December 9, 2024 • 58 mins
Ross Smith was eating chicken in the bath when he was shot dead by Malcolm Baker. Filled with wicked rage, Baker was on a violent killing spree, murdering his ex-girlfriend Kerryann Gannon and her pregnant sister Lisa Gannon, their father Thomas Gannon, his own son David Baker, as well as Ross’ partner Leslie Read. Within 50 minutes, six lives had been stolen. Former detective Ted Bassingthwaighte unpacks the harrowing massacre that’s rarely seen on Australian soil.
This episode of I Catch Killers discusses family violence. If this raises any issues or concerns, you can reach out to White Ribbon Australia on 1800RESPECT.
To buy a copy of the book, Bloody Odyssey, email Ted Bassingthwaighte directly at bassingthwaighte@bigpond.com, or find one here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see a side of life the average persons never
exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Join me now as I take you into this world.
(00:45):
Welcome back to part two of my chat with retired
detective Ted Bathmwaite. In part one, Ted talked us through
in details the events that led to the murder of
six people on one night in October nineteen ninety two
on the Central Coast.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Welcome back, Welcome back to you, Gary, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Okay, well, in part one, you gave us a very
detailed description of the lead up and the build up
to this. Neither of murder and brutality at the level
that we rarely get to see. And we just touched
on it briefly. So many red flags, and we have
the benefit of hindsight, and you would having research for
(01:23):
the book, but more importantly working on the investigation, you
would have you would have seen it. This appears to
be just so many, so many times where if people
put the hand up, brought it to the attention that
the police, maybe, just maybe this horror of an evening
wouldn't have occurred. What's your take on that.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, it's always been a vexed question for me. The
question is why why didn't anybody speak up? And I
can only reflect on the context of those individuals lives
at the time, the one that were given the red
flag or had an opportunity to do a red flag.
I think that the deep effect of his coercive control
(02:09):
over people may have been something that was that they
that those women in particular, couldn't overcome if I was
to speak up. They may have thought He's going to
come for me. And he's always been a bullshit artist.
He's always talking shit. I don't really believe him, and
most of them in the book kind of expressed that,
(02:32):
oh yeah, that's just that's just Malcolm, that's that's just Baker,
that's just the way he is. Only on one occasion
with one of the people that he offered a red
flag to really had a genuine fear that he would
carry it out. But again, why they didn't speak up
could be because of their fear of him. The coercive
control that he had over them, could have been in
(02:53):
the context of where they were in time, time and
place in Western Sydney and their attitude towards snitching or
their attitudes towards the police. It's hard to fathom. It's
hard to fathim. There's no obvious evidence to the reason
why no one went straight down to the police station
and complained. But then again, what are you going to
complain about. Here's this cranky man who he knows, a
(03:16):
pain in the ass, cranky man come around having a
big winge on my shoulder. What offense has he fit?
Has he committed? You know, he might have a gun
in the back of his car, but he may or
may not have the gun that he used on the
neither murders wasn't in his car, it was at his
house hid and't at his house.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I suppose when you break it down like that,
and it potentially could be in isolation, so it's just
someone voicing an opinion. He's always talking shit like that, Yeah,
never never carried it out.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But he's a coward, you know, and they would have
seen all those people would have seen him as a
cowardly The cowards have the courage to do. But eventually he.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Did a tough talk, but that never backs it up
type thing. But I suppose, and this is why. Yeah,
in today's society, we're so aware of these things, and
I don't think it would wash these days. The pub
tests for the day, people go okay, well you need
to speak up. But yeah, it's judging people on what
they could a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, and don't. I don't hold any judgment to those people.
I just like to think about into context of where
it was in their lives at the time and their
relationships to him, and the broader societal context as well.
It's not like it is now. It's hopefully much safer
for women now.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, Okay, let's bring it up up to the night.
So what we left off in part one that he'd
gone round to Kerry Anne's place, stalking up and down,
patrolling up and down the street during the course of
the day. He'd been rejected by Kerry Anne's mother a
couple of days before when he said he wanted to
see Kerry Anne and then he's crept up to the
(04:46):
house and heard carry Anne talking to a mile in
the bedroom. Yes, on that basis, he's gone back to
his house. And how far away is his house.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
It's only a five or ten minute drive.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Okay, that's very close. So gone back to it, driven
back to his house. Access to firearm that the police didn't.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Seize Bentley twelve gage shotgun.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So twelve twelve gauge shotgun. Just people don't understand firearms.
A shotgun spreads a lot of shots that come out,
depending on the size of the shells put in there.
But they do a hell of a lot of damage
when fired of the person close range.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, close range damage that they're designed to kill it
close range. They're not hunting them.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, and it's not just one projectile. Its sprays spray's yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
From memory, the cartridges that he used, there was somewhere
between sixteen and twenty six shot in each cartridge.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay, so that will spread fairly wide of the close
close range and signal well, punch a very big hole,
significant significant damage. He also cut off the stock of
the firearm. What was that about. He doesn't really explain
that in the subsequent interviews after his arrest.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But it would just be for ease, easy to hide,
it's easy to carry, it's less cumbersome.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, that's that was the old bank robbers tool and trade.
Cut off the butt of the shotgun so they could
conceal it.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Just make it a smaller, smaller weapon. Very in mind.
It was a pump action shot it's a pump action shotgun.
So you had two hands on the on the on
the slide, had one hand on the slide and one
head on the trigger. The stock was irrelevant. Really, Yeah,
he never pellowed to his shoulder to ad because it
was all from the.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Pips still operate. How many how many cartridges did he take?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He had a full full had seven up the spout
as we say, yeah, which is the foot in the firearm.
And you had a bandolier of twenty plus.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Okay, so he went there well armed, well armed. Okay,
Now I just want you and I apologize to people
listening to it that what we're going to talk about
is fairly brutal, but this is the nature of what
happens when a gunman goes on the rampage. So let's
take it through in the chronology of what happened in
that night. And this is based on your knowledge from
(07:01):
the investigation, your research in the book, and stuff that
he told police.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Suff he tool police, and subsequent conversations I had with
three of the victims of the matter.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Okay, if you just take us through it.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Okay. So on the night, for whatever reason walking up
the stairs that has flicked the switch were the previous
twelve months and all the conversations he's had with people,
I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.
She's a bit, you know, she's ruined my life and whatever.
For whatever reason, when he heard the conversation with Chris
gall in the bedroom at seventy five Barnhill Drive, caused
(07:35):
him to go back to the house straight away, saw
the butt off, load the gun, get the bandoleer, and
he didn't go straight back to the house because it
was daylight saving, so he's spent time going around the town.
While he's going around Terry Gull waiting for darkness. He
actually runs into young Tom Gennan, who had been at
the house prior.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
To Baker, Kerrie Anne's younger brother, Kerrians.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Young brother, and he'd had a conversation with him. So
at this point he's down in Terrigle at dusk with
a loaded firearm which had been modified. Talking to Tom Gannett.
I'm convinced if he'd had the opportunity then and there,
but it would have been in public, he would have
shot young Tom Gannett. Tom Gannon's got away from him. Whatever.
Baker's then waited for it to get dark. He's come.
(08:22):
He's slunk up the hill at Grosvenor Revenue, parked out
of sight and came across come across the Barnhill Road.
He walked up the stairs stairway, two level stairs, stood
at the door of seventy seven Barnhill Drive, Barnhill Road. Terrible.
The front door was closed and he could see at
the at the the as a timber door and had
(08:43):
a piece of that opaque glass in the door, like
a square of opaque glass. He could see shadow figures inside,
he could hear the TV. And then he just kicked
the door. He just kicked the door open, charged into
the house. Lis Agannon was on his left, sitting at
a couch having something to eat. This is a Lisa
(09:06):
eight months pregnant. Lisa again and Carrie's sister saw Tom Gannon,
the senior, at the back of the kitchen. They've He's
moved forward towards Tom. Tom's moved out of the kitchen,
had the firearm on his hip. Tom's had a conversation
with him, Get out, get out, what are you doing here? Bang?
He shot Tom and the first shot hit Tom in
the shoulder and the chest. Tom spun around, semi conscious
(09:29):
and fell on the floor. He's turned immediately to his
left and virtually on top of Lisa. Gannon fired one
round into the top of her head.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It was with such force that blew the top of
her head off, killing her instantly. At this point, Carrie
and Chris Gaure her friend or a boyfriend at the time,
heard the shots. Carriann's opened and they were in the
bedroom two rooms down the hallway to the left. Carrie
Anne's opened the door and she saw Matt or as
she called him, Mac. Saw Max. It's Mac. It's Max's Mac.
(10:05):
She closed the door and locked it. He heard her.
Baker's walked down the corridor, stood at the door, fired
around into the door of Carrie Anne's bedroom. The door
swung open. The first person he's seen is Kerrien's boyfriend,
Chris Gall, standing at the end of the bed. Fired
a shot at Chris. That shot, has said, Chris into
the right side of the face, removing basically his right
(10:29):
cheek and knocking him unconscious. He fell to the floor.
The Baker when he back at his house earlier on,
when he was planning to do all this these murders here,
he had decided that he would not shoot Kerrien, that
he wanted to kidnap her and take her away, which
is interesting in the context of what he's always done.
(10:49):
He wanted to get carry In away from the family
or any of the obstacles that he had, and it
had taken with him a piece of nylon rope which
he had around his waist or over his shoulder. So
he grabbed Carrie Anne at the bedroom with Chris Gaul
semi conscious on the floor, and he could hear Chris
Gore can hear the conversation that He's Baker's having with
carry Anne, dragged her, got her in her headlock and
(11:10):
dragged her down the corridor to the lounge room, where
She's all of a sudden seen her murdered sister Lisa
on the on the couch, screamed, wrestled, and Baker's scratched
her neck and tried to choke her. She's got away
and run back into the bedroom, which is quite bizarre
in a sense because before she gets to the bedroom
(11:31):
there was a laundry which had a back door, which
she could have run down in accord into the backyard
to escape, but she obviously didn't think of it at
the time. Baker's followed her back to the bedroom and
carry Anne stood up to him. He said, I've had enough,
had enough. If you're going to kill me, just kill me,
and she turned around and at that point from a
meet her and a halfway he shot her in the back.
(11:52):
Carrie has fallen face up and died instantly on the spot.
That while this was going on in the bedroom with
carry and Baker, Tom Baker had managed to get up
remain conscious of father, the father, the eldest Tom sr.
And he struggled down the front stairs and collapsed unconscious
on the middle of Barnhill road. As Baker was leaving,
(12:13):
Baker saw Tom Tom on the road, walked up the
Tom and at point blank, Raine shot him in the
back of the head, killing him.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
It's brutal, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
It's absolutely brutal.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
What just on this breakdown? A couple of things there.
How long did this rampage in this house last fall?
What are we talking? Is the way you've described it's
virtually in real.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
No more than five minutes. The witness the witness accounts
have said. It has happened very quickly.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And the chaos and the sound of a shotgun going
off and the screens.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yes, one, two, three, four, five times five times.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And so Tom's trying to escape from the house or
it's help Aul.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's unclear what Tom's what Tom was trying to do,
but he only made it to the middle of the road.
Tom's relationship Tom soon his relationship with Baker was was
that were mates, did various jobs together. They probably did
some criminal activity together, but he that had a falling
out over some work that Tom had done some time ago.
