The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. 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, said, 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 talked 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 to another episode of I Catch Killers. When today's guest and I finished the detective's training course back in nineteen ninety, we were young, fresh faced, and ready to
take on the world as newly designated detectives. We had no idea where our care we're going to take us, but we're excited. Our paths went off in different directions, but we got to see things in life most people don't get to see or experience. That's just part of being a detective. Today's guest, retired Detective Sergeant Bob Wells, has had an interesting career. He worked in the country
at one man police stations. He worked as a detective in country areas and also as a rescue squad operator, and he also led a homicide investigation they have to say was one of the most brutal and macabre murders I've heard about in my entire time in homicide. I'm talking about the murder of John Price by his partner Katherine Knight. Katherine Knight is the first woman in Australia
to be given a life sentence without parole. When you hear about the nature of the crime, you'll understand why Boby's going to talk to us about his career and the personal price is paid as a frontline police officer. And I also think a listener warning is probably appropriate here given the nature of the crime Bob will be discussing. Bob Wells, welcome. Do I catch killers?
Thanks Garry well I got.
To say, last time it could be. The last time was probably when we walked out as newly designated detectives back in nineteen ninety ninety ninety.
That was it. Yes, Yes, I was pretty proud of myself that day.
It was a big day, wasn't it.
Well, I'm not an academically inclined guy, so the ex course for me was quite hard.
Well, we had that conversation the other day and I wanted to raise it with you because I didn't want to say it if you said no, it was easy. That was a very very hard course.
It was. I think it was the last course. It was actually held in Sydney before it moved to the Academy in.
Goldban And I remember, and we're talking about it the other day that if you failed the exams or the brief of evidence that you had to put through your cut from the course, that's it. You're given the tap on the shoulder and said see you later.
They come Monday, and I think it's changed and so dramatically.
Actually, yeah, yeah, we were talking about the Detective's Course a couple of episodes back, and yeah, they that they were graded or designated. But I've got to say with the course, when you did walk out as a detective, then that was one of my proudest moments in the cops because you had the work so hard for it.
Oh you did, Yeah, one hundred percent. Like I said, I wasn't academically inclined, And I guess the roots behind that was I went to high school for two reasons. One was to see my mates in sport. Yeah, so I wasn't academically.
You look back at those days and think, jeez, we could have paid a little bit more attention. But I understand where you where you're coming from. But yeah, well walking out there. That's not to say that we didn't have fun. But I still do not remember studying as hard as I studied during those six weeks because it was done in two blocks. But the final six weeks, I think and just study every night every weekend.
Well, I was down from the country, so and I think it was half a dozen of us, and we were at the.
Old you had the party house.
We had the party or part of units. Yeah. Yeah, but and we said had a little bit of fun at night. I mean a lot of the inner city guys sort of went home, but a lot stayed on and we had quite a few great nights at the old Elizabeth Hotel. Yeah, just across the road. So a lot of fun has had. It was a lot of fun was had. Yeah, it was good, But getting back to that the serious side of it, it was taxing for me.
Yeah. Well no, I found it the same way. And the fact that you talked about drinking it seemed to be synonymous with life as a detective and working hard and drinking hard back in those days.
But yeah, idea it was. It was part of the culture.
Yeah, I think that's a way of putting it. The culture. Now we got so much to so much to talk about your career and your career in the country and working in the one man station. Your career is a detective. But one of the cases that your career is going to be linked with, whether you like it or not, is the murder of John Price by Catherine Knight. Yes, and that was back in two thousand and I got to say, it's one of the most brutal, macabre murders
heard about when all my time in homicide. We're going to delve deeply into that because I want you to take us on the whole journey through the investigation, because you led that investigation and Catherine Knight is now convicted of the murder and has been sentenced to life imprisonment. With no parole. Can you just tell us just to get a sense of it, what you discovered when you first went to that crime soon.
Well, basically the crime scene was fairly horrific. It was there was a lot of blood, which you would imagine would be in such a thing. But what struck me was, I mean, I've done us a couple of stabbing murders
during my career. A stab as a stab, you know, once or twice, but the number of stabbings and then the sheer calculated removal of someone's complete skin and the capitation is something that you think about how crafted and how skilled a person would have been it would have done that, how long it would have taken, why it was done, and the consequences that it was going to hold for myself and my workmates as a result of that investigation.
Yeah, so that's what you were confronted with when you've come into the crime scene, that someone has literally been decapitated but also skinned.
Completely, and I think you think it was to see someone's full whether you'd call it a pelt or a skin just hanging on a butcher's hook in a doorway is just a very confronting situation.
Okay, Well, look, we'll probably start off on a low talking about that because it's horrific crime, and I want to talk a little bit about the victim in that because it shouldn't it shouldn't be forgotten. But the investigation, how it played out, and what your impressions of Catherine and I were, because you got to got to interview her in an understanding of it. So let's lighten it up a little bit. And before we get into that, cops, you came from a policing family.
My father was a police officer. He was a motorcycle the oldest TP before the High Patrol was renamed or rebadged so as they say. And then his brother, my uncle, was also in the police force. But so I sort of grew up around cops, mainly through the social outings of my parents, my father, those sorts of things. I was always around cops. So it was it wasn't strange to me, but it wasn't exactly something that I aspired to because of that situation.
Right, So it was you were familiar with it, but it wasn't that you didn't wake up and say, I'll grow up.
