Chapter 8

Police were faced with an enormous task. Inverloch was a holiday town, and many of the people who had been there on 1 January had already gone home. Not only had the day-trippers departed, but many holidaymakers had also left, driven away by horror and fear. Estimates had put the New Year’s Day crowd at around 8000 people and in the weeks that followed, police made a determined effort to track down and interview them all. In fact, as days dragged on with no real advances in the case, the reported size of the crowd began to swell: 10,000, 15,000 … By the time the inquest into Ethel’s murder was held, police had apparently interviewed more than 18,000 individuals.

Eight detectives and three police cars were assigned to the ‘greatest field of investigation ever covered by detectives in an Australian murder case’.1 Naturally enough, their focus was on the Inverloch and Wonthaggi districts, but there was also a chance that if Ethel’s murderer had fled to Wonthaggi – having been given a lift from Inverloch by a camper – he may have taken the afternoon train to Melbourne. It was even possible that the murderer had taken part in the search for Ethel Belshaw, only leaving after the body was discovered. Any motorist who gave a lift to a man on 1 or 2 January was asked to come forward.

Several features of the murder helped to establish the direction of the investigation. Ethel’s natural reserve, coupled with the warnings from her father, led police to believe that she would not have readily struck up a conversation with a strange man, let alone walked off with a stranger. Everything pointed to the scenario that Ethel had met someone she knew and happily walked with him into the tea-tree. Indigenous trackers had indicated the man who killed Ethel wasn’t old, but investigators may have interpreted that information too literally. Ethel was only 12 and a half years old, but she looked about 14 or 15, and police thought she was just the sort to catch a lad’s eye.

Detectives concluded they were looking for a young man known to Ethel. Among Inverloch’s 8000-plus New Year’s Day crowd, there could only be a handful of people who fitted this description.

The theory was given a boost by Mrs R. Evans, who lived in an isolated house not far from where Ethel’s body was found. At around 8.15 p.m. on the night of the murder, Mrs Evans was walking from her house to the beach when she heard muffled screams coming from the scrub. As she told police on 2 January, ‘I did not know at the time that the girl was missing, or I might have thought to investigate’.2 It was only when she heard the news about Ethel Belshaw that Mrs Evans came forward and told her story. For police, this seemed to confirm that for almost four hours after she was last seen at the ice cream shop, Ethel had remained in the company of her assailant, relaxed and unsuspecting. To detectives, it lent further support to the idea that her killer was a young man, someone Ethel knew, and with whom she would have been quite willing to take a stroll among the tea-tree, happy in his company until the fatal moment.

Hoping that witnesses would come forward to fill in the missing hours, police put out a description of Ethel:

Aged 12 years but looked two years older; 4ft. 10in. in height; medium build; fair freckled complexion; very long fair-coloured hair, with marked tinge of auburn, reaching lower than her waist; dressed in a white fuji silk frock knee-long; blue cross belt; tan shoes with buckles; may have been wearing brown stockings; without hat.3

Detectives were already investigating every report of suspicious persons, and with the release of this description many more potential witnesses came forward. Each story had to be investigated. There were reports that two men had been seen following Ethel Belshaw and Margaret Knights or had watched the girls as they swam; a man had purchased nuts for Ethel; campers had seen two men walking with a girl toward the spot where Ethel’s body was found; and a young woman (aged about 20) reported that a man of ‘southern European appearance’ had attempted to drag her onto the beach on New Year’s Eve but had fled into the scrub when her screams alerted friends. Other informants believed they had seen Ethel, but their descriptions of her male companion varied so widely that police were no better off. Significantly, Margaret Knights couldn’t remember a stranger approaching them, nor did she recall Ethel speaking to a man who was not part of the Tarwin Meadows group. And if anyone had been watching or following Ethel, Margaret hadn’t noticed.

***

Even without the benefit of modern communication and policing techniques, it is inconceivable that detectives wouldn’t notice how closely features of Ethel Belshaw’s murder and the positioning of her body resembled the murders of Hazel Wilson and Mena Griffiths. Police could be forgiven for not making an immediate connection: those crimes had taken place five years ago and 150 kilometres away; there was no central police database; and even the use of crime-scene photography was in its infancy. It is also possible that, to some degree, Australian society in the 1930s simply couldn’t grasp the concept of a person who killed for no other reason than the thrill of the act, and continued to kill again and again.

Less than a week after Ethel Belshaw was murdered, Truth news­paper ran a sensational (and somewhat exaggerated) article under the headline, ‘Sinister Sign of Stocking: Past Atrocities Recalled’ which mentioned not only Ethel Belshaw, Mena Griffiths and Hazel Wilson, but also Molly Dean, Irene Tuckerman, Alma Tirtschke and Jean McKenzie. All of these women and girls had been strangled or suffocated within the previous decade and all of the murders except for that of Alma Tirtschke remained unsolved.4 Yet although the crimes were included in the same article, the author did not draw any direct link between them, instead simply posed the question, ‘What is the significance of stockings?’5 Other newspapers published articles on the same theme, such as ‘13 Unsolved Murders in Four Years’.6

On 7 January, crime commentator Max Marlen used his regular column ‘Around the Courts’ to discuss the unsolved ‘girl murders’. Marlen may have had better connections inside the police force than his journalistic rivals, writing, ‘detectives have found many points of similarity between the murder of Ethel Belshaw … and the slaying of Hazel Wilson’.7 So it seems detectives were aware of potential links – at least between the Belshaw and Wilson cases – even if they couldn’t establish a motive for the murders.

