The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average persons never exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome back to part two of my chat with retired detective Ted Bathmwaite. In part one, Ted talked us through in details the events that led to the murder of six people on one night in October nineteen ninety two on the Central Coast.
Welcome back, Welcome back to you, Gary, Thank you.
Okay, well, in part one, you gave us a very detailed description of the lead up and the build up to this. Neither of murder and brutality at the level that we rarely get to see. And we just touched on it briefly. So many red flags, and we have the benefit of hindsight, and you would having research for the book, but more importantly working on the investigation, you
would have you would have seen it. This appears to be just so many, so many times where if people put the hand up, brought it to the attention that the police, maybe, just maybe this horror of an evening wouldn't have occurred. What's your take on that.
Well, it's always been a vexed question for me. The question is why why didn't anybody speak up? And I can only reflect on the context of those individuals lives at the time, the one that were given the red flag or had an opportunity to do a red flag. I think that the deep effect of his coercive control over people may have been something that was that they that those women in particular, couldn't overcome if I was to speak up. They may have thought He's going to
come for me. And he's always been a bullshit artist. He's always talking shit. I don't really believe him, and most of them in the book kind of expressed that, oh yeah, that's just that's just Malcolm, that's that's just Baker, that's just the way he is. Only on one occasion with one of the people that he offered a red flag to really had a genuine fear that he would carry it out. But again, why they didn't speak up
could be because of their fear of him. The coercive control that he had over them, could have been in the context of where they were in time, time and place in Western Sydney and their attitude towards snitching or their attitudes towards the police. It's hard to fathom. It's hard to fathim. There's no obvious evidence to the reason why no one went straight down to the police station and complained. But then again, what are you going to
complain about. Here's this cranky man who he knows, a pain in the ass, cranky man come around having a big winge on my shoulder. What offense has he fit? Has he committed? You know, he might have a gun in the back of his car, but he may or may not have the gun that he used on the neither murders wasn't in his car, it was at his house hid and't at his house.
Yeah, I suppose when you break it down like that, and it potentially could be in isolation, so it's just someone voicing an opinion. He's always talking shit like that, Yeah, never never carried it out.
But he's a coward, you know, and they would have seen all those people would have seen him as a cowardly The cowards have the courage to do. But eventually he.
Did a tough talk, but that never backs it up type thing. But I suppose, and this is why. Yeah, in today's society, we're so aware of these things, and I don't think it would wash these days. The pub tests for the day, people go okay, well you need to speak up. But yeah, it's judging people on what they could a long time ago.
Yeah, and don't. I don't hold any judgment to those people. I just like to think about into context of where it was in their lives at the time and their relationships to him, and the broader societal context as well. It's not like it is now. It's hopefully much safer for women now.
Yeah, Okay, let's bring it up up to the night. So what we left off in part one that he'd gone round to Kerry Anne's place, stalking up and down, patrolling up and down the street during the course of the day. He'd been rejected by Kerry Anne's mother a couple of days before when he said he wanted to see Kerry Anne and then he's crept up to the house and heard carry Anne talking to a mile in the bedroom. Yes, on that basis, he's gone back to his house. And how far away is his house.
It's only a five or ten minute drive.
Okay, that's very close. So gone back to it, driven back to his house. Access to firearm that the police didn't.
Seize Bentley twelve gage shotgun.
So twelve twelve gauge shotgun. Just people don't understand firearms. A shotgun spreads a lot of shots that come out, depending on the size of the shells put in there. But they do a hell of a lot of damage when fired of the person close range.
Yeah, close range damage that they're designed to kill it close range. They're not hunting them.
Yeah, and it's not just one projectile. Its sprays spray's yeah.
From memory, the cartridges that he used, there was somewhere between sixteen and twenty six shot in each cartridge.
Okay, so that will spread fairly wide of the close close range and signal well, punch a very big hole, significant significant damage. He also cut off the stock of the firearm. What was that about. He doesn't really explain that in the subsequent interviews after his arrest.
But it would just be for ease, easy to hide, it's easy to carry, it's less cumbersome.
Well, that's that was the old bank robbers tool and trade. Cut off the butt of the shotgun so they could conceal it.
Just make it a smaller, smaller weapon. Very in mind. It was a pump action shot it's a pump action shotgun. So you had two hands on the on the on the slide, had one hand on the slide and one head on the trigger. The stock was irrelevant. Really, Yeah, he never pellowed to his shoulder to ad because it was all from the.
Pips still operate. How many how many cartridges did he take?
He had a full full had seven up the spout as we say, yeah, which is the foot in the firearm. And you had a bandolier of twenty plus.
Okay, so he went there well armed, well armed. Okay, Now I just want you and I apologize to people listening to it that what we're going to talk about is fairly brutal, but this is the nature of what happens when a gunman goes on the rampage. So let's take it through in the chronology of what happened in that night. And this is based on your knowledge from the investigation, your research in the book, and stuff that he told police.
Suff he tool police, and subsequent conversations I had with three of the victims of the matter.
Okay, if you just take us through it.
Okay. So on the night, for whatever reason walking up the stairs that has flicked the switch were the previous twelve months and all the conversations he's had with people, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. She's a bit, you know, she's ruined my life and whatever.
For whatever reason, when he heard the conversation with Chris gall in the bedroom at seventy five Barnhill Drive, caused him to go back to the house straight away, saw the butt off, load the gun, get the bandoleer, and he didn't go straight back to the house because it was daylight saving, so he's spent time going around the town. While he's going around Terry Gull waiting for darkness. He actually runs into young Tom Gennan, who had been at the house prior.
To Baker, Kerrie Anne's younger brother, Kerrians.
