The Echo of Silent Screams: The Gold Coast Hitchhike Murders

By Eric Wilson

The Echo of Silent Screams is the culmination of many years of exhaustive research by Eric Wilson, the elder brother of one of the murdered girls, into what became known as the Gold Coast Hitchhike Murders.

But The Echo of Silent Screams is much more than a murder mystery. It opens up the very soul of one of the families involved in this disturbing case, which still remains unsolved over 40 years later.

This ebook is from the original book published by the author on this matter in 2003. It has been followed up in 2015 with The Ricochet of Echoes: The Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans Murders which explores the 2013 Coronial Inquest into the young women's deaths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jul 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781925353105

Eric Wilson

ERIC WILSON grew up dreaming he’d become a mystery writer. He’s done just that with his numerous books, using real Canadian locations and creating compelling and resourceful young heroes who find themselves living exciting adventures. Since Murder on The Canadian was published in 1976, the Tom and Liz Austen series has sold over 1.5 million copies in Canada. Wilson lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with his wife, Flo.

Book preview

THE ECHO OF SILENT SCREAMS

THE GOLD COAST HITCHHIKE MURDERS

by

ERIC WILSON

MoshPit Publishing

an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

PO BOX 147

Hazelbrook NSW 2779

http://www.moshpitpublishing.com.au/

Text and photographs copyright 2015 © Eric Wilson

All rights reserved

Other images copyright © of the individual contributors as acknowledged.

Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to ensure that this book is free from error or omissions. However, the publisher, the author, the editor, or their respective employees or agents, shall not accept responsibility for injury, loss or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of material in this book whether or not such injury, loss or damage is in any way due to any negligent act or omission, breach of duty or default on the part of the publisher, the authors, the editor, or their respective employees or agents.

———DEDICATION———

I dedicate this book to all the grieving, tortured and damaged souls who have ever had the violent death of a loved one thrust upon them.

For whatever little comfort it is worth, I hope you can find some solace in the fact that you are not alone. And for whatever groundless guilt you have inflicted upon yourself because of your tragedy, I sincerely hope you can find it in your heart to forgive yourself, and in the process find the pathway to your inner peace, so you can move on with life, as I have done.

———ACKNOWLEDGMENTS———

My deepest appreciation extends to everyone — family, friends and associates (and you know who you are) — who has assisted, encouraged and supported me on my personal quest, to discover what happened to my sister and her friend, and to expose their killers for what they are in the process; and also for understanding the healing aspect of my journey.

Special acknowledgment must also be extended to the following institutions, as they are all interwoven through circumstance or timing, and play an important follow-up part in conjunction with this book’s release and its ongoing ramifications to this case. To Queensland Newspapers Ltd, encompassing the Courier Mail, the Sunday Mail and the Brisbane Telegraph — for their access to original archival newspapers, which in the interest of seeing justice done they have so willingly allowed me to reproduce. I thank them and their reporters on behalf of the family for the past twenty-eight years of media contribution to this case, and I thank them for the publicity and articles they will no doubt continue to print in conjunction with the police department’s ongoing investigation into this case.

To the homicide detectives of the Brisbane police department — for the supportive assistance they have given me within their legal constraints. I thank them on behalf of the family for having the foresight to set up a cold-case task-force with Lorraine and Wendy’s case on the agenda, and for being prepared for the investigative ramifications that this book’s release will surely have upon their department.

To my publishers for coming along at just the right time — I thank them for being perceptive enough to realise the significance of this book and for their visionary approach to making this book a reality. I thank them for their joint co-operation with the police department and the media but, most of all, I thank them for believing in me.

———INTRODUCTION———

As you read this book, I’d like you to stop occasionally and consider the ages of these girls. I call them girls because that is exactly what they are, fledglings just old enough to have flown the family nest.

Most are still in their late teens. They are really not worldly enough to be called women, not mature enough to be mothers, and certainly not wise enough to be grandmothers.

As a reader it is quite easy to view events in the abstract and become detached. The true impact of the emotions these girls endured throughout their ordeal to the end can only be put in its proper perspective by making a conscious effort to relate their ages to someone you know of the same age.

Maybe this young girl could be your daughter, a niece, a sister, a friend, or maybe just the friendly check-out girl at the local supermarket, but please, whatever you do, do not substitute or write them into the text, do not even put that thought out into the universe.

