The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders
Page 28
‘It’s quite fuckin’ pathetic,’ Kylie said scathingly. ‘Shari cracked up laughin’ when they asked her. Um, and they were, they just want to know everything and anything and they think, they wanna know if we hanged at this park, if we drank at this park.’
‘They’re fuckin’ trippin’, eh?’ Sounding like they’d never go to a park, never drink. Not in 1989. ‘I got told it’s Cushman,’ he said.
Excited, Kylie asked who’d told him. Was it Robert or –
‘No, no. What’s, that’s what, uh, Holmesy told me. Holmesy told me that they grabbed Cushman and that. And they’re lookin’ for Cushman and someone else, he said.’
Valecky? Cushman? ‘So, I mean, I’ve got, we’ve got nothing to hide,’ Kylie said. ‘I know that.’
‘Yeah, I don’t give a fuck. Let them come here. If, if they’re smart enough they know we ain’t no fuckin’ fag bashers.’
End of call. There was nothing else to be said, nothing that Hajdukovic wanted to say, anyway. Kylie though, was evidently flushed with adrenalin, needed to talk about it all some more. She rang Shari back to say she’d spoken to Ned.
‘The coppers have probably got my phone tapped, goin’ this chick’s just ringin’ everyone. Aah, let them. That’s why they’re not comin’ to me. They know I’ve done nothing.’
‘Oh, like you just said,’ Shari agreed. ‘They all, they know we, we, none of us fuckin’ did nothing like that.’
‘Yeah, we’re not that fuckin’ stupid, like. Or did we when we were blind, or what? Like, who knows? No, I’m only joking.’
Joking? Shari sounded as if she wasn’t sure. Maybe Kylie could have done … something, if she’d been pissed enough, if she had been blind.
‘Nuh, I’m sure,’ Kylie assured her. ‘I’m sure we would’ve known if one of the boys threw someone off a fuckin’ cliff, mate. D’you know what I mean?’
‘Well, that’s something you wouldn’t forget, eh?’
But was that true? Was she thinking that, whoever had done it, whoever had thrown the fag off the cliff, he was in that photo album the police were showing everybody? Was she asking herself, why else would they be showing it? And if it was somebody in there, was she coming to the conclusion it was Valecky because … ? What about that time he said he’d found a body? Was it Shari who’d told her about that? Or was it the other Kylie? She couldn’t remember. She rang the other Kylie and asked her.
‘I wouldn’t talk on the phone,’ the other Kylie said. The line went dead.
v
At 8.55am on Wednesday, 9January 2002 Detective Senior Constable Pincham and plain-clothes Constable Morieson interviewed Kylie at Bankstown Police Station. The interview was recorded on audio and videotape in accordance with police regulations and was assigned the number 02/024.
‘As I’ve already explained to you,’ Pincham said, ‘Constable Morieson and I are making inquiries in relation to the disappearance of Ross Warren, the suspicious death of John Russell, the attempted murder of David McMahon in 1989. I’m going to ask you some questions about these matters. Do you understand that?’
Outside the police station the day was already warming up. The air was thick with diesel and the noise of traffic, the pavements strewn with rubbish. Kylie sat in the small interview room on an uncomfortable chair and started to sweat. For all her bravado on the phone, for all the stuff she’d said to Shari and Ned and the other Kylie, she looked as if she felt trapped, guilty. The drone of Pincham’s words seemed to act as a soporific, sounding like a kind of mantra, and she answered in a voice half nervous, half numb. Yes, she understood she didn’t have to say anything. Yes, she understood she wasn’t under arrest. Yes, she understood that her answers would be electronically recorded. Yes, yes, yes…
She gave her full name, spelled her maiden name, explained that she’d just got married. She gave her date of birth and her address, answered that she’d lived there with her husband and son for five or six years. She wasn’t employed.
It was all a dream, a game, unreal. Sitting here, in a room in Bankstown Police Station, answering questions like you see on TV.
‘Are you aware of this location?’ Pincham was asking. He’d been saying something about two deaths and an attempted murder. In the Marks Park area of Tamarama.