But Tom was part of the family group that were
(13:16):
all encouraging carry to get away from.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
From and so Tom's on the road and he just
come up and shot him in the.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, he was still alive. And then he shot him
in the.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Back of the fellow that was in the bedroom with
Kerry Anne. Now Chris got what did he pass out
from the injuries.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
He was semi conscious from the injuries, and he could
hear the conversation. He heard the conversation between carry Anne
and Baker as he dragged her out of the room
and dragged her down the hall. And then he heard
the conversation with carry Anne said just kill me. He
was unable to move. He was kind of virtually trapped
under the edge of the fold out bed, a large
(13:51):
portion of his face missing, bleeding profusely.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And do you think Baker just thought he was dead.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think Baker thought he was dead. But Baker, Baker
assassinated the people that this this crime scene is all
about revenge, all about.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
All family memb all family members.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
This kid, Chris Gore wasn't he wasn't fair, so he
didn't he'd never met him, He didn't even know. Chris
Gaul is Sylvia Gall one of the ladies from the
Vocar nursing home. It's her son, Okay, because Sylvia Gall
invited Kerry Anne to go and stay with her for
a couple of nights after Baker bashed her in.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
The flat and formed the friendship.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Formed the friendship from that. So it was her son,
that's where she met him.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
What how chilling here in carry Anne like, if you're
going to kill me, just kill me her words? Isn't
that that just so sad that her wife has come
to that, this lunatic.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
That she had no option, She had no choice. She
was twenty four years old, she hadn't she was a
whole life ahead of her and this man would not stop,
would not stop, and she was trapped in this bedroom,
probably thought Chris Gore was dead. What to do and
then she just called his bluff and lost.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Just makes me sad even thinking about it. And her
sister that was eight months pregnant. Yes, the baby didn't survive,
I'd take it. No.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Another really sad part of it. Lisa was engaged to
a serving police officer at the time, Paul Martin, who
worked in Sydney, and Paul had been at work that
day and he's on his way home and he'd heard
about the shooting at Teregul as he got off the
train at Gosford and he raced to the crime scene
and obviously a police were on scene it then and
they were able to control him and look after him
(15:30):
in a sense. But it took police quite quite a while,
had to get the dog squad there because I unsure
where the shooter was. The only evidence that he wasn't
in the house was gleaned from Chris Gore, but only
after Chris Gore was extracted from the house because he
was a potential killer twenty five minutes later by the
uniform police and he said, oh, Baker, Baker, and he
(15:51):
drew He couldn't talk, but he drew Baker's name in
the sand and the guards of the injuries, yeah, because
of the injuries. So when Paul Martin's turned up, that
was an hour later. Prior to that, some forty five
minutes when the amblaster were on the scene and the
scene was clear, there's no shooter on scene, and the
police were very comfortable that it was just going to
be a crime scene. Ambulece officers went inside and did
(16:15):
a fetal heartbeat, but there was no fetal heart right.
You know, the medical evidence say you have three minutes,
three or four minutes after an injury like that before
to save the baby, and there was no fetal heartbeat.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Just another sad aspect of this, Okay, So you've got
that happened, though, would imagine there'd be calls from the neighbors,
the police would be alerted what was Baker's movements after that.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So Baker then straightaway he got into his car and
he drove straight away to Sherwood Close in Bado Bay,
which is where his son, David Baker was living with
a de facto partner, Michelle Cooper and her small child,
Stevie Lee. And he'd been to this place many times.
He knew where it was. He'd often been seen stalking
(16:58):
around the place, often been seen parking down the street,
stereotax starring at the place, particularly subsequent to when David
subsequent to David Baker disclosing to Malcolm Baker that he'd
slept with carry.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
So he's lost for vengeance and that wasn't satisfied with
the chaosity caused it the first place. And now he's
gone to see gouty son, the killy son.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Well, that's the interesting thing about that. This night of
the murders, he said, Well, I'm going to do one.
I'm going to get them all, and were reflecting on
conversations that he'd had with the ex wives in his
Sydney I'm going to kill them all and whatever. It
was become a parents in hindsight that if he was
going to do one, he was going to do them all.
And on this particular night, unfortunately, they were all home
(17:41):
and they were all available. So he drove to Sherwood Close.
It was night, it was dark, parked the car around
the street out of sight because Sherd five Sherwood closes
a little cul de sac, and he approached the house
down the left hand side where David's car was. It
was in darkness. David's dog started barking. David was in
the house with Michelle Cooper and Stevie Lee, and David's
(18:04):
dog started barking. At that point, David went outside out
the back to the back porch to see what was
making the dog bark. And as David stepped out of
the back porch looked to his left, the light came on.
Looked to his left, his father stepped out of the
darkness and from about three meters fired at him. That
shot hit him in the chest and knocked him unconscious,
(18:26):
and he slumped back onto a garden chair in the backyard.
Baker then walked up to him at point blank range
and shot him in the head, just the brutale, without
saying a word, no words for exchange. Michelle Cooper could
hear the conversation if there was one inside, and she
heard the shots, she was straight away. She looked out,
she saw her boyfriend slumped dead in the chair. She
(18:49):
straight away locked the house and bunkered down. Baker wasn't
interested in Michelle Cooper. He had no motivation, no reason
to hurt her. She'd never done anything to stand in
his way with Kerry Anne. She just happened to be
in that very short term relationship with David. At that
point he ran back to his car and he was
seen reversing his car down the street that he had
(19:10):
hidden in. The wheel screeched and he drove off.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Where did he head after that?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So after that he drove quite some distance from that
bad Oh Bay to four sixty nine Wyong Road Pacific Highway,
Wyong North, and that was the house of Ross Smith.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Heard twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
It's good twenty minutes. Ye, oddly enough, in the book
you talk about the police response. So all the police
resources rushed to Terrigle. Police from the Wyon command were
rushing to Terrigle en route they'd heard about the shooting
at bad O Bay. They diverted to bad O Bay,
which was closer. All the police resources were heading south.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So Gio gradit graphically for people down the stand. You've
got Terrible south, then Bay northwest, fifteen to twenty minutes northwest,
and then.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Wyong's another twenty twenty five minutes northwest.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
So all the police have headed down to what was
happening at Terrygle, and then when the incidents happened at
bad Obay, that would have been notified. And then you
got Baker heading up to wile.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Well, heading up to Wine and there was no there
was no he would have passed the blue light police
cars on his way to wil So you got he
got to Wine. It was dark, he'd been there plenty
of times. He'd been seen stalking past the house he'd had.
This is a house of Ross Ross Ross Smith who
lived there with his de facto Leslie Joyce Reid. He
(20:32):
parked his car, which everyone knew about, out in the
front of the house was like a small property off
while off the Pacific Highway wiring roads. It wasn't like
a house per se. It was a farmhouse set back
onto a property.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
And this hatred that he's got of Ross Smith stems
from that first time you met him. The issue with
the selling of the house.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Pure revenge for being ripped off. Well, there's two past
to it. Being ripped off the money because he was
obsessed with money, but ross Its inability to do what
he wanted to do to get the house to Millfield
caused him his plan to move carry in away from
the central customers. So it's all interconnected.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Okay, sorry, So he's headed to Wong.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And North Wong and so he's parked his car in
the front yard. Balders Brass, it's all in darkness. Knocked
on the front door. Ross's de facto Leslie Joyce Reed,
who he'd never met before, answered the door. He held
the gun to a chest, asked where's Ross. He frog
marched it down the down left, down the corridor. As
he's walking down a corridor to the back room the
(21:34):
bathrooms on the right, he saw Ross Smith's in the bath,
naked in the bath, eating some chicken that Kerry at
Leslie had given him for tea. As he's as Ross
saw Baker in the doorway with the gunpoint. Ross stood
up and threw his wallet and threw anything he could
at Baker. Baker's fired one shot from the door for
(21:54):
about three meters which has hit Ross Smith in the chest.
Ross is alive still and slumped down into the bath.
Ross He's still conscious, slumped down into the bar. He's
turned back to Leslie, who's in the end of the corridor,
who's got her arms in the air and basically defenseless.
(22:17):
Fired a shot at Leslie which has hit her in
the left shoulder and the right arm. She's collapsed, fallen
on the floor the into the main bedroom. He's turned
back to Ross and fired has shot at Rice's close
range in the head, like he did with his son,
like he did with Tom kill very similar, just very
close top of the head. Killed them instantly. Leslie's alive
(22:39):
in the bedroom. This is a woman he's never met.
This is the woman he's got no hate for, no
vengeance for why he shot her. I don't know. They
could have done the same to Michelle Cooper if he
wanted to the fact that she was there and she
saw him, and maybe he was thinking about his own
skin at this time. I don't want any witnesses to this.
No one see me yet, they're all dead. She's a witness.
He stepped into the bedroom and shot her again. She
(23:01):
lived for an hour, an hour or so witnessed. The
neighbors came, so he shot her again. Then he he
drove his car around the back of the house Ross
Smiths house, stole her car, her little Masda, and left
the property and headed north again towards Doyleson. What was
he's playing there, He doesn't Unfortunately, it's not articulated in
(23:24):
the interviews. I'm of the belief that he stopped at
Doyleson to get a drink and to get some petrol,
and he would he was going to then head west
to kill ross Smith's father and brother who lived nearby.
Why he didn't do that, he doesn't articulate in the interviews,
but he said he basically had a moment of clarity.
(23:45):
I can use that expression. Had a moment of clarity
at the garage and he decided to go to his
friend's house, John Thompson, a friend who who was no
more friendly than anyone. No one was really friends with Baker.
He didn't really have long friendships. He was an acquaintance
that that you know, if he was knocking on the
door and you didn't want to see him, you wouldn't
answer the door, that sort of acquaintance. But he went
to John Thompson's ten o'clock this night, knocked on the door.
(24:08):
It said that John Thompson, I've done it. Done what
I've done it. I've got them all virtually bragged, but
I've done it. Thompson took him outside, What have you done?
And then he revealed that he's parts of what he'd
done that night, of what who he shot or whatever?
And how did you do it? No, Thompson said, whose
car is that? Because he saw the Masda Kerry Leslie's Masda.
(24:31):
Thomas said, who's car? That's someone's car. I don't know
who it is. Because he didn't know, Lessie read, I
just took it. Where's the gun, it's in the car.
He had it in the boot of the car. They
went back inside and he tried to calm him down again.
Baker at the time was quite frantic, quite emotional, quite hyper,
and somehow, for some reason John said let's go to
(24:52):
the police station. And Baker said okay, and John Thomas
said I'll drive. He said, no, I'll take this car.
Thompson was under clear whether Baker was then going to
scoot off, but as we know in the book, he
followed John Thompson to the police station.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Can I just stop you there?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Ted?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like, I know, he did go to the police station.
But I just want to, first of all, thank you
for articulating that. I've been silent because he took me
right into it. Just the brutality of what was inflicted
that night is unforgettable. Yeah, it is unforgetable. I just
want to before we carry on about what happens when
(25:31):
he got to the police station. I'm curious because and
I think this is the copying me. When that type
of stuff is going down, the radio is going bizarre,
people are getting called out, left, right and center. You've
got to shoot her on the run. That's just going
and killing people. And no one at that particular point
in time had an expectation that's going to hand himself
into a police station. So you got called out that
(25:53):
night he did, ye, explain your role and explain the
chaos of the night when that type of thing happens,
because it's very rare in the policing career that you
get caught up in that type of chaos when things
are happening in real time, and that literally you better
switch on and get your job done because otherwise more
people are going to be killed. So what was the
pressure and what was the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
So I was at home off Judy, We've got a
call from Detective Sergeant Bill Erickson to get to pick
up the A list Steve Potter and raced down to
the crime scene at North Wyl where Bill was waiting
with the other detectives, Senior Comfortable Peter Donaldson. At that point,
(26:33):
while I was en route, Baker had actually headed himself
into the police station. We weren't aware of that because
I was in my private car. When I got to
the scene at North Wyle, two Highway patrol constables were
meeting a log at the gate and on the gate
that they were quite traumatized about it, but they were
quite relieved because they said, oh, they've got him up
(26:53):
until moments before, nobody knew where he was.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Nobody knew because at that stage before he's handed him
self in I would imagine the police radio would have
been going off, tactical police would have been called from
all over the place, detectives would have been called out,
and there would have been car circulated if you had
the description of the car.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
There was a vague description of a car. There was
not a lot of details. It was only subsequent to
him handing himself in the details started to appear.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
He was just a sequence of events on the central case.
And when we're talking the central case, yeah, this is
all geographically in the same area and you just got this.
At any point, was he circulated as a shooter before
he handed himself in?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Okay, they didn't even know that. I mean, it was
an unusual event on that night where when Newcastle Radio
VKG alerted everyone on the channel, no more communications. The
only communications now that anyone's allowed to give is in
relation to this matter. Until it became clear that obviously
he'd been a.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Counted and like people went after we've talked for it
or you have explains what's happened. Would be thinking, well,
is he circulated as wanted that we're looking for him.
But when you get to a crime scene like that,
you first you've got to check that the gunman's not
still there because it could be an ambush, so that
that takes time.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Whether this one's related to that one, you've got to
wonder whether they're even related. And then when the third
ones happened that we have just been cha.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I think it was Codrek and I mean I had
a conversation with Bill Erickson at the scene. When they
arrived at the scene with Bill the Peter Don, they
were unsure that that scene wasn't hot with the shooter
active with the shooter, and they approached that with great
trepidation as well, because nobody knew there was no car there,
that Baker's Volvo was parked around the back out of sight.
