Excuse 6
‘I’m too young’
Driving home after helping his wife’s grandmother with some handyman work around the house, Dr Malcolm Goodall was feeling good about life. Just 15 weeks earlier, the 36-year-old microbiology lecturer had married fellow microbiologist, Jacqueline. A popular researcher and lecturer at Victoria University of Technology, he was known for always being available to help students. Two days earlier at a party, he had told a colleague he was on top of the world with his research projects. They had joked about their love of cakes. Now, after doing his good deeds at his new wife’s grandmother’s home, Dr Goodall was on his way back to the house he and Jacqueline had bought six months earlier. Sure, he was missing his new wife who was visiting her parents in Dubai, but she would be home soon. Being late on a Sunday afternoon, the traffic was reasonably light on the freeway and his green Volvo was humming along nicely at 95 kilometres per hour.
Then a bloody huge rock crashed through his windscreen and slammed into his chest.
Instantly unconscious, clinically dead, Dr Goodall still had his hands on the steering wheel. He was upright but his head was slumped forward. His car careered into a guard-rail on the side of the freeway, ricocheting like a pinball back into the road. For about 600 metres the Volvo carried its unconscious, fatally stricken driver in an almost straight line. Finally, it slammed into a car at a red traffic light on the freeway exit ramp.
One of the first people who ran to the aid of Dr Goodall—a nurse called Bambi Vagg—later said when she reached him she saw a man ‘deeply unconscious but sitting upright in the car still with his seatbelt on and the motor of the car still running’.
She had first noticed Dr Goodall’s car when she saw it speeding toward her in her rear vision mirror. She had assumed he was going to pass her on the left but said that he then, ‘veered further over to the left and struck the guard-rail’. She looked across and saw the car’s driver.
Nurse Vagg: The driver appeared unconscious. He was in an upright position but his head was slumped to the left. His hands were still on the wheel. He appeared quite motionless.
The car proceeded for a distance of about 600 metres. Initially, he stayed in the second lane from the emergency lane and he gradually started to veer over to the right and eventually he struck the cars that had stopped at the red light at the Hoddle Street off ramp.
When the car crashed to a stop, the nurse raced over to help.
Nurse Vagg: I was pulpating the man’s pulse. Initially, he had a pulse but then he went into cardiac arrest and I knew we had to get him out to perform resuscitation.
The nurse said with the help of other motorists she moved Dr Goodall on to the road and pumped his chest.
Nurse Vagg: We performed this for about five minutes then he started to breathe spontaneously while remaining unconscious…I turned him on his side and he remained…like that for a number of minutes. He then went into cardiac arrest again, so I resumed cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
It was then that physician, Dr John Sullivan ran over. He shone a torch into Dr Goodall’s eyes and found that the pupils were not reacting to light—he was clinically dead.
Dr Sullivan: With resuscitation we actually got him breathing again and his pupils began to react. Then we talked to the ambulance. Then he stopped breathing again and we reinstituted the resuscitative efforts. Then the ambulance arrived and we got a monitor on to his chest and found that he had a slow heart rate. I then intubated him and we gave some fluids and his heart rate improved. He was then put in the ambulance.
Despite all these valiant efforts, Dr Goodall died about an hour and a half later—at 7.35 pm, 12 June 1994.
The rock that had killed him was 1.8 kilograms, about 20 centimetres long, oval and whitish.
It was no meteorite. This was no freakish accident. Someone had pushed this massive rock off a bridge across the freeway. It had fallen 12 metres before crashing through Dr Goodall’s windscreen and killing him.
And it had not been a one-off. Other rocks had been pushed off that bridge just before Dr Goodall copped his fatal blow.
Moments before the rock that killed Dr Goodall was dropped off the Yarra Bend Overpass on to one of Melbourne’s major freeways—the Eastern Freeway—Stephen O’Mally had had a scarily narrow escape.
