The Frankston Serial Killer

by Vikki Petraitis

  Could Elizabeth have been murdered by someone she knew in passing? The Websters had told them that Elizabeth was friendly to many of the neighbours and that they often saw her stop as she walked up the street to chat to whoever happened to be in their front garden. Rita Webster could only imagine that her niece may have accepted a ride from someone she knew vaguely. Another avenue of investigation arose when Paul Webster told the homicide detectives about a day a couple of weeks earlier when Liz had rushed in the front door, violently banging it shut. He had asked her what was wrong and she had told him that someone had followed her and that she had run all the way home from the bus stop. Paul had rushed out to look, but hadn't been able to find the man who had frightened his niece.

  Detectives ran the names of all the students at the TAFE college through the police computer, checking them for prior convictions, especially of a violent or sexual nature. A number of students did have priors - one was a convicted paedophile but he was investigated and cleared.

  An initial objective for Hardie and Bezzina was to establish whether Elizabeth Stevens had in fact made it into Frankston on the day she died and secondly, whether she had travelled home again.

  Inquiries at both the Frankston and TAFE libraries brought no direct evidence one way or another. None of the librarians at either library could remember Elizabeth but then again, they were big libraries and just because nobody remembered her, didn't mean she hadn't been there.

  A road-block was set up near the bus stop in the days following the murder with a mannequin dressed in clothes similar to those worn by Elizabeth Stevens when she was killed. Police stopped all cars and asked if anyone had seen the murdered woman. There were few leads.

  Victoria Police used a mannequin dressed as Elizabeth Stevens to encourage people to come forward with information.

  Photo courtesy of Victoria Police

  A major door-knock was initiated, with detectives visiting every house in the areas surrounding the bus stop and Lloyd Park. They spoke to every resident and asked if they had seen anything.

  One resident initially looked suspicious. He told doorknockers to 'fuck off' and when detectives returned, they found traces of blood around his house. Further investigations revealed that the man had acted suspiciously after the murder. Because rain had washed away evidence at Lloyd Park, detectives did not know if Elizabeth Stevens had actually been murdered there or murdered elsewhere and dumped at the park. When the man's house was searched, police took blood samples but the blood was found to belong to the man, who had recently cut himself. The suspect also had an alibi for the time of the murder.

  Because of the location of her body, detectives assumed that Elizabeth Stevens had probably caught the bus from Frankston to Langwarrin and was grabbed by someone as she walked home, but they weren't absolutely certain. The bus driver hadn't taken much notice of his passengers that night. It had been raining heavily and he didn't want his passengers waiting in the rain so he had hurried them on by giving only a cursory glance at their Met tickets. He couldn't recall anyone fitting Elizabeth's description but he told police that if she had caught his bus that Friday evening then he would have dropped her in Long Street between 7.45 and 7.50 pm. Appeals for passengers on the Langwarrin buses that night to come forward brought a mixture of information; some passengers said that they remembered a girl fitting Elizabeth's description while others were equally adamant that she wasn't on the bus.

  Until people began coming forward with information, the only certainty was that Elizabeth Stevens had called her thirteen-year-old sister from a public telephone around five in the afternoon to organise a shopping trip for the following day. Liz had told her sister that she was in Frankston at the time.

  Media coverage of a murder was always helpful and in the case of Elizabeth Stevens, putting her picture on the front page of newspapers soon brought forward hundreds of people who remembered, or thought they remembered, seeing her in Frankston the afternoon she was murdered. Information reports were filled out and passed on to detectives and every lead was thoroughly investigated. There would eventually be over 1500 such reports.

  One resident who owned a house that backed on to Lloyd Park telephoned police and reported seeing a suspicious car on the night of the murder. Charlie Bezzina and his crew considered it a promising lead but the driver was located, questioned and released.

