Chapter 12

After the heavy downpour that morning, there was little information to be gained by detectives at the site where June’s body was found. Indigenous trackers were similarly hampered by the weather, but still managed to find a man’s footprints in the scrub, and locate a place 20 yards (18 metres) away where someone had climbed through a barbed-wire fence. The rain had also obliterated any trace of scent, and the police dog was unable to pick up a trail. However, detectives soon announced that an ‘object’ had been found not far from the scrub where June’s body was located, although they refused to say precisely what it was, fearing the disclosure would interfere with the investigation. These were promising early findings, but the only thing police knew with any certainty was that the killer was a lone man who could gain a little girl’s trust and lure her to her death.

Detectives began their inquiries at the five houses closest to where June’s body was found. Members of the extended McPherson family occupied three of the homes, with Mrs D. Hubbard and Mr T.H. Jones living in the other two. No one had seen or heard a thing.

Police received several reports of a stranger in town, and they visited a number of camps on the outskirts of Leongatha where detectives questioned itinerant men without success. Attention was focused on an area within four miles (6.4 kilometres) of the Rushmer home, however an early clue sent a team of officers, led by Detective Sergeant O’Keeffe, dashing off to visit a district about 20 miles (32 kilometres) from Leongatha. In addition, every police station within a 50-mile (80-kilometre) radius of the township was directed to be on the lookout for suspicious strangers.

Police were hopeful that, with a large contingent of CIB detectives and other officers immediately on the ground, this time there would be a breakthrough. There had to be. The newspapers hadn’t yet published anything directly linking June Rushmer’s murder to the Melbourne killings of Hazel Wilson and Mena Griffiths five years earlier, but among the first headlines to appear were ‘Resemblance to Inverloch Tragedy’ and ‘Inverloch Parallel’. The distance from Inverloch to Leongatha was quoted and the implication was clear: if detectives had done their job 11 months earlier, June Rushmer would still be alive. In pointing out the similarities between the two cases, The Herald noted that the questioning of thousands of witnesses had made the Inverloch murder a history-making investigation.1 It was a pity it had come to nothing. This time, Victoria Police needed a result.

Although detectives suspected they were dealing with the same killer, there was also a possibility June’s murderer was trying to imitate aspects of Ethel Belshaw’s death. The term ‘copycat killer’ didn’t exist in 1935, but given the level of detail contained in newspaper reports of the Inverloch murder, it was conceivable that the man who murdered June Rushmer could have studied the earlier case. However, one thing not included in the news coverage of Ethel Belshaw’s murder related to the knots used to secure the gag and wrist bonds, and those used on Ethel were not the same as those used on June. In fact, the knots used in the Inverloch case had been expertly tied, while in June’s murder, they were quite clumsy.2 As far as detectives were concerned, it was a telling detail, but they weren’t prepared to rule anything out.

Same man or copycat? It was almost a secondary consideration: either option was bad. What mattered was that police had a killer to catch, and they couldn’t afford another failure.

***

Initially, detectives hypothesised that June may have reached home but, finding it empty, ventured out again. If this was true, it had the potential to complicate the investigation; from home, June could have headed in any direction. However, Sunday evening had been mild and people were outside on their verandahs, in their gardens, or, like Mr and Mrs Rushmer, going out to run errands or catch up with friends. A group of men had been sitting on the verandah of Mrs Jackson’s boarding house, located on Roughead Street between the Rushmers’ home and the reservation. Close questioning of these men and other neighbours confirmed no one had seen June near the Rushmer house. This left police with a tight timeline: June had encountered her killer in the 150-yard (137-metre) stretch between the gates of the recreation reserve and her home between 7 and 7.30 p.m. on the evening of 1 December.

