Searching for Answers: The Truth Lies out There Somewhere

By Marlene Gunn

A young man is found collapsed backwards over his bed still fully clothed from the previous day. His housemates, Catherine and Martin, cannot rouse him. They know he should have been at work some time ago but they walk away. Catherine goes to work. Martin has a cup of tea and goes back to bed. About forty-five minutes la

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marlene Gunn
• Release date: Oct 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995397316

Marlene Gunn

Marlene was born Marlene Grace Hazen in the Victorian town of Kerang, in the Kerang and District Hospital in 1943. She spent the first seventeen years of her life in Murrabit, growing up among the citrus and peach orchards which sourced their water from the Murray River. Long summer days were spent riding horses with friends and then swimming in the once clear waters of this great river. With these same friends she attended Murrabit Primary School and Kerang High School. From there it was to Bendigo for two years to study the Trained Primary Teacher Certificate. She turned twenty in the August of her first year teaching at Pyramid Hill. Two years later, she was transferred to Mildura High School where she met Geoff Gunn. They married two years later in 1967. Geoff collapsed and died while teaching at Merbein High School in 1977. Marlene moved to Bendigo with their three children: Debbie, Billy, and Tracy. The plan was to stay there for two years, renting a property, while Marlene completed her Diploma of Arts and General Studies and worked on her Social Science Degree. Studies continued, but instead of renting, they purchased a cottage on two acres of land in Maiden Gully about nine kilometres from Bendigo. School, sporting commitments, and newly found friends made Marlene realize that the children had found a niche in this community - so they stayed. Strong bonds with Mildura have remained, as have the friendships founded at Murrabit and Kerang and at Bendigo Teachers' College. Marlene is settled contentedly in her home, 'Lavender Grene', where a menagerie of feathered and furry companions share the gardens she loves so much. It is a children's playground, as well as providing much pleasure for her special adult friends to relax and enjoy with her.

Book preview

Introduction: Billy’s Story

There came a time in 2009 when I looked with shock at the library shelves in my study and was quite agog at the accumulation of folders relating to the death of my son, Billy: Coroner’s Court; Minister for Police; Chief Commissioner’s Office; Office of Police Integrity (OPI); Victoria Police Association (The Association); Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT); Freedom of Information (FOI); Ceja; Government Solicitor’s Office (GSO); Copies of correspondence with journalists and newspaper stories. The list grows.

Billy is dead, yet I was expected to file all these folders away as if the many years of anguish, humiliation, sleeplessness and my determined (and undoubtedly annoying) persistence had never occurred. All doors had now been slammed shut and this was supposed to be the end of it.

But now, as I began to randomly open each folder and re-read the discourses that had transpired, I understood more. With a mind less clouded by the frustration and hurt of those earlier years, I was able to assess the contents far much more clearly and objectively.

I had to write Billy’s story.

I needed to write Billy's story.

But I was hesitant.

Where do I begin? What experience did I have in writing? Nothing of significance I believed, and then I began to recall that perhaps I had always found writing as a way to express myself. I had won notice, praise and awards for my writing, which always surprised and amazed me. In 1960 I won the Kerang High School poetry award for Peelin’ Spuds. At Bendigo Teachers’ College in 1962, I won the Sidney Walter’s prize (he was the principal) for poetry with A Drop of Wax. Not long ago, as part of a course I was attending, I wrote a short story/essay based on an ancient myth or legend. I was embarrassed when I quietly slipped it onto the lecturer’s table because I knew it wasn’t up to tertiary standard. It was many weeks before I dared visit my pigeon hole. I sat on the nearby seat in stunned amazement when I saw his comments. I had received a distinction for my writing!

I was a fairly regular writer of verse – particularly during my high school, college and early teaching years. Almost every Embers (college periodical) included a poem of mine, submitted anonymously most times.

I thrived in the classroom where I was in my element. I loved teaching but would never extend myself beyond the zone where I was most comfortable and could perform to my best. The Peter Principle loomed like a grim reaper promoting incompetence, and I certainly wasn’t tempted to challenge myself in an hierarchy where I knew I’d doubt my own competency. I wasn’t that self-assured. I was happy in the classroom and had no desire to seek any promotion that would take me away from direct contact with twenty or thirty challenging and stimulating students.

So, you may well ask, why am I writing this story if I have such doubt about my ability and fear failure?

I need to write my story for my son, Billy, and his mates and for my family. I need to write about the concerning issues surrounding my son’s death that the authorities cannot, or will not deal with, and answers they do have that are denied me. I need to put everything down in some semblance of order so maybe I can make sense of this history.

I need to try to do this honestly and truthfully – warts and all.

Would a spectre scribe be a preferable alternative?

