True Crime: The Most Notorious Australian Cases | Full Episode

i'm steve liebman the two stories you're about to see happened almost 40 years apart but while separated by a generation they're remarkably similar in december 2003 on queensland's sunshine coast 13 year old daniel morkum disappears while on his way to buy christmas presents for the rest of his family crime investigation australia will retrace daniel's last movements and feature moving interviews with members of his family but first we turn the clock back to sydney 1960 and a crime that's committed that is so brutal it leaves an entire nation stunned by its cruelty [Music] the sydney opera house probably the world's most recognizable 20th century building and incredibly this modern marvel and pride of the nation is linked to one of the most infamous crimes in australia's history when construction began on this australian icon in the late 1950s it was partially funded by a huge lottery the opera house lottery first prize 100 000 pounds that's around 5 million dollars in today's currency but for one man and his family the dream of winning the opera house lottery turned into a nightmare it sparked a crime so shocking that it stunned and saddened an entire nation and it sparked a police investigation of extraordinary sophistication for its time it was a case that would mark the origin of modern forensic science in australia the year is 1960. sydney is a young city with a population of almost 2 million there are a few skyscrapers and the sydney harbour bridge dominates the skyline trams trundle the streets and bondi is australia's most famous beach basil thorne is a 37 year old commercial traveler living here at bondi with his wife freda and their two children graham eight and belinda iii he spends three pounds almost a quarter of the average weekly wage to chase everyone's dream like thousands of others he cues to buy a ticket in opera house lottery number 10. lo and behold basil thorne's impossible dream comes true he wins the lottery one hundred thousand pounds and like previous winners he's front page news the thorns eight-year-old son graham thorne is a student at one of sydney's most respected private schools scots college in bellevue hill not far from bondi [Music] thursday july 7th 1960 is shaping up as a sunny winter's day frida thorne sends graham off to school and it's the same routine each morning graham leaves his home here in edward street at 8 30 turns into wellington street and heads down to the corner of o'brien street and there he waits for a family friend mrs phyllis smith who normally drives graham to school along with her two sons on this particular morning a schoolmate spots graham walking towards his normal corner a few minutes later phyllis smith arrives at the corner but there's no sign of the boy she sends one of her sons to look for him and then goes straight to the thorns flat frieda sensing something might be terribly wrong contacts bondi police yes yes is missing can you come down quickly please sergeant larry o'shea is the first on the scene walked into the place when mr thor was there and the phone rang she answered and then she handed it to me i took the receiver and spoke into the phone and this broke said i've got your son and he's on 25 000 pounds and if i don't get it by five o'clock i'll feed him to the sharks i was shocked alright i couldn't believe that it happened the threatening caller speaking in a european accent says he'll phone again later in the day [Music] a shaken sergeant o'shea calls bondi police station for reinforcements lloyd noonan is a detective based there we've got to get up here right away i've always gone missing well we were at the station when the police station at bondi went sergeant day shea contacted us to tell us that they think that they've got this serious crime and we should get up to the house as soon as possible detective sergeant ken buray is the boss of bondi detectives cars cued up outside the place which we really in case of a kidnapping wanted to be kept quiet so i told them what they should do move off quickly or get locked up despite police efforts to keep the story quiet daily mirror reporter bill perry acts on a tip-off i was in the office a bit after nine o'clock and um and dave dixon who was one of our police rounds guys with good connections uh he got a tip off that the boy was missing and i was dispatched to go to wellington street bondi to you know make enquiries to see what was happening at that stage there was never any question of a kidnapping it was unheard of you know kidnapped in australia even the hardest criminals wouldn't have done anything to a child so i just went out there thinking that i'm going to interview somebody about somebody who's missing you know lost a lost kid so i i knocked on the door and uh big billy police sergeant answered and he said what do you want and i said to identify myself from the daily mirror and could i speak to mr mrs thorne and he said to me look if you've got any compassion you'll go away or you'll leave and and i could hear some sounds of distress in the background of sobbing and moaning well initially uh we didn't want the media involved we wanted to have time for the kidnapper to come forward and present his demands without anybody knowing about it so that we could take the necessary action the story is broken by legendary crime reporter bill jenkins in the afternoon paper frida thorne driving around bondi with the detectives searching for her son sees the daily mirror poster she is devastated the only thing i remember she came back to the to the flat where they were living and she was most upset and we had to settle her down because of that headline in the media basil thorne is in northern new south wales on business when graham goes missing on his return to sydney airport he's told that his son has been kidnapped that evening less than 12 hours after graham's disappearance basil goes to bondi police station and under the glare of television lights he makes this impassioned appeal is there any appeal you'd like to make to well all i can say is that the person that's got him if he's a father and got children of his own will for god's sake send him back in one piece [Music] when eight-year-old graham thorne is kidnapped on his way to school and a demand for a 25 000 pound ransom is made a massive police operation swings into action detective sergeant ernie freeman is in charge he's a tough no-nonsense cop with years of serious crime investigation behind him freeman and his men are deeply concerned for graham's safety many of them are fathers themselves and even the most hard bitten of policemen are upset and emotional finding it hard to believe that such a thing could happen in their city unbelievable nobody couldn't you know comprehend it that somebody would kidnap somebody for ransom we'd all of course heard of the lindbergh case in america where the man who flew the atlantic for the first time they took his son he also was killed too but no it's unheard of the crime was unheard of nobody in their wildest imagination would have thought somebody would do it when the news spreads throughout australia that a young boy has been kidnapped the public is anxious and incensed olympic swimming legend dawn fraser recalls the public mood yes the whole team was preparing for the olympics at the rome olympics in 1960 and then to see these headlines you know to to see terrible terrible headlines as it was