Young brother, and he'd had a conversation with him. So at this point he's down in Terrigle at dusk with a loaded firearm which had been modified. Talking to Tom Gannett. I'm convinced if he'd had the opportunity then and there, but it would have been in public, he would have shot young Tom Gannett. Tom Gannon's got away from him. Whatever. Baker's then waited for it to get dark. He's come.
He's slunk up the hill at Grosvenor Revenue, parked out of sight and came across come across the Barnhill Road. He walked up the stairs stairway, two level stairs, stood at the door of seventy seven Barnhill Drive, Barnhill Road. Terrible. The front door was closed and he could see at the at the the as a timber door and had a piece of that opaque glass in the door, like a square of opaque glass. He could see shadow figures inside, he could hear the TV. And then he just kicked
the door. He just kicked the door open, charged into the house. Lis Agannon was on his left, sitting at a couch having something to eat. This is a Lisa eight months pregnant. Lisa again and Carrie's sister saw Tom Gannon, the senior, at the back of the kitchen. They've He's moved forward towards Tom. Tom's moved out of the kitchen, had the firearm on his hip. Tom's had a conversation with him, Get out, get out, what are you doing here? Bang? He shot Tom and the first shot hit Tom in
the shoulder and the chest. Tom spun around, semi conscious and fell on the floor. He's turned immediately to his left and virtually on top of Lisa. Gannon fired one round into the top of her head.
And.
It was with such force that blew the top of her head off, killing her instantly. At this point, Carrie and Chris Gaure her friend or a boyfriend at the time, heard the shots. Carriann's opened and they were in the bedroom two rooms down the hallway to the left. Carrie Anne's opened the door and she saw Matt or as she called him, Mac. Saw Max. It's Mac. It's Max's Mac. She closed the door and locked it. He heard her. Baker's walked down the corridor, stood at the door, fired
around into the door of Carrie Anne's bedroom. The door swung open. The first person he's seen is Kerrien's boyfriend, Chris Gall, standing at the end of the bed. Fired a shot at Chris. That shot, has said, Chris into the right side of the face, removing basically his right cheek and knocking him unconscious. He fell to the floor.
The Baker when he back at his house earlier on, when he was planning to do all this these murders here, he had decided that he would not shoot Kerrien, that he wanted to kidnap her and take her away, which is interesting in the context of what he's always done. He wanted to get carry In away from the family or any of the obstacles that he had, and it had taken with him a piece of nylon rope which
he had around his waist or over his shoulder. So he grabbed Carrie Anne at the bedroom with Chris Gaul semi conscious on the floor, and he could hear Chris Gore can hear the conversation that He's Baker's having with carry Anne, dragged her, got her in her headlock and dragged her down the corridor to the lounge room, where She's all of a sudden seen her murdered sister Lisa on the on the couch, screamed, wrestled, and Baker's scratched
her neck and tried to choke her. She's got away and run back into the bedroom, which is quite bizarre in a sense because before she gets to the bedroom there was a laundry which had a back door, which she could have run down in accord into the backyard to escape, but she obviously didn't think of it at the time. Baker's followed her back to the bedroom and carry Anne stood up to him. He said, I've had enough,
had enough. If you're going to kill me, just kill me, and she turned around and at that point from a meet her and a halfway he shot her in the back. Carrie has fallen face up and died instantly on the spot. That while this was going on in the bedroom with carry and Baker, Tom Baker had managed to get up remain conscious of father, the father, the eldest Tom sr. And he struggled down the front stairs and collapsed unconscious
on the middle of Barnhill road. As Baker was leaving, Baker saw Tom Tom on the road, walked up the Tom and at point blank, Raine shot him in the back of the head, killing him.
It's brutal, isn't it.
It's absolutely brutal.
What just on this breakdown? A couple of things there. How long did this rampage in this house last fall? What are we talking? Is the way you've described it's virtually in real.
No more than five minutes. The witness the witness accounts have said. It has happened very quickly.
And the chaos and the sound of a shotgun going off and the screens.
Yes, one, two, three, four, five times five times.
And so Tom's trying to escape from the house or it's help Aul.
It's unclear what Tom's what Tom was trying to do, but he only made it to the middle of the road. Tom's relationship Tom soon his relationship with Baker was was that were mates, did various jobs together. They probably did some criminal activity together, but he that had a falling out over some work that Tom had done some time ago. But Tom was part of the family group that were all encouraging carry to get away from.
From and so Tom's on the road and he just come up and shot him in the.
Yeah, he was still alive. And then he shot him in the.
Back of the fellow that was in the bedroom with Kerry Anne. Now Chris got what did he pass out from the injuries.
He was semi conscious from the injuries, and he could hear the conversation. He heard the conversation between carry Anne and Baker as he dragged her out of the room and dragged her down the hall. And then he heard the conversation with carry Anne said just kill me. He was unable to move. He was kind of virtually trapped under the edge of the fold out bed, a large portion of his face missing, bleeding profusely.
And do you think Baker just thought he was dead.
I think Baker thought he was dead. But Baker, Baker assassinated the people that this this crime scene is all about revenge, all about.
All family memb all family members.
This kid, Chris Gore wasn't he wasn't fair, so he didn't he'd never met him, He didn't even know. Chris Gaul is Sylvia Gall one of the ladies from the Vocar nursing home. It's her son, Okay, because Sylvia Gall invited Kerry Anne to go and stay with her for a couple of nights after Baker bashed her in.
The flat and formed the friendship.
Formed the friendship from that. So it was her son, that's where she met him.
What how chilling here in carry Anne like, if you're going to kill me, just kill me her words? Isn't that that just so sad that her wife has come to that, this lunatic.
That she had no option, She had no choice. She was twenty four years old, she hadn't she was a whole life ahead of her and this man would not stop, would not stop, and she was trapped in this bedroom, probably thought Chris Gore was dead. What to do and then she just called his bluff and lost.
