Catching the Mornington Monster: Narelle Fraser Pt.1

Published Jul 6, 2024, 5:00 PM

Anna Sharpe was pregnant with her second child when she and her 20 month old daughter, Gracie, vanished. But the killer was hiding in plain sight. Former detective Narelle Fraser joins Gary Jubelin to share how she solved the murders - and what lengths she went to in retrieving Anna and Gracie’s bodies.   

 

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The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. Placing at the sharp end is a tough business. When you spent the majority of your career working as a detective in rape, homicide and missing person squads, You're going to see and experience some heavy things worked in those environments, and I can assure you it's a tough gig. It's even harder if you're a FEMA, because, let's face it, regardless of how progressive. We'd like to believe policing has become. It's still a bloky environment. Today's guest is a highly decorated former Victorian police officer, Neel Fraser. She spent twenty seven years in the job, working on high profile cases. I've been wanting to get Norell on I Catch Killers for a long time and today We've got to hear and I'm very excited about it. It's going to be a good chat. She's a lot of fun. Noreel Fraser, welcome to I Catch Killers.

Thank you, it's an absolute pleasure.

Well, I'm glad. I've been trying to get you on for a while and it's good we've finally got the opportunity. I'm going to ask just up front, howe's life outside the police. You're enjoying yourself.

That's not an easy question to answer. We've been affected by the floods in Rochester here in Victoria, yeah, and we're out of our home for fourteen months. Our home got decimated, so we've only just come back. We came back in just at the end of December and we're evacuated two weeks later for another flood that completely wrecked our whole property, but just this time it didn't get into the house whereas last time it did. And to be honest, if it got into our house again, I don't think I could do it again. But so life at the moment, it's been it's been pretty stressful, to be honest. But we're back home now. I'm just so relieved, so happy that we're back in our own home and not renting and living out of motels, to be honest. So there's a very very long answer or a very shure christ.

Well, clearly. But look, it's interesting you say with the floods, because we've got a lot happening up in New South Wales and you hear it all over the place, and I don't think unless you actually involved, how disruptive it is and how long it takes to get your life back in order. And yeah, it's a hell of a thing to be going through. So sorry to hear that, but I'm glad you're back in the house now, finally we are.

Yeah, we are, thank you.

Okay, let's jump into it. I've done a lot of research and there's a lot of articles that have been written about you in cases that you've been on and a lot of stuff in the media. One thing, and I just want people to understand what we're talking about with policing, because sometimes people don't fully grasp the depth and the horror that we see and experience. There's a good side, so we'll talk about later on in the podcast. But there was one particular thing that really hit me. It was twenty twelve and you had to as part of your duties review I think it was seventeen hundred child sex abuse tapes.

Yes, and they were actual videos of children being abused. And you know, Gary, I thought that I'm not saying I'd seen everything, but I felt like I could. I felt like I could handle it. It wasn't something I've been thought of.

You know.

I had to look at the tapes for court, and so I did. But there's something happened with these seventeen hundred videos that I had a reaction I'd never had before, and I thought, you know, where the hell did that come from. So what I was doing was we'd done a warrant on a pedophile we've got and to be honest, I felt we're at the wrong house because it was just such that Mum and Dad were there. They were professionals. It was must have been a Friday afternoon or something. But oh, there's they're two sons, adult sons, and one's got his girlfriend there and they're getting married. They're engaged. And I thought to myself it just looked so harmonious, and I thought, my god, how could we have got this so wrong? But we had computer crime there with us. Anyway, we just said, look, can we just have a quick look at your computer, and you know, we should be out of there, and we went and had a look at the son's computer who was getting married. It was about twenty two to twenty three, and I can remember the computer. I'm squad guy opening it and he sort of gasped and I looked and I thought, my god, it was like something I had never seen before. And I only had a quick look. So obviously you would know, but the listeners may not. So as police to give evidence in court, we have to.

We had to.

