Reynolds knows Romaniuk is eccentric, but he has never seen him so animated.
‘One of Carroll’s teeth was marked wrong on the chart. It was recorded that the inside of his left front tooth was built up and repaired, when in fact it was the outside of his left front tooth.’
Reynolds now also breaks into a grin. ‘You’re kidding! Who’d bloody believe it?’ He is staring at the dental impressions. ‘What are these marks on the back of his teeth?’
Romaniuk bends over for a closer look. ‘Hang on a minute.’ Grinding down the cast of Carroll’s teeth with a drill to reproduce how they had looked in 1973, he peers through a macroscope to compare the impression with the light bruise mark patterns left on Deidre’s delicate skin.
Romaniuk looks at Reynolds, triumphant. ‘You’ve found your killer.’
14
Re-building the complete running sheets from the day of the murder, within a couple of weeks Reynolds has located the exhibits, including Deidre’s clothing. But he doesn’t get everything he wants. He asks that Kenneth Cox, a forensic scientist attached to the Health Laboratory who has found similarities between the baby’s hairs and those of Raymond Carroll, be sent to Hong Kong – then the world’s leading authorities in hair samples – to analyse what they have. But the bosses decide they have plenty of evidence to take to court without going to that extreme. The department, they say, cannot warrant the expense of sending them both.
Reynolds needs a second opinion. Romaniuk has advised him to go and see Dr Kenneth Aylesbury Brown, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Odontology at Adelaide University and founding President of the Australian Society of Forensic Dentistry. As soon as he gets clearance to go to Adelaide, he is off.
Dr Ken Brown is no stranger to controversial cases. He worked on the sensational Chamberlain case, which pivoted on the central questions: was nine-week-old Azaria taken by a dingo at Ayers Rock or murdered by her mother? Brown, a fourth-generation Seventh-Day Adventist, had his evidence discounted during the first inquest on the basis that he was unqualified to examine bite marks in clothing. He would, ultimately, be savaged for the evidence he presented to the second Chamberlain inquest in late 1981. Based on ‘persuasive new evidence’, it led to the findings of the late Coroner Dennis Barritt – who sensationally found that Azaria Chamberlain was taken by a dingo and her remains disposed of by human intervention – being quashed.
The clothing worn by Azaria on the August 1980 night that she disappeared was taken by Dr Brown to the London Hospital Medical College. There, Brown saw his British colleagues, including Forensic Odontologist Bernard Sims, one of the chief specialists to conduct tests involving ultra-violet photography on the clothing and who, with Brown, would later give key evidence at the Kennedy murder trial. The experts came to the same conclusions: that the bloodstains on the jumpsuit were consistent with a child of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, and that the cuts were made by instruments such as scissors or a knife.
Bernard Sims told the inquest he believed Azaria’s clothing showed no evidence of teeth marks and saliva from any member of the canine family, and that it would be highly unlikely that a dingo could carry a baby any distance without it dragging along the ground.
Aired at the sensational trial, the observations of the British forensic team damned Lindy Chamberlain as the mother from hell. But if they had no doubts as to her guilt, others did. Cleared after serving four years in prison, Chamberlain’s conviction was eventually quashed.
Brown is a little wary of Reynolds’s questions when he flies to see him in Adelaide on 28 November 1983. ‘I’m not doubting the opinion of your colleague, Kon Romaniuk,’ Reynolds assures him. ‘I would like to know what you think of some aspects of the Kennedy case.’
Reynolds assesses the odontologist. One hundred and sixty centimetres, at a pinch. Pale colouring, from a lifetime spent working in laboratories. Strong voice etched with upper-class inflections and strong opinions packaged in an affable personality. Dr Brown is an expert in his field, taught and mentored by the best in the world, and does not take kindly to having his opinions questioned by laymen. Reynolds immediately judges how best to elicit the information he needs without offending the eminent doctor.
‘Kon has advised me to come down and get your opinion. Please, call him yourself to check. I’ll leave the Carroll exhibits with you while you do that. They are his upper and lower dental casts.’
