Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, page 7
Maisie Demler died of a brain tumour on 26 February 1970. Her will, a copy of which is at the back of this book, was probated on 16 March. She had appointed Len Demler and Jeannette Crewe as her joint trustees.
Shortly before their deaths the Crewes visited Claire MacGee. Jeannette told her friend:
‘It seems that the farm has got a jinx on it. So many things have happened there.’
On 16 June, Jeannette visited her solicitors. She signed the estate accounts and was given a copy of the provisional balance-sheet of her mother’s estate. It was her first knowledge of just how much her mother’s estate was worth, of the detailed assets of the estate.
The following day, she and her husband were last seen at a stock sale about 1.30 p.m. After that the farmer’s daughter and the shepherd vanished from the face of the earth.
Her estate was worth at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In her three personal bank accounts were sums totalling 4,640 dollars, in a joint account with her husband was a further 1,667 dollars.
His two bank accounts totalled 34 dollars.
As Inspector Bruce Hutton pondered these facts, he and the men serving under him made no secret of the man who they suspected was responsible for what they quickly, perhaps too quickly, were calling a double homicide. The man in the target sights of Hutton’s gun was Len Demler.
3
The Hunt
A curious feature of this whole episode was the fact that, whilst hundreds of men made a shoulder-to-shoulder search of his property, Demler at no time took any part in the search for two members of his family. In fact he actively discouraged neighbours like Ian Spratt from assisting the police.
‘Let the buggers get on with it on their own. It’s their job,’ he said. While David Payne and the other farmers of Pukekawa were being told by Inspector Gaines: ‘Give us a body and we will make the arrest. Give us a body and we will arrest him.’ While other police officers were saying to the Priests and the Spratts: ‘How does it feel to have a murderer as a neighbour?’ Len Demler, the object of all of these remarks, could be seen riding a horse over his land and casually checking his stock. The land that he had farmed since 1937 and the stock upon it took precedence over the search for his elder daughter and her husband.
Perhaps it was remarks like those made to him by Inspector Hutton less than twenty-four hours after it was known that the Crewes had vanished – ‘You did it. Come on, you old bugger, you did it. You know you did it. Where have you put the bodies?’ – that caused Demler to ignore the search. Or were there perhaps other reasons for his attitude?
On 6 July while the countryside was alive with Army, Navy and Air Force search parties augmenting the police and volunteer search parties, Len Demler, his daughter Heather and her husband drove to Pukekohe and had a party to celebrate Demler’s birthday.
Five days later Detective Sergeant John Hughes yet again accused Demler of murdering Harvey and Jeannette. The police officer confronted him with: ‘We have got you now. You’ve had it.’
Among the evidence that the police had been compiling against Demler was a bloodstain found in the passenger seat of his car. He had previously told the police that Jeannette had not used his car or been in it for some time. The police told him that the bloodstains they had found on the seat were fresh ones. They also told him that they were Jeannette’s.
They were critical of the fact that he had left his granddaughter in her cot when he had discovered her. They were critical of the fact that he was taking no part in the search.
The full case, the complete dossier that the police built up against Len Demler, has never been revealed. Here are just a few items from it:
1. Opportunity. He lived on his own and lived immediately next door to the Crewes.
2. Availability. Harvey and Jeannette would have freely let him enter their home. For a long time the police were convinced that both murders had been committed inside the Crewe farmhouse.
3. Financial and psychological pressure on the suspect. Maisie Demler’s will, which had only recently been probated, made it clear that not only had she cut Heather Demler off without a cent but she had also ensured that the entire farm would no longer be her husband’s. He would only retain a life interest in her half of the farm which would then pass to Jeannette. Her will stripped him of his mana, and it would ultimately strip him of half the land that he had worked and owned since before the Second World War. The police were also in possession of a number of statements that made it clear that before his death Harvey Crewe had wanted to buy his father-in-law out. Ian Spratt was one whom Len discussed this with prior to the deaths of the Crewes. Demler had commented that if he sold out to Harvey his son-in-law would kick him out and he would have nowhere to live. Len had treated it all as a big joke when discussing it with Spratt, and yet …
4. The fact that whoever committed the murders must have been a local. Someone had been back to clean up. A local could get away with that. Like the postman in the story of The Invisible Man, his presence would go unnoticed.
When the above factors are added to Jeannette’s bloodstains in his car, the fact that he had not been observed by Owen Priest when he allegedly went to the farm on his own and discovered it empty, this despite the fact that Priest had been in precisely the same position that he was in when he saw Demler pulling up at his gate to ask him to accompany him on a return visit to the farm; the fact of his strange behaviour when he and Priest had gone to the farm; the fact of his even stranger behaviour during the massive search; when all of these factors are taken into account it can be clearly seen that the police built a powerful if largely circumstantial case against Len Demler. When he assured them that he was on the best of terms with the dead couple they dismissed the assurance. When he told them how Harvey had dined with Len and his wife virtually every night during the period of Jeannette’s confinement with Rochelle; how he had lately dined with the couple at least once a week since his wife’s death, they brushed such facts to one side.