you know one couldn't believe that was happening here in this country because he he was a beautiful big team preparing to compete in one of the biggest sporting events in the world and yet we have this stigma of an eight-year-old boy being kidnapped because his mother and father had won a an opera house lottery a general alarm is issued police begin monitoring major roads air and seaports they search every conceivable hiding place and even enlist the help of some of sydney's most notorious criminals as detective pat manning explains oh no argument we had all the heavy crims and like i mentioned the ones that are dead if you like the mcphersons and the freemans and all of those colorful characters that occupied the country they want they let all their boys loose they let everyone through the cross and everywhere find out who did this we must find out they were as clean to catch the perpetrator and they would have given him to us i don't think they were going to do anything stupid but they were keen on the perpetrator being apprehended and brought to justice as we were the new south wales government reacts to public anger and considers making kidnapping a capital offence we propose uh amending the crimes act uh to deal with the situation of this kind it's something without precedent and of course the the laws it stands uh will provides a maximum penalty of ten years i think and i'm sure everybody in the state of ours thinks that that's all together too small the government posts a reward of five thousand pounds for information leading to the arrest and conviction of graham thorne's kidnapper newspaper publishers offer another fifteen thousand pounds rupert murdoch has just recently bought the daily mirror from newspaper baron ezra norton by the next morning the story of graham thorne's kidnapping is dominating the news thousands of calls are pouring into police detective sergeant larry foley a 26-year veteran is assigned the task of setting up a nerve center at bondi police station collating the running sheets every time you did an inquiry you had to record it that piece of paper went into a running sheet and larry would index it but then there would be inquiries flowing from that and larry's job was to coordinate the recording of every part of that inquiry if it overlapped another inquiry a massive canvas of the surrounding streets turns up no sign of the boy information is coming from everywhere but much of it is vague and misleading at this early stage of the investigation some small clues have been uncovered a stocky man of olive complexion was spotted sitting in this park directly across the road from the thorns home on several days leading up to the kidnapping it's a similar description to the one that frida thorne has given police of a stranger who knocked on her door three weeks before her son's abduction mrs thorne answered the front door on this particular day and uh there was a man there near european appearance who said he was a private inquiry agent and was looking for a mr bogner and of course mrs thorne said i don't know that he missed there was never any person with an amateur located throughout the investigation thank you very much another investigator detective sergeant brian doyle unearths a key witness cecil denmead a resident of bondi tells doyle that he'd seen an iridescent blue 1955 ford custom line parked less than 100 meters from the thorns home on the morning of the kidnapping there was a ford iridescent ford car parked on an intersection which i had the veer around that particular vehicle to get past why would someone park there why not park down another 20 meters towards south head road and make it easy for people or cars to get around and that's morally stood out in my mind at that particular stage and his appearance i mean you know it's a face that once you see you never forget cecil denmead identifies the iridescent blue forward as a 1955 custom line doyle is skeptical that the young man can have such detailed knowledge of the car makes and models so he puts denmead's car recognition skills through a thorough test they took me all around the back streets of bondi would pick me up with an evening in the dark take me around to show me cars and to try and get one that i saw that particular night so they were trying to make sure that i knew what i was talking about as far as a car was concerned now convinced that denmead has made a positive identification of the car detective sergeant doyle dispatches 25 police to the department of motor transport sydney headquarters i think it took us three or four days and we had to go through every card every card and check and write down the particulars of everyone we found to be a ford custom line dark blue fortunately that guy that did identify the car he he was he knew his car and that saved us a heck of a lot of a heck of a lot of time police check more than 270 000 cards and find that there are 5 000 1955 ford custom lines scattered throughout the state every one of those 5 000 fords is sighted and where possible the owners are interviewed another breakthrough comes the day after the kidnapping with an important discovery in bush on the other side of sydney harbour about 20 kilometers north of bondi it's graham thorne's school case that was the first the first evidence of course of any of his possessions nothing had been found from the time he disappeared to my knowledge there was no tracy whatsoever and that suitcase with his little apple in the apple was peeled right around the hole without the in the one piece and so his mother lovely lovingly done that and then wrapped it back around the apple so it wouldn't wouldn't go um hard or brown always remember that's the most poisonous thing to me by dawn the next morning several hundred police are combing the untamed bushland navy helicopters army commandos and police skin divers join the search along with sniffer dogs flown in from south australia even local children are drafted into the search every policeman that was available whether he was on louvre or whatever was called in and every inch of probably a square mile of where where the school case had been found and i think it's an apple or something in it but that search revealed nothing but it went on for a couple of days inch by inch yard by yard trying to find something graham's personal effects are minutely examined but they reveal no real leads there are numerous alleged sightings of graham in theaters cars shops and streets all over australia every report is checked and everyone is eventually discounted it's a logistical nightmare for the police the sheer volume of material is overwhelming and within weeks detective sergeant larry foley has compiled the biggest police file ever produced in australia no lead is left uninvestigated no matter how far fetched it might seem we had psychics and other people who you know who could say that they knew where the body was and things like that you know like the people just saying they saw something in a dream or or you know they they could tell from vibrations they're all sorts of um somewhere but i think the police may have even listened to some of the psychics um um but most of them were you know either rat bags or people trying to um get quit out of it along with the well-meaning the mad and the mischievous there are the heartless opportunists who simply want to get their hands on the ransom money detective jack whelan has been working on the case from the beginning