Just as they had done following the murder of Mena Griffiths, some police officers were busy checking the movements of any perverts or sexual predators released from prison in the preceding two years. Therefore, while police were seen to be focusing their attention on Inverloch and its surrounds, they were not oblivious to the possibility that Ethel Belshaw’s murder was part of a bigger case, and their investigations were appropriately broad.

Following their plea for public assistance, police were inundated with useless but well-intentioned information, but also received some potentially valuable leads. One of the most credible reports came from a Korumburra woman who had been among the thousands of visitors to Inverloch on New Year’s Day. Close to 6 p.m., Mrs Naomi Elmore, a nurse, had been sitting on Beach Road waiting for her husband:

I saw a girl whom I now know positively to be Ethel Belshaw walking leisurely up the road from town with a man whom she appeared to know.

I was attracted by her auburn hair which was hanging loose. She walked past and tossed her head proudly as if she knew I was looking at her admiringly. The man was somewhat peculiar in his attitude, and appeared to be anxious that the girl should not be recognised.

The girl was happy, and I kept both of them under observation for a fairly long time until they disappeared, walking toward the pier. The man seemed to be of a good type, and was certainly not a larrikin or a beachcomber. He appeared to be reserved.

He was wearing fawn trousers and sandshoes, but had no hat or collar.8

According to Mrs Elmore, the girl was wearing shoes but carrying her stockings. There was, however, one jarring note in the story. When she allegedly saw Ethel, Mrs Elmore had been sitting with a friend, Mrs Little. As the girl had passed by, Mrs Elmore had made a comment to the other woman about Ethel’s hair. But Mrs Little was unable to corroborate the sighting of Ethel. It seems she’d had a headache, did not remember the remark, had not noticed the girl, and could not identify Ethel from a photograph.9

Nonetheless, police felt Mrs Elmore was a reliable witness. She had provided further details about the unknown man which detectives suppressed, hoping that if the description was put to Ethel’s family, they might recognise someone in the girl’s circle of acquaintances. It was the best lead they had so far, and there were hopes of an early arrest. But as days passed, they were no closer to establishing the identity of the man in the open-necked shirt.

Two other women also claimed to have seen Ethel at a time that tallied with Mrs Elmore’s account. Mrs Quinn and her sister-in-law, Mrs Davey, were sitting near the Pine Lodge guest house, a short distance from the Inverloch foreshore, when a girl whom they believed was Ethel passed by. Unfortunately, neither woman could describe the girl’s companion. Even if all three women were correct, they had seen Ethel and her companion in the middle of the holiday crowd, walking toward the pier. How had the pair travelled, unremarked, from the point of those last sightings to an isolated patch of scrub?

***

Police conducted an exhaustive ‘door knock’ of every house and camp along the foreshore near the place where Ethel was allegedly last seen by Mrs Elmore. By visiting each dwelling and checking the movements of all occupants, they established that Ethel had not been kept in any of those places while her abductor waited for darkness to fall. Inquiries extended to nearby towns, where officers questioned anyone who had been in Inverloch over the New Year holiday but had camped outside the registered camping area. Detectives were certain Ethel must have been among the holiday crowd for some time after she bought her ice cream, so someone must have seen her: it was inconceivable that she could have simply vanished. Yet – barring Mrs Elmore’s alleged sighting – that was exactly what happened.

Detectives didn’t know it at that stage, but the anonymous man who had abducted Mena Griffiths in plain sight, and who had stood observed yet unremarked with Hazel Wilson before dragging her limp body away from the front gate of her own home, had escorted Ethel Belshaw through a crowd of 8000-plus people, and no one had seen a thing.

On 9 January, the Victorian Government – in sharp contrast to its actions following the murders of Mena Griffiths and Hazel Wilson – offered a £٥٠٠ reward for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of Ethel Belshaw’s murderer.10 This led to a significant increase in the number of reports made to police, but as investigations continued, the reward went unclaimed.

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Detectives worked around the clock. They established a headquarters at Inverloch police station and from there Sub-Inspector (formerly Sergeant)11 McKerral coordinated their efforts. Each day would begin with an early morning conference to map out the next stage of the investigation, then the team of detectives (and two senior constables) would disperse, heading out in three police cars and spending 12 or more hours in the field. Meanwhile, McKerral spent his days collecting and collating reports and information, questioning people who came to the police station with tips or potential leads, and writing reports on the progress of the investigation. Each evening, the detectives would assemble for a second conference before writing up their own reports of the day’s findings. Day after day they kept at the gruelling routine, desperate for a break in the case. But despite the volumes of information, two weeks after Ethel’s murder they seemed to be no further forward.