But also, do not become complacent and believe this sort of tragedy only happens to someone else; do not be comforted by that thought. The reality is, if it could happen to a member of my family, it could also happen to a member of yours.

———DISCLAIMER———

The assumptions, speculations, insinuations or hypotheses about events, other than the documented facts, written within the pages of this book are my views alone, not those of the police department.

This case is still open and active, and as such I have not been privy to any files or information other than those available to me through legal access under the Freedom of Information Act.

At no time have I been privy to suspects’ names, or to the ongoing nature of police investigations.

My prognosis of those events is based not only upon the cold hard facts, but also upon the speculations of countless newspaper, radio and television reports and interviews over the years. This information, when compared with other horrific, yet solved sex homicides, is blended together in my mind with the emotional turmoil and suffering inflicted upon my family and myself over the last twenty-eight years. This mixture of feelings, emotions, intuition and the imagination, has produced a picture in my mind, which, until the case is solved, I can only believe is true.

Written in the text which follows, is my journey, and an account of how I’ve rationalised these events.

Eric Wilson

Sydney, January 2003

———FOREWORD———

The names of Wendy Joy Evans and Lorraine Ruth Wilson form part of history for the most evil of reasons — they were murdered on or about the 6th of October 1974 in the Toowoomba area when they were in the prime of their lives.

Their adventures and innocent holiday in Queensland was shortened by a vehicle mechanical failure, which would later prove to be fatal as they hitched towards home.

To the families of Wendy and Lorraine their journey, as those of many homicide victims, has been full of years of torment and unanswered questions.

The author of this book, Eric Wilson, explores those questions in a never-ending quest to provide some closure to this horrific and senseless act by individuals who still enjoy the qualities of life.

The Queensland State Homicide Investigation Group remains committed to successfully solving this crime with the only impediment being the length of the life of those responsible.

As the Detective Inspector responsible for a group of dedicated and tenacious Homicide investigators I urge members of the community who have knowledge of those responsible to come forward and end the nightmare of the Evans and Wilson families.

Mike Condon Detective Inspector

Queensland Police Service

State Homicide Investigation Group.

———PART 1———

A BIT OF HISTORY

Chapter 1

MY JOURNEY BEGINS

THE PLAQUE WAS REALLY NOT THAT HARD TO FIND.

It was in a place where you’d expect it to be, on a grassed area right outside James H. Laws House within the grounds of St George Hospital, Kogarah. It still stands where it had originally been laid twenty-six years ago. Considering all the development that had taken place on the hospital grounds during that period, including the removal of the tranquil treed garden and seating area surrounding the plaque, there is something profoundly reassuring and comforting in the fact that it has not been disturbed. The brass plaque is affixed to the top of an erect rough-chiselled sandstone slab standing possibly 30 to 45 centimetres in height. It reads simply, In memory of Wendy Evans and Lorraine Wilson P.T.S. August 1973 July 1976 (P.T.S. refers to preliminary training school).

The five-storey historic building, James H. Laws House, which twenty-eight years ago was a live-in institution to house and feed trainee nursing recruits, is now an administration block for the hospital. Carpet now covers the rooms, hallways and stairwells. The echo of excited chattering, of scuffling feet, has long since died away.

Any traffic sounds, to trigger distant memories of yesteryear, are muffled and lost amongst its fibres. But beneath the carpet no doubt, exists the polished floorboards, or perhaps the glossed lino that cushioned the feet of so many young aspiring Florence Nightingales. Regal mahogany banisters, lovely polished works of fine craftsmanship, snake their way up the wide stairs. The handrail appears to stop halfway between floors, to perhaps mark time, or to rest as the nurses would no doubt do to chat briefly with their peers, before sharply turning 180 degrees to continue their journey up to the next level. The mouth of the stairs opens directly into the corridors, a T-intersection where you turn left or right. Walls are cement rendered, painted off-white. Corridors are generous in width and height. And small but private rooms with varnished timbered doors dot the hallways. Upon entering a room, you find a single double-hung window that can be opened from the top or the bottom; they are secured by butterfly latches, operated and held open by sash cords and counterweights.