Just makes me sad even thinking about it. And her sister that was eight months pregnant. Yes, the baby didn't survive, I'd take it. No.
Another really sad part of it. Lisa was engaged to a serving police officer at the time, Paul Martin, who worked in Sydney, and Paul had been at work that day and he's on his way home and he'd heard about the shooting at Teregul as he got off the train at Gosford and he raced to the crime scene and obviously a police were on scene it then and they were able to control him and look after him in a sense. But it took police quite quite a while, had to get the dog squad there because I unsure
where the shooter was. The only evidence that he wasn't in the house was gleaned from Chris Gore, but only after Chris Gore was extracted from the house because he was a potential killer twenty five minutes later by the uniform police and he said, oh, Baker, Baker, and he drew He couldn't talk, but he drew Baker's name in the sand and the guards of the injuries, yeah, because of the injuries. So when Paul Martin's turned up, that
was an hour later. Prior to that, some forty five minutes when the amblaster were on the scene and the scene was clear, there's no shooter on scene, and the police were very comfortable that it was just going to be a crime scene. Ambulece officers went inside and did a fetal heartbeat, but there was no fetal heart right. You know, the medical evidence say you have three minutes, three or four minutes after an injury like that before to save the baby, and there was no fetal heartbeat.
Just another sad aspect of this, Okay, So you've got that happened, though, would imagine there'd be calls from the neighbors, the police would be alerted what was Baker's movements after that.
So Baker then straightaway he got into his car and he drove straight away to Sherwood Close in Bado Bay, which is where his son, David Baker was living with a de facto partner, Michelle Cooper and her small child, Stevie Lee. And he'd been to this place many times.
He knew where it was. He'd often been seen stalking around the place, often been seen parking down the street, stereotax starring at the place, particularly subsequent to when David subsequent to David Baker disclosing to Malcolm Baker that he'd slept with carry.
So he's lost for vengeance and that wasn't satisfied with the chaosity caused it the first place. And now he's gone to see gouty son, the killy son.
Well, that's the interesting thing about that. This night of the murders, he said, Well, I'm going to do one. I'm going to get them all, and were reflecting on conversations that he'd had with the ex wives in his Sydney I'm going to kill them all and whatever. It was become a parents in hindsight that if he was going to do one, he was going to do them all. And on this particular night, unfortunately, they were all home and they were all available. So he drove to Sherwood Close.
It was night, it was dark, parked the car around the street out of sight because Sherd five Sherwood closes a little cul de sac, and he approached the house down the left hand side where David's car was. It was in darkness. David's dog started barking. David was in the house with Michelle Cooper and Stevie Lee, and David's dog started barking. At that point, David went outside out the back to the back porch to see what was
making the dog bark. And as David stepped out of the back porch looked to his left, the light came on. Looked to his left, his father stepped out of the darkness and from about three meters fired at him. That shot hit him in the chest and knocked him unconscious, and he slumped back onto a garden chair in the backyard. Baker then walked up to him at point blank range and shot him in the head, just the brutale, without
saying a word, no words for exchange. Michelle Cooper could hear the conversation if there was one inside, and she heard the shots, she was straight away. She looked out, she saw her boyfriend slumped dead in the chair. She straight away locked the house and bunkered down. Baker wasn't interested in Michelle Cooper. He had no motivation, no reason to hurt her. She'd never done anything to stand in his way with Kerry Anne. She just happened to be
in that very short term relationship with David. At that point he ran back to his car and he was seen reversing his car down the street that he had hidden in. The wheel screeched and he drove off.
Where did he head after that?
So after that he drove quite some distance from that bad Oh Bay to four sixty nine Wyong Road Pacific Highway, Wyong North, and that was the house of Ross Smith.
Heard twenty minutes.
It's good twenty minutes. Ye, oddly enough, in the book you talk about the police response. So all the police resources rushed to Terrigle. Police from the Wyon command were rushing to Terrigle en route they'd heard about the shooting at bad O Bay. They diverted to bad O Bay, which was closer. All the police resources were heading south.
So Gio gradit graphically for people down the stand. You've got Terrible south, then Bay northwest, fifteen to twenty minutes northwest, and then.
Wyong's another twenty twenty five minutes northwest.
So all the police have headed down to what was happening at Terrygle, and then when the incidents happened at bad Obay, that would have been notified. And then you got Baker heading up to wile.
Well, heading up to Wine and there was no there was no he would have passed the blue light police cars on his way to wil So you got he got to Wine. It was dark, he'd been there plenty of times. He'd been seen stalking past the house he'd had. This is a house of Ross Ross Ross Smith who lived there with his de facto Leslie Joyce Reid. He parked his car, which everyone knew about, out in the front of the house was like a small property off while off the Pacific Highway wiring roads. It wasn't like
a house per se. It was a farmhouse set back onto a property.
And this hatred that he's got of Ross Smith stems from that first time you met him. The issue with the selling of the house.
Pure revenge for being ripped off. Well, there's two past to it. Being ripped off the money because he was obsessed with money, but ross Its inability to do what he wanted to do to get the house to Millfield caused him his plan to move carry in away from the central customers. So it's all interconnected.
Okay, sorry, So he's headed to Wong.
And North Wong and so he's parked his car in the front yard. Balders Brass, it's all in darkness. Knocked on the front door. Ross's de facto Leslie Joyce Reed, who he'd never met before, answered the door. He held the gun to a chest, asked where's Ross. He frog marched it down the down left, down the corridor. As he's walking down a corridor to the back room the bathrooms on the right, he saw Ross Smith's in the bath, naked in the bath, eating some chicken that Kerry at
Leslie had given him for tea. As he's as Ross saw Baker in the doorway with the gunpoint. Ross stood up and threw his wallet and threw anything he could at Baker. Baker's fired one shot from the door for about three meters which has hit Ross Smith in the chest. Ross is alive still and slumped down into the bath. Ross He's still conscious, slumped down into the bar. He's turned back to Leslie, who's in the end of the corridor, who's got her arms in the air and basically defenseless.