Reynolds waits a few hours before returning. Brown is now visibly more relaxed. He has made transparencies, comparing the photos of the marks on Deidre’s thigh with the casts of the teeth. He gets straight to the point. ‘There is no doubt in my mind that these marks were made by human teeth, the same teeth represented by those casts. You’ve got your man.’
Reynolds is at the whiteboard, thinking out loud and trying to devise a strategy. Carroll had told Rowley that he had been inducted into the RAAF through a training course at Edinburgh Air Base, South Australia, in 1973. Went into course number 1203 as a recruit, which started in February and concluded with a formal passing-out parade on 19 April. Six days after Deidre’s murder, and the day of her funeral. Reynolds knows it doesn’t take Einstein to work out that Carroll couldn’t have been in two places at once.
‘The RAAF course records show he was at his graduation.’ Reynolds is talking to his colleague John Morris. ‘Thousands of kilometres away from Queensland, which gives him a perfect alibi. If he was there, he couldn’t have been at Ipswich. Unless …’ Reynolds pauses, resting the tip of the whiteboard marker on his bottom lip, ‘unless the RAAF records aren’t accurate.’ He sits on his desk. ‘Faye Kennedy and the kids were travelling east from Longreach at the same time Carroll was travelling north from Edinburgh. They both converged on Ipswich. But who would know if Carroll left South Australia? This is what we’re gunna have to do. Get a list of all the recruits from that course. Find out where they are now, and let’s go and talk to them.’
Morris affects choking on his coffee. ‘Christ, that’s a massive task. It’s been 10 years since they graduated. They could be anywhere. And how reliable are their memories likely to be after all this time?’
‘Dunno,’ Reynolds shrugs. ‘But we’re about to find out.’
The list takes weeks to collate. Morris was right: the recruits from Course 1203 are scattered all over Australia, and two are in Malaysia. Reynolds works closely with his team: Sergeant Bruce White, Detective Senior-Sergeant John Morris, Detective Constable Mark Paroz and Corporal John Rowley to gather the information they need. Assigned to speak to former recruits living in different states, Reynolds briefs them. ‘OK, they’re not to know what we’re investigating. I don’t want them making their own conclusions. If they ask, tell them we’re investigating a serious matter, but that’s all they are to know. No further details. We need to ask them if anyone was missing from the passing-out parade and if everyone graduated.’
Morris is still not quite convinced. He wonders how much he would remember if someone asked him to recall events from a decade earlier. A lot can happen in a bloke’s life in 10 years.
He is right to have doubts. Most former recruits laugh outright when they are asked the questions. ‘You’ve got to be bloody joking! What do you want to know? It was years ago!’They were only young men at the time, usually in their mid-teens, and, for most, it was the first time they had left home. They remember bits and pieces: who they shared rooms with, the times they got on the grog, the hard slog of being a recruit. It was no picnic, out of bed at the crack of dawn, constant military drill, and missing the comforts of home. But no one can really tell the investigators what they want to know.
Reynolds and his team show them the course photograph. That helps, but not a lot. ‘Yeah,’ most concede. ‘Someone’s missing from the photograph, but I don’t remember who. What’s this all about?’
They use their rehearsed line, now down pat. ‘We’re investigating a serious matter but we can’t disclose any further details. If you remember who was missing, ple
ase phone this number.’ They hand over their cards and leave. There are only a couple of recruits left to speak to. So far, it’s been a futile exercise.
Reynolds is totally discouraged. It has taken weeks to find the recruits, and they haven’t yet advanced very far at all. ‘I need to track down the course instructor, Raymond Martin,’ he tells Morris. ‘He was older than the recruits, might remember more.’
Martin does turn out to be more forthcoming. ‘You’re testing the memory but, yeah, I can recall that course because it was the first time I had instructed. All but two blokes graduated. One was back-coursed because his grades weren’t up to scratch.’
‘Do you remember his name?’
‘Yeah, I’d know it from the course records.’
‘OK. And the other bloke?’
‘Yeah, he went home because there was something wrong in the family.’
Reynolds tries to remain impassive. Now he’s getting somewhere. ‘Can you remember the name of the bloke who went home?’
‘No.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Yeah,’ Martin says. ‘Quiet. Bad teeth. Not very popular with the other fellows.’
‘Was his name Raymond Carroll?
