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The Cop Who Knew Too Much · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: A Poche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand.
0:16
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Adam Shand. In October 1981, a highly
0:20
Speaker 1: respected South Australian police officer, Detective Inspector Geoff Whitford, was
0:25
Speaker 1: found dead in a remote coastal location. At the time,
0:30
Speaker 1: Whitford was running a secret police task force investigating organised crime.
0:35
Speaker 1: Almost immediately, with what could be described as unseemly haste,
0:40
Speaker 1: police labelled the shooting a suicide. His daughter Amanda was
0:44
Speaker 1: just nine years of age at the time. She's grown
0:48
Speaker 1: up with the narrative that her father abandoned her and
0:51
Speaker 1: the rest of his family. At worst, she's endured allegations
0:56
Speaker 1: that have never been officially investigated or resolved, that her
0:59
Speaker 1: father was corrupt, that he was likely to face imminent arrest,
1:03
Speaker 1: leading to his decisions to allegedly take his own life.
1:08
Speaker 1: As an adult, Amanda has devoted years to getting to
1:11
Speaker 1: the truth of her father's death, and her investigation has
1:14
Speaker 1: thrown up numerous contradictions in the evidence, from the photographs
1:18
Speaker 1: taken at the scene to anomalies in the notes sent
1:22
Speaker 1: to loved ones. This has led her to question the
1:25
Speaker 1: conclusion of suicide and the motives of the senior police
1:29
Speaker 1: who rushed to that judgment. Amanda is still seeking answers
1:34
Speaker 1: and has agreed to tell her story Amanda Schultz, welcome
1:37
Speaker 1: to Real Crime.
1:38
Speaker 2: Thanks, Adam.
1:40
Speaker 1: You really are not going to give up on this,
1:42
Speaker 1: are you? You've decided that you will keep going to
1:45
Speaker 1: the bitter end. Where are you now with your investigation?
1:48
Speaker 3: Look, we're at a point where we've explored a lot
1:52
Speaker 3: of information, leads, had so many conversations that we are
1:58
Speaker 3: still continuing to get what you might call new information
2:03
Speaker 3: and people coming forward. to just add that next piece
2:07
Speaker 3: of the puzzle. So it's sort of still.
2:10
Speaker 2: Rolling along on its own without us necessarily pushing anything
2:15
Speaker 2: or anyone right at this time.
2:17
Speaker 1: Well, tell me, who was your father, Geoffrey Whitford?
2:21
Speaker 3: As a nine-year-old, I don't really have a lot of
2:23
Speaker 3: my own memories, really only what the family had told me.
2:26
Speaker 2: He was very much a family man. I was the
2:28
Speaker 2: youngest of three daughters.
2:30
Speaker 3: So I was nine, Kerry was 13, and Julie was 19.
2:34
Speaker 2: When he passed.
2:35
Speaker 3: Him and Mum had been married since they were 19.
2:39
Speaker 2: And Dad passed when he was 37.
2:41
Speaker 3: So we were living in the Adelaide Hills, a place
2:46
Speaker 3: called Mount Barker, and Dad had just built a home
2:50
Speaker 3: on a small acreage towards a smaller part of Mount
2:53
Speaker 3: Barker called Wistow. And, yeah, he loved doing a lot
2:58
Speaker 3: of family things, forever out with mates. Everybody just said
3:02
Speaker 3: he was such a good bloke.
3:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, we met at the Crime Scene Australia True Crime
3:08
Speaker 1: Conference at Victor Harbour in South Australia, and I met
3:10
Speaker 1: your mum at the same time. She's lovely. I love
3:13
Speaker 1: meeting her and talking to her about the whole thing.
3:16
Speaker 1: She didn't accept what she was told, but I think
3:18
Speaker 1: she found a way to get on with life after
3:22
Speaker 1: the tragedy. What did she tell you about your dad
3:29
Speaker 1: and his end?
3:31
Speaker 2: She was under the belief that.
3:33
Speaker 3: And this came from all different things that she experienced
3:37
Speaker 3: leading up to his death and at the time of
3:40
Speaker 3: that terrible news.
3:41
Speaker 2: But leading up to the.
3:43
Speaker 3: Death, she said he was under a huge amount of
3:46
Speaker 3: stress and a lot of pressure to the point that
3:50
Speaker 3: in some respects he said the less you know the better,
3:54
Speaker 3: protecting mum and the family from having any information that
3:57
Speaker 3: may do anyone of harm in the future. But at
4:01
Speaker 3: the same time, he came home one night and he
4:04
Speaker 3: said to Mum, and this wasn't long before Peter's death, was,
4:09
Speaker 3: if I told you one of the blokes on my
4:11
Speaker 3: team was very corrupt, who would you say that is?
4:16
Speaker 3: And Mum named that police officer and she said, Dad
4:20
Speaker 3: just whipped his head and looked at her and said,
4:22
Speaker 3: how the hell did you know that? And she just said, well,
4:26
Speaker 3: you can see the way he lives, his habits, his girlfriend's.
4:30
Speaker 3: their furs, their diamonds. You're on a boss's wage and
4:34
Speaker 3: we can't even pay our bills. How the hell would
4:36
Speaker 3: he be able to live like that? So that was
4:38
Speaker 3: one of many conversations. Dad had also said that he
4:45
Speaker 3: wouldn't ever want a police funeral if he'd come to
4:49
Speaker 3: an end of his life. So there'd been comments that
4:51
Speaker 3: had been mentioned along the way leading up to, and
4:54
Speaker 3: as any family, I suppose, that faces a family member
4:59
Speaker 3: that has suicided, They'd go back to ask themselves, was
5:03
Speaker 3: there clues, was there hints, was there things that were said?
5:06
Speaker 3: Mum also said he wasn't sleeping well. He was going
5:09
Speaker 3: to the phone box, which was about two kilometres from
5:13
Speaker 3: our house, to make all outgoing phone calls because he
5:17
Speaker 3: believed that our phone was being tapped. So there was
5:20
Speaker 3: a lot of behaviours that were present in the home
5:23
Speaker 3: alone that mum was, you know, witness to that were
5:29
Speaker 3: not normal behaviours behaviours of a commissioned officer. And he
5:35
Speaker 3: wasn't sleeping, he'd lost weight. And yeah, 100%, she said
5:39
Speaker 3: he was extremely stressed. So at the time, she believed
5:43
Speaker 3: that he suicided due to being depressed and stressed, like
5:47
Speaker 3: most people do.
5:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've also been a police officer in South Australia,
5:52
Speaker 1: so you understand the dynamic of separating home life from
5:58
Speaker 1: the work life. Did he share much of his work
6:03
Speaker 1: with your mum?
6:05
Speaker 2: No, not really.
6:06
Speaker 3: Mum knew a bit about, you know, the odd name
6:11
Speaker 3: of a crim or a crook that they might have been,
6:14
Speaker 3: you know, working on. But particularly, so what had happened
6:19
Speaker 3: with Dad is he was, funnily enough, he never wanted
6:23
Speaker 3: to be a boss, right? So he was a sergeant
6:26
Speaker 3: in drug squad and he was one of the boys.
6:29
Speaker 3: And him and one of his long-term mates both got
6:33
Speaker 3: approached to do the boss's course. And they couldn't for
6:36
Speaker 3: the life of them decide whether that would be a
6:38
Speaker 3: good move or opportunity or not. And it was quite
6:43
Speaker 3: interesting when I interviewed the other officer when I wrote
6:48
Speaker 3: the book. He said to me, do you know how
6:50
Speaker 3: we came to that decision? He said, heads we did
6:54
Speaker 3: the course and tails we didn't. And it came up heads.
6:58
Speaker 3: That was how they made a decision to become bosses. Now,
7:01
Speaker 3: what the norm was, when you got made up with
7:04
Speaker 3: pips on your shoulder, i.e. commissioned officer, you were sent
7:09
Speaker 3: to a patrol base where uniformed police officers, you ran
7:14
Speaker 3: that patrol base while you were actually green and finding
7:17
Speaker 3: your way around becoming a boss. And so Dad was
7:21
Speaker 3: told he was going to Port Adelaide to run a
7:23
Speaker 3: patrol base down.
7:24
Speaker 2: There, which he wasn't wrapped about because it was.
7:26
Speaker 3: Way the other side of Adelaide However, that was the
7:29
Speaker 3: deal and then all of a sudden there was a
7:32
Speaker 3: huge restructure and he was put in charge of this
7:35
Speaker 3: small team which was called J1 and they were in
7:40
Speaker 3: an office space in headquarters, basically behind closed doors. So
7:46
Speaker 3: talking to the retired police throughout my journey, none of
7:52
Speaker 3: them really seemed to know what they did or who
7:54
Speaker 3: they were working on at any given time because it
7:57
Speaker 3: was all undercover, you know, lots of obs and stupid
8:03
Speaker 3: work hours and pretty high, you know, crime with a
8:08
Speaker 3: lot of risk. So, yeah, the goalposts changed from what
8:12
Speaker 3: Dad signed up for to where he ended up working.