After leaving the park through the gates on Roughead Street, June would have had to pass a bowling green and then the tennis courts on the corner of Turner Street, where a number of local residents were playing a game in the Sunday evening twilight. If anyone had tried to grab June, surely the tennis players would have seen or heard something? But with no reports of screams or signs of a struggle anywhere along that route, it was clear to detectives that she was accosted only moments after leaving the playground and somehow enticed along the back road running at right angles to Roughead Street. Just like Ethel Belshaw, Hazel Wilson and Mena Griffiths, June Rushmer had suspected nothing and gone willingly with her killer.

Police thought she may have known her killer, but they were also aware that June’s personality – her chattiness and open nature with adults – might have led to an interaction with a stranger. The little girl had grown up in Leongatha, among people she and her family trusted. She had never had occasion not to trust an adult. However, her father believed it would have been impossible for anyone to coax her to the place where her body was found, telling a reporter from The Weekly Times, ‘Although she was a friendly soul, I do not believe her friendliness would overpower her discretion.’3

***

Before sunset on Monday, 2 December, less than 24 hours after June disappeared, a witness came forward. He claimed that the previous evening he had seen a man accompanied by a small girl, nearly an hour after June had left the recreation reserve. The girl looked like June Rushmer and was wearing a white dress, however the witness thought she had been wearing stockings. This detail made police believe the girl wasn’t June, and may in fact have been some years older, but it was a credible report that warranted investigation.

Twelve-year-old Henry Money also had a story to tell. Between 7 and 7.45 p.m. on Sunday evening, he had seen a middle-aged man in a dark suit carrying a child past the tennis courts (situated just within the boundary of the recreation reserve) heading toward the place where June’s body was found. At the time, he’d assumed it was a father carrying his daughter, but after the discovery of June’s body, he reported the sighting to police.

It was a third possible sighting that caused the most excitement among detectives. Local lad, Vincent Desmond Ryan, aged 16, came to police on Monday evening to make a report. On Sunday evening, around 7.15 or 7.30 p.m., Desmond (as he was known) had seen a man in a blue or black suit wheeling a bicycle down the lane that ran alongside the recreation reserve. According to Desmond, the man had a little girl sitting on the handlebars of the bicycle. Desmond knew June Rushmer, but was too far away – about 90 yards (82 metres) – to definitively identify her. Nevertheless, it was a strong lead, and police were confident of an arrest.

***

Tuesday began with police focused on Desmond Ryan’s story. No cars had been seen anywhere near the murder scene on Sunday evening, and, in any case, that short track was full of ruts and potholes – not somewhere a motorist in the 1930s would drive if there was any way to avoid it – so a bicycle made sense. The idea of a girl travelling on the handlebars of a bicycle also fitted with June’s personality and habit of asking people for a ride: perhaps this was the inducement June’s killer had used to get her to accompany him.

Once again, detectives returned to a critical question: would June go with a stranger, even if he did promise her a ride on his bicycle?

They knew the little girl trusted virtually everybody in Leongatha, but her father believed the six year old was world-wise enough to be suspicious of strange men. Detectives questioned many people who had known June and were slowly brought around to Mr Rushmer’s point of view. Despite her young age, police were given the impression that June’s childish innocence would not necessarily extend to those she didn’t know. They determined that if a stranger – an older man, possibly shabbily dressed, or even a tramp, grimy from the road – had tried to entice her away, June Rushmer would have been just as frightened as any other little girl.

However, the bicycle theory quickly yielded results. Indigenous trackers were able to pick up the tyre tread of a bicycle, which had travelled along McPherson’s Lane and further into town. The bicycle tracks then appeared to cross Anderson Street before disappearing in wet ground. This puzzled detectives as it indicated movement away from the place where June had been killed. Even so, they obtained good, clear prints of the bicycle tread and hopes of an arrest remained high.

Some of the investigation team began an examination of bicycles in the district, quickly finding two that were seized and taken to the police station for further analysis. One was soon ruled out; the other seemed more promising.

But seven hours of intense investigation of the bicycle theory came to nothing. Detectives learned of a Leongatha man who regularly carried his daughter home on the handlebars of his bike. It seemed police had been wasting their time.

