Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, page 11
I was brought up on the farm that I am now leasing from my father. In 1966 my father agreed to lease the farm to me for $2000 a year. I have been on the farm ever since. My marriage is quite a happy one. We do not have children but that is my fault.
I remember going to Pukekawa Primary School with Jeannette Crewe. We were both in the same class right through primary school. On second thoughts I was a class ahead of her until she caught up when I failed a year in standard one. I had quite a schoolboy crush on Jeannette at school. When I finished primary school I went and started work on the farm with my father. Jeannette carried on her education by going to St Cuthbert’s. After this she became a schoolteacher at Maramarua. At this time I was working in the Forestry at Maramarua. I met Heather Demler one night at a dance at Pukekawa and she mentioned that Jeannette was a schoolteacher at Maramarua. She told me that I should look Jeannette up. On my return to Maramarua I went and looked Jeannette up. I actually visited her a couple of times but I never took her out. Not very long later I heard Jeannette had gone overseas to England. I went round and saw Len Demler and asked him for Jeannette’s address so I could write to her. I think I wrote to her twice whilst she was away. She was away for about two years. She replied to my letters. I now hand one of the letters from her to the police. Later when Jeannette returned I took her round a Christmas present. The brush and comb set I have just looked at is the one I gave her. The card has my handwriting on it. I did not take Jeannette out.
She did mention at the time I gave her the present that she had a boyfriend.
I have been asked about my movements on the night of the ratepayers’ meeting of 17 June 1970. I remember soon after Jeannette and Harvey were missing Vivien and I discussed what we were doing that night. I recall remembering that we were home attending a sick cow. Peter Thomas was home also. The cow had been sick for some time and I think Peter helped me the previous night but I am not sure. This cow was in a sling in the tractor shed and was sick for some time. I finally had to shoot this cow with my .22 rifle. I also remember that day as I think both Vivien and I went to our dentist in Pukekohe. We arrived back home at about 4 p.m. We attended to the cow between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. I think I intended going to the ratepayers’ meeting but by the time we had tea it was too late to go.
I have been shown the axle which was found with Harvey Crewe’s body together with the two stub axles found by the police on my farm tip. After looking closely at these and also some photographs I agree that the axle and stub axles belong together. I cannot recall any of these articles being on my farm. I cannot explain how the axle got with Harvey Crewe’s body. After looking at the axles I think they must belong to the old trailer.
I faintly recall the old trailer and the fact that there was some blue on it. I do not know what happened to that old trailer. Seems like the axle must have been on my farm but I cannot help any further.
I have been asked about my .22 rifle and where it was on the night of 17 June 1970. I am almost certain that this rifle could not have been taken out of my house without me knowing. I certainly did not lend it to anyone round that time. I remember using this rifle to shoot the sick cow I have mentioned, about two weeks after Jeannette and Harvey went missing. That dead cow is now on the tip on the farm where the stub axles were found. I also used the same rifle about a month ago to shoot a blind dog. I also put the carcass of this dog down at the farm dump. I also used to use this rifle to shoot rabbits with. Vivien does not shoot and Peter Thomas has never used this rifle to my knowledge.
I have been told that samples of wire found on my farm are similar to wire found on Harvey Crewe’s body. I can only say that someone must have come on to my farm and taken the wire and axle. I have been told that the .22 bullets in Harvey and Jeannette’s body had the figure 8 stamped on them and that similar ammunition with this number has been found at my farm. I cannot explain this. I was aware however that ammunition does have numbers stamped on the bullet.
I have viewed the brush and comb set I gave to Jeannette. I think this present cost me about four or five pounds. This was in 1962. I know Len Demler quite well but he has never been to visit me at my farm.
I have been told that a detective overheard me say to Vivien when I was planting seeds on Friday something to the effect that if the police thought I was guilty then I must be guilty. I cannot remember saying anything like this to Vivien.
I have been told about a pair of overalls found in the boot of my car having blood on them. I do not remember any blood getting on these. I use these overalls to fix a puncture or other repairs to the car when I am in good clothes.