these things were bobbing up i don't know how many there must have been ten or a dozen of of these people ringing up saying yes we've got him and we don't want the the 25 000 will settle for 5 000 you know in in unmarked bills in brown paper bags dropped in the first waste paper basket outside the town hall and all that sort of stuff people said they had the little boy graham and demanded the ransom and uh bowser would ask to speak to graham on the phone and of course the people didn't said no we can't speak on the phone but we can answer any questions so there'd be questions asked by basil what is your little schoolmate's name giddy what's his proper name and what was the previous housekeeper's name and the likes sort of questioned which of course these people couldn't answer detective constable lloyd noonan is assigned to live with the thorns in case the kidnapper calls again and to help them deal with the avalanche of letters and phone calls everybody wants to help bring graham safely home to his parents including the sydney lord mayor harry jensen and the thorne family's local minister the reverend clive goodwin they offer themselves as intermediaries the daily mirror publishes a desperate handwritten appeal from basil and frieda thorne asking the kidnapper to contact reverend goodwin and the ransom will be paid no questions asked each call that comes in gives basil and frida thorne new hope that their son might be brought back to them but the original caller the man with the european accent who threatened to feed graham to the sharks never calls back [Music] august 16th almost seven weeks after graham's disappearance several children playing on a vacant lot here at seaforth a northern sydney suburb discover a small bundle wrapped in a picnic blanket under a ledge it's graham thorne's body [Music] on august 16 1960 australia's prayers and hopes turned to tears with the discovery of the body of eight-year-old kidnap victim graham thorne in a vacant lot in the northern sydney suburb of seaforth [Music] the overgrown lot is a playground for four-year-old peter mchugh and his friends we're all playing on the rocks together and one of us saw this blanket that was wrapped up tightly bound blanket that was wrapped up at the base of one of the rocks while we were playing they were all speculated as to what it might be and the obvious result of that speculation was that it could be a body in there i remember us calling out to eric coghlan's mum who lived next door to that rock all those rocks um that we'd found something and i can distinctly remember her laying out the window telling us that we shouldn't touch it and don't go near it and have nothing to do with it and wait until our fathers got home from work when those fathers most of the fathers came home from work they got together and walked across and made an inspection then and the result of that was that they found the body of grain thought detective john snowden of the police scientific bureau joins the investigation i received a call that particular night that the body was found and i would be taken into the cib where i met up with my partner ted white he was the senior man of the pair we then went out to grand view grove seaforth where we were shown where the body had been found where the boy was lying was under a rock an overhanging rock ledge would which would only be possibly 15 or 20 meters west of the boundary of a residence it was in a scrub area covered with a low lying scrub not an ideal place for people to walk say with that dog or for even children to play the the scrub was fairly tightly packed and of a low lying variety in that area i photographed the body before we touched it it was wrapped in a rug and at that stage you wouldn't know it contained the body having photographed it we then removed part of the covering of the rug saw that it was a body of a boy and i took various photographs there before we moved him i photographed the boy's feet where his legs were tied with cord and general photographs of the area it was then my duty to accompany the body with the contact contractor who would take it to the city morgue where an autopsy would be carried out the next morning the autopsy on graham's body reveals that he has suffered a fractured skull he's died from being battered or strangled or a combination of both detective sergeant ken beret is given the task of telling basil and freda thorne that their son's body has been found but already freda knows the worst she saw on tv just before i arrived with the minister to tell her officially that the boy was dead and his body had been found the gruesome and tragic discovery is distressing even to the most hardened investigators i'm still emotional about it i got to know the thorns very well i know how hard the police worked on it we didn't get paid overtime we i didn't have a phone on here i didn't have a meal at home as i mentioned but i couldn't ring my wife up and say i'm not coming home tonight for seven weeks it it it did become so involved i was so involved in it and i am emotional now at that time i had a son myself a little bit older than graham but certainly you have the same feelings as any member of the public have discussed dismay and all the other feelings to think that here is a young life with any degree of potential imaginable before him and he's been killed lost his life lost to his family forever a distressing thing but we just had to cope with it [Music] australians from all walks of life react with shock and revulsion when they learn the horrific details of graham thorne's death one of australia's most enduring music stars col joy remembers feeling disbelief on hearing the news oh there was disbelief alright because we thought he'd come back we thought yes somebody wants some money from these people that have won this big sum of money then with when we when he didn't come back and we found that he's not coming back there was anger there was a lot of anger i wouldn't have been surprised if a vigilante group had got out and and done what would have been done police are now more determined than ever to find the murderer and bring him to justice officers from the scientific division carefully examine the ankapuringa brand rug that covers graham's body they're convinced that it will yield important evidence when it was brought to the scientific section it was placed on what we called our examination table whilst in that position we would go around it particularly at that stage myself alan clark who was in charge of the scientific section looking for whatever was on it retrieving with tweezers hairs fibres seeds debris of any sort now the hairs and fibres went to dr cameron oliver cramp who was the government microbiologist dr cramp decided that the hairs that he was examining under his microscope came from a pekingese dog and from no other breed now this didn't particularly please some of the investigating detectives because it limited their field of suspects because if they located the suspect who had a pomeranium or a sydney silky or some other similar type of dog it was very restrictive of their investigation but dr cramp was adamant it was a pekingese a professor of plant pathology neville white examines traces of soil and vegetable matter found on graham's clothing dr joyce vickery a noted botanist from the royal botanic gardens is asked to examine samples of foliage collected from the blanket covering graham's body we found that there were two