No! I must write this is in my own words. While there are many much more skilled than I am, I worry that someone else’s words telling my tears and my pain and my grief, my laughter, my love and my happiness, would not read to me the way I feel it. It is important that the public be made aware that despite media suggestions that there have been several investigations into Billy’s death, there have in fact been none – none that I am aware of, except for the compilation of The Brief of Evidence.

I write this story because I am now able to respond to some of the issues raised. I realize that there is a common conflicting theme regarding the death of my son, Billy. He was corrupt? He was sabotaged?

I write this story because I need the reader to understand that while there have been many trials and challenges that have thrown themselves across my path, I have managed to salvage stability. For the love of my children and my family we have picked up the gauntlet and faced adversity full on. But this time, losing my son, the task is insurmountable. There will be no closure, no conquering adversity. We can only keep questioning and praying that someday there will be answers, and Billy will be able to rest more peacefully.

‘Expect the Unexpected.’ Those words emblazoned on a tombstone in the Eaglehawk Cemetery held little significance for me until that day in 2001 when a knock on my front door and the presence of two uniformed police officers changed my life forever. From that day forward that inscription on the tombstone became less enigmatic. Maybe in a way I do now expect the unexpected. Before 2001 nothing could have appeared to be so absurd. Now, if there’s a knock at the door and a uniformed person is present, I do expect the worst.

This story is the truth as I know it, as I have been told it, and as I have read it.

For the protection of some people, I have changed their names.

I have recorded events as accurately and as truthfully as possible from the following sources:

- The Brief of Evidence: Conversations and actions of those present at the time of Billy’s death are taken from statements made by witnesses and recorded in the Brief of Evidence…as are comments about Billy’s career and the high regard with which he was held.

- All of the above mentioned entities in the first paragraph: Victoria Police Departments, government organizations and journalists – and my correspondence with them: interviews, faxes, emails, letters, recorded telephone messages, telephone conversations and newspaper articles.

- I have maintained exceptionally detailed diaries over the years, particularly from 2004 onwards, and I have referred to them and relied on them heavily as a reference for names, dates, events, conversations and emotional impact.

- I have visited the Google search engine for confirmation of information, definitions, identifications and elaboration of the same.

As the reader travels with me on this journey there will be assumptions that I am anti-police. This is definitely not true. As a result of my investigations and search for the truth I have experienced some very unpleasant and insulting incidents, which have overwhelmed me with negativity. Those experiences and that negativity, however, have not and do not reflect my overall opinion and attitude toward the many, many excellent officers in our Victorian Police Force. I shall forever feel a great warmth and gratitude for the gentle Mary-Anne Karm who arranged access to counselling for me twenty-four hours a day. On many occasions I was hysterical with grief and sought help in those dark post-midnight hours while I grappled with the reality of the agonizing horror thrust upon my family. Mary-Anne’s ongoing communications and contact kept me on an even keel when I feared I was sinking.

Today I count among my dear friends many young men who are serving officers with the Victoria Police Force.

Similarly with the Victoria Police Association (The Association). During the early days after Billy’s death, members from The Association were wonderful and I don’t know how my family and I could have managed without their support – physical, financial and emotional. Kaye Murphy was on my doorstep early in the afternoon on that dreadful day. She was instrumental in locating Tracy in Spain and arranging her flight home, played a vital part with Billy’s funeral plans, and continued to be a constant and concerned visitor. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kaye and to The Association during those early years of the twenty-first century.

Things turned somewhat sour and confused with certain divisions of the above departments many years after Billy had died.

I expect that there will be readers who will question the validity of my findings and who will inevitably want to tell me that I am wrong.

To those critics I ask, Where were you when I was seeking the answers to my questions?

Tell me what you know that I am not privy to.

My knowledge is limited only by the information that has been allowed to me.

Of course there have been many mixed reactions regarding why I have felt the need to write this story. Walk in my shoes and you may be able to understand.

Many may view my attempt with pity believing me to be ‘just a mother’ (a grieving mother) seeking answers. However, I am far more than that. I am a citizen of this country who believes that we have the right, not only to seek justice but to find it.

I hope that this book will create a mandate for a proper investigation to be done.

Chapter 1: My Life Closed…

Billy Gunn

My life closed twice before its close—

It yet remains to see

If Immortality unveil

A third event to me.

So huge, so hopeless to conceive

As these that twice befell.

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need from hell.

-Emily Dickinson

Oh Snow, Billy Gunn has died… As she cried that dreadful news to my father, the agony and anguish in my mother’s voice ripped through my heart like red talons shredding my life into bleeding streamers of indistinguishable pain – a screaming banshee of cruel death. The reality of the inconceivable was becoming agonizingly clear. It had happened. My life had closed. My son was dead.