8:15
Speaker 3: And that alone, being a boss in charge of his
8:19
Speaker 3: old teammates, is never going to be an easy role
8:23
Speaker 3: to fulfil.
8:24
Speaker 1: No, because you're having to manage upwards and downwards and
8:27
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressures and politics involved. And you
8:30
Speaker 1: mentioned the book, which is called Wit, Piecing Together the
8:33
Speaker 1: Life and Death of South Australian Police Inspector Geoff Whitford.
8:37
Speaker 1: And on the cover, the quote is, my father was
8:40
Speaker 1: a policeman. He was shot, which to me clearly indicates
8:45
Speaker 1: you don't believe it was suicide. He was shot. He
8:47
Speaker 1: didn't shoot himself.
8:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, so just to be really specific there, we had,
8:55
Speaker 3: all sorts of information in relation to gun residue so
9:00
Speaker 3: originally mum was told when she was delivered the death
9:04
Speaker 3: message do you want to see the body and the
9:09
Speaker 3: message was there's no need to dad's so-called best mate
9:13
Speaker 3: said look it's gun residue on his hand it's straightforward
9:16
Speaker 3: you're not going to gain anything by doing this that
9:19
Speaker 3: was at the time and then eventually.
9:22
Speaker 2: After all of our.
9:24
Speaker 3: Work of spending months trying to get access just to
9:30
Speaker 3: access dad's coroner's file we read in there there was
9:34
Speaker 3: no gun residue on his hands so we're like what
9:36
Speaker 3: the hell you know how that's a pretty different you
9:40
Speaker 3: know so that formed part of our reasoning to be
9:44
Speaker 3: wanting an inquest and then skip forward so that that
9:48
Speaker 3: was in 1981 that file was put together because it
9:51
Speaker 3: was the actual investigating officer who attended the scene where
9:55
Speaker 3: Dad's body was. Skip forward 40 years and all of
10:00
Speaker 3: a sudden SAPOL have come across a new file that
10:04
Speaker 3: they found in their archives. Even though I'd been to
10:08
Speaker 3: Freedom From Information and I'd spoken to the OC there,
10:11
Speaker 3: Paul Friend, and I've got a document or a letter
10:15
Speaker 3: from him saying there is no, nothing in your dad's
10:19
Speaker 3: name held in any of the police department records.
10:22
Speaker 2: So I've got all that in writing.
10:23
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden there's a new file
10:25
Speaker 3: rolls in saying that actually we've got tests back.
10:29
Speaker 2: There was a gun residue.
10:31
Speaker 3: And I question, well, why the hell was that not
10:34
Speaker 3: then consolidated with the original file?
10:38
Speaker 2: Oh, they would have just forgotten about it. There was
10:40
Speaker 2: no need for any suspicion. So it just got filed away.
10:43
Speaker 3: So my point is I don't really know who pulled
10:47
Speaker 3: the trigger, who physically pulled that trigger. If Dad didn't
10:51
Speaker 3: pull the trigger, well, obviously it wasn't his will to die.
10:56
Speaker 3: If he did pull the trigger, I still believe it
10:59
Speaker 3: wasn't willingly.
11:01
Speaker 1: So what's your intuition about what happened?
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Speaker 3: So these five or six years that I've been supposedly,
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Speaker 3: according to one police officer that threatened me, asking too
11:17
Speaker 3: many questions about something that I might regret, What I
11:20
Speaker 3: believe happened was there was going to be an inquiry
11:26
Speaker 3: into corruption in South Australia and the bosses obviously wanted
11:32
Speaker 3: to identify that, either get rid of it, move the
11:38
Speaker 3: coppers out of these sensitive areas, make all the strategic
11:43
Speaker 3: moves that they could so that while it's on their watch,
11:46
Speaker 3: they're not going to come out looking too bad. So.
11:50
Speaker 2: Because Dad had been one of the boys.
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Speaker 3: And he already had information and he was a commission officer,
11:58
Speaker 3: he was asked to identify or to report anything that
12:03
Speaker 3: he found that was, you know, examples of corruption. Now,
12:08
Speaker 3: what happened was there was a heroin user and dealer
12:15
Speaker 3: and he's got his own story, which is really quite sad.
12:18
Speaker 2: He's actually a good bloke. He got locked up.
12:21
Speaker 3: Couple of nights before dad passed and he asked to
12:25
Speaker 3: see Whit at one o'clock in the morning in the
12:28
Speaker 3: cells he wouldn't talk to anyone about anything but he
12:31
Speaker 3: had information that Whit needed to know and they've said
12:35
Speaker 3: nah bullshit we're not going to wake up a boss
12:38
Speaker 3: at one in the morning for you why would we
12:40
Speaker 3: blah blah blah and in the end he convinced them
12:44
Speaker 3: that this information was pretty damn important so he And
12:48
Speaker 3: he's told me this.
12:50
Speaker 2: This is straight from this crook, if you want to
12:54
Speaker 2: call him. That's what he was then.
12:56
Speaker 3: So Dad came in in the middle of the night
12:59
Speaker 3: and it was at that point that he, I suppose,
13:02
Speaker 3: built the beams and he told Dad which coppers he'd
13:07
Speaker 3: been doing deals with. They were meeting in the stairwell
13:11
Speaker 3: in police headquarters. That's how upfront and brash they were.
13:17
Speaker 2: He would.
13:19
Speaker 3: be that exchange heroin and cash. So he would be
13:22
Speaker 3: recycling the heroin on the street and then bringing the
13:25
Speaker 3: cash back to the copper right under everyone's nose. That
13:29
Speaker 3: was one part of the allegation or one part of
13:32
Speaker 3: information that he spoke to Dad about. And we have
13:38
Speaker 3: learned through our, again, through our questions or conversations, there
13:43
Speaker 3: were other police within earshot.
13:46
Speaker 2: So then.
13:48
Speaker 3: Skip forward to not so many years ago, I got
13:52
Speaker 3: this phone call from a lovely retired big boss and
13:57
Speaker 3: he rang me and he said, why did you not
13:59
Speaker 3: ask me to be in your dad's book? And I said,
14:04
Speaker 3: because the police I did speak to said to steer
14:09
Speaker 3: clear of you, you're not one of the good guys
14:11
Speaker 3: and you're not going to speak highly of wit and
14:14
Speaker 3: you're nothing but trouble.
14:16
Speaker 2: And he just laughed at me and said, and you
14:18
Speaker 2: believed that. And I said, should I not?
14:22
Speaker 3: And he said, your dad had information given to him
14:26
Speaker 3: and he came straight to me as his mentor and
14:29
Speaker 3: the one person that he trusted in the whole organisation.
14:33
Speaker 2: And we spent hours.
14:35
Speaker 3: Deliberating whether he should pass on that information or whether
14:41
Speaker 3: he should just park it, forget and move on. He said,
14:46
Speaker 3: we decided for his integrity alone and for how he
14:50
Speaker 3: perceives himself and how he sleeps at night, he had
14:55
Speaker 3: to pass it on. He said, Amanda, three days later,
14:59
Speaker 3: he was found dead. He said, there's not been a
15:01
Speaker 3: day in my life that I have not found myself
15:05
Speaker 3: feeling guilty for the passing of your father and the
15:09
Speaker 3: advice that I gave him that night.
15:12
Speaker 1: So that information got into the system. It would have been,
15:16
Speaker 1: I presume, part of an information report. Do you know
15:20
Speaker 1: what happened to it? Is there a piece of paper
15:23
Speaker 1: that corroborates what this villain told your dad? I.
15:30
Speaker 3: From what I understand, and this is where the walls
15:35
Speaker 3: come in, Adam. So dad went to the wrong bosses.
15:41
Speaker 2: They weren't good guys.
15:43
Speaker 3: So no, there would have been no trace of it.
15:47
Speaker 3: Dad knew too much. He was the only source. He
15:50
Speaker 3: was the one that needed to be taken care of.
15:53
Speaker 3: So who Dad thought were good bosses, one of them,
15:58
Speaker 3: who I interviewed for the book, actually talked very vaguely
16:04
Speaker 3: about Dad. I did a bit for a chapter. I
16:08
Speaker 3: left and then I got invited to go back because
16:14
Speaker 3: he told me he wanted to tell me the real story.
16:17
Speaker 3: And when I arrived there, he had one of the
16:19
Speaker 3: old expander files by his leg next to his chair
16:23
Speaker 3: in the living room. And he pulled out a water
16:25
Speaker 3: paper and he said, if you think that you want
16:28
Speaker 3: to print anything about your dad, just know that I'm
16:30
Speaker 3: ready to write my own book. And if you read
16:33
Speaker 3: this chapter, you might find that your dad wasn't as
16:35
Speaker 3: clean as what you'd like to believe he was. He said,
16:39
Speaker 3: so be careful what you write because I'm ready to
16:42
Speaker 3: hand him up. So that was the sort of I
16:47
Speaker 3: suppose tennis matches that were starting then was, if you
16:52
Speaker 3: want to imply this, we're going to come back and
16:55
Speaker 3: say that. And it started to become quite serious and threatening.
