Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, page 3
That extract comes from Len Demler’s sworn deposition, made in November 1970. Some five months after his daughter and son-in-law had vanished off the face of the earth. Five months in which he had had time to consider his actions. Lights on in the middle of the day, bloodstains on the carpet, blood drag marks clearly in evidence, a distressed child in her cot, yet the grandfather comes to the conclusion that above all else, he must drive back to his farm and phone a stock agent to cancel trucks that were due to come out for sheep. Why leave little Rochelle in her cot? Why not immediately phone the police? Why not immediately phone a neighbour? Or go to the Chitty farm, immediately opposite? Why not look over the entire house? Having returned to his own house and phoned the stock agent, he discovered that Ron Wright was not there. Instead of merely leaving a message about the trucks, he waited until Wright came back into his office and returned the phone call. Then, and only then, did he drive to the Priest farm and ask Owen Priest to accompany him to the deserted, bloodstained farm that contained a young distressed child.
During the course of my interviews with Owen and Julie Priest, Owen described to me that June afternoon when Len Demler called:
‘I was working in a paddock between my house and the hatchery. Heard a car pull up on the road. When I got to the gate I recognized it as Len’s red Cortina. He asked me to go up to the Crewe farm with him and said, “I don’t know what the hell’s happened up there. But there’s a terrible bloody mess.” With that Len turned and walked back to his car. On the way up Len turned to me and said, “They’re not there. I wonder where the bloody hell they’ve gone to.” He made no mention of any bloodstains. Then when I went in and saw all this blood, it stopped me stone dead. Len was behind me. I recall him saying, “I want to know what’s happened. But I don’t want to find them.” I moved forward to search the farm not knowing what to expect. I comforted myself with the thought that if there was any funny business going on Len was right there behind me. Although I was pretty composed and my mind was working clearly I was nevertheless apprehensive. I found Rochelle and then continued to explore the house. When I got to the bathroom and toilet I looked around to make some comment to Len. He was standing by the back door! I realized that I had gone over the entire house on my own. With perhaps some joker waiting to attack me. That rocked me a bit. Initially when we had entered the house Len kept saying, “The bugger’s killed her and done himself in. I tell you Harvey’s killed her.” It began to play on my nerves after he’d come out with this two or three times. I turned to him. “Look Len, we don’t know what’s happened. It could have been a third party.” He was silent after that.’
They searched the outbuildings and surrounding area for about twenty minutes and found nothing. Returning to the farmhouse, they took Rochelle from her cot. Of her parents, apart from the ominous bloodstains, there was not a trace. Back at his own farm Owen Priest phoned the local police. Len Demler meanwhile had taken the little girl to the house of a friend. The news that would shock a nation had finally become known. Soon, apart from Constable Wyllie who had come from Tuakau, well-meaning neighbours were pouring on to the Crewe farm. Now they had something far more important than stock prices or last night’s bowls results to concern themselves with. They little knew it then, but for many of them their lives were about to be changed irrevocably. As the news flew around Pukekawa it was also reaching places further afield.
In another ten minutes Inspector Hutton would have been out of the building that houses Auckland CIB. But waiting for him when he emerged out of the lift on the ground floor was his superior, Mr Ross, with an offer that Hutton could not refuse: ‘Would you pop down to Pukekawa?’ At that time Bruce Hutton had behind him some thirty homicide investigations that he had either led or been involved with. Forty-one-year-old Hutton was in many ways the ideal man to head the Pukekawa investigation, one of the few senior officers in Auckland who had intimate knowledge of farmers and a way of life totally different from that of the average Auckland sophisticate. Born in a small country community, he had been a farmer before turning policeman in 1948. After two years in the force he returned once more to the land having married a farmer’s daughter. In 1956 he went back to a career in the police force. Now in June 1970 he was returning once more to the land, but this time as a detective inspector in charge of a potential homicide inquiry.