Demler, the man who never showed emotion, the man who laughed the day he was told that Maisie had died but cried on the day of her funeral, most certainly showed emotion to his friends in Pukekawa at this time. The Priests, like the Spratts, also had the constant enquiries from the police of ‘What does it feel like living next door to a double murderer?’ Julia Priest said to me:
‘Two days after their disappearance, Len told me he was the number one suspect and with tears running down his face said: “I honestly did not do it.” What upset him so much was that nobody would believe him.’
Peggy Spratt recalled:
‘I remember going up to the Demler farm during the search for the bodies. Len and Heather were there, both were very upset. Len was going around the house saying, “I didn’t do it.” Heather pulled me to one side and asked, “Do you think Dad did it?” Even if I had doubts myself, I felt obliged to console her with an assurance that I did not think he had.’
This had been the second such ordeal for Peggy Spratt. One of the men who took part in the land search was local vicar Gerry Hadlow. He succeeded in vanishing down a large hole one foggy day. It took a number of men several hours to get him out. The vicar also succeeded in electrifying the atmosphere of the Pukekawa Church shortly after the Crewes vanished. In his sermon he talked about the Crewes, he talked about ‘Justice being done’. He also talked less directly about the fact that Len Demler was the prime suspect. After the service he asked Peggy Spratt for her views. She told me that at that moment she acquired an absolute conviction that Len was innocent. The question could not have been an easy one for her to answer. Standing next to her and her husband were Len and Heather Demler. It was obviously clear to Demler that he was in need of the kind of guidance that is not readily obtained from a church pulpit.
Having consulted his solicitors, Demler obviously considered it was high time to take out some insurance. A top Auckland QC, Lloyd Brown, a renowned and talented defence lawyer, was instructed on behalf of Demler.
Mr Brown was not the first member of the Auckland Bar to take an active professional interest in the bizarre mystery at Pukekawa.
David Morris, the Crown Prosecutor in Auckland, told me that he had been down to the Crewe farm and taken his initial look around it within the first week. He also subsequently attended many of the police conferences. As Crown Prosecutor it was an unusual devotion to duty. He was destined to have closer involvement with this case than with any other in his career.
In the same week that Lloyd Brown was being retained to defend Demler against a potential double murder charge one of the police conferences just referred to took place. It was by any standards a high-powered conference.
Present were Inspector Hutton and several of the men acting under him. Also present were Detective Superintendent Ross, Assistant Commissioner Rob Walton, police pathologist Dr Cairns and one of the DSIR’s top men, Dr Donald Nelson. There was just one item on the agenda: ‘The recommendation from Hutton and his men that Len Demler be arrested and charged with the murders of Jeannette and Harvey Crewe.’ Debate, discussion and argument raged for a considerable period of time; eventually it was decided to wait until the bodies had been found.
At this time, Len Demler was not alone in having to cope, with or without legal assistance, with the police. Gerry Willis, his friend of many years standing and near neighbour, the man to whose home the frightened Rochelle was initially taken, felt the heat of their ‘subtle’ tactics. One police officer declared to him that it was known that he had assisted Len Demler in moving the bodies and the sooner he confessed the better it would be for him. It was not phrased quite as delicately as that, but that was the general drift.
As already recorded, the history of both the Crewe and Demler families is marked by squabbles and infighting about property and money, people cut out of wills, people contesting wills. Less than one month after Harvey and Jeannette vanished the two families were at loggerheads. At the centre of their dispute was little Rochelle Crewe. Both families wanted custody of the child. Heather Souter née Demler wanted to take the child to America. Mrs Marie Crewe wanted Rochelle to remain with the Crewe family. The issue went to an Auckland court.
Mrs Marie Crewe was successful and the child went to live with members of her family. The police meanwhile were still trying to find out what had happened to her parents.
On 2 July, Detective Sergeant Hughes had called at the Thomas farm. He was making what he later described as a ‘routine inquiry, the kind that is made when there is no obvious suspect’. He stayed about thirty minutes, chatting to Arthur Thomas in one of his fields. The subject of their conversation was Jeannette Crewe. Thomas told the police officer that he had been quite keen on her many years before, that he had phoned her during her schoolteaching days, written her letters but that Jeannette had kept the relationship on a platonic level. Thomas told him of working on that farm when it had been the Chennell estate, top-dressing. When Thomas was asked to account for his movements between 17 and 22 June, the police officer was later to say: ‘He was not able to give me anything specific, and I asked him to think back to the night of 17 June. He said that he would have been home with his wife. He said he couldn’t say why he was certain of this, but knew he had been.’
Hughes examined the Thomas car but ‘found nothing in it to connect with the inquiry’. What the two men actually said to each other will be the subject of further comment. After arranging for Thomas to call at the police headquarters on the Chitty farm to have his fingerprints taken, Hughes left.