The rubbish tip on my farm is used by me when necessary. I use it regularly and take all sorts of things to it. I remember a few weeks ago taking some stuff out of the horse stable to the farm dump. I also remember some time ago cleaning stuff out of a stable to put the Dodge truck inside. This was about two years ago. I remember seeing one of the wheel rims found by the police on my farm dump but I have not seen the axles there.
I did not help the police and local farmers with the search for Jeannette and Harvey Crewe but by the time I finished my daily chores by 1 p.m. I thought it would be too late to go. I thought that unless you could get to the Crewe farm by 9 a.m. you would not be able to assist. I was busy at that time of the year as my cows start calving on 10 June. I do not know how many cows I had in when the search started. I suppose I could of helped for a few hours but I was fairly busy.
I know I have been a suspect all along in this case. I suppose I did use to chase Jeannette along a bit and used to write to her.
I have read this through and it is true and correct. I have nothing to add.
A. A. Thomas.
25 October 1970.
Hutton finished taking down that statement at 3.41 p.m. He had tried hard, very hard, to obtain from Arthur Thomas the confession he needed. He had failed.
An indication of just how hard he had tried and just how well he realized that the case he had built against Arthur Thomas did not even justify arrest let alone trial can be gauged by the remark contained in Thomas’s statement about bloodstained overalls being found in the boot of his car. Those ‘bloodstains’ presumably come into the same category as the raspberry ice cream bloodstains on Mrs Roddick’s blanket. Nothing has been heard of those bloodstained overalls since that afternoon of 25 October 1970.
Thomas was also told, while at the police station, that the axle came from his farm. In fact, he was asked how the axle had got off his farm and had become wired to the body of Harvey Crewe. Bruce Hutton told him that he had traced the axle back to the Thomas farm. The inspector had done no such thing; the tracing came to a halt in 1965 at Rasmussen’s engineering works.
Likewise with the wire. Hutton informed him that it had ‘been traced back to your farm’. It had not. I believe the techniques that Inspector Hutton used are perfectly proper but they clearly indicate Hutton’s acknowledgement of the paucity of evidence against Thomas on that Sunday in October 1970. If Hutton had considered that the case he had assembled against Thomas could be made to stick, Arthur Thomas would not have walked out of Otahuhu police station that afternoon.
Thomas’s recollections of that interrogation make a fascinating counterpoint to Hutton’s. The following is from a handwritten account by Arthur Thomas originally published by a man who has been deeply involved in the case for a number of years, Pat Booth. In his book Trial By Ambush he quotes Arthur Thomas’s version:
‘Hutton showed me in his room, my rifle in the corner with a packet of bullets tied to the trigger, beside the rifle was the Christmas present and copper and galvanized wire. We went into the next room and he showed me the axle with the stubs on each side. He said what did I think of that. I said they must go together. We went back into his office and he said to me: “Arthur did you go for a quiet drive?” I said: “No, Mr Hutton, I never left the farm.” He said: “What about this homemade wine you make?” I said: “I never touch the drink. Supposing I did I need to get pretty rotten to do a thing like this. How am I going to get there with all the power poles and corners on the road? Supposing I was lucky and got there and did the job what was I going to do?” Mr Hutton never answered me. Then he said: “Well, Arthur, the rifle, bullets, wire and axle all came off your farm, what do you say about that?” I was standing up at this time behind his bench. I walked up and down twice thinking what could have happened. I said: “It looks like someone has come on the farm at night or the weekend before and taken what they needed and if anything blows up like all murders they all make mistakes there is only one man to blame.” He said: “Do you mean you have been framed?” I said if that’s the word you used that’s what I mean, I have been framed. He said: “One other thing, Arthur. I have one other piece of evidence up my sleeve. I’m not going to tell anyone. I’ve got a good mind to lock you up but, Arthur, I’m going to give you a chance.” ’
Thomas then says that the taking of the statement was then begun.