Yeah, I want to be like some kids group and they want to be a want to be a fire and they want to be a policeman, they want to be whatever. I never had. That was probably one of the last things that ended into my mind as a career.
So what swung you there?
What's fun me there?
Was?
I was quite happy where I was working at the time, and I wasn't a straight out of school graduate into
the police. I wasn't an ex cadet. I actually didn't sort of move towards thinking about joining the police until I was twenty one, and then it was through conversations with my father about I wanted to back back in the seven nineteen seventy He said, it wasn't a lot of superannuation around for people, and I always sort of wanted to have to look to my future for myself and my family in relation to financial matters and financial
stability for the future. So where I was actually working, I really enjoy working there, but there was none of those benefits for the people for the people where I worked. So it was just through a casual conversation with my father one day he said, what do you think about join the cops. I've got a great set of vanuation.
Scheme's some good advice.
It was about the best advice I ever got from him. But yeah, so I looked at it and thought, well, i'll have a crack. So well, you drove me down to Sydney. I went in and the rest is history. You took me a couple of cracks.
Yeah, you were telling me about that. Talk us through that the first time. You didn't make it. Well, basically visit late seventies.
It's just in about nineteen seventy seven, sony, And the only entrance criteria then was to pass the spelling. Sorry, in those days we still said height, chest measurement, but that sort of thing. So I had those categories covered. The spelling. I thought I was as good speller. However, I went into this room when there was about eighty prospective young people there, and I found the spelling to be quite hard. Actually it was. I thought, jeez, I didn't expect this sort of thing. But I only failed
by a couple of words. And out of that eighty odd people are in their room that day, I think only three or four past that went through. When I was given the tap on the sholder and I said, listen, mate, you weren't far away, but I just can't push it through on the couple you got wrong. So just take a bit of advice. Next time you see the advertisement in the Daily Telegraph for wanting police recruits, come back down. He said, I think you'll find the spelling a lot easier.
And was that just regulating because you had eighty people there and then you're only going to take well.
I only just filled the class, I think, and they didn't really want.
Recruits, but they had to just kept making the words harder.
Well, I think they had. I think they had a program if they would have so many interesting exams every week or fortnite, so the numbers that fronted up, they'll probably wored it out until they wanted recruits by the difficulty of the spelling. I met. That's that was my impression.
So I went back when I saw an advertisement a few months later, plus I brushed up a little bit on spelling, and look, I went back in the next time and there was sixty people in the room, and everybody passed with flying colors because basically most of the words the next ting beyond six letters cats. Yes, pretty much.
I forgot about the spelling tests, and I remember standing there practicing words like catch ce at c H catch harder words than that. But you had a list of words and you had to remember them as best you.
Well, I think eventually and you learned. You knew why it was because there was so much paperwork in the cops.
And you're typing skills. Okay, so you eventually learned how the spell cat and Matt and Sat got through that. You got through that, but then you had another hurdle fil the blood.
Pressure young fit twenty one year old, high blood pressure. Anyway, to cut the story a little bit shorter, I went to see with GP about well I might have had high blood pressure. He checked my blood pressure and it was perfect. I think you're just suffering a little bit of nerves and you get a little bit excited and your blood pressure increases. He said, just try and relax a little bit when you're go in and have one of these tablets. If you want to behalf of this
tablet like calm you down. I think it was a Sarah Pax, I think. Anyway, I had that half a tablet and my parts were flying colors. Eventually, the blood pressure test then went through the like test, which was very very I think Old Dr Peterson was one of the gmails on that one. So I got through that and eventually waited and actually you had to nominate some people and normally nominated the parents of good friends of yours and I were interviewed, Yeah, the usual thing, and
then got to start. Got to start in nineteen seventy nine.
Okay, so some of the stations you worked at Eastwood, Gosford started.
Off as one of the Gosford I think they used to go on the Gosford tongue in those days, because I think most people who lived in Gossip or the Central Coast area were stationed it strategically at places like Hornsby, Chatswood, Eastwood basically because of the distance to travel, and you were cooled by the locals as the Gosford tongue in
those days. Anyway, I did part of my probation those first six weeks with a buddy at Gosford, then got speed back to Eastwood, where I worked for another twelve months. A bit over before coming from the country, I grew up in the coal fields area of the hunta valley in the little town called Western New Curry Curry. As a country boy, I just wanted to get out of
the city. It wasn't It wasn't the game for me, and also would in those days was a bit of a It was fairly quite station, you know, so you really wanted any probation because when I first started, you didn't even want to have a day off.
Yeah, so you enjoyed it when when you got in there there was a probation, very constable.
It was a complete I ap. The camaraderie in that amongst the guys was unbelievable. But it was just that the sheer experience of seeing things that most of the public don't get to sea. It just popped up every day, you know, day in day out, and there was always something. Even for quiet a station, there was always something happening. You know, it was a dust real accident and you looked at things and thought, wow, you know, like this is just yeah, I've never seen a dead body. Before
I joined the cops. I used to get to deadens and that sort of thing, and I'll never forget the first dead body ever saw, you know, it was just a guy went missing in one of the old home it's just around the police and they said you're going to climb that. You're the probation are you're going up that ladder and you're going Because he had about five double deadlocks on his door in the unit, had to go through the window, and I could see this body lying in a bed with a handkerchief over his face,
of all things. But you know, I'm balancing on the windowsill trying to yell out to this guy. His name was Zeril. Anyway, in the end, I just toppled over and I've just crashed all of the Venetian blinds off the window, landed on the floor upside down, fighting my way out of the Venician blind Veoenician blinds, just to have a look at and get to the light switch to get it on. And he was just a ceasing bed. So that's my experience of the first dead person I've ever seen.