One newspaper headline trumpeted, ‘First Clue a Dud’,4 and it was certainly a setback in the investigation, but despite the blow, police were undaunted. There was still Henry Money’s story of a man carrying a little girl, and some significance was also placed on a report from a local resident that his son had been given a penny by a stranger at around 10 p.m. on the night of the murder.

Additionally, the bicycle lead had prompted other people to come forward, claiming to have seen a stranger with a bicycle in the recreation reserve the day June disappeared.

New information was coming in almost every hour. At least four reports were received of a man (or men) seen between Roughead Street and the place where June’s body was found. Unfortunately, none of the witnesses had been close enough to give an accurate or detailed description, and their estimates of the age of the man ranged from 18 to 45 years.

Men who were strangers to the district – including tramps and itinerant workers camped on the outskirts of town – were eliminated from police inquiries one by one. Some of these men possessed bicycles and received more concentrated attention, but each was ultimately ruled out of the investigation.

***

The inquest into the death of June Rushmer was formally opened by district coroner, Mr D.T. Wilkins P.M. Her identification was confirmed and Dr Mollison gave a statement regarding the cause and time of death, then proceedings were adjourned. It was now up to the police to fill in the missing information and find the person responsible for June’s death.

***

By Tuesday evening, two days after June was murdered, detectives had interviewed more than 60 people. At least three men had been subjected to close questioning and asked to account for their movements between 7 and 8 p.m. on Sunday. Given the inconsistent descriptions of the man seen in the vicinity before the murder, detectives began to focus on reports of suspicious men seen after the time when June was killed. If they could trace his movements after the murder, detectives reasoned, they might be able to follow the trail directly to the perpetrator.

Unfortunately, they had little to go on, and that evening Senior Constable Haygarth, Indigenous trackers Norman Brown and Bertie Barber, and the police dog handler Senior Constable Capuano, left Leongatha and returned to Melbourne. Their part in proceedings was over, and perhaps their withdrawal was a sign that the investigation was stalled. As The Age reported the following morning:

It was officially stated last night that police investigations had so far broken no new ground which they were prepared to make public. It is believed that so far no definite clues have been discovered.5

However, even with no real news to report, the Melbourne Herald’s story filled several pages of the Tuesday evening edition: the paper had even sent a photographer to Leongatha on a specially chartered plane. As well as an aerial shot laying out the locations of the various points of interest – the playground, Rushmer home, and location of the body – pictures of detectives at work were also taken and flown back in time for the evening edition. The Herald’s coverage also included the opinion of a ‘leading Collins Street psychiatrist’, who said the type of man who would commit such a crime would be, ‘poorly endowed with ordinary intelligence but would possess an animal cunning, although the higher values of his mind would not be existent’. He expressed a belief that the perpetrator was a middle-aged man, and depressingly, ‘while most people think it is love that rules this world, I believe that hate is the ruling passion’. June’s killer had trouble controlling the influence of hate within him, and his sadism could only be satisfied by killing someone young.6

Interestingly, despite Dr Mollison’s finding that June Rushmer had not been raped or sexually assaulted, detectives firmly believed the little girl’s murderer was driven by some sort of ill-defined sexual motive. Unless he was sexually abnormal in some way, they reasoned, why would a man murder a little girl and arrange her body in such a manner? Perhaps it was the very act of stifling the spark of life that gave the killer an almost sexual gratification.

At police headquarters in Melbourne, officers combed through their index of felons convicted of sex-related crimes and worked on tracing the movements of ‘sex criminals’ recently released from prison. Meanwhile, in Leongatha, detectives were working their way through a list of local perverts, compiled during the investigation into Ethel Belshaw’s murder. It may not have yielded results then, but perhaps the answer lay among those names: a slim possibility, yet one police could not afford to ignore.