I don't know it's changed a bit since then, but we had to look at all the videos and grade them from one to five, five being the absolute worst. Well, these were off the scale. If there was something one hundred, I would have ticked a one hundred but I watched the seventeen hundred. But as I said, I had a reaction I'd never had before. And it was the first day. It took two days, and the first day I can remember watching something and it just came out of nowhere, and I remember going and I thought I was going to be sick, and I just couldn't I just couldn't control it. And I remember I went downstairs and had a coffee and just sort of tried to get myself back together, but I just could not get that particular vision out of my mind. Anyway, a couple of days later, I go back to work, and you know how it is, given my evidence in court and off we go to another job.

I think, Yeah, and that's the nature of policing. We accept that you sign up for it. You're not conscripted into policing. You choose that career. But that type of that type of experience, there's some things you see that you just cannot unsee. And when you're talking about children, I think any normal human being, it hits a little bit harder. You know, the innocence of these kids to be caught up in the evil that is there. And yeah, another interesting point just what you said on that story. That's the creepy part about pedophiles is that they do hiding plain sight and people think they're the creepy dude and the raincoat and flashing at school kids. It's not that way. It's quite often people that you don't suspect, and that's what they pray on in other times. But I make this point, but I'm sure you agree with it that sometimes people go but yeah, I wasn't participating child porn. I was just watching, sorry, And I shouldn't call it child porn too. I've been corrected on that before. It's not porn, it's child sex abuse, tapes abuse, and that's the proper terminology. I didn't participate in it. I was just a voyeur. I was just watching. But the way I look at it, they're just as guilty as the people participating in it, because they're all part of that whole criminal, horrible world.

Yeah.

But also, Gary, if you think about it, every single when they say they're not participating, but every single child in those videos is a victim and they are all suffering, so somebody, and if we didn't have people wanting to watch them, those children wouldn't.

There wouldn't be a market for it.

Correct, So you know they are living victims and it will affect them for the rest of their life.

I doubt and me, yeah, I understand how old were the victims?

The youngest I saw was about three months old and the oldest I saw was probably about four.

Yeah, I can understand for obvious reasons why that would impact so heavily on you. Does it sitting down like that? And that's what the people don't understand. They think, Okay, we'll live sees that, But that is the role of the police officer. We can't shirk it. You've got to go through. You've got to present the evidence, and to present the evidence, you've got to view the evidence. Did it destroy your faith in humanity when you see stuff like that?

You know what? It didn't? Gary?

Because I thought I wanted pardon me. I wanted to get those pricks, and the only way you can get them is to watch, you know, to execute search warrants and identify them and arrest them and get them off the streat, you know, get them away. But it's funny you'd think with I suppose my career has been mostly to do with sex offenses and you know, you think it would actually turn you off men because most of the offense are committed by men. But it's funny, like I love men, I love men's company. I love so much about them, and what we see is the darkest of the dark. And no, it didn't really change, you know how I felt about humanity. I think it made me realize that not all in the world is good. But if there's one less pedophile I can get inside and away from children, I think, you know, it's a good day.

I love hearing that sort of attitude, the motive from detectives, because that's people look at detectives. They're passionate, driven or whatever, the good detectives and that's what you need. I'm going to catch these pricks. I Am going after them and going to do everything and destroy it, literally destroy their lives, and enjoy doing it because that's what they deserve.

You know. You know, sorry, just on that.

One of the best things I love about what I miss is you know, when you've got all the evidence you need, you've got the videos, you've got, it doesn't matter what they say. You know they are going with you and they're going to get slotted put in the cells. And I used to love knocking on the door and think, and you know what, you prick, I am taking you back to the station. It doesn't matter what you say. Oh I just happened to glance at it.

It doesn't matter. I just missed that.

I'm how I don't know what I'm hearing you, Noel, And yeah, we shouldn't talk about revenge, vengeance and all that, but sometimes there needs to be a little bit. I would like knocking on the doors when someone's done the despicable crime and have the wife or parents or someone answer the door and Okay, well, yeah, your world is just about to finish. Time has been up. Now we're chatting the other day and you mentioned on the back of that we're talking about that particular case, and you say that wasn't long after I think a matter of days or a week after that, you attended another case. And it was the way you told it to me, then if you could tell it again, because it was quite sort of confronting, but it also sort of represents how you go about your pleasing.