I feel I know this place, not that I’ve been here before, not to this hospital, but I’ve spent time in buildings and educational institutions just like this one back in the late sixties and early seventies. This place has the same feel as boarding schools or university colleges of that era. Everything then was standardised, students came and went, it made maintenance easy. Even the communal bathrooms stick in your mind; these ones would have been no different, and although tiled, usually in an exotic colour, the rooms were without an exhaust fan. They were bleak, draughty and cold, particularly in winter with the windows open to let some of the steam out.

It’s not difficult to identify with these trainee nurses. I can still hear the echoes of heels on hollow floors loud in my ears. The reverberations convey a sense of discipline, an expectation of learning, of character building, of comradeship and bonding, a sense of all-for-one and one-for-all. Those institutionalised days, in hindsight, were nostalgically romantic. They represented the beginning of an adventure, not only in one’s chosen profession, but also in one’s personal development. That adventure all began with the moving out of home, and with the cutting of umbilical ties.

My sister, Lorraine, like so many others from the bush, and indeed from all over the state, cut those umbilical ties, moving a long way from her home to become institutionalised within the hospital system. It was here, in this hospital, that the cogs were first put in motion to determine her ultimate fate. Here she would forge a friendship with one of her classmates, Wendy Joy Evans.

I can understand this bonding mateship. Who else could possibly experience and understand what a trainee nurse was going through, other than another trainee nurse? Nursing is a unique, caring profession; it not only requires physical strength, but it also requires a mental strength from the nurse to balance her own emotional sanity, by not allowing herself to be drawn too deeply into her patient’s world. The nurse has to juggle compassion and empathy with sympathy and understanding, and in the right doses, to deal with the emotions of sick, distraught and sometimes dying patients.

I guess likewise, members of the police force would form friendships within their own ranks, connected by the same phenomena, as would veterans from the wars, hence the legends of the Anzacs. Only they know what their mates are feeling and experiencing, so they close ranks and protect each other’s backs. With this phenomenon in mind, I try to understand the psychology of this loyal mateship between the two girls and follow it through to the very end, for it seems they were destined to be connected not only in life, but were also destined to be connected in death.

You may wonder, when faced with abduction, pack rape and premeditated murder, if one girl would have deserted the other? The answer to that is no, one of the girls escaped at one time to raise the alarm, but then came back to try to save the other. If that isn’t bravery and reckless self-sacrifice for a mate, then I don’t know what is. Tragically, their bodies were to be found metres apart in the same lonely field, their heads were to be smashed in by a lump of timber as they lay bound by the legs with their hands still tied behind their backs. How did all this happen? Sadly, as the case has never been solved, there are a lot of questions that can never be answered.

***

But, it was the Director of Nursing I’d come to see. I needed to find out if the hospital still had any files on my sister, to find out what sort of a student she was, and what potential she had to become a good nurse.

The files were not available, I was told. Nobody was sure if records were kept for that long, someone would have to dig through the archives to see if any could be found. The staff were most eager to assist; this was also important to them, they were dealing with one of their own. They hastily tracked down retired people who’d worked at the hospital all those years ago. One of those contacts remembers the police coming and taking away all the relevant files; nobody remembers if they were ever returned. I was told that some records must exist, it may take some time, but they’d get right onto it and get back to me as soon as possible.

It was only a week or so before I got a response in the form of a letter:

Dear Eric

I have found Lorraine’s file, as promised, some information that may help you write your book, and Lorraine’s Preliminary Training School photo.

Lorraine commenced Preliminary Training School on 31st August 1973. She passed all her exams at B level. She topped the class in Neurology/Neurosurgery in her first year with a score of 90%.

Lorraine’s first ward was a medical ward — Ward 24. She gained a score of 41/60. She was commended on her attitude to the patient; attitude to professional authority; appearance; interest in nursing; professional conduct and punctuality.

In Lorraine’s nursing practical examination she gained 8/10 and 8.5/ 10 for temperature, pulse, respiration and getting a patient out of bed. Comments regarding her initial interview for nursing on 3rd June 1973 stated, ‘appears to be a sincere girl who has achieved a reasonable degree of maturity’.

Lorraine’s second ward was Ward 4. In this clinical placement she gained 43/60. The most excellent achievement was her ability to ‘sincerely sympathetically understand the patient and the clinical plan for him as an individual’.

