Mad Dog Moxley (11 page)

JUG EARS

Appears stone deaf, right ear
DR GARNET HALLORAN, 17 MAY 1932

Moxley sits in the van taking him from the court back to Long Bay Gaol. The hisses and cat-calls of the crowd outside the court are still burning in his ears. He covers them with his hands and feels them; how often has he heard comments about his ears? His ‘jug ears', his ‘wing nuts'.
A man can't help how his ears look, he thinks. That's not fair.
,

It seems to him that none of what's happening is fair. So many people against him and no one really on his side. Mr Hungerford and Mr Niland are on his side, he supposes. But it doesn't feel like it. Not really. And that fat judge. He's the one who matters and he looks at him like…He remembers judges and magistrates from days gone by. They're all the same. Safe. What do they know about being out there on your own? Grafting for a living? Having the cops come down on you for the least litde thing.

There is a small window of thick scratched glass in the van. He swivels around to look out and the guard with him shakes his head.

‘Sit straight, cunt.'

‘Can't hang a man for looking.'

He wishes he hadn't said that. Would it hurt? They reckon it's too quick to hurt but how would anyone know? There was a drop, wasn't there? That takes time. How long? How long would it feel? Could feel like a year. Mustn't think like that.

He has trouble remembering what went on in the trial. He can't tell how things are going but he has a feeling the prosecutor – what's his name again? McKean, that's it – is winning. All that stuff about getting petrol. Can't they see that giving that kid a few bob for doing bloody nothing shows how muddled he was? Confused in his head. And Mrs Harding. She could've been a bit nicer. Did she say I gave the kids a penny each and she let them have it? He can't remember. The fact is, that with his one deaf ear, he misses a lot of what's said, especially when the witness talks softly.

He stares out at the buildings and the trees. The sun is shining and he thinks it should be raining. He remembers sleeping rough when he was on the run and being hungry. Not hungry now. Three meals a day and not bad grub either. Tea a bit stewed mostly but that's all right. Plenty of Gold Flake. Cushy, we'd have called it in the army, cushy. But nothing's cushy now. Have I got a chance? Not with that bloody stuffed-shirt lot. That bloke on the end, the one who looks like a lawyer. He's opened the trapdoor himself.

Shit, back to it again. Hard to think of anything else. When they get to the medical evidence, things'll look up. They'll know I'm crook in the head. I belong in a hospital.

The van stinks of urine and phenyl but through it he can smell the sea. Must be getting close. How long have I got? Another couple of days of the trial and then what? He can't believe he'll get off. An appeal maybe. More time. But how much?

The van waits outside the prison until it's cleared for entry. Inside the reception compound two guards stand by as the van door is opened. Handcuffed and stiff-legged from sitting for hours, Moxley stumbles as he gets out and one of the guards laughs. He is escorted through a locked gate, retained for a minute by another locked gate, and proceeds through several stages like this to his cell. Along the way he sees the hostile faces and hears the insults of the other prisoners. This is hard. In other prisons he's had mates. Not here. He is under guard in the exercise area and the workshop. No one speaks to him.

He eats alone.

In the morning he writes notes to Lin and to Douglas. He hopes Lin will say the right things. She's a respectable woman and the jury should listen to her. She can speak up, too. He grins when he thinks of how smardy she can answer back when she has her dander up. That McKean better be careful not to step on her toes. But he hopes she'll keep her temper. Everyone in the court is so bloody polite. A man's afraid to blow his nose or scratch his arse.

He tries to read the Bible but the lines of small print blur and he can't take in the meaning of the words. He has trouble with a lot of the words anyway. Some of it's clear. Sin for one thing. He's been hearing that word for as long as he can remember. And hellfire likewise. Is Hell really a place? Hard to believe. Hard not to believe when they go on about it so much.

It's raining when the van pulls out and he's glad. He looks out the window and the sea in the distance is grey. He feels sick; he had to vomit before going up to the court yesterday and thinks he'll probably need to again today. His stomach churns as the van crosses a rough patch of road. Bloody useless driver, can't drive for nuts. He has a surge of despair as he thinks he'll probably never drive again. Never do a lot of things again. That's mostly all right, but he enjoyed driving.

A tooth at the back of his mouth aches. The aspirin they gave him at six this morning is wearing off and it'll be hours until he can get some more at lunchtime. But the headache is there pretty well all the time. He just lives with it.

A crowd – is it the same people? – is shouting just like yesterday. But he's ready for them. He stuffs some cotton wool in his good ear and now he can't hear a bloody thing.

THE TRIAL
(2)

…a Wassermann test for Syphilis
and the result was positive and also
khan's flocculation test for syphilis
and it was also positive.
^*
TRIAL TRANSCRIPT

The trial transcript reads:

Mr Hungerford to Supt. MacKay: You remember, I suppose, an occasion two years ago when Moxley was shot in the head. Do you remember that occasion?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you notice any difference in Moxley
after the shooting or not?