They're bizarre experiences and they're hard to prepare you for them, aren't they You You're really You're going there with your eyes open, and it's just okay, this is the world, the world that a lot of people don't get to see.
Yeah, exactly, Well, a lot of reliefs. I get to find the elderly relatives to cease those sorts of things, but that's more personal for them. But this sort of started the ball rolling where this became a you know, it was just in the end, it was just there's nothing to be worried about. There was nothing to be nervous about. There's nothing to be shocked about. Yeah, throughout the career.
And did you your personality type, did you feel like the job fitted you? Like it it was something that you were glad you discovered it.
I think so well. I think so, Yeah, because most of the guys I worked was you know, ninety percent of the guys I worked with were just fantastic people. You've got to have a sense of humor. I thought I thought I had that so and I think that's part of you do briefing to have a sense of humor. Some people who bottle things up from the word go, we're going to struggle with this with that particular lifestyle.
Yeah, and that's a positive. Like police often get criticized about the culture, and yeah, there was problems with the culture, but there's also some positives about the culture. Yeah, the black humor that we have, the way that you deal with the tragedies that you confront each day in the cops.
And you only used that amongst your workmates. Yeah, and it was. It is an exclusive club what everybody says. I think it's probably like the military. It's probably like the ambas and the fieries. They have that exclusivity about the culture within their organization, and.
It's in the terminology like you join the police, you join the army, you join the ambulance. You know o it. Yeah, they ain't describe it that way.
One hundred percent. You do join it. And they put a bit of discipline in my life early life, you know, especially in your junior ranks, and sometimes that's a thing a lot of people like because it lessens them on making certain decisions. They just learn to follow and do as they're told and do quite a good job. It's when you move on to the supervisory roles that things can be a little bit harder.
Yeah, well you did you have a good role model people that you identified and thought, that's the type of cop I want to want to be.
I did when I went to Gold And actually they had a mentor that I worked a lot with was a sergeant by the name of Pat Carle who ended up at the academy where he deserved to be because he was just that sort of guy who can get
across the poop. But I really worked a lot in uniform with Pat, and hence he was my man station from down to Southern Highlands before he got a sergeant job at Goldban and how I really looked up to Pat Cole and his style of policing and just a person he was also and that sort of bumped me along too, wanting that one man station and working.
Yeah, you said that before we started the podcast, that you wanted the one man station. I can understand the attraction. There's something about it, but it's also a little bit daunting them very lanely with the responsibility that comes with a one man's station.
I think the Southern Highlands is not a busy place, whether you.
Okay Southern Highlands for people that we're talking around the Golbin exactly.
It's a terribly cold placing winner there's not a lot of crime during There wasn't back in these days the late seventies and early eighties. The Collector was a very very quiet, little my man station. But I was also lucky enough to be on one man station when you didn't when you were at your station seven days a week, thround, sixty five days ye, it was your station. You weren't called in to fill holes in the roster at Gulbin, you weren't. You weren't simp to any other stations to
fill in a gap just because of staffing issues. That was your station and that's where you worked.
How long had you been in the cops before you took on a one man station.
I was just under four years.
Okay, Well, the four years you get trained in the deep end, you start the nay, you trade after four years.
Well, I got my first hook when I was at when I was at Collector.
So because I haven't spoken to someone running it like a one man station. So Collector described the town.
Very, very small town, mainly farmers, farming families. There was a couple of garages in town. The old Federal Highway ran right through the middle of town. Summer was generally extremely quiet. Winter it hotted up a little bit because of the sheer volume of traffic that flows through that town, especially around around that first week in June, the avenue
of the school season. It was just headlights from as far as you could see from Collector Hideny woos Queen Bean along Lake George, and that was the busy time. That was the times when people were impatient, they overtook when they shouldn't have head on collisions, a lot of fatal accidents, a lot of accidents with extremely severe injuries. And in those days there was no radio coverage. When
you were along Lake George. You had to rely on as a police officer getting someone in a car that could get into collect that to get to the public phone to bring you an ambulance from garb and so you could be anywhere on the side of the road with severely injured people for quite a long time without
you've got any assistance from the ambulance. And in those days, as a young guy with people severely injured and people dead, to see a set of ambulance lights coming across that straight along Lake George to where you were was just a huge relief.
So Bobby talking here, I would assume one man's station. You're responding to these accidents on your own. You go there and you find people decease, people injured, and just say confronting the people needing urgent attention, and you're stuck there and you're not You're not on a radio, You've got no no coverage.
Oble Phanes and those days, those days, and you know, and and everybody wanted a piece you you know, people who weren't injured, who pulled up, witnesses, those sorts of things. They wanted your attention all at the same time. So it was sort of, you know, a little bit daunting, you.
Know, because you're wearing the blue uniform. They expect you know everything.
Yeah, and you can do everything, just sometimes you can't.
I spent a long time in homicide, and I saw some horrific things in homicide. But I still remember the accidents I went to where you see people dying or the trapped in cars and screaming out for help. But how did that affect you?
Well, it didn't really affect me at the time, and you realize as you go through your career that and looking back, that was the start. That was the start of the undoing.
Of most police officers, right build up of the stress and.
