June 1, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode of Real Crime, Adam Shand interviews David Cunningham, brother of Anita Cunningham, who went missing in 1972. The conversation delves into the details of Anita's life, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, and the ongoing quest for answers. David shares insights into the investigation, the role of police, and the importance of closure for families of missing persons. The discussion highlights new leads, witness accounts, and the impact of police performance on the case, as well as the emotional toll of not having closure.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I am your
host Adam Shand. July nineteen seventy two, two young women,
Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoyneville Bartram, set off from Melbourne
to hitchhike to Robin's family home in Bowen, North Queensland.
Two bright young design students leaves to hitchhike up the
(00:33):
East Coast. They were never seen alive again. In November
of that year, Robin's body was found under a bridge
at Sensible Creek near Charters Towers, with two bullet holes
in the back of her head in a way that
she was killed two bullets in the back of the
head two months loger execution. Anita has never been found.
(00:57):
It's one of Australia's most baffling unsolved murders.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
The worst thing that you could possibly imagine happened to
this family.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
The Cunningham family continues to seek answers, and I'm joined
by Nita's brother David, who keeps the flame of the
investigation alive.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
We were actually deliberately kept in the dark. Such a tragedy.
What happened to them? You know, you want to do
something good for as the years and the decades have
gone by, the hope of that is just dissolved into nothing,
not that there was much hope of that in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Welcome David, Hello Adam, it's great to see you again.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You and I have travelsome roads on this story. And
I've got three or four of these long term missing
persons cases that I vow to solve or at least
follow through to the end of my career. Yours is
one of them. It's on a yellow post it note
on my wall, completion. It needs to be completed.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Well, let's hope we're getting closer to it every day.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, tell me who was Anita.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Anita was a delightful, strong, very gregarious, happy girl. She
was full of promise and she was a keen horse rider.
She rode in the Royal Melbourne Show. She was an
art student. She had the whole world going for her.
(02:27):
She was a beautiful girl. You know she was your
young sister. She was. Yeah, she was a year and
a half younger than I.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You're a wild boy back in your day. Ye're off
doing your things at the time. Remember what you were
doing in July nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
July nineteen seventy two. I was young and stupid, following
the hippie trail and living a life of self discovery
and partying basically, I think you'd call it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And so Anita goes away for what was going to
be a two or three week trip. What are your
memories of what was going on? Happened?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I was away, really I had seen Anita a bit
before they left, and I'd struck up a little bit
of a relationship with Robin. But like in those days,
life was sort of fancy free and there was nothing
sort of permanent. Were just sort of had a bit
of a fling. And then next thing I heard they
(03:29):
were heading That was the school holidays and they were
heading up north, and my parents contacted me and said
that they were really worried and they were trying the
hardest to convince the girls to accept a free airline ticket,
but they were determined to take off hitchhiking and sort
of have a happy, go lucky hippie life kind of thing.
(03:53):
We were all very naive then, and you know, sort
of middle class kids from a middle class background and
middle class school and zero experience of life so she
she fell in with the wrong crowd. That was the
end of it.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Do you have any any evidence or clues to that?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, And the evidence and the clues are set out
in Gern's book which was published recently called Here Our Cry.
It's published by Ingrin Spark and it's by Michael Gern
and he sets out all his evidence. He believes it
was a gang of local hooligans, perhaps assisted by Ivan Mullatt.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's a big name in true crime. Ivan Malatt.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Mick mcgern, I should say, is a retired Queensland Police officer.
He's now in his nineties. I believe he is.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
He's ninety two. He's an ex senior detective. He used
to have his own department in the Queensland Police and
he's got a pretty good reputation in the police.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Of course he does. And I think he's incredibly selfless
what he's done. And the love for your family and
the love of finding an answer is still driving him.
His health has a bit infirmed these days, but he
doesn't give up.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
He's so tenacious and he's powers of investigation and his
ability to get people to talk and interview people, and
he is just incredible. He's a born detective really.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And mixed efforts stand in stark contrast to the general
performance of the Queensland Police Service over all the years
of this mystery.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah. Well, I'm aware that back in those days, just
far north out back, Queensland was like a foreign country.
It was just it was nowhere and dirt roads, and
you know, the superintendent of police there at that time
was well known to be the biggest criminal in the
(05:58):
district and policing wasn't what really we expect it to be.