I stood in my study, alone. Two police officers waited in the kitchen. These harbingers of destruction were total strangers who had been given the task of thrusting my life from sublime contentedness into this torturous abyss.

I was very much alone. It was with a robotic and numbed response that I forced myself to the telephone to begin what I must do. And just how do you begin to tell family what you yourself have not yet begun to accept, what you cannot believe?

My eldest daughter, Debbie, lived with her husband and family in a small Mallee town, Underbool, three hundred and fifty kilometres away. My voice carried my grief before the words said it all. Debbie’s knees gave way and she fell to the floor.

It was to be another six hours before Debbie, Anthony and the children were able to be with me.

Tracy, my youngest, was working in Ibiza, a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. I could not telephone her direct as she had lost her mobile telephone – again.

I had the telephone number of her boss, Willie, written down on one of Tracy’s emails that I’d printed out. I kept telephoning the number but only got a garbled reply in Spanish – so I hung up. I assumed it was an operator’s recorded message telling me I was not dialling the correct country code.

It never occurred to me until many days later that the recorded message was undoubtedly telling me that Willie’s telephone was unattended and to leave a message.

I tried to send Tracy an email. I knew it was futile act, but I could not stop trying to locate her. My writing was all over the place and almost delirious – incomprehensible.

I sought directory assistance from international numbers. I was eventually connected to a number in Spain. It was hopeless. She had no information about the island. She couldn’t find any telephone numbers for either of the bars where Tracy worked. Maybe it was my Australian accent that made it difficult for her, even when I spelt out the names letter by letter. Ibiza is a famous holiday island. Why couldn’t she recognize it?

Kaye Murphy from the Police Association arrived early in the afternoon. She contacted the police in Ibiza and asked them to find Tracy and tell her to telephone home. Word quickly spread through the island community for Tracy to urgently telephone home.

The summer holiday season had begun on this beautiful Mediterranean island. Tracy had not long returned from England to the island to work. I answered the telephone that evening to hear a terrified Tracy say, Oh, thank God it’s you, Mum. I thought something dreadful had happened to you.

Oh, Sweetheart, it’s far, far worse. It’s Billy. Tracy, we’ve lost Billy.

Words failed both of us. Scalding tears burned down my cheeks as I listened to my daughter’s breathless sobbing echoing our pain as I reached to hug her half a world apart.

Chapter 2: Monday June 18th 2001

Wild Winter Wind by Hazo

The wild winter wind whirled in from the west

And screamed through the awnings "Tonight you’ll not rest

There’s an iciness coming that’s laden with doom,

And cruel Death’ll cast shadows of sadness and gloom."

So stay my dear heart, stay strong and true.

There’s many a secret kept hidden from you.

Monday, 18 June 2001 had begun as any other day. Since I had resigned from teaching, my time was no longer dictated by the ticking of the clock. Routine still had me waking reasonably early, but the need to get out of bed immediately wasn’t as pressing. I slowly rolled back the bed covers, and my sleeping dogs stirred as they became aware of movement. Time to get up? Time to get out! they seemed to be saying to me as their wagging tails steered them toward the back door. I let them out and then got dressed. My shower could wait. It seemed more practical to do that later, before I changed to go into town.

I had been up fairly late on that Sunday night. There was a small area outside the sliding doors to my bedroom where I was planning to have a sun room built. A cosy room where I could set up my sewing machines on a permanent basis and not have to pack them away every time after use because the kitchen table was needed. I had just received some good news. My previously dreamed of sun-room extension had now become a real possibility, and I had been outside with my measuring tape preparing the dimensions for the project. I favoured family meals around the dinner table where conversation was still alive and well, and to now have the best of both was more than I had ever hoped.

When I resigned from teaching because of chronic back problems, I never expected that superannuation, a decade later, would be kind to me because I’d been assessed for ‘Service Benefits’ only. It’s a long story. I should have objected to the assessment, but it had never occurred to me that my back would deteriorate to the extent that it did, nor to deteriorate so quickly. And by that time I was in so much pain, I just wanted to get things right with my students. It wasn’t fair to them when I was forced to take days off so often. My colleagues, or Emergency Teachers (ETs) would have to fill in for me. Despite the fact that my classes were well-organized and I had a detailed work programme for any substitute to walk in and supervise, this didn’t always happen. Survival in the classroom did. Some ETs preferred to entertain and amuse rather than instruct, and I have no doubt that the students encouraged this to the maximum.

The right thing to have done was resign and allow the classes to have a permanent teacher. I was in so much pain one day that I could barely stagger to the office to let them know that I was going home, and I wouldn’t be back.

