The Murchison Murders Read online

  That Carron was dead, who could doubt after having seen the relics found in the ashes of a fire on a Government Reserve, relics that had been identified at the inquest by Carron’s wife, by Carron’s jeweller, and by Carron’s dentist?

  Candidly, it appeared incredible. It was so difficult to believe that the Snowy Rowles we knew was in the dock of a criminal court. It was equally difficult to believe that the Snowy Rowles we knew had, one day in March, 1926, snatched a bag containing

  £300 from a shop girl in Perth; and that in 1928 he had robbed several country stores on the eastern wheat-belt.

  An acorn fell with painful effect on the back of my hand which rested on the bench. Summer was nearly over.

  And for you, Snowy, alas, the winter has come!

  The Bones

  After months of preparation, the Crown had at length declared its case against John Thomas Smith, known as “Snowy” Rowles. To the Court it introduced Constable Hearn, who detailed his finding of the fire at the 183 Government Reserve, and the items he discovered among the ashes. Detective-Sergeant Manning clearly described the course of his investigation, by which he had built up a wonderful case from the very sands of the Murchison.

  Dr. William McGillivray, the Government Pathologist, now gave evidence regarding the human bones submitted to him for examination. One of the packages given him contained fragments of a human skull. Small bones in a tobacco-tin, he said, might be those of human fingers or toes, or animal paws or toes – he was doubtful which. The contents of a matchbox were burned human teeth, one of which was a molar tooth. Other teeth shown to him he declared to be artificial teeth. He would not say if the pieces of skull bones were those belonging to the skull of a white man or an aboriginal. He thought no one could tell that.

  Dr. McKenzie, who sat on the witness stand with plaster casts of human skulls on the table before him, stated that he thought that pieces of bone when built into larger pieces indicated that they did belong to the skull of a white man.

  The Book Plot

  Arthur William Upfield deposed how he searched for a method of destroying a human body; how he found it; the details of it.

  When Lancelot Bowen Maddison, the boundary-rider north of my former section was called, he was asked if he knew Rowles. He replied: “I know him well. I first met him on the fence just north of the Camel Station, soon after I commenced work there. He was then riding a motor-cycle in the course of his duties as an employee of Narndee Station. I saw him frequently after that. I was at the Camel Station one night with Arthur Upfield, David Coleman, George Ritchie, and Rowles. We all joined in a discussion of Upfield’s projected book, The Sands of Windee. We particularly referred to the disposal of a murdered man’s remains.”

  Carron’s Dentist

  Arthur William Sims, dentist, of Hamilton, N.Z., said he had attended a patient named Leslie George Brown, and he identified the photographs of Louis John Carron as Brown. On August 1, 1929, he made a complete lower denture for Brown, and also filled several upper teeth. On August 20 he placed a small amalgam filling in the biting surface of one of Brown’s upper molars.

  Mr. Gibson, Crown Prosecutor, handing witness teeth found in the fire ashes near the bore at the 183-mile, asked:

  “Do you find there four upper inciser pin teeth and a number of diatoric teeth, making a complete lower denture save for one incisor?”

  Witness: “That is so.”

  After carefully examining the molar tooth found in one of the ash heaps near the bore, witness said:

  “It has a drill hole in it in exactly the same place as the hole I drilled in Brown’s molar tooth. The filling has gone from this tooth. The amalgam filling I placed in Brown’s tooth would not stand up to great heat.”

  Carron’s Jeweller

  Thomas Andrew Long said that he was up to March, 1927, a jeweller trading in Queen Street, Auckland, N.Z. After examining the gold ring found with other relics in the camp fire-site, witness said it appeared to be one of his own faceted wedding rings. It was marked “18 ct., Red. 1286, M.C.” He had a letter in his possession from the wholesale jewellers saying that rings marked in that fashion were made only in New Zealand.

  Mr. Curran, defending Rowles: “I suppose that in the course of a year a good many wedding rings marked like that one would be sold throughout New Zealand?”

  Witness: “Yes, that would be so.”

  Mr. Curran: “How can you be so sure that you cut and rejoined that particular ring for Mrs. Brown (Carron’s wife)?”