It was a different time, and so I always thought
put the police performance down to that general sort of
neglect of the time, because it was like cowboy country
and so on. But recently I've learned that actually, I
(06:19):
think there's more to it than that. I think there
was that deliberate cover up by the police, and more
evidence to support that is coming out all the time,
and so that's what we're pursuing at the moment, that
we were actually deliberately kept in the dark by the
police and we were steered in the wrong direction. Now,
(06:43):
whether that was because they've got something to hide and
they're trying to protect somebody, or whether it was just
a sort of an accident of fate. I don't know,
but our investigations coming up, I think we'll shed a
bit of light on that. We'll see how go.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I think you've got some new leads. And that's what
I find amazing about you, Davi, is you've not given up,
and you think with these cold cases to give when
they're so you get to the point where you think
to yourself, there's about two or three people in the
entire world who were thinking about this case and working
hard on it, because they just move on and unless you,
as a family continue to agitate, continue to ask questions,
(07:20):
it will just disappear. And I've seen this in other
cases that I cover, where when the last family member
passes away, there's virtually no chance of resolution. So you've
got a real urgency about what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well. The reason is because, for you know, forty five
years we were told only two things are known, and
that is the date, time and place the girl's left
and the date, time and place Robin's body was found.
Nothing else is known. Nobody saw anything, nobody knew anything.
(07:53):
There is no hope of anything being known, So you
might as well give up and go home. That was
what we were told basically, But it's only since Mick
gern has just pulled the whole thing together and just
found witnesses, and it's only since then that we have
a chance to maybe find Anita's remains and give her
(08:19):
a decent burial that she deserves.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
How important is that to you? I mean it's self evident,
but I think if you've never been in this position
where you've lost a loved one and you've not got
the remains to bury, what does that represent to you
and your family?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, you can imagine what it represents, but especially when
they've been treated so badly, you know, when it's such
a such a tragedy, what happened to them, You know
you want to do something good.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
For because I think missing person's detectives have always told
me that without a body to bury, there's always that
glimmer of hope that one day they're going to walk
down the driveway and say, well, I've been off somewhere
else for forty plus years. But as terrible as it
(09:13):
is to discover, and I'm sure for Robin Hoynevil Bartram's
family that was a difficult discovery, finding those remains is
some form of closure for you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah. Well, you know, in early days we perhaps had
that hope that Anita might turn up, but she was
not the sort of girl who would just disappear. You know,
we were a strong family. She just wouldn't do that.
But you know, as the years and the decades have
gone by, the hope of that is just dissolved into nothing.
(09:48):
Not that there was much hope of that in the
first place. I think we pretty well knew that something
bad must have happened to them, you know, fairly soon
after they left because other you know, no money was spent,
they didn't have much hash with them, and their bank
accounts weren't touched and they never made any phone calls.
(10:11):
So you know, whatever happened took place fairly soon after
they went missing. I think.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
So you think it might have as mixed theory is
that they fell in with a group of crooks or
hooligans as you put it, This might have happened days
after they left Melbourne, do you think, Well.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Either that or they were somehow not kidnapped but certainly
misled and led astray pretty strongly. And then I don't
know a matter of days, matter of weeks, but it
couldn't have been more than more than months, because I'm
(10:53):
sure she would have I don't know anyway. Look, it's
all just supposition, really, who knows that's right.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
But what's not supposition is that at least Robin made
it to Sensible Creek near Pentland there, just near Chater's
Towers where her remains were found. And when you and
I walked those streets talked to people up there, more
information came out and you start to see the shithouse
(11:23):
investigation that was conducted by Queensland Police. I've got mates
up in Queensland Police, so I'm not characterizing all of
them this way, but the way that they failed to
follow up local leads. Let's look at some of those things.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
We know.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
A lady called Merle White saw the girls at the
Pentland Hotel when there was a music night on there,
and she was absolutely adamant that she'd seen them, and
that they had taken a ride with a guy in
a cowboy hat who may have even called himself cowboy,
(12:00):
who bore a striking resemblance to Ivan Mulatt. Police never
told you that, did they No? And then later that
night Merle and her mother are driving back to Charter's
Towers and they're getting near the area Sensible Creek and
they see in the headlights in the distance a car
(12:21):
parked on the side of the road, a group of men,
one man jumping up and down on something. And Merle's
mother said, this is not right, keep going, Merle, let's go.
The following day, they're back in Charter's Towers. Merle sees
the same man that she saw in the Pentland Hotel.
(12:43):
Now he's got a big scratch down his face. How
does this happen? And she was menaced or threatened by
that individual, who she believed to be Ivan Malatt. Did
the police tell you any of this? No, the police
spoke to Merle White, she tried to give her evidence.