(28:41):
It was only when they did a perimeter search of
the of the premises and tried to secure the premises,
not knowing whether there was a shooter inside, that they
saw the car. There wasn't enough time for police to
connect the dots of what Chris Gore was saying when
he's making those handwritten messages in Garter at Terrygill about
Malcolm Baker Volvo great cream colored Volvo. That information wouldn't
(29:06):
have resonated to the uniform police and the detectives at
Terrrigill at that point, because Chris Gore was the only.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
One that could only survive it was.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
The only one who could tell anybody anything about it.
Subsequent when the police turned up at Sherwood Close and
they managed to speak to Michelle Cooper, she would give
a version of events, still not been able to identify
Baker as the shooter because she didn't see him or
hearing the sea his car, but a witness saw the
car driving away. Subsequent to that, that witness identified the car.
(29:34):
That timeline to that has extended to the point Baker's
already gaunted to north Woong, He's already killed Ross Smith
and Leslie Reed, he's already driven to Dyleson and he's
contemplating his future. It was only those two little bits
of evidence that at those two crime scenes that would
have identified him, which made it even harder for police
across the coast to know who they're looking for.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Okay, you've been called out, you're in your private car,
you get to the crime scene. By that stage you
notified that the shoe that has handed himself in, So
you're looking at the crime scene. What's got to be done?
There talk us through the crime scene. Explain what you
saw and what you did there.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, So it was the starkest memory I have of
it is when I walked up to the porch and
spoke to Bill Ericson and Peter Donaldson. You could still
smell the gunpowder. You can still smell that smell in
the air because it was a small house. Bill gave us,
Steve Potter and I strict instructions about the managing the
(30:32):
crime scene. Obviously, now this was going to be a
big media event. Bill had told me it only just
found out about Baker heading himself in and Bill Bill
let Bill had. Bill felt an obligation to Leslie Read,
who was still alive, and she was transported from the
crime scene in a hospital to Gosford Hospital. Bill felt
(30:53):
an obligation to find out about her. He left me
and Potter in charge of the crime scene. He and
Donaldson and drove to the hospital at Wile to try
and make some contact with Gosper to get the situation
of Leslie Read. Unfortunately, Leslie Reid died very shortly after
she was admitted to Gospel Hospital from the wounds and
then in the in the In that process, he'd become
(31:15):
aware of Baker henning himself in and he moved to
He then went to Terrogo Police Station. Potter and I
it was a huge thing for both of us. It
was a massive crime scene, the biggest thing we've ever
been thrown. We're given the responsibility by a particular sergeant
to manage this crime scene. Don't let any media in,
(31:35):
don't let You've got witnesses on both sides. Go and
interview these witnesses. This is before laptops and iPads or whatever,
so they're all handbook, handbook interviews. Make sure that that
crime scene is intact. So Potter and I did a
perimeter search. We made sure we secured the car, secured
there's a dog at the back. Secured the dog. We
(31:57):
entered the crime scene and we could see that that
the house was quite a disheveled house, but it was
cozy in a sense. The TV was on, there was
a there was a pet cat sleeping on the couch
in front of the TV. We went down the corridor
towards the back room Ross Smith. You could see you
could see all the food and the wallet and the
(32:19):
belt that he'd thrown at Baker. You could see the
empty cartridges on the floor. Unfortunately, Ross was in the bath.
He slumped over the bath like that. The Supreme Court
judge mentions it, mentions it. There's the famous painting of
a man who's died in a bath whose arms slunk
over the edge. I can't remember the name of it,
(32:39):
but it was quite weird for the Supreme Court judge
to do that. But he was slumped over at the
edge of the bath with his brain matter on the floor,
completely dead.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Just on the personal thing, like and we're cops, so
we've all been to these horrific crime scenes. But it's
not very nice. Is that the smell? You forget you're
seeing bits and pieces of body parts. You shouldn't see
a shotgun blast of the head. I would imagine you
looking at pieces of the skull and the brain.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
It was all over the place. So it was. It was.
It was my first experience with firearms, serious firearms injuries.
Been to a lot of hangings and stabbings and you've
seen a lot of dead people at that point, but
never the power and the effect of that on an
individual was unforgettable. I'll never I'll never forget it. Cannet
just talking about it now. I can still smell it.
(33:27):
You can still you know you've been to crime since.
You can still smell that. The smell of death or
whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It's got a particular smell.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It has a particular smell. It's not like a moorg
it's different to a morgue, but it's it is.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Than the unforgettable, the blood and the blood and the bath.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And but the bath was full of blood. And you know,
as I said, Brain met on the floor the piece
of skull. And I didn't know at that time that
Ross had been shot in the chest. It was only
after when, with hours and hours later, when the crime
soon had been recorded, that that I helped the government
contractors lift Ross out of the and when we picked
him up, we could see the ward of that shell
(34:03):
had been bedded in his chest. That wouldn't have killed him,
That would have messed him up, but wouldn't have killed him.
And then then we walked into the back bedroom and
you could seal the trail of blood where Leslie had been.
You could see all up the wall where parts of
Leslie's arm and shoulder would sprayed up the war from
the shotgun, and you could seal the trail of blood
where she crawled into the bedroom, and then obviously all
(34:25):
the ambulance refused that was there, but they tried to
save her on the floor before they took her to
the hospital. And then and then we secured the crime scene.
And then it was just a long list of the videographers,
crime scene experts, commanding police with some authority, all wanted
to come and check out the crime scene. I did
(34:47):
a walk through with one of the victims to make
sure what they told us in the statement was true
or accurate to their recollections. And then yeah, we're seventeen hours,
fifteen hours later, we managed to extract from the bath.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And all this and people probably don't understand we've talked
this through. We'll talk about what was said when you
went to the police station handed himself in. But you
think like it's a laid down is that as in,
you've caught the person or you've got the person, but
there is still so much work.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
You've got to convict him.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
You've you've got to convict him, you've got to present everything,
you've got to gather the evidence, and yeah, there's so
much work to do there. I'm just I'm sitting here
talking about hearing you talk about that just brings me
back to those days of so much to the so
much to do with that. You had three crime scenes
on a huge scale. It would have been a long,
long and attire in twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
It was for pretty much everyone on the central coast.
We had three, three or four patrols local areas la
c's whatever they were called at the time. And you
know there was a lot of police involved and a
lot of police were adversely affected by day over time
and yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
It was pretty Did you did you stay on the
strike force like the investigation.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah we did. We were with Newcastle Homicide Squad through
Garth Christian and Scott Casey came and led the investigation.
After the initial interview because Bill, Bill, Bill Erickson and
Donaldson went to the police station.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
What was it, let's let's go, let's go police take
to the police station. So he's handed himself, Well, he's.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Walked up the stairs at Tukeley Plice station with John
Thompson and John there was a there was an amazing
uniform sergeant there called Ronnie Beard who ron did thirty
years in Redfern was basically come to the Central Coast
to retire. And Ron was on the counter this night
at Tukeley. Nothing nothing raddles Ronnie Beard and Ron saw
Baker was covered in body matter down his legs and whatever.
(36:49):
They had a conversation. Ron straight away took him into
the room, got him a cup of tea or a
cup of coffee or whatever, and then sat down with
him and asked him and made a handwritten contemporarious of
what Baker's version of events were. In the introim, Bill
Erickson's turned up, had a conversation with Ron and they've
have got other police to go and get the gun secured,
(37:10):
the firearm which is still in the car and the
band of there and then right Bill Erickson and Peter
Donaldson have had a conversation with Baker to make sure
that Baker would sign. And John Thompson witnessed Ron Ron
Beard's contemporary snakes because if Baker said nothing else over
the course of the investigation, that was the most important admissions.
(37:33):
Basically something we did talk at nauseum because of his
ego down the track as we talked about, but that
that the precience of of of of the sergeant on
the desk on that night. To do to get that
admission in writing and signed was you know, was.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Was well, it's with all all that happens, you've got
to get that admission and get that admission. That's right,
the earliest opportunity, especially when they're talking and then yeah,
they might have a change of change.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Said not have said another word, not said another word,
and if you hadn't said another word, that's the ad mission.
You go. You know, you're thinking about, well, this is
going to go to a hearing matter, it's going to
go to a full jury matter in a supreme court.
You need to dit every eye across everybody. He's got
to prove, got to prove everything.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
So just in summary, he did. He did the interview
with the detectives and then there was another it was
electronic recorded interviews.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
There was any Garth Christian and Scott Casey from the
homicide decided to take him to Gosford. Gossip was the
head station.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
This is when they're just for people listening. This is
just around the time when they're starting to bring in
their electronic recording of suspects. That's right in the police station.
That's not every police station had.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Not everyone toually did have one, but I think it was.
It was quite clever of Garth and Scott to want
to take him to the bigger stations where it could
have been booked into custody, though obvious thinking about making
sure they get everything right procedurally and procedurally everything was covered.
They had a Garth had a conversation with Baker in
the car between Tukeley and Gosford, which was also quite insightful,
(39:13):
but obviously there was not conversation that was recorded. Garth
would have made it contemporarious note of it. But when
he went to Gosford he was he presented as someone
who was quite defeated. He did exhausted the venom, he'd
exhausted the hate, he'd exhausted the passion to kill, and
he was quite a hollow man at Gospeld Police station
(39:37):
and so that procedure they booked him in and whatever
thing because it was getting quite late in the night
and Garth and Scott's case as good detectives were getting
information from the three crime scenes during.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
The course of the evening, during the course yeah, during
the course of.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
The evening, they were relying on just what Baker was saying,
they were relying on the crime scene evidence and whatever,
and they did the initial e respue of you at
some time early in the morning of the twenty eighth.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And one thing that you get the admissions, but one
thing you'd also want to demonstrate that he was of
sound mind absolutely at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Absolutely, and that that was a theme of the first question,
the first interview with Garth and Scott, and it became
a recurring theme when the Chief of the Detective Homicide
Lance Chaffei, reinterviewed him earlier in the morning after he
went to court, because that was that was the obvious defense.
We didn't have to hunt this bloke down. We didn't.
You know, there's no there's no he's making admissions. He's
(40:32):
headed himself in. Clearly he's going to run a mental
health defense. So they asked the questions about are you intoxicated,
so you hadn't hadn't had a drink, your stone cul sober?
Are you on meds? Yes, he was on juicyne or valium.
Had you taken any day, hadn't taken any any today?
The blood tests that they took of him on custody
confirmed that he was stone cul Saber had no drugs in.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
His body, so negating any mitigating circumstance, any possible.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Any possible mitigating circumstances, clarified any issues around mental health
or whatever mental health physical issues he had and mental
health that issues he had, and it was all unremarkable.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Okay, well, that's good to know. What were the overview
of what he said. Did he just try to justify
his answers to the questions that were put to him
what his actions were, or do he say why did it?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
He'd always played the victim. It was always someone else's fault,
like in the line of questioning, which is just covered
in the book in terms of great detail with the interviews,
But it was never his fault. I was wrong. They
did me wrong. I was virtually entitled to do this.
That nobody nobody believed me. Nobody. He actually brags about
(41:48):
the fact that nobody believed him, that I told him
I'd do this. It was their fault. Doesn't get angry,
doesn't get frustrated. He just just tells it as he
feels it. And the questioning in both interviews was obviously
very professional and unprovocative and elicited the type of answers
that were required to get him to a conviction.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
How did the play out in court?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
So he initially was yeah, he initially went to Gostard
Court in that morning of the twenty eighth. There it
was a huge crowd there. It was a big media event.
Some of the victims families were there and it became
as you see now on TV. Maybe not so much
these days, but in those days, you know, the mob
was there, the TV was there, whatever. So he was
(42:33):
a completely defeated, shallow man, hollow man in court. People
had to be ejective from court because they were threatening
to kill him and swearing at him. But so he
had the bail hearing refused. Bail was taken to Long Bay.