Numerous people had seen her in the hours leading up to her death, but detectives were still faced with the fact that there had been no sightings of Ethel after 6 p.m. This loosely corresponded to Dr Mollison’s estimate of the time of death, but if police believed the screams heard at 8.15 p.m. were relevant, it left a big gap in the timeline. However, if the screams were simply those of excited children, Ethel may have already been dead for several hours.

Despite the lack of solid leads, Sub-Inspector McKerral was unfazed. Every day brought new information, and every day detectives narrowed their field of inquiry. On 14 January he told a Weekly Times reporter, ‘I am still confident that we will find the man who murdered Ethel Belshaw, and I am quite satisfied with the progress of our investigation to date’.12

The police were tireless, investigating every possible clue and theory. They put out a call to parents of daughters to establish if there may have been another girl at Inverloch on New Year’s Day with long fair hair and a cream dress who could have been mistaken for Ethel. Many people believed they had seen Ethel, and while it was easy to rule out those who described different attire or whose stories varied too greatly, these reports only accounted for some of the witnesses interviewed. Two girls who could be considered ‘doubles’ were traced. Mary Whipp of Strzelecki and Ruby Rigby from Wonthaggi detailed their movements in Inverloch on New Year’s Day, which were then cross-checked with reported sightings of Ethel. This helped police eliminate numerous ‘sightings’ and establish a better timeline of Ethel’s movements, but what they desperately needed was a clear description of the man who had been seen with Ethel.

One report – not of Ethel but of a suspicious man – stood out. This young man had been seen loitering near the swings in the Inverloch recreation ground between 5 and 6 p.m. There had been a large picnic party nearby, a group of nine or 10 people, and police appealed for members of the group to come forward, hoping they would be able to provide more information about the mystery man. It was another dead end. However, given police interest in this sighting, it seems they still had doubts about the theory that Ethel had been lured into the scrub by someone she knew. Perhaps she had simply wandered into the scrub and encountered her assailant there. It seemed unlikely that the well-behaved girl would have abandoned her younger companion like that, but police couldn’t afford to rule out any possibilities.

On 20 January, Truth newspaper published a bizarre theory,13 claiming the idea had come from police, even though it reads far more like the imaginings of a scandal-mongering journalist. According to the report, the normally obedient Ethel had deliberately stayed away from her hosts – Mr and Mrs Knights – for longer than she had intended. Realising what she had done – and calling to mind her mother’s instruction to behave herself and not cause trouble – Ethel panicked. But then she had an idea: to avoid getting into trouble, Ethel would stage her own abduction. Somehow (the report does not explain how) she put a stocking in her mouth and managed to tie her own hands behind her back. Then things went too far: her struggles became real and the stocking lodged deeper into her mouth, causing death by suffocation. Needless to say, this theory was never taken seriously.

By the end of January, a month after Ethel’s murder, the piles of foolscap files were nearly two feet high in the CIB office at Russell Street Police Headquarters, but detectives were no closer to making an arrest.

Inquiries continued through February and into March. Police felt they were being hindered by the public’s attitude toward them: some people would not come forward due to their antagonism toward police, others were simply afraid of everything related to officers of the law. And always, there was that large crowd to sift through.

But then, early on the morning of Monday, 8 April, after three months of investigation, tireless searching, fruitless leads, dashed expectations and glimmers of hope, Senior Detective Sloan and Detective Davis made an arrest. They bundled their man into a police car and drove directly to Wonthaggi, where they confronted him with several witnesses before questioning him again.

Gordon Herbert Knights, an 18-year-old apprentice builder, was charged with the murder of family friend Ethel Belshaw.

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In the City Court that evening, Gordon, with his stocky build, blue eyes, fair hair and sunburnt skin, sat calmly in the dock while his mother silently wept. Senior Detective Sloan told the court that during the investigation, the accused had been questioned about his movements on 1 January and had made three contradictory statements. Questioned further, he had admitted to telling lies, and when asked to give a reason for his lying, Gordon Knights simply said, ‘I don’t know why. I can’t give any reason.’ He had no legal representation and was remanded in custody until 17 April when the inquest was scheduled to be held.

On Friday, 12 April, a bail application was heard before Chief Justice Sir William Irvine. Gordon Knights’ newly appointed counsel, Mr L.W. Hartnett, submitted an affidavit to the court in which he stated it was necessary for Knights to accompany him to Inverloch to provide precise details of his movements on 1 January. It was also important that Gordon had every chance to instruct counsel concerning his defence. Bail was granted and set at £500 (with an additional £500 surety) and Gordon was required to report daily to Ormond police station.

When 17 April arrived, there was a problem. The coroner, Mr Grant, was on leave and not due back until May. As he had been the one to view Ethel’s body at Wonthaggi, the inquest had to take place in his court. A new date – 14 May – was set for the inquest and Gordon’s bail was similarly extended, but with a modification: as he was now living with his grandmother in Footscray, Gordon was permitted to report daily to Footscray police station instead of Ormond.