(13:05):
What happened to it?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Well, the particular policeman who I won't name, who was
tasked with getting Merle's story and taking her out to
the scene of the crime, made Merle very very suspicious
and very uneasy. He was very creepy and was sort
(13:27):
of trying to it seemed like he was trying to
put the hard word on her. And then as she
got close to her Sensible Creek, she started to think
that this is according to Merle's daughter, she started to
think that she better not say too much because he
might try to implicate her in the crime and make
(13:48):
her seem like she's one of the guilty party. Because
he was acting so suspicious himself, she didn't trust him
at all, so she threw him off the scent and
just refused to cooperate and nominated at a different place
just to get out of the situation. Really, And then
after that police refused to take her seriously or refuse
(14:11):
to have anything to do with her, and refuse to
take her dying declaration and threatened her daughter to leave
the whole thing alone, and you know, not have anything
to do with it anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, we make no allegations. Usually in my career, when
I got the choice between a conspiracy and a fuck up,
I always go for the fuck upright, But there may
indeed be a conspiracy in this case. And the idea
that Merle's testimony was not reliable or somehow motivated by
malice or something. You have to look at that in
relation to what she told her husband John on her deathbed,
(14:48):
that she told him he has to pursue this story.
And we interviewed John and his story was crystal clear
the way that I've related it to you, and he
was thumping the table and in tears trying to get
people to understand what Merle said was correct and should
be followed up.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Well, I'm like you, I have no grudge against police
in general. In fact, you know, we've had really good
policeman members of the family. You know, I've got the
greatest admiration for some of the individuals and for the
difficult job. But you know, it's a job that does
attract the sort of people who you wouldn't really want
(15:31):
in that job. And maybe some of those people were involved,
I don't know, but certainly the performance of the police
in this case has been shabby.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
When we are on the ground in Pentland talking to
locals who had been there for a long time, the
first thing they said was look at corrupt police. They
mentioned a guy called MERV Stevenson who was the former
head of the Stocks and I'm going to do a
whole other episode on him because there's a lot of
murky doings around his career and his possible involvement in
murders or cover up the murders. And you also get
(16:07):
back to this attitude that was taken to hitchhikers generally
that silly girls. They shouldn't have been hitchhiking. They almost
deserved what they got.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, Well, one of the local residents said, oh, hitchhiker
is a fair game, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
And they also told us that there was a number
of people in that area passing through working at the
meat works on the way to mining jobs and so forth,
and under assumed names. And these two young attractive girls,
quite naive, quite suggestible, up for fun adventures, might have
been gold into a full sense of security. And I
(16:46):
can see that scenario happening, and it's such a tragedy.
And when we went to Sensible Creek and we looked
at the location where Robin's remains were found, my sense
was that there hadn't been a big enough search upstream.
And there's an assumption that Robin must have been killed
under that bridge, and I don't think that there's sufficient
(17:07):
evidence to confirm that. When I looked at the rainfall
records at that time in seventy t there were big floods,
it was quite possible that they might have been killed
further away from the road, which would make sense. And
therefore another search out on that floodplain might reveal something new.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yep. And there's a lot of confusion about exactly where
Robin's body was found too, because in the newspaper of
the date when they were found, the text of the
article says that they were found near or under the
railway bridge, but the photo of the police digging is
(17:45):
under the road bridge. When we talked to one of
the crew who found the body, well, he seemed to
indicate that it was somewhere in between the railway bridge
and the road bridge. But I've got to get back
up there and get a more accurate idea from him.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, you're talking about Shorty who he found at home,
knocked on his door. He was in the middle of
a couple of libations in the afternoon when we spoke
to him, and he had been there that day wet weather,
it was thirsty weather indeed, So her body was found there,
badly decomposed, virtually a skeleton. And that was in November
of nineteen seventy two. Another suspect was in the area
(18:26):
very soon before that, John Andrew Stuart. We know he
was in Pentland because he actually robbed a local man
called Randall Wilson of some items and a suitcase and
a transistor and so forth that he also pitched into
Sensible Creek. So I think John Andrew Stewart is a
reasonable suspect to considering what a callous, nasty individual he was.
(18:49):
He went on to murder multiple people in the fire
bombing of the Whiskey A Go Go in nineteen seventy three.
But the problem is, if we believe the rate of decomposition,
which the police suggested Robin had been killed up to
three months earlier, that doesn't work for Stuart.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, you're not the only one who suspects Stuart, But
to me, there's a couple of things working against it.
One is the rate of decomposition. And I know the
decomposition is much faster up there in the hot, humid conditions,
but not that much faster, you know. I mean the
body was found in November. He was up there in November.
(19:31):
You know, I couldn't have got like that in just
two weeks, even if the pigs had been worrying the body,
and you know, the wild pigs and all that. It
just to me that it doesn't add up on that count.
And the other thing is I just put myself in
John Andrews Stewart's shoes, and think if I had buried
a body under a bridge and tried to conceal it,
(19:55):
I wouldn't be throwing somebody's stolen goods on top of it,
which could lead straight back to me, because I would
be trying to dissociate myself from from the whole thing.
