Shane Spiller seemed to attract all the losers who drifted into Wyndham – junkies, thieves, scammers, drunks. He had tried to better himself with the compensation payout, using it to pay a deposit on a small house and to buy a flash four-wheel-drive. But the hollow-eyed stoners and dissolute characters who crashed on his floor circled like crows at a feast when his money came through, full of sudden bonhomie or hard-luck stories.
In August 2000, Detective Mark Winterflood became the investigating officer in the stabbing murder of Michael Petrie, who was thrown off a mountain lookout north of Wyndham, New South Wales, after being killed by Andrew Kraaymaat on 23 August at the home of Brian Peebles. Kraaymaat, regarded by Wyndham locals as a 'bad egg', had a long history of being in and out of the slammer, and just days before Peebles and Kraaymaat had visited Shane Spiller's home, where the three had proceeded to get totally wasted on grog and drugs. When the piss had run out, Kraaymaat, with an alcohol reading of 0.254, had borrowed Spiller's car without his permission, rolled the vehicle and smashed it beyond repair.
After a hung jury in the first trial, Kraaymaat was eventually convicted at retrial for Petrie's murder, receiving a fifteen-year sentence. Spiller was not compensated for the loss of his car and, turning Crown witness, Peebles was charged with being an accessory after the fact, for which he received a fifteen-month suspended sentence. While he was on remand, some of Peebles' associates, not including Shane Spiller, took the law into their own hands, breaking into Peebles' home and taking tools and furnishings as a down-payment for the substantial amounts of money he owed them.
After his release, Peebles relocated to the Gold Coast, where he formed the acquaintance of one Craig Archer. In the winter of 2001, Spiller started receiving a series of calls at his home from a man claiming to be a hitman hired by Peebles. Spiller would have his kneecaps blown off and be killed, the man warned, if he didn't return Peebles' belongings from the house break-in. Distressed and petrified, Spiller contacted police, who traced the threatening calls to a business on the Gold Coast. While Archer was charged with using a telecommunications device to menace, Peebles was not charged, but police were certain that Peebles had masterminded the 'hitman' threats.
Then, on 9 September 2002, Shane Spiller suddenly disappeared without trace.
His abrupt disappearance from a town where rumour and innuendo flowed like molten volcanic lava would fuel speculation about the fate of the likeable larrikin for years to come. And in the speculation Spiller's name – the boy who led police to Derek Ernest Percy – would become inexorably linked to sordid, murky stories of murder, drug abuse, theft and suicide. 'It was well known,' Winterflood tells me, 'that when Shane disappeared he was severely depressed and had spent some time in mental health hospitals. He was not in good shape.' In one suicide attempt, he had taken medication before tying a plastic bag over his head. The bag came loose while he was asleep. 'He was a morphine addict and trying to get help for that, as well. And there was also a wild rumour going around that his fears about Percy somehow bumping him off, using a hitman, had come to pass.' The question then became had Spiller committed suicide, been murdered or, less dramatic but more probable, died of a drug overdose and his body hidden by frightened co-drug users who did not want any heat from police?
After he was reported missing by a friend, police quickly ascertained that Spiller had not touched his bank account since 5 August and still had a balance of $37,000. He had also not accessed his Centrelink benefits since 20 August. Wherever Spiller was, it appeared he didn't need money. Winterflood gained access to his house and noticed that he had not packed to go away. His clothing and medication was still there, along with unwashed dishes and mouldy food in the fridge. There were no signs of violence and no suicide note. He also found no evidence of either Craig Archer or Brian Peebles having had any further contact with him. 'I organised searches of the mine shafts around the area and of places he was known to frequent,' Winterflood says. 'They all turned up nothing.'
Winterflood checked with Victoria Police to see if there was any evidence to support the rumour that Percy had any intention to murder Spiller or the financial wherewithal to take out a contract on his life. 'I asked the stick-up [Armed Hold-Up] Squad to ramp Percy's cell in November 2002,' he says. 'When they left, they sent me a message via New South Wales coppers telling me that I owed them one for them having to put up with the stench in there.'
'Stench?' I ask. 'Of what?'
'Let's just say that years in custody haven't changed Percy's fetishes.'
'Oh.' My voice trails away. In 2002 Percy was fifty-four years old. Nothing, it seems, has changed.
The stick-up boys also spoke with Correctional Services staff who handle Percy and found he had accumulated savings of just over $3000, a small amount of which he was able to access. 'They didn't find one thing in Percy's cell referring to Shane. The Correctional Services people reckon they have never heard him mention Spiller's name, or anything about him. They found that the only people recorded as having visited Percy since 1993 were his parents and the solicitors who prepared his application for transfer to a psychiatric institution. There was no hit man and no basis for the rumour that Percy even recalls Spiller, let alone has some long-held grudge against him.'
'So Shane Spiller has spent his whole life tormented and haunted by a bloke who doesn't give him one thought?' I say. 'That's pretty sad.'
'Yeah, it is. The whole thing is sad. It's tragic. I've prepared a brief for the Coroner, who wants it left open, probably until the usual seven years has expired and he can then be found to be legally deceased.'
'What do you think is the most likely scenario about what happened to Shane?' I ask.
'I reckon he accidentally overdosed and the junkies he was with at the time have freaked out and disposed of his body. The bush animals would have got rid of any evidence of him by now. But, in a small place like Wyndham, it's amazing that there has never been even one whisper of that happening. Either that or he has gone bush to commit suicide, but how did he get there? He couldn't have walked any distance. He wasn't up to it. My money is on an accidental overdose.'
'What about Shane's parents? He was not in contact with his family for a decade before he disappeared. Have you met them?'
'No. They haven't once come down to talk to me about him or made enquiries about his house, which was repossessed by the bank in 2006, or belongings. Makes you wonder, eh? I reckon Shane Spiller was another victim of Derek Percy, in the end. He had his problems, for sure, but for all that, he didn't deserve what he got. He didn't deserve that.'