The Parkside Body in the Freezer Case: 
Incompetent Coroner? (part 4)

 

Was the case against David Szach, convicted of murdering his older lover, Derrance Stevenson, flawed because of an incompetent South Australian Coroner?

This is the question being posed by several individuals interested in the case known as “The Body in the Freezer Case” that thrust Adelaide into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons in 1979/ 1980.

Police removed the freezer in which the body of
Derrance Stevenson had been found in his home.

 Questions have been raised about the procedures used by Coroner Dr Colin Manock. It would seem in recent years a number of high profile cases that saw convictions against suspected murderers, have recently been overturned due to the improper procedures applied by Dr Manock.

Dr Colin Manock worked as South Australia’s Chief Forensic Pathologist between 1968 and 1995, he conducted more than 9000 autopsies and gave evidence in just about every major case in the State at that time.

Dr Colin Manock was SA's chief forensic pathologist for almost 30 years. Between 1968 and 1995, he conducted more than 9,000 autopsies and gave evidence in almost every major case.

Perhaps the highest-profile overturned conviction which goes against evidence supplied by Dr Manock is that of the death of popular Adelaide lawyer Anna-Jane Cheney, who was found dead in her bathtub.
 Henry Keogh, a recently separated man with children, who began to date Ms Cheney, was accused of her murder, on the grounds he was trying to cash in her 1-million-dollar insurance policy.
The case seemed to rest on evidence supplied by Dr Manock, which pointed at Ms Cheney being drowned (Mr Keogh’s supporters have always claimed Ms Cheney had a seizure in the bath and drowned accidentally).
In 1995, Keogh faced a trial, which ended up with a hung jury, triggering a retrial. The second trial later that year found Keogh guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life in gaol with a non-prole period of 25 years.
A campaign began almost immediately to free Keogh that lasted almost 20 years. Eventually, after endless appeals, The Full Court of the Criminal Court of Criminal Appeal ruled there had been a “substantial miscarriage of justice” and a retrial was set for Keogh.
Keogh was able to make bail and was released after 20 years in gaol while the third trial, brought about by the appeal, was heard. Keogh endured 10 months of uncertainty as Director of Public Prosecutions, Adam Kimber, SC, re-laid the murder charge before issuing a nolle prosequi[1] in November 2015 allowing Keogh to walk a free man.

Former South Australian Chief Forensic Investigator
Dr Manock

The reason for the nolle prosequi comes back to Dr Manock’s assessments of the body of Ms Cheney, which the full court agreed were “unreliable”, stating that his conclusions were “not properly explored” and his autopsy “inadequate”. Summarised as “unwarranted speculation”
The case rested on a number of bruises on Ms Cheney’s leg that Dr Manock speculated were made by the hand grip of a man.

So where does this tie in with the case against David Szach?

Dr Manock was the forensic coroner on the Derrance Stevenson case. 

Time Line:

17:30 June 5^th 1979: Dr Manock enters the Stevenson residence in Parkside where he is met by police officers. He waits for the police to dust the freezer (which is switched off) for fingerprints and for photos of the object to be taken.

18:00: the freezer lid is opened and Dr Manock sees the body of Stevenson for the first time.
From the Coroner Report 

“I was able to see the body of a male adult in a head down position. A basket of frozen food was above the head and two plastic bags of frozen food were over the buttocks and lower back. Hypostatic staining was visible on the back of the body and I pronounced life extinct at that time. I noted that the freezer was switched off at the mains power point.”

 Frozen food also in the freezer is removed. The body is removed from the freezer and placed on a plastic sheet, and further photographs are taken.
The body is then transported to the Forensic Science Centre at Divett Place, Adelaide.

20:00: The body temperature is taken via a needle probe inserted into the liver. A constant temperature is recorded, with the maximum temperature being +7.2 C
An examination of the bullet wound takes place via X-rays.

A further examination does not continue as Dr Manock states that the skin and organs were still deep-frozen and unconducive to examination.

8:20 June 6^th 1979: Dr Manock continues his examination of the body.

At 0820 hours on 6 June 1979:  I recommenced the examination. 

 The freezer was also tested for its normal running temperatures, this was to help establish a time of death. (read the entire Coronial report here: http://netk.net.au/Szach/AutopsyReport.asp)

This is where the opinion of today’s forensic specialists criticises Dr Manock’s methodology in the case. Considering the time of the death that Dr Manock implied was the basis for putting Szach in the house at the time of death, and implicating him in the murder, it is an important piece of evidence to have correct.

They point out that the method used by Dr Manock to calculate the time of death is based on a formula initially proposed by Fiddes and Patten work published in the Journal of Forensic Medicine in 1958. The experiments were undertaken for this journal involved bodies having their temperature measured after they had been frozen laid out flat, not in the foetal position as was Mr Stevenson.
Dr Manock adjusted his formula by 40% to compensate for Stevenson’s body being in the foetal position, Dr Manock does not give any scientific reason for his adjustment of 40%, and this is where his argument about the correct time of death falls flat on its face with today’s forensic testers.

A few years after the trial another forensic pathologist looked at Dr Manock’s results and stated in a review why it was not appropriate for Dr Manock to use the formula he did, or substitute important key data, like a liver temperature reading for an anal temperature reading, without a scientific reason for doing so.