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, here's the thing though, when we were there, the
creek was virtually dry, and then a huge thunderstorm came
through and suddenly it was running a banker while we
were there, And I can see a situation where Anita
and Robin could have been murdered upstream and then floodwaters
carry them down. True, And then it kind of makes
sense because I don't believe this idea that wild pigs
(20:29):
could have attacked Robin's body and not left it completely scattered,
because the skeleton was not disarticulated. She was whole, and
there was clothes with her still and so forth.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So we have to consider the decomposition rate, and I
just can't conceivably see how it can get into that
state in two weeks. You know, If John Andrew Stuart
was there early in November, the body was found I
think on the fifteenth of November, so that leaves no
time for decomposition to happen, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, my personal view is that that wasn't the murder site,
that it was further upstream. And unfortunately we don't have
Robin's remains to refer to either, because in a flood
in nineteen seventy four, the forensic headquarters in Brisbane was
flooded and her remains were carried away for a second
time in a cruel irony, which also hampers any reinvestigation
(21:23):
of her remains.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Now, yes, it is sad, but there are still witnesses
alive so pursuing that avenue, and there may be some
other avenues which may yet still prove fruitful, so we
still plug away at it.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Which I really admire you for. And you've dealt with
some absolutely bizarre, insulting, awful scenarios. For instance, when a
psychic came up with the idea that your ex partner,
the mother of your daughter, was Anita somehow, that she
had decided to take on this new identity and not
(22:03):
alert the family and then become your partner. I mean,
you're involved in the conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, she's supposed to have come down from Queensland, had
an incestuous relationship with me which produced a daughter, and
then she's gone back up to Queensland and she's living
there under a false identity. Yeah, the whole thing seems bizarre,
but it would have taken the police five minutes on
(22:29):
the computer to look on the Internet, and they would
have seen that Anita and Jody were two totally different
looking people, and they could see Jody's family background on
the computer too. I mean, it's like there's been other,
much more solid seeming leads which they've discounted out of
(22:54):
hand and haven't even bothered to follow up, and yet
this sort of crazy psychic pops up and produces a
totally unbelievable story which they don't bother it's and they
do this Dawn raid. You know, it's just laughable.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It is laughable. It is laughable. And I've been doing
a running survey of detectives over my career to ask them,
has a psychic ever actually assisted you to resolve a crime?
But I'm still zero after all these years. Despite the
fact that some of these psychics do purport to be successful,
I'd love to hear from a psychic. If you do
have evidence that you can solve crimes, you can also
(23:30):
find my car keys that I lost last week. So
your parents went to their graves not finding out, that's right.
How do you deal with the idea that you may
never find out either?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Oh, well, it's nothing new. I mean I've been resigned
to the fact that I would never find anything out
for forty odd years until Mick Gern actually did some
first class detective work and found witnesses, evidence and so forth.
And the book it's called Here Our Crime. It gives
(24:07):
all the steps, all the evidence, So if anybody wants
to follow it up, that's what I recommend. We're actually
trying to call for a Commission of Inquiry to try
and get witnesses onto the witness stand to testify under oath,
because it's the only way we really get people to
open up. You know, people who I know had firsthand
(24:29):
knowledge of the girl's disappearance said to me, oh, I
don't remember anything from that time. Sorry, I just can't remember.
Whereas everybody else in the town, everybody else we talked to,
had really strong memories of.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It, that's right, And we found new evidence just walking
around last year. So you wonder what the police could
do with their compelling powers, if you like, with these witnesses,
because I think Pentland in particular is a small town
with a big secret.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
It's an interesting town, Pentland, and we met some love
people there and I think somehow we've got to get
the secrets to open up. You know, a lot of
those people seem to know more than they were letting on.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Well, I certainly hope that this will come to some
kind of resolution. We're going to keep fighting. I'll never
stop trying to get this story back in the media,
trying to see if some new evidence can come to light,
because you deserve it. I Needa deserves it, and Robin
Jynvill Bartram deserves it as well.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Well. I really appreciate your help with his Adam, and
you know you've really you've put in a lot of
effort too, I've got to say, and it's greatly appreciated you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Not as much as you, mate, but I'm proud and
pleased to be alongside to do it again here in
this podcast. So thanks for you time today, mate.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It was David Cunningham, the brother of Anita Cunningham, missing
since July nineteen seventy two. There are people out there
who know what happened, and if you're listening, it's time
to come forward. If not to me, you can send
me an email on Adam shannded writer at gmail dot com,
or if you're not comfortable talking to the media, call
crime Stoppers one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero. There's
(26:12):
somebody out there who knows someone who knows something. It's
time to resolve this mystery and to bring Anita home.
