My Father's Crimes: Crime Scene Photography in the 1950s

By Greg Tuchin

This memoir is taken from the stories that my father told me about many famous cases including, The Kingsgrove Slasher, the Opera House Lottery kidnapping and includes many of the photos that he took. It follows on from the success podcast of the same name which was downloaded more that 100,000 times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Tuchin
• Release date: Mar 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215641767

Greg Tuchin

I am a writer and a teacher living on the beautiful South Coast of NSW. My love of crime stories comes from the tales my father told me growing up in Sydney. My father was a policeman for 37 years, ten of them as a police photographer for the Scientific Investigation Bureau of the NSW Police Force.I have spent many years cross-checking his information with official records and his former colleagues to bring these stories to life. They tell about a by-gone era, before DNA and computers, where old-fashioned legwork solved crimes. Many of the villains and heroes are long gone, however I hope my stories brings back their memories.Ironically, I too, found myself in a visual career in hospitals, where I occasionally assisted in the identification of victims of crime through video-superimposition.I am honoured to receive the Highly Commended award in the New England Thunderbolt Prize for Non- Fiction Crime , after winning the same category last year. These two stories, as well as many others, appear in my novel My Father's Crimes.

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My Father’s Crimes

By Greg Tuchin

Copyright 2011 Greg Tuchin

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CHAPTER 1

When Wally returned to Camperdown Police station the desk sergeant told him that there was a message for him written down on the message pad. It was unusual for Wally to receive any messages so he looked at the scrawl with added interest. It simply said, ‘report to Inspector Roberts at the Scientific Branch, in plain clothes on Monday, the sixth of February, at 9am.’

‘Did the Inspector say why I needed to report to him?’ Wally asked the desk sergeant hesitantly.

‘Constable Tuchin, you have been ordered to front up to Scientific Branch, by an Inspector, simple as that. You don’t question orders!’ he barked.

‘Looks like you’re in a bit of trouble,’ said another constable who had just come in from the beat at the same time as Wally.

Wally thought that it must be true. He must be in some kind of trouble, otherwise why would the inspector order him to appear. In 1952, if an inspector had to speak to you, that is what it usually meant. It was no good trying to pump the desk sergeant for information. Sergeants never talked to constables, only gave them orders. Sergeants even had their own mess for eating their meals and constables never entered the sergeant’s mess unless someone’s life was in danger.

All weekend Wally wondered about what he had done wrong. It must have been a wrongful death scene he had attended a couple of months ago, when the Scientific Branch had attended later. He must have really stuffed up. This threw his future plans into disarray. He had just finished his course in Technical Drawing at Ultimo Tech, which he hoped would get him into the Scientific Branch, however having only finished two weeks ago, he did not have enough time to apply yet. He was waiting until his exam results came through before he filled out the form. Everyone in the Force wanted to work in Scientific but for every one job there were more than a thousand applicants.

At home Wally brushed the fluff off his double breasted, dark blue suit, his old faithful companion that he wore to weddings and funerals. It looked a bit tired, but he could not afford another. He and his wife, Valerie, were trying to save to buy their own house.

On Monday morning, the 6th of February 1952, Wally apprehensively walked up the hill from Town Hall station, to Central Police Station in Central Avenue. Not knowing where the stairs were, he took the elevator up to the first floor, nervously closing the elevator cage and using the lever to drive the elevator up. It took him onto a veranda and into a rabbit warren of doors, corridors and partitioned offices. On one of the doors he found the name he was looking for, Inspector William Roberts, Scientific Investigation Branch. Wally knocked on the door. He immediately heard a deep voiccalling out. ‘don’t stand out there all day! Come in.’

Wally entered.

‘You must be Walter Tuchin, Inspector Roberts.’ He shook Wally’s hand.

‘You can call me Wally, sir’

‘Sit down, son. I want to ask you a few questions, ‘Roberts said sternly.

Wally trembled, fearing the tongue lashing he was about to receive about whatever he had done wrong.

Roberts spoke directly. ‘First off, Wally, I’d like to know, how are you around dead bodies?’

Wally was confused. It was not the type of question he was expecting. ‘It doesn’t bother me, Sir. I saw a few when I was in the air force during the war up in New Guinea.’

Moving closer to Wally, Roberts glared at him. ‘I hope you don’t have a fixation with dead bodies.’

‘Sir, I don’t think anyone who’s seen their mates die in front of them would ever forget it, but I wouldn’t call it a fixation.’

Inspector Roberts nodded. ‘Good answer.’ He still had not said why Wally had been called in. Then Roberts continued, ‘I heard you topped the tech drawing class at Ultimo Tech? Ninety eight percent. How did you do it?’

Wally was lost for words. He knew he had done well in the subject but he was dumfounded. How did the Inspector know the results before him?

‘Well Sir, I’m a fitter and turner by trade. I used to do a lot of drawings in the office at the Berrima concrete works, before the war.I think that helped a lot.

‘You’re a fitter and turner? This could be very handy,’ the Inspector mused, rubbing his chin, "’because we’re often called to scenes were burglars have been disturbed in the process of trying to crack open safes. They’ve been drilling through the steel doors to break the locks or to sometimes to blast the door off. When we bring them in for questioning we often find metal filings caught in the cuffs of their trousers, where they don’t expect it. From your trade experience do you reckon you could identify those fillings?’

Wally started to sense that the talk with the Inspector was not a dressing down. It was quite the opposite, an interview for some kind of job in Scientific. To improve his chances Wally lied.

‘Sir, I reckon from my work on the railways at Everleigh I could tell brass filings or steel filings from iron filings just by looking at them.’

