Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / Cold Case: Who Killed Shirley Collins? | Louise Steding

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Cold Case: Who Killed Shirley Collins? | Louise Steding · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Approache Production.
0:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host,
0:21
Speaker 2: Adam Shann. I've got a new collecting obsession old crime
0:25
Speaker 2: headlines from Melbourne's Truth newspaper What's your goodbyfe for six
0:29
Speaker 2: months back in the fifties costs about ten bucks a
0:32
Speaker 2: day and second hand stores another day, came upon one
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Speaker 2: from October nineteen fifty four, but just jumped out of
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Speaker 2: me in screaming ninety six point type. Here's what it read,
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Speaker 2: How are you feeling? Killer? Did you like what you
0:49
Speaker 2: read about your victim Shirley Collins at the Inquest this week?
0:54
Speaker 2: How you took a fourteen year old girl for a
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Speaker 2: ride in a car to a deserted home in Mount Martha,
1:00
Speaker 2: And when you got there, how you suddenly attacked her,
1:03
Speaker 2: ripped off her clothing, savagely smashed her head in with
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Speaker 2: a bottle and pieces of concrete guttering. Did a great
1:12
Speaker 2: shudder run through your body as she thought back to
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Speaker 2: the girl's agonized cries of the blood that must have
1:19
Speaker 2: gushed onto your hands, your clothing. To shocking story. The victim,
1:27
Speaker 2: Shirley Collins, was on her first adult night out on
1:31
Speaker 2: September twelve, nineteen fifty three a birthday party. She was
1:36
Speaker 2: last seen at North Richmond Railway station in inner city Melbourne.
1:41
Speaker 2: Three days later, her battered corpse was found in a
1:44
Speaker 2: driveway at Mount Martha, some eighty kilometers away. Police promised
1:49
Speaker 2: a swift arrest for this heenous crime, Truth offered one
1:53
Speaker 2: thousand pounds for information. I thought to myself, this crime
1:58
Speaker 2: must have been solved long ago. I looked it up
2:01
Speaker 2: and to my surprise, it still hasn't. So I thought,
2:06
Speaker 2: how can I add a fresh angle to this? As
2:09
Speaker 2: I'm pouring over Google, I see that a friend and colleague,
2:13
Speaker 2: doctor Louise Steading, has done the work for me. Louise
2:18
Speaker 2: is what I call an industrial strength forensic archaeologist. She's
2:22
Speaker 2: taught forensic psychology, criminology, and policing to cops in two states,
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Speaker 2: among many thousands of other students. In a field where
2:31
Speaker 2: once over lightly for the media is enough for many,
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Speaker 2: Louise digs deep and hard with passion and focus. She
2:40
Speaker 2: and her partner Gerald now work on cold cases, going
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Speaker 2: back to the basics of the evidence and doing some
2:46
Speaker 2: amazing work. Louise has spent years on Shirley's case and
2:50
Speaker 2: has come up with what I believe is a very
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Speaker 2: credible suspect that everyone missed. And it's my pleasure to
2:58
Speaker 2: welcome Louise to the Real Crime Studio today.
3:00
Speaker 1: Luise, Hello, Adam. We're back again to working together, so
3:05
Speaker 1: that's great.
3:07
Speaker 2: The last time I was with you were up at
3:08
Speaker 2: Sensible Creek near Charda's Towers looking for the remains of
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Speaker 2: Anita Cunningham, and you're still in that case, so I
3:16
Speaker 2: really commend you for that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're heading back up there. Hence we're on the road,
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Speaker 1: so excuse any passing cars or birds.
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Speaker 2: The caravans on the road looking for looking for clues.
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Speaker 2: It's fantastic. What a life I envy. You tell me
3:30
Speaker 2: who was Shirley Collins.
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Speaker 1: Shirley Collins was a fourteen year old girl who was
3:36
Speaker 1: heading off on her very first adult party. I mean,
3:41
Speaker 1: it's very sad she never made it, tots. She was
3:45
Speaker 1: also apparently do you know there are friends of hers
3:49
Speaker 1: who was still alive. They meet each year. They're in
3:53
Speaker 1: their eighties and they talk about Shirley. They described her
3:58
Speaker 1: as a good girl. She was a quiet, industry good
4:07
Speaker 1: girl who wouldn't get in the car of a stranger,
4:10
Speaker 1: who had been well raised by foster parents, however, deserted
4:16
Speaker 1: by her mother. I say mother because I think her
4:21
Speaker 1: father was probably killed in the war. Her stepfather deserted
4:25
Speaker 1: her her mother. The friends had often thought that her
4:30
Speaker 1: mother didn't care for her, but I think that might
4:32
Speaker 1: be wrong. Her mother had Her birth mother had a
4:36
Speaker 1: criminal record and was basically in flight from the police
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Speaker 1: and headed up to Queensland. But devastating for a fourteen
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Speaker 1: year old.
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Speaker 2: I think it was just minor larceny charges the theft
4:50
Speaker 2: of a gold watch I believe, which I think Shirley
4:54
Speaker 2: was possibly wearing.
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Speaker 1: Yes, so, yes, that's what I thought.
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Speaker 2: So on the night of September twelfth, nineteen fifty three,
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Speaker 2: she's heading to a party at Richmond. She's going to
5:08
Speaker 2: be picked up by a colleague. She's working at GJ.
5:11
Speaker 2: Cole's Variety store in Burke Street in Melbourne, and this
5:14
Speaker 2: is her social network. Yeah, she's met people she's working
5:18
Speaker 2: where she's the one of the younger ones at fourteen.