New nurses on the ward had to have ‘signed off’ several procedures. The clinical tutor of the time stated of Lorraine, ‘Nurse Wilson has improved immensely since she started. She tends to be very shy, but is becoming more outgoing now. Her practical procedures are improving and with further help and supervision I feel she would make a good little nurse’.

The Assistant Executive Director of Nursing who’d written me this letter then went on to say,

I have been a nurse for over 40 years, and in 1973, I was a tutor sister at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. I can verify by what I have read that Lorraine would indeed have been an exceptional nurse.

St George Hospital has not forgotten these two young nurses and the memorial stands proudly today as it ever did.

I hope for you Eric and your family that this journey you are on is not too painful, it will bring up strange emotions of anger and sadness, but I hope it will bring you some closure soon.

How very apt this closing paragraph and sentiment seemed to be. This nurse was intuitive and insightful, she was very good at her job. She defined my quest as a journey, and that is exactly what it is. Even after twenty-eight years, the echo of Lorraine’s and Wendy’s silent screams still haunt me. I need to find some answers, to put things in perspective. I need to tell this story. This is a journey to settle the restless and disturbed soul within me.

But to bring us to this point, I must go back to the point of conception, for everyone has a heritage, a mother and father, a blood line that defines the parameters of who they are, and how they could ultimately turn out. However, each biological individual is not exclusively the result of their genetics; their behavioural characteristics are also a product of their environment. Welcome to Lorraine’s world.

Chapter 2

GRASS ROOTS

TODAY IS 21 JULY 2002, AND TODAY IS LORRAINE’S BIRTHDAY.

She would have been forty-eight years old today. Her birthday is impossible to forget: she was born on the same day that man first walked on the moon fifteen years later, on the same day we all gathered around our radios and televisions to hear Neil Armstrong say those famous words as he took those first steps, ‘One small step for man — one giant leap for mankind’.

As I begin this chapter I spare a thought for my mother. She, like no doubt every other mother who has ever given birth, can remember the exact details surrounding the birth of that child, the hospital, the nurses, the hours of labour, when their waters broke, the time of birth, and amongst other things, the weight and length of their baby. If you asked a male, he wouldn’t know any of these details, because he didn’t go through the process of carrying an unborn child for nine months, and he didn’t go through the labour and birthing process which initially bonds the mother to the child. I suspect on this special day that my mother is thinking back to when she gave birth to Lorraine, and amongst the other pleasant shared memories of the day, will also come the sadness of her daughter’s demise, the reality of that fact hitting home with a visit to her grave site.

Life has a beginning, an end, and a middle, and life for Lorraine began on 21 July 1954 at Dubbo Base Hospital. She was the fourth and final child, and second daughter to my mother and father. With an approximate five-year span between the eldest and the youngest, we all grew up as a close-knit family on a 1800 acre (730 hectare) sheep and grain property situated about forty miles (sixty-four kilometres) out of Dubbo.

***

My mother was originally a nurse stationed at Sydney during the war years. She’d met my father after he’d disembarked from the troop carrier for the last time, and was waiting around with thousands of other soldiers to be processed in order, to be officially and honourably discharged from the army. It was only because Mum had developed a bonding friendship with another nurse at the time, that they’d had the opportunity to meet in the first place. That other nurse just so happened to be my aunty, Dad’s sister, who’d also left the farm to go to the city and help out with the war effort. It was the result of this friendship with Dad’s sister, that would see Mum travelling out west to explore the possibility of sharing her love and life with a man on a rural property, so far, far away from her own family. They were married in the autumn of 1947; their first child, my elder sister, was born two years later.

My father’s occupation, as shown on our birth certificates, was categorised as Farmer/Grazier. Even as a kid he had always worked the land in conjunction with his brother and his own father, his only respite from it being when he joined the army at age seventeen to go off and fight the war against the Japanese in New Guinea. The property, originally a merino stud, belonged to my grandfather, but with his retirement and moving into town with my grandmother, the place was subdivided down the middle and passed on to my father and his brother. So, at this point when I was about ten and Lorraine was about five years old, my parents’ new exciting adventure had begun, and of course, as kids, we were dragged along with their excitement.

My father already had the name of his