plants which proved to be of significance that we knew as garden plants but were not bush plants were not present at the site where graham thorne's body was found and therefore must have been become attached to the rug and clothing somewhere else dr vickery's team includes barbara briggs a young botanist in her first year at the botanical gardens i think i worked on it for a couple of days probably i think i was fairly clear very early on realized what it was likely to be but then i had to compare it very carefully and critically with specimens of the species that i believed it to be from our collection and also then to check out whether there were any other species that were likely to have the same characteristics horace whitworth curator of the geological museum examines the soil samples on august 19th three days after graham's body is discovered residents here in clontarf tell police about a neighbor who owned an iridescent blue ford custom line they also informed them that the man moved house on the day of the kidnapping and they haven't seen him since his name stephen leslie bradley the neighbors also tell police that bradley's wife magda and their three children left home that very morning in a taxi and bradley didn't come outside to farewell them soon afterwards detective sergeant brian doyle visits stephen bradley at his place of work the poker machine manufacturers nut and muddle doyle discovers that bradley was a hungarian immigrant born istvan baranye in budapest he migrated to australia in 1950 where he changed his name and later married his second wife magda he tells detective sergeant doyle that he sold his house in clontarf and was moving to a flat in manly on july the 7th the day graham thorne was kidnapped he admits to having owned an iridescent blue ford custom line which he has since sold to a car dealer but he insists that the custom line was never out of the garage that day he'd waited for a removalists van to take away his furniture and then had spent the rest of the day home alone at this point bradley is nothing more than another person of interest while police work around the clock to find the murderer graham thorne's funeral is held at st mark's church darling point hundreds turn out spontaneously as police escort the cortage to the cemetery accompanied by the scots college band meanwhile detective constable harry tupman goes to adelaide to investigate the origin of the rug in which graham was wrapped in the beginning i was detailed to take the rug to south australia to the oncopringer mills and see if i could get it identified um and to take a statement from some person there that of course could give us proof that it um was a road from there tupman establishes that the rug is one of three thousand manufactured at the oncoperinga mills in 1955 and 1956 but he also finds a connection between the rug and stephen bradley when he visits the melbourne store that had sold that particular rug from there he tracks down the person who bought it so i went from adelaide to melbourne and there was a gentleman known to be an associate of mrs bradley and for that reason i got the assistance of the melbourne cib and we located him i think he was working as a kitchen hand and took him back to russell street [Music] where i interviewed him at some length and he admitted that the rug that i showed him was identical with a rug he had given to mrs bradley on the birth of her child descriptions and pictures of the picnic rug and the blue ford custom line are published in newspapers and magazines and shown on tv news bulletins now the results of the scientific investigations begin to come in plant pathologists have examined molds found on graham's shoes and have determined that the mold is several weeks old this shows that graham thorne was almost certainly killed soon after his kidnapping the team from the royal botanic gardens identifies fragments from two different types of cypress bush found with the body one is relatively common the other however is rare both of them would be grown to some extent but having the two of them in one place would be very unusual having the two together you know if something occurs in one in a thousand gardens and something else in one in a thousand having the two together is a very rare occasion and so a wonderful clue the geologist has found pinkish grains of sand that can only be pink builders mortar the same type of mortar found on graham's clothing the police scientific team can now put together a rough description of the house they're looking for it'll have two types of cypress trees growing in the garden and there'll be pink mortar lying on hard surfaces the occupant of the house either owns or owned an iridescent blue 1955 ford custom line and will almost certainly have owned a pekingese dog detective roy coleman a meticulous investigator is sent along with the detective george shields for a street study of the area what they discover is quite remarkable and will break open the investigation the detectives had specimens of the plants we were looking for and also photographs of what they would be like and with that information a postman said that he did know of a place where there was an iridescent blue forward these people had moved out though he said and he thought that the house was built with pink limestock mortar a little bit unusual in that area and he said there were some unusual plants in the garden that look very much like the samples that you've got and he referred us to a house in moore street clondarf which was not a terribly long distance away from where the body was found the man who owned this house and who moved on the day of graham thorne's kidnapping is fast becoming the prime suspect that man is stephen leslie bradley the same man who'd been interviewed by detective sergeant doyle and who had admitted that he owned an iridescent blue ford custom line but now police have a new problem bradley has already fled the country [Music] by early october 1960 police have been able to make a very strong connection between stephen leslie bradley and the murder of graham thorne but bradley has already sailed out of sydney with his family aboard the ocean liner himalaya bound for london when the himalaya births in melbourne a few days later bradley sends a letter to real estate agent harry peachy well that morning they came in they asked if i knew a stephen bradley and i said yes i knew or see him badly he was or he was a tenant of mine up till recently when i had received a letter from him telling me he was going to vacate and they said did i still have the letter and i said yes and i gave them the letter as far as i can remember it became evidence as far as i know there was nothing about him which would suggest that he would do what he did i mean he seemed a normal sort of a european decent sort of a bloke of me as far as i can see graham morrison remembers stephen bradley very differently he worked alongside bradley at the broughton hall psychiatric clinic in the late 50s i mean he was a threatening type of fellow you know just in his stature he was a big fellow always had a song expression on his face never smiled you know patience wouldn't take the opportunity to speak with him yeah people have this the mirror don't they some people you can feel you can be both friends with others just oh i don't like this fellow you know and it seemed to show through with the you know with the patients the evidence against bradley continues