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Speaker 2: But she arranges to meet Ronald John Holmes, twenty one,
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Speaker 2: one of her workmates. He thinks they're meeting at Richmond Station.
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Speaker 2: She doesn't know about Richmond Station and so she goes
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Speaker 2: to North Richmond station.
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Speaker 1: What happened next, Well, Ronald Holmes, he was her chaperone.
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Speaker 1: A lot of people thought, oh ah, this guy, because
5:46
Speaker 1: of the seven year age difference, had something to do
5:50
Speaker 1: with it. Maybe maybe not. At this stage, when Shirley
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Speaker 1: got off at the station, he wasn't anywhere. Ronald wasn't
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Speaker 1: anywhere to be seen. He probably went to a different station,
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Speaker 1: so she would have felt very stood up and humiliated.
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Speaker 1: He did too elsewhere. He added straight to the party
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Speaker 1: and actually told people he'd been stood up. But Shirley
6:18
Speaker 1: wasn't seen again. Actually she wasn't seen since the bus stop.
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Speaker 1: She wasn't really seen until there's a change over between
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Speaker 1: bus and train. That's where she wasn't seen since.
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Speaker 2: Because she's coming in from reservoir reservoir as we call
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Speaker 2: it down here, and she gets the train into North Richmond.
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Speaker 2: And as you say, she was not the kind of
6:43
Speaker 2: girl to jump in a stranger's car. I think she
6:47
Speaker 2: would have been more likely to have simply turned around
6:50
Speaker 2: and gone home. But then there's a critical alleged sighting
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Speaker 2: at about eight o'clock. A woman is walking down from
7:01
Speaker 2: Punt Road down Elizabeth Street, towards North Richmond station and
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Speaker 2: she sees a girl fitting Shirley Collins description, and she's
7:10
Speaker 2: talking to a man in a car.
7:12
Speaker 1: Can I just interject there? Sure there's more than one
7:16
Speaker 1: witness There were two. And these witnesses came forward two
7:21
Speaker 1: months after Shirley's body was found. And this is a
7:25
Speaker 1: huge discrepancy. This is a huge lapse of time that
7:31
Speaker 1: impacts the reliability of memory. Also, we know that since
7:36
Speaker 1: this time, many publications in the newspapers have been presented.
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Speaker 1: For example, one of the witnesses reported that she was
7:47
Speaker 1: wearing a pearl necklace because that's how she was presented
7:52
Speaker 1: in the actual newspaper. But in fact they found the
7:56
Speaker 1: pearl necklace back at home. She hadn't worn it at all.
8:00
Speaker 1: So when I looked at this book, I looked for
8:04
Speaker 1: inconsistent seas and consistencies, and quite frankly, I pushed many
8:12
Speaker 1: of the witnesses aside and try to trace steps. A
8:19
Speaker 1: lot of this has to do with timing and movement.
8:23
Speaker 1: That's how I look to do it.
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Speaker 2: Fascinating in your book, Inconceivable Malice, you do cast doubt
8:30
Speaker 2: on these eyewitness accounts. You've always got to be careful
8:32
Speaker 2: with thy witness accounts because they can be influenced by
8:35
Speaker 2: what people have read. Memory fades away very quickly, as
8:39
Speaker 2: you say, this was some weeks or months after the events.
8:43
Speaker 2: So we really can't be sure that she even got
8:48
Speaker 2: to North Richmond station, Is that what you're saying?
8:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, But irrespective that even if she didn't get to
8:55
Speaker 1: North Richmond station at some time, say Regent Street station
9:01
Speaker 1: where the bus at the bus and the train intersection,
9:05
Speaker 1: at some stage she got in a car and so
9:09
Speaker 1: basically I take that and that car went to Mount Martha.
9:14
Speaker 1: And this is why the timing I've looked at motor
9:17
Speaker 1: vehicle speeds, traffic lights, headlights, lighting, weather, all that sort
9:24
Speaker 1: of thing was raining and to narrow down time frames,
9:29
Speaker 1: you look at I know it sounds gross, but maggots,
9:34
Speaker 1: maggots that were found. You look at the last meal
9:38
Speaker 1: that she had, the things that we know. Because I
9:42
Speaker 1: must say, many of the witness accounts and people can
9:46
Speaker 1: really want to help the police, but they can be
9:50
Speaker 1: a huge distraction, a huge distraction if they're incorrect.
9:55
Speaker 2: You're right, everything is up for contests in this story.
9:59
Speaker 2: Only thing we do know for certain is that nine
10:02
Speaker 2: am Tuesday, three days almost three days after she disappears,
10:07
Speaker 2: a retired businessman is walking his fox terrier Bombo along
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Speaker 2: Marine drive Mount Martha. Bombo runs up a driveway to
10:15
Speaker 2: a vacant cottage, barking and comes back and tugs at
10:19
Speaker 2: his master's leg, urging him to come see what he's found.
10:23
Speaker 2: What does the witness find?
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Speaker 1: Ah, this is crucial now, remembering that two days and
10:31
Speaker 1: three nights have passed since she actually disappeared. She was
10:36
Speaker 1: found with her head covered and her head smashed in,
10:40
Speaker 1: her face smashed in. She was found naked from the
10:46
Speaker 1: shoulders down except stocking down on one foot. Very staged,
10:53
Speaker 1: a very staged position for a fourteen year old girl
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Speaker 1: absolutely dead. I know this sounds awful too, but dec imposing.
