Ladykiller (29 page)
A sturdy, stocky man with a bushy brown-and-grey-flecked beard, Abernethy looks like someone’s grandfather. He can be gruff , and sometimes short tempered, a legacy of his career listening to the worst transgressions of humankind. Abernethy heard his first stories as a seventeen-year-old clerk at Sydney’s Metropolitan Children’s Court, in inner-city Surry Hills. He rose to the position of magistrate in 1984, but his goal was to be a coroner, a role in which he believed he could make a difference. It would enable him to consider how and why people died, and to make changes to the system to prevent deaths in the future.
In 1994 Abernethy was appointed as the deputy State Coroner. He was made the State Coroner in 2000. Fifty-something and fond of cardigans, Mr Abernethy possesses none of the lofty air of some judges. But he commands respect in his courtroom. When he knows a witness is lying or avoiding the question, he tells them so. His remarks to witnesses can be scathing.
A few months before the inquest into the deaths of Kerry Whelan and Dorothy Davis in May 2002, Mr Abernethy held an inquest into three young Newcastle women who disappeared without a trace in the 1970s. He lashed out at the police’s handling of the original investigation, telling the chief detective he found it extraordinary that records were not kept, statements were never taken and that the investigation was shut down within a year of the disappearances. ‘Could I suggest that no one, neither you nor anybody else, did that analysis and these cases just slipped through the cracks?’ Abernethy said. The disappearances of Leanne Goodall, twenty, Robyn Hickie, eighteen, and Amanda Robinson, fourteen, were among the many cases not properly investigated in New South Wales. Another case was that of Dottie Davis.
Abernethy’s words could soothe as much as they could sting. He showed deep compassion for the families of victims. Police and victims of crime groups saw him as a crusader for families who were seeking the truth. And the truth was something Bruce Burrell was not going to like.
On the morning of Monday 27 May 2002, Glebe Coroner’s Court was unusually busy. Today’s inquest would be a joint hearing into the cases of Kerry Whelan and Dorothy Davis. The families of the two women mingled in the foyer. Camera crews and photographers crowded the footpath waiting for the chief witness, inhaling soot and petrol fumes from the passing traffic which thundered down Sydney’s major road artery.
At 9.45 a.m., a cameraman caught sight of a figure lumbering towards them. It was unmistakably Burrell, tailed by two women. Sunglasses on, Burrell and his sisters, Tonia Pai and Debbie Esposito, strode up the ramp and went inside. Burrell was wearing a white shirt and a brown diamond-patterned tie. He stood with his barrister, Murugan Thangaraj, in a corner, close to the courtroom’s entrance. Burrell kept his sunglasses firmly affixed, even while speaking to his lawyer.
The Whelans made a nervous group; Dottie’s relatives were beside them, bonded by a tragedy no one else fully understood.
Dennis Bray, who had been promoted to chief inspector in 2000, had become the confidante of both families. When the taskforce was disbanded in 1998, Bray and Detective Sergeant Nigel Warren continued to work on the case while juggling their normal police duties. Commander Mick Howe had been transferred to the Blue Mountains patrol.
Bray saw this inquest as his last chance to nail Burrell. He hoped the joint inquest would attract media attention and above all he hoped it would force the DPP to finally act. Nicholas Cowdery had said that fresh charges could be laid only if additional evidence became available.
Bray believed it was important for the public to know why police had pursued this man for so long. All the evidence that had been thrown out by Justice Sully was about to be aired. There were no restrictions on the coroner. He would use his broad powers of examination with dramatic effect. In the years since Burrell had been released Bray had persisted in compiling an even stronger brief.
What Burrell didn’t know was that Bray had dug up fresh evidence.
Kerry and Dorothy beamed down from the walls of Glebe Coroner’s Court. Their faces looked happy and alive, carefree in the coroner’s domain. As the Whelan and Davis families entered court one, they were stunned by the giant projected photographs. Dottie Davis’s daughter Maree Dawes started to weep, remembering how she had taken that photo of Dottie at a family birthday celebration, just weeks before her mother vanished.
The Whelan party sat in the middle row: Bernie and Debra, who he had married in 1999 and the three children; Kerry’s brother, Brett Ryan; and Crown Equipment’s lawyer, Joe Scarcella. Maree and her brother, Lessel Davis, sat behind them. Burrell and his two sisters, Tonia and Debbie, entered and took the first seats they saw, in the back right-hand corner, close to the exit.