This has been real crime with Adam Shanned. Thanks for listening.
Appoche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I am your
host Adam Shand. July nineteen seventy two, two young women,
Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoyneville Bartram, set off from Melbourne
to hitchhike to Robin's family home in Bowen, North Queensland.
Two bright young design students leaves to hitchhike up the
(00:33):
East Coast. They were never seen alive again. In November
of that year, Robin's body was found under a bridge
at Sensible Creek near Charters Towers, with two bullet holes
in the back of her head in a way that
she was killed two bullets in the back of the
head two months loger execution. Anita has never been found.
(00:57):
It's one of Australia's most baffling unsolved murders.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
The worst thing that you could possibly imagine happened to
this family.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
The Cunningham family continues to seek answers, and I'm joined
by Nita's brother David, who keeps the flame of the
investigation alive.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
We were actually deliberately kept in the dark. Such a tragedy.
What happened to them? You know, you want to do
something good for as the years and the decades have
gone by, the hope of that is just dissolved into nothing,
not that there was much hope of that in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Welcome David, Hello Adam, it's great to see you again.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You and I have travelsome roads on this story. And
I've got three or four of these long term missing
persons cases that I vow to solve or at least
follow through to the end of my career. Yours is
one of them. It's on a yellow post it note
on my wall, completion. It needs to be completed.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Well, let's hope we're getting closer to it every day.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, tell me who was Anita.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Anita was a delightful, strong, very gregarious, happy girl. She
was full of promise and she was a keen horse rider.
She rode in the Royal Melbourne Show. She was an
art student. She had the whole world going for her.
(02:27):
She was a beautiful girl. You know she was your
young sister. She was. Yeah, she was a year and
a half younger than I.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You're a wild boy back in your day. Ye're off
doing your things at the time. Remember what you were
doing in July nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
July nineteen seventy two. I was young and stupid, following
the hippie trail and living a life of self discovery
and partying basically, I think you'd call it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And so Anita goes away for what was going to
be a two or three week trip. What are your
memories of what was going on? Happened?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I was away, really I had seen Anita a bit
before they left, and I'd struck up a little bit
of a relationship with Robin. But like in those days,
life was sort of fancy free and there was nothing
sort of permanent. Were just sort of had a bit
of a fling. And then next thing I heard they
(03:29):
were heading That was the school holidays and they were
heading up north, and my parents contacted me and said
that they were really worried and they were trying the
hardest to convince the girls to accept a free airline ticket,
but they were determined to take off hitchhiking and sort
of have a happy, go lucky hippie life kind of thing.
(03:53):
We were all very naive then, and you know, sort
of middle class kids from a middle class background and
middle class school and zero experience of life so she
she fell in with the wrong crowd. That was the
end of it.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Do you have any any evidence or clues to that?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, And the evidence and the clues are set out
in Gern's book which was published recently called Here Our Cry.
It's published by Ingrin Spark and it's by Michael Gern
and he sets out all his evidence. He believes it
was a gang of local hooligans, perhaps assisted by Ivan Mullatt.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's a big name in true crime. Ivan Malatt.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Mick mcgern, I should say, is a retired Queensland Police officer.
He's now in his nineties. I believe he is.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
He's ninety two. He's an ex senior detective. He used
to have his own department in the Queensland Police and
he's got a pretty good reputation in the police.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Of course he does. And I think he's incredibly selfless
what he's done. And the love for your family and
the love of finding an answer is still driving him.
His health has a bit infirmed these days, but he
doesn't give up.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
He's so tenacious and he's powers of investigation and his
ability to get people to talk and interview people, and
he is just incredible. He's a born detective really.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And mixed efforts stand in stark contrast to the general
performance of the Queensland Police Service over all the years
of this mystery.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah. Well, I'm aware that back in those days, just
far north out back, Queensland was like a foreign country.
It was just it was nowhere and dirt roads, and
you know, the superintendent of police there at that time
was well known to be the biggest criminal in the
(05:58):
district and policing wasn't what really we expect it to be.