11:06
Speaker 1: It's just imagine how that man felt in finding her. Anyway,
11:14
Speaker 1: he called the police. Tromana police jumped to it very
11:18
Speaker 1: quickly and they worked together with the police from Melbourne.
11:23
Speaker 1: So it was really a good collaboration of many police
11:27
Speaker 1: at the time of death.
11:28
Speaker 2: Became a critical element to this whole investigation because, as
11:31
Speaker 2: you say, police put out calls for information, there was
11:35
Speaker 2: a radio broadcast, there was pictures of Shirley in the
11:39
Speaker 2: clothes that she wore, staged up with for the model
11:41
Speaker 2: and so forth. And this brought a lot of information,
11:45
Speaker 2: including some witness accounts from people in the Mount Martha
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Speaker 2: area that suggested that she might not have died on
11:54
Speaker 2: the Saturday, but some days afterwards, which was very misleading.
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Speaker 2: It was indeed she was supposed to have been seen
12:01
Speaker 2: in a hotel.
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Speaker 1: In a shop as well, coffee shop, hotel. Well, the
12:06
Speaker 1: thing is, you think, why on earth would someone do that,
12:10
Speaker 1: Why on earth would they distract police? Well, it might
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Speaker 1: be that she's on their mind and they truly believe
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Speaker 1: that they've seen her and they don't want to not
12:21
Speaker 1: give information into the police. But I don't actually think
12:25
Speaker 1: that's what happened here. I think it was good publicity.
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Speaker 1: Quite frankly, I know that's callous, but I think that
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Speaker 1: the hotel owner or the shop owner that it brought
12:39
Speaker 1: the client tell because it did to their premises and
12:44
Speaker 1: increase their sales. It got them on the map, and
12:48
Speaker 1: in this instance, it distracted police. It gave them theories
12:53
Speaker 1: that didn't work, And it wasn't until the medical examiner
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Speaker 1: came up with his findings that they could refute all
13:04
Speaker 1: of these unreliable sightings.
13:09
Speaker 2: And you can imagine how that was for Shirley's foster parents.
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Speaker 2: She is a quiet, conscientious girl. She's not experienced socially,
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Speaker 2: and suddenly she's turning up in hotels and drinking beer
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Speaker 2: and having meals with older men and so forth. So distressing.
13:25
Speaker 2: But as you pointed out earlier, they.
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Speaker 1: Stood by her and said, no, no, she would not
13:34
Speaker 1: have done that. That is not our girl. I thought
13:38
Speaker 1: that was admirable.
13:40
Speaker 2: Correct. The medical examiner was critical on this because, as
13:43
Speaker 2: you said, he looked at the contents of her stomach
13:45
Speaker 2: and as you indelicately put it, the growth of maggots
13:49
Speaker 2: on the body over those days, and you suddenly come
13:52
Speaker 2: back to a very specific time of death. How has
13:54
Speaker 2: that arrived at Louis.
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Speaker 1: It's all from the first lane of eggs. He looked
14:00
Speaker 1: at the laying of eggs and the timelines of the
14:03
Speaker 1: different stages of development of maggots found in Shirley's body,
14:09
Speaker 1: and a different method. Now this is important. These police
14:14
Speaker 1: tried a different method from a different source of information.
14:21
Speaker 1: That is a really good way of examining a case.
14:25
Speaker 1: So the medical examiner also looked at her last meal,
14:30
Speaker 1: and there was also a false report there too, but
14:33
Speaker 1: it had certain elements in it that took quite a
14:37
Speaker 1: long time to digest, Like it was pea and hand
14:41
Speaker 1: soup and split peas take quite a long time to digest,
14:46
Speaker 1: but not that long, and so the time was narrowed
14:50
Speaker 1: in to around seven point thirty pm, so he arrived
14:57
Speaker 1: at a time frame of between seven thirty pm and
15:02
Speaker 1: eleven pm. When I mentioned Ronald Holmes earlier, her chaperone.
15:10
Speaker 1: No matter how I looked at this, he did not
15:14
Speaker 1: fit within the timeline. This person, the killer, had to
15:19
Speaker 1: drive to Mount Martha and come back. Remember that Ronald
15:26
Speaker 1: turned up at the party. The police even asked what
15:30
Speaker 1: were you all doing at the time he arrived, what
15:35
Speaker 1: were you watching? They were all watching motorbikes on probably
15:39
Speaker 1: the TV, so they closed in. That's one person who
15:45
Speaker 1: got eliminated. Now must say he was also a suspect,
15:49
Speaker 1: quite a main one for me in the beginning. So
15:54
Speaker 1: at that point when he did not fit, he got eliminated.
15:59
Speaker 1: Set to the side, eliminated by me as a suspect,
16:04
Speaker 1: as he I think was eliminated by the police too. Basically,
16:10
Speaker 1: I pulled everybody in including the parents, including all the colleagues.
16:17
Speaker 1: I pulled everybody in as a suspect, especially given that
16:22
Speaker 1: eighty seven percent of murders are committed by people who
16:28
Speaker 1: know the victim. Eighty seven percent they don't say to
16:32
Speaker 1: what extent they know them. But here we've got a
16:36
Speaker 1: whole bundle of work colleagues, we've got parents, foster parents,
16:42
Speaker 1: and so on. So everybody became a focus, but not Ronald.
16:47
Speaker 1: He got eliminated early on.
