Mad Dog Moxley (6 page)

Frank Wilkinson's body was found on 11 April and news of it was in the papers the next day. Moxley stayed in his room for most of the day and asked Bakewell's wife to prepare his evening meal a little earlier than usual. She did; he ate it, paid her and left the house. George Bakewell gave him a good character. ‘He knew his place,' he said.

Unaware that both bodies had been discovered and that he'd been identified as a suspect, but conscious that he'd left a trail connecting him to the crime, Moxley went, if not on the run, at least into hiding. He made makeshift camps in several places, including a railway yard, and abandoned items of clothing and other things to make his movements easier. Hunger became a pressing problem. The abandoned clothing included a threadbare coat with scraps of food in the pockets, apparently stolen from trucks or sheds in the railway yard. On 14 April he approached the property of Frank Corbett, a Chullora poultry farmer with whom he'd had friendly dealings and shared cups of tea. But Corbett had seen the newspapers. He happened to have a rifle in his hand when Moxley appeared; he levelled the rifle at Moxley and shouted, ‘Stand where you are, Bill. Don't move.' Moxley turned and ran. Corbett fired a warning shot but Moxley continued running and disappeared into the bush.

Corbett testified that he'd got on well with Moxley in the past, that Moxley had behaved ‘Very decently' and appeared to be a hardworking man. But the newspaper account of the murders had erased any sympathy he might have felt for him.

Moxley now knew how matters stood and his behaviour became increasingly desperate. Within hours he had forced his way into a house at Bankstown where a woman, her husband absent, had the care of two young children. Lillian Harding was terrified by the dirty, dishevelled, unshaven Moxley, who was carrying a gun, partially concealed by a blanket. Mrs Harding knew him vaguely by the name of Hudson, from a time when he had lived close by. He obviously knew when she was likely to be alone in the house; he offered her no violence beyond a push at the doorway but he demanded food. Mrs Harding said that the stove wasn't lit and she couldn't cook or make tea, but Moxley insisted.

Moxley's manner was threatening. He ordered Mrs Harding to keep the children quiet and to remain in the kitchen at the back of the house.

‘We'll be quiet as long as you leave the children alone,' Mrs Harding said.

Moxley replied, ‘I don't hurt women and children.'

When she said the butcher and baker would call, Moxley told her to deal with them at the doorway and say nothing. He prowled around the house, checking windows and drawing blinds. Apart from food, which Mrs Harding began to prepare, his urgent need was for a newspaper, but there were none in the house.

With her nearest neighbour some distance away along a quiet street and the children becoming fractious, Mrs Harding attempted to meet Moxley's needs. But she was not without resources; at some point she advanced the kitchen clock an hour, hoping to spur his departure. She made tea and cooked chops twice, and Moxley ate voraciously. At first he said almost nothing. In an odd gesture he gave each of the children a penny and paid a shilling for his food.

After eating and drinking several cups of tea, Moxley told the woman he needed to hide as he was being chased. He spun a tale about visiting a friend to get money, being refused and then fired at. The afternoon wore on and at almost 4 pm by the adjusted clock he asked for socks and a pair of trousers. Mrs Harding gave them to him and he prepared to leave by the back door.

‘Don't watch the way I go,' Moxley said.

Mrs Harding obeyed.

By this time the police had visited the Burwood address and inspected Moxley's room. They found pieces of hessian to match the holes cut in the sack discovered in the Ashfield garage and the torn and bloodstained travelling rug. They also found a paperback American thriller in which a criminal discarded clothing in various locations to deceive the police. The book (the title is not recorded) was freshly bloodstained, indicating Moxley had read or handled it recently and may have adopted the strategy depicted.

Moxley was now living and sleeping rough, with scores of people outraged by the crime hunting him. On 16 April, investigating a report of a suspicious-looking person, a police officer found a swag in scrubland near Dumb-leton railway station (now Beverly Hills). The swag consisted of a blanket, an overcoat, a shirt, collars, a tie and a pair of blackened sandshoes. He also found a double-barrelled shotgun with two live cartridges in the breech. One cartridge was wedged, rendering the barrel inoperable, but the other barrel was in working order. Moxley appears to have abandoned this camp in haste; he evidently had no further thought of using the shotgun as a threat or a weapon.

Roadblocks were set up on major routes and aboriginal trackers and dogs (employed in an organised unit for the first time) were used in an effort to trace Moxley after he'd abandoned the Dumbleton camp. The police mounted watches at key railway stations and shipping ports. The collector of customs in Adelaide was requested to advise if William Fletcher, alias Moxley, Harris, Murphy and Moore, applied for a passport. The police circular issued Australia-wide described him and his clothing in accurate and extensive detail and noted that he was carrying a kitbag containing items of clothing, also precisely described. The circular concluded:
[Fletcher] is regarded as a dangerous criminal and if armed will not hesitate to shoot to avoid arrest.

But for almost a week no trace of Moxley could be found.

CAUGHT

I am the man…
WILLIAM CYRIL MOXLEY

William Moxley made his way on foot to Sydney's inner west where he stole a bicycle in Burwood. Passing through some road checkpoints and diverting around others, he rode across the newly opened Sydney Harbour Bridge north to Frenchs Forest, paying the toll of threepence. A standard 1930s bicycle was a heavy piece of machinery without gears and the distance Moxley travelled was at least 20.5 miles (33 kilometres), possibly considerably more depending on the detours he was forced to make. Nor was the route flat. It was a remarkable physical feat for a man under stress, with a damaged and painful hand, and weakened by hunger.