Mr O’Mally: I noticed that there were two silhouettes on the bridge. As I approached it from a distance, the light in the sky in the background was just on sunset. It was very bright against the dark sky straight ahead and I noticed two silhouettes on the bridge. One was crouching and one was standing…
One was crouching and one was about as close as they could be next to each other…
Originally I thought they were going to spit at me and I thought, well, figuring it’s going to rain, it wouldn’t bother me much.
…
As I went to go under the overpass, I heard a great thud at the front of my car as I went under the bridge…It bounced the car. I was amazed how much it did. So much so that I thought I had run over something until I later checked and realised it had come from above.
Mr O’Mally said he got off the freeway at the next exit to check the damage but continued on when he realised it was minimal.
The driver of another car going under the same bridge shortly before 5.40 pm on that day also had a rock drop on to his car. He had had time for a premonition.
Darren Berntsen: I remember looking up and thinking, ‘There’s nothing to stop those people from dropping something on to me’ and the next minute as I passed underneath it [the Yarra Bend Overpass] on the other side, I heard a thud and a sort of dark object skipped along from left to right along the bonnet. It left a dent.
Mr Berntsen’s then fiancée, Desiree remembered ‘a thing fly past my window and it thudded twice on the bonnet and then flew off the other way’. She said it made a very loud noise.
The prequels to the Dr Goodall tragedy were not all misses. One rock hit 12-year-old Douglas Suter on the left side of his head. It happened so fast and so unexpectedly Douglas did not realise at first that he had been hit.
Douglas Suter: As we were driving under the overpass, I heard this loud bang like a tyre bursting. Then I realised the window was broken and that there was a rock on the floor.
His mother, Margaret remembered how her son nearly died sitting next to her in the car on the freeway.
Mrs Suter: At the overpass there was a loud bang and there was glass and my son started to cry and he said, ‘Keep driving, just keep driving’, and I could see this hole in the window in front of him.
She got off at the nearest exit and stopped at a petrol station to tend to her weeping son.
Mrs Suter: He had a lot of blood on his head and his nose was bleeding and there was glass all over him and all over the car.
Douglas Suter was rushed to the nearest hospital and then treated at the Royal Children’s Hospital.
A newspaper headline screamed: ‘HUNT FOR FREEWAY KILLERS’. Melbourne drivers nervously began to look up as they were going under freeway bridges. ‘Is that someone on the bridge?’ ‘What are they doing there?’ ‘Am I going to be the next motorist randomly killed by a massive rock?’
Jacqueline Goodall’s uncle, Maurice White, called on whoever was responsible to hand themselves in.
Dr White: It was a stupid prank that went wrong. Be men and own up to it.
Please go to the police. Come back into the fold of the community and be responsible…
I hope they are sorry for what they have done. They have to realise there were terrible consequences. The perpetrators of this horrific incident have much to feel guilty about and will never attain true peace until they come forward and tell the police.
They have caused a young man to die. His wife of only a few months is visiting her parents overseas and the news has caused her whole world to collapse.
Their plans and dreams will never come true but she [Jacqui] stressed she would like the people involved to come forward and then hopefully the community can forgive them.
The next day—just as the hysteria was being whipped up on talk-back radio—a 13-year-old boy walked into a local police station and owned up to being the ‘FREEWAY KILLER’. Ross (not his real name because children accused or convicted of crimes in Australian courts cannot be identified) told a police officer, ‘I’m the boy’.
The start of the ensuing police interview provided a taste of the problems children pose for the justice system.
Policeman: I must inform you that you are not obliged to say or do anything but anything you say or do may be given in evidence. Do you understand that?
Ross: Yep…
Policeman: Do you understand what I have just said?
Ross: No…
Policeman: Can you tell me why you’ve attended at the Northcote police station today?
Ross: Because I thought it would be better to own up.
Policeman: Own up to what?
Ross: What I’ve done. Threw the rock down and hit the windscreen of the car.