During my interviews with Arthur Thomas inside the maximum security prison of Paremoremo we discussed that account. He confirmed that it was accurate, particularly the remark from Inspector Hutton about ‘another piece of evidence up my sleeve’. Thomas said to me: ‘I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t show me this other piece of evidence or tell me about it. After all he’d shown me everything else they had.’
Careful analysis of the police investigation shows that Thomas was indeed shown or told about all the important aspects of the evidence that had been assembled against him on Sunday 25 October 1970.
Whether Inspector Hutton made the remark or not there is no doubt that within forty-eight hours he did indeed have another piece of evidence, not up his sleeve, but right in the palm of his hand. It was to become the most important piece of evidence in the case against Arthur Thomas.
The inspector asked many other questions that afternoon which are not revealed in that statement of Thomas’s. Questions about rape. Questions about spermatozoon. Whether Thomas knew that seminal fluid could be traced. When I interviewed Bruce Hutton, the reason for those questions was made clear:
Hutton: I’m convinced in my own mind that she was raped.
Yallop: But she had all her clothes on when you found the body. Even her pantyhose were intact.
Hutton: Oh yes, but look at the injuries she had, though.
Yallop: The broken nose, the lacerations?
Hutton: Yes. Now you tell me why that mat was burnt then? Decent-sized mat in front of the hearth. Why burn it?
It was a good question. I pointed out to Bruce Hutton that clearly attempts had been made to clear up. Scrubbing of bloodstains on the fitted carpet. Mopping up in the kitchen. In view of the fact that pathologist Dr Cairns believed that Jeannette had been shot after being knocked to the floor, could it be that the carpet by the hearth would have been so bloodstained that whoever cleaned up considered it was beyond salvaging and had therefore burned it in the grate? Hutton held to the view that Jeannette had been raped on the carpet and the carpet was then burned to destroy any seminal fluid stains upon it. It is a theory, unsupported by any evidence; indeed what evidence there is refutes it. The condition of Jeannette’s clothes for example, even two months after death, showed no tell-tale tears or rips indicating a sexual attack. Nevertheless, the Crown Prosecutor was to make devastating use of this theory that was unsupported by an atom of evidence.
Meanwhile, on that Sunday afternoon, Vivien Thomas was being questioned by Detective Johnston. Again the technique was the soft approach. Full of ‘Now you are telling us the truth, aren’t you, Vivien?’ And ‘You wouldn’t lie to protect Arthur, would you, Vivien?’ The purpose of questioning Vivien was not merely to obtain confirmation, or more hopefully contradiction of her husband’s statement. What the police were anxious to get from Vivien was another confession. A confession that would state that her husband had murdered the Crewes, that she had assisted him, either at the time or subsequently, with the clearing up and disposal of the bodies and that she was the woman that Bruce Roddick had seen on the Friday morning when she had returned to feed Rochelle.
Totally convinced by October that the child had indeed been fed during those five days before discovery, the police believed that Arthur and Vivien fitted their requirements to the last letter. One or both had murdered. One or both had cleared up. Vivien had fed Rochelle. Fitting police requirements and fitting the actual facts are, however, two quite different things.
Detective Johnston asked for a detailed account of what the two Thomases had done and where they had gone over the five days from 17 June to 22 June. Prior to their interrogation of 25 October, both of the Thomases had been asked to account for their movements over this crucial period. On that warm Sunday they yet again recounted the details.