Fired a shot at Leslie which has hit her in the left shoulder and the right arm. She's collapsed, fallen on the floor the into the main bedroom. He's turned back to Ross and fired has shot at Rice's close range in the head, like he did with his son, like he did with Tom kill very similar, just very close top of the head. Killed them instantly. Leslie's alive in the bedroom. This is a woman he's never met. This is the woman he's got no hate for, no
vengeance for why he shot her. I don't know. They could have done the same to Michelle Cooper if he wanted to the fact that she was there and she saw him, and maybe he was thinking about his own skin at this time. I don't want any witnesses to this. No one see me yet, they're all dead. She's a witness. He stepped into the bedroom and shot her again. She lived for an hour, an hour or so witnessed. The
neighbors came, so he shot her again. Then he he drove his car around the back of the house Ross Smiths house, stole her car, her little Masda, and left the property and headed north again towards Doyleson. What was he's playing there, He doesn't Unfortunately, it's not articulated in the interviews. I'm of the belief that he stopped at Doyleson to get a drink and to get some petrol, and he would he was going to then head west to kill ross Smith's father and brother who lived nearby.
Why he didn't do that, he doesn't articulate in the interviews, but he said he basically had a moment of clarity. I can use that expression. Had a moment of clarity at the garage and he decided to go to his friend's house, John Thompson, a friend who who was no more friendly than anyone. No one was really friends with Baker. He didn't really have long friendships. He was an acquaintance that that you know, if he was knocking on the door and you didn't want to see him, you wouldn't
answer the door, that sort of acquaintance. But he went to John Thompson's ten o'clock this night, knocked on the door. It said that John Thompson, I've done it. Done what I've done it. I've got them all virtually bragged, but I've done it. Thompson took him outside, What have you done? And then he revealed that he's parts of what he'd done that night, of what who he shot or whatever? And how did you do it? No, Thompson said, whose car is that? Because he saw the Masda Kerry Leslie's Masda.
Thomas said, who's car? That's someone's car. I don't know who it is. Because he didn't know, Lessie read, I just took it. Where's the gun, it's in the car. He had it in the boot of the car. They went back inside and he tried to calm him down again. Baker at the time was quite frantic, quite emotional, quite hyper, and somehow, for some reason John said let's go to the police station. And Baker said okay, and John Thomas said I'll drive. He said, no, I'll take this car.
Thompson was under clear whether Baker was then going to scoot off, but as we know in the book, he followed John Thompson to the police station.
Can I just stop you there?
Ted?
Like, I know, he did go to the police station. But I just want to, first of all, thank you for articulating that. I've been silent because he took me right into it. Just the brutality of what was inflicted that night is unforgettable. Yeah, it is unforgetable. I just want to before we carry on about what happens when he got to the police station. I'm curious because and I think this is the copying me. When that type of stuff is going down, the radio is going bizarre,
people are getting called out, left, right and center. You've got to shoot her on the run. That's just going and killing people. And no one at that particular point in time had an expectation that's going to hand himself
into a police station. So you got called out that night he did, ye, explain your role and explain the chaos of the night when that type of thing happens, because it's very rare in the policing career that you get caught up in that type of chaos when things are happening in real time, and that literally you better switch on and get your job done because otherwise more people are going to be killed. So what was the pressure and what was the circumstances.
So I was at home off Judy, We've got a call from Detective Sergeant Bill Erickson to get to pick up the A list Steve Potter and raced down to the crime scene at North Wyl where Bill was waiting with the other detectives, Senior Comfortable Peter Donaldson. At that point, while I was en route, Baker had actually headed himself into the police station. We weren't aware of that because
I was in my private car. When I got to the scene at North Wyle, two Highway patrol constables were meeting a log at the gate and on the gate that they were quite traumatized about it, but they were quite relieved because they said, oh, they've got him up until moments before, nobody knew where he was.
Nobody knew because at that stage before he's handed him self in I would imagine the police radio would have been going off, tactical police would have been called from all over the place, detectives would have been called out, and there would have been car circulated if you had the description of the car.
There was a vague description of a car. There was not a lot of details. It was only subsequent to him handing himself in the details started to appear.
He was just a sequence of events on the central case. And when we're talking the central case, yeah, this is all geographically in the same area and you just got this. At any point, was he circulated as a shooter before he handed himself in?
Okay, they didn't even know that. I mean, it was an unusual event on that night where when Newcastle Radio VKG alerted everyone on the channel, no more communications. The only communications now that anyone's allowed to give is in relation to this matter. Until it became clear that obviously he'd been a.
Counted and like people went after we've talked for it or you have explains what's happened. Would be thinking, well, is he circulated as wanted that we're looking for him. But when you get to a crime scene like that, you first you've got to check that the gunman's not still there because it could be an ambush, so that that takes time.
That's correct.
Whether this one's related to that one, you've got to wonder whether they're even related. And then when the third ones happened that we have just been cha.
I think it was Codrek and I mean I had a conversation with Bill Erickson at the scene. When they arrived at the scene with Bill the Peter Don, they were unsure that that scene wasn't hot with the shooter active with the shooter, and they approached that with great trepidation as well, because nobody knew there was no car there, that Baker's Volvo was parked around the back out of sight.
It was only when they did a perimeter search of the of the premises and tried to secure the premises, not knowing whether there was a shooter inside, that they saw the car. There wasn't enough time for police to connect the dots of what Chris Gore was saying when he's making those handwritten messages in Garter at Terrygill about
Malcolm Baker Volvo great cream colored Volvo. That information wouldn't have resonated to the uniform police and the detectives at Terrrigill at that point, because Chris Gore was the only.