Up until the time they killed Dr Goodall, it had been a typical fun Sunday for Ross (13 years and almost seven months) and his best mate, Tim (also not his real name). When Tim, then aged 14 years and almost eight months, finished his three-hour newspaper round about 8.30 am, he joined Ross and other school mates at one of their homes. Then it was off to the huge Yarra Bend Park for fun. It was a day of playing ‘tiggy’ on their bikes, of scoffing lollies, of just riding around razzing each other, challenging each other with bike stunts: Bet you can’t do this!, Check this out!
Then a pile of stones and rocks prompted the dumbest, deadliest of ideas. ‘Let’s throw rocks off the bridge,’ was the proposal. An 11-and-a-half-year-old mate who had been playing with them realised how stupid an idea it was. He told the two older boys straight out, ‘Don’t do it’, and went home to his dinner. He later told his friends’ Supreme Court manslaughter trial in September 1995, he had said this because he, ‘just thought it would be dangerous’. He agreed under cross-examination, however, at the time he had not told either of his two older friends he thought it was dangerous.
Ignoring their younger friend’s advice, Ross and Tim went ahead with their plan.
Ross: Me and (Tim) grabbed a couple of rocks each, then we were waiting for some cars to come. Then (Tim) dropped the rock first and it missed a car or something. Then I dropped one, then I hit a car, the other one, that’s the brown one [Mr Berntsen’s]. And then the next car that come, the Volvo, I hit it and smashed the windscreen.
Ross said he and Tim first got two ‘pretty heavy’ rocks from a nearby pile and then got another two. After lugging the rocks on to the bridge, they put them on the edge, and waited for cars. They got their timing and accuracy right by checking the road’s lines and cat’s-eyes.
Ross: We waited for the cars—dotted lines there, dotted lines. We waited until it got about there and then we just dropped them.
Policeman: What was the purpose of waiting for the cars to get to a specific point?
Ross: Just to time the rock.
Policeman: But what did you intend the rock to do? Where did you intend it to land?
Ross: On the bonnet or the roof.
Policeman: So is it correct to say, you were actually intending for the rocks to strike cars?
Ross: Yeah.
…
(Tim’s) first drop missed, then I smashed the windscreen of it [Dr Goodall’s Volvo].
As a result of Ross’s confession, the police arrested Tim at his home and interviewed him. He also readily owned up to what they had done.
Tim: We picked up some rocks, me and (Ross) [two other boys including the 11-year-old went home]. I threw a rock off and it missed, then (Ross) threw a rock and it hit a car and then the car kept going. So I went and got another rock and I threw a rock and hit a little car and (Ross) threw a rock and hit another car.
…
Policeman: Was there any conversation between you and (Ross) prior to going on the bridge to throw the rocks?
Tim: No.
…
Policeman: There must have been some conversation?
Tim: Just, ‘Let’s throw rocks off the bridge’.
…
Policeman: After you pushed the first one off, what happened then?
Tim: (Ross) pushed his off.
…
Policeman: Was there any conversation before he pushed it off?
Tim: No. He just waited and he goes, ‘I’ll do it on this one’. And then he put it down and pushed it off with his foot and then we heard this crash. It hit the front windscreen and then the car didn’t stop and so we went back and got another rock.
…
Policeman: What did you think when you heard the smash?
Tim: Uh! Oh! I didn’t know what to think but the car didn’t stop, so we went back and got another rock, which was pretty stupid.
Policeman: Did you see the windscreen smash?
Tim: No.
Policeman: What did it sound like?
Tim: Just like a windscreen smashing.
…
Policeman: What happened when you got back up there [with the second lot of rocks]?
Tim: I put my rock down and I kicked it off first and it hit a car.
Policeman: What sort of car was that?
Tim: It was a brown Laser. [Mr O’Malley’s] I think it was, yeah.
Policeman: Whereabouts did it hit?
Tim: On the bonnet, I think. I just heard this bang.
…
Policeman: Did you wait for a car to come?
Tim: Yeah.
…
Policeman: Did you go through all this timing thing when you were looking at the silver things [the road’s cat’s-eyes]?
Tim: Yep.