Exactly and the pressure that you eventually get to that twenty year, twenty year plus period in your career when you've made the cops of career. I don't think many people make the cops of career anymore. They don't go to it. The people like I'm talking about current time now, don't really go to looking to say I'm going to spend thirty to forty years in this job and make it a career and call my way to the top. I don't think that is in the majority of people
who go into the organization now. But back when I did, everybody sort of dominate career of this because you know, but I found out around that twenty years that those sorts of things when I didn't want to have a day off when I first joined, I said, I want a day off, want to keep going. This is fantastic. I nevers anything like this my life, you know. And then and those things, the pressure wasn't there then it
was just your job, you know. And then when you get to that ten year period, your job goes, oh, you know, I like some good parts about the job, and there's jobs that I an't like going to I don't, but you got to do them because that's your job.
Do you do you think you get to that point where initially everything was exciting, even the horrific stuff like I never thought I'd see this, and are you're doing it? And then when you realize I've seen this before, I don't need to see this again, and it just wears you down a lot.
That starts and that starts. But you know what we're talking about, a collector. Was that was when I looked back at the start.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you.
Know I did have one incident. The only other incident that really shook me a little bit was I went we had quite a large number of properties in it was a property called Leratter Station which had a number
of workers working on it. And I went to a to a call of domestic one night and I went up to I knew these people went up to the house and just so I got to the front door, it was a just as I opened it, the husband stuck a twenty two straight in the stomach and it sheer instinct and I think, and he's fairly when intoxicated. I just the reaction was to grab the rifle of that gun and just point it straight in the air of which and I managed to get it off him,
you know, and arresting. But that's what I started again. You know, as I look back another that was another start of.
The well confronting things. They have a drunken, aggressive man with a rifle stuck in your stomach and pull the tryer and who knows what happens. That's right, yeah, and you face that on your own. What was it like in the One Man Station because you're twenty four to seven the cop. People don't look at you anything different, whether you're working or not. You're still the cop. Could you have a social life there? Could you have a life?
We had great. We did have a great social life there because because of the small town, they're very they're very social, good hotel owner, you know. I sat a little bit the twigged with me with looking at the
plane clothes guys. When I was at the One Man was collected was strategically placed between Golban and Queen Beyan, where you had detective's officers who just love to say, let's catch up halfway to collector come all get wellsy out the station, you'll come down have a beer with us, which was the fane would ring and say getting out of here, and there there's a blue one at the pub, you know, and of course you knew their voices and I'm on my way and off you'd go, you know.
And I got to know a lot of the detectives from the Queen Beyan yes, and the Golden area fairly well. But plus working at Golbin early before I went to collector. But yeah, it was. But the townspeople were really really great people, and they had lots of lots of social things, and they were money to raise money for things like the school. It was only a very small school which had one point when I was here, I think there was twelve children, and I think seven of those were
from the one family. And also those were my means one manners in those days. When you went there, you automately became the president of the Pens Association, You became secretary of the cricket club, and you became another office holder with some other social club in the town, you know, and those sorts of things. So you sort of if you went there as a cop, you went there as one of the lynchpins of the town in the community.
Did you have any ugly situations there where people that you were friends with you had to no?
Never, oh one, yes, sorry, the publican son, I had to knock him off for a bit of pot, right, okay, which is which we which was a hurdle at the publican and I got over.
Okay, Well, you're going to manage your way through that exactly.
But yeah, but not not seriously.
Seriously, Okay, you you left there? Were you married at the time.
I was married at the time and went through a marriage breakdown whilst a collector, and I was there for I was there for a little while longer as as a lone person because the super at the time one of me out of the place. Virtually, I didn't care had you gone through a marriage breakdown, you might be suffering any form of sadness, you know, just get out because we need a married man in there. And I thought, oh, geez, you're such a scaring person.
So you were sorry just to run this run this pass. So you were there living at the station, This accommodation was at the station, the police stations at the front of the house is out there. And then when your marriage broke up, No, we need the married man.
He No, it's got to be that's a policy, right, But I'm upset married, I'm going to go where you going to send me or we don't care you have a look around anyway. Cutlong story short, is a really great guy and he's since passing a motorcycle accident. Was Ray Smith and Ray Smith was a legend amongst the high patrolling those days, especially in the Southern Highlands area. But he was also out our association rip at Golbin
and he came down and sold me. He said, listen, mate, you don't have to go anywhere, he said, because something's just there's a couple of little things just slip into the organization that the organization is pushing very hard along with the state government, which is equally employment opportunity in any discrimination. So he said, leave it to me. So he went and saw the bosses. You can't just flick this bloke. You know, he's just been through an ordeal
of a breakdown of a marriage. I said, he's you know, he's not traveling that well emotionally because of that reason, and you just want to flick him. And he said, he's not going anywhere until he decides he wants to move,
because he's got your knacker. With any discrimination and the employment opportunities that you're now throwing around like, you know, getting yourself promoted over, I guess to throw that honey in there, yes, And so I was there for quite some time until I decided I had to make the move and an opportunity came back to to go back to my home area. Opportunity for a transfer to say's not back where my parents were, and so I took that opportunity and moved back to back to the Hunt of Alley.
Okay, and you was around that time that you started to have ambitions of becoming a detective.
Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Look, general duties is the backman and the forser, and I've always said that, but it wasn't enough once I got Mattiez into the organizer or the job, you know, and what it was about. I just wanted a little bit more than just what the general run of general duties was in those days. I just wanted that, just a little bit extra, and
I thought playing clothes would give that to me. So I made application and got to start with the on the gaming squad in Newcastle.
