Adult Parole Board, which reports to the Executive. The board is required to furnish, at least once a year, a report concerning any Governor's Pleasure prisoner. While the board has no jurisdiction to release a prisoner, its recommendations are considered by the Governor and they have the power to cancel a super vision order and return a person to safe custody. Each year, it has reached the same conclusion: that the lack of a secure alternative facility for Percy, his reluctance to undertake any exploration of his mental state and his perceived danger to the community ensures that the Board never recommends he be transferred to a psychiatric hospital – which is where he wants to go.
From 1990, until his last parole board hearing in 1998, records show that Percy expressed his wish to be transferred to the psychiatric facility at Mont Park, now called Rosanna Forensic Psychiatry Centre. He wanted, he told them, to be dealt with in the same way as other people under Governor's Pleasure orders. He was willing to cooperate in discussing his problems so he could help facilitate his treatment. And each year, the board has refused. It reasons that far from treatment being his objective, this highly intelligent prisoner has only one goal in his sights. Release.
By 1991, neither psychiatrists nor parole officers were any closer to getting to the heart of Percy's psyche. His hair had receded and only pathetic wisps of grey remain, perched on top of his scalp like a long-abandoned bird's nest. His skin had the sickly pallor of one who has spent too long indoors. Professor Richard Ball decided, for his annual assessment of Percy that year, to take a different tack with Percy, waiting until he was comfortable and his cigarette lit before he started the questioning. First came the small talk – Hello, Derek, I trust you are well – and the shuffling of papers as the formal interview starts. Then Ball went in hard with a question he hoped would slip under Percy's guard, something that would grab his attention and prompt him to open up. 'Tell me, Derek, why do you think society takes such a dim view of people murdering children?' And he was astonished by Percy's response, as his eyes suddenly crinkled and his thin, sullen lips, covered by a bushy beard, opened wide in a laugh, his first in twenty years. Ball repeated the question, watching him closely. 'Why do you think society takes such a dim view of people murdering children?'
'Why? Because there would be nobody left, would there?' And just as suddenly as it had started, Percy's laugh – girly, high-pitched – stopped, his smile faded and his eyes glazed over. He was flat, emotionless again, in safe retreat behind his mental armour.
In 1993, Ball tried again. Instead of skirting details of Yvonne's murder, he confronted Percy with them, laying them out piece by piece in unflinching, graphic detail. The abduction, the torture, the mutilation, the smearing. He watched Percy intently for any sign of discomfort or latent remorse, and found nothing. Did he think about the girl's murder? Ball asked.
'No,' Percy replied. 'She could have been hit by a bus a week later and died.' He did not appear distressed in any way when he said that, Ball noted. There was no evidence of sweating or a raised pulse rate. His respiratory rate remained unchanged, his colour was no different and his eye contact remained exactly the same. 'I might,' Ball observed, 'simply have been talking about the kinds of cheese that one eats.'
The same year, Professor Paul Mullen gave his assessment of Percy's sanity. 'The wisdom or otherwise of the court's findings into Mr Percy's case may be open to question, but it is not open to modification,' he wrote.
In 1995, the Victorian Attorney-General Jan Wade articulated the community's fears in blunt language. 'I request that I be informed of any proposal to transfer Mr Percy to a psychiatric facility, and that any treatment plan proposed for Mr Percy take full account of the need for the strictest security at all times,' she demanded.
If Percy was aware of the angst that surrounded any debate about his move to a psychiatric hospital, he gave little sign of it, beyond petulantly noting that he should be given the opportunity for change. In yet another assessment with Professor Paul Mullen, in 1997, the psychiatrist noted that this long-term prisoner was pleasant and cooperative. 'He has long experience of such interactions. Mr Percy would be a candidate for transfer to a new forensic hospital when hopefully that is completed. Currently the objective with Mr Percy can only be reasonably humane long-term detention.' It is Mullen's opinion, expressed to colleagues, that although Percy is not mentally ill, his release into the community, while he is not of sufficiently advanced age to negate any sexual urges, would be highly dangerous.
30
The tiny hamlet of Wyndham on the far south coast of New South Wales, 30 kilometres west of Merimbula, boasts a permanent population of less than 200 people. It's the perfect locale for an anxious, paranoid person to hide from his demons. Nestled into the wooded hemline of Mount Darragh, there's not much there, which is just the way the locals like it: a general store that doubles as the post office; a handful of houses, long in need of a coat of paint; and the town's one pub, the Robbie Burns, named in 1891 by maudlin, homesick Scots after their national poet and hero. But there are no poets in the bar on the late afternoon I call to enquire about the origin of the hotel's name and probably no heroes, either. Nope, the barmaid cackles, the only people here are yarn-spinners and bullshit artists. A visitor to Wyndham, standing in the main street, might imagine the faint sounds of 'Duelling Banjos' – the theme music from the movie Deliverance – drifting on the breeze, floating away to the neighbouring towns of Whipstick and Rocky Hall.
Prospectors and hopefuls sought their fortunes around Wyndham in the 1860s, lured by the elusive promise of gold in them thar hills, but most left empty-handed and destitute, abandoning their dreams and the numerous mine-shafts that still dot the heavily wooded, hilly terrain. There are some old settlers who earn a living raising cattle, logging and farming, but the town's tucked-away isolation is also a drawcard for ageing hippies seeking an alternative lifestyle and the numerous fringe dwellers who scuttle on Wyndham's edges, existing on government pensions and growing dope in the nearby national parks. More than a few old junkies have worked out how to scam the system using doctor's prescriptions to score their morphine-based drugs and they sprawl where they can find a patch of grass in the feeble sunshine, pupils dilated and skin transparent.
And it was in Wyndham t
hat Yvonne Tuohy's playmate Shane Spiller washed up in the mid 1990s. Spiller – the brave and bright boy who threatened Derek Percy with a tomahawk; who ran for help as Yvonne Tuohy cried in terror; the boy who boldly pointed right to Percy's nose during the identification parade; the boy praised by the judge at Percy's trial for his quick thinking – had grown up with the paranoid fear that Percy would be released from prison, shadowed by a nagging, relentless depression.
Outwardly, it appeared Shane Spiller had coped after Yvonne's death. He went back to school and tried to put it behind him but with no counselling, by the age of fourteen he was blocking out his demons with alcohol and, later, drugs. By eighteen, he had started the merry-go-round of psychiatrists and was set on the path to permanent unemployment.
By the time he went to Wyndham, Shane hadn't been in contact with his family for a decade and had no relationship with his son, the product of a brief fling, but in the way of country towns and country people, the locals looked out for him in a casual fashion, regarding him as one of the town's characters; one of their own. He floated around restlessly, turning up at the pub most days, perching at his spot at the bar and yarning to the locals, then wandering off again when the mood took him. The flowing Ned Kelly beard that he sported couldn't hide his skinny face; tall, lean and scrawny from grog and drug abuse – scammed morphine derivatives, cones or dope that he was known to grow in different areas – the locals nicknamed him 'Stick', and his large eyes, set against a gaunt face, seemed always to be shadowed with fear. A likeable bloke, naively generous with a caring nature, they also knew he had a fragile, skittish disposition and they usually shied away from enquiring how he was. Sure as the sun would rise, they knew Stick Spiller would tell them how he was.
Lambs to the Slaughter Page 18