16:50
Speaker 2: Well, you know, when I was reading the news clip
16:52
Speaker 2: that I bought at the bazaar, I thought Ronald Holmes
16:56
Speaker 2: was the obvious suspect. But when you look at the
16:58
Speaker 2: drive that he had to make to pick her up
17:01
Speaker 2: from the station, drive all the way to Mount Martha
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Speaker 2: Kill her drive back, but he's at the party by
17:06
Speaker 2: nine point fifteen, so it's just not possible. Now, the
17:12
Speaker 2: police did a pretty good job in this investigation. True
17:17
Speaker 2: crime podcasters love dumping on the police, saying that, you know,
17:21
Speaker 2: in these unsolved cold cases that the police missed this,
17:24
Speaker 2: and they didn't do that, and they should have done this,
17:26
Speaker 2: and the rest of it. But in this investigation, Victoria
17:28
Speaker 2: police I think did a very good job, including the
17:31
Speaker 2: Inspector Donnelly, who was in charge of the case. He
17:33
Speaker 2: looked at this for years and years, and I think
17:36
Speaker 2: he gave you a pretty good baseline of data to
17:38
Speaker 2: look at. And I think one of the key things
17:42
Speaker 2: was the meticulous crime scene photographs and descriptions which you've used.
17:50
Speaker 2: And I'd like you if you could just to tell
17:52
Speaker 2: us a bit more about that scene, because it was
17:55
Speaker 2: striking for its barbarity and savagery. Tell us what did
18:00
Speaker 2: they find and how had she been killed?
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Speaker 1: One of the ways and one of the ways I
18:07
Speaker 1: look at these scenes. So now I look at the landscape,
18:11
Speaker 1: I look at all the physical remains, be that her
18:15
Speaker 1: or bottles or concrete covered in blood. It was a
18:20
Speaker 1: diabolical scene, or clothes strewn across the site itself, with
18:26
Speaker 1: one shoe even up in a tree. So with this,
18:32
Speaker 1: to me, every murder sight actually informs about the killer.
18:38
Speaker 1: It's not just that they do or don't leave physical evidence.
18:42
Speaker 1: They leave the psychological traces at this site as well. Now,
18:47
Speaker 1: with this particular scene, Shirley was obsessively bashed. It was
18:55
Speaker 1: really overkilled. This was obscene, and also that she was
19:02
Speaker 1: naked and staged. Her legs were apart. It was horrible,
19:08
Speaker 1: and she was actually found facing upwards, but the police
19:12
Speaker 1: turned her over, so we've got an image of facing
19:17
Speaker 1: up with the skirt that covers her head, that covers
19:22
Speaker 1: her identity. So I actually, in my view, this guy
19:26
Speaker 1: couldn't face her. But he was so angry that beer
19:31
Speaker 1: bottles full not yet consumed, were not enough. He pulled
19:38
Speaker 1: up concrete and smashed in caved in her face. I
19:44
Speaker 1: was just going to say to you, there's something else
19:46
Speaker 1: that struck me in one of the photographs. I know
19:50
Speaker 1: I might have been seeing things, but I was sure
19:53
Speaker 1: I could see a footprint or a shoe print on
19:57
Speaker 1: her buttocks, and that was nothing that had ever been
20:01
Speaker 1: commented on. So that just shows up in a I'm
20:05
Speaker 1: seeing photo.
20:06
Speaker 2: As you say, it was so shocking, as quickly run
20:09
Speaker 2: through what I've read of it from your book. By
20:11
Speaker 2: the way, it looks like they've arrived there. They've walked
20:16
Speaker 2: some distance up this driveway towards the cottage. He's carrying
20:22
Speaker 2: full bottles of beer, possibly three.
20:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
20:25
Speaker 2: He struck her from behind with the bottle at least
20:29
Speaker 2: once or probably twice. She's either unconscious or already dead. He
20:35
Speaker 2: then pulls her skirt over her head, goes to the
20:39
Speaker 2: nearby drain and picks up not one, but two pieces
20:46
Speaker 2: of concrete guttering and comes back smashes her in the
20:52
Speaker 2: head with this guttering and breaks every bone in her head.
20:58
Speaker 2: It is shocking, and I'm sorry to go, but I
21:01
Speaker 2: think it's really important because when you looked at this,
21:05
Speaker 2: you apply a particular filter, which is the difference between
21:09
Speaker 2: an organized and a disorganized defender. And what traces of
21:13
Speaker 2: his personality did the killer leave behind. That's a big
21:17
Speaker 2: part of your reasoning in this.
21:20
Speaker 1: Well, with this particular with this particular killer, I think
21:25
Speaker 1: he actually left quite a few psychological hints there, and
21:31
Speaker 1: in both the material and its organizational rather disarray. This
21:37
Speaker 1: is fury and throwing things to the side. It's like
21:41
Speaker 1: he had an uncontrollable rage, hitting her once on the
21:45
Speaker 1: head from behind. So just note and all the details
21:50
Speaker 1: to go with that. Let's note Shirley would not have
21:53
Speaker 1: cried out because she wouldn't have been expecting a hit
21:57
Speaker 1: from behind when she goes down. To actually be able
22:02
Speaker 1: to lift those concrete pieces means he had strength, because
22:07
Speaker 1: I think they were like fourteen pounds. It's a heavy weight.
22:12
Speaker 1: He had a certain amount of physical strength. The site
22:18
Speaker 1: was so disorganized that it suggests he didn't prepare. He
22:24
Speaker 1: didn't have a shovel and bury her. He didn't come
22:29
Speaker 1: along there with the intent to actually murder her. It
22:34
Speaker 1: looks more like he was trying to seduce her with
22:38
Speaker 1: the three bottles of beer. Which it also looks like
22:43
Speaker 1: because she was facing the head's downhill, it looks like
22:47
Speaker 1: she was heading back to the car. She wanted to
22:50
Speaker 1: go back to the car at the point, the very
22:53
Speaker 1: point he killed her or struck her on the head.