Okay, what what did that involve?
It was maybe just doing all the LSP bookies, gaming, the old illegal to up games and different things that are run after race meetings, things like that. Our area was from Newcastle actually the Hawks River Bridge to Tweed, so we did all that, you know, and you know, we were sort of ostracized a little bit by some
of the other squads. You know, you just picked it on the pole, this big book, this, that and the other, and we will sort of look down a little bit amongst some of the other squads, like the Artis Squad or the Breakers or the Opicide boys and stuff like that, because my mates for this book. He's like, yes, but.
How dare you suggest that?
I mean, but I mean to say most of that, most of the informants in that sort of crime, we're basically women with kids and no money because the husband had come in with no pay back because he just put it all on the horses, or he'd just been a two and all of a sudden, they were all the informants, I'll fix this problem, yeah, you know, And they were ringing up all the time, and they sat there's a two up game on a Bathist. You know.
I remember going to Bathist one night, sneaking up and running in and with just two of us, and there was one hundred and twenty people in there after the Bathist trots, and they were all into it. They had party pies, had cater is there at the whole bottom.
You're going in covertly, or you just ran through.
The door maintenance. And all you've got to do is grab the kit which is the money, the bag full of money and the two up coins.
That sounds like something out of the world West.
Anyway, we ran. We ran one hundred people through the charge of a bathist at night.
Just seal the doors off. You're all under arrest, that's it. But there's only two of you.
That was another half a dozen outside, all right, okay, but yeah, those sorts of things. So but it was and that was another eye and they did just see some people what they do for entertainment. But there was some big money getting thrown around. And especially we did a lot of work with the Telstra guys for people using home units to take big books.
That's when they had all the all the line set up, all the lines.
Set up on the phones. And there was some like huge amounts of money going through all of that, you know. And and there was one little one, if you want to hear it, there was another Baptist job where there was a huge book working on the on the bedding. Yeah,
on the Saturday on the races. I'm talking probably money that would be up around the half mion dollars on a Saturday going through these phone lines and it was to an old house just out of Baptist an old old house, just faking blocks either side and faking blocks at the back. Anyway, Well, the Telstra guys that were said, mate,
that's it, that's going on right in there. So we stuck up to the front door with a sledgehammer and a warrant and I said open the door or we will break it down because we hear the races on inside. The radio is blaring, so we smashed the door down because no one with ends the door. When we got in there there was an eighty two year old woman lying in the bath with the radio one and she had four tab tickets.
It just okay, that's a big arrest, Bob. It was huge, the biggest arrests I've heard cat killers. It was.
It was massive. But it shows you that the corruption that was in Telstra at the time, because what they did, they just diverted the lines into that house. And we eventually got the book about two hours later, and it was in It was all in the back of a small goods factory there, so they just dive ot the fund of poor little old woman's house and the tilt was with us, said, mate, that's the place it's all happening in here, that's where the phone line goes in.
That we laugh about it, and you think, and you do think victimless crime. But yeah, as you said, it's usually the ladies at home that can't feed their kids because hubbies put the he's got a gaming on the horses.
They call it a gambling addiction these days. Back in those days, I just it was an addiction, but that word wasn't used. You know. They were just hopeless.
Didn't see the damage.
They didn't see the damage that and we look, we did a lot of travel, had a lot of fun. And I said, my retirement function really about the only thing the gaming squad did for me. It was low on a golf handicap, a couple of shots. Well, but it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun, and we did do some good jobs. We'd got some big books and those sorts of things. But that was just we still look back and I talked to guys sometimes, mate, do you remember that time of
Baptist the poor old lady in the bath. The biggest part of the job was getting the door fixed on Saturday.
After you hit it with a sledgeh exactly. Yeah, not an overkill, were Bob?
Just a touch?
Okay? But look, these are some of the fun aspects of policing. Like you've gone from telling funny stories and getting your golf handicapped down because you're doing so much travel. You've had a gun stuck in your in your belly when you're attended a domestic situation, and you've been the car accidents where you're there on your own and people are dying and severely injured. You've got to take the
good times of the bad times. So after feeling your way in the gaming embedding, where did you go to?
I've got a bit of a start on a list At Maitland. Frank Trace was a detective, so.
We just to explain what a list is. That's the start of your detective training you had to get and they just called the position aid.
List and you'd share the A list position around with a number of other uniform constables who wanted to who were interested. And also it was it was an opportunity for the detectives to see whether you were suited as much as you thought you might have been suited to.
That style of policing.
Policing, you know. So that's how the A list works. I'm going to start on the A list at Maitland, and then an opportunity came. They were just up in the strength that Ceses Knock detected his office to to another position, adding a position to it, a detective sergeant and three constables. So that was offered to me, which I took. And then from there it was from Sessknock that I I worked with Alex Pollock, who was a fantastic mentor to me and and a great friend and
still and still is today. We're still yeah, great guy. Anyway, we got to start there and that's Wherebert designated, and that the detective course.
Detective course came came there. And after when was it that we finished the tech dis course? I think May nine ninety, I think it was.
I think it was June a bit ran, a bit ju because we're starting to get a bit cold in anyway, Yeah, I remember.
We finished on the Friday. I remember I was at that Sunday night, first job as a detective, hadn't even had the weekend off, and I was called out to the Brooklyn train disaster where six people two trains collided and on a Sunday night and called out to that and that was my work as a detective for the next six months. I was working on that inquiry. You just didn't know what was going to happen. Where did your life go after we were designated and walked out.