***

By Wednesday, 4 December, detectives were convinced they were dealing with someone local. Not only had June gone willingly with her killer, the crime scene itself strongly suggested detailed knowledge of the area. The scrub where June’s body had been found was the only such patch anywhere near the town on that side, a place of dense bracken, young gums, blackberry and sword grass that in places was taller than a six year old, and detectives were certain this was not just the location where the body had been dumped, but the place where June was murdered. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d just stumble across, especially not in the middle of abducting a child while lulling her into believing everything was fine. The killer had known it was there, and he also knew that in the centre of the patch of scrub was a little clearing, entirely hidden from the road.

That morning, while some police interviewed a young man and revisited the murder scene, a carload of detectives made yet another dash from Leongatha into the surrounding countryside, reportedly in an attempt to connect details in a particular line of investigation.

***

June Rushmer’s funeral was held at 2.30 that afternoon. Mourners crowded the small Methodist church on the corner of Bruce Street, among them Sub-Inspector McKerral and Senior Detective Sickerdick. The tiny coffin with its nickel furnishings was lined with blue swansdown, and as one local paper wrote, ‘the best that loving hearts could do was done in her memory’.7 Throughout the morning, locals had come to pay their respects, filing silently past and leaving more than 70 floral tributes. The local Mothers’ Club, Leongatha Town Band, Korumburra Citizens’ Band … even the Reverend and Mrs Blainey and the local undertakers, John W. Pounder and Son, had laid flowers in front of June’s casket. There were also bouquets and wreaths from June’s school teacher, Miss Dugan, and from teachers and students of all grades of the Leongatha State School, including a floral cross from June’s classmates in grades 1 and 2: the day before, all classes at the Leongatha State School had observed a solemn two minutes’ silence in memory of their friend and schoolmate. Many of the flowers bore personal messages from June’s friends: Ena and Eric, June and Joyce Hunter, Lustern Wisdom, Pat Measley, Marie, Albert and John, Rae McFarland, and Shirley Steele. And though the messages named June’s friends and classmates, they were also a testament to how the heart of this small, tight-knit community – particularly those with young children – was stricken to its very core.

The Reverend S.C. Blainey took the service, his voice sometimes trembling as many in the congregation openly wept. Psalm 27 was read, ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear …’ then Flora ‘Muffet’ Harding placed a final floral arrangement on the coffin, accompanied by a poem she had written:

Sleep little June, you have gone to a garden fair.

To walk among the buttercups, to tend the lilies there;

Sometimes when you have leisure,

Of Him who bore the load,

You’ll ask for strength for Mother,

To bear this heavy load.

When evening shadows deepen,

And the sun has left no trace,

For father you will ask for comfort,

While he reflects on your dear face.

May Claude from out his loneliness

Find friendships grand and true,

And grow in closer union,

To help those dear ones through.

With memories of playing together.

June’s pallbearers were Mr Rushmer’s fellow musicians from the brass band. The Leongatha Band had opened a fund to cover the costs of the funeral and the first donation of £2/2/- was made by the State School Mothers’ Club which had collected the money to buy gifts for the children at Christmas, only three weeks away.

After the brief service, June’s tiny coffin was carried to the waiting hearse, and the flowers loaded into a special, second car. The funeral cortège moved off, travelling slowly through the silent town, frozen by grief. The route along Main Street was lined on either side by schoolchildren, heads bowed, paying tribute to their murdered classmate, while many women and children followed the procession to Leongatha cemetery. It was a heartbreaking sight. At the conclusion of the graveside ceremony, as June’s coffin was lowered into the earth, her mother let out an anguished cry and broke down completely.

***

In the police station a few hundred yards away from the church, detectives continued to sift through reports and evidence, searching for something, anything, that would lead them to identify the man who had so brutally taken June Rushmer’s life.

They were most likely looking for a middle-aged man.

There was a high likelihood that it was a person June knew – or at least recognised as someone she had seen around Leongatha – but detectives were still not ruling out a stranger.