One that could only survive it was.
The only one who could tell anybody anything about it. Subsequent when the police turned up at Sherwood Close and they managed to speak to Michelle Cooper, she would give a version of events, still not been able to identify Baker as the shooter because she didn't see him or hearing the sea his car, but a witness saw the car driving away. Subsequent to that, that witness identified the car.
That timeline to that has extended to the point Baker's already gaunted to north Woong, He's already killed Ross Smith and Leslie Reed, he's already driven to Dyleson and he's contemplating his future. It was only those two little bits of evidence that at those two crime scenes that would have identified him, which made it even harder for police across the coast to know who they're looking for.
Okay, you've been called out, you're in your private car, you get to the crime scene. By that stage you notified that the shoe that has handed himself in, So you're looking at the crime scene. What's got to be done? There talk us through the crime scene. Explain what you saw and what you did there.
Yeah, So it was the starkest memory I have of it is when I walked up to the porch and spoke to Bill Ericson and Peter Donaldson. You could still smell the gunpowder. You can still smell that smell in the air because it was a small house. Bill gave us, Steve Potter and I strict instructions about the managing the crime scene. Obviously, now this was going to be a big media event. Bill had told me it only just found out about Baker heading himself in and Bill Bill
let Bill had. Bill felt an obligation to Leslie Read, who was still alive, and she was transported from the crime scene in a hospital to Gosford Hospital. Bill felt an obligation to find out about her. He left me and Potter in charge of the crime scene. He and Donaldson and drove to the hospital at Wile to try and make some contact with Gosper to get the situation
of Leslie Read. Unfortunately, Leslie Reid died very shortly after she was admitted to Gospel Hospital from the wounds and then in the in the In that process, he'd become aware of Baker henning himself in and he moved to He then went to Terrogo Police Station. Potter and I it was a huge thing for both of us. It was a massive crime scene, the biggest thing we've ever been thrown. We're given the responsibility by a particular sergeant to manage this crime scene. Don't let any media in,
don't let You've got witnesses on both sides. Go and interview these witnesses. This is before laptops and iPads or whatever, so they're all handbook, handbook interviews. Make sure that that crime scene is intact. So Potter and I did a perimeter search. We made sure we secured the car, secured there's a dog at the back. Secured the dog. We entered the crime scene and we could see that that the house was quite a disheveled house, but it was
cozy in a sense. The TV was on, there was a there was a pet cat sleeping on the couch in front of the TV. We went down the corridor towards the back room Ross Smith. You could see you could see all the food and the wallet and the belt that he'd thrown at Baker. You could see the empty cartridges on the floor. Unfortunately, Ross was in the bath. He slumped over the bath like that. The Supreme Court
judge mentions it, mentions it. There's the famous painting of a man who's died in a bath whose arms slunk over the edge. I can't remember the name of it, but it was quite weird for the Supreme Court judge to do that. But he was slumped over at the edge of the bath with his brain matter on the floor, completely dead.
Just on the personal thing, like and we're cops, so we've all been to these horrific crime scenes. But it's not very nice. Is that the smell? You forget you're seeing bits and pieces of body parts. You shouldn't see a shotgun blast of the head. I would imagine you looking at pieces of the skull and the brain.
It was all over the place. So it was. It was. It was my first experience with firearms, serious firearms injuries. Been to a lot of hangings and stabbings and you've seen a lot of dead people at that point, but never the power and the effect of that on an individual was unforgettable. I'll never I'll never forget it. Cannet just talking about it now. I can still smell it. You can still you know you've been to crime since.
You can still smell that. The smell of death or whatever you want to call it.
It's got a particular smell.
It has a particular smell. It's not like a moorg it's different to a morgue, but it's it is.
Than the unforgettable, the blood and the blood and the bath.
And but the bath was full of blood. And you know, as I said, Brain met on the floor the piece of skull. And I didn't know at that time that Ross had been shot in the chest. It was only after when, with hours and hours later, when the crime soon had been recorded, that that I helped the government contractors lift Ross out of the and when we picked him up, we could see the ward of that shell
had been bedded in his chest. That wouldn't have killed him, That would have messed him up, but wouldn't have killed him. And then then we walked into the back bedroom and you could seal the trail of blood where Leslie had been.
You could see all up the wall where parts of Leslie's arm and shoulder would sprayed up the war from the shotgun, and you could seal the trail of blood where she crawled into the bedroom, and then obviously all the ambulance refused that was there, but they tried to save her on the floor before they took her to the hospital. And then and then we secured the crime scene. And then it was just a long list of the videographers, crime scene experts, commanding police with some authority, all wanted
to come and check out the crime scene. I did a walk through with one of the victims to make sure what they told us in the statement was true or accurate to their recollections. And then yeah, we're seventeen hours, fifteen hours later, we managed to extract from the bath.
And all this and people probably don't understand we've talked this through. We'll talk about what was said when you went to the police station handed himself in. But you think like it's a laid down is that as in, you've caught the person or you've got the person, but there is still so much work.
You've got to convict him.
You've you've got to convict him, you've got to present everything, you've got to gather the evidence, and yeah, there's so much work to do there. I'm just I'm sitting here talking about hearing you talk about that just brings me back to those days of so much to the so much to do with that. You had three crime scenes on a huge scale. It would have been a long, long and attire in twenty four hours.
It was for pretty much everyone on the central coast. We had three, three or four patrols local areas la c's whatever they were called at the time. And you know there was a lot of police involved and a lot of police were adversely affected by day over time and yeah, it was, it was.
It was pretty Did you did you stay on the strike force like the investigation.