17:01
Speaker 1: Were you inclined to call the bluff to see what
17:04
Speaker 1: they had? Do you know what they had?
17:07
Speaker 2: I did.
17:08
Speaker 3: I don't have it right in front of me, but
17:10
Speaker 3: I did take, surprisingly, I said to him, can I
17:14
Speaker 3: take photographs of what you've written?
17:15
Speaker 2: He said, sure. And it was bugger all, but.
17:19
Speaker 3: There was one sort of page, if you like, where
17:23
Speaker 3: Dad said, I think I've got to handle this better.
17:27
Speaker 2: I've stuffed this up. And it wasn't anything of a
17:30
Speaker 2: corrupt nature. It was just him not doing his job
17:34
Speaker 2: to the best that he could have. So when I
17:36
Speaker 2: did call his.
17:37
Speaker 3: Bluff and I did look at that, I remember walking up,
17:40
Speaker 3: literally scratching my head thinking, what the hell was.
17:42
Speaker 2: That all about?
17:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. Curious and curious. So there's no hard evidence of
17:48
Speaker 1: corruption that's ever come out. And when we were at
17:51
Speaker 1: the Crime Scene Oz conference, I hosted the panel with
17:56
Speaker 1: you and there were numerous ex-police officers, maybe a few
17:59
Speaker 1: current ones, I'm not sure, in the audience. And one
18:01
Speaker 1: approached me afterwards and said, there was a cover-up, but
18:06
Speaker 1: it wasn't about corruption. It was about the fact that
18:09
Speaker 1: your dad had been unfaithful to your mother. I think
18:14
Speaker 1: you've heard that one as well.
18:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have and I don't pursue that and respect
18:20
Speaker 3: to my mum, it's nothing that I would ever entertain.
18:24
Speaker 3: Is that MO for police in any police force in
18:30
Speaker 3: the 70s and 80s?
18:31
Speaker 2: Did they have those reputations? 100% they did.
18:36
Speaker 3: And was that a reason that dad would take his life?
18:42
Speaker 3: It doesn't join the dots for me.
18:44
Speaker 2: It doesn't.
18:45
Speaker 1: And I pressed him and I said, well, how do
18:49
Speaker 1: you know this and when did you know it? He said, well,
18:51
Speaker 1: that was what we were led to believe. I said, firsthand?
18:54
Speaker 1: He said, no, that's what was going around. So it's
18:57
Speaker 1: quite conceivable that this was something convenient if indeed there
19:02
Speaker 1: was some deeper, darker thing going on because, yeah, it
19:07
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem to, as you say, amount to a,
19:11
Speaker 1: motive to take one's life let's look at the the
19:14
Speaker 1: day itself how much do you know about the final
19:17
Speaker 1: movements and how he came to be in that place.
19:21
Speaker 3: That's probably the day that i'm in some respects i'm
19:25
Speaker 3: very clear on because of what so and so everybody's
19:30
Speaker 3: like memory of that day you can piece them together
19:33
Speaker 3: so i'm very clear on it but they don't make
19:35
Speaker 3: sense right so this is this is what we know
19:39
Speaker 3: SAPOL tried to say that dad couldn't go to court
19:43
Speaker 3: that day because there was a matter where a policeman
19:46
Speaker 3: was being charged with drug-related offences. Now, and so rather
19:52
Speaker 3: than give evidence against another cop, he couldn't do it.
19:55
Speaker 2: It. He stressed him that much into his life, right?
19:58
Speaker 3: It was a uniformed police officer that had a small
20:01
Speaker 3: bag of dope in his locker. Now, they knew that
20:04
Speaker 3: this copper had been doing small deals, if you like,
20:09
Speaker 3: with dope.
20:09
Speaker 2: On the street. And so.
20:13
Speaker 3: One of the witnesses in that matter had worked with
20:17
Speaker 3: this guy on the same team and they'd wired him
20:22
Speaker 3: so that in the locker room they could have a conversation.
20:24
Speaker 2: They got him to talk about what he was doing.
20:27
Speaker 3: Bang, we got you. So this is way after I
20:30
Speaker 3: wrote the book. I got a phone call from this
20:34
Speaker 3: person who's now an accountant. He didn't stick in the
20:36
Speaker 3: job very long at all. So this is the witness.
20:39
Speaker 3: He said that Dad rang him. at 6am from the
20:43
Speaker 3: phone box that morning to say, how are you feeling
20:47
Speaker 3: about today? You're right with your evidence. You've had a
20:51
Speaker 3: look at your statement. He said, I'm so glad you
20:55
Speaker 3: rang me, boss. Do I talk about how we got
20:59
Speaker 3: the evidence or would I be compromising the tools that
21:04
Speaker 3: we use when we want to, you.
21:06
Speaker 2: Know, do a stink?
21:08
Speaker 3: And Dad said, nah, mate, you've got to tell her
21:10
Speaker 3: how it is. If you're wearing a wire, you're wearing wire.
21:13
Speaker 3: If you recorded things, if you saw things, that's what
21:16
Speaker 3: we're there to do. That's what happened. It's up to
21:19
Speaker 3: the courts to decide. Now, what I'll do is I'll
21:23
Speaker 3: meet you there at 9.30 for the 10 o'clock start
21:26
Speaker 3: and we'll run through your statement again just so I
21:28
Speaker 3: can put you at ease. Now, I don't know this
21:31
Speaker 3: gentleman from anywhere, anyway. but he felt strongly enough to
21:38
Speaker 3: find me to say, I can't describe it and I
21:42
Speaker 3: can't put it in words, but a commissioned officer who's
21:46
Speaker 3: thinking about ending his life that day does not give
21:50
Speaker 3: a rat's ass about ringing a constable at home to
21:56
Speaker 3: see if he's okay with his court evidence that day.
21:59
Speaker 3: He said, you just You can't understand that he was
22:03
Speaker 3: just being a boss and he was being supportive, empathetic
22:07
Speaker 3: and looking after the boys.
22:08
Speaker 2: He said there was nothing about him. So that's the
22:12
Speaker 2: first thing.
22:14
Speaker 3: Then at seven-ish, he's rang one of his mates who
22:17
Speaker 3: was a serving copper. They had a conversation on the
22:20
Speaker 3: phone about a few things that.
22:22
Speaker 2: Were going on.
22:23
Speaker 3: It's not clear what that conversation was specifically for or about.
22:28
Speaker 3: But it was about some of the things that they
22:30
Speaker 3: chatted about in relation to what was going on in
22:34
Speaker 3: head office. This is the bit that doesn't make sense.
22:38
Speaker 3: So dad's boss, his direct boss, who was also going
22:42
Speaker 3: to be in court that day with them, said that
22:45
Speaker 3: he got a call around 8am from dad saying, boss,
22:51
Speaker 3: I could be late for court. I've got car troubles. Now,
22:56
Speaker 3: you don't have to be a detective to work out
22:58
Speaker 3: that Mount Barker, in those days, even before the freeway,
23:03
Speaker 3: you might have allowed an hour by the time you
23:06
Speaker 3: drive to court, get a park.
23:08
Speaker 2: And get inside.
23:09
Speaker 3: Court didn't start till, I think it was 10 to
23:12
Speaker 3: start at 10.15. So would you not have got Mount
23:15
Speaker 3: Barker patrol or an Adelaide patrol to go and pick
23:18
Speaker 3: him up and run him down the hill?
23:20
Speaker 2: So that didn't make sense. That's just crap. Again, 40 years.
23:24
Speaker 3: Later, a policeman's wife from Mount Barker said she pulled
23:28
Speaker 3: up at the traffic lights at the bottom of the
23:30
Speaker 3: freeway just as you go into the city and her
23:34
Speaker 3: kids were going to the dentist and they've said, Mum, look,
23:37
Speaker 3: there's Mr Whitford in his car next to us. That
23:40
Speaker 3: was 8.30. Yet he's supposed to have rang to say
23:43
Speaker 3: he's had car troubles. She reported that to the police
23:47
Speaker 3: in 1981 and no one ever took a statement from her.
23:50
Speaker 2: They didn't want to know about it.
23:52
Speaker 3: So now this is where it gets confusing because Some
23:56
Speaker 3: say he went into head office that morning.
23:59
Speaker 2: Others say he didn't.
24:01
Speaker 3: There was a statement taken from a constable that was
24:03
Speaker 3: walking down outside headquarters that believes that they saw Dad
24:08
Speaker 3: drive past in Carrington Street that morning. Again, who knows?
24:15
Speaker 3: The next that we hear is Mum getting advised that
24:20
Speaker 3: Dad didn't show up to court and he's missing. Now...
24:24
Speaker 3: That's in the afternoon of the 22nd of October. So
24:31
Speaker 3: apparently the boss, the bigger boss, came into headquarters at
24:37
Speaker 3: around 10.30, 11-ish. Hey, boys, we've got a bit of
24:43
Speaker 3: a matter on hand. We didn't show up for court.