 He also pointed out factors such as not knowing the room temperature when Mr Stevenson died, or how long there was between being shot and being put into the freezer. He made no accommodation for the freezer being put into “superchill” mode, which would have added another negative 8 degrees to the cooling temperature.

Derrance Stevenson's odd, iconic house on Greenhill Road, Parkside, circa 1979

In 1978. Dr Manock was the at the centre of a controversial autopsy that he did in the open, in front of the public, in a small South Australian town. The story didn’t become public until a recent court case.

WARNING: ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIGHT ISLANDERS MAY BE OFFENDED BY THIS VIDEO: 

https://www.todaytonightadelaide.com.au/stories/dr-colin-manock-part-1

Another high-profile case that Dr Manock's work has been criticised in, is in regards to the 1971 murder of teenager Deborah Leach on a beach at Taperoo. The crime saw Frits Van Beelan convicted and serving 17 years in gaol. He is now appealing his conviction based on wrongful evidence supplied by Dr Manock.

It would seem there are many issues with evidence provided by Dr Manock, across many cases, and judging by the video above, perhaps there is something more sinister behind his position and personality. If one places a puppet in control of evidence in cases, one can pervert the course of justice to one’s own end….a conspiracy perhaps?

Read more about cases where Dr Manock’s evidence is being questioned: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-murderers-to-appeal-amid-challenges-to-evidence-by-former-pathologist-colin-manock/news-story/aee2d4b0da09205c323f031ef370dea1

Next Week: The Parkside Body in the Freezer Case: The Appeal (part 5)

(Bibliography in the final blog post of this series)

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[1] “nolle prosequi” a formal notice of abandonment by a plaintiff or prosecutor of all or part of a suit.

The Truro Murders (Part 8): How They Captured a Murderer

Christopher Robin Worrell died in a car accident near Millicent. This ended the killing spree known as the “The Truro Murders”. The murders had stopped, but the women killed were still considered missing persons, and to their families and the police, could still be very much alive.

James Miller, while at the funeral of his lover and best friend, Worrell, made a surprising remark to Worrell’s grieving girlfriend Amelia. Miller told Amelia that Worrell had a blood clot on his brain. This opened up a conversation with Amelia, where Miller confessed to his part in the murders and his suspicion that Worrell’s murderous killing spree was in part, because of the blood clot.

Two years later, the police had their first report of skeletal remains outside Truro, and it wasn’t long until more remains were found. A reward was offered to the public for information on the murders leading to an arrest, the reward totalled $40, 000 and was offered by The Advertiser newspaper and the State Government.

Amelia came forward under the name “Angela” and offered information. Her call would eventually solve the murderous spree, that otherwise may have remained unresolved.
In her official police statement, Amelia accused Miller of saying that the victims “were only rags and weren’t worth much”, which Miller, during the ensuing court case, strenuously denied.

Police began to watch Miller, even though they had no real evidence of him being involved in the murders and only the hear-say of a witness. It wasn’t long until they picked him up for questioning. Miller would make no admission to the murders and gave vague misleading answers. Eventually, he succumbed to the pressure applied when shown a photo of himself and Amelia together, a person he claimed her had never met. After six long hours of questioning and pressure from the police, Miller finally said:
“If I can clear this up will everyone else be left out of it? I suppose I’ve got nothing else to look forward to whatever way it goes. I guess I’m the one who got mixed up in all of this. Where do you want me to start?”
“I drove around with Chris and we picked up girls around the city. Chris would talk to the girls and get them into the car and we would take them for a drive and take them to Truro and Chris would rape them and kill them. But you’ve got to believe that I had nothing to do with the actual killings of those girls.”

Miller then confessed to knowing where the bodies of three more young women lay.

 

The same evening, at about 10pm, the police drove Miller from Adelaide to Truro to show them where the bodies are buried. Someone leaked the journey to the media, and two reporters were waiting in Truro for the police convoy to arrive.


Their next stop was Port Gawler, where Miller pointed out the burial place of Deborah Lamb. Police extracted her body and took it away for forensic examination.

The last body Miller took the police to was that of Tania Kenny who was buried near Gillman. It took police quite some time to find Tania’s body in the area Miller had described, but eventually, her remains were uncovered and identified.
Miller was charged with four counts of murder, and after further examination, three more counts were added to his charges.

The trial lasted 6 weeks, and on March 12th 1980, Miller was found guilty of six charges of murder, but acquitted for the murder of Veronica Knight. Despite this, Miller claimed he was innocent of murder.

“I was there at the time and for that, I am guilty of an unforgivable felony, I fully deserve the life sentences I am currently serving. I am serving out a life sentence for Chris. But I never killed any of those girls. That’s the truth.”

“They can give me life for knowing about the murders and not reporting them. But they charged me with murder as a payback for not informing on Worrell. It’s a load of bullshit. At least one of the jurists at my trials knows the truth. In 1987 he paid a couple of hundred dollars out of his own pocket to help hire a lawyer to petition the Attorney-General for a retrial. If a jurist does this, he must have a fair idea of what really happened.”


“Nobody turns into a cold-blooded murderer overnight or helps commit murder. I’m just an ordinary thief, no killer. I have never been a violent man.”


Miller eventually died in custody.

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