When I interviewed him in the summer of 1977, that first marriage and his career in the police force were over. He had remarried, yet again a farmer’s daughter, and was master of a superb farm. He left the force early, very early, and many breathed a sigh of relief when he resigned, not least I suspect the criminal fraternity of New Zealand. Still only forty-seven, his mind is as sharp as a pin. It is not only a highly organized mind, it is a very controlled one.
‘I vividly remember going out there. It was late afternoon. Never been to Pukekawa in my life. I arrived at the farm and was immediately horrified. My first reaction was, “If this is a homicide what are all those vehicles doing parked on the farm?” I got the vehicles and the people out, but by that time the damage had been done. Irrevocably. Now this is no criticism of the local people. They had rushed in to help. The most natural thing on earth to do.’
Having taken his first look over the farm with some of his men, Bruce Hutton was deeply troubled. Despite the bloodstains he held the view initially that ‘there were no obvious signs that it was a homicide’. Within a few days he was even more deeply disturbed.
‘It became apparent as information was assimilated that we were dealing with something very unusual. Something very, very, complex. It bore no relationship to the many other investigations that I had undertaken. Or any that I had read or studied. To New Zealand, this was something very odd indeed. Even by the standards of the Bayly murders, it was still unique. Not just one but two persons missing and a child alive in a cot.’
It is easy to understand the bemusement of the man who led the police investigation. The Crewe farmhouse was a landlocked Marie Celeste. The remains of a flounder fish meal on the dining-table set for two. A third flounder virtually untouched in the middle of the table. No signs of forced entry. Rochelle in her cot, unfed, from who knew when. The furniture clearly not in its correct place and some of it heavily bloodstained. More bloodstains on the carpet and lino. More bloodstains spattered in the kitchen, still more on the wall outside the front door. There the trail stopped abruptly. Dirty nappies on top of the refrigerator. The clothes drier still on, as were the kitchen and outside lights. Television still switched on but disconnected at a double plug on an extension lead in the hall and also turned off at a bedroom switch. Attempts to clear up the carnage were clearly indicated by the diluted bloodstains on the kitchen lino and saucepans in the sink that contained diluted blood. Bedclothes missing. Knitting lay on the couch but one of the needles lay bent on the floor. A woman’s slipper in the vicinity of a fireplace that contained the remnants of a fire. No fingerprints within the house other than the Crewes’. They had last been seen on Wednesday 17 June at the stock clearing sale at Bombay. That had been at about 1.30 in the afternoon. Later that day Beverly Batkin, a friend of Jeannette’s, had seen their car drive through Tuakau. Later still at about 4.30 in the afternoon their car had been seen parked alongside their fields. But in terms of actual positive sightings of Harvey and Jeannette there were none after they had been seen with Rochelle at that cattle sale.
The experts descended upon the farm. Men like Dr Donald Nelson and Rory Shanahan of the DSIR, a Government forensic unit that the police always use. Men like pathologist Dr Francis John Cairns.
Nelson and Shanahan and their colleagues from the DSIR put in their initial appearance at the farm on the morning of day two – that is, the day after Len Demler walked in and found the scene previously described. The first question they had to answer was, ‘In view of the fact that two people are missing do the bloodstains represent one or two people?’ At least, Dr Nelson told me that was the first question they determined to answer. My interview with him made it clear that they never considered the possibility that the bloodstains could have represented three people. Having taken blood samples they were able to advise the police as early as day three that the blood was from at least two people and that they were either dead or seriously injured. The reasons that they were able to come up with those conclusions so quickly are very simple. Harvey’s blood group, it was quickly ascertained from previous blood tests, was Rhesus-positive, Jeannette’s was Rhesus-negative. Both types were present in the lounge. On what was to be subsequently known as ‘Harvey’s chair’ they found brain tissue which almost certainly meant that Harvey was dead.