It was a different time, and so I always thought
put the police performance down to that general sort of
neglect of the time, because it was like cowboy country
and so on. But recently I've learned that actually, I
(06:19):
think there's more to it than that. I think there
was that deliberate cover up by the police, and more
evidence to support that is coming out all the time,
and so that's what we're pursuing at the moment, that
we were actually deliberately kept in the dark by the
police and we were steered in the wrong direction. Now,
(06:43):
whether that was because they've got something to hide and
they're trying to protect somebody, or whether it was just
a sort of an accident of fate. I don't know,
but our investigations coming up, I think we'll shed a
bit of light on that. We'll see how go.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I think you've got some new leads. And that's what
I find amazing about you, Davi, is you've not given up,
and you think with these cold cases to give when
they're so you get to the point where you think
to yourself, there's about two or three people in the
entire world who were thinking about this case and working
hard on it, because they just move on and unless you,
as a family continue to agitate, continue to ask questions,
(07:20):
it will just disappear. And I've seen this in other
cases that I cover, where when the last family member
passes away, there's virtually no chance of resolution. So you've
got a real urgency about what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well. The reason is because, for you know, forty five
years we were told only two things are known, and
that is the date, time and place the girl's left
and the date, time and place Robin's body was found.
Nothing else is known. Nobody saw anything, nobody knew anything.
(07:53):
There is no hope of anything being known, So you
might as well give up and go home. That was
what we were told basically, But it's only since Mick
gern has just pulled the whole thing together and just
found witnesses, and it's only since then that we have
a chance to maybe find Anita's remains and give her
(08:19):
a decent burial that she deserves.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
How important is that to you? I mean it's self evident,
but I think if you've never been in this position
where you've lost a loved one and you've not got
the remains to bury, what does that represent to you
and your family?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, you can imagine what it represents, but especially when
they've been treated so badly, you know, when it's such
a such a tragedy, what happened to them, You know
you want to do something good.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
For because I think missing person's detectives have always told
me that without a body to bury, there's always that
glimmer of hope that one day they're going to walk
down the driveway and say, well, I've been off somewhere
else for forty plus years. But as terrible as it
(09:13):
is to discover, and I'm sure for Robin Hoynevil Bartram's
family that was a difficult discovery, finding those remains is
some form of closure for you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah. Well, you know, in early days we perhaps had
that hope that Anita might turn up, but she was
not the sort of girl who would just disappear. You know,
we were a strong family. She just wouldn't do that.
But you know, as the years and the decades have
gone by, the hope of that is just dissolved into nothing.
(09:48):
Not that there was much hope of that in the
first place. I think we pretty well knew that something
bad must have happened to them, you know, fairly soon
after they left because other you know, no money was spent,
they didn't have much hash with them, and their bank
accounts weren't touched and they never made any phone calls.
(10:11):
So you know, whatever happened took place fairly soon after
they went missing. I think.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
So you think it might have as mixed theory is
that they fell in with a group of crooks or
hooligans as you put it, This might have happened days
after they left Melbourne, do you think, Well.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Either that or they were somehow not kidnapped but certainly
misled and led astray pretty strongly. And then I don't
know a matter of days, matter of weeks, but it
couldn't have been more than more than months, because I'm
(10:53):
sure she would have I don't know anyway. Look, it's
all just supposition, really, who knows that's right.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
But what's not supposition is that at least Robin made
it to Sensible Creek near Pentland there, just near Chater's
Towers where her remains were found. And when you and
I walked those streets talked to people up there, more
information came out and you start to see the shithouse
(11:23):
investigation that was conducted by Queensland Police. I've got mates
up in Queensland Police, so I'm not characterizing all of
them this way, but the way that they failed to
follow up local leads. Let's look at some of those things.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
We know.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
A lady called Merle White saw the girls at the
Pentland Hotel when there was a music night on there,
and she was absolutely adamant that she'd seen them, and
that they had taken a ride with a guy in
a cowboy hat who may have even called himself cowboy,
(12:00):
who bore a striking resemblance to Ivan Mulatt. Police never
told you that, did they No? And then later that
night Merle and her mother are driving back to Charter's
Towers and they're getting near the area Sensible Creek and
they see in the headlights in the distance a car
(12:21):
parked on the side of the road, a group of men,
one man jumping up and down on something. And Merle's
mother said, this is not right, keep going, Merle, let's go.
The following day, they're back in Charter's Towers. Merle sees
the same man that she saw in the Pentland Hotel.
(12:43):
Now he's got a big scratch down his face. How
does this happen? And she was menaced or threatened by
that individual, who she believed to be Ivan Malatt. Did
the police tell you any of this? No, the police
spoke to Merle White, she tried to give her evidence.
