Rob and Betteanne sat still. They did not comment. There wasn’t any outpouring of emotion. All of their tears had been shed in the weeks beforehand. They had just endured seven weeks of not knowing but suspecting the worse. Knowing would have been an unwelcome relief. Resignation showed in their faces and bodies. I was expecting to console Rob and Betteanne but what happened then surprised me. Tears welled up in my own eyes. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose, as my wife had been saying for some time that I was a softie. Here was this supposedly tough detective getting all emotional at the critical moment.
The conversation continued for another ten minutes as I explained what would happen from that point forward. The body needed to be formally identified as their son, a postmortem would be performed and then Richard could be released to the family for burial. I asked about getting additional support for Rob and Betteanne and whether I could do anything for them. Of course, I couldn’t. They had just been told that their son had been found dead next to a dirt airstrip in a lonely part of bush out of town. Their grieving had begun and the police officer investigating the murder was not the right person to be involved with that process. Someone else had to do that. I left and went back to the office trying to put that part of police work behind me.
Chapter 3
The Evidence
The police radios were quiet at 7.30 in the morning and the two officers who were allocated to guard the airstrip area overnight quickly passed over their log sheet to the next shift. The night had been uneventful and the two were tired and wanted to get home to bed. Guarding a murder scene in the middle of the night is not much fun, especially in a desolate area where no lights exist to brighten the area and remove the darkness. Newer officers are allocated the duty because they are still excited about being involved in a murder investigation even in a relatively small way and they can learn from the experience. The police guard is required to log the arrival of different people and anything of interest that happens in the general area. New men are more likely to remain observant and record events that might be missed by an older officer. Two police officers were present during the night to keep each other company but only one officer was present during the day because other people were around.
The new officer guarding the scene was busier, as different cars arrived and parked close by. He was first to arrive that next morning, stopping his patrol vehicle on the airstrip before walking to the police command vehicle, which had been parked just outside of the orange plastic bunting laying on the ground from the previous day. The bunting extended from the scrub onto the dirt and gravel of the airstrip and stretched down the strip for about forty metres before disappearing into the low bushes and small eucalyptus trees. The area where Richard Kelvin was found was still surrounded by the orange bunting, as police crime scene tape had not yet been introduced to South Australian police.
The police command vehicle was a converted Toyota van with a pop-top roof to allow greater movement inside the rear. Tables were installed and police radios fitted to the cupboards inside the van, which were accessed by sitting on the chairs on coasters, allowing the van to become a mini office. Command vehicles also carry generators to provide extra power for longer operations.
Trevor Kipling and I arrived early, parked our plain Mitsubishi sedan and waited for the others to arrive. As different police turned up they parked close to the bunting so they did not have carry their equipment too far, but not close enough to disturb any evidence the killers might have left. Crime scene examiners and the police photographers returned. Detectives came and left after having a look. Police media liaison was present to speak to the different news reporters who visited the site. At one stage fourteen vehicles lined up along the airstrip.
Trevor and I had assembled a busload of police cadets at the end of the airstrip just off the dirt road. There were thirty cadets in the police bus as well as the cadets’ instructor, who parked alongside the other vehicles that had arrived earlier.
Trevor coordinated operations and asked me to work with the cadets and do a search down the dirt runway and in the scrub along the sides of the airstrip. I stepped onto the bus shortly after it arrived and spoke to the cadets, mainly fresh-faced young men, but there were a couple of women who wanted to have a go at policing. They were excited to be involved and to have an opportunity to get away from their classroom. Nowadays, police are more likely to use State Emergency Service volunteers to search around crime scenes because cadet training is so intensive over a six-month period that they cannot be spared to search crime scenes.
‘We are going to search for evidence at a murder scene,’ I said before explaining about Richard Kelvin and how he was abducted near his home before being found murdered.
‘Solving a murder investigation is teamwork. You are now part of the team,’ I continued, looking earnestly into their faces to make sure that everyone was listening intently. I didn’t want anyone goofing off and missing any evidence.
‘We are going to carry out an “emu parade” looking for any evidence that might solve this crime.’
I continued for about ten minutes, explaining that an emu parade took its name from the actions of the big bird slowly moving along and bobbing down searching for food. On this occasion the cadets would walk side by side searching for anything unusual. I would walk behind the line stopping their movement when anything