Yeah, I had it was only a couple of days after I'd view these seventeen hundred videos. There's just so many of these offenses, isn't there and people in the real world they just don't see it, which is good. But yeah, a couple of days later, I was helping the AFP, the Australian Fed Police with a warrant on a suspected pedophile and we went to the house and it was myself and another member from my office and a number of AFP members and commuter computer crime. And when we went to the house again going back to what you said, it's just a normal house in normal suburbia, quite a nice house. And when we knocked on the door, the guy that we were looking for that search on it was attributed to. He answered the door and he looked like anyone's brother, a boyfriend, Like he was a little bit tubby. But you'd see him on the train, you know, you'd see him at footy. He was just so normal looking. But we could almost not get in the door without him saying, you've got me, I've done this, you know. He wanted to confess there, and then it was like, could you just wait until we get in the door and then you can you know, like he just he knew we had him. But with this job, it was horrendous. It's one of those jobs that you can never ever walk away from and ever forget. And so when we went into his room. He was in a sharehouse and it was a bedroom. His bedroom was made up like a little film studio, and he had all these props and all female sex toys. There was female clothing, a whole lot of things, and then there was this what do you call it, a stool in the middle of all this black curtains. And anyway, he told us who it was. It was a young twelve year old boy. He'd been a friend of the family, and he told us who it was straight up. So I offered, and I think I probably would have got the job anyway, because I really want I wanted to go and talk to this young boy victims. Yeah, somebody had to go and tell his parents. Somebody had to get the hopefully get the little boy on board and talk to us. And I just sort of felt that was my forte and I thought I can do this. I'd seen a couple of the videos and it was sickening, and anyway, so I went around and as sorry and as I'll just go back a little bit. This man had befriended the family. This is a very typical story. He'd befriended the family. He used to the parents were really hard workers. They didn't have a lot, so he'd say, look, I'll look after the kids and you go off and do your night shift or whatever. So he used to stay over a lot. And as we found out, he'd been grooming this little boy for probably since he was about six, and the offending started at about seven, so he'd been partaking in child abuse material from when he was about seven to twelve. So he had been groomed well and truly by this man. But the man was giving him gifts.

You know.

Again, it's so typical. If you say anything, I'm going to go to jail. But you know, your mum and dad don't love you.

This is my love.

It it's like a framework, isn't it a step by step every year he had again.

Yep, yeah, anyway, so I went around to the home, to the family home, and it was about three point thirty in the afternoon, and there's mum and dad sitting on the couch watching Telly or whatever, and mum comes to the door, and of course the minute you say, look where with the police, Mum goes, I there's anything wrong, Well, I just need to come inside.

You know, how do you break this news?

Yeah?

What do you say? And to be honest, Gary, I was dreading telling the mum and dad because, as you said, before, that visit I knew would change their lives forever. And so when we went inside and sat down, we said the man's name, and you know what, in the end, you've just got to be honest, there's no point sugarcoating it to a point, and we said that their son, we'd identified him in this child abuse material. Well, they were as you would expect. The mum fainted. It was an awful, an awful place to be. But I also felt confident is the wrong word, but I knew I was the right person to do it. I just sort of felt right. And after a while I didn't tell them every you know, but I told them that he'd been groomed by him, and they said, what did we miss? You know, they were blaming themselves.

It's a horrible legacy to carry, isn't it.

Oh, yeah it is, and you know, why didn't we see it? And anyway, so then they said, oh, the little boy should be home shortly from school. So of course he walks in from school, and again I just dreaded it. But he walks in and he goes to the fridge and he opens up and Hi Mum, Hi Dad, and he goes and Mum goes, you're better come in here. The police want to speak to you. And the place just went quiet, and I can remember he didn't come in, So with the mum, I went into the kitchen with him, and I remember just standing there and saying, I've got to tell you there's nothing wrong. But we've spoken to blah blah and this is you know, and I know everything that's happened, that's.