Then he had a number of bail hearings. He's officially
bar refused again or in December nineteen ninety two. He
(42:57):
had a paper committal at the Gosford Local Court on
the twin of December where it was flagged by the
defense that he was going to look for diminished responsibility
which at the time was available to him, which is
not available now. He ended up in the Newcastle Supreme
Court on the third of March where they were preparing
(43:17):
to go ahead with a trial. Evidence about his psychiatric
condition other evidence from social workers was tendered. On the
second of August, when they were going to commence the
trial before a jury was impanelled, He's decided to enter
a guilty plea. Over the next four days, a variety
(43:37):
of witnesses were allowed to give evidence, and on the
sixth of August in the Newcastle Supreme Court he was
convicted and given life a life sentence. On the third
of September ninety ninety five, he appealed to the new
South Wales Supreme Court on conviction on the sentence that
the sentence was too harsh. That appeal failed. On the
(44:00):
ninth of the ninth nineteen ninety six, he appealed to
the High Court for leave to appeal. There was a
twenty minute hearing and that was denied.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Well, I'm glad the court's got that one right.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah. Well, there was a two to one decision in
the Supreme Court, so there was one judge who had
a view about the harshness of the sentencing. But what
was interesting about that when you read that was that
there was this issue about because it was truth in sentencing.
I think that the state. The government had pushed all
that through, so there wasn't too many of these cases
that were people getting life for these type of murders.
(44:31):
And one of the justices said the New South Wales
Supreme Court had a view that he was not sentenced
as it wasn't a safe sentence. Was the other two disagreed?
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah, well that's why sometimes I get confused with court. Yeah,
what society do we have that someone that goes on
the murderous rampage like that has any right to have freedom?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, that's right. But it makes a point though, when
you and I have been in lots of court cases
and lots of jury trials and whatever, and the law
is so labyrinthine, there's so many avenues, there's so many
ways to get around. A thinks you've just got to
make sure that you tick every box to keep every
box legally. You've got all the case law, you've got
all of the High Court decisions or whatever, and you've
(45:21):
got to just have That's why I admire the judges
so much.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I like them too in that they absorb and they're
they're they're smart, they're clearly smart. I just always think
that the justice system when it's all said and done,
is there to serve the community, and.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
It doesn't always get it right here and that that's
the thing.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And I worry sometimes with the legal fraternity hide around
the technicalities and they're very smart the way they exploit
them or control things because of the the rules and
regulations and the legislation that's in place that we all
agree is needed. But sometimes the courts have got to
serve serve the community that they're set up to serve.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
They do know, having worked in child sexual site for
a lot of years and sat in a lot of
jury trials and the issues of trying to get a
conviction of a pedophile. Who's the only witness I've got
is the victim and it happened twenty years ago or whatever.
There's no crime scene, there's no physical evidence, there's one
word against another, and there's about thirteen or fourteen different
(46:26):
escape routes through the New South Wales evidence that before
any evidence even gets in. It was quite frustrating. So
I took the winds. Yeah, well that's.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Probably why you look so relaxed with this one. What's
he's passed away now?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah? So he was. He resisted all sorts of psychiatric treatment.
They to try to give him ant psychotic drugs and whatever.
So in June twenty four he was moved from the
super max at Goldbin. Suffering from cancer, he went to
the Long Bay Hospital for palliative care. He died handcuffed
to bed on Saturday, the twenty second of June twenty
(47:04):
twenty four. And the world's a better place. He spent
thirty two years taxpayer's expense. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
I look, when we talk about crimes like this, but
you know, for each murder, the ramifications, it spreads more
than just one person. That's all the people connected to
and the flow on damage and all that. You're talking
six people's lives taken in one night because of one
man's rage. And what can you talk about the aftermath
(47:33):
of the victims. Of you you've got any sense of
how it's like it's wiping it virtually wiped out a
family or a large portion of the family, the impact
that this crime has had on the people.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
I was very fortunate subsequent to his death to be
able to people reached out to me, and I spoke
to three of the victims. So I spoke to Paul Martin,
who was the police officer who's the de fact defiance
say of Lisa Gannon and his life. He didn't stay.
(48:06):
He dedicated, tried to dedicate his life to being a
better policeman subsequent to the murders, but it didn't pan
out for that much longer, and he's had he's had
a real struggle for the rest of his life, the
last thirty years to come to terms with what happened.
He's done a variety of jobs, been a fossica, worked
(48:27):
for the United Nations, being quite involved himself in a
high stress lifestyle, high stress occupation, to the point now
where he's content in a relationship, living in Victoria, doing
a bit of foster king and got a job and
was quite amenable to me talking to him about the story.
(48:49):
Still has has a memory or a part of the
child that they lost. They still he still reflects on that.
So I met him, I spoke to him. I spoke
to Scool, who was obviously the boy shot in the face,
lost half his face, and he similarly had had a
very very rough life style and is still struggling even
thirty two years later. Chris, Chris was very generous in
(49:13):
talking to me. Chris was I was very moved and
humbled to be able to talk to Chris about his experience,
and he gave me some insight into his version of events.
And the third person I spoke to was Michelle Cooper,
who was in the house when David Baker was shot
at the back. And Michelle has moved on with a life,
got a new family, still reflects on that night, still
(49:35):
emotionally affected by that night, but she has a very upbeat,
positive view of the view of life and was very
very happy to talk to me. And again I was
very humble and respected, respectful to talk to her as well.
So there's three of the people that I had. It
was quite interesting because when I finished the book, I
had a real moral dilemma because there's a lot of
(49:57):
people in this there's a lot of people's lives. Who
am I? What right have I.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Got to tell this?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
This is my passion project, this is my therapy, this
is my movement on from whatever? Who was I? So
when I first self published the book, I didn't I
just kept it in house. I gave it to my
family and friends because I was very proud of it.
It was only after I had the opportunity to speak
to those people and get their consent in a way
that I was able to set the book free and
(50:25):
you know it's available on Amazon and I sell it.
So it been able to relate to the people involved
firsthand and as a policeman, made me feel respectful, gave
me permission per se to be here today. Like in hindsight,
if I hadn't spoken to those those three and hadn't
(50:47):
felt enabled by them, I may not have been comfortable
doing this.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
I understand that, and full credit to you that you
look at it from that way, because it is such
a difficult subject. I look at this. You're telling the
story like you've done today and on this platform. I
think it's not glorifying crime. This is chrime and we've
seen it. Crime's horrendous and the flow on the fact
(51:13):
and the ramifications. But what it does is show people,
you know, when we talk about the gun control laws
after Port Arthur and the shit that happens over in
America and that we're fortunate that doesn't happen here. The
laws that they are bringing in for domestic violence, the
focus on domestic violence, coercive controls and all that. Those
that might argue and they don't think there's many in
(51:34):
this day and age those that might argue against that
sort of control. This is the type of shit that
can happen when things aren't aren't easily happen. So I
think what you've done today, and I hope what we're
doing here talking about it is explaining this is the
reason we need to go hard on these things and
these people that are controlling people and breaching AVOs and
(51:56):
all that we need to crack down on them because
this is a potential ramatic.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Case asolutely and we see it, we see it happening.
We do see it happening. So I dedicated the book
to all the victims of domestic violence. I don't just
say female victims. There are they're they're both sides of
the equation. It's just the majority of female. But they
dedicated to all the victims. And the last little monologue
I have at the end, you know, just ask the
question why. You know why? And I hoped if I
(52:21):
have a goal about out of this book was one
to my own help, my own recovery, but two that
there might be someone that picks this up at an
airport and reads it and a potential offender. You go, no,
I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
I don't want to be that.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I don't want to do that. Or there's there's potential
victims now who are suffering for coercive control and in
this situation, and they'll see how it happened and that
they can reach out and speak out if it happens
to one person. Well, I mean.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
I think it's a I think it's a good messaging
those crime scenes they are confronting. Did it have an
impact on you seeing that?
Speaker 2 (52:57):
I certainly had a delayed delayed in paper, because that's
the time, as you know, being a detective and investigating
big matters, you're actually in it. You're in the zone.
Like it's all about the work. It's all about making
sure that you're right, everybody's right, making sure that you
don't make any mistakes, making sure that you follow the
bureaucracy or the paperwork of it. So you don't feel
(53:18):
anything until until it's til it's till it's over. So
I was still quite high for days and days and
days after that, and then Garth and Garth Christian and
Scott Casey from the homicide squad came back to the
Central Coast and we all we met and we all
had we were all given tasks to go out and
interview these people and find it. So the crime scene
(53:38):
itself didn't The effect of the crime scene of me
initially was negligent in that I was still busy, were
still on the job, We're still doing the investigation. It
was only after the matter. Actually, I can remember the
day we were given the four volume brief of evidence
(54:00):
and I had this moment at why on police station
and I had these four volumes brief of evidence, which
is the one I carried around with me for thirty
years in my hand that I thought, I got emotional
that I reflect and I actually didn't want to look
at it, like the vanity was, so go to your part,
go to the part see your name in lights, you know.
(54:22):
And I didn't want to look at it, and I
didn't want to look at it, but I kept it.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
I understand what you're saying there with the confronting crime scene.
Some people would often ask myself, how do you react
to that? I really take on board what you're saying.
You're focusing so much on the work that you do,
you just you've got the blinkers on in terms of
I've got a job to do. Focus on that, and
it might be ages down the track where you reflect
(54:45):
on it, or when you have a quiet time and
you go, yeah, that was pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah, you do, you do, and it does come back
and slap you in a face like a wet fish.
There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Now you're looking after yourself. And it was good catching
up with Peter that I hadn't seen for a long
time over and you both, I've got to say, you
both look very relaxed, and you're having a bit of
fun touring on motorbikes and yes, living the good life.
Tell us through what you're doing. Now, let's finish on
the high because it's been a heavy staf.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
It has been a heavy and I really appreciate the
opportunity to let me talk. Gary, really do. But Peter
and I fell in love in the job. We met
in the job, and we should never have fallen in love,
but we fell in love in the job and moved
to the country and got married and had a beautiful
child who's got a degree in criminology. Oddly enough, but
Peter's always been into horses and I've always been into surfing,
(55:35):
and eventually we moved back to Newcastle because when I
got sick and had to leave, I needed to be
a safe place. So Peter and I moved back to
Newcastle where I grew up, and I reconnected with my
primary school friends, one of whom I'm about to ride
a motorbike around New Zealand with and we've known each
other for sixty years. So when I moved back to
Newcastle to recover, we did and we had a lovely
(55:57):
lifestyle there. Peter resigned retired from the cop as well,
and then the Newcastle lifestyle is very different to anywhere else.
It's hard to explain if you don't.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Live you're a Newcastle person or you're not a newcast.
They talking about I'm not sure if that's a compliment
or an insult, but.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
They talk about in the job the Newcastle Police was
because if you go to new Gum, they don't get
out of there.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
We've seen a lot of police up there and they've
never come back.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
They've never come back. It's like the triangle of police.
But over time we've just our daughter's grown up and
we've recovered from our illness, our mental illness, and happily
in love and we decided to move to the North
Coast to be with Peter's mother, and I started writing
an adventure motorbike a couple of years ago with my
friends from Newcastle and just fell in love with it.
(56:43):
The feeling of meditation, feeling of RESTful, being RESTful and
peace that I feel on an adventure motorbike. They go
on raid, but they go on dirt as well. And
I managed to talk Peter into getting a little one
and as you've got a little bit bigger one, and
I've just bought her a Murdoguzzy V eighty five t
t travel, which is her feet can't touch the ground,
(57:05):
but she's learning. So we do day trips away and
go and stay up and up around northern New South Wales.
I ride with my mates, still surf. My daughter's about
to return to Newcastle and start a law degree jurist doctrip,
which I'm very proud of. So yeah, we're very We're
in a very good place.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
Life's going good. Yes, Okay, well we'll put in a
little advert for joining the cops. You're fine, love have
an interesting career and end up riding motorbikes around with
the Woman of the Dreams. Yeah, well that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
Well, it's pretty good. Yeah, you know, it's funny how
those things come together. Like the psychiatrists have told us
over the years, this is a codependency. This this is sick.
This will never last. You can dependent on each other,
but it actually works because we know each other. We've
did the same we did the same ship, we've seen
the same ship.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Well, I know you guys when you got together, and
I can see the love hasn't passed out. So well done.