Unable to obtain access to such information, a number of the newspapers in New Zealand thrashed around in search of copy that would sell copies. Bruce Hutton, reluctant to release information that might alert the third party involved – and within forty-eight hours it was established beyond any doubt that a third party was involved – played his cards close to his chest. The press, or at least some sections of it, were determined not to be thwarted by lack of facts. On Sunday 28 June the Sunday News ran a front page headline that screamed ‘He’s Alive’. Underneath the story told of a ‘rumoured sighting’ of Harvey Crewe at a Taupo motel. According to the Sunday News, Harvey had been accompanied by a woman.
Anyone reading that paper and also the Sunday Times of the same date must have been very confused. The front page of the latter paper told its readers ‘Double Death: Blood Clue They are Both Dead’. It was bang on target. It quoted its source as Inspector Hutton, much to his chagrin. He’d made no such statement.
According to the Sunday News, their source advising that Harvey was alive was also the CIB. Accurate and responsible coverage of the deaths and the subsequent trials has not been, over the past eight years, a highlight of the saga. There are numerous examples that could be quoted from press, television and radio. Even after the first trial in 1971, ridiculous errors were still occurring.
The New Zealand Herald published a booklet entitled ‘The Crewe Murders’ written by one of their crime reporters, Evan Swain. Demonstrably Swain had police co-operation when compiling his booklet which makes the following passage even more remarkable:
‘Dr John Cairns, an experienced Auckland pathologist, had been taken to the Crewes’ house on the day their disappearance had been noticed. From knowledge assimilated over many years of practice, he was able, by careful examination of the bloodstains and the position of the furniture, to suggest how the pair might have been killed. Months later a senior detective was to say privately that Dr Cairns’s theory was amazingly accurate.’
In fact, a study of the evidence given at the first trial by Dr Cairns suggests that the initial theory put forward by him was amazingly inaccurate.
Having studied the condition of the entire house, Dr Cairns discussed with Hutton and his fellow-officers his view of how the Crewes had been killed. He considered death had been caused by a blunt instrument, a heavy piece of wood that had been subsequently burned on the fire, an axe or a tomahawk. There was some discussion about the possibility of bullet wounds but Dr Cairns ruled this out on the grounds that no weapon was in evidence and there was no indication in the room that bullets had been fired. I find great difficulty in following his reasoning. That a man of the undoubted experience of Dr Cairns could rule out bullet wounds after a ‘brief mention’ is hard to understand. I invited the pathologist to discuss this and other aspects with me. He was one of the very few people who declined to be interviewed. I pointed out to him that there were a number of questions that should have been put to him during the trials that had not been put. He observed, ‘There were a great many questions that should have been put that were not.’
While the police searchers combed the countryside looking not only for Harvey and Jeannette but for a non-existent axe or tomahawk, Inspector Hutton quickly moved into the national investigation pattern for homicide. The CIB concentrated on the house and its immediate surroundings while the uniformed men were responsible for the wider search. This aspect of the investigation was controlled by Inspector Pat Gaines. The magnitude of his task can only be fully appreciated by touring the area. To begin with there was the 365-acre farm of the Crewes. There were streams, the Waikato river, steep hills, valleys, gorges, volcanic holes, some of them hundreds of feet deep and full of water. Apart from the local residents, Gaines had the assistance of soldiers, Navy frogmen and Air Force helicopters. The search was conducted for the most part in appalling weather conditions, heavy winter fog that did not lift sometimes until well into the afternoon. A few minutes in that and a man was soaked through.
While this systematic search was covering an ever wider area the CIB were making progress, but it was progress of a most mystifying kind. On the one hand not a single report reached them of any activity, be it usual or unusual, occurring on or around the Crewe farm on that fateful Wednesday evening. But on the morning of Friday 19 June, a young man had been working on the farm directly opposite, owned by Ron Chitty. His name was Bruce Roddick. He didn’t know it that Friday morning, but he was soon to become one of the many casualties in New Zealand’s most famous murder case. Roddick’s evidence had direct bearing on one of the most important questions to arise out of the deaths of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe, a question that has remained unanswered for nearly eight years: ‘If eighteen-month-old Rochelle Crewe was fed between Wednesday 17 June and Monday 22 June, who fed her?’