to mount police from the scientific bureau returned to the house in clontarf that bradley has recently sold i went to that scene yes and with other detectives we examined the the garage area i took numerous photographs which would later be used in court showing the location of the trees the pink limestock mortar the interior of the garage when we examined that among the foundations of the house at the rear of the garage there had been a pile of lawn clippings dumped there was damp clay there there was a pink limestock mortar amongst the bricks and not dressed as neatly as it was on the outside of the building a single tassel of a rug was found in an area which was virtually a little bit out of sight it was around behind a part of the foundations that you couldn't see from the entrance door [Music] jack snowden also investigates the flat bradley rented in osborne road manly at the side of the flat on the outside amongst a pile of rubbish a crumpled up length of 35 millimeter black and white negative was found this was taken to the scientific section uh cleaned and flattened as best as we could and prints were taken from it the prince showed bradley and his family sitting on a rug identical in pattern to the one that was wrapped around the body the dog hairs found on the rug have been identified as coming from a pekinese after questioning bradley's neighbours in clontarf detective sergeant jack bateman learns that the suspect does in fact own a pekingese we found out that he had left a pekingese dog with a veterinary hospital with instructions to send it overseas and he would send the money for the dog to be transported the dog was eventually found examined specimens of hair taken from it which also proved to be identical to what we had on the rug detectives have also tracked down a vacuum cleaner that bradley has recently sold it contains hairs from the pekingese dog and human hairs traced to brushes owned by stephen and magda bradley and then another major breakthrough they tracked down the blue ford custom line they found it in some car yard somewhere and and lo and behold when they searched the boot of the car there were there were hairs and fibres that matched the kids clothing and you know graeme's clothing and and his hair now absolutely certain that bradley is their man police discover that the himalaya is scheduled to call into colombo the capital of the former british colony of ceylon hopeful that they can have him extradited back to australia they alert the captain of the ship who keeps bradley under close surveillance two days after the ship births bradley is arrested by police and imprisoned protesting his innocence he sends wife magda and their children on to london as he prepares to fight extradition but getting bradley home to face trial will be a legal marathon in itself ceylon soon to be known as sri lanka has recently become an independent nation and has no extradition treaty with australia but on october the 18th after weeks of legal argument the extradition request is finally granted baitman who was the door enough of the investigators in those days you know many big cases and probably most successful um the homicide detective each day he and noble the detective sergeant doyle was dispatched to colombo to grab bradley exercise the extradition warrant and bring him back to sydney doyle and bateman do not sleep on the long flight home they watch their man closely even though bradley is handcuffed at all times bradley is talkative throughout the flight and as the plane approaches sydney he drops a bombshell in the plane circling um over sydney um bateman said bradley led her photos across to him and said i did or i'd done it he didn't speak very good english and and made that admission but they brought him back and i know that he confessed to bateman on the way back on the airplane because bateman was absolutely fantastic with people um he could talk for hours and hours and win their confidence and make them feel that they'd done something rotten and that they'd feel a great deal better if they confess wouldn't work with these laughs around the streets now but but but then it did he was fabulous with it a big squad of police waits at mascot airport as the comet bringing stephen leslie bradley back from colombo lands and taxis along the tarmac special precautions are taken to keep bradley out of sight uniform police form a semi-circle round the plane as it stops outside the international terminal news cameramen are ready as the passengers alight but there's no sign of bradley or the two detectives sergeant doyle and sergeant bateman who escorted him from colombo they've left the plane by the cruise door and leave the airport by a rear exit gate later that day bradley appears in central court and is remanded in custody to the coroner's court two days later he's placed in a police lineup i was a part of the team that went around and assembled a larger number than normal for a lineup and as i recollect we got several of them from the greek club nearby people of greek nationality um thinking that would be in fairness to badly freda identified bradley but she refused to put a hand on him and basil also identified him but refused to put a hand on him as requested by sergeant k who was the officer conducting the lineup cecil denmead the young man who'd identified the blue ford custom line near the thorne home on the morning of the kidnapping then steps forward and identifies bradley as the driver of the vehicle i went through all that procedure and i had to go up and touch the guy on the shoulder as an identification whether they do that now or not i don't know that was what i had to do when i touched him he didn't flinch yeah didn't even move the inquest begins on november the 22nd 1960 four and a half months after graham's disappearance the evidence from police scientific experts and numerous other witnesses is conclusive stephen leslie bradley is ordered to stand trial for the murder of eight-year-old schoolboy graham thorne a qantas boeing 707 arrives in sydney bringing mrs magda bradley and her three children back to australia the state government paid the fares to enable mrs bradley to appear as a defense witness at her husband's trial six uniform police are present to clear a path for the bradleys as they make their way to the state government car which drove them off to their city hotel later she spent two hours with her husband's counsel the public defender mr vizzard mrs bradley saw her husband in long bay jail for the first time since his arrest in colombo detective sergeants bateman and doyle will be two principal crown witnesses as steven leslie bradley goes on trial for murder australia's trial of the century begins on the 21st of march 1961 with justice clancy presiding crowds flocked to the court the upper gallery is men only so women begin pushing and fighting for seats in the only other public gallery at the back of the court there are uncontrolled demonstrations outside in the streets stephen bradley represented by public defender frederick vizzard springs a major surprise he pleads not guilty with bradley's plea of not guilty we didn't lose hope we were quite satisfied that the evidence that we had and the support that we had from the ground prosecutor was ample to prove his guilt he was defended by the public defender who was a well-known legal identity and i have no doubt that bradley had a very fair trial bradley seems calm and unflustered as he