So I appreciate shout out to both of you. Thanks
for coming on. I catch Gillers. I've enjoyed the catch
up and the chat, and it's important getting that messaging
out there. So thanks very much, Thanks very much, Gery,
good luck to you and good luck in the future.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Cheers.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
It's always good catching up with ex colleagues. I enjoyed
chatting with Ted and so heavy subject that we were
talking about the murder of six people. I hope people
listening appreciate the gravity of what can occur when domestic
violence is not checked and gun control is not kept
in place. Six innocent people were murdered on one night
(58:36):
because of one man's rage. It's such an important lesson
to learn, and my thoughts go out to the people
who lost their lives because of just one man.
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see a side of life the average persons never
exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Join me now as I take you into this world.
(00:45):
Welcome back to part two of my chat with retired
detective Ted Bathmwaite. In part one, Ted talked us through
in details the events that led to the murder of
six people on one night in October nineteen ninety two
on the Central Coast.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Welcome back, Welcome back to you, Gary, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Okay, well, in part one, you gave us a very
detailed description of the lead up and the build up
to this. Neither of murder and brutality at the level
that we rarely get to see. And we just touched
on it briefly. So many red flags, and we have
the benefit of hindsight, and you would having research for
(01:23):
the book, but more importantly working on the investigation, you
would have you would have seen it. This appears to
be just so many, so many times where if people
put the hand up, brought it to the attention that
the police, maybe, just maybe this horror of an evening
wouldn't have occurred. What's your take on that.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, it's always been a vexed question for me. The
question is why why didn't anybody speak up? And I
can only reflect on the context of those individuals lives
at the time, the one that were given the red
flag or had an opportunity to do a red flag.
I think that the deep effect of his coercive control
(02:09):
over people may have been something that was that they
that those women in particular, couldn't overcome if I was
to speak up. They may have thought He's going to
come for me. And he's always been a bullshit artist.
He's always talking shit. I don't really believe him, and
most of them in the book kind of expressed that,
(02:32):
oh yeah, that's just that's just Malcolm, that's that's just Baker,
that's just the way he is. Only on one occasion
with one of the people that he offered a red
flag to really had a genuine fear that he would
carry it out. But again, why they didn't speak up
could be because of their fear of him. The coercive
control that he had over them, could have been in
(02:53):
the context of where they were in time, time and
place in Western Sydney and their attitude towards snitching or
their attitudes towards the police. It's hard to fathom. It's
hard to fathim. There's no obvious evidence to the reason
why no one went straight down to the police station
and complained. But then again, what are you going to
complain about. Here's this cranky man who he knows, a
(03:16):
pain in the ass, cranky man come around having a
big winge on my shoulder. What offense has he fit?
Has he committed? You know, he might have a gun
in the back of his car, but he may or
may not have the gun that he used on the
neither murders wasn't in his car, it was at his
house hid and't at his house.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I suppose when you break it down like that,
and it potentially could be in isolation, so it's just
someone voicing an opinion. He's always talking shit like that, Yeah,
never never carried it out.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But he's a coward, you know, and they would have
seen all those people would have seen him as a
cowardly The cowards have the courage to do. But eventually he.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Did a tough talk, but that never backs it up
type thing. But I suppose, and this is why. Yeah,
in today's society, we're so aware of these things, and
I don't think it would wash these days. The pub
tests for the day, people go okay, well you need
to speak up. But yeah, it's judging people on what
they could a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, and don't. I don't hold any judgment to those people.
I just like to think about into context of where
it was in their lives at the time and their
relationships to him, and the broader societal context as well.
It's not like it is now. It's hopefully much safer
for women now.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, Okay, let's bring it up up to the night.
So what we left off in part one that he'd
gone round to Kerry Anne's place, stalking up and down,
patrolling up and down the street during the course of
the day. He'd been rejected by Kerry Anne's mother a
couple of days before when he said he wanted to
see Kerry Anne and then he's crept up to the
(04:46):
house and heard carry Anne talking to a mile in
the bedroom. Yes, on that basis, he's gone back to
his house. And how far away is his house.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
It's only a five or ten minute drive.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Okay, that's very close. So gone back to it, driven
back to his house. Access to firearm that the police didn't.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Seize Bentley twelve gage shotgun.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So twelve twelve gauge shotgun. Just people don't understand firearms.
A shotgun spreads a lot of shots that come out,
depending on the size of the shells put in there.
But they do a hell of a lot of damage
when fired of the person close range.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, close range damage that they're designed to kill it
close range. They're not hunting them.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, and it's not just one projectile. Its sprays spray's yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
From memory, the cartridges that he used, there was somewhere
between sixteen and twenty six shot in each cartridge.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay, so that will spread fairly wide of the close
close range and signal well, punch a very big hole,
significant significant damage. He also cut off the stock of
the firearm. What was that about. He doesn't really explain
that in the subsequent interviews after his arrest.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But it would just be for ease, easy to hide,
it's easy to carry, it's less cumbersome.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, that's that was the old bank robbers tool and trade.
Cut off the butt of the shotgun so they could
conceal it.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Just make it a smaller, smaller weapon. Very in mind.
It was a pump action shot it's a pump action shotgun.
So you had two hands on the on the on
the slide, had one hand on the slide and one
head on the trigger. The stock was irrelevant. Really, Yeah,
he never pellowed to his shoulder to ad because it
was all from the.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Pips still operate. How many how many cartridges did he take?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He had a full full had seven up the spout
as we say, yeah, which is the foot in the firearm.
And you had a bandolier of twenty plus.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Okay, so he went there well armed, well armed. Okay,
Now I just want you and I apologize to people
listening to it that what we're going to talk about
is fairly brutal, but this is the nature of what
happens when a gunman goes on the rampage. So let's
take it through in the chronology of what happened in
that night. And this is based on your knowledge from
(07:01):
the investigation, your research in the book, and stuff that
he told police.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Suff he tool police, and subsequent conversations I had with
three of the victims of the matter.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Okay, if you just take us through it.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Okay. So on the night, for whatever reason walking up
the stairs that has flicked the switch were the previous
twelve months and all the conversations he's had with people,
I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.
She's a bit, you know, she's ruined my life and whatever.
For whatever reason, when he heard the conversation with Chris
gall in the bedroom at seventy five Barnhill Drive, caused
(07:35):
him to go back to the house straight away, saw
the butt off, load the gun, get the bandoleer, and
he didn't go straight back to the house because it
was daylight saving, so he's spent time going around the town.
While he's going around Terry Gull waiting for darkness. He
actually runs into young Tom Gennan, who had been at
the house prior.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
To Baker, Kerrie Anne's younger brother, Kerrians.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Young brother, and he'd had a conversation with him. So
at this point he's down in Terrigle at dusk with
a loaded firearm which had been modified. Talking to Tom Gannett.
I'm convinced if he'd had the opportunity then and there,
but it would have been in public, he would have
shot young Tom Gannett. Tom Gannon's got away from him. Whatever.
Baker's then waited for it to get dark. He's come.
(08:22):
He's slunk up the hill at Grosvenor Revenue, parked out
of sight and came across come across the Barnhill Road.
He walked up the stairs stairway, two level stairs, stood
at the door of seventy seven Barnhill Drive, Barnhill Road. Terrible.
The front door was closed and he could see at
the at the the as a timber door and had
(08:43):
a piece of that opaque glass in the door, like
a square of opaque glass. He could see shadow figures inside,
he could hear the TV. And then he just kicked
the door. He just kicked the door open, charged into
the house. Lis Agannon was on his left, sitting at
a couch having something to eat. This is a Lisa
(09:06):
eight months pregnant. Lisa again and Carrie's sister saw Tom Gannon,
the senior, at the back of the kitchen. They've He's
moved forward towards Tom. Tom's moved out of the kitchen,
had the firearm on his hip. Tom's had a conversation
with him, Get out, get out, what are you doing here? Bang?
He shot Tom and the first shot hit Tom in
the shoulder and the chest. Tom spun around, semi conscious
(09:29):
and fell on the floor. He's turned immediately to his
left and virtually on top of Lisa. Gannon fired one
round into the top of her head.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It was with such force that blew the top of
her head off, killing her instantly. At this point, Carrie
and Chris Gaure her friend or a boyfriend at the time,
heard the shots. Carriann's opened and they were in the
bedroom two rooms down the hallway to the left. Carrie
Anne's opened the door and she saw Matt or as
she called him, Mac. Saw Max. It's Mac. It's Max's Mac.
(10:05):
She closed the door and locked it. He heard her.
Baker's walked down the corridor, stood at the door, fired
around into the door of Carrie Anne's bedroom. The door
swung open. The first person he's seen is Kerrien's boyfriend,
Chris Gall, standing at the end of the bed. Fired
a shot at Chris. That shot, has said, Chris into
the right side of the face, removing basically his right
(10:29):
cheek and knocking him unconscious. He fell to the floor.
The Baker when he back at his house earlier on,
when he was planning to do all this these murders here,
he had decided that he would not shoot Kerrien, that
he wanted to kidnap her and take her away, which
is interesting in the context of what he's always done.
(10:49):
He wanted to get carry In away from the family
or any of the obstacles that he had, and it
had taken with him a piece of nylon rope which
he had around his waist or over his shoulder. So
he grabbed Carrie Anne at the bedroom with Chris Gaul
semi conscious on the floor, and he could hear Chris
Gore can hear the conversation that He's Baker's having with
carry Anne, dragged her, got her in her headlock and
(11:10):
dragged her down the corridor to the lounge room, where
She's all of a sudden seen her murdered sister Lisa
on the on the couch, screamed, wrestled, and Baker's scratched
her neck and tried to choke her. She's got away
and run back into the bedroom, which is quite bizarre
in a sense because before she gets to the bedroom
(11:31):
there was a laundry which had a back door, which
she could have run down in accord into the backyard
to escape, but she obviously didn't think of it at
the time. Baker's followed her back to the bedroom and
carry Anne stood up to him. He said, I've had enough,
had enough. If you're going to kill me, just kill me,
and she turned around and at that point from a
meet her and a halfway he shot her in the back.
(11:52):
Carrie has fallen face up and died instantly on the spot.
That while this was going on in the bedroom with
carry and Baker, Tom Baker had managed to get up
remain conscious of father, the father, the eldest Tom sr.
And he struggled down the front stairs and collapsed unconscious
on the middle of Barnhill road. As Baker was leaving,
(12:13):
Baker saw Tom Tom on the road, walked up the
Tom and at point blank, Raine shot him in the
back of the head, killing him.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
It's brutal, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
It's absolutely brutal.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
What just on this breakdown? A couple of things there.
How long did this rampage in this house last fall?
What are we talking? Is the way you've described it's
virtually in real.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
No more than five minutes. The witness the witness accounts
have said. It has happened very quickly.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And the chaos and the sound of a shotgun going
off and the screens.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yes, one, two, three, four, five times five times.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And so Tom's trying to escape from the house or
it's help Aul.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's unclear what Tom's what Tom was trying to do,
but he only made it to the middle of the road.
Tom's relationship Tom soon his relationship with Baker was was
that were mates, did various jobs together. They probably did
some criminal activity together, but he that had a falling
out over some work that Tom had done some time ago.