The man had local knowledge.

It wasn’t really a lot to go on.

One of the details puzzling detectives was the conflicting stories of Henry Money and Desmond Ryan. Both young men were convincing witnesses who had come forward before full details of the route taken by the killer were released to the public. Both were sure about what they had seen – a man in a dark suit with a little girl in a white dress – and both sightings had occurred during the right time period and in locations consistent with the man and girl travelling from Roughead Street to the patch of scrub where June’s body was found.

But Desmond had seen a girl travelling on the handlebars of a bicycle, while Henry was sure the man was carrying the child. It couldn’t be both. Was this another bizarre parallel with the Inverloch case, where a girl in a similar frock had been mistaken by witnesses for Ethel Belshaw? Surely two young girls in white with two men in dark suits in roughly the same place at the same time would have been an almost impossible coincidence?

Then, a brilliant piece of investigative deduction. Detectives took the boys to the lane where each claimed to have seen the man and little girl. Both Desmond and Henry had been standing on one side of a paling fence, the lane on the other, and there was a slight depression in the ground. Sixteen-year-old Desmond had a considerable height advantage over 12-year-old Henry. Police carried out a test and determined that Desmond Ryan could see far more than Henry Money: he could see a bicycle. From the place where he had observed the man and child, Henry’s shorter stature prevented him from seeing the bicycle, making it seem as though the girl was being carried.8 Now the two stories matched, providing greater clarity to the investigation. However, at this point, police were still inclined to discount both sightings, given evidence that a local regularly cycled with his daughter perched on the handlebars.

The number of witnesses interviewed now topped 100 and detectives were making full use of the three high-powered cars at their disposal, travelling miles to follow up on every lead. One promising piece of information sent two detectives to the tiny town of Boolarra, some 35 miles (56 kilometres) north-east of Leongatha, but it proved to be yet another fruitless trip.

As Wednesday drew to a close – the third day since the discovery of June Rushmer’s body – the press was told detectives were still confident of an early arrest, and were working hard to accumulate a solid volume of convincing evidence. The statement had the ring of empty words, and behind the closed doors of the Leongatha police station, while officers still attacked the case with determination, they were perhaps not quite so positive of a swift resolution.

***

Meanwhile, some 16 miles (25 kilometres) away, labourers were working on the road between Dumbalk and Mirboo North. Most of the men were from various towns in the district, including Leongatha, but for the duration of the job they were living in a Country Roads Board construction camp at Dumbalk North. In their downtime, conversation inevitably turned to the Leongatha tragedy. One evening in the week following June’s murder the men were gathered around their campfire, dissecting the recent news and, in particular, discussing the sightings of the man and girl on a bicycle.

One of the roadworkers turned to another and said something like, ‘I thought I saw a bloke who looks like you riding his bicycle down that lane on Sunday!’

The joke fell flat.

‘No, you bloody didn’t! I was nowhere near the bloody place!’ The other man stormed off.

The angry outburst from the usually mild-mannered labourer surprised his colleagues, but they shrugged it off; everyone had a bad day now and then, and besides, given the man’s own daughter was not much older than June, the joke was in very poor taste.

But one of the workers, William Money, didn’t dismiss it. The reaction had been so extreme, and what’s more, he himself had seen that man at about 7.15 on Sunday evening riding a bicycle north on Roughead Street toward the Leongatha recreation reserve.

Something wasn’t right. Money pushed the thought to one side, but couldn’t let it go: a worm of suspicion had burrowed into his brain. Determined to tell police what he had seen, he left the work camp and made a special trip back to Leongatha.

At first light on Thursday, 5 December, Senior Detectives Sickerdick and Davis took one of the cars and raced out to the work camp on the North Mirboo Road.9 Arriving at about 7 a.m., they spoke to the man briefly and asked him to accompany them to Leongatha for further questioning.

The response was a mild-mannered, ‘All right.’