24:48
Speaker 3: Something's not right. We've declared him as a missing person.
24:52
Speaker 3: and we're going to start, we're going to launch a
24:54
Speaker 3: state search. The whole floor, the different teams, have jumped up,
25:00
Speaker 3: pretty well all playing close, so they've got.
25:02
Speaker 2: Their kit in their drawer next to their desk. Start
25:06
Speaker 2: kitting up.
25:08
Speaker 3: The boss says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't need any
25:12
Speaker 3: of you involved in this. We've got it in hand.
25:17
Speaker 3: You can put your gear down. You've all got plenty
25:19
Speaker 3: of typing to catch up on. So a number of
25:24
Speaker 3: good blokes have said, we then thought, what the hell
25:28
Speaker 3: is going on here?
25:30
Speaker 2: This is not right. Our mate's missing and we've been
25:33
Speaker 2: told to stand down.
25:35
Speaker 1: So there was supposedly a statewide search going on being
25:38
Speaker 1: conducted by a handful of people by the sound.
25:43
Speaker 2: Correct.
25:44
Speaker 3: So then we don't really know what happened from there.
25:47
Speaker 3: There's all sorts of mixed stories from there. What we
25:50
Speaker 3: do know is... This lovely couple are still alive. So
25:55
Speaker 3: Dad used to drink at a place called the Handorf
25:57
Speaker 3: Inn in Handorf and regularly. Mum worked there in the
26:03
Speaker 3: office and she also worked for the butcher that had
26:07
Speaker 3: a German butcher shop next door. The butcher had just
26:11
Speaker 3: bought the butcher shop in Maiponga. He's out the front
26:17
Speaker 3: that morning that Dad went missing and and he's washing
26:22
Speaker 3: out a tray from where he's been making his sausages
26:25
Speaker 3: under the tap. He sees Wick's cream valiant drive down
26:30
Speaker 3: the main street of Maponga. He's looked up to grab
26:33
Speaker 3: his attention, and he described it that Wick put a
26:36
Speaker 3: hand up over the side of his face as to
26:40
Speaker 3: try and be not seen as to who's driving the car.
26:43
Speaker 3: He's gone inside and said to his wife, I'm pretty
26:47
Speaker 3: sure I just saw Wick drive past. That's not like him.
26:53
Speaker 3: He knows we're here now. He would have normally stopped
26:55
Speaker 3: for a chat. Hope he's okay.
26:58
Speaker 2: That was it. That was their conversation. That was it.
27:02
Speaker 2: When you look down the main street, sorry.
27:04
Speaker 1: How far are we talking about from Adelaide? And it's
27:07
Speaker 1: just to give the geographic location.
27:09
Speaker 2: About an hour.
27:12
Speaker 3: And so where he looks down the road, so Dad
27:17
Speaker 3: was heading south towards Victor Harbour. Where the butcher looks
27:22
Speaker 3: straight down that road, you can't see any main turn
27:27
Speaker 3: offs or anything. So you can't see the turn off
27:29
Speaker 3: to the beach. It's not within sight. So moving forward,
27:36
Speaker 3: the search is on supposedly. This is still the butcher's perspective.
27:41
Speaker 3: He doesn't think anything more of it. He goes about
27:43
Speaker 3: his day and about 6pm that night he comes inside
27:48
Speaker 3: and his wife says, Whit's missing, it's on the news.
27:52
Speaker 3: And she said, do you think we better let them
27:55
Speaker 3: know what we saw? And he had recently been a
27:59
Speaker 3: witness in a murder trial. So he was very uncomfortable
28:04
Speaker 3: about contacting police after the way he'd been made to feel.
28:08
Speaker 2: He didn't trust them.
28:10
Speaker 3: So what he did is he rang, like Crimestoppers, he
28:14
Speaker 3: rang the police hotline and said that he was a fisherman.
28:18
Speaker 3: So didn't give his name, didn't give where he was from,
28:23
Speaker 3: just that he was a fisherman and that he'd seen
28:25
Speaker 3: the valley go through my pond at that time.
28:29
Speaker 2: That was the information he passed on.
28:34
Speaker 3: So that's what we know from the butcher's perspective and
28:39
Speaker 3: that's corroborated well by his wife. They're still alive and
28:42
Speaker 3: well and they still live in the area and they've
28:45
Speaker 3: been extremely helpful with providing statements.
28:49
Speaker 2: Going back to the book, When.
28:51
Speaker 3: I went around and I interviewed everyone, there was the
28:54
Speaker 3: four policemen that were the key two partners, if you like,
29:01
Speaker 3: two partnerships to locate Dad's body.
29:06
Speaker 2: So there's four of them.
29:07
Speaker 3: It's a commissioned officer who's died by a gunshot wound
29:11
Speaker 3: and bits of what I've asked them, they're a bit vague,
29:17
Speaker 3: which I find a bit unusual. I think it would
29:20
Speaker 3: have been a pretty big thing in your life. Again,
29:22
Speaker 3: the long story short here is you had to go
29:27
Speaker 3: around a goat track from the main beach. It's called
29:30
Speaker 3: Pebbly Beach and it's quite a drive from Maiponga down
29:32
Speaker 3: through these windy hills. You had to go around a
29:35
Speaker 3: goat track and it's really skinny. It's literally a goat
29:38
Speaker 3: track on the side of a hill. So one foot
29:41
Speaker 3: wrong and you'd slip and potentially roll down the hill.
29:44
Speaker 3: And so dad was found around the corner so not
29:47
Speaker 3: within view of any flashlights or anything of an evening
29:52
Speaker 3: but this is where it becomes just we still don't
29:58
Speaker 3: understand this part Adam so two of them that were
30:02
Speaker 3: working together said that Dad was found on the side
30:05
Speaker 3: of the hill, halfway up the hill towards the clifftop,
30:10
Speaker 3: on his back with his right arm stretched out, with
30:15
Speaker 3: the firearm just close to the fingers, next to like
30:24
Speaker 3: a native bush, if you like, that's growing sideways out
30:27
Speaker 3: the side of the hill. So distinctively in... dark, reddy sand,
30:33
Speaker 3: arm out at right angles with a bush. Now, some
30:38
Speaker 3: years after Dad died, none of us were coping very
30:42
Speaker 3: well with grief and sleepless nights and to the point
30:48
Speaker 3: we didn't even know if it really happened.
30:50
Speaker 2: Had he gone undercover? Had he been kidnapped? Had he
30:53
Speaker 2: been whatever?
30:55
Speaker 3: So police welfare decided it might be a good thing
30:57
Speaker 3: if we went to the coroner's office and had a
30:59
Speaker 3: look at the photos.
31:01
Speaker 2: So as a family, they organised that.
31:03
Speaker 3: They came and picked us up, took us down there,
31:06
Speaker 3: looked at the photos.
31:06
Speaker 2: I don't remember it. I think my mind decided to
31:09
Speaker 2: not remember it. But my mum and my older sisters
31:12
Speaker 2: distinctly remember, hands out to the right, right angles, and
31:16
Speaker 2: the bush.
31:18
Speaker 3: So that's what they lived with all these 40 years.
31:21
Speaker 3: The other two coppers have said that they found Dad
31:26
Speaker 3: down from the goat track in the rocks. near the
31:31
Speaker 3: water in soft sand with his arms both by his
31:36
Speaker 3: side with clenched fists. So as you can understand, that's
31:41
Speaker 3: two pretty different descriptions of a crime scene.
31:46
Speaker 1: Well, very different. But you've got photographs and you showed
31:51
Speaker 1: them to me which also raised questions. First of all,
31:55
Speaker 1: I mean, that first version, higher up the hill, is
31:58
Speaker 1: there a photograph of that?
32:00
Speaker 2: No.
32:01
Speaker 1: So what you're left with is just the photograph where
32:03
Speaker 1: your dad's in the soft sand, his arms are by
32:07
Speaker 1: his side, fists clenched, and his firearm is somehow pointing
32:14
Speaker 1: muzzle down into the sand.
32:17
Speaker 2: That's correct, isn't it?
32:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, with the grip almost at right-hand angles, leaning away.
32:27
Speaker 3: Like you've actually had to curl your hand around to
32:30
Speaker 3: push it in so that it's actually at a right
32:32
Speaker 3: angle to the body.
32:33
Speaker 2: It's actually away. It's not even, you know, towards the body.
32:40
Speaker 3: So we saw those photos and mum's like, that is
32:46
Speaker 3: not the photos we saw.
32:47
Speaker 2: That is not the photos.
32:48
Speaker 3: I said, well, that's the photos that are in the
32:51
Speaker 3: coroner's file after we were eventually allowed to see that.
32:55
Speaker 1: And.
32:59
Speaker 3: Everything in the coroner's notes talks about Dad being in
33:02
Speaker 3: the rocks. So our first assumption is he's been moved.
