The Devil's Garden (20 page)

Established in August 2000, Operation Bounty was given eight undercover officers with the unofficial brief to go for the trifecta: to lock up prostitutes, punters and pimps. By night, the plain-clothed officers trawled the Northbridge streets, watching as up to 200 men a night solicited the services of street prostitutes. Often, the prostitutes waylaid a prospective client on his way to a massage parlour, offering their services for a greatly reduced rate. Over a two-year period, Operation Bounty put away 938 people. Its intelligence revealed that at any one time there were around 370 active prostitutes, aged between 14 and 41, working the area. All had a substance abuse addiction.

'Operation Bounty,' Bayens recalls, 'was an important attempt to clean up the streets. We got so many sickos in our net during that time. Coppers who showed their badges and got a freebie from the girls; lawyers, doctors, a high school principal, politicians. All out for what they could get, all out there hustling. We got a priest who told a prostitute, "Suck on my staff and your life will be saved." I don't know if she believed him or not.' Another night, they netted a police security officer who had made it known to a prostitute he was a police employee. 'He had asked a girl for fellatio and under normal circumstances he'd have been charged with soliciting and let go. But because of his position, we had to lock him up in case he went back to headquarters and shut down all the computers.'

With the Claremont killings fresh in their memories, Bayens told his blokes to be mindful of that case and to take particular notice of any crimes that were sexually motivated. 'When the taskforce was in its planning stages, I ran into Dave Caporn at police headquarters. We knew each other really well, having gone to recruit school together.' Bayens told Caporn what he was doing. 'I offered him the taskforce as a resource and told him that if he gave us some direction, we may be able to help him with Claremont. We were going to be out amongst these people every night, blokes who trawled the streets for women. It seemed natural to work together if we could.' But Caporn, according to Bayens, had other ideas.

'Thanks anyway,' he told him. 'But we don't need any help. We've got our man.'

Stunned at the lack of interest, Bayens could only assume that that 'man' was Lance Williams. 'If he's that good for it, why isn't he locked up then?' he asked Caporn. The question was ignored. 'That was the end of that,' he says. 'They didn't need our help. I really believed that they were on the verge of arresting someone, as it appeared they were confident they had all the evidence. But as time was to tell, they had sweet fuck all.'

Driving around Northbridge late one night, Bayens notices a Holden Commodore parked in a dark side street. He uses the police sign to call communications on his radio. 'VKI, this is GC 450. Can I talk to the unmarked car currently in Smith Street, Highgate?' Fitted with all the options that Holden add to police cars, but accessible by anyone – pursuit rims and tyres, lowered suspension – it was the same model that was being used at that time by the police. When a prostitute got into the vehicle, Bayens pulled the car up.

'I thought it was perhaps a drug bust and wanted to somehow warn the bloke to get out, that he could jeopardise our operation by being there,' he recalls. 'He was very tall and exuded confidence. If he approached you, and wanted something from you – information or whatever – you would accept him without question as a police officer. Even in the plain clothes that he was wearing, you wouldn't hesitate. I'd been in the force a long time but I didn't recognise him.' The radio room didn't either, coming back with a negative. He wasn't a cop after all.

With his mental antennae up, Bayens told the couple they would have to come down to police headquarters. 'Hand over your keys,' he told him. 'We have to secure your vehicle.' There was, he explains, a simple explanation for taking him in. 'It got my attention because there was a lot of talk around that whoever had done Claremont either was, or pretended to be, a person in authority. Like a cop or a cab driver.' In the boot of the car, Con's team found an arsenal of abduction weapons: zip ties, a balaclava, gaffer tape and scissors. 'The boot was fully lined with plastic, top and bottom. I put together a report on the bloke and did a running check on him. He'd completed a taxi driving course and done one shift. He was so hot as a possible Claremont suspect that the Bureau of Criminal Investigation wanted to put their dogs on him. But, as I'd been told, they "had their man".'

Furious and disgusted at the lack of action taken, Bayens points to the difference between Macro officers moving in on Lance Williams when the decoy officer was in his car and the information he wanted to pass on. 'The sort of thing that happened to the decoy with Williams was happening every night in Northbridge. But they just didn't want to know.' He pauses. 'Because of the Prostitution Act, it is illegal to release the personal details of any person who has been arrested. But in saying that, I can assure you that what I have told you will stand up to any scrutiny. The best we could do was try and charge the bloke with soliciting a prostitute, which we couldn't do because there had been no financial transaction. We had to let him go.'

Bayens was only too aware of how tight the Macro taskforce was. 'A cop mistakenly got out on the wrong floor at Curtin House headquarters because it used to be his office. The Macro guys grabbed him, frogmarched him into the supervisor's office and made him sign something akin to the Official Secrets Act. He kept trying to tell them he'd made a simple mistake, but they weren't really interested in listening, apparently. They didn't muck about there in terms of security.'

On Hayley Dodd's 18th birthday, the family erect a wooden wishing well with three wishes on it. 'We wish she was home safe and well. We wish it never happens to anyone else. We wish the person who is responsible is brought to justice.' They are still waiting.