The whole aspect of the sick cow that Arthur Thomas had referred to in his statement was again discussed. It was because of his sick cow No. 4 that he was able to pinpoint his movements on 17 June. Vivien’s statements to Johnston agreed with those that her husband was at that time making in another part of the police station, but the information she gave the police went even further. The sick cow that her husband had been fighting to keep alive was in calf and that was the main reason they had tried so hard to help the animal survive; if it died before giving birth, they lost two animals. Vivien told Johnston how, when they had returned from their dentist’s at nearby Pukekohe at about 4.30 p.m., Arthur had discovered that Cow 4 was about to calve, was in fact beginning to calve. She had gone down to the sheds and helped her husband. After the cow had calved successfully she had come back up to the farmhouse. This was sometime between six and seven in the evening. By this time Peter Thomas, the seventeen-year-old cousin of Arthur who was living with them at the time, was home. While preparing the evening meal Vivien received a telephone call from Arthur’s aunt inviting them to accompany her to the local ratepayers’ meeting. Vivien explained to her that because of the sick cow dinner was running late and they would not be going to the meeting. During the course of this phone conversation Arthur returned from the sheds and confirmed that he did not feel like attending the meeting. This was at 7.30 p.m.
The three of them – Arthur, Vivien and Peter – had dinner, bathed, watched a little television and went to bed between 9 and 9.30 p.m. Neither she nor Arthur left the house that night. She was adamant that once they had retired, Arthur did not get out of bed. As a light sleeper she was sure that had he got up she would have known.
Vivien Thomas then covered with the police officers the events of the next few days. Thursday was a normal farm day. More calves were born and they were also occupied with the commencement of the milking season.
On Friday, the only time that either of them left the farm was in the evening to attend a 21st birthday party. Peter Thomas, who worked at a nearby engineering works in Mercer, was also at the party.
On Saturday their movements off the farm consisted of Vivien attending a cat show in Auckland in the morning and returning to the farm about 11 a.m. In the evening she and her husband, in company with most of the district, attended a local dinner and dance.
Other than these everyday events there was, Vivien asserted, nothing of note that happened in those five days.
Asked if either she or Arthur or Peter had during that time used the .22 rifle, Vivien recalled that her husband had been obliged to put Cow 4 out of her misery two days after she had calved.
The police were therefore confronted with a situation where three people insisted that on the night of the murder none of them had moved off the Thomas farm. With regard to Peter Thomas, when the police showed him their array of axle, stub axles, rifle, bullets, etc and told him there was no doubt that his cousin had murdered the Crewes, the seventeen-year-old broke down and cried, but through his tears he insisted that Arthur had not left the farm that evening or night.
When I interviewed Peter Thomas he recalled that he had been taken in for questioning three times:
‘On the first occasion Hutton and Johnston picked me up from my place of work, Roose Shipping. They took me into Tuakau police station. Before they asked me any questions, a copy of my finger and palm prints was taken. They were all very friendly. I remember Johnston went out and bought pies for all of us. While Hutton was questioning me Johnston was busy writing it all down. They were very interested to learn from me what Arthur’s reaction had been when news of the murders came out. I told them it was a shock to Arthur as it was to everyone else in Pukekawa. I told them there was no way Arthur could have left that farm without me knowing.
‘The third time they took me in they showed me the axle and the stubs. They said it had come off Arthur’s farm. I was very upset. Both Hutton and Johnston insisted that I had seen it on the farm. I insisted I had not, because I hadn’t. They went on and on insisting that I had, and that I should say I had, that I must say I had. I couldn’t understand why they were so desperate to get me to tell a lie, it didn’t make sense. Hutton said: “We’ve got enough evidence to arrest Arthur, anything you say will help Arthur out.” ’
Having interviewed not only Bruce Hutton and Peter Thomas but many others who were deeply involved in this case, there is no doubt in my mind that not only is that above description of the pressure applied to Peter Thomas accurate, if anything it understates the desperation of the police to get a witness, any witness, who would state that he had seen the axle on the Thomas farm at some short time before the deaths of the Crewes. The police failed with Peter Thomas. They failed with everyone else on whom pressure was applied. They have continued to fail. Even though the police state that the Thomas case or the Crewe case, call it what you will, is closed, it is not closed. They are still seeking proof that the axle was on that farm in mid-1970. They will never find such proof. It was not there.
The Thomas trio were not the only people to find themselves talking to the police over that particular Labour weekend. Quite a number of the farmers in Pukekawa received visits from the police.