33:08
Speaker 3: And why did they move him? Because we know there's
33:12
Speaker 3: two sets of photos. We also know that any crime scene,
33:18
Speaker 3: you would normally leave police officers, as you mentioned before,
33:22
Speaker 3: I was a copper, I know how it works, to
33:25
Speaker 3: guard a scene under night light So that's preserved. And
33:30
Speaker 3: then you bring in your crime scene technicians, your bosses,
33:36
Speaker 3: your coroner, whoever needs to come in and assess that
33:40
Speaker 3: crime scene properly and make sure that everything's been done
33:44
Speaker 3: with due diligence. Now, SAPOL's explanation to us was we
33:50
Speaker 3: got him out under darkness, we got him out quickly,
33:53
Speaker 3: we just threw him in one of those I like
33:57
Speaker 3: to think if they've got a name, but it's like
33:59
Speaker 3: the stretcher, I suppose, that you see in MASH where.
34:02
Speaker 2: It's got four handles on it.
34:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:05
Speaker 3: And ran him around the goat track and got him
34:07
Speaker 3: out so that no media would be able to see
34:10
Speaker 3: any of.
34:10
Speaker 2: That crime scene.
34:11
Speaker 3: That was their, I suppose, reasoning as to why things
34:16
Speaker 3: were done so hastily under darkness.
34:18
Speaker 1: Right. Let's take a step back for a moment. Normally
34:21
Speaker 1: in these situations the person, the officer, whoever it would be,
34:25
Speaker 1: would give a statement. as to where the bodies found,
34:30
Speaker 1: what they saw, to provide a baseline. Was that done?
34:35
Speaker 2: Not done properly, no.
34:36
Speaker 3: I mean, there's what you call an investigating officer that
34:41
Speaker 3: owns that report, if you like. So that investigating officer,
34:46
Speaker 3: he did a statement, which was not very detailed, not
34:51
Speaker 3: very long, didn't really cover too much at all, And
34:55
Speaker 3: then when you've got the pairs of police officers, one
34:59
Speaker 3: of each pair gave a statement but didn't describe.
35:04
Speaker 2: Really where the body was. It was just, this is
35:07
Speaker 2: what we did. We found it.
35:08
Speaker 3: There was a gunshot wound. Crime scene came. So no,
35:11
Speaker 3: there was no really good descriptions. There was no good photographs.
35:16
Speaker 3: There was no seizing of bullets or the shells. They
35:21
Speaker 3: took the firearms and it was reissued.
35:25
Speaker 1: Somebody else.
35:27
Speaker 2: To another police officer to use.
35:29
Speaker 1: Now, as we've said before, you were a police officer.
35:33
Speaker 1: If you'd done a crime scene statement like that, what
35:38
Speaker 1: would your sergeant or senior sergeant have said to you
35:42
Speaker 1: about your level of competence and attention to detail?
35:46
Speaker 3: Well, it wouldn't be accepted. And you're the chair, not
35:49
Speaker 3: the witness. You've got to put together all of the
35:52
Speaker 3: witness statements.
35:53
Speaker 2: So... I still struggle with witnesses that.
35:57
Speaker 3: Either didn't give a statement and there was one in
36:00
Speaker 3: there or they gave them and they weren't detailed and 99%
36:04
Speaker 3: of them weren't signed or dated. So who knows whether
36:07
Speaker 3: these people gave statements in the first place. So there
36:11
Speaker 3: was a statement from the butcher in there and to
36:15
Speaker 3: the point that he supposedly cooked them all breakfast the
36:19
Speaker 3: morning after they found wit out of goodwill. for the
36:24
Speaker 3: local coppers and for the coppers from Adelaide. And that's
36:27
Speaker 3: all crap. He didn't cook anyone breakfast. So there's this
36:31
Speaker 3: whole story that's been painted. The boss that threatened me
36:35
Speaker 3: that Dad was the one on the tape, he told
36:38
Speaker 3: me that he was running the whole search from Angus
36:42
Speaker 3: Street headquarters.
36:44
Speaker 2: Yet two of the officers.
36:45
Speaker 3: That found Dad that were amongst that four, one in particular, said, no,
36:51
Speaker 3: that boss called us to Victor Hotel which we were
36:55
Speaker 3: at over the weekend, which is ironic, at lunchtime and
37:00
Speaker 3: told us where to search, that he had information that
37:04
Speaker 3: he believed that it was in the area of Maponga
37:06
Speaker 3: Beach and sent them off there to find him.
37:09
Speaker 1: And how did he know this and when did he
37:12
Speaker 1: know it?
37:13
Speaker 3: Again, he was a superintendent in charge of the whole
37:20
Speaker 3: squad and, as I mentioned earlier... Dad passes information up
37:24
Speaker 3: to these people and then you find out all these
37:27
Speaker 3: years later that they actually told four officers where to
37:32
Speaker 3: find him. And if I can just, you know, there's
37:35
Speaker 3: something really important here that I'd really love to share.
37:38
Speaker 2: So one of the officers was living in Queensland.
37:41
Speaker 3: So I couldn't interview him face-to-face like I did to
37:44
Speaker 3: the other three that found him. And I spoke to
37:48
Speaker 3: him in Queensland and he said to me, It's really
37:51
Speaker 3: important that you know what really happened that day. It's
37:55
Speaker 3: time that you knew and that your family got the truth.
37:59
Speaker 3: And I said, okay, hit me with it. He said, no,
38:03
Speaker 3: I can't talk to you about this on the phone.
38:07
Speaker 3: It's too important and it wouldn't be fair on.
38:09
Speaker 2: You or me.
38:10
Speaker 3: I'm going to fly down. And I'm like, holy hell,
38:14
Speaker 3: what has he got to tell me? So we organised
38:18
Speaker 3: to meet. in a cafeteria for lunch in North Adelaide.
38:23
Speaker 3: And so, again, he flew at his own cost in
38:26
Speaker 3: his own time and he actually had cancer. So it
38:32
Speaker 3: was one of those, you know, no disrespect to him,
38:36
Speaker 3: but I'd sort of been waiting for somebody that perhaps
38:38
Speaker 3: knew that they were on a timeline that they thought,
38:42
Speaker 3: what the hell, what have I got to lose? I'm
38:44
Speaker 3: going to spill the beans, clear my conscience, whatever that is.
38:48
Speaker 3: So we get in there and we chat and we
38:49
Speaker 3: did all the formalities and I bought him lunch and
38:53
Speaker 3: lovely bloke. And I said to him, so tell me
38:56
Speaker 3: why you're here. And he said, did you need to
38:58
Speaker 3: know what an amazing man your father was and how
39:00
Speaker 3: proud he was of you girls and what you meant
39:02
Speaker 3: to him? And I just looked at him with this
39:06
Speaker 3: blank look. He's like, isn't that what you were looking for?
39:10
Speaker 3: And I said, yes, that's lovely, but I don't understand
39:13
Speaker 3: why you'd fly from Queensland to tell me that. This
39:16
Speaker 3: is really impressive. that you didn't just know what everyone
39:20
Speaker 3: thought of him, not just as a father, but as
39:23
Speaker 3: a boss and as a best man, a very good policeman.
39:26
Speaker 3: And we got talking and he was a little bit
39:28
Speaker 3: mixed up. He was a little bit all over the place,
39:30
Speaker 3: whether it was a little bit of sort of Alzheimer's type.
39:34
Speaker 2: And then... there it was. I said something. I can't
39:37
Speaker 2: even remember what I said.
39:38
Speaker 3: And his response was, yeah, we were just talking about
39:42
Speaker 3: that when I caught up with some of the boys
39:43
Speaker 3: last night and my door dropped.
39:47
Speaker 2: So they got to him and they shut him up.
39:50
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem right that this is something he could
39:52
Speaker 1: have passed to you over the phone. He's got to
39:54
Speaker 1: fly all the way to South Australia. Door slamming in
39:59
Speaker 1: all directions on you, Amanda. The other thing that we
40:04
Speaker 1: talked about was the notes, or the notes specific to
40:08
Speaker 1: your mother. There was language in there that didn't sound
40:11
Speaker 1: like your father. Is that fair to say?
40:14
Speaker 2: That's correct. So Dad wrote four notes.
40:18
Speaker 3: Yet one of the four officers told me there was
40:20
Speaker 3: five and there was a fifth note. Other coppers said
40:23
Speaker 3: that they were talking about the contents of the fifth
40:26
Speaker 3: note with the teams in head office. I'm still yet
40:29
Speaker 3: to see that or have any knowledge of a fifth note.
40:32
Speaker 3: But of the four notes, there was one to my mum,
40:35
Speaker 3: his wife, his mum, not his mum and dad, just
40:39
Speaker 3: his mum, which is really strange because he was extremely
40:42
Speaker 3: close to his dad, assistant commissioner and his direct boss.
40:49
Speaker 2: So he wrote notes to all of them. And Assistant Commissioner.
40:57
Speaker 3: If Dad was so stressed about what he had to
40:59
Speaker 3: do and what he was asked to do in relation
41:01
Speaker 3: to corruption, he allegedly, well, I've read the note, he
41:05
Speaker 3: said to Assistant Commissioner, I can 100% assure you, boss,
41:10
Speaker 3: there is no, underline, corruption in the South Australian Police Force.