But Tom was part of the family group that were
(13:16):
all encouraging carry to get away from.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
From and so Tom's on the road and he just
come up and shot him in the.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, he was still alive. And then he shot him
in the.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Back of the fellow that was in the bedroom with
Kerry Anne. Now Chris got what did he pass out
from the injuries.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
He was semi conscious from the injuries, and he could
hear the conversation. He heard the conversation between carry Anne
and Baker as he dragged her out of the room
and dragged her down the hall. And then he heard
the conversation with carry Anne said just kill me. He
was unable to move. He was kind of virtually trapped
under the edge of the fold out bed, a large
(13:51):
portion of his face missing, bleeding profusely.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And do you think Baker just thought he was dead.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think Baker thought he was dead. But Baker, Baker
assassinated the people that this this crime scene is all
about revenge, all about.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
All family memb all family members.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
This kid, Chris Gore wasn't he wasn't fair, so he
didn't he'd never met him, He didn't even know. Chris
Gaul is Sylvia Gall one of the ladies from the
Vocar nursing home. It's her son, Okay, because Sylvia Gall
invited Kerry Anne to go and stay with her for
a couple of nights after Baker bashed her in.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
The flat and formed the friendship.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Formed the friendship from that. So it was her son,
that's where she met him.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
What how chilling here in carry Anne like, if you're
going to kill me, just kill me her words? Isn't
that that just so sad that her wife has come
to that, this lunatic.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
That she had no option, She had no choice. She
was twenty four years old, she hadn't she was a
whole life ahead of her and this man would not stop,
would not stop, and she was trapped in this bedroom,
probably thought Chris Gore was dead. What to do and
then she just called his bluff and lost.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Just makes me sad even thinking about it. And her
sister that was eight months pregnant. Yes, the baby didn't survive,
I'd take it. No.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Another really sad part of it. Lisa was engaged to
a serving police officer at the time, Paul Martin, who
worked in Sydney, and Paul had been at work that
day and he's on his way home and he'd heard
about the shooting at Teregul as he got off the
train at Gosford and he raced to the crime scene
and obviously a police were on scene it then and
they were able to control him and look after him
(15:30):
in a sense. But it took police quite quite a while,
had to get the dog squad there because I unsure
where the shooter was. The only evidence that he wasn't
in the house was gleaned from Chris Gore, but only
after Chris Gore was extracted from the house because he
was a potential killer twenty five minutes later by the
uniform police and he said, oh, Baker, Baker, and he
(15:51):
drew He couldn't talk, but he drew Baker's name in
the sand and the guards of the injuries, yeah, because
of the injuries. So when Paul Martin's turned up, that
was an hour later. Prior to that, some forty five
minutes when the amblaster were on the scene and the
scene was clear, there's no shooter on scene, and the
police were very comfortable that it was just going to
be a crime scene. Ambulece officers went inside and did
(16:15):
a fetal heartbeat, but there was no fetal heart right.
You know, the medical evidence say you have three minutes,
three or four minutes after an injury like that before
to save the baby, and there was no fetal heartbeat.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Just another sad aspect of this, Okay, So you've got
that happened, though, would imagine there'd be calls from the neighbors,
the police would be alerted what was Baker's movements after that.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So Baker then straightaway he got into his car and
he drove straight away to Sherwood Close in Bado Bay,
which is where his son, David Baker was living with
a de facto partner, Michelle Cooper and her small child,
Stevie Lee. And he'd been to this place many times.
He knew where it was. He'd often been seen stalking
(16:58):
around the place, often been seen parking down the street,
stereotax starring at the place, particularly subsequent to when David
subsequent to David Baker disclosing to Malcolm Baker that he'd
slept with carry.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
So he's lost for vengeance and that wasn't satisfied with
the chaosity caused it the first place. And now he's
gone to see gouty son, the killy son.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Well, that's the interesting thing about that. This night of
the murders, he said, Well, I'm going to do one.
I'm going to get them all, and were reflecting on
conversations that he'd had with the ex wives in his
Sydney I'm going to kill them all and whatever. It
was become a parents in hindsight that if he was
going to do one, he was going to do them all.
And on this particular night, unfortunately, they were all home
(17:41):
and they were all available. So he drove to Sherwood Close.
It was night, it was dark, parked the car around
the street out of sight because Sherd five Sherwood closes
a little cul de sac, and he approached the house
down the left hand side where David's car was. It
was in darkness. David's dog started barking. David was in
the house with Michelle Cooper and Stevie Lee, and David's
(18:04):
dog started barking. At that point, David went outside out
the back to the back porch to see what was
making the dog bark. And as David stepped out of
the back porch looked to his left, the light came on.
Looked to his left, his father stepped out of the
darkness and from about three meters fired at him. That
shot hit him in the chest and knocked him unconscious,
(18:26):
and he slumped back onto a garden chair in the backyard.
Baker then walked up to him at point blank range
and shot him in the head, just the brutale, without
saying a word, no words for exchange. Michelle Cooper could
hear the conversation if there was one inside, and she
heard the shots, she was straight away. She looked out,
she saw her boyfriend slumped dead in the chair. She
(18:49):
straight away locked the house and bunkered down. Baker wasn't
interested in Michelle Cooper. He had no motivation, no reason
to hurt her. She'd never done anything to stand in
his way with Kerry Anne. She just happened to be
in that very short term relationship with David. At that
point he ran back to his car and he was
seen reversing his car down the street that he had
(19:10):
hidden in. The wheel screeched and he drove off.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Where did he head after that?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So after that he drove quite some distance from that
bad Oh Bay to four sixty nine Wyong Road Pacific Highway,
Wyong North, and that was the house of Ross Smith.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Heard twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
It's good twenty minutes. Ye, oddly enough, in the book
you talk about the police response. So all the police
resources rushed to Terrigle. Police from the Wyon command were
rushing to Terrigle en route they'd heard about the shooting
at bad O Bay. They diverted to bad O Bay,
which was closer. All the police resources were heading south.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So Gio gradit graphically for people down the stand. You've
got Terrible south, then Bay northwest, fifteen to twenty minutes northwest,
and then.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Wyong's another twenty twenty five minutes northwest.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
So all the police have headed down to what was
happening at Terrygle, and then when the incidents happened at
bad Obay, that would have been notified. And then you
got Baker heading up to wile.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Well, heading up to Wine and there was no there
was no he would have passed the blue light police
cars on his way to wil So you got he
got to Wine. It was dark, he'd been there plenty
of times. He'd been seen stalking past the house he'd had.
This is a house of Ross Ross Ross Smith who
lived there with his de facto Leslie Joyce Reid. He
(20:32):
parked his car, which everyone knew about, out in the
front of the house was like a small property off
while off the Pacific Highway wiring roads. It wasn't like
a house per se. It was a farmhouse set back
onto a property.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
And this hatred that he's got of Ross Smith stems
from that first time you met him. The issue with
the selling of the house.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Pure revenge for being ripped off. Well, there's two past
to it. Being ripped off the money because he was
obsessed with money, but ross Its inability to do what
he wanted to do to get the house to Millfield
caused him his plan to move carry in away from
the central customers. So it's all interconnected.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Okay, sorry, So he's headed to Wong.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And North Wong and so he's parked his car in
the front yard. Balders Brass, it's all in darkness. Knocked
on the front door. Ross's de facto Leslie Joyce Reed,
who he'd never met before, answered the door. He held
the gun to a chest, asked where's Ross. He frog
marched it down the down left, down the corridor. As
he's walking down a corridor to the back room the
(21:34):
bathrooms on the right, he saw Ross Smith's in the bath,
naked in the bath, eating some chicken that Kerry at
Leslie had given him for tea. As he's as Ross
saw Baker in the doorway with the gunpoint. Ross stood
up and threw his wallet and threw anything he could
at Baker. Baker's fired one shot from the door for
(21:54):
about three meters which has hit Ross Smith in the chest.
Ross is alive still and slumped down into the bath.
Ross He's still conscious, slumped down into the bar. He's
turned back to Leslie, who's in the end of the corridor,
who's got her arms in the air and basically defenseless.
(22:17):
Fired a shot at Leslie which has hit her in
the left shoulder and the right arm. She's collapsed, fallen
on the floor the into the main bedroom. He's turned
back to Ross and fired has shot at Rice's close
range in the head, like he did with his son,
like he did with Tom kill very similar, just very
close top of the head. Killed them instantly. Leslie's alive
(22:39):
in the bedroom. This is a woman he's never met.
This is the woman he's got no hate for, no
vengeance for why he shot her. I don't know. They
could have done the same to Michelle Cooper if he
wanted to the fact that she was there and she
saw him, and maybe he was thinking about his own
skin at this time. I don't want any witnesses to this.
No one see me yet, they're all dead. She's a witness.
He stepped into the bedroom and shot her again. She
(23:01):
lived for an hour, an hour or so witnessed. The
neighbors came, so he shot her again. Then he he
drove his car around the back of the house Ross
Smiths house, stole her car, her little Masda, and left
the property and headed north again towards Doyleson. What was
he's playing there, He doesn't Unfortunately, it's not articulated in
(23:24):
the interviews. I'm of the belief that he stopped at
Doyleson to get a drink and to get some petrol,
and he would he was going to then head west
to kill ross Smith's father and brother who lived nearby.
Why he didn't do that, he doesn't articulate in the interviews,
but he said he basically had a moment of clarity.
(23:45):
I can use that expression. Had a moment of clarity
at the garage and he decided to go to his
friend's house, John Thompson, a friend who who was no
more friendly than anyone. No one was really friends with Baker.
He didn't really have long friendships. He was an acquaintance
that that you know, if he was knocking on the
door and you didn't want to see him, you wouldn't
answer the door, that sort of acquaintance. But he went
to John Thompson's ten o'clock this night, knocked on the door.
(24:08):
It said that John Thompson, I've done it. Done what
I've done it. I've got them all virtually bragged, but
I've done it. Thompson took him outside, What have you done?
And then he revealed that he's parts of what he'd
done that night, of what who he shot or whatever?
And how did you do it? No, Thompson said, whose
car is that? Because he saw the Masda Kerry Leslie's Masda.
(24:31):
Thomas said, who's car? That's someone's car. I don't know
who it is. Because he didn't know, Lessie read, I
just took it. Where's the gun, it's in the car.
He had it in the boot of the car. They
went back inside and he tried to calm him down again.
Baker at the time was quite frantic, quite emotional, quite hyper,
and somehow, for some reason John said let's go to
(24:52):
the police station. And Baker said okay, and John Thomas
said I'll drive. He said, no, I'll take this car.
Thompson was under clear whether Baker was then going to
scoot off, but as we know in the book, he
followed John Thompson to the police station.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Can I just stop you there?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Ted?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like, I know, he did go to the police station.
But I just want to, first of all, thank you
for articulating that. I've been silent because he took me
right into it. Just the brutality of what was inflicted
that night is unforgettable. Yeah, it is unforgetable. I just
want to before we carry on about what happens when
(25:31):
he got to the police station. I'm curious because and
I think this is the copying me. When that type
of stuff is going down, the radio is going bizarre,
people are getting called out, left, right and center. You've
got to shoot her on the run. That's just going
and killing people. And no one at that particular point
in time had an expectation that's going to hand himself
into a police station. So you got called out that
(25:53):
night he did, ye, explain your role and explain the
chaos of the night when that type of thing happens,
because it's very rare in the policing career that you
get caught up in that type of chaos when things
are happening in real time, and that literally you better
switch on and get your job done because otherwise more
people are going to be killed. So what was the
pressure and what was the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
So I was at home off Judy, We've got a
call from Detective Sergeant Bill Erickson to get to pick
up the A list Steve Potter and raced down to
the crime scene at North Wyl where Bill was waiting
with the other detectives, Senior Comfortable Peter Donaldson. At that point,
(26:33):
while I was en route, Baker had actually headed himself
into the police station. We weren't aware of that because
I was in my private car. When I got to
the scene at North Wyle, two Highway patrol constables were
meeting a log at the gate and on the gate
that they were quite traumatized about it, but they were
quite relieved because they said, oh, they've got him up
(26:53):
until moments before, nobody knew where he was.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Nobody knew because at that stage before he's handed him
self in I would imagine the police radio would have
been going off, tactical police would have been called from
all over the place, detectives would have been called out,
and there would have been car circulated if you had
the description of the car.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
There was a vague description of a car. There was
not a lot of details. It was only subsequent to
him handing himself in the details started to appear.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
He was just a sequence of events on the central case.
And when we're talking the central case, yeah, this is
all geographically in the same area and you just got this.
At any point, was he circulated as a shooter before
he handed himself in?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Okay, they didn't even know that. I mean, it was
an unusual event on that night where when Newcastle Radio
VKG alerted everyone on the channel, no more communications. The
only communications now that anyone's allowed to give is in
relation to this matter. Until it became clear that obviously
he'd been a.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Counted and like people went after we've talked for it
or you have explains what's happened. Would be thinking, well,
is he circulated as wanted that we're looking for him.
But when you get to a crime scene like that,
you first you've got to check that the gunman's not
still there because it could be an ambush, so that
that takes time.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Whether this one's related to that one, you've got to
wonder whether they're even related. And then when the third
ones happened that we have just been cha.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I think it was Codrek and I mean I had
a conversation with Bill Erickson at the scene. When they
arrived at the scene with Bill the Peter Don, they
were unsure that that scene wasn't hot with the shooter
active with the shooter, and they approached that with great
trepidation as well, because nobody knew there was no car there,
that Baker's Volvo was parked around the back out of sight.