Yeah we did. We were with Newcastle Homicide Squad through Garth Christian and Scott Casey came and led the investigation. After the initial interview because Bill, Bill, Bill Erickson and Donaldson went to the police station.
What was it, let's let's go, let's go police take to the police station. So he's handed himself, Well, he's.
Walked up the stairs at Tukeley Plice station with John Thompson and John there was a there was an amazing uniform sergeant there called Ronnie Beard who ron did thirty years in Redfern was basically come to the Central Coast to retire. And Ron was on the counter this night at Tukeley. Nothing nothing raddles Ronnie Beard and Ron saw Baker was covered in body matter down his legs and whatever.
They had a conversation. Ron straight away took him into the room, got him a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or whatever, and then sat down with him and asked him and made a handwritten contemporarious of
what Baker's version of events were. In the introim, Bill Erickson's turned up, had a conversation with Ron and they've have got other police to go and get the gun secured, the firearm which is still in the car and the band of there and then right Bill Erickson and Peter Donaldson have had a conversation with Baker to make sure
that Baker would sign. And John Thompson witnessed Ron Ron Beard's contemporary snakes because if Baker said nothing else over the course of the investigation, that was the most important admissions. Basically something we did talk at nauseum because of his ego down the track as we talked about, but that that the precience of of of of the sergeant on the desk on that night. To do to get that admission in writing and signed was you know, was.
Was well, it's with all all that happens, you've got to get that admission and get that admission. That's right, the earliest opportunity, especially when they're talking and then yeah, they might have a change of change.
Said not have said another word, not said another word, and if you hadn't said another word, that's the ad mission. You go. You know, you're thinking about, well, this is going to go to a hearing matter, it's going to go to a full jury matter in a supreme court. You need to dit every eye across everybody. He's got to prove, got to prove everything.
So just in summary, he did. He did the interview with the detectives and then there was another it was electronic recorded interviews.
There was any Garth Christian and Scott Casey from the homicide decided to take him to Gosford. Gossip was the head station.
This is when they're just for people listening. This is just around the time when they're starting to bring in their electronic recording of suspects. That's right in the police station. That's not every police station had.
Not everyone toually did have one, but I think it was. It was quite clever of Garth and Scott to want to take him to the bigger stations where it could have been booked into custody, though obvious thinking about making sure they get everything right procedurally and procedurally everything was covered. They had a Garth had a conversation with Baker in the car between Tukeley and Gosford, which was also quite insightful, but obviously there was not conversation that was recorded. Garth
would have made it contemporarious note of it. But when he went to Gosford he was he presented as someone who was quite defeated. He did exhausted the venom, he'd exhausted the hate, he'd exhausted the passion to kill, and he was quite a hollow man at Gospeld Police station and so that procedure they booked him in and whatever thing because it was getting quite late in the night and Garth and Scott's case as good detectives were getting information from the three crime scenes during.
The course of the evening, during the course yeah, during the course of.
The evening, they were relying on just what Baker was saying, they were relying on the crime scene evidence and whatever, and they did the initial e respue of you at some time early in the morning of the twenty eighth.
And one thing that you get the admissions, but one thing you'd also want to demonstrate that he was of sound mind absolutely at that point in time.
Absolutely, and that that was a theme of the first question, the first interview with Garth and Scott, and it became a recurring theme when the Chief of the Detective Homicide Lance Chaffei, reinterviewed him earlier in the morning after he went to court, because that was that was the obvious defense. We didn't have to hunt this bloke down. We didn't. You know, there's no there's no he's making admissions. He's headed himself in. Clearly he's going to run a mental
health defense. So they asked the questions about are you intoxicated, so you hadn't hadn't had a drink, your stone cul sober? Are you on meds? Yes, he was on juicyne or valium. Had you taken any day, hadn't taken any any today? The blood tests that they took of him on custody confirmed that he was stone cul Saber had no drugs in.
His body, so negating any mitigating circumstance, any possible.
Any possible mitigating circumstances, clarified any issues around mental health or whatever mental health physical issues he had and mental health that issues he had, and it was all unremarkable.
Okay, well, that's good to know. What were the overview of what he said. Did he just try to justify his answers to the questions that were put to him what his actions were, or do he say why did it?
He'd always played the victim. It was always someone else's fault, like in the line of questioning, which is just covered in the book in terms of great detail with the interviews, But it was never his fault. I was wrong. They did me wrong. I was virtually entitled to do this. That nobody nobody believed me. Nobody. He actually brags about the fact that nobody believed him, that I told him I'd do this. It was their fault. Doesn't get angry, doesn't get frustrated. He just just tells it as he
feels it. And the questioning in both interviews was obviously very professional and unprovocative and elicited the type of answers that were required to get him to a conviction.
How did the play out in court?
So he initially was yeah, he initially went to Gostard Court in that morning of the twenty eighth. There it was a huge crowd there. It was a big media event. Some of the victims families were there and it became as you see now on TV. Maybe not so much these days, but in those days, you know, the mob was there, the TV was there, whatever. So he was a completely defeated, shallow man, hollow man in court. People had to be ejective from court because they were threatening
to kill him and swearing at him. But so he had the bail hearing refused. Bail was taken to Long Bay. Then he had a number of bail hearings. He's officially bar refused again or in December nineteen ninety two. He had a paper committal at the Gosford Local Court on the twin of December where it was flagged by the defense that he was going to look for diminished responsibility which at the time was available to him, which is
not available now. He ended up in the Newcastle Supreme Court on the third of March where they were preparing to go ahead with a trial. Evidence about his psychiatric condition other evidence from social workers was tendered. On the second of August, when they were going to commence the trial before a jury was impanelled, He's decided to enter
a guilty plea. Over the next four days, a variety of witnesses were allowed to give evidence, and on the sixth of August in the Newcastle Supreme Court he was convicted and given life a life sentence. On the third of September ninety ninety five, he appealed to the new South Wales Supreme Court on conviction on the sentence that the sentence was too harsh. That appeal failed. On the ninth of the ninth nineteen ninety six, he appealed to
the High Court for leave to appeal. There was a twenty minute hearing and that was denied.