In May 2001, Margaret penned yet another letter to Police Minister Michelle Roberts. She quotes some of the responses she received when she dared to ask questions of the investigating officers. 'I can't comment, it's more than my job's worth'; 'If I've got time'; 'I don't know nothing about your case'; 'We don't want a media circus'; 'That won't happen'; 'We are understaffed'.

By June 2002 Roberts openly criticised the investigation in the media, claiming that there were 'clear deficiencies in the way the investigation into Hayley's disappearance was handled'. Margaret concedes that because of the distance from Perth, and the place from which Hayley disappeared – halfway between Perth and Geraldton – it is highly unlikely that she is the victim of the Claremont serial killer. But doubts niggle. 'She vanished into smoke. No clues left behind. That's not the work of a killer who has simply seized an opportunity, is it? If that had been the case, her body would probably have been found by now. That's the work of someone who is good at what he does. Practised.'

Almost five years to the day after Sarah Spiers disappeared, in late January 2001 Dave Caporn was awarded the Australian Police Medal. In his speech, he gave credit to the detectives who had put their careers aside to work on Macro and reflected on the legacy of the murders. 'Today is a day of mixed feelings for me. It is usually a day where I reflect on what Don and Carol Spiers are going through and certainly what the Glennons and Rimmers are going through. We may not have solved this case yet, but I get a sense that the team may have prevented others from becoming victims.'

The sentiments, though noble, are not shared throughout the community, least of all by the 'persons of interest' highlighted by the Macro taskforce. And certainly not by the Dodd family, who still wait for news of Hayley; by the McMahons, who mourn for Sarah; by Jane Rimmer's family, who have little faith in a resolution; or by all the other families of missing women or unsolved murders in WA.

Dave Caporn was appointed commander of Operation Zircon, a bold attempt to curb the violent excesses of Western Australia's bikie gangs, formed immediately following the murders of retired police officer Don Hancock and his bookmaker mate, Lou Lewis, on 1 September 2001. The colourful names of the gangs – the Coffin Cheaters, Club Deros, the Gypsy Jokers, God's Garbage – and their actions, invoke fear in Perth, used to the incessant media coverage of drive-by shootings and revenge killings. The police needed a way to get to the big fish. When Gypsy Joker member Sidney 'Snot' Reid did the unthinkable and implicated his bikie boss, Graeme 'Slim' Slater, in the murder of Hancock and Lewis, they had apparently found it.

Hancock had spent 35 years in the force before his retirement in 1994. The former commander in charge of the CIB, he was responsible for the arrest of the Mickleberg brothers – Raymond, Peter and Brian – who, despite proclaiming their innocence, had each served lengthy jail terms following their 1983 convictions for the audacious swindling of $650,000 worth of gold from the Perth Mint. But shortly before his death (and following Hancock's death in the car bombing) disgraced former detective Anthony Lewandowski confessed that he and Don Hancock had beaten up and verballed the Mickleberg brothers in order to secure their convictions. His confession marked a new low in the history of a force persistently dogged by rumour and allegations of questionable practices, of police protecting their own. Riddled with guilt and an urgent need to unburden his conscience before he died, Lewandowski's affidavit, signed 5 June 2002, was a damning indictment of corruption and evidence tampering. 'At the time when they [Mickleberg's brothers] were charged with the offences on 26 July 1982,' he wrote, 'I said to Don Hancock that I didn't believe he had enough evidence and he said to me, "Don't worry, it will get better."' While Brian – who later died in a helicopter crash – was released and his name cleared after nine months, Raymond and Peter, who respectively served eight- and six-year sentences, fought through four unsuccessful attempts to have their convictions overturned. The detectives, they claimed, had lied, fabricated confessions and planted damning evidence. In three of those appeals, Lewandowski and Hancock testified. Finally, 25 years after their first trial, the Western Australia Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the criminal convictions. But former WA Assistant Police Commissioner Mel Hay came out swinging. He and other police, he defiantly told a huge press contingent, still believed the Micklebergs were guilty.

In retirement, Don Hancock – regarded by many as the Roger Rogerson of the WA police – had incurred the wrath of some Gypsy Jokers when he demanded they leave his country tavern, near Kalgoorlie, after one swore at his daughter. An hour later, bikie Billy Grierson was shot dead as he sat next to Slater at the Gypsy Jokers camp site.

'The police officer at the tavern that day had left the bar after Grierson and his mates were abusing Hancock's daughter,' John Quigley recalls. 'Yet this same officer is now sent to investigate Hancock! He couldn't see anything wrong with that, he later told the coroner, because there was no other CIB available. Well, last time I checked, it's a 40-minute flight from Kalgoorlie to Perth by the police plane. They could and should have put fresh police investigators in there.'