Was she ‘aware’ of the location, she wondered? ‘I’m trying to picture …’ she said. ‘I think I’ve got it.’ She looked at the photographs he was showing her, photos taken from up high – in the sky, they must have used a plane, she thought. ‘Yeah, I know it, now,’ she said. ‘I think. Yeah, I know the one.’
Okay, so she knew the park. Did she also know the walkway? The walkway that leads from Bondi Beach –
‘All the way over. Yeah. I thought you were talking about this –’ her finger on the picture, pointing to Hunter Park – ‘there’s a park up there somewhere. Yeah. Then I know there’s, there’s like, when you come around … Where’s Bondi Baths? Park there. So I thought you were talking about that one.’
‘No,’ Pincham said. ‘It’s the large park right on the headland.’
‘Okay. Yeah, I know that one. I didn’t know it was Marks Park, though.’
‘Well, it might also be known as Mackenzies Point.’
‘Yeah, Mackenzies Point. Yeah.’
Pincham seemed satisfied that they’d established the location, seemed friendly enough. For a cop. He reached into a folder and took out a kind of booklet, put it onto the table. Kylie could see what it was immediately: the photo album she’d heard about. He was telling her what she had to do, put numbers and stuff, names next to the pictures. She looked at the first photo … the next. There was no point in doing what Kerry had done, no point in pretending not to know the people when she did. They – the cops – they knew she knew. So why lie? Just because she knew who they were didn’t mean she’d done anything wrong, did it?
She numbered 30 images, put nicknames where she didn’t know their actual names, put first names only if she didn’t know surnames, and kept up a running commentary on each one as she examined it: she didn’t hang down in Bondi … I might be wrong but I think she’s a prostitute and a junkie … I don’t know her name … She don’t look like that now … You’ll find her at Kings Cross … I know him, he’s from Bondi but I don’t know his name … Oh, wow …I can’t remember his last name … they call him DC … Bondi Police should know where he is ’cause they made him leave Bondi … Is that supposed to be me? …. Why would you have a picture of me with glasses on? … I can’t write his nickname … he’s in New Zealand … I can’t spell his last name … I’m not sure, can I go back to that one? … it looks like him but the eyes aren’t big enough … they left, got taken out of the country … he was around but I don’t know his name … they’re from out west way … he’s in the New Zealand army … that’s his sister … he’s a taxi driver … seen him before at Redfern … I think his mum works where youse work … he seriously looks like my next door neighbour …
Thirty photographs. All identified in one way or another, all given names or nicknames and all given a history. Kylie sat back, waiting for whatever came next.
Where were you living in 1989, Pincham wanted to know? Bondi Junction. No hesitation: Allens Parade, Bondi Junction. With her mum, her dad, her sister and her brother. Was she employed? At school? Neither. She was pregnant. And the father was her husband.
‘Now,’ Pincham said, ‘you’ve had a look at those photos. Who did you associate with during ’89?’
‘All of ’em.’
‘With all those persons?’
‘All the ones I’ve named. Yeah.’ At Bondi Youth Centre on the beach. ‘Sometimes we’d drink at North Bondi. Sometimes we’d drink at South. But mainly in the middle. Sometimes we wouldn’t go home, so we’d be there all night.’
‘So, was it just weekends, or was it –’
‘No. It was nearly every day. Monday to Sunday.’ She explained that they would usually meet up at the youth centre – the youth centre
used to be at Bondi Junction but it moved to the beach – and hang out there when there was nothing else to do. That was during the day because it was closed at night. ‘At night we’d be off drinking,’ she said.
Where did you get the booze, Pincham asked? The bottle shop. They’d serve us.
‘You say you weren’t working,’ Pincham said. ‘How did you pay for the alcohol?’
A frown creased Kylie’s brow. ‘How did I pay for? On the dole.’ A shrug. ‘Most of the boys bought it anyway. I used to get in trouble a lot so I used to have money as well. When I was naughty.’
‘You used to have money when you were in trouble?’ It was Pincham’s turn to frown. ‘I don’t understand.’
A faint smile, now, remembering. ‘Like, I used to, when I was naughty we used to steal things and sell them. That’s how I got money as well. That was a long time ago.’
