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Links of interest.
Adelaide Oval Abductions
Adelaide Oval Abductions
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Arthur Brown - serial killer?
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Plenty about him in numerous threads but a topic I think deserves its own thread - he could well have been one of Australia's worst serial killers, who perhaps remarkably escaped conviction on any charge.
Brown was born in Merinda and spent most of his life in North Queensland.
He worked mainly as a maintenance carpenter for the department of public works, where coworkers remembered him as a polite and obsessively neat man who always had sharp creases ironed into his work clothing.
Hester Porter
In 1944 he married Hester Porter (née Andersen), who had 3 children from a previous marriage. Hester later told her older sister Milly that she had once caught Brown molesting a child, and had since tried to keep him away from children.
Later Brown started a relationship with Hester's younger sister, Charlotte, who had 5 children of her own. The affair was "known but not acknowledged" by family members. In 1978 Hester, who was now bedridden with arthritis, died after hitting her head in a fall at home. It was later revealed that the family doctor had signed the death certificate without examining the body, and that Brown had hastily had it cremated days later. Many family members believe Brown murdered Hester.
Charlotte moved in with Brown soon after Hester's death, and the couple married later in the year.
In 1982 another sister of Hester's came forward and confided in family members that she'd been molested by Brown when she was a child. This sparked a string of accusations by yet more family members of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of Brown, with a total of 45 seperate cases. Many of his child victims had been taken to Antill Creek, 25 kms south west of Townsville, to be molested. However, no charges were pursued at the time.
Mackay sisters
7yo Judith Mackay and her 5yo sister Susan disappeared from a bus stop just 200m from their Townsville home on an August morning in 1970. A search was mounted later that day, and their bodies were found two days later in the dry bed of Antill Creek.
Both girls had been r*ped, strangled and stabbed, and their school uniforms were found neatly folded in their school bags and placed next to each of their bodies.
Several witnesses reported seeing the girls on the morning of the abduction with a suspicious man driving a rare blue Vauxhall Victor, with some reporting the vehicle had a drivers door in a mismatched colour. Other witnesses reported the car was actually a blue Holden, however one witness, a worker at a service station, refilled the vehicle and stated the petrol cap was on the left side of the vehicle, which meant it could not be a Holden.
The physical descriptions of the man given by witnesses matched Brown's somewhat unique wiry appearance, although police at the time focused on finding the vehicle, not the driver - no identikit or drawing was displayed to the public.
Police believed at the time the car was a Holden, and the witness statements suggesting otherwise were discounted.
Brown was working at the Mackay sisters' school at the time of the murders, and relatives later reported instances of strange behaviour by Brown at the time. He seemed obsessed with the case, at one stage he falsely claimed to know the girls' father, and he offered to take other family members to the site "where the bodies were found". He also drove a blue Vauxhall Victor with an odd coloured drivers door at the time - he soon removed the door and replaced it, buried it, before later recovering it and taking it to a local tip, because "he didn't want people bothering him".
A few weeks after the murder, Brown confessed to the killings when speaking to a stranger he had spent the afternoon drinking with in a pub. The conversation was reported to police, who then spoke to Brown and officially discounted the drunken confession.
Years later Brown again confessed to the murders to a workmate, who didn't report the conversation to police, believing Brown had been joking.
Following a Crimestoppers program in 1999, a family member contacted police and the cold case was reopened. Brown was charged with dozens of counts of sexual abuse of children, and the murders of the Mackay sisters. The trial ended with a hung jury, and Brown was later deemed unfit for retrial due to his worsening Alzheimer's.
The case has been closed with all involved satisfied that Brown committed the murders.
Adelaide Oval abduction
Brown is regarded as a suspect, with the identikit of the abductor baring a striking resemblance.
After seeing Browns picture on TV in relation to the the Mackay murder trial, a witness from the Oval case, who saw the two girls being led away by a man, came forward to state that Brown was the man she had seen - this was however 25 years later, and the witness was aged just 14 at the time of the abduction. It can be argued though that Brown's distinctive appearance hadn't changed a great deal in that time.
