Trevor continued the interview because he wanted to check this alibi. Also, we believed that Richard had been kept at other places during the five weeks of his captivity.
‘Now, a last word or two about your movements in relation to Sunday 5th. You told us you returned home after dropping Richard off at North Terrace. Did you stay home for the rest of the evening?’
‘No.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I went to my sister’s house at Campbelltown with the intention to get her to pick up Mum because it was about elevenish. I didn’t go in because I couldn’t really expect my sister to drive up there at that time of night to pick my mother up, so I rang my mother from a phone box around the corner from my sister’s and spoke with my mother and said I would come up the following morning, tomorrow morning, and pick her up.’
‘Did you in fact do that? If so, what vehicle did you use?’
‘Are you referring to Monday?’
‘Sunday night. You said you phoned your mother and agreed to pick her up the next day.’
‘Monday.’
‘Yes.’
‘I did not pick her up.’
‘What is your story there, then?’
‘My sister came to my place at about 9.30 a.m. She normally comes to visit my mother. I wasn’t well.’
Von Einem then told how he was sick with the ’flu all of that week and got a doctor’s certificate from his local doctor at Campbelltown during the week. He went back to work a week later, on the Tuesday, the day after a public holiday. Trevor asked von Einem what he did the weekend after Richard went missing.
‘I stayed home Saturday and Sunday until Sunday night. I went out Sunday night and I drove to the airport. On my way home from the airport I gave two hitchhikers a lift. We got into town and they were not doing anything in particular so I asked them if they would like a drink and as they said they weren’t doing anything in particular and it was a long weekend, I suggested that we go to my friend’s place, which was [the home of one of von Einem’s close associates]. At that stage I had a key to the flat. When we arrived there [he] was not home and we went inside and [he] arrived about five minutes after us. He opened some beer and we had a drink and we rang [the businessman] to come over and [he] came approximately half an hour later. We drank beer, they stayed the night. I left there about 1.30 . . .’
Well, he’s prepared to mention his friends to cover his activities. He might have something over them to make sure they say the right thing.
‘Did anyone have sex with the hitchhikers at [the male prostitute’s] flat?’
‘[The businessman] said he did but I didn’t know.’
Von Einem took about 25 minutes to read the record of interview that Trevor typed. Both he and Helena signed the document. Trevor and I signed the bottom of each page, then von Einem left the interview room to go to dinner. Helena, Trevor and I walked from the jail and Helena got into her car to drive off.
Trevor and I started talking excitedly as we walked out through those big wooden doors of the Adelaide Jail and moved towards our police car away from Helena’s hearing. Quietly but quickly we spoke about the interview.
‘What did you think about that?’
‘What about when he said that he picked up Richard? You beauty!’
The case against von Einem continued to get stronger. The discovery of Mandrax in Richard Kelvin and Mark Langley was the first break. Finding the script for Mandrax with von Einem’s name on it was the second. The hair and fibres was the third break. This was the fourth.
We got into the police car and drove back to the office. As we turned into Port Road, Trevor laughed — not his big belly laugh but a quieter laugh reflecting his happiness and understanding of what had happened.
Chapter 12
The Trial
Over a year after Richard disappeared, the trial against Bevan Spencer von Einem began on Monday, 15 October 1984. Six months had passed since the committal and von Einem’s incredible revelations of how he picked up Richard Kelvin. For the police it was largely a matter of tidying up the paperwork and following up detail for the prosecutors. As the start of the trial came closer and closer, Brian Martin and Paul Rofe were putting in the hours making sure they had the information they needed. They were now in charge of the case and Trevor and I were subservient to them.
There was an enormous amount of interest in the case. Murders naturally generate attention and when the trial was about the abduction, abuse and murder of a young boy the interest escalated, especially after four other young men had been abused and killed over the previous four years. On top of this, the young boy was the son of a popular television newsreader. The events had a huge following.
During the whole period of the trial, spectators filed into the Supreme Court building of South Australia. The Sir Samuel Way Building is unusual as this formal and ornate structure was not originally built to be a court. The building was formerly a department store, modelled on the Galleries Lafayette store in Paris. It opened as the department store, ‘Charles Moore’, in 1912 but the store closed in 1980 and was redesigned as a court building. The architects retained the building’s façade and kept its grand marble staircase, which was rebuilt under a central atrium.
The trial was conducted in the largest courtroom, on the western side of the building. To get to it visitors walked up the massive central staircase and headed to the rear right of the building. Court Number Eight was one of the two largest courtrooms in the building. Trevor and I walked up and down that staircase many times over the following weeks.
The