A: Yes.

Q: Was he a changed man mentally as far as you could see?

A: Mentally you say?

Q: Was there any difference in his behaviour?

A: No, what I saw was that before his shooting he was a bright, alert and cheerful man.

Q: And after the shooting, what do you say about that?

A: And after the shooting he was of a morose and suspicious disposition.

Q: He used to go to you and tell you his troubles and that sort of thing did he not.

A: Yes.

It was a remarkably positive testimony from a policeman who knew Moxley's record well and must have been aware of Hungerford's intention to construct a defence of insanity. Hungerford's request that Moxley be allowed to read a prepared statement was denied. Moxley said, ‘I can remember it, I think,' and proceeded to make a statement without reference to the written document, which occupies six pages in the transcript.

The statement is rambling and repetitive. Moxley began by claiming that he had been suffering from syphilis before he went to the war and had received very little treatment for it then or since. He maintained that he had received ‘a clean discharge' from his military service. He went on to give an account of being shot that accorded fairly closely with what he had said in court, an account the jury had rejected. He said his memory was uncertain as to the details of his hospitalisation but the upshot was that he had not undergone the requisite operation. He described headaches and ongoing paralysis of the side of his face.

Briefly, he tried to counter some of the evidence he had heard given, asserting that he had not intended to defraud his employees of their bonds and that they had not pressed him for money. He claimed to have had money from his business in his pocket ‘on the night of the tragedy' and no need to steal. The gun was for shooting rabbits.

A newspaper report on the trial stated that Moxley ‘broke down and wept several times during the recital'. There is, naturally, no sign of this in the transcript but his language was emotional at times, especially when referring to his son and his work. He made much of several injuries he suffered in the course of his timbercutting – a broken collar bone and concussion from a fall. He insisted that he had carried on working hard through these mishaps:

The hardest work I should say a man could do is an axe and a crosscut saw and a 14-pound hammer and wedge. I have been in the habit of working anything up to 21 hours a day to exist – to exist.

He went into details about his hours of work, missing his dinner, working seven days a week for extended periods, and falling into bed exhausted. Perhaps sensing that he needed to provide grounds for what he would assert in closing, he turned his attention back to the shooting incident. He claimed that he had changed from one who did not let things worry him to a condition ‘where everything upsets me'.

His headaches were catastrophic and could
only be relieved ‘a little bit' by aspirin and powders. Further, his friends had told him that when in the grip of severe headache he did things he could not recall later. ‘These headaches, gentlemen,' he said, ‘were very severe, right up the side of my skull, and there were occasions when I thought my head must burst.'

Winding down, Moxley referred again to his war record and again to his having a mother and a sister and to his respect for women. He did not mention a wife, although at times he had referred to Linda Fletcher as his wife.

He concluded with the two strands of his claim to be innocent. One, that he had no memory of the events of the night in question, and two: ‘It may seem ridiculous to you, having heard the evidence. It may seem ridiculous. I may say that on the night of this tragedy I had no control over my actions whatsoever. Perhaps these things can be explained. I cannot.' He added a few barely relevant remarks and concluded:

I may say, gentlemen, that as far as doing these people any injury that I am charged with, I have no knowledge whatever, absolutely none. I know nothing about the shooting of these people, and I do not think anyone does. That is the last word I wish to say, gentlemen, and I still maintain that I am innocent.

The court adjoined for lunch at 2.15 pm.

Hungerford called Linda Fletcher to the stand and questioned her about Moxley's ‘fits'. Mrs Fletcher said he had a couple of bad ones every week. McKean objected to the word ‘fits', arguing that it was a medical term and the witness was not qualified to use it. The judge did not rule on this but said the witness could describe what she saw. From then on Hungerford encouraged Mrs Fletcher to use the term ‘attacks'. She tried to, but sometimes reverted to ‘fits'. At some length she described how Moxley, when working in the yard of the Burwood house, chopping or sawing wood, would fall to the ground, thrash about and foam at the mouth. For about 20 minutes he would be in this condition, unable to speak or hear, until the attack passed. Wtth the help of Moxley's son she would get him inside to bed, where he would sleep for a couple of hours. On waking he would drink several pints of water and be unable to recall anything of what had happened.

She said he took up to seven Aspro tablets at a time. ‘He lived on them.' The attacks dated, she said, from when he had been shot in the head. He was not subject to them before that. Hungerford asked her to describe Moxley's general demeanour about the house. ‘He would be terribly excited,' she said, ‘and he would be rushing around and he would be wanting things done at the very moment he spoke of them. He was a terrible excited chap like that.'

Hungerford asked for specific examples and Mrs Fletcher said that, when things went wrong with a job he was doing, he would throw his tools around the yard.

‘I said to him, “You're mad. You ought to go back to the bush. You're silly.”'