She had also reported that the man wore horn rimmed glasses, which he had dropped and picked up. Brown was known to wear horn rimmed glasses at the time.
Attempts to establish whether Brown could have been in Adelaide at the time have proven fruitless. Employee records may have shown if he had been on leave from work at the time, but those records have been destroyed, possibly in the Brisbane floods of 1974.
The only reported link to Adelaide was from a former colleague who reported a conversation with Brown during which he mentioned seeing construction of the Adelaide Festival Centre nearing completion. This would have placed him in Adelaide at some stage during a window of time which also coincides with the Oval disappearances.
Beaumont Children
Although no other links have been made, the fresh allegations regarding the Adelaide Oval case has led to suspicion that Brown may have been active in Adelaide - and once again, the identikit of the man seen with Beaumont children when they disappeared bares a resemblance to Brown.
Marilyn Wallman
Fourteen year old Wallman disappeared in Eimeo, Queensland on her way to school in March 1974.
Witnesses reported seeing a blue Vauxhall in the area at the time. Brown and his wife, Hester, had been to visit relatives in Mackay, however Brown's Vauxhall had broken down and the couple returned home by train, with Brown returning to Mackay alone to pick up the car. Depending on some variables, police believe it possible that Brown was passing through Eimeo (around 10km from Mackay) at the time of the disappearance.
Wallman was never seen again and no body was ever found.
Catherine Graham
Eighteen year old Graham was a door-to-door saleswoman who was murdered in July 1975. She was door knocking in the area of Brown's house on the day she was murdered.
Police believe two men were involved in the crime, however Graham's body was found at Antill Creek, close to where the Mackay sisters were found.
Brown died alone in a nursing home in July 2002, leaving instructions that no public death notices be placed. Only one stepdaughter was made aware of his funeral, and he left no surviving blood relatives.
Brown was born in Merinda and spent most of his life in North Queensland.
He worked mainly as a maintenance carpenter for the department of public works, where coworkers remembered him as a polite and obsessively neat man who always had sharp creases ironed into his work clothing.
Hester Porter
In 1944 he married Hester Porter (née Andersen), who had 3 children from a previous marriage. Hester later told her older sister Milly that she had once caught Brown molesting a child, and had since tried to keep him away from children.
Later Brown started a relationship with Hester's younger sister, Charlotte, who had 5 children of her own. The affair was "known but not acknowledged" by family members. In 1978 Hester, who was now bedridden with arthritis, died after hitting her head in a fall at home. It was later revealed that the family doctor had signed the death certificate without examining the body, and that Brown had hastily had it cremated days later. Many family members believe Brown murdered Hester.
Charlotte moved in with Brown soon after Hester's death, and the couple married later in the year.
In 1982 another sister of Hester's came forward and confided in family members that she'd been molested by Brown when she was a child. This sparked a string of accusations by yet more family members of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of Brown, with a total of 45 seperate cases. Many of his child victims had been taken to Antill Creek, 25 kms south west of Townsville, to be molested. However, no charges were pursued at the time.
Mackay sisters
7yo Judith Mackay and her 5yo sister Susan disappeared from a bus stop just 200m from their Townsville home on an August morning in 1970. A search was mounted later that day, and their bodies were found two days later in the dry bed of Antill Creek.
Both girls had been r*ped, strangled and stabbed, and their school uniforms were found neatly folded in their school bags and placed next to each of their bodies.
Several witnesses reported seeing the girls on the morning of the abduction with a suspicious man driving a rare blue Vauxhall Victor, with some reporting the vehicle had a drivers door in a mismatched colour. Other witnesses reported the car was actually a blue Holden, however one witness, a worker at a service station, refilled the vehicle and stated the petrol cap was on the left side of the vehicle, which meant it could not be a Holden.
The physical descriptions of the man given by witnesses matched Brown's somewhat unique wiry appearance, although police at the time focused on finding the vehicle, not the driver - no identikit or drawing was displayed to the public.