Well, I stayed at Cesnoch in a couple of years, and we did. We had a bit of a biking problem there for a few years. It was a bit of a bit of doing and fronying with the with the Bandudos and the common Ciro's moving into that Hunter Valley area. So we did a lot of work on that. We pride of just getting designated. We had the Woodcock murder. He was murdered in his own home and had his head or mast severed by a machete attack. And which which which was a long protracting inquiry.
What was the go there?
Well, Woodcock had come home from the it was an alcoholic came home from the club one night of the pub one night and he'd won a fish pack at the pub raffles and cooked those fish up. And when we got to the mercery the next day, the fish the fish had been cooked. It was left in the pans on the stave and the stave was turned off. Sorry. Georgie Woodcock was found in the is a local from my is in my hometown at Weston and he was found the front bedroom with terrific injuries and almost severed
head in relation to the attack on him. And a lot of a lot of work went into that case, and it went on and dragged on, and we always had a suspect in our sites. It was really a lot of listening devices we used. We had a guy in our sites, but we just couldn't get out of the line with listening devices. He's interviewed a couple of times and probably about it was a bit over to it. And that's where I was introduced to Dennis Miles o'tool.
Sorry, sorry, not a n in Jack Well. It is a bit of a Dennis otol Miles miles O two. He's been on the podcast. He was in the first season. I absolutely love the man. I actually work some the murders up round sasnok And I don't know what you're going to say about Dennis Miles o'tool, but I tell you everywhere we went so many people, Oh do you know Dennis? He left an awesome reputation up in around your way.
We became very good friends and part of this investigation he ended up being christened within the Hunted Valley's toga Otol because of an after investigative day soiree under the vineyards, you might say, which ended up.
I'm sure he won so going which ended up.
Which ended up wedding reception somewhere with us all wearing tigers and ended up in the swimming pool. But anyway, he was a fantastic guy. And that was when I was first introduced to the I don't know if you remember the old Merz, the old Merz program.
No, what was that one?
The Merz program was invented by two young cops. It was as computers were coming into the organization. Because when I first joined it like there was a computer that had been installed on the desk at least would and no one went near it. Well you never were near it now he's no one knew what to do with it. It was just put there. And then when I went to gold and the same thing and no one went near it until you got some training on it. So everything was done by tele x or the phone in
those days. But the MERZ was invented m w I r S and it was the long name was Murder Investigating Indexing System. Yes, they break it in into category, so too young and this is more a way to show out the cops operated in those days and probably still do today. Was it was quite a quite a good system, but it was still seven categories within it. So it was my job in that murder investigation to
run the MERVEE system. And I just got a down pat when the two young cops had invented it were still waiting to get paid by the organization because they had copyright on it. An organization told them to where to go, and they simple things, go and find your own Mourder Investigation Indexing system by someone else, because you're not using OURSE. So I was halfway through that.
So we had because that TIMS must have been before TIMS. TIMS came after you, Yeah, because we're on the card system. And so that got a short run and then.
Well there was that there was that little period between MERS and TIMS until someone invented TIMS. But the MURS guy said that's the ours, mate, you can't.
Use it, okay.
So that was my on that particular murder and it was only that what.
Was for the murder?
Well, we still really don't know.
Okay, you found you found your way out around Burke now.
Hal found my way to Marie after did a couple of jobs out there and I thought, oh, you know where I was going to be. Cesnock was part of the Old North region. It was part of that Newcastle area and there was a certain attachment to the New South Wales Police which was Newcastle, Newcastle, Sydney, Woollongong, and there was I didn't see a lot of advancement for myself promotional wise around that Hunter Valley, Maitland, Sesmock, Newcastle area.
It was very competitive like it would be in the city, but there's more opportunity here. There's less opportunity and more staff in that area. So I don't know if it was a brain snaper or a crazy idea or whatever, but an opportunity came up. They're looking for a detective at Marie where they only had a detective sergeant, but all the guys in the officer all PC's and were
well off being designated. So I had an offer to go out there as a designated officer that I would get all the relieving to sort of boost my career to experience in supervisory level. So I had a chat to them wife and said she was a teacher. She said, let's go. So we went went to Maury, which, which I've always said to people, Maury, for all the for all the bad publicity, for the bad name that it has, was probably the best country station I ever worked at
because everybody that went there was tight. It was a very tight station.
They had to support each other, that was and they were very loyal and very tight.
Had the odd ones that you know, didn't fit in, had a high turnover rate. But people went there they knew they had three years. There was a goal for them at the end of the three years was to move on to it. It was sort of one of those stations where guys from the North Coast and mid North Coast went down and joined the cops eventually wanted to get back to where they were born and bred. The only the way. Most ways, they were told, mate, go to Maury Burke, Well can you?
And they were considered like punishment not punishment stations, but you if you spent your three years out there, because they are hard positions to feel that's you then had a choice to go pick.
You're giving a preference, You're you're giving, You're getting your preference basically, and it works for most for you know, ninety percent of time, it worked that way.
Yeah, yeah, So you enjoyed your time out there.
It was, it was tremendous.
Did a lot of what sort of crime were you investigating?
Just generals? C I, if it was if there was a if there was a murder, sexual assault, gbh's, stealings, just just general So I okay, from starting to finish.
And upskilling your yourself there, So how do you find your way back to cessnock?