…
Policeman: What did you think when you heard the noise [of the rock hitting the O’Malley car]?
Tim: I didn’t know what to think. I can’t remember really.
Policeman: Do you think it was possible that you might have injured somebody?
Tim: No, because the car kept going normally.
Policeman: What did (Ross) do with the second [rock] he had?
Tim: He put it down and there was this car coming along in the lane and he pushed it off and it hit the front windscreen and it kept going and then we just rode off. We didn’t wait to see what happened. We just rode off.
…
Policeman: At the time (Ross) pushed the second one over did you hear a noise?
Tim: Yes.
Policeman: What sort of noise?
Tim: Sort of like a ‘psst’. Sort of a noise like that.
Policeman: What did you think then?
Tim: We knew it had hit a windscreen.
…
Policeman(to Ross): Did you talk about it with (Tim) when it happened?
Ross: Yeah.
Policeman: What did you think?
Ross: I go, ‘We shouldn’t have done it’.
After this the boys rode off, bought some lollies, went to their homes and watched some television. According to a report in The Age newspaper Ross watched Baywatch. When that finished he started washing the mud off his Malvern Star bike about 7.35 pm—the same time Dr Goodall was pronounced dead.
Much of the police interviewing was, understandably, about why the boys did what they did. What were they thinking when they did something so obviously, stupidly dangerous.
Policeman: Why did you throw the rocks at the cars?
Ross: Don’t know.
Policeman: Was it for fun or was it to…?
Ross: For fun, probably.
Policeman: What were you hoping the cars would do?
Ross: Stop, probably.
…
Policeman: Do you know what you did was wrong?
Ross: Yes.
Policeman: Can you tell me in your own words why you think it was wrong?
Ross: Because just in case I killed somebody, like I did.
Policeman: Were you thinking that at the time?
Ross: No.
Policeman: What were you thinking at the time when you were throwing them [the rocks]?
Ross: Hoping to hit a car.
…
Policeman: When you were dropping the rocks, at the time you were doing it, what did you think was the worst thing that could happen?
Ross: Kill a person in a car.
Policeman: Did that bother you at the time that you could have killed somebody by doing what you were doing?
Ross: Yeah.
Policeman: Tell me how it bothered you.
Ross: Because when I saw it hit the windscreen. The car’s here, the driver’s there, the windscreen and the rock hit about there, near the driver.
Policeman: What do you think it would do if it actually hit a person straight away on the head?
Ross: Probably die straight away, instantly.
Similar questions were asked of the older Tim.
Policeman: What were you hoping to do?
Tim: We were trying to hit the cars.
…
Policeman: What did you think might happen if you hit a car?
Tim: It’d damage the car. It could kill someone.
Tim then broke down weeping and the police officer told him, ‘Let it out’. Sobbing, Tim said, ‘We weren’t trying to kill anybody’.
At their trial, the boys both pleaded not guilty to Dr Goodall’s manslaughter. They looked very small and childlike in the very adult, ornate high-ceilinged Supreme Court.
Their defence—their killer excuse—was their youth.
Yes, they had killed Dr Goodall but their barristers told the jury, the boys had been too young to realise what they were doing was dangerous.
Unlike in murder cases, to get a manslaughter conviction you do not have to prove the accused intended to kill or inflict really serious injury. You just have to prove that a reasonable person would have appreciated that what was done to cause the death was a dangerous thing to do. In this trial, in the case of Tim, the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a reasonable 14-year-old would have appreciated that pushing rocks off a bridge on to cars was a dangerous thing to do, that it could kill people.
In the case of Ross, it was more difficult. Victoria’s law presumes that children aged under 14 do not know the difference between right and wrong. It was not enough for the prosecution to prove that a reasonable 13-year-old must have realised dropping rocks on to a freeway was seriously wrong—not just mischievous but seriously, dangerously wrong. The prosecution had to prove that Ross knew this at the time.