‘Do you know anything about photography, son?’

‘A little.’ answered sponstaneously but then felt he should have bluffed about the photography as well, but he was worried that he could get easily caught out. Lathes and metal filings he knew about. Photography he did not.

‘Hmm. ‘Roberts considered this for a moment. ‘We’ll have to teach you that on the job.’

Inspector Roberts then smiled. ‘So why do you want to work in the Scientific Branch?’

Wally corrected the inspector. ‘Sir I haven’t formally applied yet.’

‘You do want to work here, don’t you?’

Wally answered firmly, ‘Yes, of course. But how did you know?’

‘A big part of scientific work is keeping your ear to the ground, knowing what’s going on around you and picking up on it. I have my sources all over the Force.’

Wally considered his answer carefully. He thought about his own father, how tragedy had impacted on his own family, the answers that his mother was looking for to overcome her grief; answer which never came through. Not expecting to be asked something like this, he struggled with his response.Hesitantly he replied, ‘I thought that I could do something for the families of the dead people, Sir, to help them through it by helping find out how, or why.’ People of our time would call it closure but in the 50s they did not have a term for what Wally was trying to say.

‘Couldn’t you do that in Uniform? You must have met some grieving relatives there?’

‘Yes sir, but I couldn’t give them any reasons and that didn’t help.’

‘Well answered, son. How would you like to start in Scientific tomorrow? One of my blokes has retired and I need to fill his position straight away?’

‘Sir, I would be honoured.’

‘Good. We can use your talent in drawing exact scale drawings of crime scenes for evidence.’ He looked at Wally sternly. ‘You’ll have to be exact in every detail and measurement or otherwise the police case might be jeopardised.’

Wally hid his disappointment. He thought he would be investigating murder scenes, gathering evidence, not drawing diagrams all day. Why did everyone want to get into Scientific Branch if that was all they did? He started to wonder if he had made a huge mistake.

‘You’ll report for duty here tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock. I’ll team you up with Eric Charleson, one of our senior officers. He’ll show you the ropes. Get you started.’

‘Sir, what about my transfer from Camperdown?’

‘I’ll sort that all out. You just go and clear out your stuff from the station and report for work tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes Sir.’

Roberts tone then changed from jovial to serious. I want to stress from the outset. There’s one major difference between here and uniform. In Scientific there’s no pay for overtime. We don’t always work strict hours from eight till five, forty four hours a week. We work the hours we need to get the job done. If you don’t like it, there are about a thousand blokes who’d be willing to jump in.’ He stared at Wally. ‘Still want to work here?’

‘Yes Sir.’

‘Good. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

Before catching the bus to Camperdown Wally went around the corner to Gowings menswear and bought a new Brooks Brothers suit, costing five pounds, and a new hat costing another pound. This virtually wiped out all of his and Valerie’s savings; however Wally looked on it as an investment in their future. The police allowance for plain clothes was a paltry, two shillings six pence a week, which would take him a year to pay for the suit, by which time he would probably need a new one. But there was no going back, he figured, he was going to be a member of the SIB for a year at least, until he had paid for his new suit.

When he returned to Camperdown police station to clear out his locker, he informed the desk sergeant about his new job. The station inspector was then called. As Wally told the inspector about his transfer which was coming through, word soon filtered through the station. Some of the older constables were resentful about his transfer. How had Wally got into Scientific when he had only been in the force for three years? Some of them had been trying for a decade. Wally took it in his stride. It was his good luck, and their bad luck. After today he would not be working with any of these blokes again. The only time he might run into them was at a crime scene, where he would be in charge.

He reported for duty early the next morning the butterflies churning in his stomach. Eric, A man in his forties, carrying a clipboard with a wad of papers attached to it, came into the foyer to meet him. He was a short, scrawny man, who stood out from the rest of the Force. Wally wondered how he had ever made it through the height and weight requirements, that all serving officers must be at least five feet ten and weigh twelve stone, with a chest expansion of 38 inches. Wally was a big, barrel-chested man, who had only just made the height requirements himself. Eric must have come from the mounted police, where the requirements were not as tough, Wally decided.

‘I’ve been ordered to show you the ropes.’ Eric said gruffly.

Eric led Wally down a corridor of frosted glass panelled doors. ‘Behind this door is Ballistics. I’d show you inside but they like to keep pretty much to themselves. You’ll often hear them firing off bullets into barrels full of cotton wool or water to match shell cartridges. You get used to the noise but only go in there if you have to.’

Eric led Wally into one of the doors. When they came in another short fellow looked up from the book he was reading.

‘This is the library, where any evidence was filed away, and cases are researched. This is Joe Dante. Wally Tuchin.’

The two men shook hands. Eric led Wally into the corridor again. It appeared to Wally that the Scientific Branch had all the runts of the Force.

‘Smart fellow, that Joe. Always got his head in a book.’

Next Eric led Wally to the handwriting section, where Cecil Abbott the specialist compared writing samples for evidence in trials. They continued down the corridor of glass panelled doors and around a turn to the left. Here they were met by two solid doors with a red light above them.

‘These are the two photographic dark rooms. If the red light is on don’t ever go in there, unless you want to find yourself back in uniform. Do you know much about photography?’

‘I’ve used a box brownie before.’

Eric gave him a dirty look. With raised eyebrows he shook his head while he muttered, ‘why are we taking on recruits who know nothing about photography, when that is the most important part of the job.’

Wally understood his resentment and tried to justify his position. ‘Inspector Roberts said that someone would teach me photography. My skills are