No, I went to I got I did get promoted as a.
Result of that, you're sold out, decided to So I went.
I went to burke is It a technic sergeant.
And I thought through the application process and I.
Went through the interviews, the whole day's the systems that was then. That was about nineteen ninety three, and was successful in getting a spot there. Noah, pearls, what so many of pearls, But I would imagine anyway. So but when I first got there, I sort of fell into a situation where not long after I went there, the young Sandra who the nurse was murdered at Walgut.
And Lynch Glenn Richson, I think.
A couple of well, I think it was Ali Polls did the brief because Alec then.
Going the on call response I'm talking about, Yeah, that's a horrible murder.
Alick had just gone to which was our district station as the detective senior sergeant there and sort of only in the place where not long after Sandra was murdered and the Fernando.
Cousins which were.
Charged by Alec and convicted, all of the all of the technie staff from Walgart left on transfer out, some went off sick. So virtually Walgert was without detectives for quite some time, only twelve months before they got there. And they had a particular little place in there.
Because of the nature of that crime, and I think.
So yes, yeah, and there was other roots, some with you for transfer anyway, and no one they couldn't get anywhere to go there, So they had a place at at called Lightning Ridge, a lot of people know, which was full of which is just full of desperadoes and people. It's a place where people go to be forgotten about, not be found when they wanted. So there's a lot
of crime there and a lot of serious crimes. So anytime there was something that requite a bit of an investigation, I was sent across from Burke because it was a couple hunter k drive for me and a fellow by the name of Mine who I've become very good friends with and one of my best friends today. Doug Gott was a detective sergeant at Dubbo and we would normally go and do those jobs at like.
I did some fair bit of workout at Lightning Ridge and I remember when I first pulled up there, I was confused because the cops were in Khaki and the forms that was at the start, and then looking for a place to stay or have a drink, and.
Will and Garret Motel was generally the place.
Well, whoever was in the station said you could go to that pub there, but I reckon you'll be in a fight within five minutes of walking in the door. I'd suggest you go to the bowling club or the tennis club or whatever.
The pub's been burnt down there right, it is dead.
Set the wild West out there. Interesting town.
I loved working up it was very interesting and then Dougie and I sawt we did. We did some good jobs there, nothing that note worthy to the world, but we did a lot of investigations there, and we had a lot of fun as well. So we became quite good friends, and we've remained good friends today.
Just getting back to the murder of the nurse, what do you think rock so many police because she.
Was the partner of one of the police officers there. Young guys and in those small country towns, and I'll go to Burke and Walgut, those two places, your social activities generally moved around amongst the police, nurses, the fire is, the ambos, and the teachers because most a lot of guys who went there as cops their wives. A lot of their wives were teachers or nurses because they're always
screaming out for nurses. And in all those places, nurses, school teachers, cops andbos faras, so they're all sort of in the linked And that's where a lot of your social activities took place amongst those, you know, functions and barbecues and fundraisers that all involved those particular people, you know, especially in those small countries I'm talking about. While geting those works there's I think three and a half thousand people in those towns, you know, And.
Yeah, I can see then how her murder and it was such a such a brutal crime would have impacted on people.
Oh yeah, it was. It had a huge impact, Yeah, as it does in most of those small towns. You know.
The two that were convicted, didn't one of them murder the other in prison?
Yes?
Eventually, Yeah, yeah, just a horrific story all around. Hey, guys, have you ever wondered what goes on behind the headlines of a gang war or shooting? Then you need to listen to crim City. Join crime reporters Mark Murray and Josh Hamrahan as they uncover the details of crimes unfolding on Sydney streets and share the stories that don't make the papers. The latest season of crim City is out now. Listen early and ad free on Crime x plus on
Apple Podcasts Today. Okay, how did we get you back to the Hunter Valley area?
My tenure was nearing at Burke and I know there was no guarantee that I would be on a three year tenure, but most people ain't do three years here and I thought it was and after the seven years combined between Maury and Burke. I just had enough of that isolated Yeah, you've got an extra week's holiday, you got a few other little bits and perks with it. Not nothing heard in those days, not like there is today.
It's completely different. And the kids had two young daughters who were coming to school age when it had already started kind again, and I thought, well this they deserve more than you know. They need a little bit more in their life than just Burke, which was great, but when they were toddlers and young kids, but they were of the age where they needed a little bit more stimulation socially and probably academically as well. So I sort
of put a few feelers out here. I am a Newcastle and Maitland would have liked I've gone back to that area. My wife at the time was a few some Newcastle areas, so I'd like to go back there. And of course I was told them you might be coming back here as an ad tective sergeant. I said, okay, well what about it as a sageant. Well, really, mate, you can pick anywhere you like, between Paul Malcrrey and Tweeteds and more. You can go there. Whatever would have
a position you want. I don't want to go here, and so that's where I'd like to go. So I think I've put enough hard yards in seven years in the Western area, in far western area. So you always like to think they do the right thing, but do a little, do a little, do you a little favor. But anyway, it wasn't It wasn't to be, and I was just latly told me you won't be coming here anyway. A vacant position came up for the detect your siget Singleton,
and I just applied for it. And I spoke to the patrol commander there and said, listen, I'm going to throw my hat in the ring for that as a sideways move. Now I've got to go through the I've got to go through the system again, you know, the interview said, but I'm going to have a crack at it. You saw that by the mate is getting that job, he's been here mark, Is that right? So anyway, I put an application in and won the position sideways and went back to Singleton.