  A number of people reported that a woman fitting Elizabeth's description was seen hitch-hiking in the direction of Langwarrin. Bezzina tried his best to investigate the sightings but, taking into account the dead woman's personality and habits, he doubted that it was Elizabeth, however, it couldn't be discounted.

  Marko, a take-away food shop owner in Young Street Frankston, saw Elizabeth Stevens's picture in the paper and recognised her immediately. She'd been in his shop many times and he had thought her a nice girl. He remembered that she had been in his shop that last Friday afternoon, so he contacted police at Frankston. He told detectives that he thought she had been after the lunchtime rush probably between three and four. He thought that she had ordered either chips or potato cakes. This information was confirmed by the stomach contents found during the post-mortem examination. He was the first eyewitness to definitely put Elizabeth Stevens in Frankston. It was a start.

  A fellow TAFE student called Samantha contacted D-24 after she heard about the murder on television. She said she had been in Frankston with her father on that Friday afternoon and they had parked in the car park adjacent to the Frankston library. Samantha told police that, while she was walking towards the Cash Converters store, Elizabeth Stevens had passed her going towards the library with her bag slung over her shoulder. Not knowing Elizabeth particularly well, Samantha didn't say hello.

  A couple of days after the murder, a security guard at Frankston's Time Zone Amusement Parlour contacted police. He said he was sure that, on the day she disappeared, Elizabeth Stevens had been in his Time Zone playing the machines alone. She'd been near a group of children he'd spoken to. When police showed him a photograph of Elizabeth, he identified her as the girl in the windcheater he had seen the previous Friday. He also told detectives he'd noticed a young man standing near the machine but he didn't know whether they had been talking. Around 7pm, the man had left by himself and ten minutes later, the girl had left - going in the same direction as the man.

  Three members of the McCrae Alcoholics Anonymous told police that around 7.40pm on the Friday night, while they waited under the cover of the TAFE porch for someone to arrive with a key, a young woman fitting Elizabeth's description had dashed through the heavy rain to the front door. They said the woman was carrying a sports bag, and was soaked and shivering. She tried the doors, found them locked, asked politely for the time and then left.

  Elizabeth Stevens's thirteen-year-old sister Catherine was questioned in detail about her sister and the kind of girl she was. From Catherine's statement, detectives learnt that six of the eight children in the family still lived in Tasmania - four in welfare homes and two with their father. Their mother Christine lived in Adelaide. Catherine explained that the day after her eighteenth birthday, Liz had left the welfare home in Tasmania to live with her mother in Adelaide but it hadn't worked out. Catherine and Liz had lived in different welfare homes in Hobart and Liz would visit her little sister a couple of times a week. Catherine described how the family used to tease Elizabeth because she wasn't interested in boys but Liz hadn't cared.

  When Liz had moved to Langwarrin, and Catherine to her grandmother's house in Brunswick, visits to her little sister became monthly because of the hour-and-a-half drive separating them. Liz telephoned regularly using either the Webster's phone or a public phone in Frankston. Catherine told the detectives that Liz was happy living with the Websters.

  On her last visit to Brunswick, Liz had said that she intended taking karate lessons again and as Catherine looked through her sister's purse, she saw a card for a karate club. Catherine used to look through her sister's purse
all the time and check her address book. She knew all the names listed and she also knew that Liz hadn't added any new ones since she had been in Melbourne.

  Catherine said she spoke to her sister on the afternoon she died. Catherine had been watching The Flying Nun on television when Liz called, and mentioned she was in Frankston and had to go to the library because she had lots of homework to do. After a few minutes chatting, Liz said she had to go because someone else was waiting to use the phone.

  The detectives asked Catherine if Liz had ever mentioned being scared of anyone or if she had ever been followed. Catherine said that Liz had never mentioned anything like that.

  The difficulty with any investigation was the amount of information that came flooding in. The detectives had to take into account the dead woman's personality and habits in order to deduce which information was likely to be true and which was not. It was unlikely that it was Elizabeth Stevens at the Time Zone because she didn't usually frequent pinball parlours.