Police believed at the time the car was a Holden, and the witness statements suggesting otherwise were discounted.
Brown was working at the Mackay sisters' school at the time of the murders, and relatives later reported instances of strange behaviour by Brown at the time. He seemed obsessed with the case, at one stage he falsely claimed to know the girls' father, and he offered to take other family members to the site "where the bodies were found". He also drove a blue Vauxhall Victor with an odd coloured drivers door at the time - he soon removed the door and replaced it, buried it, before later recovering it and taking it to a local tip, because "he didn't want people bothering him".
A few weeks after the murder, Brown confessed to the killings when speaking to a stranger he had spent the afternoon drinking with in a pub. The conversation was reported to police, who then spoke to Brown and officially discounted the drunken confession.
Years later Brown again confessed to the murders to a workmate, who didn't report the conversation to police, believing Brown had been joking.
Following a Crimestoppers program in 1999, a family member contacted police and the cold case was reopened. Brown was charged with dozens of counts of sexual abuse of children, and the murders of the Mackay sisters. The trial ended with a hung jury, and Brown was later deemed unfit for retrial due to his worsening Alzheimer's.
The case has been closed with all involved satisfied that Brown committed the murders.
Adelaide Oval abduction
Brown is regarded as a suspect, with the identikit of the abductor baring a striking resemblance.
After seeing Browns picture on TV in relation to the the Mackay murder trial, a witness from the Oval case, who saw the two girls being led away by a man, came forward to state that Brown was the man she had seen - this was however 25 years later, and the witness was aged just 14 at the time of the abduction. It can be argued though that Brown's distinctive appearance hadn't changed a great deal in that time.
She had also reported that the man wore horn rimmed glasses, which he had dropped and picked up. Brown was known to wear horn rimmed glasses at the time.
Attempts to establish whether Brown could have been in Adelaide at the time have proven fruitless. Employee records may have shown if he had been on leave from work at the time, but those records have been destroyed, possibly in the Brisbane floods of 1974.
The only reported link to Adelaide was from a former colleague who reported a conversation with Brown during which he mentioned seeing construction of the Adelaide Festival Centre nearing completion. This would have placed him in Adelaide at some stage during a window of time which also coincides with the Oval disappearances.
Beaumont Children
Although no other links have been made, the fresh allegations regarding the Adelaide Oval case has led to suspicion that Brown may have been active in Adelaide - and once again, the identikit of the man seen with Beaumont children when they disappeared bares a resemblance to Brown.
Marilyn Wallman
Fourteen year old Wallman disappeared in Eimeo, Queensland on her way to school in March 1974.
Witnesses reported seeing a blue Vauxhall in the area at the time. Brown and his wife, Hester, had been to visit relatives in Mackay, however Brown's Vauxhall had broken down and the couple returned home by train, with Brown returning to Mackay alone to pick up the car. Depending on some variables, police believe it possible that Brown was passing through Eimeo (around 10km from Mackay) at the time of the disappearance.
Wallman was never seen again and no body was ever found.
Catherine Graham
Eighteen year old Graham was a door-to-door saleswoman who was murdered in July 1975. She was door knocking in the area of Brown's house on the day she was murdered.
Police believe two men were involved in the crime, however Graham's body was found at Antill Creek, close to where the Mackay sisters were found.
Brown died alone in a nursing home in July 2002, leaving instructions that no public death notices be placed. Only one stepdaughter was made aware of his funeral, and he left no surviving blood relatives.
Quadzilla
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Geez ... he drove the car they were looking for!!! What were the cops doing?
IN the frame for so many kids abductions it seems?
IN the frame for so many kids abductions it seems?
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The way I understand it the police gathered a range of statements, and on balance came to the conclusion it was a Holden - so focussed their attentions there.