Not your fault.

Well, he just he exploded and he rarely screamed at me, and he ran out the door, and Mum and I ran after him, but we had no hope of getting him. So the mom said he'll come back anyway. He came back about an hour later, and he wanted to go into his mum and dad's room and he said, can I talk to your mum? So Mum goes in there and there in behind closed doors for maybe fifteen minutes. Again it was a torture, yeah, to wait, you know. And anyway, then the Mum comes out and she says, on Narel, he'd like to talk to you. So I walked into the bedroom and him and his muma laying on the bed, and I just sort of felt wrong. Here I am in a suit, you know, the detectives, I've got my diary and all this sort of stuff, and it just looked it was all wrong. I went and sat on the edge of the bed, and I was trying to reassure him that he hadn't done anything or whatever. But I just felt I needed to get onto his level. Big because I'm sitting at the edge of the bed, he's lying down with his mum, and I don't know, but I just said, would you mind if I laid there next to you and mum? And he goes, no, that'd be nice. So anyway, I laid down. He held my hand like it was just yeah.

I got the image in my head.

It was just so powerful.

It was, oh my god, it could nearly bring me to tears now and then and he told me pretty much everything, and then he agreed to do he Eventually, after a while, he realized that he wasn't in trouble, that mum and dad weren't going to go to jail. But the man was because he'd done something very naughty. And in the end he actually said to his mum because we asked the parents if about a medical because obviously, you know, we would have liked some evidence, it would have helped the case. And we explained that to mum and dad and they they were fantastic and they said, whatever you need, we will, you know, with the boys agreeing anyway, the boy said to me, would you do the medical with Minerela, I want you to come with me, not the mother.

Oh god, Gary, I.

Can remember sitting at the head, Oh God, sitting at the head of the bed and holding his hand while they're doing the most intimate examinations. But it was in a really weird way. It was a really lovely, beautiful almost way, like the boy trusted us, you know, and and he eventually told us, Oh, it was horrendous what he told us. But and you know, I can always remember him when we were lying on the bed, just going back a little bit, when we were lying on the bed, he was crying, he was very upset, and he said, am I gay Mum? And I mean answer that, and he was kind he said, I don't want to be game. I like girls, you know.

Just the cruelty of what that does.

And you know what, the next day I go back to work and another job comes in.

You know, It's just Wellll, I wanted you to give people an understanding of what policing is about, and I think you captured so much and that just the short examples of the stories you told there. But Norell, I normally wait to the end of the podcast before I thank someone for the work that you do. I know policing, I know policing well, and what you displayed there in that situation, if you did nothing else in your career, you should be able to walk away and feel like you made a difference because you had empathy and care and everything that needed in that situation. And to me, that's what makes some people in the job as a cop, as detectives, those special type people. So I'm giving you a wrap right at the start. Well see if I take it away when we have a further discussion. But honestly, Norell, and every person I see that I considered to be a good detective, and I've been surprised that when I talk to talk to them. What makes a good detective. And they all talk about the empathy and what you displayed there was in bucket loads and the difference that you made and probably restored the faith for that poor little kid in life. And his parents say, well done, great, great policing. And people don't see that as policing. People wouldn't even understand what you just told us. You lay down on the bed with the mother and the young young boy.

Yeah, but when you think about it, if you heard somebody say that, you'd think, God, how inappropriate, wouldn't you? Yeah?

Initially?

Yeah, yeah, And I'm sure I'm sure there would be some resistance. Are you're getting too close, you're feeling it too much. But when you're talking about crimes or the nature you just described, that's what you've got to give. And if you can't give that, don't investigate those crimes. Really let some ken. But no, you can make a world of difference just in a little example like that. So thanks for what you did there, and thanks for telling us that story. We're going to wind it back a little bit. I want to find out about norell As growing up. What was your what was your childhood like?

Are you basic?

Yeap?

Very suburbia. Dad was a shoe salesman, and isn't it funny? He loved it, thought it was the best job in the world.

Hilarious, he did.