A wistful reminiscence or a statement of fact? Pincham couldn’t be certain. This woman – when she was a young girl, pregnant, and as a young mother – still hung out at the beach, drinking and stealing with a gang of up to 30 or more thugs. To the police officer, it was barely conceivable. Except that he’d seen it all before.
‘Okay. Now, when you said earlier that you were drinking both at the north end and the south end of Bondi, where in particular? Was it, like in the huts?’
‘Yeah. In the huts in the middle. At North Bondi there’s a hut up at the back near the kids’ park, two little huts up the back there. We used to drink in there. And at South Bondi near the swimming pool, the cement there.’
What about Marks Park, then? Did they ever go there?
‘Not really, no. To cut through to go to Tamarama I did. But I never hung up there. I think we maybe had a couple of drinks up there in the park – here,’ pointing vaguely at the photograph, ‘but I can’t remember. I just might have.’
‘Do you remember who was with you at that time? Like, is it the whole group?’
‘Yeah. Usually. Usually. Not always, always 30 of us. Sometimes it’d only be, like, ten, five. Six. Sometimes the girls would run away just to keep away from them, ’cause they’d be drinkin’ their alcohol without sharing. And sometimes they, all the boys, would be up there without us.’
Pincham tried to clarify where she meant when she said the park. Was it Marks Park or Hunter Park or …? It seemed to him that Kylie was confused about the area, was talking about Hunter Park and even the southern end of the beach when she referred to ‘the park’. ‘How often would you have been in that area?’ he asked.
‘No, not hardly at all,’ she said. ‘Maybe, oh, count … wouldn’t know to tell you the truth. But I can remember most of us drinking. Was it there? Yeah.’
She seemed too vague in her recollections, too unspecific, but he had to try anyway. When she was in the park area, who precisely was she with? Precisely? She named a half dozen girls, Shari and the other Kylie and Jenny and a couple of others.
‘So mainly with the girls?’ Pincham asked.
‘Yeah. But the boys did go up there,’ she said. ‘Pete Matejcek and Robert Valecky and all them. Him,’ she said, pointing emphatically.
‘So you’re pointing at?’ Pincham encouraged her. For the sake of the audio tape.
Sean Cushman.
The boys were always in their groups, she said, the Maoris sticking together, the white boys together. They’d all join up at the end, though. ‘But, this one here is a … Him and Pete, they always used to be up to stuff. Always.’
‘Okay, so you’re pointing at?’
‘Robert Valecky.’
‘Robert Valecky and Peter Matejcek.’
‘And when you say, up to stuff,’ Constable Morieson interjected, ‘what do you mean?’
‘Oh, they’re just weird boys. If anyone has done anything, I’d look at them two. ’Cause, I mean, when we got on the bus with him once and he broke his stepdad’s arm. He’s weird, weird bloke. Kylie should’ve told you,’ she said, meaning the other Kylie. ‘Have you seen Kylie yet?’
They knew who she was talking about. ‘No,’ Pincham said. No, they hadn’t spoken to Kylie yet.
‘Oh. Okay. Well, she went out, she, he liked her a lot. She wouldn’t go near him – she thought he was weird, as well. He was nice but he was just weird. Weird bloke.’
There was a brief pause in the questioning while Pincham waited to see if she was going to elaborate further. She wasn’t.
‘What was your feeling towards gay males or gay people during ’89 or that period?’ he asked without inflection.
‘To tell you the truth, I can’t remember,’ Kylie said. ‘But we probably didn’t like them.’
‘Why would you say that?’
‘’Cause all the boys – you’ve got to impress them when you’re young. If they see a guy, see, I don’t want to say this now, this is when I was 16. They used to hate them.’ She considered what she was saying for a moment. ‘I suppose, being young boys – teenagers – and they weren’t into what they were. They didn’t like them.’
‘So, would they be quite adamant about that?’
‘Sort of, yeah. But they wouldn’t bash anyone in front of us. Like, there was a few of ’em that used to go up the Cross and do it, but.’
‘What? Particularly pick on gay males? And did they give any reason for that?’
‘Didn’t like them.’
‘Just didn’t like them?’
‘I never went with them though.’