Quadzilla
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I posted that other article ... its acknowledged the cops faaaked up! :-(
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Thanks to nivek48 for linking this excellent series by Andrew Rule elsewhere. A must read
http://www.eimeo.com.au/eimeo-articles/2001/7/8/evil-under-the-sun-part-one/
http://www.childchairs.com.au/child-chairs-articles/2001/7/8/evil-under-the-sun-part-two/
http://www.eimeo.com.au/eimeo-articles/2001/7/8/evil-under-the-sun-part-one/
http://www.childchairs.com.au/child-chairs-articles/2001/7/8/evil-under-the-sun-part-two/
Quadzilla
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The scary part is the people that had good recollection or able to describe the suspect in Qld and Adelaide Oval matching Brown yet police seem to discount them.
It appears the initial decision that locked them into looking for a Holden in Townsville led them to ignore the Vauxhall and any link to Brown?
A sliding doors moment ... If Brown is arrested in 1970 ... hmmm
It appears the initial decision that locked them into looking for a Holden in Townsville led them to ignore the Vauxhall and any link to Brown?
A sliding doors moment ... If Brown is arrested in 1970 ... hmmm
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vast
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Gee what a sick ****, a tragedy that he seems to have committed crimes that could have been prevented with better police work.
Speaking of which does it seem we have less and less serial killers going around today. I guess these guys are being caught much earlier with all the improvements police have to work with these days.
Speaking of which does it seem we have less and less serial killers going around today. I guess these guys are being caught much earlier with all the improvements police have to work with these days.
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From much of what I've read about the Mackay murders, with the crime being so rare in the 1970s, along with it being in what was then a relatively small rural place in Townsville, the level of shock and outrage was unprecedented. There was a hell of a lot of pressure on the local police to bring together a very quick investigation and result. They took shortcuts and concentrated on the "consensus" from witnesses, rather than thoroughly following up every possibility.
The car is a good example - there were individual witnesses who identified it as a Vauxhall, yet the majority thought it was a Holden or "like a Holden". So they followed that path, even to the extent that those who originally identified it as another make changed their statements.
This was also before the days of specialised statewide homicide squads, so the local branch handled the case/s. They certainly weren't experts in the field and may not have had the calm investigative skills we're familiar with now.
A few things combined to botch the investigation and let the killer escape.
He and Derek Percy are the most evil men that this country has had the misfortune of producing. Who knows how many child murders they are responsible for.
Brown's crimes also highlight the incompetence of some police investigators. If they had focused on the man instead of the car, the Beaumonts and the other two girls would be alive today (if he did it). Classic tunnel vision.
South Australia Police in particular, past and present actions and comments have reeked of incompetence and ignorance. E.g. Instead of continuing to follow potential leads right after the Beaumonts disappearance, they decide to consult an effing psychic!!
Let's look at a more recent one. The barrels uncovered in Yatina in 2009 that were reported to contain weak traces of blood and a acidic substance, along with a childs shoe, were dismissed by police investigators as having no relevance to the Oval case despite the documents that led to the discovery indicating otherwise .
So according to SA Police, two barrels buried in a well in bushland, that contain weak traces of blood and acid, which were handed to you by a confession from the son of a man that police had allegedly questioned in regards to the Oval Abduction, are irrelevant.
The information that led to the discovery was dismissed as "fantasy" and it took private investigators to prove that it was quite the opposite. It took 5 years and the hard work of the PI's to force the police investigators to take a look.
One would think that after having no breakthroughs in 30+ years, police investigators would look into what could only be described as the biggest lead they have had in this case. Yet they dismissed everything and described the discoveries by the PI's as "irrelevant".
Yatina could possibly hold the answers to what happened to the two girls who were abducted from Adelaide Oval, and maybe even more based on some of the rumours.
Sorry for the slightly off-topic rant guys. Just sick of seeing SA Police air their arrogance and ignorance.
Brown's crimes also highlight the incompetence of some police investigators. If they had focused on the man instead of the car, the Beaumonts and the other two girls would be alive today (if he did it). Classic tunnel vision.
