Wakool Crossing by Mike Richards

Author:Mike Richards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRU000000, BIO000000, BIO026000, HIS004000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2012-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

COLLUSION

After Sergeant Dyce was excused from the witness box, Bob Hammond, who gave his occupation as a fisherman residing at Wakool Crossing, gave brief evidence that, in company with Dick Hood, on the morning of 16 November he had found the body of the deceased in the middle of the stream about one-and-a-half miles below the bridge.

The next witness to be called was Eddie Harper, the young Balranald carpenter who’d been with Hazel at various times on the night of her disappearance, and who’d already recanted on his first statement to Sergeant Dyce. As he took the stand to give his evidence, Harper was nervous about the change to his statement that had already seen him confess to Sergeant Dyce to not having told the whole story.

Harper told the coroner that he went to the dance at the Wakool, arriving there at 10.00pm. He said he met Hazel and went over to the hall at about 10.30pm. Later, he said, he’d walked with her over to the hotel, and subsequently waited at the post office corner beside the hotel. While he was waiting, Mrs White came over and went into the hotel.

‘I heard Mrs White say, “Just what I thought you would’ve been doing.” She was talking very loud. Hazel came out of the hotel a minute or two afterwards, and Mr and Mrs White came out on to the verandah. Hazel said to me, “Take no notice of that woman, she’s drunk.” She seemed very excited and upset. We walked over to the bridge together, and when we got to the other side she said to me, “Oh God, listen to that woman.”

‘We then walked up to within a hundred yards of the hall when she said, “Tell Mick or any of the others that I’ll be over at the sulky, and tell Bel to get my hat.”

‘I then went to the front of the hall and afterwards to the back. I didn’t see anything further of Hazel.’

Asked by the coroner what he did then, Harper replied, ‘I had a cup of coffee and saw Hazel’s brother, Mick. I sat at the fire for a while then went over to the hotel with Eddie Jolliffe, where I saw … Mr White, who said Hazel was missing, and that her brothers were ready to go home, but they couldn’t find her.’

The coroner asked Harper if he’d seen Mrs White at the hotel at that time. Harper answered, ‘I never saw Mrs White at the hotel then.’

He was then asked by Sergeant Dyce about the change to his story when first interviewed about what he’d seen of Hazel. Harper responded, ‘I saw you on the following evening, and I told you that I took the girl back to the hall. Later on I told you that I did not take the girl back to the hall.’

Solicitor Town then rose to ask Harper about how the deceased had appeared when he encountered her.

‘She had a parcel under her arm’, Harper answered. ‘I said she was upset; and she seemed so to me.

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