Declaring they would take revenge on Hancock, whom they blamed for Grierson's death, Hancock made the decision to relocate to Perth with his family after his home and pub were destroyed by bombs and fire. But his close connections with police could not save him. In an act more akin to a terrorist attack, Hancock and Lewis were killed when a car bomb exploded in a suburban Perth street. A snitch by a gang insider was a gift for Caporn, who had long waited for someone to roll over. A court win was hotly anticipated.

That Reid had planted the ammonium nitrate bomb was never in question. Copping a life sentence at the 2004 trial after he pleaded guilty to his role in the murders, what was in contention was whether Slater, as Reid claimed, had handed him the parcel containing the bomb and later, in a scene reminiscent of a Bond movie, used a mobile phone to detonate that bomb. Already a marked man in bikie circles for turning on his own – for which he earned a 10-year reduction in his sentence – and for breaking the code of silence, he scored himself further ignominy when he took the stand against Slater at his trial. Slater's alibi – that he was 100 kilometres from Perth when the bomb went off – was backed by his mother and sister. Slater's defence lawyer told the jury that Reid was a liar and that police had showed him favour in return for his testimony. Police are not, he said, always the heroes anymore than bikies are always the villains. The jury believed him and Slater was acquitted of wilful murder. Four other bikie associates were found not guilty of plotting and then planting bombs at Hancock's property.

Stunned and disappointed by the verdict, police covered their faces with their hands and sat open-mouthed in silence. Later, a grim Caporn tried to put on a brave face. 'We considered that Slater was a dangerous criminal who committed violent crimes. We considered that he killed Don and Lou, but he's been found not guilty and we have to live with that decision.' But, he added, the investigation had brought many important results.

There were compensations. In 2004, Caporn won an inter-national award for Most Outstanding Investigation on behalf of the WA Police Service. While Operation Zircon failed to net Slater, police did not hesitate in pointing out it had resulted in busting the Gypsy Jokers' WA state president, Lenn Kirby, for possession of amphetamines with intent to sell, and the conviction of Gypsy Jokers' associate Garry White for the 2001 wilful murder of Anthony Tapley.

While a beaming Caporn boasted that Zircon secured the rollover of key members of a bikie group and in doing so had broken new ground in the fight against outlaw gangs, his opponents in the force were aghast that a failed operation had netted him an award. Next, they grizzled, he would be rewarded with a knighthood for the Claremont serial killings when they are still unsolved.

With Macro officers constantly asking for help from the public, they have a battle sorting out facts from fiction. In the first flush after the three disappearances, more than 12 people are repeatedly nominated as serious suspects. Caporn is quick to point out that they have all been thoroughly investigated, but three men, aggrieved at what they claim is police inaction in investigating their claims, take matters into their own hands and call a press conference.

Calling their group Citizens for the Apprehension of the Real Killer, with the unfortunate acronym CARK, their spokesperson Frank Silas reveals his suspicions about a casual employee who had worked at a suburban factory while Silas was a supervisor. The man, he claimed, had worked until 10 pm the night Ciara vanished, missed work on Monday and then returned to the factory with deep scratches on his face that he passed off as having been inflicted by his pet dog. Silas didn't believe him; weeks before, around 2 am, he said he had seen the man and his girlfriend offer a lift to young women waiting for taxis near the Stirling Highway in Claremont. They also offered Silas a lift, which he accepted, but when the man started talking about going to a marijuana crop in the bush, he bailed out of the van at the first opportunity. Not long after, the man by chance started work at the factory.

Silas backed up his claims, flourishing sheaves of letters he had written in the past four years to people in power, including the police minister, police officers and the police commissioner. Eight months after he claimed he had made the first overture to Crime Stoppers about his suspicions – just days after Ciara's body was found – the man was formally interviewed about the matter. Bemused reporters scribbled furiously as Silas continued. He named the man and claimed that once at work the accused had pointed a small knife at Silas's ribs, saying this was how he dealt with street kids. More bizarre claims followed. The man, Silas said, had once boasted that he was 'more famous than Christopher Skase' after a newspaper carried a report on the Claremont killer on page one, and a report of Skase on page three. The circumstantial evidence mounted: he had been sacked – though later re-employed – for assaulting a female staff member and his girl-friend sported a claddagh ring, identical to the brooch Ciara had worn. They worked as a team, Silas surmised.

Proof that police had dealt with Silas's claims was contained in letters shown to the press. One, in which Silas refers to police as 'high-school dropouts', incurred the wrath of Police Commissioner Barry Matthews, who seized the opportunity to outline at length the educational qualifications required of detectives.

A defensive Caporn later told the media that despite the 'great lengths' that police had gone to placate Mr Silas, it was without success. He could barely disguise his sarcasm. He felt for Mr Silas, he said, because the issue 'was obviously taking up a large space in his life'. He added that another person had recently threatened to put the information about a suspect he had on the internet, 'because we wouldn't arrest this person for the Claremont murders'.

'This sort of thing really irked Caporn,' a Macro insider recalls. 'He was busy enough trying to put out fires that existed, let alone ones that arsonists had started just so they could watch them burn.'