Mum had been a secretary she had. Mum and Dad married quite late, so they had three of us in two and a half years. I've got two sisters, yeah, so what are you saying? Yeah, so I'm the eldest, and then I've got a sister eleven month younger and another one seventeen months younger. Again, so they gave me. My parents gave me the most beautiful sisters, and they gave me something that I saw in policing a lot of people didn't have, and that's, you know, a roof over my head, love support, you know. You know, we did what all kids do, you know, played up the road and you know, in the BlackBerry bush, all sorts of stuff. And I think they introduced us to a fantastic group of their friends. We used to go away every Christmas down to wind Block and spent four or five weeks down there. And I always remember something funny. I always remember all the boys, like the fathers. They always used to say, at about four o'clock, we need to go into town and get the sugar, you know. And you know, it never dawned on me until years later. What the actually do we.

You make me laugh because I remember it wasn't to get the sugar. But I remember that all the men in the street where I grew up, that on a Saturday afternoon, they'd all say they're going up the road. As a kid, I'm thinking, why do they always get up the road? Yeah. Then they'd come back in and they'd seem very happy or in different different states. And I think when you have a childhood like that, you can look at other kids and situations, and the offenders too when they come through, and it makes a difference because you carry what your childhood with you, whether you like it or not. Why did you want to join the police?

It came out of nowhere. I was counseling. I've been a secretary, shorthand typing, you know, a PA to company directors. You know. I was sort of reasonably good at my job. I loved it, but I started. I'd always been a sort of fairly caring person, interested in, you know, the psychology behind people, and I just sort of felt I had something to offer with people who hadn't been as fortunate as I had, And so I did a counseling course with Lifeline. As I said, it just came out of nowhere and I just loved it. But what I found and I became a telephone counselor. But I started to think. I thought, how can I get to these people before they get to the point of bringing lifeline. Yeah, and so because a lot of them were homeless, a lot of them were you know, suicidal, They just they had no one, you know, they were helpless, they were hopeless, and I just thought, how could I get to them before they get to the point where they've got a ring lifeline, you know. And that's when I thought policing. And then it all started to sort of you know, how things happen, a little bit of fate, I don't know. But at the time I was very fit. I was running a lot, and clearly I've stopped running, but.

Everything just, I don't know, it just jelled.

It was all right. And I went to the police careers when lunchtime and the they used to have one in the middle of the city. I went there and this is what you need and it just all sort of flowed and boy, and then I went out to the academy. My god, was that a like I'd never in my upbringing. I'd never seen an angry man. I'd never heard somebody yell. And at the Academy it was bros up, you know, and they'd yell at you, and it was like, excuse me. But then you couldn't do that because you had to toe the line. But I really struggled at the academy academically, really struggled, you know. I left school at fifteen to be a secretary, so that's how I got into police.

Okay. I like hearing the stories and it just brings back my own memories of going in the academy. And there's so much to take on board, isn't it. There's so much. You're really stepping into a new world and you've got to get your head around the laws and your police powers, and then you've got to shoot, and you've got to train and powers of arrest, just so many things. But I remember in the academy, I loved it when they were yelling at us, and that I'm thinking, oh, didn't you and we yet paid for this. I still still remember. I think it was the first week I'm in the academy and they took us on a run on a Friday afternoon and I loved it. And someone had thrown up and were doing push ups and they made them do the push ups over their own own vomit, and I just thought, and they're paying us for this. So that was my experience in the academy.

And you know, and one other thing is with a gun. I'd never seen a gun, let alone handle one and actually shoot it right. So I used to get very nervous in the shooting range. And the first time I ever went in there. You know how, we used to have thirty targets and used to have to get let's say, I don't know, I think it was almost thirty out of thirty. I can't remember now, but let's say it was thirty out of thirty. Anyway, I ended up getting twenty eight out of thirty, but the bloke next to me got thirty two.