listens to the compelling evidence against him he just sat there most of the time showing very little um emotion at all i saw him on a daily basis and you know he's in the dock every day and there was nothing about the man that you'd think was remarkable that i remember that stood out as a as any sort of uh either facially or or physically he was just a non-script touchy you know black you'd see in the street and not look at us the crown prosecutor mr w j knight qc outlines the case and it's overwhelming witness identification the blue forward custom line and samples of soil vegetation and dog hairs have been linked conclusively to bradley accidental death is ruled out by tests proving graham's death could only have been the result of a violent blow to the head a total of 70 witnesses including seven police give evidence based on the mountain of evidence that's been collected crown prosecutor knight paints a detailed picture of how the crime unfolded bradley learned of basil thorne's opera house lottery win from the newspapers and concocted a plot to kidnap graham and demand a ransom he watched graham's movements for several days before deciding to strike on the morning of july the 7th bradley parked his car then intercepted graham telling him that mrs smith was sick and unable to take him to school as usual it's believed he then drove graham to nearby centennial park it's almost certain that this is where he murdered the boy and threw his body into the boot of his [Music] car bradley made his ransom demand from a public phone near the spit bridge not far from his clontarf home he then took the body home wrapped it in the ankapuringa brand rug and dumped it in the vacant lot in seaforth [Music] later he tossed graham's school bag into bush near the wakehurst parkway in sydney's north he then sold his blue custom line and other personal effects including his vacuum cleaner before making arrangements to escape the country on board the himalaya [Music] frederick vizzard's defensive bradley is as professional and vigorous as possible he calls bradley's wife magda as a witness she'd returned with their children to support bradley but after an eight-day trial the verdict comes quickly bradley is found guilty of the kidnapping and murder of graham thorne the court erupts the people on the court inside and out cheered they were so excited that this criminal had been found guilty of this hernias crime well i've never experienced anything like it it was more like a grand final the noise outside the courthouse from the public it was quite an uproar for a moment i had never seen anything like it before the public were jubilant they clapped they cheered the judge tolerated it normal circumstances such a thing wouldn't be tolerated in a court even at the end of a trial but the judge was conscious of the public feeling and he did permit it for basil and freda thorne justice has been done but nothing can bring their son back said they were glad it was all over and it was a great relief to find out that he'd been convicted his death from a heart attack in 1968 aged 43 was greeted by police and the public with little sympathy many of the investigators remain convinced bradley did not act alone in planning and carrying out this callous crime they believe they know who else was involved but they've got no proof as a direct result of this case the law is changed so that lottery winners can protect themselves and opt not to have their names published [Music] tragic though it was the story of graham thorne's kidnapping and murder is a story of police dedication and the pioneering of forensic investigations in australia it's also a story of greed and inhumanity that caused an entire nation to grieve and tore apart a normal australian family i was remarkable for its day and age it it it it once again it led the way um we didn't we don't have we didn't have back then the the you know the scientific expertise we've got now but in its day it was probably it's a leading edge in in scientific uh forensic science yeah cooperation was really only 110 and that's no it's it's the best investigation i was ever involved with no question about that by far by far [Music] what happened here on queensland sunshine coast almost two years ago to 13 year old schoolboy daniel malcolm is reminiscent of graham thorne both boys grabbed from busy streets but unlike the kidnapping at bondi so long ago daniel morkum is still missing probably dead his disappearance still the subject of intense media and public attention the story you're about to see embraces a grieving family struggling to deal with the loss of a son but as you'll also see this is a story of unbelievable resolve and extraordinary spirit this then is daniel's story [Music] the village of palm woods sits in a valley in the hinterland on queensland sunshine coast a world away from big city crime it's here in this idyllic part of queensland that bruce and denise malcolm have decided to settle it's the perfect setting to bring up a family it's a postcard paradise but what happened here almost two years ago changes the malcom family's life forever produces enormous public anger and support and one of the biggest criminal investigations in queensland's history one that continues to this very day we got up fairly early that day it was a sunday and the boys offered on the weekends uh picked passion fruit on a neighbouring property and um it was also a day uh being the 7th of december that we were we had organised for a christmas work do which was in brisbane but as it turned out on that morning there were just some misty showers passing by so it was decided that um they just postponed the picking for an hour and start at 7 30. thus they uh they had the perfect excuse i supposed to put it like that that they didn't have to come to brisbane to attend the christmas function with us it's the afternoon of sunday the 7th of december 2003 thirteen-year-old daniel morkum a twin and one of three morecambe boys heads for the nearby town of maruchidor to buy christmas presents for his family his parents bruce and denise are away for the day so daniel plans to buy his presents and hide them before mum and dad come home we weren't aware that the boys had had split up on the day he's taken the hour-long trip many times before a 30-minute walk up the street until he hits the main road and from there he'll hail a bus for the 20-minute trip to maroochydore senior sergeant julie elliott is a member of the queensland police media unit she's been closely involved with the investigation from the start on that sunday december 7th daniel had decided to go shopping to the merchy door shopping plaza he'd asked his brothers whether they would like to go there was christmas shopping to be done and he wanted a haircut and the other boys decided they didn't want to go so daniel left the house about one o'clock in the afternoon to walk down to the namball connection road to catch a bus the 130 bus and when that bus didn't come unbeknownst to anyone that bus had actually broken down so a second bus was sent it went past it about ten minutes passed too but even though daniel hailed it it didn't stop what people saw from that bus was a man standing behind daniel and a blue car and another man standing near that blue car when the third bus went by a few minutes later which was to stop at that bus stop daniel wasn't there nor was the car or the two men well when i went to pick daniel up at about 4 30 i