22:57
Speaker 1: This suggests rejection. She rejected him and his beer in
23:02
Speaker 1: his advances. She wasn't interested, and that's true to the
23:07
Speaker 1: statements of the parents. I think parents are often the
23:12
Speaker 1: first suspects, understandably, but once they're eliminated, they really need
23:17
Speaker 1: to be listened to because they know her better than anyone.
23:21
Speaker 1: I've just got something in my mind that I didn't
23:25
Speaker 1: put in the book. He held those bottles in his hand.
23:30
Speaker 1: If he's not prepared to kill her as in premeditated,
23:36
Speaker 1: and it's this explosion of possibly humiliation at this rejection,
23:43
Speaker 1: then he held the neck of the bottle and hit
23:48
Speaker 1: her from behind. In those days, those bottles had the
23:52
Speaker 1: metal caps, and if the police kept any of those
23:58
Speaker 1: metal caps, I'll bet you there's a trace of skin
24:01
Speaker 1: if they were stored correctly, his skin, not brs, would
24:06
Speaker 1: be under the cap they were ridged.
24:09
Speaker 2: That's a very good point, and we'll get to that.
24:11
Speaker 2: I gin guess is really important about and the possible
24:13
Speaker 2: resolution of the case even now. Yeah, but what I
24:17
Speaker 2: find fascinating here is most people would say is the
24:20
Speaker 2: motive sex? Well, there was no evidence that she was
24:23
Speaker 2: raped or otherwise molested, But as you point out in
24:27
Speaker 2: your book, just penetration, if we'd use that word, is
24:31
Speaker 2: not a complete description of a sexual motive. There are
24:35
Speaker 2: other reasons connected to power and control, but still render
24:39
Speaker 2: this a sexual motive. As you say, she could well
24:43
Speaker 2: have rejected his advances and he reacts with rage.
24:48
Speaker 1: Yes, now hey's older, and we know because she got
24:53
Speaker 1: into the car, most likely with someone she knew, because
24:57
Speaker 1: that's in keeping with what we know of Shirley. This
25:01
Speaker 1: is someone who had focused on her for quite a while,
25:06
Speaker 1: I would say, and in making advances and wanting to
25:10
Speaker 1: sit there and give alcohol to an underage kid, she
25:15
Speaker 1: is a kid. Then the rejection for him was phenomenal
25:22
Speaker 1: and so he flipped. Basically, that's right.
25:27
Speaker 2: And to come along story short, there's a number of
25:30
Speaker 2: people who were going to this birthday party down on
25:33
Speaker 2: Punt Road, Richmond. It was being held by one of
25:36
Speaker 2: her work mates, Gavin Willoughby. There was a range of
25:39
Speaker 2: other people from her workplace who were one by one
25:42
Speaker 2: eliminated by police back in the day, and I think
25:44
Speaker 2: you agree broadly that they don't really fit. But there
25:48
Speaker 2: was one person who was never really eliminated, never really
25:52
Speaker 2: interviewed by the police, and that was her boss at
25:56
Speaker 2: GJ Coles. She worked in the tinware department at GJ
25:59
Speaker 2: Coles in Burke Street, and her boss, there was a
26:03
Speaker 2: guy called Kevin who was He was the brother of
26:07
Speaker 2: the man having the birthday party. But what else did
26:09
Speaker 2: you know about Kevin Kevin?
26:11
Speaker 1: Okay, he supervised Shirley, so he worked closely together with
26:16
Speaker 1: Shirley in the ten department. Now, with Kevin, there's not
26:20
Speaker 1: much written about him. But I did think that with
26:24
Speaker 1: the ferocity of this attack and the lack of control
26:29
Speaker 1: and explosive nature of the killer's actions, which I might
26:35
Speaker 1: add this kind of lack of control and humiliation susceptibility
26:41
Speaker 1: to humiliation makes him fairly an insecure kind of character,
26:47
Speaker 1: fairly of weak character. To be insulted at a fourteen
26:53
Speaker 1: year old puts him a little older. Anyway, back to
26:57
Speaker 1: Kevin Willoughby, I started delving around, digging around, trying to
27:01
Speaker 1: find more about him, and I figured that someone with
27:07
Speaker 1: this kind of anger would have actually committed that a
27:12
Speaker 1: similar or some kind of crime like this in the background,
27:17
Speaker 1: or tortured animals or live buyers, or have been in
27:22
Speaker 1: the theft. Because he's displaying a sense of entitlement, so
27:29
Speaker 1: he felt entitled to Shirley, and when she rejected him,
27:34
Speaker 1: that's when he exploded. If we work from that hypothesis,
27:41
Speaker 1: there must be something else in his past.
27:45
Speaker 2: I think you've gone beyond what was in the evidence,
27:48
Speaker 2: in the question, in the papers, and so forth. You
27:50
Speaker 2: actually spoke to a friend of Shirley's, Maureen, who told
27:56
Speaker 2: you that Shirley wanted to change her job because some
28:00
Speaker 2: of her workplace was making things awkward for her. She
28:04
Speaker 2: said he was mad married, and there you have another
28:07
Speaker 2: raise of the stakes. If it was Kevin Willoughby, then
28:11
Speaker 2: here's another reason to fear the consequences of what's happened
28:16
Speaker 2: at Mount Martha.
28:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely right. So it's not just if this guy's married,
28:25
Speaker 1: it could ruin his marriage. So there's divorce, there's more
28:31
Speaker 1: humiliation in that that will become public knowledge. There's the
28:35
Speaker 1: loss of his job, there's the huge connection to Shirley.
28:41
Speaker 1: This guy's pedophile. Basically a killer and a pedophile. Extremely
28:48
Speaker 1: don't true.
28:48
Speaker 2: And I think what also makes it difficult now to
28:51
Speaker 2: determine this is that police didn't interview him, and the
28:55
Speaker 2: party goers did not say whether he was at the
28:58
Speaker 2: party and if so, what time he got there. But
29:01
Speaker 2: you can back it in that he was probably there
29:03
Speaker 2: at some state because this was his brother's day, Dan's birthday.
29:06
Speaker 2: So Evan Willoughby unknown to the police, and they should
29:10
Speaker 2: have realized this that he had a criminal background, and
29:14
Speaker 2: even the lead detective in the murder, Donnelly, had dealt
29:19
Speaker 2: with him earlier in a series of petty thefts and
29:23
Speaker 2: so forth.
29:24
Speaker 1: That was a shock. When I searched around, he came
29:28
Speaker 1: up in another inquest and it was a shock to
29:32
Speaker 1: me that Danelly was one of two police officers who'd
29:37
Speaker 1: actually interviewed Kevin Willoughby much earlier. And that's the point
29:42
Speaker 1: it really was much earlier. He was a ten year
29:46
Speaker 1: old boy, blonde hair, and later on he suddenly has
29:51
Speaker 1: darker hair, and it's eighteen years later. Who on Earth's
29:56
Speaker 1: going to recognize him? Dannelly didn't recognize him, and I
30:01
Speaker 1: think that's understandable. He also wasn't the senior officer in
30:07
Speaker 1: that particular investigation, but he did interview him, and it
30:11
Speaker 1: was a bit of an awful inquest as well, involving Death's.
30:17
Speaker 2: Not because this is back in nineteen thirty five, when
30:20
Speaker 2: an eight year old boy is pulled from a creek
30:23
Speaker 2: in Hawthorne, and this is December nineteen thirty five, and
30:28
Speaker 2: of course Kevin Willoughby is on the scene then as well.
30:33
Speaker 2: They're playing together at Gardener Creek in Hawthorne and Bobby Glead,
30:38
Speaker 2: the victim, ends up dead. Do you think Kevin Willoughby
30:43
Speaker 2: had anything to do with Bobby's death?
30:46
Speaker 1: I certainly think he had a lot to do with
30:49
Speaker 1: his death. Listen to this. He watched his friend two
30:55
Speaker 1: years younger than himself drowning in that creek when someone else,
31:01
Speaker 1: an adult, was on the other side of the creek
31:05
Speaker 1: mowing grass. He didn't call out for help. He watched
31:09
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes until his friend little Bobby
31:16
Speaker 1: didn't come up anymore. But it doesn't stop there. At
31:20
Speaker 1: that point, after fifteen minutes, he didn't jump into the
31:25
Speaker 1: creek to pull him out. He went over to his
31:29
Speaker 1: friend's clothes, took money from his pockets, and then stumped
31:35
Speaker 1: them into the mud. He then denied knowing to the
31:42
Speaker 1: very family of Bobby and to the police. He denied
31:46
Speaker 1: knowing the whereabouts of Bobby, and yet he led them
31:51
Speaker 1: all on a wild goose chase, so one he quite
31:54
Speaker 1: enjoyed leading them around and saying, oh, well, you know
31:59
Speaker 1: he was down here when I last saw him. He
32:02
Speaker 1: could be there, He could be there. It's disgraceful, and
32:08
Speaker 1: I must say in the inquest the coroner also had
32:13
Speaker 1: enormous skepticism of this. It remains an open case.
32:19
Speaker 2: And I think it's certainly very odd and very suspicious.
32:22
Speaker 2: At the same time, I think you make the point
32:25
Speaker 2: that his behavior at ten years of age suggests a
32:28
Speaker 2: curiosity for watching other people's suffering. There's something not quite
32:33
Speaker 2: right with this kid.
32:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a trait of young people the future psychopaths.
32:41
Speaker 1: If you like hurting animals or watching this kind of
32:47
Speaker 1: event with their best friend, and also stealing. He stole
32:54
Speaker 1: money because he felt entitled to it. He also lied
33:00
Speaker 1: to possibly protect himself, though he did get sprung, and
33:06
Speaker 1: he felt amused perhaps at leading people on a wild
33:13
Speaker 1: goose chase, watching their pain and suffering. The family he
33:19
Speaker 1: led them down to the creek and didn't show them
33:23
Speaker 1: where their son was. I think he got off on
33:28
Speaker 1: other people's pain.
33:29
Speaker 2: That's very telling because, as you pointed out earlier, there
33:32
Speaker 2: tends to be predicate acts in the past which provide
33:37
Speaker 2: a pathway towards someone's offending at a higher level and
33:42
Speaker 2: that behavior then watching someone else's suffering the entitlement to
33:48
Speaker 2: take the boy's money, and then over the next few years,
33:54
Speaker 2: as he gets older, he starts to steal more. He
33:57
Speaker 2: starts to break into factories. It's a string of petty
34:00
Speaker 2: larceny charges, and so you're starting to see somebody who
34:04
Speaker 2: was very as you say, entitled.
34:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one thing with these petty larcenees. At the time,
34:13
Speaker 1: after the war there were rations in place, and during
34:20
Speaker 1: the war he actually went into the food tent and
34:23
Speaker 1: stole food for himself. I mean, really, it's a case
34:28
Speaker 1: of how low can you go in petty larceny. Everybody
34:33
Speaker 1: was hungry during the war. These were soldiers and he
34:38
Speaker 1: took their food, the protectors of the country. He had
34:43
Speaker 1: no conscience.
34:45
Speaker 2: We didn't have a record of violent behavior before this.
34:48
Speaker 2: But as you rightly point out, though, here's somebody who
34:51
Speaker 2: has a strong sense of entitlement. His ego is very
34:55
Speaker 2: strong and he is able to justify this. Let's look
35:01
Speaker 2: at your theory. You can imagine a situation where he
35:04
Speaker 2: knows that Shirley is to come to the party, it's
35:08
Speaker 2: his brother's party. He may well indeed know that Ronald
35:12
Speaker 2: Holmes is going to pick up Shirley from a railway station.
35:15
Speaker 2: It's not inconceivable that he could have either been driving
35:18
Speaker 2: past by accident or design, picks her up and decides, no,
35:24
Speaker 2: I won't take you to the party. I'll take you
35:26
Speaker 2: to a place. Because Kevin Willoughby had a connection to
35:31
Speaker 2: the area near Mount Martha, didn't.
35:33
Speaker 1: He Yes, a lot of them did, though, so did
35:38
Speaker 1: Ronald Holmes. A lot of the people in this because
35:41
Speaker 1: that was the holiday, the place to go. I'd just
35:45
Speaker 1: like to say on that that many people blamed the
35:50
Speaker 1: landowner there and Merv Stanton I think was his name,
35:57
Speaker 1: and it was assumed when we went out to Mount
36:00
Speaker 1: Martha that he would be the person we would find.
36:04
Speaker 1: Did it. People actually told us he did it. Well, no, no,
36:09
Speaker 1: I don't think so, not at all. I think that
36:12
Speaker 1: guy Merv suffered for many years. You know, it's not
36:16
Speaker 1: just it goes so far beyond the victim and those
36:21
Speaker 1: who die. It impacts their family, the people who are suspected,
36:26
Speaker 1: and it's never resolved. It's a ripple effect. It is
36:32
Speaker 1: brutal for so many generations.
36:36
Speaker 2: It does. And I think to be wrongly accused of
36:39
Speaker 2: something like this will be henus and would follow you.
36:41
Speaker 2: And you know, I think all those that were that
36:43
Speaker 2: fell into the spotlight had to deal with it. But
36:45
Speaker 2: I guess Kevin Willoughby was never in the spotlight, so
36:49
Speaker 2: he was able to go the rest of his life
36:52
Speaker 2: without him being questioned. I think he's the best possible suspect.
36:56
Speaker 2: I mean, we can't rule out that a complete stranger
37:00
Speaker 2: happened to see Shirley waiting at the train station on
37:03
Speaker 2: her own offered her a ride, But to me, it's
37:07
Speaker 2: highly unlikely, based on what we know about Shirley that
37:11
Speaker 2: she's a young girl, she's nervous, she's not experienced. She
37:14
Speaker 2: was told never get in a vehicle with a stranger,
37:17
Speaker 2: and those things were powerful admonitions back in those days.
37:21
Speaker 2: So I think suspicion rightly falls on Kevin Willoughby. You
37:27
Speaker 2: made a strong case from his personality, the opportunity, the motive.
37:31
Speaker 2: It's all there. The evidence may still be within the
37:36
Speaker 2: coffers of Victoria Police two day. In fact, when they
37:39
Speaker 2: set up the cold case unit back in I think
37:41
Speaker 2: about twenty ten or twenty twelve, Shirley Collins was one
37:44
Speaker 2: of the key cold cases they wanted to focus on,
37:48
Speaker 2: and I remember retired Senior Sergeant Ron Iddalls describing that
37:51
Speaker 2: this is one of the unfinished cases of his career
37:55
Speaker 2: and obviously a number of police officers. But you look
37:58
Speaker 2: at what may be held in the cold case fridge
38:02
Speaker 2: at MacLeod the Forensic Services unit here in Melbourne, and
38:05
Speaker 2: you think, is there a piece of her clothing, Is
38:09
Speaker 2: there a piece of the concrete or the bottle that
38:13
Speaker 2: was used to kill her? And could that now be
38:16
Speaker 2: tested and established to a connection with Kevin Willoughby.
38:22
Speaker 1: Well, I think so, because techniques have changed. I mean
38:28
Speaker 1: that's one thing to say for Danelli. He bought in
38:30
Speaker 1: all these experts for fingerprinting, new methods with ultra violet light,
38:36
Speaker 1: for picking up fluorescent images, if you like dressing up
38:41
Speaker 1: a model. That was the first time that that had
38:45
Speaker 1: been done. A radio interview to call in for public help.
38:50
Speaker 1: But I think if we look at the physical evidence
38:54
Speaker 1: that they did collect back then, bottle glass fingerprints, possibly
39:01
Speaker 1: even if the killer has blood, possibly because glass can cut.
39:07
Speaker 1: What about the concrete pieces skin goes off onto that
39:11
Speaker 1: These are methods unknown back then and even until recently,
39:16
Speaker 1: wouldn't have yielded so much information. But this thing about
39:20
Speaker 1: the crown top. These were unopened bottles, and so it's
39:26
Speaker 1: what might have gone between the ridges of his hand
39:31
Speaker 1: in holding it. There's so much evidence in the physical evidence.