You might have a couple of your way. I'm not saying this has ever happened, but I've been through a lot of qualifying shoots and all that, and there might be someone that's not as handy with the weapon standing beside you and a shot might have gone gone into their target. It's terrible thing. But yeah, but you know, again, these are things and you see people and it doesn't have to be a man or woman. I've just seen people that guns are confronting things like when you're handling them, and you see people that it's the greatest fear in policing. Joining policing have to handle the weapon. And you know, if that's your phobia or your fear, I can understand that mine and you wouldn't have had this in the academy. We had to touch type it. I don't know whether it was forty words a minute or something you had to pass. You'd be going to typing class each day. Touch typing. That was the biggest stress I had in the academy to make sure a could touch type. And I remember between the initial training and the secondary training, I had a holiday and I had to get a typewriter. I'd take away and sit in the tent. I was just away on a surfing holiday. People must have thought I met this creative writer sitting in this tent typing. It was met practicing my touch typing.

But you see, that's something I didn't struggle with because.

I was jealous of people like you like that, But that's a skill. I I never hung on the touch typing, and I was told it's one of my biggest regrets. I sort of an abbreviated version of touch typing. But when you get out in the police station, you're filling out the forms and this and that, and like I can type quickly. But yeah, it's a skill that I should have hung on to. And shorthand note taking, that would have been a fantastic skill to have.

I was going to say shorthand was. There's only one time whenever you're giving evidence in a court where you're on top of things and the defense start going to water, and it was when they used to stay to me, do you have your notes there?

Constable?

I used to wait for them to say that, yeah, I'm given to them and they I could see them like they go white, the blood would drain out of their face. And of course you never ask a question you don't know the answer to, so of course they couldn't say what does this say, because it might say I did it? Seem you know I did it?

In Noarrell, Yeah, no, that would have been beautiful. I wish I had that in my back pocket seeing the witness box under intense cross examination. But yeah, no, that's that's good. I can understand why the benefits. So you're out out where were you first stationed in uniform?

Would you believe some Kilda?

Right? Okay? So in the in the figure of it, woh.

Was it ever talk about a baptism of fire? But again, talking, I sound like I'm terribly soft and fluffy, but I can you know, I can yell at the best of times and get people to do what I want them to if I have to. But I can always remember I'd never seen a prostitute. We're again, they're not prostitutes.

Sex sex workers. Yep, you and I are showing that we can evolve and understand the world.

We can.

Ye, So i'd never seen a sex worker and an ice boy? Did I seem at some killed? And you know, there's some things you learn in policing. You learn a lot of good things, but you also learn a lot of things, And you think I will.

Never do that.

I never ever treated them any differently to anyone else. In fact, by talking to them and being kind and a bit understanding, they gave me grade info.

Right, And I think People sometimes misunderstand that that if you didn't come across gruff and the hard ass cop, people are going to walk over you. But the reverse is quite often. There's times, as you identified, you need to crack down and that tough guy or tough lady. But just treating people with a little bit of respect can go a long way, especially when they're being treated like just kicked around all their life and then someone shows them some interest and sits down, actually sits in thegether with them or wherever, and has a conversation. It's amazing the information that you can get. What attracted you to detectives, What was the drive there?

It sounds wrong, but the more serious the offense, the more I want to be there. I'm not saying the little old lady coming in and saying she'd lost her purse, that was big to her. But I wanted, you know, I wanted the rapes. I wanted to be involved in the rapes, in the murders, in the abductions, the challenge and the real as you referred to before, the real hard assed crooks. That's what I wanted. But it wasn't so much. It was more about I wanted to get into sort of get into their head. For instance, a rapist. I found it absolutely fascinating. Maybe I don't know if that's the right.

The psychology of it is incorrect.

To get into their you know, their thinking, and to talk to them about what made them do it, What were you thinking?

What had you done?