  Witness: “At the time Mrs. Brown wanted the ring altered I was very busy and my chief assistant was away. I gave the ring to an assistant who was not an expert goldsmith. He botched the job, and had I not been so busy I would have dropped the ring into the melting pot and cut another. This ring is of 18 carat gold, and my assistant re-joined the cut ends with a 9 carat gold solder. The lighter shade of the solder against the ring itself has not been destroyed by the fire.”

  The ring was handed to the jurymen, each of whom examined it intently. After the trial it came out that the ring with its 9 carat gold solder was the deciding factor in their verdict.

  In his statement made to Detective-Sergeant Manning, the accused said that he picked up Carron at an outcamp named Condon on Wydgee Station, and that he brought him on to The Fountain outcamp where John Lemon then was camped in the employ of Narndee Station. The next day they went on to Watson’s Well, on the Vermin Fence, then northward along the Fence to the 206-mile gate where the road between Youanmi and Mount Magnet passes through the fence. From there they went on and camped at the old deserted homestead of Windimurra Station.

  The statement continues: “The next day I went to Paynesville, about 15 miles away, in my truck. Carron agreed to cut in the money for the goods we wanted, and gave me the Wydgee cheque for £25/0/7 to cash for him. I waited until sundown for the licensee to return from a mine he was working. I stayed the night at the hotel. The next day I returned to our camp, and gave Carron 4/8/- and the publican’s own cheque for 16. The following night we went to Mount Magnet together, arriving between nine and ten o’clock. We had supper together at Joe Slavin’s shop. Carron, who was a teetotaller, objected to my having a few drinks that night, and said he could do better alone. He took his gear off the truck. I went back to the hotel, and Carron came after me and reckoned he might be unable to cash Moses’s cheque (the Paynesville publican) as it was made out in my name. So I gave him 16 for it. When I cashed Carron’s cheque I endorsed Carron’s name on the back. After giving Carron the cash I walked back into Mr. Rodan’s bar. When the hotel closed at eleven o’clock I returned to the truck and drove five or six miles along the Youanmi road, where I went to sleep till morning, when I continued the journey to Jones’ hotel at Youanmi. I only heard that Carron was missing last Monday when I saw something in a Murchison paper. Carron went on to Geraldton. He wrote me from there -”

  Rebuttals

  The manager, the overseer, and various stockmen swore that Rowles and Carron never camped at the old deserted homestead through which they passed. Just before leaving the Paynesville Hotel the accused told the licensee that he was going to Wiluna on a prospecting trip.

  It was definitely proved that instead of returning to the old Windimurra homestead, and Carron, Rowles went direct to Youanmi, a distance of about 70 miles. He left Paynesville at about ten o’clock, and he arrived at Youanmi at 12:30 the same morning.

  That was on May 21. The records of the Youanmi Post Office, and the evidence of the Post Master, showed that that afternoon Rowles took the Post Master to a station homestead in his truck to deliver a telegram. When on the witness stand Rowles, being confronted with this, amended his statement, and said that he had forgotten that trip to Youanmi. He still maintained, however, that he returned to Carron after leaving Paynesville. He was neatly trapped into saying that he was not in Youanmi on May 22, and at a carefully calculated moment the astute Crown Prosecutor produced evidence to prove his lie. He produced the Youanm
i storekeeper’s docket book containing the carbon copies of the sales he had made on May 21 and 22. The first entry for May 22 was “S. Rowles, pair overalls, 11/6.”

  The Summing-Up

  Mr. Justice Draper in his summing up said:

  “Some of the statements made by Rowles in this case were hard to reconcile with those to be expected from a man who had committed no crime. It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to decide. You are the ones to decide, but perhaps you will find it difficult to reconcile the statements made by Rowles as to his movements with Carron, with the evidence given in this court. The Crown case was that Carron had been murdered and the bones broken up into very small pieces, and distributed in heaps of ashes.

  “There is a curious thing in this case, and I mention it for what it is worth. Upfield gave evidence that he was in the neighbourhood for some time. He says he remembers a discussion one night in a small room when the accused was among others present on October 6th, 1929. I suppose they want something to do in the bush,” observed his Honor dryly. “Anyway, the interesting subject of discussion was how a human body could be destroyed without leaving any trace. The indications are that the method then dismissed was carried out in this case, but whether Rowles did it is a matter for you to decide.”