Well, I'm glad the court's got that one right.
Yeah. Well, there was a two to one decision in the Supreme Court, so there was one judge who had a view about the harshness of the sentencing. But what was interesting about that when you read that was that there was this issue about because it was truth in sentencing. I think that the state. The government had pushed all that through, so there wasn't too many of these cases that were people getting life for these type of murders.
And one of the justices said the New South Wales Supreme Court had a view that he was not sentenced as it wasn't a safe sentence. Was the other two disagreed?
Yeah, well that's why sometimes I get confused with court. Yeah, what society do we have that someone that goes on the murderous rampage like that has any right to have freedom?
Yeah, that's right. But it makes a point though, when you and I have been in lots of court cases and lots of jury trials and whatever, and the law is so labyrinthine, there's so many avenues, there's so many ways to get around. A thinks you've just got to make sure that you tick every box to keep every box legally. You've got all the case law, you've got all of the High Court decisions or whatever, and you've got to just have That's why I admire the judges so much.
I like them too in that they absorb and they're they're they're smart, they're clearly smart. I just always think that the justice system when it's all said and done, is there to serve the community, and.
It doesn't always get it right here and that that's the thing.
And I worry sometimes with the legal fraternity hide around the technicalities and they're very smart the way they exploit them or control things because of the the rules and regulations and the legislation that's in place that we all agree is needed. But sometimes the courts have got to serve serve the community that they're set up to serve.
They do know, having worked in child sexual site for a lot of years and sat in a lot of jury trials and the issues of trying to get a conviction of a pedophile. Who's the only witness I've got is the victim and it happened twenty years ago or whatever. There's no crime scene, there's no physical evidence, there's one word against another, and there's about thirteen or fourteen different escape routes through the New South Wales evidence that before
any evidence even gets in. It was quite frustrating. So I took the winds. Yeah, well that's.
Probably why you look so relaxed with this one. What's he's passed away now?
Yeah? So he was. He resisted all sorts of psychiatric treatment. They to try to give him ant psychotic drugs and whatever. So in June twenty four he was moved from the super max at Goldbin. Suffering from cancer, he went to the Long Bay Hospital for palliative care. He died handcuffed to bed on Saturday, the twenty second of June twenty twenty four. And the world's a better place. He spent thirty two years taxpayer's expense. Yeah.
I look, when we talk about crimes like this, but you know, for each murder, the ramifications, it spreads more than just one person. That's all the people connected to and the flow on damage and all that. You're talking six people's lives taken in one night because of one man's rage. And what can you talk about the aftermath
of the victims. Of you you've got any sense of how it's like it's wiping it virtually wiped out a family or a large portion of the family, the impact that this crime has had on the people.
I was very fortunate subsequent to his death to be able to people reached out to me, and I spoke to three of the victims. So I spoke to Paul Martin, who was the police officer who's the de fact defiance say of Lisa Gannon and his life. He didn't stay.
He dedicated, tried to dedicate his life to being a better policeman subsequent to the murders, but it didn't pan out for that much longer, and he's had he's had a real struggle for the rest of his life, the last thirty years to come to terms with what happened.
He's done a variety of jobs, been a fossica, worked for the United Nations, being quite involved himself in a high stress lifestyle, high stress occupation, to the point now where he's content in a relationship, living in Victoria, doing a bit of foster king and got a job and was quite amenable to me talking to him about the story. Still has has a memory or a part of the child that they lost. They still he still reflects on that.
So I met him, I spoke to him. I spoke to Scool, who was obviously the boy shot in the face, lost half his face, and he similarly had had a very very rough life style and is still struggling even thirty two years later. Chris, Chris was very generous in talking to me. Chris was I was very moved and humbled to be able to talk to Chris about his experience, and he gave me some insight into his version of events.
And the third person I spoke to was Michelle Cooper, who was in the house when David Baker was shot at the back. And Michelle has moved on with a life, got a new family, still reflects on that night, still emotionally affected by that night, but she has a very upbeat, positive view of the view of life and was very very happy to talk to me. And again I was very humble and respected, respectful to talk to her as well.
So there's three of the people that I had. It was quite interesting because when I finished the book, I had a real moral dilemma because there's a lot of people in this there's a lot of people's lives. Who am I? What right have I.
Got to tell this?
This is my passion project, this is my therapy, this is my movement on from whatever? Who was I? So when I first self published the book, I didn't I just kept it in house. I gave it to my family and friends because I was very proud of it. It was only after I had the opportunity to speak to those people and get their consent in a way that I was able to set the book free and you know it's available on Amazon and I sell it.
So it been able to relate to the people involved firsthand and as a policeman, made me feel respectful, gave me permission per se to be here today. Like in hindsight, if I hadn't spoken to those those three and hadn't felt enabled by them, I may not have been comfortable doing this.
I understand that, and full credit to you that you look at it from that way, because it is such a difficult subject. I look at this. You're telling the story like you've done today and on this platform. I think it's not glorifying crime. This is chrime and we've seen it. Crime's horrendous and the flow on the fact and the ramifications. But what it does is show people, you know, when we talk about the gun control laws after Port Arthur and the shit that happens over in
America and that we're fortunate that doesn't happen here. The laws that they are bringing in for domestic violence, the focus on domestic violence, coercive controls and all that. Those that might argue and they don't think there's many in this day and age those that might argue against that sort of control. This is the type of shit that
can happen when things aren't aren't easily happen. So I think what you've done today, and I hope what we're doing here talking about it is explaining this is the reason we need to go hard on these things and these people that are controlling people and breaching AVOs and all that we need to crack down on them because this is a potential ramatic.