A lot of them had been watching pornography. A lot of younger offenders had been watching pornography. But you learn a lot by being interested in people and showing literally I did. I was interesting in what made them tick, what was it on that day, that person, you know, all that sort of stuff. That's what I wanted. And also the victims, not the offenders, were very challenging because some just don't want to talk to you, and that's fine, you've got to accept that. But also the victims, you know, I can remember a rape I went to where the victim had been oh, bashed. I've never seen anybody bashed so hard, not even in a street fight. Her head was like a bowling ball, and she had been raped and stood on, stomped on, and she couldn't see. And I sat with her for a week in a hospital, just trying to get as much information as we could and again talking about her parents and she had other siblings and to take them in and see her the way she was in a hospital bed. But for some reason, Gary, that drew me like a honeypot. If that makes sense.

No, it does make sense. And it's and I'm always cautious to say this when I'm speaking to detectives because we gravitate towards detectives on this show. I totally respect the men and women that stay in uniform, and you know they are at the sharp end the front line of the police when shit happens. Usually the first one, first one's there and they never know what they're going to be confronted with. It shift and you would have seen it. I saw it. Some of these good uniform police has spent their whole career in uniform. They had a skill set we didn't have as detectives. They had a mannerism and a way that they went about their business. So it's not saying one is better or the other, but yeah, the curiosity. Curiosity drove me to detectives. I was at a scene I think it was a murder, and I see the detectives walk in, they go through the crime tape. I'm out guard the crime tape and then they come out with this knowing look on their face, and I think, I want to I want to get behind the tape. I want to go inside the scene and see it. But you obviously enjoyed it.

Yeah. I also used to love the debriefs, and you know, when a job had come in and you'd all sit around the table and you'd have the paper up there and people would be scribbling. You know, Norell, you're doing this, somebody else do just to talk about it. I missed that so much, you know, that working in a team, because often when you're on the div van, it's just you and your colleague. But I loved that working in a team because everybody brings a different skill. I was never the you know such and this power of arrest and this, you know, this section of the crimes out. There were people that could just recite things and that wasn't my forte. I knew what mine was, and mine was working with the victims and just the cycleologue logical part is what I love.

Yeah, shut up, Nell, you're bringing me back to the memories of in the incident room when something's breaking and there's a collaborative group of minds there and everyone's staring at the whiteboard and what says have we missed something? And someone will say something that, yeah, it's exciting that, it's exhilarating that. Yeah. They try to capture it on you know, you see the TV shows and all that. Sometimes they do. But when you see it, when you've got something where it's everyone working together, the soul of this crime, it is a good place. Now. I just said we'll jump forward and we'll move backwards and forwards. But again, research and preparing for this the murder of Anna and Gracie Sharp Mornington monster case. Can you tell us about that case, your involvement in the case, and just lead us to how the bodies were found and different things like that. Just take us through that.

Sure, I was a missing persons at the time. I think it was around two thousand and four.

Yep, yeah, yeah.

Okay, thanks. And a job came in and our analysts looked at it and thought, you know, the analysts a lot of unsung heroes in oh and our analyst Helen, she was just fantastic and she could smell a rat a mile off. And this job came in and it was a bit old. It was a couple of months down the track a woman had gone missing from Mornington with her little daughter. And what had happened was it was Anna and Gracie Sharp. Anna was married to John Sharp. They moved down to Mornington and they had little Gracie and Anna was pregnant with their second child. And Anna's mum lived in New Zealand because that's where Anna came from, and and his mum would ring. They were very close and they bring each other all the time, almost daily. Anyway, for a while, Anna's mum couldn't get on to Anna and she thought there was something something was just bubbling away, thinking there's something not right here. And I think she tried for a couple of weeks and she'd ring John and she'd say I haven't been able to speak to Anna. And John and say, oh, she's shopping or you know whatever, out with girlfriends.

Yeah.

But then as time went on there was something not right and eventually John said to his mother in law, look, she's had an affair and she's actually left me. I didn't know how to tell you. Anna's mum knew that wasn't right. Because Anna was pregnant with their second child. She'd never ever mention anything about being unhappy or anything anyway. So Ana's mum rang the local Dunedin police in New Zealand, and of course they make a few inquiries. They ring John and John says, oh, she's had an affair in left me. So they then ring they smell a rat and they ring Mornington Police, the local police, and they tell them, you know the information they've got, can you go around and check it out. So off they go round to John's.