39:38
Speaker 1: There's so much information that we can still get.
39:42
Speaker 2: I think it's a very strong point because we are
39:44
Speaker 2: seeing that we're moving into an era where cold cases
39:48
Speaker 2: can be solved by the use of this forensic investigative
39:53
Speaker 2: genealogical where people can go with the slightest piece of
39:58
Speaker 2: DNA and then build a family tree around that DNA
40:04
Speaker 2: and come at potential suspects. Even today, and obviously Kevin
40:10
Speaker 2: Willoughby died some time ago, the early two thousands, I believe,
40:12
Speaker 2: so he's not going to give any DNA, but living
40:15
Speaker 2: relatives certainly could. And I think we're going to see
40:19
Speaker 2: more and more of these cases sold, and it's going
40:22
Speaker 2: to come from work like yours, where people are raising suspicions,
40:27
Speaker 2: looking at the evidence again and suggesting it's worth the
40:30
Speaker 2: cold case detectives having another crack at this because old
40:34
Speaker 2: Donnelly said in nineteen fifty six, I've not written this
40:37
Speaker 2: case off as unsolvable, and I tend to agree with
40:40
Speaker 2: him even more today than back in nineteen fifty six.
40:43
Speaker 1: Do you know what he did, Inspector Dannelly, even after
40:48
Speaker 1: he semi retired someone else had taken over the case,
40:53
Speaker 1: he actually sat down and wrote an article and published
40:57
Speaker 1: it requesting that someone else take up the gauntlet, that
41:03
Speaker 1: someone else pursued case of Shirley Collins's murder. I mean,
41:09
Speaker 1: how devoted and dedicated was that guy. It's not just
41:14
Speaker 1: that he really did turn over every stone available to
41:19
Speaker 1: him in the nineteen seventies available to him, but he
41:25
Speaker 1: remained devoted. And on that point, if police are carrying
41:31
Speaker 1: these sorts of burdens with them after their retirement, they
41:37
Speaker 1: really might need support. It's just another layer to this
41:42
Speaker 1: book that police do do their best in most instances,
41:48
Speaker 1: certainly in this one, and this guy carried that for life,
41:53
Speaker 1: and so did the other police officer in Romana really did.
41:57
Speaker 2: And I think everyone in this case did their best,
41:59
Speaker 2: and you can't say that all the time. And I
42:01
Speaker 2: think you've also done your best to keep this case
42:04
Speaker 2: alive because a lot of the when I saw that
42:06
Speaker 2: newspaper headline and I discovered that Shirley's murder had ever
42:09
Speaker 2: been so if you think who still cares about these
42:13
Speaker 2: cold cases all these years later, there's no statute of
42:17
Speaker 2: limitation on murder. And I think your book Inconceivable Malice
42:23
Speaker 2: could be the basis of a new investigation if Victoria
42:27
Speaker 2: Police is prepared to step into the future and run
42:31
Speaker 2: these DNA off possible exhibits now. And I think this
42:35
Speaker 2: is really a long shot, but you could get that
42:37
Speaker 2: thousand pounds from the truth newspaper, Doctor Louise Steading, I
42:40
Speaker 2: think you might be ah if we did.
42:44
Speaker 1: I put it to another case to try and get
42:46
Speaker 1: the same sort of thing I was thinking to, you know,
42:51
Speaker 1: even the sister of Shirley Collins foster sister. Her sister
42:57
Speaker 1: was still alive, and in reference to the Colins family,
43:02
Speaker 1: she wrote to me and said, thank you, thank you
43:05
Speaker 1: for helping me understand why my parents were the way
43:10
Speaker 1: they were. And I just that really struck me. This
43:14
Speaker 1: is an elderly woman, the two brothers had deceased, probably
43:21
Speaker 1: the other sister who's now deceased, and I thought, wow,
43:25
Speaker 1: this really matters. This really matters to family and friends
43:30
Speaker 1: who are still there and they are Thank.
43:33
Speaker 2: You so much for your time to wit, Louise. It's
43:35
Speaker 2: been fantastic to talk to you about these theories, your
43:37
Speaker 2: hard work on this case, and I really do thank
43:40
Speaker 2: you very.
43:40
Speaker 1: Much, thanks for having me.
43:45
Speaker 2: That's doctor Louise Steading on the murder of Shirley Collins
43:50
Speaker 2: back in nineteen fifty three. She never had the chance
43:53
Speaker 2: to grow up, a life, have children. Her life was
43:56
Speaker 2: cut short brutally, and there's still a chance to solve
44:00
Speaker 2: these kinds of cases. The community deserves it, and the
44:03
Speaker 2: loved ones of Shirley Lee Collins deserve it as well.
44:07
Speaker 2: Let's hope Victoria Police can go into its cold case
44:11
Speaker 2: freezer there at the Forensic Services Unit. Pull out those
44:14
Speaker 2: exhibits and run them again, because you never know there
44:18
Speaker 2: could be an answer there. If you have any cases
44:20
Speaker 2: that you think we should be following up on Real
44:22
Speaker 2: Crime with Adam Shann, get in touch please. You can
44:25
Speaker 2: also crawl crime stoppers one hundred, triple three, triples zero.
44:27
Speaker 2: You can send me an email Adam Shanned writer at
44:30
Speaker 2: gmail dot com. This has been Adam Shan for Real Crime.
44:34
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