She said that Moxley had had an attack about four days before 5 April and that he had banged his head upon falling in the bathroom. She recalled that at some time after he had been shot ‘A piece of bone came out of his right ear. I picked it out with a pair of tweezers. It was the length of my nail, that is to say, my small nail. I measured it. We were sitting on the step and he fainted that day.'

Apparently satisfied with her evidence, Hungerford asked no more questions. McKean then subjected the witness to a gruelling examination that occupies 15 closely typed pages in the transcript. Almost for the first time, the trial participants seem to come alive in the document. McKean attempted to probe the nature of the relationship between Moxley and Mrs Fletcher, implying, by close questioning on the structure of the house they occupied, that they lived together as man and wife:

Q: He occupies the same room as you?

A: He certainly does not.

Q: He has never shared your room of course, has he?

A: Indeed no. He has too much respect for that.

Q: He has never shared your room?

A: Indeed he has not.

Q: How many rooms have you in your house?

A: Three rooms and a dining room and kitchen.

Q: But at no time have you lived together as man and wife?

A: No, we have not lived together as man and wife but some people used to think he was my husband, that is, outsiders, but I have not lived in his bedroom.

Q: You call him Mr Fletcher?

A: When he took my name to buy a car they knew him as Fletcher then.

Q: He was known as Mr Fletcher to all the outside world?

A:No.

Q: He was known as your husband?

A: No, indeed he was not.

McKean went on to ask about the language they used to each other and of each other when talking to friends and acquaintances. Mrs Fletcher admitted that Moxley called her Lin and she called him William and sometimes Bill, but that neither claimed to be married. They went occasionally to the pictures together but otherwise did not socialise.

Mrs Fletcher had an invalid pension of 17 shillings and sixpence per week and Moxley paid board for himself and his son. She bridled when McKean asked if Moxley was supporting her at anytime.

‘I have never been a kept woman in my life.'

At another point when McKean was attempting to establish Moxley's presence in her bedroom or hers in his, she held her ground:

Q: He never had one of those attacks in your room, did he?

A: He did not and I object to you saying that.

When Mrs Fletcher said that Moxley's health was failing ‘every day' since being shot, McKean's questioning verged on harassment. He baited the witness about the precise meaning of the words ‘failing' and ‘every day'. His object was clear – to attack Moxley's statement about his work ethic. Mrs Fletcher became confused and said that McKean was putting his questions in a ‘funny' way. McKean virtually mocked her use of the word.

Armed with the statements about ‘failing health' and frequent fits, McKean moved to the question of whether it were possible for Moxley to work, as he claimed, for seven days a week. Sensing the danger, Moxley interjected: ‘This woman would not tell a lie to save my life.' McKean persisted and Mrs Fletcher protested:

‘I cannot tell you because you won't let me explain. I can't explain anything in the silly way it is going on.'

Hungerford objected to the manner of the questioning and McKean did not press the point. Clearly he had won the exchange. If what Mrs Fletcher said was true, Moxley could not have been the worker he claimed to be. A minor point perhaps, but if what she said about his health and the ‘fits' was untrue, the defence was severely damaged.

McKean returned to the question of the relationship between Moxley and Mrs Fletcher with questions about times of waking and sleeping, the preparation of meals and other domestic matters. Several times the witness described his questions as ‘silly' and McKean was condescending in reply. At one point he asked, ‘Who is Douglas?' as though he had not registered the name of Moxley's son, which had been mentioned several times. Despite this apparent lack of focus, he established that no doctor had been called to attend to Moxley when in a ‘fit'.

The Crown prosecutor's final questions were designed to bring the matter back to the facts at hand.

Q: Until he had his sleep would he be helpless?

A: Yes.

Q: Until he had a sleep would he be able to use a spade to dig the ground?

A: No.

Q: Or able to drive a car for a long distance on the road?

A: No, he wouldn't be fit to be driving a motor car as I always told him that.

Q: Would he be well enough to tie knots?

A: According to what knots you want me to say?

Q: Would he be strong enough to tie a man's hands behind his back?

A: Yes, I don't know whether he would do anything like that.

Hungerford's next witness was George Lawrence, a sawmiller who had worked with Moxley in the bush. He testified that Moxley took ‘fits' but his description was much milder than that of Linda Fletcher. The events lasted only a few minutes and Moxley did not thrash about, merely twitched a litde. Lawrence made no mention of frothing at the mouth. He did say that Moxley was inclined to be ‘dreamy' for some time after the attacks – unable to concentrate on the job at hand.

Hungerford put questions about Moxley's demeanour and state of mind. Lawrence was perhaps helpful to the defence case, though uncomplimentary. He said Moxley had difficulty keeping a train of thought and his memory was deficient on details of where and when he had delivered wood. Lawrence said that, privately, he coined ‘Dopey' as a name for Moxley. He said Moxley was often slow and hesitant of speech and dishonest, claiming he sold green wood for the full price whereas Lawrence knew he charged ‘a ridiculously low' price for it.