actually drove past wumba and saw the next bus stop and i saw a broken down bus about to be put on a tow truck so when i came back home i said to bruce oh the timetables might be out because there's a broken down bus so when bruce went to pick up brett daniel at 5 30 and he wasn't there we thought that maybe the bus was going to be late so i jumped on the internet to check out the timetables and we realized that five o'clock was the last bus police hope someone may have seen daniel at the keel mountain road overpass two kilometres north of the landmark big pineapple [Music] he's wearing a red t-shirt with the word billabong printed on the front dark knee-length shorts white socks and light-colored shoes it's a busy road and hundreds of cars stream past as daniel patiently waits by the roadside for the next bus it's here at the keele mountain road overpass that daniel is last seen just after two o'clock on that sunday afternoon but something is not quite right with the unfolding scene daniel is standing on the highway he's talking to a man on a grassy ridge a second man is in what witnesses report is a 1980s model four-door dark blue sedan and there's a white unoccupied courier type van that's parked just over there when mr and mrs malcolm return late that afternoon there's no sign of daniel as darkness begins to fall they become even more concerned so we drove down to marichador the sunshine plaza jumped out asked one of the bus drivers to help me check the timetable i was sort of panicking a bit because daniel wasn't at the bus stop there he told me the last bus was five past five so we came came back home to see if daniel was here he wasn't here so we really started to panic daniel malcolm has vanished and despite a desperate search of the surrounding area by his parents there are simply no clues as to his whereabouts [Music] it's now 24 hours since daniel disappeared bruce and denise morkum have spent a sleepless night worrying about their son in the morning sergeant elliot organizes a press conference appealing for public assistance people then did start to ring in to tell police that they had observed a blue car two men and daniel waiting for the bus and we are desperate for any information about him in fact there has never been as many calls to police about any other case in the history of queensland police services daniels and we've had something in excess of 14 000 pieces of information come in which is quite unbelievable and every one of those pieces of information have to be logged and looked at police hope for the best but fear the [Music] worst [Music] the search for daniel malcolm intensifies the circumstances surrounding his disappearance are extremely unusual and police and volunteers quickly launch a massive search in a desperate attempt to find the missing boy hundreds of homes are canvassed in the area where daniel was last seen and a description is circulated throughout the state it was a heartbreaking appeal made at the site where the teenager was last seen we both want daniel home it's been seven days since he was last seen it's a matter of urgency somebody must have seen him somewhere daniel morgan's parents held today's news conference on the busy highway in the hope that someone might remember seeing their son there we want daniel back despite the media blitz and an exhaustive search there is no sign of the teenager detective inspector john maloney is in charge of the investigation well we definitely have witnesses saw him walking down towards the bus stop and we we are certain that he was by the side of the road under the bridge waiting for the bus after that there's a lot of speculation based on various witnesses accounts of what happened we don't know whether there's one or two persons involved we believe the blue car is definitely involved and in all likelihood there probably were two people but there's a lot of there's a lot of gaps in our intelligence at this stage i'm sure that he has been murdered and it was probably soon after the event but it's just purely speculation on when and where and how queenslanders rallied to support the morecambes the daniel malcolm foundation is established and inundated with the donations from the public the foundation is set up initially to help maintain the hunt for daniel and his abductors please call crime stoppers no one will ever know you did the huge amount of money pledged to the foundation also pays for television and radio appeals along with posters and pamphlets which are circulated throughout queensland it's it's really been what makes us get up in the morning and push through i suppose on the in the tougher times in that people we've never met um you know sometimes it's just somebody as we purchase the newspapers or someone passing by or or a generous offer by the police media unit have offered assistance with printing of this or writing a song and doing a picture or painting or donating you know something to be raffled uh it's absolutely astounding what people have done and incredible offers and they're still to this day we're getting cronkite calls coming in which is exactly what we want because someone out there does know what's happened daniel's older brother dean and his twin brad are still coming to terms with the tragedy of daniel's abduction you just can't really imagine it ever happening just it just happened one day and that's just he's gonna put up with it you can't really do anything about it once i dreamt that because on from here to the where under the bridge where he went it was like a steep sleep part off the road i dreamt once that he might have fallen down there but obviously the ses have looked and things so yeah so he's he was your twin brother yeah what do you miss most about him um just in being around we're good friends always helped me with my schoolwork and everything mm-hmm did you go into his room now yeah i'm not usually no yeah what's it like at school i mean you had a lot of friends at school yeah um it's different catching the bus by myself and everything and coming home by myself everyone's pretty nice at school good mates yeah very supportive yes and what about mum and dad they must go through tough times too yes they get sad sometimes like everything that reminds them of him you help them try to try to g them up get them out of it because they i'm sure there are days when mum's up and dad's down and dad's down and mum's up and yeah gets a bit like that sergeant julie elliott has become very close to the malcolm's and is present at a family gathering for daniel and bradley's 14th birthday just 11 days after the abduction it was the most unbelievable experience because you're trying to cater to both it was impossible it really was it was very significant in the symbol of the three baptism candles of the boys daniel bradley and dean there were three three of us police there and father yarn and father joe and the candles were lit but one blew out one extinguished it was so symbolic it was really a very very emotional experience and that was the day that monique said you know my daniel's dead the malcolm's are now living a nightmare everywhere they turn they see daniel photos of him are scattered throughout the house daniel's bedroom is littered with memories [Music] spread across his bed is a specially made quilt presented to the malcolm's as a moving tribute to their son's memory [Music] standing alone in an adjoining paddock daniel's black shetland pony waits patiently for