Right, Okay, Well, you've got to seven years out in the West and then then coming back to the area you wanted. You probably probably deserved it. I want to start taking us into the crime that again, and I'll keep saying that it's one of the most my carb and brutal crimes that I've heard about in all my time in homicide, and you hear some shit there. I want you to take our listeners right through what happened on that day because I want to understand the investigation
right from the start. So was it a normal day when you got a call?
It was just a normal day. I'd started working single actually at that stage staffing issues again, they had no crime manager at Musclebrook, which was the head station, and we'd gone to Lacks by this time, was in two thousand. Are commands locally in commands after what I said was the failed government experiment with the Commission at the time that took us from where we were.
Bringing the gentleman over from the UK, yes, and.
Into structure in the restructure in the structure anyway, we'd already moved. We'd moved to that in ninety seven and we're now in two thousand and so there was no detect your sergeant at Musclebrook. There was no prime manager at Musclebrook at the time, so I was filling that role.
Plus I was a senior detective in that command and on that particular day he was in Musclebrooks area, not Singleton's that that murder took place at Aberdeen and the young guy who was there was just just a PC who was working for the day and he said, made this is too much of murder handle. He rang me out. I said, well, what's the problem, he said, mate, you'll find out when you're giddy. He said just get here,
because he said I need you away. So I was with my side of Mick Prenis, fantastic guy, Mick, and so we jumped and think he said it's at Aberdeen. So we jumped in the car and roughed up to Aberdeen.
And how far away was that.
Aberdeen's Probably it was probably a thirty minute drive with the siren going, you know, and the magnetic light on the roof. So we got there and I spoke to Graham Furlonger and Scotty James out the back and there was an ambulance and they were just loading someone into it with Judy Simpson was the police lady who was going to go as a custody person because this person being laded into the that I was lad to find out was Catherine Knight was the suspect at a stage and.
Just whine you're back there for a bit. What happened to the first police when they turned up at the scene. How did people get notified about?
Okay? John Price was a hard work and hard drinking coal miner work for a coal company in Aberdeen, and irrespective of what his drinking habits were, it wouldn't matter. He would be the first work every day. But I was leaving a couple of weeks leading and he formed a relationship with with Catherine Knight, and she had her
own home in Aberdeen down the main highway. John Price had his own home a few streets away, and they would sort of She would spend some nights of the week at his home, some nights at home in her own am so they was sort of partially I guess, partially colabitating together. That stage things were a bit rock He was a happy, gay, lucky sort of guy, and I think she was starting to get a little bit shitty with his with his behavior towards wanted to go to the pub be out. I think she wanted a
more homely style relationship. From memory, but things had started
to see our works before. And John Price was the type of guy who confided in his workmates, and he said, a couple of weeks before, he said, listen, I was there the other night and I went to better man, she wasn't here, and she anyway, she turned up with herd a noise, and I sat up in bed, he said, and I'm sure I saw her standing at the foot of the bed with the hands behind her back, and there was a mirror on a dresser and behind her, and he said, I'm sure she had her knives in
her hand. And he said, but by the time I fully wake up, she was there but had mad knives and hadst watched what she was doing. Anyway, she stayed the night, and then he started to worry because of the way she was sort of carrying on with him and their attitude towards him. So he said, made if I didn't turn up for work one day, ringing the
cops because because something's happened to me. Anyway, On the first of March two thousand, he didn't turn up for work, and the guys went back to the week before when he said, mate, I think she's going to do something to me. So they raced up to his house and they got to the front door and on the front door the architrave, there was a splatter of blood. Front door was locked, so they just rang the cops straight away. His work boots were beside the front door and seeing
the blood and the outthought shot something's happened. Was parked in the driveway. He was obviously there, but they couldn't
raise him. The air conditioning was going on in the bedroom part of the house, so they rang the cops, and the cops turned up, and of course the back door was unlocked, so they went in through the back door and were confronted bercherly into the kitchen at the back door, went into a small laundry area, then into a kitchen dining area, the doorway into the into the lounge room, and they thought, sort of struck us a little bit strong, what is this thing hanging in the doorway?
And because I'm making a noise and trying to yell out for anybody who was around. And when they actually got right to the doorway, they realized that it was a human skin hanging on a nice stirl butcher's hook hooked over the top of the architravee. I think it was Graham Phirl like I pushed that thinking skin aside and looked in and saw the mutilated body of John Price.
And then they went down the hallway of the house, which was quite severely splattered in blood, to find Catherine Knight a can to taste in the bed and managed to wake her up and to take her down the hallway and sit her on the back steps.
I'll just hold you there because we might take a break because I I want to deep dive into this as horrific as it is. And yeah, without with the respect to the victim, but this is a horrific crime, and you know, people need to understand what sometimes are confronted by police and what can happen in this world. But yeah, we're talking a person that's been skinned.
Yes, which is highly irregular.
And this is and that's what was hanging hanging from a hawk. Yes, As the police went in there and they pushed that aside. Yeah, and that's what they saw. Yep. Okay, Well, let's have ended on a hard note, but let's take a break and when we get back, I want to talk to you about that investigation. You led that investigation, Yes, and it went through the interviews, search, warrants and trials, everything and your impression of night when you sat down
and spoke with it. Because I think it'll be fascinating to get tried to get an inside into a person that's capable of committing a crime of this nature. Yes, so we'll talk about that when we get back on part two, for sure,