‘Seventeen or eighteen years old.’
‘Did the boy go with you willingly at all times?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was the boy held forcibly at the house at Alberton at anytime?’
‘Definitely not. He got drunk and fell asleep.’
‘The boy has alleged in a statement to the police that you gave him two tablets that he believed from what you told him were No Doze tablets. Did you give him any sort of tablet?’
‘No, I did not.’
If this was correct, why was he out to it for so long? I asked myself. At least we had another clue as to how these men got others to take drugs — telling the boys they were No Doze tablets.
‘Why would the boy say this if it did not happen?’
‘Probably to explain why he had been away so long. I don’t really know. I did not give him any tablet or anything. He just drank a lot of alcohol.’
Von Einem was staying very cool-headed in the interview — just as he was with Trevor and me when we interviewed him. This was not a bad answer. This guy has an answer for everything.
‘Is there anything else you wish to say about what happened with the boy?’
‘No. I have nothing to hide.’
‘I will be making further enquiries in relation to the incident involving the boy and I may well want to speak to you again about it. Do you understand?’ said the detective.
‘Yes.’
We got a team together and visited the house that George was taken to by von Einem. Here was a boy who was picked up by von Einem and later found to have Mandrax in his system. George was still adamant that when he had sex with one of the women von Einem was in the room when it happened. We needed to speak to the people who were living there. Obviously, they knew our main suspect.
The house was at Alberton. It had a low front wall. There was a path leading from the small gate to the home. The iron roof had been replaced with another one, which was shaped to look like roof tiles. The front door was in the centre of the house and there were two large windows on either side of it, which let light into the front bedrooms. An oil fire now filled the fireplace. The third bedroom ran down the side of the house, the kitchen sat at the rear and the toilet and the laundry filled up the rear of the house. The Hills Hoist sat in the centre of the rear lawn. The house belonged to the same era as von Einem’s home; it wasn’t as bland but it was more run down.
We didn’t kick the doors down; the visit was low key and we made a cursory search of the house and yard. Different detectives were given the job of speaking to the three occupants. The most interesting thing we learned from the visit was about the three people who lived there. Two were transsexuals: persons who had changed from being men to women and the third was a man who was a homosexual.
P, the one George had sex with, was a transsexual. People might wonder how someone can have sex with a transsexual. It might seem weird, but P wasn’t ugly and most couldn’t tell the difference.
P, the transsexual, was taken to the Port Adelaide Police Station where I interviewed her about the drugging of George. I arrested her and she was charged with raping the boy. The arrest occurred because I believed she committed a crime but the arrest also was designed to put pressure on von Einem’s friends, to encourage them to talk to us about him. P’s arrest and charge got a little bit of attention in the media. ‘Woman rapes boy’ was the headline to the story and there were a few comments from men in the community.
‘I wouldn’t mind being raped by a woman,’ was the general tone of what some said, but they didn’t know the full story.
The others were interviewed about their knowledge of von Einem and our knowledge of the man increased a bit more. Our crime scene examiners took photographs and samples of fibres around the house but Des Phillips’ first impressions didn’t raise our expectation that we would find anything interesting. Also, the case against P was dismissed in the Port Adelaide Court when no evidence was put forward. There were difficulties proving that P had knowledge of the drugging and that she actually forced herself on George.
Trevor and I did one more raid shortly after the drugs were found in the boys. We visited the house of an Adelaide businessman, an associate of von Einem, and the man who owned the car that was parked in the driveway of von Einem’s home the night of our first visit. He lived in one of Adelaide’s ‘money’ suburbs. The businessman already had been named as someone who should be spoken to about the missing boys. He had been mentioned in one of the hundreds of phone calls we received at Major Crime but we did not know he was an associate of von Einem. However, when Trevor interviewed von Einem, he said that he knew the businessman and when I saw the vehicle parked in the driveway of von Einem’s home that night, this confirmed the relationship between the two men.
Trevor led the raid of the businessman’s house and shop on 19 September 1983. The team was assembled and the group knew the routine. Trevor and I would go to the house and introduce ourselves while secondary team detectives, crime scene examiners, fingerprint experts and photographers would be parked around the corner waiting for the radio to call them to the house. If no-one was home, we would wait for the suspect to come home or we’d leave and come back another time when we thought the occupant would be there. We wouldn’t go in without the occupant being present, otherwise the