The prosecution told the jury that in their interviews with police, the accused boys admitted knowing what they were doing was dangerous. It also pointed out that the rock that killed Dr Goodall was the fourth the two had dropped off that bridge and that an 11-year-old had realised throwing rocks off bridges, on to cars was dangerous…and told them not to do it.
While accepting Dr Goodall’s death was an ‘unutterable tragedy’, the defence barristers warned the jury not to forget that 13- and 14-year-olds were capable of acts of real stupidity, quite incomprehensible to adults. They claimed that reasonable 13- and 14-year-olds could think, ‘I’ll drop a rock to hit a car’, but not take the next logical step that hitting a car equals danger to people.
One of the defence barristers, Mr Smallwood reminded the jury of the ‘HUNT FOR FREEWAY KILLERS’ headline and then pointed to his client: ‘There he is. He was a boy’.
Mr Smallwood: They [the prosecution] have to prove by clear evidence that the boy knew the difference between right and wrong.
The defence denied that what their clients told police in their interviews amounted to confessing to manslaughter, to acknowledging and showing the boys realised that their actions were dangerous. They said the interviews only showed that the ‘penny had dropped’ too late—after Dr Goodall’s death.
Justice Philip Cummins warned the jury not to be swayed by sympathy either for Dr Goodall and his family or ‘for the plight, the situation that the two young children are in’. He also warned them not to be distracted by other irrelevant considerations.
Justice Cummins: We all travel in cars. We all travel on freeways. We all travel under bridges. So beware of any personal feelings of vulnerability. You are not a jury of 12 drivers, you are a jury of 12 judges (of the facts as opposed to the law) and you must act as you would wish a judge to act: impartially, objectively and fairly.
…
Do not concern yourself in any way about deterring other children from dropping rocks on cars. Do not concern yourself in any way with sending a message to other children not to do it. That is not part of your function as judges. Parents, school teachers, the media can deal with that.
Your sole function is to judge the question: Has the prosecution proved the first accused and the second accused guilty of manslaughter in this particular case? That is where your function begins and ends.
Finally, and most importantly, remember at all times you are adults. Remember how children think and remember how children fail to think of what is obvious to us as adults.
Fourteen months after Dr Goodall’s death, and after hearing four days of evidence and three days of defence, prosecution and the judicial summing up, a Supreme Court jury declared itself deadlocked after two days of deliberations.
The boys and Dr Goodall’s friends and family had to go through the trauma of a second trial.
Finally—about 16 months after that rock fell 12 metres and fatally crashed through an innocent motorist’s windscreen—a second jury took a day and half before announcing its verdict. To a packed, emotionally-charged courtroom, the jury forewoman declared both boys ‘Not Guilty’.
Tim’s mother gasped and sobbed. Her son put a hand on her shoulder. Mr Smallwood bowed his head and appeared to shed a tear before composing himself and hugging his client.
Outside the court, Jacqueline Goodall—the woman whose husband’s confessed killers had just been acquitted—said she would prefer not to comment on the verdict.
Ross’s solicitor, Liz Dowling, told reporters her client was relieved at the verdict.
Ms Dowling: But there are no winners in this. He (Ross) is just crying.
A tragedy occurred and I don’t think the jury wanted to convict a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old of manslaughter in these circumstances.
The older of the two boys—‘Tim’—tearfully apologised.
Tim: I’m sorry—but sorry won’t fix it. I hate to think how Dr Goodall’s wife is going to feel…
All we wanted to do was have some fun but it’s been 16 months of hell.
His mother told reporters, ‘If I could change the situation I would, I’m sorry and I know (Tim’s) sorry’. She said she would have understood if the boys had been found guilty, but said her son had changed a lot since the day he thought pushing rocks on to cars would be a fun thing to do.
Tim’s mother: He’s matured a lot. He’s grown up a lot. He’s learned to accept a lot of responsibility, which is something he’s never done before…
If there are other kids who are thinking of doing it and thinking because these two have ‘have got away with it’—don’t.
There are kids out there who think it’s a big joke but when you live through it, it’s hell.