‘Yeah, that’s him!’ Reynolds makes a mental note. You beauty.
‘Have you spoken to Mick Sheean?’ Martin adds. ‘He was one of the recruits on that course, and I think he helped pack Carroll’s gear the day he left.’
Sheean is the last on their list and Reynolds finds him at Richmond Air Base in New South Wales. ‘I’ll fly down to see you tomorrow morning,’ Reynolds tells him on the phone. It is the last day of January 1984. The team has been working on the case since August.
‘I’m investigating a serious matter. Do you remember if a bloke went home from course 1203?’
Sheean answers immediately ‘Yeah. Bloke by the name of Raymond Carroll.’
Bingo. ‘Can you describe him?’
‘Tall. Quiet. Once, I was lying on my bed and got the shock of my life when I turned around and he was there. He had teeth that stuck out. I didn’t have much to do with him. He wasn’t my sort of bloke.’
Sheean recalls that the final shoot at the practice range before their graduation was completed just before lunch on 12 April. Cleaning their weapons after lunch in preparation for an inspection, the instructor called Carroll out of his room. Ten minutes later, Martin told the recruits that there was an illness in Carroll’s family and that he was taking compassionate leave. Sheean was one of the recruits asked to pack up Carroll’s weapons. ‘Carroll came in, yelled out “Hooray!” and said goodbye to a few of the recruits. He got in a RAAF vehicle and drove away. That was the last time I seen him during the course.’
Reynolds realises Sheean is the linchpin in this investigation. Up until now, Carroll had had the perfect alibi, but suddenly the foundations of that alibi seem to be shaking. They are gathering enough evidence to charge him.
15
John Rowley wants to know the reason Carroll would have gone home on compassionate leave. ‘Who was sick? And how are you going to prove it?’
‘We’ll try and talk to his mother,’ Reynolds says. ‘And get hold of the doctor’s reports. Maybe his brothers or sisters were ill.’
Rowley knows how the military works. ‘Look, they would have to be really sick. You don’t get sent home from rookies just because someone in your family has got the sniffles. A Commanding Officer would definitely have checked that it was all above board. Otherwise they would have these young fellows running off to see their girlfriends or just because they want a break from the discipline for a few days.’
They start trawling through RAAF records that prove to be as barren as a desert. Nothing to show Carroll ever left Edinburgh on compassionate leave. No pay books. No records at all that prove or disprove their theory. They must have been either lost, destroyed or thrown out years before. Reynolds knows this is a two-edged sword. If this fact got to court, both prosecution and defence would use it to their advantage.
Reynolds has another problem. If Carroll had gone to Ipswich on 12 April, how the hell did he get there from South Australia in such a short time? He had to have travelled home by civil aircraft. That’s the only way he could have made it by that date. Reynolds checks the flight records of Australia’s domestic carriers, Ansett and TAA, but draws another blank. ‘Sorry, Sir. Passenger records are thrown out after seven years.’ There is no way of proving his movements.
Reynolds goes over what he knows about Carroll. He was only 17 years old when Deidre was murdered. Away from home for the first time in his life. Probably homesick, lonely, pissed off. Unpopular with the other recruits, who no doubt made that obvious. Bit of a loner. No crime in that, but difficult when he had been thrown amongst a heap of strange young blokes. He may have had a girlfriend that he badly missed. Raised in an air-force family. His father killed in a RAAF vehicle in 1971. Father killed in a RAAF vehicle in 1971.
Reynolds figures that has to be key. The old-boys’ network, protecting their own. He thinks about how it may have happened. Someone rang Edinburgh, said Raymond was needed at home. Probably spoke to the padre, who is as well respected as the Air Vice-Marshal. The padre would know the family history, would want to do the right thing. Father was killed in a RAAF vehicle near Darwin in late ’71. The family need our support. Forget the paperwork. Get recruit Carroll on the next plane. It happened all the time.
If his theory is correct, then someone in Carroll’s family knew that he was going home. But Reynolds doesn’t think they protected him. Perhaps he just didn’t turn up at the house, instead simply went AWOL after he left the base. But they are all just theories. He has no way of knowing if he is right. No way of proving it.