Counsel assisting, Mark Hobart, stood at the bar table. He was tall with a red face and a shock of wavy white hair.
Abernethy entered and took his seat at the bench. He explained to the court it was a joint inquest, with the evidence of Mrs Davis running for the first week, followed by Mrs Whelan’s matter.
Maree Dawes was to be the first witness. She was nervous. It was her first time in a witness box—her first time in a courtroom actually. Mark Hobart was gentle and slowly he drew from her a portrait of Dorothy Ellen Davis. She was a kind grandmother, a hard community worker, an astute businesswoman, and a loyal friend. A widow, she was generous with her money. ‘Dottie was a soft touch for a good story,’ Mrs Dawes told the courtroom. ‘She was a very generous lady and you know, a sad tale, and she was always saying, “Well okay, how much do you need?” And it wasn’t uncommon for her to lend people money. She loaned money to family members and friends, some of which she got back, some of which she didn’t. It didn’t seem to stop her doing it.’
Mrs Dawes said her mother had told her she lent Burrell money for a deposit on a house. Maree later found in her mother’s house two cheque butts, one for $500 000 and one for $100 000. The payee on each of them was ‘B.A. Burrell’. A bank statement showed that the $500 000 cheque had been cancelled due to insufficient funds in Dottie’s account. The second had been honoured.
But Burrell had given Maree a totally different version of events. He told Maree her mother gave him a $90 000 cheque to deposit in a separate account for her because she did not want her children to find out. Burrell said Dottie gave him $10 000 for his trouble.
Maree told the court she was ‘gobsmacked’ by Burrell’s explanation. ‘I mean, how bizarre. My mother could have gone to any bank and drawn out any money she wanted, questioned by nobody. Why would she go through such a farcical procedure? And why would she need $90 000 in cash? I’m thinking, Dottie has told me that she’s given this man a loan, yet this man is telling me this codswallop of a story.’ Maree said her mother was a smart businesswoman who would never have made this arrangement.
‘I tried to bait him,’ Maree said. ‘You have got to remember my mother had just disappeared without a trace. This man is telling this nonsensical story and I am trying to compute it all.’
She said her mother’s last known words were to the builder—‘I’m off to see a sick friend.’
When Hobart asked Maree who her mother could possibly have been referring to, Maree said loudly: ‘She was going to Burrell’s—unquestionably.’
The next witness was Dallas Bromley, Burrell’s second wife. She was physically slight, but with her flame-red hair she stood out in a crowd. She looked almost anorexic and she wore spectacles that were two-to-three sizes too large for her narrow face.
She had reverted back to her maiden name of Bromley and said she did not know much of what her former husband did during their marriage, because he did not like to be questioned. She was unaware that he would visit ‘Auntie Dot’ for cups of tea. She was unaware that the two vehicles her ex-husband was driving were stolen. Dallas did know, however, that Mrs Davis had asked Mr Burrell to do her a favour and deposit a large cheque into an account for her, because Dottie did not want her children to find out. Ms Bromley said she was surprised at this financial arrangement but did not challenge her husband.
Coroner Abernethy interjected, ‘Ms Bromley, you knew Dot very well, all your life. Didn’t you think it was strange she would enter into a transaction such as that with your husband?’
‘I didn’t think he knew her as well as I have since been told he did,’ Dallas replied. ‘I was unaware there had been meetings. I was unaware he had gone around and had coffee with her on various occasions. I knew nothing about it, Bruce never told me a lot.’
Later in their marriage, she said, he had become verbally abusive if she questioned him about his personal affairs. ‘He was a control freak,’ she said. He would fly off the handle at the smallest thing. Even simple questions like ‘how was your day?’ could make him explode. Dallas told the court she had dubbed his mercurial personality changes ‘wheelie bin moods’. She did not elaborate further.
Since Dennis Bray’s interrogation of him on 15 June 1997, Burrell had learned his lesson: say nothing. Burrell’s barrister, Murugan Thangaraj, told Coroner Abernethy he had advised Burrell he was not obliged to answer any question he believed might incriminate him. ‘The prima facie position ideally of course, Your Honour, is for a person of interest not to have to give evidence,’ Thangaraj said. ‘I understand such an application would be refused, but if there is anything I believe might incriminate him, I will certainly take objection.’
Despite Thangaraj’s objection, Burrell had no choice. He was compelled under the
Coroner’s Act
to take the stand. Accordingly, he walked across the court and took his place in the witness box. He looked angry. He declined to swear on the Bible and took a legal affirmation instead. He sat down, pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and peered over a pair of half-moon glasses at Hobart.