  Discussing the question of whether the skull bones were from the head of a European or aborigine, his Honor said they might ask themselves, remembering the articles found in the ashes with them, was it usual for natives to wear shoes with eyelets, was it usual for them to wear artificial teeth in the upper and lower jaws, and did they wear gold wedding rings. “It would be a strange coincidence,” observed his Honor, “seeing that Carron possessed things identical to all these articles, if those found in the fire did not belong to him.”

  The Verdict

  The jury retired at five minutes to four on Saturday afternoon, and returned to give their verdict at six o’clock that same day. Rowles was brought up. Whilst waiting for Mr. Justice Draper to take his seat, whilst standing on the steps of the dock, he craned his head to see if he could read his fate on the faces of the jurymen. Failing that he turned to look at the massed witnesses. When the judge did take his seat, the accused mounted quickly into the dock, to stare hard at the jury. He was seen to shake his head, as if he knew that he was doomed.

  “Guilty.”

  The dread word sounded like two strokes of a bell in the hushed court. Asked if he had anything to say, Rowles replied in a steady voice:

  “I have been found guilty of a crime that has never been committed.”

  “Is that all? Is that all you have to say?” asked the judge.

  Rowles remained silent.

  The hush was broken by the judge’s voice pronouncing the sentence of death.

  Appeal Fails

  Rowles through his counsel, Mr. Fred Curran, appealed to the Supreme Court of Western Australia on the grounds that:—

  (1) Evidence relating to the disappearance of two men named James Ryan and George Lloyd and to my association with them was wrongfully admitted. (At the hearing it came out that it was Rowles’s own counsel who first brought in the matter of Ryan and Lloyd.)

  (2) That the trial judge wrongfully admitted evidence by one, Arthur William Upfield, a novelist, to the effect that during October, 1929, I was present and took part in a discussion relating to the disappearance of human bodies. And that I had been arrested on another charge and had escaped from legal custody.

  (3) That there was no evidence that Louis Carron was dead.

  (4) That the learned trial judge misdirected the jury on the evidence.

  (5) The trial resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

  The State Full Court unanimously dismissed the appeal.

  Counsel for Rowles then appealed to the High Court, of Australia, sitting in Melbourne, and this court rejected the application tor the appeal to he heard by it, by a two to one majority.

  A public petition was organized by the Groper Brotherhood and Housewives Association, and finally presented to the Attorney General. A public meeting was held at a theatre to urge Rowles’s reprieve. Letters appeared in the papers appealing for clemency for the sake or his mother.

  The Curtain Falls

  But Rowles was hanged on the morning of June 13, without making confession; although the relatives of George Lloyd wrote urging the condemned man to say something regarding the fate of Lloyd.

  Some few days before the end Snowy Rowles made a dramatic statement from the condemned cell. He said that on his return from Paynesville to his camp he found that Carron had accidentally poisoned himself with poisoned butter baits used for foxes. That, as he was an escaped prisoner, he feared to inform the police and he burned the body.

  It. had no effect but to confirm his guilt, for he could not possibly have gone back to Windimurra, found his mate, taken the body fifty odd miles and burned it, then travelled to Youanmi, another 67 miles in two hours and a quarter.

  Thus passed out a strangely stormy spirit. His life before him, favoured by the gods with a fine physique and good looks, he could have risen high in this country, impelled upward by the personality of his Doctor Jekyll; but the secret devil in all of us, the Mr. Hyde, was too powerful for “Snowy” Rowles.

  THE MURCHISON MURDERS

  In a proper review of the Snowy Rowles case, it is impossible to disregard my work as a novelist; because, although I did not provide Rowles with a motive, and was in no way an accessory before or after the fact, the Crown alleged that I did provide him with a method of destroying the bodies of his victims.

  Three murders, three perfect murders... near the rabbit-proof fence in desolate Western Australia. Perfect - except the process was exactly as described in Arthur Upfield’s new crime novel The Sands of Windee (1931).

  It had all began in 1929, when Upfield was working on the fence and plotting a new novel featuring the Aboriginal detective, Napoleon Bonaparte. His friend George Ritchie had devised a brilliant method of disposing a body in the outback, so brilliant that Upfield offered Ritchie a pound if he could come up with a flaw in the process. On October 5 1929, Upfield, Ritchie and Snowy Rowles, the northern boundary rider for the fence, all met at the Camel Station and discussed the murder method in the forthcoming book...

  This is Upfield’s own account of the Snowy Rowles murder case.

  www.arthurupfield.com