(28:41):
It was only when they did a perimeter search of
the of the premises and tried to secure the premises,
not knowing whether there was a shooter inside, that they
saw the car. There wasn't enough time for police to
connect the dots of what Chris Gore was saying when
he's making those handwritten messages in Garter at Terrygill about
Malcolm Baker Volvo great cream colored Volvo. That information wouldn't
(29:06):
have resonated to the uniform police and the detectives at
Terrrigill at that point, because Chris Gore was the only.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
One that could only survive it was.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
The only one who could tell anybody anything about it.
Subsequent when the police turned up at Sherwood Close and
they managed to speak to Michelle Cooper, she would give
a version of events, still not been able to identify
Baker as the shooter because she didn't see him or
hearing the sea his car, but a witness saw the
car driving away. Subsequent to that, that witness identified the car.
(29:34):
That timeline to that has extended to the point Baker's
already gaunted to north Woong, He's already killed Ross Smith
and Leslie Reed, he's already driven to Dyleson and he's
contemplating his future. It was only those two little bits
of evidence that at those two crime scenes that would
have identified him, which made it even harder for police
across the coast to know who they're looking for.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Okay, you've been called out, you're in your private car,
you get to the crime scene. By that stage you
notified that the shoe that has handed himself in, So
you're looking at the crime scene. What's got to be done?
There talk us through the crime scene. Explain what you
saw and what you did there.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, So it was the starkest memory I have of
it is when I walked up to the porch and
spoke to Bill Ericson and Peter Donaldson. You could still
smell the gunpowder. You can still smell that smell in
the air because it was a small house. Bill gave us,
Steve Potter and I strict instructions about the managing the
(30:32):
crime scene. Obviously, now this was going to be a
big media event. Bill had told me it only just
found out about Baker heading himself in and Bill Bill
let Bill had. Bill felt an obligation to Leslie Read,
who was still alive, and she was transported from the
crime scene in a hospital to Gosford Hospital. Bill felt
(30:53):
an obligation to find out about her. He left me
and Potter in charge of the crime scene. He and
Donaldson and drove to the hospital at Wile to try
and make some contact with Gosper to get the situation
of Leslie Read. Unfortunately, Leslie Reid died very shortly after
she was admitted to Gospel Hospital from the wounds and
then in the in the In that process, he'd become
(31:15):
aware of Baker henning himself in and he moved to
He then went to Terrogo Police Station. Potter and I
it was a huge thing for both of us. It
was a massive crime scene, the biggest thing we've ever
been thrown. We're given the responsibility by a particular sergeant
to manage this crime scene. Don't let any media in,
(31:35):
don't let You've got witnesses on both sides. Go and
interview these witnesses. This is before laptops and iPads or whatever,
so they're all handbook, handbook interviews. Make sure that that
crime scene is intact. So Potter and I did a
perimeter search. We made sure we secured the car, secured
there's a dog at the back. Secured the dog. We
(31:57):
entered the crime scene and we could see that that
the house was quite a disheveled house, but it was
cozy in a sense. The TV was on, there was
a there was a pet cat sleeping on the couch
in front of the TV. We went down the corridor
towards the back room Ross Smith. You could see you
could see all the food and the wallet and the
(32:19):
belt that he'd thrown at Baker. You could see the
empty cartridges on the floor. Unfortunately, Ross was in the bath.
He slumped over the bath like that. The Supreme Court
judge mentions it, mentions it. There's the famous painting of
a man who's died in a bath whose arms slunk
over the edge. I can't remember the name of it,
(32:39):
but it was quite weird for the Supreme Court judge
to do that. But he was slumped over at the
edge of the bath with his brain matter on the floor,
completely dead.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Just on the personal thing, like and we're cops, so
we've all been to these horrific crime scenes. But it's
not very nice. Is that the smell? You forget you're
seeing bits and pieces of body parts. You shouldn't see
a shotgun blast of the head. I would imagine you
looking at pieces of the skull and the brain.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
It was all over the place. So it was. It was.
It was my first experience with firearms, serious firearms injuries.
Been to a lot of hangings and stabbings and you've
seen a lot of dead people at that point, but
never the power and the effect of that on an
individual was unforgettable. I'll never I'll never forget it. Cannet
just talking about it now. I can still smell it.
(33:27):
You can still you know you've been to crime since.
You can still smell that. The smell of death or
whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It's got a particular smell.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It has a particular smell. It's not like a moorg
it's different to a morgue, but it's it is.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Than the unforgettable, the blood and the blood and the bath.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And but the bath was full of blood. And you know,
as I said, Brain met on the floor the piece
of skull. And I didn't know at that time that
Ross had been shot in the chest. It was only
after when, with hours and hours later, when the crime
soon had been recorded, that that I helped the government
contractors lift Ross out of the and when we picked
him up, we could see the ward of that shell
(34:03):
had been bedded in his chest. That wouldn't have killed him,
That would have messed him up, but wouldn't have killed him.
And then then we walked into the back bedroom and
you could seal the trail of blood where Leslie had been.
You could see all up the wall where parts of
Leslie's arm and shoulder would sprayed up the war from
the shotgun, and you could seal the trail of blood
where she crawled into the bedroom, and then obviously all
(34:25):
the ambulance refused that was there, but they tried to
save her on the floor before they took her to
the hospital. And then and then we secured the crime scene.
And then it was just a long list of the videographers,
crime scene experts, commanding police with some authority, all wanted
to come and check out the crime scene. I did
(34:47):
a walk through with one of the victims to make
sure what they told us in the statement was true
or accurate to their recollections. And then yeah, we're seventeen hours,
fifteen hours later, we managed to extract from the bath.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And all this and people probably don't understand we've talked
this through. We'll talk about what was said when you
went to the police station handed himself in. But you
think like it's a laid down is that as in,
you've caught the person or you've got the person, but
there is still so much work.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
You've got to convict him.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
You've you've got to convict him, you've got to present everything,
you've got to gather the evidence, and yeah, there's so
much work to do there. I'm just I'm sitting here
talking about hearing you talk about that just brings me
back to those days of so much to the so
much to do with that. You had three crime scenes
on a huge scale. It would have been a long,
long and attire in twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
It was for pretty much everyone on the central coast.
We had three, three or four patrols local areas la
c's whatever they were called at the time. And you
know there was a lot of police involved and a
lot of police were adversely affected by day over time
and yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
It was pretty Did you did you stay on the
strike force like the investigation.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah we did. We were with Newcastle Homicide Squad through
Garth Christian and Scott Casey came and led the investigation.
After the initial interview because Bill, Bill, Bill Erickson and
Donaldson went to the police station.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
What was it, let's let's go, let's go police take
to the police station. So he's handed himself, Well, he's.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Walked up the stairs at Tukeley Plice station with John
Thompson and John there was a there was an amazing
uniform sergeant there called Ronnie Beard who ron did thirty
years in Redfern was basically come to the Central Coast
to retire. And Ron was on the counter this night
at Tukeley. Nothing nothing raddles Ronnie Beard and Ron saw
Baker was covered in body matter down his legs and whatever.
(36:49):
They had a conversation. Ron straight away took him into
the room, got him a cup of tea or a
cup of coffee or whatever, and then sat down with
him and asked him and made a handwritten contemporarious of
what Baker's version of events were. In the introim, Bill
Erickson's turned up, had a conversation with Ron and they've
have got other police to go and get the gun secured,
(37:10):
the firearm which is still in the car and the
band of there and then right Bill Erickson and Peter
Donaldson have had a conversation with Baker to make sure
that Baker would sign. And John Thompson witnessed Ron Ron
Beard's contemporary snakes because if Baker said nothing else over
the course of the investigation, that was the most important admissions.
(37:33):
Basically something we did talk at nauseum because of his
ego down the track as we talked about, but that
that the precience of of of of the sergeant on
the desk on that night. To do to get that
admission in writing and signed was you know, was.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Was well, it's with all all that happens, you've got
to get that admission and get that admission. That's right,
the earliest opportunity, especially when they're talking and then yeah,
they might have a change of change.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Said not have said another word, not said another word,
and if you hadn't said another word, that's the ad mission.
You go. You know, you're thinking about, well, this is
going to go to a hearing matter, it's going to
go to a full jury matter in a supreme court.
You need to dit every eye across everybody. He's got
to prove, got to prove everything.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
So just in summary, he did. He did the interview
with the detectives and then there was another it was
electronic recorded interviews.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
There was any Garth Christian and Scott Casey from the
homicide decided to take him to Gosford. Gossip was the
head station.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
This is when they're just for people listening. This is
just around the time when they're starting to bring in
their electronic recording of suspects. That's right in the police station.
That's not every police station had.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Not everyone toually did have one, but I think it was.
It was quite clever of Garth and Scott to want
to take him to the bigger stations where it could
have been booked into custody, though obvious thinking about making
sure they get everything right procedurally and procedurally everything was covered.
They had a Garth had a conversation with Baker in
the car between Tukeley and Gosford, which was also quite insightful,
(39:13):
but obviously there was not conversation that was recorded. Garth
would have made it contemporarious note of it. But when
he went to Gosford he was he presented as someone
who was quite defeated. He did exhausted the venom, he'd
exhausted the hate, he'd exhausted the passion to kill, and
he was quite a hollow man at Gospeld Police station
(39:37):
and so that procedure they booked him in and whatever
thing because it was getting quite late in the night
and Garth and Scott's case as good detectives were getting
information from the three crime scenes during.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
The course of the evening, during the course yeah, during
the course of.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
The evening, they were relying on just what Baker was saying,
they were relying on the crime scene evidence and whatever,
and they did the initial e respue of you at
some time early in the morning of the twenty eighth.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And one thing that you get the admissions, but one
thing you'd also want to demonstrate that he was of
sound mind absolutely at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Absolutely, and that that was a theme of the first question,
the first interview with Garth and Scott, and it became
a recurring theme when the Chief of the Detective Homicide
Lance Chaffei, reinterviewed him earlier in the morning after he
went to court, because that was that was the obvious defense.
We didn't have to hunt this bloke down. We didn't.
You know, there's no there's no he's making admissions. He's
(40:32):
headed himself in. Clearly he's going to run a mental
health defense. So they asked the questions about are you intoxicated,
so you hadn't hadn't had a drink, your stone cul sober?
Are you on meds? Yes, he was on juicyne or valium.
Had you taken any day, hadn't taken any any today?
The blood tests that they took of him on custody
confirmed that he was stone cul Saber had no drugs in.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
His body, so negating any mitigating circumstance, any possible.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Any possible mitigating circumstances, clarified any issues around mental health
or whatever mental health physical issues he had and mental
health that issues he had, and it was all unremarkable.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Okay, well, that's good to know. What were the overview
of what he said. Did he just try to justify
his answers to the questions that were put to him
what his actions were, or do he say why did it?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
He'd always played the victim. It was always someone else's fault,
like in the line of questioning, which is just covered
in the book in terms of great detail with the interviews,
But it was never his fault. I was wrong. They
did me wrong. I was virtually entitled to do this.
That nobody nobody believed me. Nobody. He actually brags about
(41:48):
the fact that nobody believed him, that I told him
I'd do this. It was their fault. Doesn't get angry,
doesn't get frustrated. He just just tells it as he
feels it. And the questioning in both interviews was obviously
very professional and unprovocative and elicited the type of answers
that were required to get him to a conviction.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
How did the play out in court?
Speaker 2 (42:12):
So he initially was yeah, he initially went to Gostard
Court in that morning of the twenty eighth. There it
was a huge crowd there. It was a big media event.
Some of the victims families were there and it became
as you see now on TV. Maybe not so much
these days, but in those days, you know, the mob
was there, the TV was there, whatever. So he was
(42:33):
a completely defeated, shallow man, hollow man in court. People
had to be ejective from court because they were threatening
to kill him and swearing at him. But so he
had the bail hearing refused. Bail was taken to Long Bay.
Then he had a number of bail hearings. He's officially
bar refused again or in December nineteen ninety two. He
(42:57):
had a paper committal at the Gosford Local Court on
the twin of December where it was flagged by the
defense that he was going to look for diminished responsibility
which at the time was available to him, which is
not available now. He ended up in the Newcastle Supreme
Court on the third of March where they were preparing
(43:17):
to go ahead with a trial. Evidence about his psychiatric
condition other evidence from social workers was tendered. On the
second of August, when they were going to commence the
trial before a jury was impanelled, He's decided to enter
a guilty plea. Over the next four days, a variety
(43:37):
of witnesses were allowed to give evidence, and on the
sixth of August in the Newcastle Supreme Court he was
convicted and given life a life sentence. On the third
of September ninety ninety five, he appealed to the new
South Wales Supreme Court on conviction on the sentence that
the sentence was too harsh. That appeal failed. On the
(44:00):
ninth of the ninth nineteen ninety six, he appealed to
the High Court for leave to appeal. There was a
twenty minute hearing and that was denied.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Well, I'm glad the court's got that one right.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah. Well, there was a two to one decision in
the Supreme Court, so there was one judge who had
a view about the harshness of the sentencing. But what
was interesting about that when you read that was that
there was this issue about because it was truth in sentencing.
