Thirty years ago, three children disappeared from the same street in a small town in New South Wales.
They became known as the Bowraville Three: Sixteen year olds Colleen Walker-Craig and Clinton Speedy-Duroux and four-year-old Evelyn Greenup.
One man was considered the main suspect in all three murders - he was tried and acquitted over two murders, but the three deaths were never heard together in one trial.
Director Allan Clarke spent years documenting the Aboriginal community's long fight for justice - talking to family members about the disappearances, the initial investigation, trials and attempts to change the law.
The result is The Bowraville Murders, which premiered late last year in Australia and is screening now in New Zealand until July 10 as part of the DocEdge festival.
Photo: Kate Holmes
Clarke tells Kathryn Ryan he remembers going to Bowraville as a young boy to visit his uncle on holidays.
“I stayed with my uncle there at Bowraville on the mission, for those who don’t know what a mission is it’s kind of an Aboriginal community kind of annexed off a town, and that’s actually where Clinton, Colleen and Evelyn had gone missing from just a few years earlier.
“[Uncle] was saying ‘don’t go outside, don’t walk around in the bushland, because the Aboriginal children get taken here and three were murdered’.
“That stuck with me for the rest of my life, and all through my career as a journalist, it was always stuck in the back of my mind, sort of how formidable the children’s families were and I really wanted to do something with them so that’s how I guess I got involved in this film.”
The case isn’t as well known as it should be in Australia, he says, considering the publicity usually given to murder of children.
“In the early ‘90s when Colleen, Clinton and Evelyn all went missing from the same street within the space of five months, there was really barely any news on it.
“And the police also weren’t that interested in investigating, looking back lax would be a kind way to describe it.
“In the initial investigation, the families were told maybe the children had gone for a walkabout, which is outrageous, it’s a stereotype that Aboriginal people just get and leave and wander around and come back.”
There was a lack of empathy for Aboriginal victims, Clarke says.
“I think it speaks to something in Australia this kind of undercurrent of racism that’s never been addressed.”
Over the years, the families have mounted their own investigation and fought to have homicide detectives re-investigate almost 10 years later, he says.
“There has been only ever one sort of prime suspect if you like in this case, he has been prosecuted twice now, he’s also been found not guilty in those cases.
“However, what the families are arguing is that when this person was being prosecuted initially that the police had not tied the murders together and that would’ve made a stronger case.”
There were many flaws in the first investigation, including police dragging on after the families reported the children missing, failure to secure key evidence or test for DNA, and no witness follow ups, Clarke says.
“Clinton Speedy-Duroux who was basically staying overnight with this suspect, and he was the last one to see him alive really and then he just disappeared, his shoes were still at this man’s house.
“Later when they found Clinton’s body, it looked like something had fractured his skull that looked like possibly a dumbbell, there was dumbbells at this man’s residence, it was a caravan, however the police didn’t secure any evidence from that site.”
Nevertheless, the families relentlessly kept fighting for justice and got the double jeopardy law amended with the help of the cop who was re-investigating and an MP, he says.
“I guess this story is like a rollercoaster, there were these peaks of hope and that was one of them, double jeopardy getting amended, and then these very, very deep valleys of despair – shortly after that, they thought they could get this man retried, unfortunately then they failed to meet the new criteria for the amended double jeopardy laws.
“So it was just another kick in the guts for them and so they took that then to the highest court in the country, the high court, and then they were rejected again, sadly.
“After 30 years of trying to get justice for their children, they reached that point, for them it just felt like that they just did not matter in Australia because they were Aboriginal.”
Clarke says the film will showcase how inspiring these families are as they never give up.
“However, this is now intergenerational. This trauma has been passed on through generations as you’ll see in this film – it’s their grandchildren, it’s their children, it’s their great grandchildren who have all taken up this cause.”
After the release of the documentary, police increased the reward for information on the case to $A3 million.