(13:05):
What happened to it?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Well, the particular policeman who I won't name, who was
tasked with getting Merle's story and taking her out to
the scene of the crime, made Merle very very suspicious
and very uneasy. He was very creepy and was sort
(13:27):
of trying to it seemed like he was trying to
put the hard word on her. And then as she
got close to her Sensible Creek, she started to think
that this is according to Merle's daughter, she started to
think that she better not say too much because he
might try to implicate her in the crime and make
(13:48):
her seem like she's one of the guilty party. Because
he was acting so suspicious himself, she didn't trust him
at all, so she threw him off the scent and
just refused to cooperate and nominated at a different place
just to get out of the situation. Really, And then
after that police refused to take her seriously or refuse
(14:11):
to have anything to do with her, and refuse to
take her dying declaration and threatened her daughter to leave
the whole thing alone, and you know, not have anything
to do with it anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, we make no allegations. Usually in my career, when
I got the choice between a conspiracy and a fuck up,
I always go for the fuck upright, But there may
indeed be a conspiracy in this case. And the idea
that Merle's testimony was not reliable or somehow motivated by
malice or something. You have to look at that in
relation to what she told her husband John on her deathbed,
(14:48):
that she told him he has to pursue this story.
And we interviewed John and his story was crystal clear
the way that I've related it to you, and he
was thumping the table and in tears trying to get
people to understand what Merle said was correct and should
be followed up.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Well, I'm like you, I have no grudge against police
in general. In fact, you know, we've had really good
policeman members of the family. You know, I've got the
greatest admiration for some of the individuals and for the
difficult job. But you know, it's a job that does
attract the sort of people who you wouldn't really want
(15:31):
in that job. And maybe some of those people were involved,
I don't know, but certainly the performance of the police
in this case has been shabby.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
When we are on the ground in Pentland talking to
locals who had been there for a long time, the
first thing they said was look at corrupt police. They
mentioned a guy called MERV Stevenson who was the former
head of the Stocks and I'm going to do a
whole other episode on him because there's a lot of
murky doings around his career and his possible involvement in
murders or cover up the murders. And you also get
(16:07):
back to this attitude that was taken to hitchhikers generally
that silly girls. They shouldn't have been hitchhiking. They almost
deserved what they got.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, Well, one of the local residents said, oh, hitchhiker
is a fair game, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
And they also told us that there was a number
of people in that area passing through working at the
meat works on the way to mining jobs and so forth,
and under assumed names. And these two young attractive girls,
quite naive, quite suggestible, up for fun adventures, might have
been gold into a full sense of security. And I
(16:46):
can see that scenario happening, and it's such a tragedy.
And when we went to Sensible Creek and we looked
at the location where Robin's remains were found, my sense
was that there hadn't been a big enough search upstream.
And there's an assumption that Robin must have been killed
under that bridge, and I don't think that there's sufficient
(17:07):
evidence to confirm that. When I looked at the rainfall
records at that time in seventy t there were big floods,
it was quite possible that they might have been killed
further away from the road, which would make sense. And
therefore another search out on that floodplain might reveal something new.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yep. And there's a lot of confusion about exactly where
Robin's body was found too, because in the newspaper of
the date when they were found, the text of the
article says that they were found near or under the
railway bridge, but the photo of the police digging is
(17:45):
under the road bridge. When we talked to one of
the crew who found the body, well, he seemed to
indicate that it was somewhere in between the railway bridge
and the road bridge. But I've got to get back
up there and get a more accurate idea from him.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, you're talking about Shorty who he found at home,
knocked on his door. He was in the middle of
a couple of libations in the afternoon when we spoke
to him, and he had been there that day wet weather,
it was thirsty weather indeed, So her body was found there,
badly decomposed, virtually a skeleton. And that was in November
of nineteen seventy two. Another suspect was in the area
(18:26):
very soon before that, John Andrew Stuart. We know he
was in Pentland because he actually robbed a local man
called Randall Wilson of some items and a suitcase and
a transistor and so forth that he also pitched into
Sensible Creek. So I think John Andrew Stewart is a
reasonable suspect to considering what a callous, nasty individual he was.
(18:49):
He went on to murder multiple people in the fire
bombing of the Whiskey A Go Go in nineteen seventy three.
But the problem is, if we believe the rate of decomposition,
which the police suggested Robin had been killed up to
three months earlier, that doesn't work for Stuart.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, you're not the only one who suspects Stuart, But
to me, there's a couple of things working against it.
One is the rate of decomposition. And I know the
decomposition is much faster up there in the hot, humid conditions,
but not that much faster, you know. I mean the
body was found in November. He was up there in November.
(19:31):
You know, I couldn't have got like that in just
two weeks, even if the pigs had been worrying the body,
and you know, the wild pigs and all that. It
just to me that it doesn't add up on that count.
And the other thing is I just put myself in
John Andrews Stewart's shoes, and think if I had buried
a body under a bridge and tried to conceal it,
(19:55):
I wouldn't be throwing somebody's stolen goods on top of it,
which could lead straight back to me, because I would
be trying to dissociate myself from from the whole thing.