  It was also unlikely that it was Elizabeth who ran to the door of the TAFE library because that meant that she would have missed the last bus.

  Another young man reported that he had seen the Websters with Elizabeth at the Berwick pub the night before she died. When detectives questioned Paul Webster he told them that he didn't even know where the Berwick pub was.

  One of the more bizarre leads that Charlie Bezzina and his crew looked into was an occult connection. A TAFE student told detectives that Liz had once taken out a book on the occult.

  Considering the strange criss-cross markings on her body, it was worth looking into. But the lead went nowhere. Cults and covens don't advertise their presence and Bezzina failed to find any operating in the area.

  The hours were long and the leads dwindled, but Charlie Bezzina and a number of his crew continued to travel daily from the western suburbs to continue their investigation. They would leave at five in the morning, make the hour-and-a-half drive and return home rarely before ten at night. They did this seven days a week for nearly seven weeks in an attempt to find the killer of Elizabeth Stevens.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A lucky escape

  On Thursday 8 July 1993, 41-year-old Roszsa Toth caught the 5.25pm train from Cheltenham to Seaford station. She had worked from 8.30am until 5pm at a Cheltenham bank and was on her way home to her family. Originally from Hungary, Mrs Toth had lived in Australia for six years. Her voice still carried strong traces of a Hungarian accent.

  At 5.50pm, the train pulled slowly into the Seaford railway station and Roszsa Toth stepped down onto the platform, bracing herself against the July chill. She walked down the ramp towards Railway Parade, heading for her home.

  Passing the sports reserve on Railway Parade, Mrs Toth saw a man about twenty metres away on her right hand side, near the toilet block. She took little notice of him and kept walking. However, as she passed him, he moved away from the toilet block and began following her. Still, she took little notice. It was dark and the station was poorly lit, but there were others getting off the train and Railway Parade was reasonably busy with cars.

  The man quickly covered the distance between himself and Mrs Toth and suddenly grabbed her around the chest. Shocked, she turned to face him and he grabbed her by the hair and tried to force her off the footpath towards the toilet block in the reserve. Pushing her roughly, they both fell to the ground. Mrs Toth landed on her knees. Another violent shove sent her rolling onto her side and one of the many thoughts racing through her mind was of her expensive ring that felt loose on her finger. In a panic, she offered the man the ring if only he would let her go.

  The man didn't say a word; he just grabbed her and pushed her onto her back, struggling to get on top of her. Roszsa Toth lay on the damp grass of the reserve near the busy road and couldn't believe what was happening to her.

  A 12-year-old boy, riding his bike to soccer training at the field next to the reserve, saw a man dragging a woman in the distance. He heard her screaming and saw her struggling violently to get away. The area was dark but as the two struggled under an overhead light, he could see pretty clearly what was going on. As the woman continued to scream, he saw the man drag her away from the light and behind some bushes. He figured, with the logic of a 12-year-old, that they were probably a boyfriend and girlfriend having a fight and continued riding past.

  'I don't know what I'll do if you keep screaming,' the man yelled at Roszsa Toth, putting his large hand over her mouth to stop her from crying out. She couldn't breathe because his huge hand covered both her nose and mouth. Slowly suffocating, she bit his fingers hard and gasped for air as he quickly pulled his hand away and yelled at her not to scream because he had a pistol. In the confusion, Mrs Toth heard him pronounce the word pistol as pistole with some kind of accent.

  The man then placed something hard at her temple. Mrs Toth thought that the object felt more like wood than the metal of a gun; it didn't feel cold enough to be metal. Although terrified and in fear of her life, she had the presence of mind to think the young man was bluffing about the gun.

