Alan Whiticker - Derek Percy. Australian Psycho

First published in Australia in 2008 by
New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
Sydney Auckland London Cape Town

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Copyright 2008 in text: Alan Whiticker
Copyright 2008 New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

ISBN: 9781741106329
e-ISBN 9781921655111

Every human being is like every other
human being, like some other human
beings, and like no other human being.

Clyde Kluckhohn, American anthropologist and social theorist

I would like to thank Fiona Schultz, Lliane Clarke, Martin Ford, Diane Jardine and all the team at New Holland Publishers for their faith and support in this project. This book would not have been possible without the cooperation of the relevant police agencies currently involved in the multi-agency investigation of Derek Percy. Special thanks go to Wayne Newman and David Rae (Victoria Police), Adam Barwick, Mark Winterflood and Russell Oxford (NSW Police), Chris Sheehan (AFP), Brian Swan (SAPOL), Steve Gambetta (Film and TV Office, Victoria Police) and to Gary Tippet (The Age). Sincere thanks are due to the people who consented to be interviewed for this book, especially Dr Donald Brook, Bill Hutton, Kim White, Wayne Gordes and Ron Anderson.

Disclaimer: The AFP, Victoria and NSW Police do not officially endorse the publication of this book.

I have to confess that I have no time for those cold case detective programs that have proliferated on television during the last decade or soCSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York and Cold Case. Far-fetched plots neatly packaged into a 46-minute program with all the loose ends neatly wrapped up by the end of the show; complex scientific procedures compressed into unrealistic timeframes; along with fast-paced editing and enhanced computer graphics set against an MTV soundtrack the reality, obviously, is quite different.

Consider then, a series of unsolved crimes stretching back more than 40 years across four Australian states and territories; with key witnessesthose at least who have not died in the ensuing years and many who were children at the timehaving to recall events from four decades ago; where physical evidence is likely to have been destroyed or gone missing because detectives from only a generation past could not have envisaged the impact of DNA technology; and lastly, there is a chief suspect who has never been found guilty of a crime and steadfastly maintains that he cannot remember if he has committed any others. These are just some of the problems facing cold case detectives investigating sadistic paedophile Derek Ernest Percy.

In September 2004 I was contacted by Victorian detectives who were launching a fresh inquiry into Derek Percys movements in the late 1960s. Percy, who remains Victorias longest-serving prisoner, was detained in 1970 after being found not guilty by reason of insanity to the abduction and murder of 12-year-old Yvonne Tuohy the previous year. A group of Victorian homicide detectives had started reviewing a number of unsolved crimes including the 1968 disappearance of 7-year-old Linda Stilwell from St Kildaa case in which Percy had remained a prime suspect. But a peculiar development had occurred. The detectives could not eliminate the now 56-year-old prisoner as a suspect in a number of other unsolved crimes involving children that were committed in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide while he was still a teenager.

I had recently published my book, Wanda: The Untold Story of the Wanda Beach Murders (New Holland Publishers, Sydney) and I had nominated Derek Percy as one of the three main suspects in the unsolved murders of Sydney teenagers Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt in January 1965. Detectives had been given a photo of Percy as a 17-year-old high school student at Mt Beauty in northeastern Victoria in 1965. As my book was based on police transcripts of the Wanda case, had featured interviews with many of the witnesses and was a factual recount of the initial investigation, Victoria Police wanted to know if I could help them with contact numbers of witnesses who may be able to identify Percy at Wanda Beach that day.

I have to admit Derek Percy was still something of a mystery to me; and he had continued to fly under the public radar for several decades because he had been in prison for so long. I was astounded that these detectives now believed that Percy was in western Sydney that summer almost 40 years ago when the two West Ryde schoolgirls went to the beach and tragically lost their lives. The implication was earth-shatteringwhether the then-16-year-old Derek Percy followed Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt and her four siblings to Wanda Beach that day, possibly befriending the girls on the train and then murdering them after arranging to meet in the sandhills later that afternoon; or alternatively lay in wait for them in the dunes to commit a frenzied, random attack.

This, of course, is only conjecture; made even more difficult to prove and build a case that will stand up in a court of law. This was the major hurdle that faced Victoria Police as they launched a multi-agency investigation into Derek Percys movements in the four years before his capture in July 1969. Now in a new century, they were determined to investigate Derek Percys involvement in the following crimes:

the murder of Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt at Sydneys Wanda Beach on 11 January 1965

the abduction of the three Beaumont children from Glenelg Beach in South Australia on 26 January 1966

the strangulation murder of 6-year-old Canberra schoolboy Allen Redston on 27 September 1966

the abduction and mutilation murder of 3-year-old Simon Brook on 18 May 1968 in the inner city Sydney suburb of Glebe

the disappearance and murder of 7-year-old Linda Stilwell from the Melbourne beachside suburb of St Kilda on 10 August 1968.

Several of these crimes, especially the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966, had become defining, almost culturally iconic events in Australian criminal historycould Derek Percy have been responsible for some or all of them? Interestingly, Percy had been questioned about many of these unsolved crimes when he was arrested in Victoria in 1969 but instead of denying his involvement he feebly told police, I could have done it but I cant remember. The crime for which he was caughtthe abduction and sadistic murder of 12-year-old Yvonne Tuohy and the attempted abduction of 11-year-old Shane Spillergives a clear indication, however, of just what Derek Percy was capable.

Derek Ernest Percy is a monsterour Hannibal Lecter as one prison official later described him.

Traditionally, the custodial sentence for a governors pleasure detainee was for a nominal period of 25 years, but Derek Percy would not so easily gain his freedom. Percy had never entered into a rehabilitation program for sex offenders or expressed remorse for his crimes and the Adult Parole Board continually refused to grant him parole during the 1990s. Changes to the Victorian Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act in 1997, however, raised fears that Percy would finally be released. Percy was immediately placed under a custodial supervision order and became the focus of a major case review by Justice Geoffrey Eames in 1998.