him to come walking down the driveway daniel's plight galvanizes the local community and as the news breaks the morkham family's pain is felt not just by queenslanders but by people across australia someone must have seen something someone knows something someone holds the key a national appeal is launched and the public responds it doesn't matter if it's daytime night time on a busy road in a shopping centre it can happen at any time to anyone i mean bruce and i didn't ask for this to happen but it can happen anywhere and that's why we're launching the foundation to appeal to people to you know educate their children on child safety and abduction and it can just happen to anyone a vehicle of interest and a person of interest that's been seen police sifting through literally thousands of pieces of information supplied by the public release a sketch of a man seen talking to daniel on the day he vanished they also appeal for information about the blue sedan and the white van also seen near the overpass days turn into weeks weeks turn into months but despite releasing descriptions of the men the car and the van police are still no closer to finding daniel malcolm we've made inquiries in every uh every state of territory in australia and we've had investigators travel to most states we've made inquiries overseas the red ribbons and bouquets that adorn the overpass where daniel disappeared and now somewhat faded by the sun but they convey the enduring and total public support for the malcolm family i think the biggest feeling that we all get is the sense of not knowing anything and how quickly it all happened and it's coming up two years in december like and we've grown up to heap since then but we still don't have that understanding the daniel malcolm foundation is a work in progress a testament to him his family and friends who just want to know where is daniel and who took him they and the police still want any information that will answer those questions and they will never give up tim ryan is a local businessman and family friend give yourselves something because we'll find yours give yourselves um have some bloody conscience just don't don't do it to anything you're not just doing it for family you're doing it to a whole community you know just give up because we'll find yours we're straight people we cannot tolerate it we can't become part of our life everywhere you go in queensland you can see daniel's face it's on posters bumper stickers pizza boxes and milk cartons many companies have given generously of their time money and resources but they're not the only ones who've rallied around the malcolm's among the many individuals who've lent their support is dave the trucker dave has turned his prime mover into a travelling billboard his regular route takes him from the sunshine coast to toowoomba and lismore traveling around 3000 kilometers every week what price and what what acts do you put on the life of a child you know people will be sitting there at home tonight when you're sitting there have a look at your 15 year old or your 13 year old and think what they're doing today that's what daniel is missing out on his parents and brothers are missing out on so you know it's a small token it's a small effort as far as i'm concerned [Music] the malcolm's are overwhelmed by the remarkable generosity and kindness offered to them mostly it comes from complete strangers the coast is crying this country's [Music] for a united boy [Music] red ribbons for bleeding hearts on houses buses schools [Music] tom palmer is another of daniel's school friends and like everyone who knew him he thinks about daniel every day yeah i think about daniel pretty much every time every day every time i say anything red i just think of daniel how much i miss him [Music] december marks the second anniversary of daniel's disappearance with the realization that he won't be coming home all that remains for daniel's family and friends is a determination to solve the case and come to terms with their emotions my anger hasn't come out it's really strange sort of i think it sort of sits inside but um i know the day they do find these people they won't be able to stop me i don't think they'd let me near them that's for sure i suppose when we think back to the the very early days where i uh basically wrote a sign it's a message from the heart that says swing you bastard justice will be done and really that's that's the the controlled anger i suppose that i have for the morkans there can only be one outcome that will ease their pain they simply want closure what we've got to understand is there's a child killer out there we cannot let this person do it again so if they're associated anyway maybe a family member a jilted lover maybe just serve this guy a hamburger come forward with the information and put this prick away someone's got some information and they must have a conscience and can they please just come forward and give back give our family some peace and don't let this crime happen again there is nothing more certain than someone out there knows and the people that are involved in this investigation will work until we get that bit of information if someone out there thinks we're just going away they're sadly mistaken sadly mistaken there's a dedicated team of detectives working on this still seven days a week we know someone knows daniel did not disappear into thin air daniel was abducted and we believe murder daniel what we believe is debt his pain's over you've got a family living this every waking moment of their life an extended family and from a police perspective we need to and have to get these people that are responsible so that it doesn't happen again yes someone knows someone out there knows something the smallest piece of information can lead to solving the mystery of daniel's disappearance there's currently a 250 000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the person or persons responsible for daniel's abduction there is also the offer of indemnity to anyone not directly involved if you have any information you can call crime stoppers right now on 1-800 triple three triple zero they can ring in and hang up after having given a name and address a car registration and i'd like them to think about spending half an hour with denise morgan and then keeping that information to themselves just to look into her eyes and feel the pain and you do when you're with her you know no parent should have to experience this no one and they have whoever has done this and whoever else knows about it because people talk then try and have some heart and some conscious conscience about it tell someone and then we can give that information to denise because all she wants to do is say goodbye to her son he wants to do that and give him the dignity that he deserves out of an absolute tragedy [Music] angels [Music] it's not too late [Music] as well so you

Channel: Banijay Crime - Crime Documentary

Views: 894,331

Keywords: 60 minutes australia, australian crime, cold case, crime, crime documentaries, crime documentary, crime investigation australia, crime scene investigation, crime tv show, criminal investigation, documentaire, documental, documentary channel, fall from power, full documentary, reality tv series, top documentaries, true crime, true crime documentary, vanity fair magazine, wealthy criminals

Id: kYYy6FPD_dM

Length: 78min 13sec (4693 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 14 2018