On 12 August, Detective Sergeant Parkes was following up yet another possible lead when he called on the farm of Arthur Thomas. The link they had found with him was a tenuous one. But even tenuous links must be followed up. Parkes, while searching the Crewe farm, had discovered a brush and comb set. Obviously a present, it was still wrapped up in Christmas gift paper and there was a card attached that indicated the giver was ‘Arthur’. The present had been found stuck away in one of the spare bedrooms. Showing it to Arthur Thomas, the young farmer agreed that years before his marriage to his wife Vivien he had given the set to Jeannette when he was ‘trying to court her’. The message on the card told Parkes about as much as he gleaned from that interview with Thomas: ‘To Jeannette. Best Wishes for a Happy New Year. From Arthur.’ Having established that the Arthur in question was Thomas, Parkes left.
Five days earlier, on 7 August, the massive search was called off. Inspector Gaines and the hundreds of men working under him had been obliged to admit defeat. Despite searching an area that ranged from Glen Murray and Rangiriri to Port Waikato and covered nearly 400 square miles no trace of the missing couple had been discovered.
On the evening of 8 August, Ian and Peggy Spratt chanced to look out of their farm in the direction of the deserted Crewe property. Aware that the police had been pulled out of the area they were startled to see a light moving around. Knowing that Len Demler was the No. 1 suspect they considered that he might be searching on the Crewe property. Frightened, they deliberated about what they should do. Unfortunately, but understandably, they decided to do nothing. Some seven years later when they discussed this incident with me they regretted that decision. One phone call to the police on that night would have resolved who the intruder was.
The CIB investigation had also reached a stalemate. Despite the thousands of hours spent interviewing, despite the hundreds of statements taken, despite the many potentially promising leads that had been followed up, despite the belief that Hutton and most of his men held that Len Demler was their man, the inquiry looked like slipping into that macabre area of unsolved crimes, along with such unresolved murders as those of Walker, McKay and Beard – three that at the time of the investigation were unsolved; three that in 1978 are still unsolved.
The CIB working with Inspector Hutton was reduced to just four men, based on Otahuhu police station. As the days ticked by with these men working deep into the night each piece of evidence already acquired was checked and rechecked. Yet again all unsolved crimes in the area were re-examined in an attempt to find a link. One such crime, midnight prowling, had in fact been solved during the initial investigations in Pukekawa. For one exuberant moment the detectives had thought they had their man, but although he admitted the offence, committed years before, he was quickly eliminated from their investigations into the Crewe deaths.
For hours the police stared at the photographs taken in the days that followed the discovery of the bloodstained farm. Odd, strange photographs. Some of them are in this book. Photographs of the home of a wealthy young middle-class couple that show to my mind not a settled, comfortable, happy home. Where is the personality of that couple? A baby’s bedroom, barren as a prison cell, not one colourful poster or painting on Rochelle’s walls. A lounge equally devoid of those little things that make the statement ‘Harvey and Jeannette live here’; no paintings, ornaments, those little nicknacks that we all clutter our homes with, none are in evidence. Windows that are curtainless. Floors that are bare. I have seen more homeliness in a motel room than I can find in those photographs of the Crewe farmhouse. Clothes slung everywhere. A woman’s dressing table devoid of any femininity. In the lounge a child’s playpen, no longer used by the now walking Rochelle, not put away in one of the spare rooms, but left propped against the wall; cartons that contained fluorescent tubes, wool, pelmets. The place – I cannot refer to it as a home – reeks of apathy. It reeks not only of the deaths that undoubtedly occurred there but also of a dead relationship, dead long before 17 June 1970. The fact that the sofa and armchairs do not match is of little concern when one knows they were a present from Harvey’s mother. One hardly rejects a gift from one’s mother-in-law. The fact that some of the windows are curtainless was rationalized to me by a number of their friends. It was because of the fire that had destroyed the original curtains. But the fire was in 1968. A curious postscript to the missing curtains is the fact that Jeannette did, in fact, have material for new ones on order from two stores in Auckland. On 15 June Harvey Crewe rang up one of the stores and cancelled the order. If he intended to do the same with the other order he never got the chance – two days later he was dead.
A discussion about money, bills, their budget, had clearly been in progress shortly before they died. On the dining table were accounts, bills and receipts.
Another curious factor is that, if the Crown contention is correct that the murders happened after television closed down at 11 p.m., and the remnants on the table represent the evening meal, then why were they reading the mail during the evening meal? The mail that had been delivered that morning at 9.30 a.m? It could be that the uncleared table represents not an evening meal, but a mid-day lunch, eaten before they went to the stock sales. It had been a busy morning with a stock agent and a friend Mrs Pirrett calling, and early lunch may well have been the first time they had to go through their mail. I cannot believe they left it in the box until evening. That dining table could easily represent a mid-day meal. The fact that it was left uncleared is consistent with the untidiness and mess that abounds throughout the house. Such a possibility plays havoc with the theory of a killing after 11 p.m. It would put their deaths after their return to the farm at approximately 4 p.m. and before their evening meal.