Back in the township, the suspect was placed in a room at the Leongatha Courthouse and Sub-Inspector McKerral and Detective Sergeant O’Keeffe were summoned.

‘Tell us where you were last Sunday afternoon,’ O’Keeffe said.

The suspect launched into a highly detailed account of his evening. With occasional encouraging questions from O’Keeffe, he told them he’d gone out at five o’clock, met some mates (whose names he provided), talked for a bit, then went to the pub with one of the men. After six beers each, they parted company and he went home to his wife and child. A neighbour, Mrs Hogan, was also there when he arrived at close to 6 p.m.

The family had tea (dinner), then a bit after 7 p.m. he went out again, this time taking his bicycle. He rode first to Dale’s, the newsagent in Bair Street, Leongatha, then to the home of the four Pigdon brothers, arriving at about 7.25 p.m. The house was empty and he waited for a bit. Finally the brothers returned from milking their cows, so he joined them for a cup of tea and asked to borrow The Leongatha Echo, a local newspaper. The brothers had already given their paper away, but one of them suggested another neighbour might still have a copy. The suspect and one of the Pigdon brothers went across to the home of Mr and Mrs Peacock. The Peacocks had also passed their paper on to someone else, but the men settled in for a talk and a smoke, which took the time up to 9.20 p.m.

The suspect then collected his bicycle from the Pigdon brothers’ property – declining an offer to come in due to the late hour – and cycled home.

Then he went to Dyer’s and got potatoes and tomatoes.

And on to Barry’s where he got some bread.

Finally, the suspect told detectives, he returned to his own house. He and his wife had a border in residence, and he saw this man, Mr Holt, when he arrived.

‘Is [my wife] in?’ he asked Holt.

‘No.’

Then he saw a light on in the neighbour’s house and, thinking his wife might be visiting, he went and knocked on the door. As soon as it opened he could see his wife wasn’t there, so instead the suspect asked the neighbour, Mr Madden, if he had a copy of the Echo.

This time he was in luck. The suspect took the paper and went home, where he packed his things ready to head back to the work camp the next morning. His wife arrived, helped him finish packing, and the couple retired for the night.

The narrative concluded.

‘How were you dressed last Sunday evening?’

‘A blue herringbone suit, black boots, fashion socks, and a white silk shirt.’

O’Keeffe increased the pressure. ‘You were seen in Roughead Street at 7.15 riding a bicycle.’

‘I was not in Roughead Street last Sunday,’ came the swift reply.

At that point, O’Keeffe had a quiet word to his colleagues and sent Detectives Davis and Sickerdick to question the Pigdon brothers and make some other inquiries.

While he waited for their return, O’Keeffe tried again.

‘You were in Roughead Street at 7.15 p.m. last Sunday and you were also seen riding your bicycle along the stock route with that little girl in front of you.’

‘I was not in Roughead Street last Sunday.’

***

When Detectives Sickerdick and Davis returned, they had new information. The Pigdon brothers confirmed the man had visited them on Sunday night, but had not arrived until close to 8 p.m., half an hour later than the suspect had claimed.

Based on this information, O’Keeffe resumed questioning his subject with even greater vigour.

‘You never arrived at Pigdon’s place until five minutes to eight!’ O’Keeffe threw the detail at the man in front of him.

‘I never had a watch. I don’t know what time it was.’ The answer was calm and measured.

‘You didn’t go to Dale’s place on Sunday afternoon.’

‘I did not go in but I went there.’

‘Every member of Dale’s family was at home last Sunday evening and they say that you were not near their place.’

‘I didn’t see any of them about and I would not disturb them on a Sunday.’

It seemed the man had an answer for everything, but O’Keeffe knew he was getting somewhere.

‘Tell me why you went around Leongatha looking for a paper when you could go to your next door neighbour and get the local paper from him?’ O’Keeffe asked.

‘I didn’t know he had a paper,’ the suspect replied.

