THE scene:
a deserted street in Kings Cross, Sydney's red light playground of the Mob; the
date: 15 September 1975; the time is shortly after midnight when two
journalists are beaten up and abducted while investigating the murder of
campaigning colleague Juanita Nielsen. The abductors, employees of the crime
lord Juanita was investigating, force the pair into a limousine and drive away
at high speed.
They fear they are about to join Juanita but
the car slams to a halt outside the infamous Darlinghurst police station. The
driver runs inside and quickly reappears with three cops. Within seconds the
two have been arrested and jailed.
So began a
life-changing journalistic investigation that eventually resolved the murder
and proved that the most protracted police investigation in Australian criminal
history was a cover-up of historic proportions. Devised by the killer, a
corrupt former cop, and activated by his mates of the Serious Crimes Squad of
the state police, the official version of events was a total fabrication that
almost fifty years later is still broadcast as the truth.
The real
truth is that on that fateful day, Friday 4 July 1975, Juanita was seen by a
friend on her final walk and was only a few yards away from where her three
killers were waiting. Any claim to the
contrary, official or otherwise, will join the cascade of lies scattered
through this bloody scenario like confetti at a wedding. What happened has been
an open secret in the corridors of power from the start but here, publicly for
the first time, is the unvarnished truth, warts and all.
Juanita's days were numbered from the moment she drew a journalistic bead
on Abe Saffron, aka Mr Sin, the late and unlamented crime lord who pulled all
the important strings in Sydney's Establishment, the big money world of law
enforcement, organised crime and mass corruption.
Predictably in the village that is Kings Cross where Juanita lived and
published her local newspaper, the news of her discoveries was leaked and it
soon reached the wrong ears. Equally inevitably, re-action was swift,
retribution was ruthless and final. Within days she had vanished, never to be
seen again. That's what happened whenever Fred Krahe became involved. To this
psychopathic ex-cop, murder was a hobby; he killed for fun.
Juanita had long been familiar with danger. Anticipating it was second
nature to a campaigning journalist in Sydney but the threat that brought death
to her door slipped under her radar. She didn't spot it until it was too late,
by which time the needle was about to stifle her screams; her life was in its
last hours and death would bring sweet relief.
A missing person the cops declared, but
they knew what their old mate Krahe had devised for this one and what most folk
feared, that Juanita was dead and her remains gone to only God knows where. It
was Sydney's crime of the century, fuelled by a conspiracy of arrogant
audacity, one redolent of a police state where innocent people can be plucked
off the street and simply disappear.
At its centre was the police version of events released piecemeal to the
compliant media over several weeks. It detailed Juanita keeping an incongruous
advertising appointment that produced an implausible receipt, followed by a
luncheon date with an unidentified partner at an equally untraceable venue; a
final sighting that strained credulity, an outlandish description of her
clothing that defied credibility, and a mysterious yellow car with untraced
occupants, all embellished by an inconsistent time scale and a trio of
witnesses with connections to the perpetrators.
It was a convoluted scenario that had all the substance of a stripper's
veil, one that would be replicated for a second murder two years later. By the
time anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay had disappeared, presumed dead,
somewhere near the country town of Griffith, the Nielsen case was nearing
resolution, the plotters identified but inviolable.
Fred Krahe, feared cop turned contract killer, was immune to arrest or
even questioning. He knew where the skeletons lay and the bodies were hidden,
even those he hadn't personally buried. In short, he knew too much. He was
impregnable as well as feared.
***
This is an
excerpt from Ward's book, A Requiem for Juanita, now available on Amazon
The author is a former British police
officer turned journalist who became the London-based European Sports Editor
for The Sydney Daily Telegraph in
1960. He migrated to Australia in 1963 and worked for several Sydney newspapers
until a protracted press strike forced him into magazine publishing.
In the course of this he met
Juanita Nielsen professionally and, along with the late Tony Reeves, was
compelled to launch an investigation into her disappearance when it was
announced on 8 July 1975. Death threats
forced him to leave Australia for the safety of his loved ones in 1979. He
returned to London journalism but persisted with his investigation via the
internet and twice flew to Sydney to pursue major leads.
The recent 46th anniversary of
the murder coincided with his discovery of the corrupt machinations which he
believes have invalidated the 1983 Nielsen inquest. Now aged 89, this completes
his investigation into Australia's most protracted murder conspiracy.
"There's very little I don't now know about this case," he says. "The only unanswered question I have is, why does no one want to
know the truth, or more pointedly, why will no one admit to knowing the
truth? This most specifically includes
my erstwhile colleagues of the Sydney press, a fact which leaves me baffled and
dismayed. It's plain that a story of this magnitude can't be explored within
the confines of a community such as Sydney. There, fear is all-encompassing, corruption reigns supreme and the
truth is a distant country."