41:17
Speaker 3: So That's just absolute bullshit. If that's what's causing you
41:22
Speaker 3: to take your life, you're not going to write. That's
41:24
Speaker 3: like kindergarten shit.
41:27
Speaker 2: And so.
41:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that note was corroborated as being your father's handwriting?
41:36
Speaker 2: Yes and no. I'll touch on that. Then the note
41:41
Speaker 2: to mum. This is an interesting one.
41:45
Speaker 3: So there was also in his bosses there was reference
41:48
Speaker 3: to something that Dad had put in the safe. Again,
41:53
Speaker 3: was that to try and cover someone's arse? Because, again,
41:58
Speaker 3: why would you be putting that detail in notes? There's
42:01
Speaker 3: something relevant to that safe. But the one that he
42:04
Speaker 3: wrote to Mum, so we were 19, 13 and 9,
42:09
Speaker 3: and he wrote, he was absolute stickler for Mum Perfectionism.
42:16
Speaker 2: He is a perfectionist.
42:18
Speaker 3: So mum says that when they found dad's car and
42:23
Speaker 3: they told her the car had been located and that
42:26
Speaker 3: his tie was on the passenger seat, she immediately knew
42:29
Speaker 3: he was dead because Whit did not go anywhere in
42:33
Speaker 3: public while he was working without his tie on and
42:37
Speaker 3: his shoes polished.
42:39
Speaker 2: That's what kind of bloke he was. The note to
42:42
Speaker 2: mum said, Pam.
42:45
Speaker 3: Not dear Pam, not to my wife Pam, nothing, just Pam.
42:52
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry that I have.
42:54
Speaker 3: Caused you or will cause you any uncomfort. Now, that
43:01
Speaker 3: word doesn't exist.
43:02
Speaker 1: Uncomfort.
43:03
Speaker 2: Uncomfort.
43:04
Speaker 3: Can't even say it properly. It's that horrific. Then uncomfort
43:12
Speaker 3: and you have no idea why. what love I have
43:17
Speaker 3: for my three children. Now, we're 9 and 13 and 19.
43:23
Speaker 3: We were never his children then.
43:24
Speaker 2: We were his girls.
43:26
Speaker 3: He always said, my girls, my girls, my girls. But
43:30
Speaker 3: there was reference to uncomfort and my children. Now, a
43:35
Speaker 3: lot of people might say, look, you know, you're trying
43:37
Speaker 3: to look for a needle in a haystack. When you
43:40
Speaker 3: know that person and how they behave and what's important
43:44
Speaker 3: to them, And, you know, he had a very distinctive handwriting.
43:50
Speaker 2: You can see through all of that and say he
43:52
Speaker 2: didn't write those notes, 100%. He didn't write them.
43:56
Speaker 3: And it's really interesting because mum wasn't given her note
44:01
Speaker 3: until five days after he was found, which was the
44:06
Speaker 3: day of the funeral.
44:07
Speaker 2: So when was the note?
44:10
Speaker 1: Why would that be denied her?
44:13
Speaker 2: And, you know, Adam... they gave her a photocopy. Now,
44:17
Speaker 2: how disrespectful is that?
44:19
Speaker 3: And secondly, they needed her marriage certificate as part of
44:24
Speaker 3: the death certificate. So she provided that and they lost it.
44:31
Speaker 3: So mum doesn't have a marriage certificate anymore because Saipal
44:34
Speaker 3: lost it. This is just a few examples of how
44:38
Speaker 3: terribly everything was managed.
44:41
Speaker 2: And I'll just add, going back to your.
44:46
Speaker 3: About charges against these particular coppers that were dirty and
44:51
Speaker 3: on the take. And everyone knows who they were. I
44:55
Speaker 3: only had a copper say to me the other day,
44:57
Speaker 3: that's retired, you've got to be really careful because I
45:00
Speaker 3: was shit scared of them back then and I would
45:03
Speaker 3: be shit scared of them right now if I were you.
45:06
Speaker 3: There was an inquiry in March 1982 called the Griffin
45:10
Speaker 3: Report and there was a number of charges in there
45:15
Speaker 3: And it's to do with gambling, licensing acts, stolen goods.
45:24
Speaker 3: There's allegations and it's got cartels and Italian families and
45:28
Speaker 3: it's all full on Adelaide in the 1970s. And there's
45:34
Speaker 3: a number of charges that did not proceed. And I
45:38
Speaker 3: got given the copy of the report and what you'd
45:42
Speaker 3: call the The codes as to which name had which code,
45:47
Speaker 3: so it might be Witness B and then it's got
45:51
Speaker 3: Is Adam Shan? And then throughout the document you'd be
45:54
Speaker 3: referred to as Witness B. So one of the heroin dealers,
45:58
Speaker 3: Dad would roll in his grave if he knew that
46:00
Speaker 3: I went and interviewed him, he gave me the whole
46:03
Speaker 3: report and the codes. And there's quite a number of
46:07
Speaker 3: charges that it says clearly discharge will not proceed. as
46:12
Speaker 3: Officer O is deceased or Witness O. This will not
46:16
Speaker 3: proceed as Witness O is deceased. And it's right throughout
46:20
Speaker 3: the report. So it's in black and white that there
46:22
Speaker 3: was going to be pending matters where Dad was witness
46:26
Speaker 3: to corruption, but the charges were dropped because he was
46:30
Speaker 3: no longer there to give that evidence.
46:31
Speaker 2: Right. And that is in black and white.
46:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Your investigation has raised so many questions and the
46:39
Speaker 1: more you dig, the more questions arise.
46:41
Speaker 2: Yes.
46:42
Speaker 1: What's the coroner's view on all this? What has the
46:45
Speaker 1: coroner of South Australia done to untangle this web?
46:50
Speaker 3: So I believe in karma. Good things happen if you wait.
46:53
Speaker 3: I had a barrister come on board from Perth and
46:57
Speaker 3: she wouldn't allow me to pay her anything. She's just
47:00
Speaker 3: a beautiful lady that learned what had happened to our family.
47:04
Speaker 3: So we put together, we went and interviewed 30-odd witnesses
47:08
Speaker 3: and put together all signed affidavits. with a team of us,
47:13
Speaker 3: and she put a submission to the coroner that we
47:19
Speaker 3: had enough evidence for an inquest. Before that, I'd gone
47:22
Speaker 3: to two coroners just to see Dad's coroner's report, and
47:27
Speaker 3: I was denied. It said on the front, private and confidential,
47:31
Speaker 3: and it shall never be opened, and the reasoning was
47:35
Speaker 3: due to unsubstantiated allegations against Dad.
47:40
Speaker 2: People who are still living, basically. So I wasn't allowed
47:44
Speaker 2: to see it under any circumstances.
47:46
Speaker 3: I then ended up working with Frank Pangelo and he
47:51
Speaker 3: put a submission through Parliament that if you hadn't had
47:55
Speaker 3: an inquest and it was over 20 years old and
47:59
Speaker 3: there wasn't a pending inquest, that you can access the report.
48:03
Speaker 2: So that's when the coroner....
48:07
Speaker 1: Frank is a former journalist who became an independent member
48:10
Speaker 1: of South Australian Parliament. He's now a Liberal, I believe.
48:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
48:17
Speaker 1: He's joined one side, hasn't he?
48:18
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah.
48:19
Speaker 1: Terrific journalist. Yeah.
48:21
Speaker 3: And I did go to him and he said, well,
48:24
Speaker 3: this is not right. You know, you're allowed to see
48:26
Speaker 3: your dad's coroner's report, for God's sake.
48:28
Speaker 2: You know, it's your father that died. So we got
48:31
Speaker 2: over that hurdle and we were able to write every
48:35
Speaker 2: word in the whole report. and sketch all the photos.
48:40
Speaker 3: From there, as I said, we spent months putting together
48:43
Speaker 3: the submission and it went to Coroner Whittle. It was
48:49
Speaker 3: a good 18 months before we got an answer. And
48:54
Speaker 3: through that time, our coroner's office don't have their own
49:00
Speaker 3: investigators at all.
49:02
Speaker 2: So they seconded SA policemen.
49:04
Speaker 3: To go and re-interview all of the witnesses that we
49:07
Speaker 3: had used to put together in our submission. So if
49:12
Speaker 3: this isn't enough to say this is not fair and
49:17
Speaker 3: it's not justice and it's not okay, we've got, there
49:23
Speaker 3: were two brand new detectives as their first little stint
49:28
Speaker 3: in plainclothes who were given all of these statements, many
49:33
Speaker 3: including retired detectives. So you've got the green detectives interviewing
49:39
Speaker 3: retired detectives about the death of a commissioned officer that
49:45
Speaker 3: had information about corrupt detectives. So you tell me how
49:50
Speaker 3: that's fair. These two officers had come back to me
49:55
Speaker 3: and basically said, all the retired cops have all said this,
49:58
Speaker 3: so this has got to be true and you're wrong.