So, who would it be, Pincham prodded? Who were the ones who’d go to the Cross to bash gays? Well, she said, the problem was they didn’t have all the photos in the book. Not everyone was in there. Some of the guys had left Bondi, had been forced to leave because they were getting into too much trouble. But Sean was one of them. Sean Cushman. Not that he would do anything on his own, she said, implying that he was too cowardly to act alone.
So, who would he normally act with, Pincham asked, meaning who would he bash someone with?
She ran through a list of names, Glen, Shane, Poppa, Joey, Michael, David, Ned, a few others. Glen was a nut case, though. She knew where some of them lived: a housing commission in Coogee, Carlton, still in Bondi…
And out of all those she’d named, Pincham asked, who was she still in contact with? Boys or girls?
‘Only the girls,’ she said. ‘Kylie, Shari. Jenny just had a baby. None of the boys, not one of ’em. These two –’ pointing at the photos again ‘– they left. They had to go back to New Zealand ’cause they were getting in way too much trouble. But, no. I’ve seen them around if I’ve gone to Bondi. I’ve seen Pete and all that. Daniel is in jail in New Zealand, I think I said that … I think David is in Queensland. Tim is out this way somewhere.’
Pincham took a mental step back, picking his way through the scattered debris of Kylie’s words. She’d said that Kerry had been going out with Cushman at that time, hadn’t she?
‘Oh, yeah. She was goin’ out with Sean for years,’ she said. ‘She was goin’ out with him just not long ago they broke up. Only just. Two years. She stuck through. I don’t know. Obviously, you’d know about him and Aaron Martin? So she stuck with him through all that crap but left him afterwards. Don’t know why. He’s, he’s missing. We don’t know where he is. She reckons he’s at the south coast, but I don’t know. He’s supposed to have run away because Aaron just got out of jail and Aaron wants to bash him, from what I’ve heard. Real big tough boys, you see.’
Yeah, they knew all about that. But the interesting fact was Kerry and Cushman, Cushman who’d told his mother he’d ‘never hung with girls’. Why would he tell her that, why would he say he was never in the company of girls when he’d been going out with Kerry all that time?
Another mental shift. ‘When you say the boys used to go up the Cross and bash gay people, gay guys, which boys are you referring to? Did you ever hear stories?’
‘Yeah, but … I don’t know if it’s even…’
Did the stories come from the boys who did it
or from other people?
‘No,’ she explained quickly. ‘From other people. I heard one story, see. I, about Robert Valecky and Pete, and I don’t know if it was through Kylie or Shari. I don’t know. I think it was Kylie or Shari. I think it was Shari that told me. Pete and Robert I think were boasting about burning somebody. I’m not, this is, I’m not a hundred percent sure … and this is at Kingsgrove or Kensington … Now, this is what, this is what I’ve heard, that he put a body in a, a burn thing or something. You know the chutes that they used to have and they, you’re not allowed, they’re not allowed to do them no more?’
‘Like an incinerator?’
‘Yeah. This is what I was told through Shari.’
‘And when was that?’
‘Years and years ago.’
‘What, you spoke to Shari about it or –’
‘Oh, Shari … No … Well, Shari was telling me ’cause we always used to think that Robert Valecky was nuts, him and Pete were a bit loony bins, and if anyone was gonna lose it, it’d be them.’
‘Right –’
‘But we also thought that about Glen and Sean, so there’s a few of them that are nuts. But the one main story I do remember is them, Kylie, Shari tellin’ me about Robert and Pete with a body.’
And Shari had told her about it years ago, she said. And it had freaked her out, freaked Shari out because she didn’t know if it was true. They – the boys – talked rubbish sometimes. You didn’t know whether to believe them or not. And, in fact, they didn’t believe them this time, not at the time, but she didn’t ask them.
‘I must tell you, now,’ she said. ‘I have spoken to Shari. I know you’ve seen Shari but I, I told her I’d say whatever I knew. But she thinks it’s nothin’, she thinks they were lyin’ and they were idiots.’
The brief silence in the interview room congealed in the heat, thickening the air, causing patches of sweat to stain the backs of shirts. Detective Pincham considered the scene for a moment before continuing with his questions.
‘Are you aware that the, the Marks Park area is a gay beat area?’ he asked. ‘Like a –’