Violence in Canberra

The Murder of Beverley Keys

The fatal bashing of a Canberra hotel receptionist in 1961 shook the quiet capital, which was not used to such violent crime.

Beverley Irving Keys was found unconscious in her bed by her mother on the morning of Friday, 22 September 1961. Miss Keys had a large gash on her head and it appeared she had been attacked sometime overnight in her bungalow, while her parents and 20-year-old brother slept just metres away in the family home in Geerilong Gardens, Reid.

Reid is one of the most established suburbs in Canberra and located directly next to the city. It is named after Sir George Reid who was Australia’s fourth prime minister (he was in power just shy of a year between August 1904 and July 1905).

Miss Keys never regained consciousness and died in the Canberra Community Hospital 40 hours later.

At the time, the murder was the biggest investigation ever undertaken by ACT Police. Immediately after Miss Keys died, 20 detectives and uniformed police canvassed the suburb, and searched all over, including in sewer drains and manholes, for the murder weapon.

As with all other investigations, the acquaintances of Miss Keys were questioned and her family were fingerprinted and eliminated as suspects. She was described as a popular, friendly and well-presented young woman. She had spent four years living in England and had returned home to live with her parents in May 1961.

Detectives also spoke to known thieves and criminals in the city. Whoever killed Miss Keys had also stolen her pay packets and handbag.

One clue that bolstered the detectives’ hopes was the discovery of a cigarette butt – Carlyle brand – on the corner of the lawn opposite Miss Keys’ bungalow.

Miss Keys had finished work at the Hotel Rex in the city at 11.45 p.m. on Thursday, 21 September and arrived at her home in a taxi at midnight. She had been paid that day so she had her pay packet from the Hotel Rex, which was her regular employment. Miss Keys also worked casually as a receptionist at another Canberra hotel, the Ainslie-Rex, and had also been paid for work she had done earlier that day.

These pay envelopes had been stolen. The same night of the murder, another home had been broken into nearby and a transistor radio had been stolen.

Meanwhile, women in the suburbs were terrified by the prospect that a brutal killer was in their midst and prowling the streets as they slept. Five days after Miss Keys’ death, the Canberra Times reported that streetlights in the northern suburbs would be kept on all night. Member for ACT, Mr J R Fraser said it was at the request of ‘many housewives’. The newspaper reported that the lights usually went out at 12.30 a.m.

Police worked around the clock to capture Miss Keys’ killer and on 30 September, they charged 45-year-old cook Daniel Norris Nicholls with murder. It was an unusual arrest in that Nicholls was charged at a special bedside court at Canberra Community Hospital where he was recovering from a shotgun injury.

Nicholls became only the third person in ACT history to have been charged with murder. The first was a man called Bertram Porter, who in 1932 force-fed his 11-month-old son rat poison; he was charged with the boy’s murder, but was eventually acquitted on the grounds of insanity and sent to a mental institution. In 1957, Elaine Kerridge was acquitted of murdering her abusive husband with an axe.

Nicholls came to the attention of the police on 28 September, a week after the attack.

On that day, Nicholls was at a sprawling property in Top Naas where the owner had given him permission to shoot on the land. The landowner, Maxwell Oldfield, had taken up Nicholls’ invitation to look at fox skins in the cook’s utility truck but the mood changed quickly.

Nicholls pointed a shotgun at Mr Oldfield and demanded to be taken to the house for a meal and so that he could write a statement.

He spent two hours painstakingly writing a statement that outlined his innocence of the murder of Miss Keys. However, he did write: ‘Due to my past I must eventually become a suspect and undergo an ordeal I am not prepared to face.’

Nicholls wrote the statement in point form, which was basically the circumstantial evidence that he believed would render him guilty in the eyes of the law. He admitted, among other things, he smoked Carlyle brand cigarettes – the brand found outside Miss Keys’ sleepout – and that he had stolen from bedrooms in the past.

‘I am caught in a web of unfortunate circumstances which at this stage I feel I haven’t the strength or youth to fight. I could not face the thought of possible conviction and spend the remainder of my days in prison.

‘I wish this to be published so that a few – very few friends can sum up things for themselves.’

Nicholls fully intended to kill himself by shotgun after he had written his last testament and had it witnessed by Mr Oldfield and his wife Dulcie. The Oldfields must have been terrified, especially when Nicholls ordered Mrs Oldfield to tie up her husband’s hands. While Nicholls was tying up Mrs Oldfield’s hands, her husband freed himself and lunged for a revolver, which he fired into the wall. In a mad grab by both of the men for the shotgun, it accidentally discharged and Nicholls was injured.

Mrs Oldfield, the postmistress at Top Naas, phoned the police at around 9.15 p.m. ‘Come at once,’ Mrs Oldfield said. ‘The man who killed the Keys girl is at Max Oldfield’s.’

Mr Oldfield told investigators that Nicholls had begged the couple to ‘finish him off’. Nicholls was begging the man to shoot him or give him the shotgun so he could kill himself but Mr Oldfield refused. When police and ambulance arrived they found Nicholls writhing on the lawn.

At the inquest into Miss Keys’ death, her father gave evidence that at 9.10 a.m. on 22 September, he had noticed a Carlyle brand cigarette stub, some ash and ‘human excreta’ in his garden but did not realise the significance of them until his wife discovered their daughter in her bloodstained bed at around 10.30 a.m.

Associates of Nicholls told police that they noticed that the man had money on the day of 22 September when the day before, he had complained he was broke.

There was also the matter of the transistor radio that was stolen on the same night and found in the accused’s possession. The homeowner, Richard Prowse, gave evidence at a court hearing for Nicholls in November 1961 that he last saw the transistor on the windowsill of his 12-year-old daughter’s bedroom.

The lead investigator on the case, Detective Sergeant Ray Kelly, had no doubt as to the accused’s motives – theft and sex. Kelly said told the court on 26 October 1961 that he believed the young woman had been killed for ‘some reason of sexual gratification’ but would not give his opinion on which came first.

The judge presiding over Nicholls’ Supreme Court trial adjourned proceedings so that the defence could make more investigations to prepare its case.

Nicholls pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder and appeared before the Supreme Court in March 1962. He did not deny that he entered Miss Keys’ room and stole money and her purse but he claimed not to remember the events afterwards.

On 8 March, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Newspapers reported that Nicholls was impassive when he heard the verdict and quietly left the courtroom, smoking a cigarette, to be escorted back to prison.

Nicholls successfully appealed his sentence and a retrial started in March 1963 but he was again found guilty. This time his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.