50:00
Speaker 1: Well, the easy way for the coroner to work through
50:02
Speaker 1: this is to hold a public inquest. With broad subpoena powers,
50:07
Speaker 1: he can compel the witnesses, issue summonses, seize material evidence
50:10
Speaker 1: for an inquest. Well, what's happened?
50:14
Speaker 2: I don't know.
50:15
Speaker 3: They had a legal team or a lawyer working in
50:19
Speaker 3: the coroner's office and there was an understanding that any
50:25
Speaker 3: time the coroner's office wanted to communicate with me, it
50:28
Speaker 3: was through our barrister, amazing.
50:33
Speaker 2: Barrister, public speaker. She's just an amazing lady.
50:38
Speaker 3: And then if they wanted to talk to me, they
50:40
Speaker 3: had to go through her and if I wanted a
50:41
Speaker 3: message to the coroner's court, I had to go through
50:43
Speaker 3: her also.
50:44
Speaker 2: She was the medium. I get this direct.
50:47
Speaker 3: Phone call from the coroner's office saying, we need you
50:50
Speaker 3: to come in for a meeting next Friday. We've just
50:53
Speaker 3: got a new document we need to run through with you.
50:56
Speaker 3: So I've contacted Judith, Judith Fordham, and I said, Judith,
51:00
Speaker 3: I've just been asked to go to the coroner's office.
51:03
Speaker 2: And she said, you what?
51:04
Speaker 3: They didn't go through me. I don't know anything about it.
51:07
Speaker 3: And I said, well, I've been invited. There's a new document.
51:10
Speaker 3: So we've asked, can she dial in from Perth is
51:14
Speaker 3: where she's from, on a video call. So I've gone
51:17
Speaker 3: in there and there's the solicitor from the coroner's office
51:23
Speaker 3: and the detective that was running the team that had
51:27
Speaker 3: gone through all of our statements. And he's now sitting
51:30
Speaker 3: there wearing a commissioned officer's uniform, exactly the same as dad's.
51:35
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking, what the hell is going on here?
51:38
Speaker 3: So I've turned to him and I've said, are you
51:40
Speaker 3: a boss now?
51:42
Speaker 2: He said, yeah. He said, I'm not sure what I
51:44
Speaker 2: was thinking. I said, oh, where are you? And he said, oh,
51:46
Speaker 2: internal affairs.
51:47
Speaker 3: I said, oh, so our investigation got you moving where
51:52
Speaker 3: you wanted to move then.
51:54
Speaker 2: I sat down.
51:55
Speaker 3: I can't even tell you how it started and what
51:58
Speaker 3: she said because I lost my shit. The solicitor went
52:02
Speaker 3: on to read me a letter from the coroner advising
52:07
Speaker 3: me that he feels for the family. We've obviously had
52:11
Speaker 3: a really hard time with everything.
52:12
Speaker 2: You know, he empathises. However... No, no, no, no, no,
52:17
Speaker 2: there will not be any inquest. This matter is now final.
52:22
Speaker 3: I did not see that coming. Not that we weren't
52:25
Speaker 3: getting a no, but I had no idea what that
52:27
Speaker 3: meeting was for. No heads up, no. I felt like
52:30
Speaker 3: I was tricked to be there. I had no preparation
52:33
Speaker 3: to hear this. And she read a letter that was
52:35
Speaker 3: more than two pages long. I can't remember one.
52:38
Speaker 2: Word of it. Do this on the video. I've just started, like,
52:42
Speaker 2: couldn't breathe. I was like.
52:45
Speaker 3: With my crying and I'm not normally like that. And
52:48
Speaker 3: Judith said, can you send Amanda outside? She needs some air.
52:52
Speaker 3: They've said, we'll go outside. So they left the room.
52:56
Speaker 2: I'm howling.
52:56
Speaker 3: She's on video. She's like, calm down, calm down, just
53:00
Speaker 3: slow your breathing down. And I said, I can't believe this.
53:02
Speaker 3: They've done this to me.
53:03
Speaker 2: We had no idea.
53:05
Speaker 3: Didn't really understand the reasons why it wasn't going to happen.
53:08
Speaker 3: And they've come back in. And the assistant lent forward
53:12
Speaker 3: and said, are you right to get home? You do
53:15
Speaker 3: have a two-hour drive. And I said, basically, you arseholes.
53:22
Speaker 3: I had no warning of this, no support person, nothing,
53:27
Speaker 3: and you've given me no understanding of why we're not
53:29
Speaker 3: getting this inquest. I turned to the detective who's now
53:34
Speaker 3: boss and turned around and said, say, Paula, arseholes. And
53:38
Speaker 3: I said to her, I respect that you had a
53:39
Speaker 3: job to do and you did do it very well.
53:41
Speaker 2: Because she was. She was lovely. She was just doing
53:43
Speaker 2: her job. And I left.
53:46
Speaker 3: Now, I've asked for a copy of the letter from
53:49
Speaker 3: the coroner so that I can read it, you know,
53:52
Speaker 3: while I've actually got my head switched on. And that's
53:56
Speaker 3: been denied, so I'm not allowed to have a copy
53:59
Speaker 3: of the letter from the coroner as to why we're
54:01
Speaker 3: not having an inquest. I can go and view it
54:05
Speaker 3: if I want to, but I can't take notes.
54:08
Speaker 1: I think you should do that. Right, that's where we are.
54:11
Speaker 1: The coroner's not holding an inquest. Where does that leave
54:14
Speaker 1: you and the family? You've got your book there. You
54:16
Speaker 1: continue to talk to people. What evidence do you think
54:19
Speaker 1: is still available out there to be obtained?
54:23
Speaker 3: You have to understand what SAPOL, when I say SAPOL,
54:26
Speaker 3: I keep referring to SA Police or any police department
54:29
Speaker 3: it's like, whether you want to compare them to the
54:32
Speaker 3: army or whatever. Those blokes that are Dad's age, A,
54:36
Speaker 3: half of them aren't alive anymore because Dad would have
54:38
Speaker 3: been in his early 80s. B, some of them are
54:42
Speaker 3: choosing to say they're losing their memory. But C, they
54:45
Speaker 3: went through Fort Largs Academy for four years. They were
54:49
Speaker 3: like brothers. So I got your back, you got mine.
54:51
Speaker 3: No matter what goes down, you keep your mouth shut,
54:55
Speaker 3: you know. If I had a dollar for every police
54:58
Speaker 3: officer that said they chose to get out of headquarters
55:02
Speaker 3: because they didn't want to get mixed up in all
55:04
Speaker 3: that shit and they were at risk, I've got so
55:08
Speaker 3: many that have said, hey, off the record, this is
55:10
Speaker 3: what sort of shit happened. You'd be in the police club,
55:13
Speaker 3: there'd be a conversation, it might be around deals that
55:16
Speaker 3: they were doing on the street. It was quite easy
55:20
Speaker 3: if they did a big drug bust, they just don't
55:24
Speaker 3: book it all in, they don't book all the money in,
55:26
Speaker 3: they recycle it. And if you look like you're a
55:29
Speaker 3: risk at all, my understanding was at least one occasion
55:34
Speaker 3: they stuck a wad of cash in your suit pocket
55:37
Speaker 3: while you're pissed at the police club, you wake up
55:40
Speaker 3: the next day, you've got cash on you, you're in
55:43
Speaker 3: a corner, you're in, what are you going to do?
55:45
Speaker 2: Where are you going to go? They've shut you up.
55:48
Speaker 3: So I'm not relying on any of them to come
55:51
Speaker 3: forward now with new information.
55:53
Speaker 2: It's not realistic. If it does, fantastic.
55:57
Speaker 3: But again, they're going to be made to be the
56:00
Speaker 3: one that's, there's too many of them that have all
56:03
Speaker 3: got their heads together and Completely lied from what, because
56:08
Speaker 3: we saw the investigation of what came back with the
56:12
Speaker 3: witness statements from what SAPOL did.
56:15
Speaker 2: And it's terrible.
56:16
Speaker 3: And just on that, before I sort of answer your question,
56:20
Speaker 3: I'll give you one example. These two young coppers went
56:23
Speaker 3: and interviewed mum, a widow who's 81, who never remarried because.
56:28
Speaker 2: The love of her life broke her heart.
56:30
Speaker 3: And when they interviewed mum, they talked to her about
56:35
Speaker 3: where where the photos were that she saw and she's
56:38
Speaker 3: saying I'm out to the right with a bush ready
56:41
Speaker 3: sand grip fingers fire up that's not what the photos
56:46
Speaker 3: are Mrs Whitford you're sure you're remembering correctly you are
56:51
Speaker 3: getting old maybe it's just the angle of what you
56:55
Speaker 3: saw the photos but his head was definitely on a
56:57
Speaker 3: rock and soft sand you are getting old I think
57:00
Speaker 3: you might be just a bit confused And this is
57:03
Speaker 3: the disrespect that they showed her.