Moxley's photograph appeared in the newspapers and an updated police circular also carried a full-length photograph of him as well as fronton and profile mug shots. Nevertheless he took the risk of buying Condy's crystals - potassium permanganate - in North Sydney, to make a solution in which to soak his injured hand, and fish and chips in Mosman.

Frenchs Forest is now an affluent and closely settled area, but it was mostly bushland in 1932 with widely scattered residents. Logging was carried out there and it is possible that Moxley was familiar with the area. Although he had worked in rough country as a timber cutter, Moxley was not a real bushman and he evidently had no thought of heading to a remote location. He needed to be within reach of settled areas to get food and water and possibly clothing. House breaking and stealing were more his line than living off the land.

But hovering, alone and friendless, on the edges of settled areas was risky. Manly police received a report of a man wheeling a bicycle along a track and three officers – Detectives Newton and Tassell and Constable Gill – armed themselves and drove to where the man had been sighted. At Moxley's trial, Norman Newton's account of events was not dramatic:

We saw some bicycle tracks leading from the road along a byway into the scrub from the left-hand side of the road and we followed them for 150 yards into the scrub. We saw the accused Moxley lying alongside a rock. Constable Gill and I got to within 10 feet of him when he jumped up from behind a rock and ran towards Middle Harbour. I called out, ‘Stop, Moxley, or I will shoot.' He continued to run, and we chased him 40 yards and we caught him.

But journalists teased out a more stirring account of Moxley's arrest from the police. The undergrowth was thick and Moxley was forcing his way through it, closely pursued by Constable Gill. When he came to a severe drop, Moxley hesitated before jumping. Gill did not hesitate; he leapt, landed on Moxley – who was just struggling to his feet – and fought with him until the other officers arrived.

Newton pulled Moxley up into a sitting position and said, ‘I belong to the police. You answer the description of a man, Fletcher or Moxley, for whose arrest a warrant has been issued charging you with murder.'

According to Newton, Moxley replied, ‘I am the man. I have read the newspapers and I know what you want me for. I did not murder those people but I know who did.' Moxley then played the only card he felt he had left in his hand.

‘Take me to Superintendent MacKay,' he said, ‘and I'll tell you all I know about it.'

The police took Moxley to the Manly station. Some officers returned to the Frenchs Forest site where Moxley had been caught and found a cave in which he had sheltered and some clothing spread out on the bushes to dry. He had evidently climbed a high rock from time to time to keep a lookout.

At the Manly station Moxley's repeated requests for food and sleep were denied. This appears to have been the only pressure applied to him. Newton phoned MacKay at police headquarters in the city.

‘We've just arrested Moxley in Frenchs Forest, sir,' Newton said.

‘Good,' MacKay said. ‘Are you sure you have the right man?'

Newton said he was sure and MacKay asked for Moxley to be put on the phone in order to verify his identity.

‘Hullo, is that you, Bert?' MacKay asked when he heard a voice at the other end.

‘Yes, Mr MacKay,' Moxley answered. ‘They've got me at last. I'm glad it's all over. I'd like to see you, I want to talk to you.'

MacKay said that they would talk as soon as Moxley arrived at the Criminal Investigation Branch. Newton and a driver took Moxley into the city. There is no mention of handcuffs or other restraints; apparently Moxley offered no resistance and made no attempt to escape. In all likelihood he was rehearsing the story he planned to tell MacKay, whom he thought would give him a sympathetic hearing.

The nature of the relationship between the aggressive senior detective and the habitual criminal is not clear. Journalists were intrigued and puzzled by it. At his trial Moxley said that MacKay had given him money to buy a horse and equipment to set up his timber business. A journalist wrote that the relationship had broken down when Moxley provided a false alibi for a criminal MacKay was trying to charge. The relationship between officer and informant is always volatile and, in this case, it is possible that both accounts were true.

MacKay arrived at the Criminal Investigation Branch in Central Street around 2.20 pm and found Moxley in a room with several police officers. He was eating. As MacKay entered the room Moxley turned and said, ‘Good day, Mr MacKay. This is not too good, I'm sorry I let you down.'

‘That's all right,' MacKay said. ‘But you're certainly in serious trouble.'

Moxley pointed to the other officers and said he would only talk to MacKay in private and he wouldn't speak to the others even if they ‘put the eighteenth or nineteenth degree' on him. He spoke like a man who'd had hostile dealings with the police before. MacKay told him not to get excited and to finish his meal as there was plenty of time. MacKay then left to attend a meeting (whether in a private or professional capacity is not clear) that Premier J D Lang was holding at the town hall. This was at the height of the crisis in Lang's government and only weeks before the governor dismissed him, an event that would have a serious effect on Moxley's fate.

When MacKay returned, Moxley continued eating and told MacKay about the way he had been taken. He finished eating and repeated his request to speak to MacKay in private. The other police left the room and Moxley said, ‘I was not in this alone, Mr MacKay. There was another man in it. I admit that I held them up along with this other man and took them to a house in Liverpool, but I left them there to go and get some petrol and when I got back they were gone.'

‘Who is the man?' MacKay asked.

‘I'll tell you his name later,' Moxley replied. ‘I'll think that over.'