Hobart began slowly, his questions almost banal as he asked Burrell about his marriage to Dallas, the properties he owned, and his unstable work situation. Burrell was forthcoming, until Hobart turned to the vehicles Burrell claimed he had acquired from a man named ‘Tony’ at a pub. Burrell denied stealing the Pajero and the Jaguar.
‘See, what I suggest to you, sir,’ Hobart said, ‘is that in relation to both the Pajero and the Jaguar, you brazenly used the same modus operandi to steal them, didn’t you?’
‘That’s not correct.’
The coroner interrupted: ‘So it’s a coincidence that the two vehicles on your property are stolen and the modus operandi just happens to be the same?’
Burrell put on a wide-eyed look. ‘Yes,’ he answered.
‘Right down to the Queen Victoria Building?’ Abernethy said.
‘Yes, that’s exactly right.’
Hobart began to apply pressure. He suggested Burrell wanted to buy a waterfront unit in June 1994 and needed finance, a loan, to do it.
Burrell denied it.
‘Do you know a person by the name of Jennette Harvey?’
Suddenly Burrell looked uncomfortable.
The coroner interjected: ‘I’m going to caution the witness now. You don’t have to answer any question if you believe that the answer you give may incriminate you.’
Burrell grabbed at Abernethy’s words. ‘Well, on my legal advice I won’t answer that question,’ he said.
Hobart continued, unrelenting. ‘You asked her to invest $250 000 in a diamond fund, didn’t you?’
Burrell’s face flushed a bright red. He wrote rapidly in his notebook, seemingly desperate to avoid eye contact with Hobart.
As if choreographed, the observers in the court simultaneously leant forward, eager to hear Burrell’s explanation. But Burrell kept writing in his black folder.
Burrell’s lawyer could see his client’s unease, and stood to address the coroner. ‘Your Worship, there’s authority that’s clear about this, the phrase being “tedious cross-examination”,’ Thangaraj said.
Abernethy dismissed the objection because, he said, there was a specific purpose to the questioning. ‘Go on, Mr Hobart,’ he encouraged.
Before Hobart could say another word Burrell’s lawyer immediately stood up to object. But Hobart was undeterred and, after a dramatic pause, said, ‘I’d like you to have a look at something on the screen here—thank you, sir?’
Dennis Bray walked to a television and inserted a video cassette into the recorder. He picked up the remote control and pressed ‘Play’. The face of an elderly woman filled the screen. The woman had wispy brown hair, deep wrinkles and her lips were slicked a bright red. Her hands were in her lap, shaking. She looked unwell. She was sitting in a plain police interview room at Townsville police station in far-north Queensland. The old lady was clearly uncomfortable.
A man’s voice could be heard on the video, out of camera range. It was Detective Bray: ‘The time now is 11.45 a.m. on Thursday 11 September 1997. Interview between Detective Sergeant D.J. Bray of Taskforce Bellaire and Jennette Mary Harvey at the Townsville police station,’ Bray said.
‘Mrs Harvey, as I’ve told you earlier, I’m investigating the disappearance of two women, a Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan. I propose to interview you today and our interview will be recorded on audio and videotape. Are you aware of that?’
On the screen, Mrs Harvey blinked nervously. She appeared timid and frail—in fact she was suffering from terminal cancer. ‘Yes, I am.’
In the Coroner’s Court, Burrell lowered his head and was scribbling furiously in his folder as the video played on.
‘Police have been informed that in June 1994, you allegedly received a telephone call from a man named Bruce Burrell. Is that correct?’ Bray said.
‘I couldn’t say that the day was correct. I think it was probably more towards the end of May,’ Jennette said, ‘only because my niece tells me that and she’s got it in her diary.’ Mrs Harvey said she had written it off as a normal call. ‘He and Dallas were always, sort of, going to come up and visit me and I used to get calls from both, often individually and together. But on this occasion Bruce just phoned on his own.’
They had talked. Eventually, Burrell navigated the conversation towards matters of business. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve got a little proposition you might be interested in,’ Burrell had said to her. On the tape, Mrs Harvey described Burrell’s diamond scheme. Her memory was sound; step by step she outlined the ten-minute conversation. ‘Bruce said: “Oh you put the cash in and they take these diamonds out of South Africa and they process them through New York”. By this time I was thinking, this is Mickey Mouse, you know.’