57:06
Speaker 2: So they've left.
57:07
Speaker 3: Mums rang me bawling, saying they don't believe me. They
57:10
Speaker 3: think I've lost my marbles and that I'm making up stories.
57:14
Speaker 3: They would introduce themselves, i.e. to the butcher, take his statement. Look,
57:21
Speaker 3: we're just here to run through the motions. Everyone knows
57:24
Speaker 3: it's just a straight-out suicide, but we've got to take
57:26
Speaker 3: your information and put it into a statement anyway. So
57:30
Speaker 3: this was the attitude. the unprofessionalism and the disrespect that
57:35
Speaker 3: SAPOL showed when they put together their so-called inquiry.
57:39
Speaker 2: Into whether there should be an inquest on behalf of
57:41
Speaker 2: the corridor.
57:42
Speaker 3: So I can't rely on police to do anything. I
57:45
Speaker 3: went to both the police ministers about how disgusting this
57:49
Speaker 3: was all.
57:51
Speaker 2: I forget what happened in 81. That was corrupt.
57:54
Speaker 3: That was dad's death was total cover-up, 100%. But the
58:01
Speaker 3: way SAPOL have investigated it and treated our family back
58:05
Speaker 3: then and back now, I wrote to Grant Stephens and
58:09
Speaker 3: I requested that we had a meeting so I could
58:11
Speaker 3: sit down and we could amicably talk about how SAPOL
58:15
Speaker 3: had not handled this professionally. Now, some months went by
58:20
Speaker 3: and I got no response. Eventually, when I pushed it,
58:24
Speaker 3: I got a response from a superintendent from the internal
58:29
Speaker 3: behaviours unit called Superintendent Amit Savin, who I've never heard of,
58:37
Speaker 3: saying that he's writing to me on behalf of the Commissioner,
58:40
Speaker 3: understands it's been difficult losing your father and husband. However,
58:45
Speaker 3: we understand that the coroner has advised you that you
58:48
Speaker 3: will not be receiving an inquest. This matter is now
58:51
Speaker 3: filed and closed. I've sat there going, what the... My
58:55
Speaker 3: letter to the commissioner was not about not getting an inquest.
58:59
Speaker 3: It was about how they carried themselves and how disgusting
59:02
Speaker 3: the investigation was. I don't care whether or not, they
59:05
Speaker 3: don't have to say over the inquest. It was about, say,
59:08
Speaker 3: Paul's disrespect for a commissioned officer. If a commissioned officer
59:12
Speaker 3: died now, it would be a completely different story, especially
59:17
Speaker 3: if they're going to talk words like suicide.
59:18
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
59:20
Speaker 2: And the one, this is the bit that I can't
59:22
Speaker 2: move on, Adam. I can't move on from this.
59:26
Speaker 3: So when they said that they found this mystery second
59:29
Speaker 3: file in archives, The detective said to me, this is
59:34
Speaker 3: the sergeant in charge of that team of three.
59:37
Speaker 2: Now, you know about the other photos, don't you? I've gone, what?
59:42
Speaker 2: He said, the photos of you girls. I said, what girls?
59:48
Speaker 3: And he said, your dad had a photo of you
59:51
Speaker 3: three girls by his feet when he died. I said, well,
59:55
Speaker 3: where's this photo? He said, it was a Polaroid. It's
59:59
Speaker 3: all in the tech services guy's notes in the second file.
1:00:05
Speaker 3: And I said, and nobody thought that that might have
1:00:08
Speaker 3: been important enough to give to our family at the
1:00:12
Speaker 3: time that we learned of this tragedy, that dad actually
1:00:17
Speaker 3: was thinking about us. If this is true, and it's
1:00:20
Speaker 3: not bullshit, part of the whole setup, at the time
1:00:26
Speaker 3: with him, I said, I grew up believing that my
1:00:29
Speaker 3: dad was nothing but a selfish bastard that put his
1:00:32
Speaker 3: job before his family and he killed himself because of stress,
1:00:38
Speaker 3: because of rogue coppers. I said, I become a mother
1:00:42
Speaker 3: and I brought my son home from hospital as a
1:00:44
Speaker 3: tiny baby, had a massive breakdown and I hated my
1:00:48
Speaker 3: father because I learned what it was like to be
1:00:50
Speaker 3: a parent then and I could make no sense of
1:00:53
Speaker 3: how he could ever choose to leave this world. I said,
1:00:56
Speaker 3: but now I feel bloody guilty because he didn't choose
1:01:01
Speaker 3: to do it and you were telling me there's bullshit
1:01:03
Speaker 3: photos around that, you know, he supposedly had with the body.
1:01:07
Speaker 3: This is just all the things that we've had thrown
1:01:09
Speaker 3: at us by SAPOL that one hand doesn't know what
1:01:13
Speaker 3: the other hand's doing.
1:01:15
Speaker 2: So I've sort of given up on them in answer
1:01:17
Speaker 2: to your question. What am I going to do now? Yeah.
1:01:20
Speaker 3: It's not going to go away. It's still going to
1:01:21
Speaker 3: be there, right? The feelers are still there. but it
1:01:25
Speaker 3: can't be where all my energy is anymore. My energy
1:01:28
Speaker 3: now is I've recognised and realised how disgusting and poorly
1:01:34
Speaker 3: that crime scene was or wasn't investigated in October 1981.
1:01:39
Speaker 2: It was disgusting.
1:01:42
Speaker 3: And we've all seen shows, particularly on American crime shows,
1:01:45
Speaker 3: where they ask the question, was it actually suicide or
1:01:49
Speaker 3: was it a murder that was actually covered up to
1:01:52
Speaker 3: look like a suicide? And so if you peel that
1:01:56
Speaker 3: back a few layers, my question is how do police
1:02:02
Speaker 3: investigate these suicides when they go in and they find
1:02:07
Speaker 3: wit on the beach, gunshot wound to his temple, a
1:02:10
Speaker 3: firearm and four notes? So they decide one and one
1:02:16
Speaker 3: equals two and this is a straight-up suicide.
1:02:20
Speaker 2: Shut it down. Get the body out of here. We're done.
1:02:23
Speaker 2: Nothing to see here, people.
1:02:26
Speaker 3: How many other crime scenes, if you like, or sudden
1:02:30
Speaker 3: deaths are assumed to be a suicide and are they
1:02:34
Speaker 3: investigated properly?
1:02:35
Speaker 2: Because I don't believe they are and I don't believe
1:02:37
Speaker 2: that there's.
1:02:38
Speaker 3: Protocols on the steps that you must follow without making
1:02:41
Speaker 3: those assumptions.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: Amanda, that's a good place to leave this. I think
1:02:45
Speaker 1: you've done everything you possibly can and it's now time
1:02:48
Speaker 1: for the authorities, particularly the coroner, to look at this
1:02:52
Speaker 1: whole mess and give your family some answers. Thank you
1:02:56
Speaker 1: for your time today. I really appreciate what you've shared,
1:02:59
Speaker 1: what you've done for your father, but also your service
1:03:02
Speaker 1: to South Australia as a police officer and his as well.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: And as I said, I met your mum on that day.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: She is very proud of you. She maintains a very
1:03:11
Speaker 1: calm dignity about the way your family's been treated and
1:03:16
Speaker 1: she backs you 100%. Thanks for your time today.
1:03:19
Speaker 2: Thanks, Adam.
1:03:21
Speaker 1: That's Amanda Schultz on The Strange Case Report. of the
1:03:26
Speaker 1: death of Geoffrey Whitford. So many things don't add up.
1:03:31
Speaker 1: What is it about South Australia? They just seem reluctant
1:03:34
Speaker 1: to have inquests, reluctant to have an open, transparent look
1:03:39
Speaker 1: at how justice is carried out. I mean, there's been
1:03:43
Speaker 1: no inquest into the Beaumont children's disappearance, and that's a
1:03:46
Speaker 1: huge case. Every case is important. Every case needs certainties.
1:03:52
Speaker 1: And I think it's a very simple thing to hold
1:03:53
Speaker 1: an inquest, to answer those questions, to work out what
1:03:57
Speaker 1: files were there, why they've gone missing, compel witnesses, issue subpoenas,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: clear up these questions. The ball is definitely in the
1:04:07
Speaker 1: coroner's court. If you want to report a crime, please
1:04:10
Speaker 1: call Crime Stoppers, 1-800-333-000. You can also email me, adamshanwriter
1:04:16
Speaker 1: at gmail.com. And if you have any information about this case...
1:04:21
Speaker 1: Maybe you're one of those police officers who has information.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: Amanda was saying earlier, there's a brotherhood here. People look
1:04:27
Speaker 1: after each other. If you're sitting on for information, it's
1:04:31
Speaker 1: time that you backed your brother. Don't stay silent. This
1:04:35
Speaker 1: has been Adam Chan for Real Crime. Thanks for listening.
1:04:44
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1:05:04
Speaker 1: there's a link to reach out in the show notes
1:05:06
Speaker 1: or head to Podshape.com to book a free call.