In view of the massive controversy that has surrounded that question it cannot be examined too closely. Here published for the first time is Bruce Roddick’s original statement to the police. This is not evidence given months or years later. This statement was made within twenty-four hours of Len Demler’s discovery of that bloodstained farm and the crying child.
After giving details of his date of birth and address and stating that he is a self-employed casual labourer in the area who works for whoever needs a workman, it continues:
‘Last Friday morning at about 7.30 a.m. I was at home when Mr Chitty telephoned me. He asked me if I could come up and help him to feed out hay. He was going to be busy at 10 a.m. with some buyers from Gisborne. I said “All right. I could work for a couple of hours in the morning.” I left home at about 8.15 a.m. so it would have been about 8.30 a.m. when I passed the Crewe house. I did not notice anything. Later I was feeding out hay just behind Ron Chitty’s old cottage where the police are now. This would be just after 9 a.m. The car was just parked on the grass outside the small front gate. I have seen the car before, it is a green Hillman, the modern shape, bigger than the Imp. It was facing north. There was a woman standing just inside the fence from the gateway. She seemed to be looking in my direction. She would be in her thirties, and about 5ft 10ins to 5ft 11ins. I am 5ft 10ins and she looked very tall to me. Her hair was not blond, but light brown, her hair was cut short but curled up at the bottom. I was about seventy-five yards away, and she looked quite good-looking to me. She was wearing dark slacks but I don’t know about the rest. It was a dull day, no sunshine at all.
‘I was there for about two or three minutes and I did not see anybody else. I don’t know Mrs Crewe and I have never worked for them. I don’t know whether the woman I saw was Mrs Crewe or not.
‘If I saw this woman again I think I could recognize her. I have just remembered she would be about medium build, I would not say she was slim.’
Having made this statement the roof fell in on Bruce Roddick. He had heard on the previous evening’s radio news of the discovery of the bloodstained farm and that the police thought that whatever had happened had happened on Wednesday 17th. In view of what he had seen on the Friday, he turned to his parents and said, ‘The police have got it wrong. I saw Mrs Crewe on Friday morning.’ Now, of course, as his statement makes clear, he did not know Jeannette Crewe and had never worked for either her or Harvey; but seeing a woman standing by their gate on a Friday he reasonably assumed that it must be Jeannette. The thought process leading to that assumption is easy to see. If one took a man who had never seen a photograph of the Queen of England and stood him outside Buckingham Palace and told him the Queen lived there, and a short while later he saw a woman being driven out in a Rolls-Royce and waving to the crowd, he might reasonably assume he had seen the Queen, when he might well have seen Princess Margaret. All of that might seem rather obvious but in view of subsequent developments and the present attitude of Bruce Hutton it has become essential to state the obvious.
When he told his parents, they advised him to go to the police. Unsolved murders like that of Jennifer Beard were very much on their minds. It occurred to them that the same maniac might have paid a visit to Pukekawa. Bruce, like many country people, was reluctant to get involved with the police, an attitude that ex-farmer Bruce Hutton explained to me:
‘Something that I was reminded of again and again during that particular investigation at Pukekawa were remarks made many years ago by a very great New Zealand detective, Frank Aplin. He used to say, “When you are dealing with farmers or cow cockies you are dealing with a totally different breed of human being. You don’t just see a farmer once. You see him many times before you pop the old question. You have a look at his stock. Go over his best cow.” And I think what became apparent to me in those early stages was that my field detectives were city detectives, dealing almost with foreigners. They were just not getting out of those farmers what they should have been getting. The farmer is very much like the canny Scot. He only tells you so much when he first meets you. But if you call back a few times … Oh, this has been proved so very many times with such an investigation. It was proved true again in Pukekawa. You know, there is a great tendency with farmers and folk that live in the countryside not to want to get involved in such an inquiry. I feel they consider that it is in some way shameful that this has happened in their neighbourhood. In my view town dwellers do not feel the same way at all.’