Back and forth it went, with O’Keeffe probing every detail of the man’s story, but the suspect gave nothing away. The hours ticked past.

‘Your alibi is as empty as a childless cradle and you could not expect a child to believe it!’ O’Keeffe knew he was looking at the killer: he just had to find a way in.

‘I told you where I was last Sunday.’

Deciding to sweat him for a while, O’Keeffe went to have lunch, leaving the man with Detectives Sickerdick and Davis. When O’Keeffe returned at about 2 p.m. he was accompanied by another officer, Detective Frederick Delmenico, who had just arrived from Melbourne. Delmenico hadn’t been part of the team working in Leongatha, but he had encountered the suspect before, and he joined the other three detectives in the interview room.

Returning to the questioning, O’Keeffe got straight to the point.

‘You realise this looks very black,’ he said.

‘I know nothing about it,’ the suspect replied in the same composed manner.

‘You are the only person who can tell us how that child met her death and you may be able to clear the dark atmosphere surrounding her death.’

‘I told you I know nothing about it.’

O’Keeffe went back to the timeline of Sunday evening, specifically the time difference between when the suspect claimed to have reached the Pigdons’ place, and the time the brothers said he’d arrived.

The man asked to see Pigdon’s statement. Detective Davis produced his notebook, read the relevant section then passed it to the man so he could see Herbert Pigdon’s words for himself:

I said, ‘Why did you not come to the [milking] shed?’ He said, ‘I thought you were all out.’ We went straight inside and it was then five minutes to eight. I looked at the clock. I usually look at the clock to see what time we finish [milking].

The suspect passed the notebook back without comment.

Detective Delmenico weighed in. ‘The whole trouble with you,’ he told the suspect, ‘is that you have too much knowledge and it is your knowledge which has placed you where you are today. Tell Detective Sergeant O’Keeffe the truth. If you don’t like to tell it in front of two of us, I will leave the room.’

Silence.

The detectives waited.

Minutes ticked past, then …

‘No, you can stay.’ The suspect paused. ‘She is not the only one. There are three others.’

‘Who are they?’ O’Keeffe asked.

‘Ethel Belshaw, Hazel Wilson and Mena Griffiths.’

The suspect then proceeded to dictate four lengthy statements – one for each of the murders – all diligently taken down by O’Keeffe. The man read and signed each one, then asked if he could write a letter to his wife. The request was granted, but O’Keeffe told him that while his wife would be shown the note, police would retain it as evidence.

Then O’Keeffe asked, ‘Will you take us over the ground and point out the spots where you say you rode your bicycle, where you picked June Rushmer up, took her and killed her?’

‘Yes.’

The man was placed in a police car with Senior Detectives Sickerdick and Davis while Detective Sergeant O’Keeffe, Detective Delmenico and Sub-Inspector McKerral got into a second car and followed. The small convoy travelled along Roughead Street to a place opposite the butter factory, then turned back, went down Turner Street and into McPherson’s Lane. When they got to a spot in McPherson’s Lane, the cars stopped dead.

The man pointed. ‘That is where I killed her, tied her up and left her.’

It was the place where June Rushmer had been found.

There was nothing more to be said. The police cars returned to the Leongatha Courthouse.

The interrogation had lasted most of the day and now, as shadows began to lengthen and evening fell, the man was formally arrested.

Friday was market day in Leongatha and the bush telegraph had been active. News that detectives had detained a man spread through the community like wildfire and by 6 p.m. a crowd – mob – of more than 500 people had gathered outside the Leongatha Courthouse. The mood was ugly. Threats were made to lynch the man, with several of the most vocal suggestions coming from women. The situation was becoming so volatile that detectives decided to remove the suspect from Leongatha, and under heavy guard he was transferred to a car and taken to Melbourne.

At the City Watch House, Arnold Karl Sodeman, labourer, 36 years old, married, of Leongatha, was formally charged with the murder of June Rushmer.