Case asolutely and we see it, we see it happening. We do see it happening. So I dedicated the book to all the victims of domestic violence. I don't just say female victims. There are they're they're both sides of the equation. It's just the majority of female. But they dedicated to all the victims. And the last little monologue I have at the end, you know, just ask the
question why. You know why? And I hoped if I have a goal about out of this book was one to my own help, my own recovery, but two that there might be someone that picks this up at an airport and reads it and a potential offender. You go, no, I'm not going to do that.
I don't want to be that.
I don't want to do that. Or there's there's potential victims now who are suffering for coercive control and in this situation, and they'll see how it happened and that they can reach out and speak out if it happens to one person. Well, I mean.
I think it's a I think it's a good messaging those crime scenes they are confronting. Did it have an impact on you seeing that?
I certainly had a delayed delayed in paper, because that's the time, as you know, being a detective and investigating big matters, you're actually in it. You're in the zone. Like it's all about the work. It's all about making sure that you're right, everybody's right, making sure that you don't make any mistakes, making sure that you follow the bureaucracy or the paperwork of it. So you don't feel
anything until until it's til it's till it's over. So I was still quite high for days and days and days after that, and then Garth and Garth Christian and Scott Casey from the homicide squad came back to the Central Coast and we all we met and we all had we were all given tasks to go out and interview these people and find it. So the crime scene itself didn't The effect of the crime scene of me initially was negligent in that I was still busy, were
still on the job, We're still doing the investigation. It
was only after the matter. Actually, I can remember the day we were given the four volume brief of evidence and I had this moment at why on police station and I had these four volumes brief of evidence, which is the one I carried around with me for thirty years in my hand that I thought, I got emotional that I reflect and I actually didn't want to look at it, like the vanity was, so go to your part, go to the part see your name in lights, you know.
And I didn't want to look at it, and I didn't want to look at it, but I kept it.
I understand what you're saying there with the confronting crime scene. Some people would often ask myself, how do you react to that? I really take on board what you're saying. You're focusing so much on the work that you do, you just you've got the blinkers on in terms of I've got a job to do. Focus on that, and it might be ages down the track where you reflect on it, or when you have a quiet time and you go, yeah, that was pretty bad.
Yeah, you do, you do, and it does come back and slap you in a face like a wet fish. There's no doubt about that.
Now you're looking after yourself. And it was good catching up with Peter that I hadn't seen for a long time over and you both, I've got to say, you both look very relaxed, and you're having a bit of fun touring on motorbikes and yes, living the good life. Tell us through what you're doing. Now, let's finish on the high because it's been a heavy staf.
It has been a heavy and I really appreciate the opportunity to let me talk. Gary, really do. But Peter and I fell in love in the job. We met in the job, and we should never have fallen in love, but we fell in love in the job and moved to the country and got married and had a beautiful
child who's got a degree in criminology. Oddly enough, but Peter's always been into horses and I've always been into surfing, and eventually we moved back to Newcastle because when I got sick and had to leave, I needed to be a safe place. So Peter and I moved back to Newcastle where I grew up, and I reconnected with my primary school friends, one of whom I'm about to ride a motorbike around New Zealand with and we've known each
other for sixty years. So when I moved back to Newcastle to recover, we did and we had a lovely lifestyle there. Peter resigned retired from the cop as well, and then the Newcastle lifestyle is very different to anywhere else. It's hard to explain if you don't.
Live you're a Newcastle person or you're not a newcast. They talking about I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult, but.
They talk about in the job the Newcastle Police was because if you go to new Gum, they don't get out of there.
We've seen a lot of police up there and they've never come back.
They've never come back. It's like the triangle of police. But over time we've just our daughter's grown up and we've recovered from our illness, our mental illness, and happily in love and we decided to move to the North Coast to be with Peter's mother, and I started writing an adventure motorbike a couple of years ago with my friends from Newcastle and just fell in love with it. The feeling of meditation, feeling of RESTful, being RESTful and
peace that I feel on an adventure motorbike. They go on raid, but they go on dirt as well. And I managed to talk Peter into getting a little one and as you've got a little bit bigger one, and I've just bought her a Murdoguzzy V eighty five t t travel, which is her feet can't touch the ground, but she's learning. So we do day trips away and go and stay up and up around northern New South Wales.
I ride with my mates, still surf. My daughter's about to return to Newcastle and start a law degree jurist doctrip, which I'm very proud of. So yeah, we're very We're in a very good place.
Life's going good. Yes, Okay, well we'll put in a little advert for joining the cops. You're fine, love have an interesting career and end up riding motorbikes around with the Woman of the Dreams. Yeah, well that's pretty good.
Well, it's pretty good. Yeah, you know, it's funny how those things come together. Like the psychiatrists have told us over the years, this is a codependency. This this is sick. This will never last. You can dependent on each other, but it actually works because we know each other. We've did the same we did the same ship, we've seen the same ship.
Well, I know you guys when you got together, and I can see the love hasn't passed out. So well done. So I appreciate shout out to both of you. Thanks for coming on. I catch Gillers. I've enjoyed the catch up and the chat, and it's important getting that messaging out there. So thanks very much, Thanks very much, Gery, good luck to you and good luck in the future.
Cheers.
It's always good catching up with ex colleagues. I enjoyed chatting with Ted and so heavy subject that we were talking about the murder of six people. I hope people listening appreciate the gravity of what can occur when domestic violence is not checked and gun control is not kept in place. Six innocent people were murdered on one night because of one man's rage. It's such an important lesson to learn, and my thoughts go out to the people who lost their lives because of just one man.