  Lying on the grass, Mrs Toth caught sight of oncoming lights which she thought might be a bike or a car. She managed to push the man away and got up off the ground and ran towards the road. She had barely taken three steps before the man grabbed her by the hair, pulling out a handful in the process, and dragged her down on the ground again. Struggling on her back, Mrs Toth continued to scream and bit him once more on the fingers. He again told her that he had a pistol. A train went by with a thundering roar drowning her cries for help, but it heralded the arrival of more traffic on Railway Parade as people drove out of the car park and others were picked up by waiting cars.

  Mrs Toth summoned all her energy and pushed the man off her. She grabbed her handbag and one of her shoes which had fallen off in the struggle. This time, she managed to scramble to the road, running in front of some oncoming cars waving her hands desperately for them to stop. As she ran onto the road, her attacker disappeared into the reserve.

  One of the cars pulled over and a young woman called Michaela got out and ran towards Mrs Toth.

  'What happened?' she cried, alarmed when she noticed Roszsa Toth's torn stockings and trousers.

  'A man attacked me,' sobbed the terrified woman. 'Can you please take me home?'

  Roszsa Toth jumped into the back of the car and then said suddenly, 'I've got to get my shoe.' She pointed to where her other shoe lay near the driveway to the Seaford reserve. When Michaela saw her reluctance to leave the safety of the car, she offered to get the shoe for Mrs Toth but the distressed woman urged her to remain in the car. She would get it herself.

  As Mrs Toth raced to pick up her shoe, she begged Michaela, 'Please wait for me. Don't leave me.'

  When she returned with the shoe, Michaela asked what had happened.

  'The man grabbed me. I don't know what he wanted to do with me - perhaps rape me? He told me he had a gun but I didn't believe him. He tried to drag me into the building.'

  Michaela thought Mrs Toth meant the toilet block, which was the closest building to where she had run from.

  Further up the road, the 12-year-old boy on his bike was nonetheless scared by what he had seen even though he had thought it was a boyfriend girlfriend argument. He had stopped his bike a little way off and saw Mrs Toth run from the man. He heard her cry out in a language he didn't understand and then saw a white car stop and heard a woman asking if she was okay. The boy felt relieved and continued on to soccer practice. He told a couple of his mates, but they all agreed that it was probably a boyfriend and a girlfriend arguing so they didn't do anything about it.

  Michaela drove Roszsa Toth to her house and at the trembling woman's urging, went inside with her and telephoned the police to report the vicious attack. Roszsa Toth's right leg was badly grazed and her head was aching where the man had pulled her hair out in the struggle.

  Michaela waited for Mrs Toth's son to come home and after exchanging names with
the woman she had rescued, left the family to wait for the police.

  Senior Constable Danny Hower and Constable Michael Lynch were working the 6pm-2am shift out of Frankston on routine patrol when a call came over the radio: 'Report of man having assaulted a female at a toilet block, Seaford North Reserve on Railway Parade. Victim at her home address. Offender solid build wearing a beanie. Offender decamped through fields behind toilet block. Minutes old.'

  Michael Lynch wrote down the details on his running sheet. It was officially a job for the Chelsea station, but their officers were tied up so Hower and Lynch took the call, heading straight to the toilet block at the Seaford Reserve. This was a lights and siren job. The offender could still be in the area.

  Further down Railway Parade, the soccer field was lit with bright overhead lights, but when the two officers pulled up at the toilet block, it was in total darkness. Hower parked the police divisional van outside the block and left the high beams on, lighting up a wide area.

  The officers grabbed their police batons and made their way over to the toilet block. Attacks in this district were frequent, usually drug addicts in search of easy money. Shining their torches around, they saw no sign of anyone and walked over towards the toilets. Hower took the women's side and Lynch took the men's.

  Details about the attack were sketchy and the officers didn't know what type of offender they were looking for, but if it was a drug addict, he could be spaced out inside the toilets. Lynch experienced a vague feeling of apprehension as he walked through the dark doorway, breathing out heavily against the smell common to such public conveniences. His baton hung at his side, the end of it sitting in a leather loop on his belt. He held his torch in his left hand and his right hovered next to his firearm - just in case.