South Australia Police in particular, past and present actions and comments have reeked of incompetence and ignorance. E.g. Instead of continuing to follow potential leads right after the Beaumonts disappearance, they decide to consult an effing psychic!!
Let's look at a more recent one. The barrels uncovered in Yatina in 2009 that were reported to contain weak traces of blood and a acidic substance, along with a childs shoe, were dismissed by police investigators as having no relevance to the Oval case despite the documents that led to the discovery indicating otherwise .
So according to SA Police, two barrels buried in a well in bushland, that contain weak traces of blood and acid, which were handed to you by a confession from the son of a man that police had allegedly questioned in regards to the Oval Abduction, are irrelevant.
The information that led to the discovery was dismissed as "fantasy" and it took private investigators to prove that it was quite the opposite. It took 5 years and the hard work of the PI's to force the police investigators to take a look.
One would think that after having no breakthroughs in 30+ years, police investigators would look into what could only be described as the biggest lead they have had in this case. Yet they dismissed everything and described the discoveries by the PI's as "irrelevant".
Yatina could possibly hold the answers to what happened to the two girls who were abducted from Adelaide Oval, and maybe even more based on some of the rumours.
Sorry for the slightly off-topic rant guys. Just sick of seeing SA Police air their arrogance and ignorance.
Quadzilla
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Unfortunately "people" like this were able to get away with murder due to the limited technology available and outdated policing practices. Not only that - forensics was also in its infancy and limited by what means it had.. Finger prints mostly
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The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, eh...
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I liked the bit when he set his hair on fire.
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Whenever I read this ... sends shivers ... a facebook page set up by a sister of the AO missing girl, Joanne Ratcliffe continue to seek answers...SA government have offerred a $1mill reward...there are too many matches to say its not this man, Brown!
GreyPower
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I would put Von Einem in same category as Brown & Percy.
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Add Milat too ... stalking the victims, kidnap (torture?) and murder ... which these four did ... possibly nothing could be worse?
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Incredible ineptitude by the police.
Why, though, did the case end up with a hung jury?
Why, though, did the case end up with a hung jury?
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Have you read 'evil under the sun' I posted links above ... part 1 explains where the police went off course right at the beginning of their investigation. I'm interested in the hung jury too ... I'll see what I can find out
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I read both parts, yes. They didn't delve into the reasons for a hung jury though.
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All I could find ... his age and no real proof appear to be factors....
http://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/brown-arthur-stanley.htm
Trial and aftermath
The trial of Arthur Stanley Brown for the murders of Judith and Susan Mackay, began on October 18, 1999.
Although evidence regarding Brown’s pedophilia had been given at the committal hearing it had been ruled prejudicial at trial and therefore could not be put before the Supreme Court jury, the jury were unable to reach a decision on the strong but circumstantial evidence.
A new trial was set for July 31, 2000 but before it could start newspapers reported “the case did not proceed for legal reasons which cannot be published”. The court suppressed release of the legal reasons until July 2001.
In 2001 it was revealed that Brown's lawyer had applied for a section 613 verdict (unfit to be tried) from the jury. The jury had rejected the application, but in the meantime Brown's wife Charlotte had referred the case to the Queensland Mental Health Tribunal who ruled that Brown had progressive dementia and was also suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and was thus unfit to stand trial. The Attorney-General lodged an appeal and the court concluded that the Mental Health Tribunal did not have the jurisdiction to make the ruling and commissioned an independent psychiatric report. In July 2001 the report concluded that Brown was unfit to stand trial because he was suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease and all charges against him were dropped.
Death
Charlotte Brown died in April 2002. Ostracized by his family he moved into a nursing home in Malanda, north Queensland where he died three months later on July 6, officially an innocent man. Everybody involved with the MacKay case is satisfied that Brown committed the murders and police have closed the file!
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Only 11 years to get an answer, but anyway...
Andrew Rule on last night's Channel 9 show, said the jury were deadlocked at 11 -1. The 1 wasn't prepared to find guilt because Brown looked very similiar to their own Grandfather.
Words fail me.