To go through a retirement process was not an option. I never gave it any thought. I never gave any other options any consideration anyway.

My doctor had been saying to me for quite some time that if I wanted to continue teaching, then an operation was required. The proposed surgery would require taking some bone from my femur and transplanting it to my lower spine. No way was anyone going to put a scalpel near my spine while I could still manage to walk, be it ever so awkwardly and painfully at times. I was stubborn enough to believe that I could continue without surgery. I was painfully wrong. Instead of surgery I quit the job that I dearly loved.

With intensive hydro-therapy and other physio treatment there were subtle improvements. While I was still on sick leave, attempts were made to phase me back into teaching with some half days to begin with. Apparently the principal wasn’t prepared to have the timetable modified to accommodate me. I officially resigned.

I was cleaning up my filing cabinet a few years ago and found the document that would have stood me in good stead right from the beginning. It was acknowledgement from The Department regarding a nasty fall I’d sustained in the classroom and accepting responsibility. I’d fallen backwards over a student who was down on hands and knees behind me picking up a rubber. I should have taken that document with me when I was assessed, but I didn’t think then that I’d ever need it. I should have searched for it when I resigned, but I was in so much pain I just wanted to concentrate on rehabilitation.

Spilt milk now.

The State Superannuation Fund was reasonably kind to me. Early in June 2001, I was offered and accepted a nice little amount of money. It wasn’t TattsLotto, but it felt like it. Billy was home at the time. I confided in him that some funds would soon arrive which would make my existence a little bit easier and I could finally have my sunroom built, and that I’d like to give him and his sisters a special surprise ‘bonus’.

Why don’t you just buy a new car, Mum? he insisted. You certainly need one.

We were out driving in my blue Mazda van at the time. It played up dreadfully several times that day, and as the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) was eventually called to the rescue, the thought of retiring the faithful old blue van slowly became real.

Yes – there was enough for a car and for my special private sun room.

My priority, though, was my sunroom and my ‘new beaut’ computerized embroidery sewing machine to have a home, along with the sewing machine that my mother had bought for me as a wedding present ever so many years ago – a machine that had clothed my children, and me and many dress-up demands for school concerts over the years. A craft room. A room with sunlight. A room to allow half-finished projects to remain and wait for my return. A table. An easel. Space to store paints, pencils, crayons. Somewhere for a frustrated artist to store her work. And so I was up rather late on that Sunday night. I had an unrealistic dream which was becoming a reality. Now lucky was I? I sat on the steps to my bedroom door, and with pencil and paper in hand, sketched my perfect sunlit craft room, having measured all my requirements as best I was able for the builder when he came by to give his quote.

Life can be more than extremely sour at times, but whenever it gives up some extra sweetness, I find myself feeling very grateful that there’s some attempt to find a degree of equilibrium – an element of contentment or compromise or acceptance. I was forced to walk away from a career that I dearly loved, and now it had given me the opportunity to pursue another avenue of work satisfaction that had only existed in my hopes. Hopes that I took with me to my dream world on Sunday, 17 June 2001.

And so it was on that fateful day, Monday, 18 June 2001, that the usual morning routine began with boiling the kettle for my heart starter, my morning coffee. Then I wandered around outside to feed the horses, let the chooks out from their pens and give the dogs some breakfast while I puddled around as I loved to do before going in for breakfast, which could be anytime up to midday depending on how many distractions diverted my attention from an empty, rumbling tummy.

It was close to ten o’clock when a dreadful headache suddenly overwhelmed me. My forehead was ready to explode. I can remember saying to myself, Wow! If this is anything like a migraine then I certainly feel for migraine sufferers who have to put up with this regularly…

This pain forced me inside where I took an aspirin, drew the drapes to darken my room and went immediately to bed.

I must have dropped off to sleep.

It was around 11:30am when I was woken by a persistent knocking on the front door.

By the time I staggered to the front door, two senior police officers were disappearing down the driveway, checking out my old blue Mazda van.

It’s registered! I muttered to myself, and then I thought, Maybe they’re here about Geoff’s gun.

I had been talking with Billy the previous day and had asked him about his father’s gun. The amnesty on firearms required me to hand Geoff’s gun in. This knee-jerk action, taken by the government to get certain fire arms banned, followed in the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre. On 28 April 1996, in Tasmania, twenty-eight year old Martin Bryant went on a shooting rampage which claimed thirty-five lives and left twenty-one more wounded.

In 2001, I had recently received correspondence asking me to determine what action I was going to take – register and keep the gun or hand it in to be destroyed. If Billy wanted to keep it, then we’d arrange for that to happen. But Billy had no desire to own the gun.

I had kept it for the last twenty-four years purely for sentimental reasons. It symbolized so much about who Geoff was.