Norm Ainsworth was just 10 years old when he found a dead body.
The year was 1974, and he lived in an outer suburb of Perth called Balga. He went to the local primary school, and remembers his early years as “idyllic” in the burgeoning new suburb, which was still half-bushland and half state housing.
His childhood came to a screeching halt on October 10 that year.
Ainsworth and two friends had been hunting lizards in their usual spot near Balga Avenue – the main thoroughfare of the suburb – wading through low scrub, when the search turned to an abandoned fridge they had previously seen stashed in the bushland and thought would make an excellent addition to their under-construction cubby.
Ainsworth remembers spotting it just after midday and walked over to it, lying face down on the dirt ground. But, he says, something was different.
“I could smell this smell, and it got stronger and stronger,” said Norm, now 62 years old.
“We just pushed the fridge over.
“To be honest, I didn’t recognise what it was at first.”
Concealed under the abandoned old fridge was the body of a woman.
She had been stripped naked, and was laying in a fetal position, covered inexpertly by leaves and twigs. Her hand was missing. It was clear she had been dead for some time.
Beside her was a $5 note – worth about $50 in today’s currency.
Norm remembers the moment his brain kicked into gear, and he ran to a nearby telephone box to call police.
The officers on the other end of the line accused him of playing a prank and promptly hung up on the 10-year-old, forcing him to flag down a woman who had been walking nearby for help. She seemed confused at first, but Norm said she agreed to follow them into the bush.
When the woman saw what was concealed under the fridge, Norm said she went white.
“She really freaked out,” he said.
The next thing he remembers is police and media descending on the patch of bushland, and being ushered into the back of a police car to be driven back to his mother and father’s house.
He couldn’t shake the feeling he was in trouble, he said, and was too young to fully understand what had happened.
On Monday, WAtoday brought you the first part of Gwenneth Graham’s story. Over the next week, we will unpack the investigation that followed the suburban mother’s murder in Balga in 1974. This is part two.
What happened after Gwen left the Malthouse Tavern?
It took 24 hours for police to identify the body as 46-year-old Balga housewife Gwenneth Graham, who had last been seen at the Malthouse Tavern about nine days before.
Some time after 11.30pm on September 27, a bartender phoned a taxi for Graham, and she made her way outside to wait for her ride.
No one saw whether Graham got into a taxi, whether she accepted a lift or if she took off to her home on Felpham Avenue.
All detectives were able to say for certain was that her husband Tom reported her missing five days later, and her body was found four days after that.
Graham’s eldest son Steven Wrightson remembers the moment police came to his workplace and broke the news they had found his mother.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
“I was in total shock. The policeman said, ‘You better go knock off and get a stiff drink at the pub somewhere’. I didn’t, I just stayed at work … I kept busy. I think I was in shock for many, many days after that.”
Graham’s husband Tom heard the news that police had found a body through the local radio and reached out to officers himself, who confirmed the woman found in the bush was his wife.
“I just can’t realise she’s gone,” he told media at the time.
The couple had been together for 10 years, and Tom ultimately feared his delay in reporting his wife missing had hindered police efforts in finding her murderer.
“It’s the emptiness of the house that gets you,” Tom said.
“Every now and again I expect the doorbell to ring and see her walk through the door – but that won’t happen of course.”
The search begins
While Graham’s family mourned her, an investigation into her murder was well under way.
An autopsy would later reveal how Graham had been viciously bashed. She suffered from seven broken ribs, had been sexually assaulted and was ultimately strangled to death. Her clothes were missing, and she had clearly been dead for some time.
Her hand was found later in the evening on the front lawn of a nearby house, believed to have been the work of many of the area’s stray dogs.
A woman also came forward with a pair of shoes she said a friend had found on nearby Redcliffe Avenue about a week prior and given to her as a gift.
Detectives determined they were Gwen’s shoes, and a door-knock of the area soon revealed her handbag had also been found in the same area, about a week before her body was found as well.
Officers took off to Redcliffe Avenue, about half a kilometre from where her body was found, to see what else they could find, and were able to uncover Gwen’s underclothes.
The officers now had three areas of interest to focus on: the Malthouse Tavern, the Balga bushland and the Redcliffe Avenue dumpsite.
They also had a timeframe to focus on: between 11.30pm on September 27, to 10am when Gwen’s shoes were found on Redcliffe Avenue.
It was likely she was killed within that 12-hour window.
But officers were left asking the most pertinent question of all: by whom? That question has remained unanswered for five decades.
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