Names and dates cover the whiteboard, but something is not adding up. Reynolds has been puzzling over it for days but he’s damned if he can see what it is. Trying to piece together different threads from a decade-old murder is proving more problematic than he had anticipated. His colleagues know he’s stressed when he lights a cigarette and forgets to smoke it, ash drooping into the ashtray. ‘Whoa, hang on a minute,’ he suddenly says. He makes a couple of phone calls to bases where Carroll had worked, hangs up with a grin. ‘That’s what we had wrong. Carroll has been married twice. Let’s find his first wife.’
Joy Grinter – nee Meyers – is now living in Wagga with her second husband. Slow talking and intense, she strikes Reynolds as a guileless, naïve woman who couldn’t lie if her life depended on it. Dark haired in a shapeless tracksuit, she invites him to sit at her kitchen table.
‘Why did your marriage to Raymond Carroll split up?’ It is a straight question, delivered deadpan.
Joy looks surprised. ‘Because he was abusing our child, Kerry-Ann.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘Sometimes he would change her nappy in the bedroom and I would hear her screaming and crying. But he locked the door and I couldn’t get in.’
Reynolds hands start to shake. ‘Right. Why? What happened?’
Grinter’s husband is sitting, listening impassively. He has obviously heard this story before. ‘Well, he’d come out of the bedroom real quiet and walk out of the house. He wouldn’t say a word, just turn up later and wouldn’t talk about it. I would go in when he’d leave the bedroom and find bruises from bite marks on her legs.’ She looks at her husband, and back at Reynolds. ‘Look, it’s about time you told me; why are you asking these questions?’
Reynolds tells her he is investigating the murder of a child and thanks her for her time. Outside the house, he sits in his car, trying to calm down. It takes him 15 minutes to regain his composure.
In Darwin, shortly after continuing his investigations on the case, Reynolds receives a call from Wagga police saying that a woman called Joy Grinter wants to talk to him. He returns to Wagga to see her.
‘Look, I’ve been thinking about all that stuff you asked when you met me last time,’ she says. ‘Can you tell me the
name of the child who was murdered?’
In the first interview, Reynolds had carefully avoided telling her what police were investigating, saying only that it involved a child. Now, he momentarily hesitates, quickly weighing up whether to tell her. She obviously has some information that could be useful, decides to come clean. ‘The baby’s name was Deidre. Deidre Kennedy.’
There is a pause, a protracted sigh. ‘I wondered about that. You know, I’ve often wondered about that. Before our daughter, Kerry-Ann, was born, Raymond said that if it was a girl he wanted to name her Deidre.’
Reynolds has gone over the evidence ad infinitum with police prosecutor Pat Youngberry. Finally, Youngberry gives him the nod. ‘You’ve got enough now.’
Once again, Reynolds calls the RAAF police at Amberley, asks them to have Carroll waiting for him at the base.
Carroll is unruffled, composed, stares hard at Reynolds as he walks toward him.
‘Hello, Raymond. I wish to ask you some further questions in relation to the matter that we have previously discussed.’
‘That shit about the baby?’
Reynolds has never forgotten how pitiful she looked, lying on the ground. Like a little doll with blonde hair, so tiny the step-ins came down to her knees. That shit about the baby? The statement offends him deeply, and his muscles automatically go taut. ‘That’s correct. Are you prepared to accompany me to the Ipswich police station?’
Ilma Carroll is interstate when her son Peter telephones to advise her she needs to return home urgently. ‘Mum, you had better come back home. Raymond’s been arrested for the murder of that baby in Ipswich.’
The memory of the shock will stay in her mind for years to come, through her children’s marriages and the births of her grandchildren. It will stay with her until her grave. A friend drives her back the three hours to Queensland, and she feels numb, mute with fear; then begins to scream during the drive. Ilma vividly remembers the murder. The park was so close to where she lived and her daughter Debbie, who was only nine at the time, was terrified. As soon as it started to get dark she locked the house up like Fort Knox, told her mother she was scared of being killed herself. Ilma felt so sad for Faye Kennedy. As a mother, if she had known at the time who killed her baby, she would have killed the person herself.
Justice In Jeopardy Page 9