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, here's the thing though, when we were there, the
creek was virtually dry, and then a huge thunderstorm came
through and suddenly it was running a banker while we
were there, And I can see a situation where Anita
and Robin could have been murdered upstream and then floodwaters
carry them down. True, And then it kind of makes
sense because I don't believe this idea that wild pigs
(20:29):
could have attacked Robin's body and not left it completely scattered,
because the skeleton was not disarticulated. She was whole, and
there was clothes with her still and so forth.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So we have to consider the decomposition rate, and I
just can't conceivably see how it can get into that
state in two weeks. You know, If John Andrew Stuart
was there early in November, the body was found I
think on the fifteenth of November, so that leaves no
time for decomposition to happen, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, my personal view is that that wasn't the murder site,
that it was further upstream. And unfortunately we don't have
Robin's remains to refer to either, because in a flood
in nineteen seventy four, the forensic headquarters in Brisbane was
flooded and her remains were carried away for a second
time in a cruel irony, which also hampers any reinvestigation
(21:23):
of her remains.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Now, yes, it is sad, but there are still witnesses
alive so pursuing that avenue, and there may be some
other avenues which may yet still prove fruitful, so we
still plug away at it.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Which I really admire you for. And you've dealt with
some absolutely bizarre, insulting, awful scenarios. For instance, when a
psychic came up with the idea that your ex partner,
the mother of your daughter, was Anita somehow, that she
had decided to take on this new identity and not
(22:03):
alert the family and then become your partner. I mean,
you're involved in the conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, she's supposed to have come down from Queensland, had
an incestuous relationship with me which produced a daughter, and
then she's gone back up to Queensland and she's living
there under a false identity. Yeah, the whole thing seems bizarre,
but it would have taken the police five minutes on
(22:29):
the computer to look on the Internet, and they would
have seen that Anita and Jody were two totally different
looking people, and they could see Jody's family background on
the computer too. I mean, it's like there's been other,
much more solid seeming leads which they've discounted out of
(22:54):
hand and haven't even bothered to follow up, and yet
this sort of crazy psychic pops up and produces a
totally unbelievable story which they don't bother it's and they
do this Dawn raid. You know, it's just laughable.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It is laughable. It is laughable. And I've been doing
a running survey of detectives over my career to ask them,
has a psychic ever actually assisted you to resolve a crime?
But I'm still zero after all these years. Despite the
fact that some of these psychics do purport to be successful,
I'd love to hear from a psychic. If you do
have evidence that you can solve crimes, you can also
(23:30):
find my car keys that I lost last week. So
your parents went to their graves not finding out, that's right.
How do you deal with the idea that you may
never find out either?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Oh, well, it's nothing new. I mean I've been resigned
to the fact that I would never find anything out
for forty odd years until Mick Gern actually did some
first class detective work and found witnesses, evidence and so forth.
And the book it's called Here Our Crime. It gives
(24:07):
all the steps, all the evidence, So if anybody wants
to follow it up, that's what I recommend. We're actually
trying to call for a Commission of Inquiry to try
and get witnesses onto the witness stand to testify under oath,
because it's the only way we really get people to
open up. You know, people who I know had firsthand
(24:29):
knowledge of the girl's disappearance said to me, oh, I
don't remember anything from that time. Sorry, I just can't remember.
Whereas everybody else in the town, everybody else we talked to,
had really strong memories of.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It, that's right, And we found new evidence just walking
around last year. So you wonder what the police could
do with their compelling powers, if you like, with these witnesses,
because I think Pentland in particular is a small town
with a big secret.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
It's an interesting town, Pentland, and we met some love
people there and I think somehow we've got to get
the secrets to open up. You know, a lot of
those people seem to know more than they were letting on.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Well, I certainly hope that this will come to some
kind of resolution. We're going to keep fighting. I'll never
stop trying to get this story back in the media,
trying to see if some new evidence can come to light,
because you deserve it. I Needa deserves it, and Robin
Jynvill Bartram deserves it as well.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Well. I really appreciate your help with his Adam, and
you know you've really you've put in a lot of
effort too, I've got to say, and it's greatly appreciated you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Not as much as you, mate, but I'm proud and
pleased to be alongside to do it again here in
this podcast. So thanks for you time today, mate.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It was David Cunningham, the brother of Anita Cunningham, missing
since July nineteen seventy two. There are people out there
who know what happened, and if you're listening, it's time
to come forward. If not to me, you can send
me an email on Adam shannded writer at gmail dot com,
or if you're not comfortable talking to the media, call
crime Stoppers one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero. There's
(26:12):
somebody out there who knows someone who knows something. It's
time to resolve this mystery and to bring Anita home.
This has been real crime with Adam Shanned. Thanks for listening.
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