I think that the state. The government had pushed all
that through, so there wasn't too many of these cases
that were people getting life for these type of murders.
(44:31):
And one of the justices said the New South Wales
Supreme Court had a view that he was not sentenced
as it wasn't a safe sentence. Was the other two disagreed?
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah, well that's why sometimes I get confused with court. Yeah,
what society do we have that someone that goes on
the murderous rampage like that has any right to have freedom?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, that's right. But it makes a point though, when
you and I have been in lots of court cases
and lots of jury trials and whatever, and the law
is so labyrinthine, there's so many avenues, there's so many
ways to get around. A thinks you've just got to
make sure that you tick every box to keep every
box legally. You've got all the case law, you've got
all of the High Court decisions or whatever, and you've
(45:21):
got to just have That's why I admire the judges
so much.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I like them too in that they absorb and they're
they're they're smart, they're clearly smart. I just always think
that the justice system when it's all said and done,
is there to serve the community, and.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
It doesn't always get it right here and that that's
the thing.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And I worry sometimes with the legal fraternity hide around
the technicalities and they're very smart the way they exploit
them or control things because of the the rules and
regulations and the legislation that's in place that we all
agree is needed. But sometimes the courts have got to
serve serve the community that they're set up to serve.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
They do know, having worked in child sexual site for
a lot of years and sat in a lot of
jury trials and the issues of trying to get a
conviction of a pedophile. Who's the only witness I've got
is the victim and it happened twenty years ago or whatever.
There's no crime scene, there's no physical evidence, there's one
word against another, and there's about thirteen or fourteen different
(46:26):
escape routes through the New South Wales evidence that before
any evidence even gets in. It was quite frustrating. So
I took the winds. Yeah, well that's.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Probably why you look so relaxed with this one. What's
he's passed away now?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah? So he was. He resisted all sorts of psychiatric treatment.
They to try to give him ant psychotic drugs and whatever.
So in June twenty four he was moved from the
super max at Goldbin. Suffering from cancer, he went to
the Long Bay Hospital for palliative care. He died handcuffed
to bed on Saturday, the twenty second of June twenty
(47:04):
twenty four. And the world's a better place. He spent
thirty two years taxpayer's expense. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
I look, when we talk about crimes like this, but
you know, for each murder, the ramifications, it spreads more
than just one person. That's all the people connected to
and the flow on damage and all that. You're talking
six people's lives taken in one night because of one
man's rage. And what can you talk about the aftermath
(47:33):
of the victims. Of you you've got any sense of
how it's like it's wiping it virtually wiped out a
family or a large portion of the family, the impact
that this crime has had on the people.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
I was very fortunate subsequent to his death to be
able to people reached out to me, and I spoke
to three of the victims. So I spoke to Paul Martin,
who was the police officer who's the de fact defiance
say of Lisa Gannon and his life. He didn't stay.
(48:06):
He dedicated, tried to dedicate his life to being a
better policeman subsequent to the murders, but it didn't pan
out for that much longer, and he's had he's had
a real struggle for the rest of his life, the
last thirty years to come to terms with what happened.
He's done a variety of jobs, been a fossica, worked
(48:27):
for the United Nations, being quite involved himself in a
high stress lifestyle, high stress occupation, to the point now
where he's content in a relationship, living in Victoria, doing
a bit of foster king and got a job and
was quite amenable to me talking to him about the story.
(48:49):
Still has has a memory or a part of the
child that they lost. They still he still reflects on that.
So I met him, I spoke to him. I spoke
to Scool, who was obviously the boy shot in the face,
lost half his face, and he similarly had had a
very very rough life style and is still struggling even
thirty two years later. Chris, Chris was very generous in
(49:13):
talking to me. Chris was I was very moved and
humbled to be able to talk to Chris about his experience,
and he gave me some insight into his version of events.
And the third person I spoke to was Michelle Cooper,
who was in the house when David Baker was shot
at the back. And Michelle has moved on with a life,
got a new family, still reflects on that night, still
(49:35):
emotionally affected by that night, but she has a very upbeat,
positive view of the view of life and was very
very happy to talk to me. And again I was
very humble and respected, respectful to talk to her as well.
So there's three of the people that I had. It
was quite interesting because when I finished the book, I
had a real moral dilemma because there's a lot of
(49:57):
people in this there's a lot of people's lives. Who
am I? What right have I.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Got to tell this?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
This is my passion project, this is my therapy, this
is my movement on from whatever? Who was I? So
when I first self published the book, I didn't I
just kept it in house. I gave it to my
family and friends because I was very proud of it.
It was only after I had the opportunity to speak
to those people and get their consent in a way
that I was able to set the book free and
(50:25):
you know it's available on Amazon and I sell it.
So it been able to relate to the people involved
firsthand and as a policeman, made me feel respectful, gave
me permission per se to be here today. Like in hindsight,
if I hadn't spoken to those those three and hadn't
(50:47):
felt enabled by them, I may not have been comfortable
doing this.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
I understand that, and full credit to you that you
look at it from that way, because it is such
a difficult subject. I look at this. You're telling the
story like you've done today and on this platform. I
think it's not glorifying crime. This is chrime and we've
seen it. Crime's horrendous and the flow on the fact
(51:13):
and the ramifications. But what it does is show people,
you know, when we talk about the gun control laws
after Port Arthur and the shit that happens over in
America and that we're fortunate that doesn't happen here. The
laws that they are bringing in for domestic violence, the
focus on domestic violence, coercive controls and all that. Those
that might argue and they don't think there's many in
(51:34):
this day and age those that might argue against that
sort of control. This is the type of shit that
can happen when things aren't aren't easily happen. So I
think what you've done today, and I hope what we're
doing here talking about it is explaining this is the
reason we need to go hard on these things and
these people that are controlling people and breaching AVOs and
(51:56):
all that we need to crack down on them because
this is a potential ramatic.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Case asolutely and we see it, we see it happening.
We do see it happening. So I dedicated the book
to all the victims of domestic violence. I don't just
say female victims. There are they're they're both sides of
the equation. It's just the majority of female. But they
dedicated to all the victims. And the last little monologue
I have at the end, you know, just ask the
question why. You know why? And I hoped if I
(52:21):
have a goal about out of this book was one
to my own help, my own recovery, but two that
there might be someone that picks this up at an
airport and reads it and a potential offender. You go, no,
I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
I don't want to be that.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I don't want to do that. Or there's there's potential
victims now who are suffering for coercive control and in
this situation, and they'll see how it happened and that
they can reach out and speak out if it happens
to one person. Well, I mean.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
I think it's a I think it's a good messaging
those crime scenes they are confronting. Did it have an
impact on you seeing that?
Speaker 2 (52:57):
I certainly had a delayed delayed in paper, because that's
the time, as you know, being a detective and investigating
big matters, you're actually in it. You're in the zone.
Like it's all about the work. It's all about making
sure that you're right, everybody's right, making sure that you
don't make any mistakes, making sure that you follow the
bureaucracy or the paperwork of it. So you don't feel
(53:18):
anything until until it's til it's till it's over. So
I was still quite high for days and days and
days after that, and then Garth and Garth Christian and
Scott Casey from the homicide squad came back to the
Central Coast and we all we met and we all
had we were all given tasks to go out and
interview these people and find it. So the crime scene
(53:38):
itself didn't The effect of the crime scene of me
initially was negligent in that I was still busy, were
still on the job, We're still doing the investigation. It
was only after the matter. Actually, I can remember the
day we were given the four volume brief of evidence
(54:00):
and I had this moment at why on police station
and I had these four volumes brief of evidence, which
is the one I carried around with me for thirty
years in my hand that I thought, I got emotional
that I reflect and I actually didn't want to look
at it, like the vanity was, so go to your part,
go to the part see your name in lights, you know.
(54:22):
And I didn't want to look at it, and I
didn't want to look at it, but I kept it.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
I understand what you're saying there with the confronting crime scene.
Some people would often ask myself, how do you react
to that? I really take on board what you're saying.
You're focusing so much on the work that you do,
you just you've got the blinkers on in terms of
I've got a job to do. Focus on that, and
it might be ages down the track where you reflect
(54:45):
on it, or when you have a quiet time and
you go, yeah, that was pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah, you do, you do, and it does come back
and slap you in a face like a wet fish.
There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Now you're looking after yourself. And it was good catching
up with Peter that I hadn't seen for a long
time over and you both, I've got to say, you
both look very relaxed, and you're having a bit of
fun touring on motorbikes and yes, living the good life.
Tell us through what you're doing. Now, let's finish on
the high because it's been a heavy staf.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
It has been a heavy and I really appreciate the
opportunity to let me talk. Gary, really do. But Peter
and I fell in love in the job. We met
in the job, and we should never have fallen in love,
but we fell in love in the job and moved
to the country and got married and had a beautiful
child who's got a degree in criminology. Oddly enough, but
Peter's always been into horses and I've always been into surfing,
(55:35):
and eventually we moved back to Newcastle because when I
got sick and had to leave, I needed to be
a safe place. So Peter and I moved back to
Newcastle where I grew up, and I reconnected with my
primary school friends, one of whom I'm about to ride
a motorbike around New Zealand with and we've known each
other for sixty years. So when I moved back to
Newcastle to recover, we did and we had a lovely
(55:57):
lifestyle there. Peter resigned retired from the cop as well,
and then the Newcastle lifestyle is very different to anywhere else.
It's hard to explain if you don't.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Live you're a Newcastle person or you're not a newcast.
They talking about I'm not sure if that's a compliment
or an insult, but.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
They talk about in the job the Newcastle Police was
because if you go to new Gum, they don't get
out of there.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
We've seen a lot of police up there and they've
never come back.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
They've never come back. It's like the triangle of police.
But over time we've just our daughter's grown up and
we've recovered from our illness, our mental illness, and happily
in love and we decided to move to the North
Coast to be with Peter's mother, and I started writing
an adventure motorbike a couple of years ago with my
friends from Newcastle and just fell in love with it.
(56:43):
The feeling of meditation, feeling of RESTful, being RESTful and
peace that I feel on an adventure motorbike. They go
on raid, but they go on dirt as well. And
I managed to talk Peter into getting a little one
and as you've got a little bit bigger one, and
I've just bought her a Murdoguzzy V eighty five t
t travel, which is her feet can't touch the ground,
(57:05):
but she's learning. So we do day trips away and
go and stay up and up around northern New South Wales.
I ride with my mates, still surf. My daughter's about
to return to Newcastle and start a law degree jurist doctrip,
which I'm very proud of. So yeah, we're very We're
in a very good place.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
Life's going good. Yes, Okay, well we'll put in a
little advert for joining the cops. You're fine, love have
an interesting career and end up riding motorbikes around with
the Woman of the Dreams. Yeah, well that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
Well, it's pretty good. Yeah, you know, it's funny how
those things come together. Like the psychiatrists have told us
over the years, this is a codependency. This this is sick.
This will never last. You can dependent on each other,
but it actually works because we know each other. We've
did the same we did the same ship, we've seen
the same ship.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Well, I know you guys when you got together, and
I can see the love hasn't passed out. So well done.
So I appreciate shout out to both of you. Thanks
for coming on. I catch Gillers. I've enjoyed the catch
up and the chat, and it's important getting that messaging
out there. So thanks very much, Thanks very much, Gery,
good luck to you and good luck in the future.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Cheers.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
It's always good catching up with ex colleagues. I enjoyed
chatting with Ted and so heavy subject that we were
talking about the murder of six people. I hope people
listening appreciate the gravity of what can occur when domestic
violence is not checked and gun control is not kept
in place. Six innocent people were murdered on one night
(58:36):
because of one man's rage. It's such an important lesson
to learn, and my thoughts go out to the people
who lost their lives because of just one man.
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