And he's there.

He's very it was quite sort of distraught, a bit nervous, as you'd expect, you know, anyone coming into contact with police is nervous, so but there was something about him. They just you know, we get it as police, not just detectives. All police, I think get these gut feelings. And the police at Mornington thought there's something right here, so they go back to Mornington. No, I don't think the actually got back to Mornington. I think actually got out front of the house and they rang our office and they said something is very wrong here. So that's when we started the ball rolling. And I think we're about six or eight weeks down the track, so we had we were behind that April.

Yeah, from the start, if that's when you're talking investigations, you're playing catch up. And back then it was you're losing information, you're losing witnesses or that the longer it takes before you ramp up the investigation.

So anyway, we eventually the bosses make a decision, Yes, we're going to go down. We're going to have a look at it. So we get a team together. Off we go down to Mornington. We have that briefing, and again it's just it's exciting, you know, like is this and what we had to determine was with any missing person case, is the person missing or is there an offense involved? Have they just decide number one, has she had an affair and has she gone off with somebody else? Yeah, it's possible, of.

Course, And that's why those investigations are a little bit harder if you start with the body, you know, okay, here's the offense, and then you can work from there. So, yeah, it adds another layer to an investigation when someone's.

Just just to establish if a crime has been committed, you know, and so we know, did the usual you know, Norell you do this, somebody else do that? So off we go, We make our we do a few inquiries, and we come back and then we decide we're going to go around to John's and speak to him. So we go around. This is probably two days later, Oh maybe not that long, but anyway, we go around to John's to the house. The house is a lovely two story house in Mornington, quite reasonably nice house, I would you know. Anyway, we knock on the door and John answers, and he's very accommodating, Oh yes, please come in, and he's sort of a bit upset. But the house itself, it was that cold. And I don't mean cold temperature, I mean cold as in there was just nothing, no warmth in the house. It was like almost like a death house sort.

Of, you know, seeing what you're saying, Oh God.

And there was no sort of little knickknacks. Anyway, we say, look, we don't have a warrant at this point, but we say, look we just have a bit because we're just there having a chat to him, and you know, we don't know what's going on. So we said, oh, can we just have a bit of a look around you. So he takes us upstairs and we go up to the main bedroom and there's no bed and it's like, oh, what's where's the bed? And he said, oh, I had to get rid of it because the memories were just too difficult, too hard to bear. Again, yep, I can understand that. So then we go into Grace's room and her COT's missing, and oh, where's Grace's cot? Oh well, you know the man that she's moved in with, he didn't have a cot. So they took Grace's cot again, right, but we didn't the word is I was going to say we didn't like him from the start.

That's that's not very fair. But you know I didn't like it.

You smelled something about.

It, absolutely, yeah.

But what we did, what we did notice was in the kitchen there was you know how we have a calendars in the kitchen and oh, you know the doctor's appointment, haircut all that. We noticed that there were all these appointments for Anna, you know, the doctor, all this sort of stuff.

It was just wrong.

Anyway, we ended up.

I love hearing these stories in the rel in that just yeah, these these little things from a keen eye of a detective, investigators looking at it, going okay, that's something and it's not. It's not evidence as such. You're not going to convict a person. But it all starts to add their red flags are indicators.

Oh absolutely, and you know how you just start getting it just starts. Yep, that's right. The bed's missing, the COT's missing. So when we went back that night, we drew up a search on and when it's not I was a team in a team of let's say, there was maybe five or six of us, so it's not.

I it's right, and I accept that when anyone's talking to investigations team sport.

That's absolutely anyway. So we go back and throw a few things around. None of us believed him, but of course we've got no evidence, so we do a search warrant the following day. Again all very you know, chatty, but you know he had the personality of a stop sign. Okay, serious, seriously, he had.

He just had nothing.

He you know, I think most people I can get a little bit of a I don't know, rapport with, but it was like getting rapport with a block of wood.

Seriously, it was it was just a non nothing.

I've met those people, offenders like people and yeah, there's something that what what am I not getting here something. There's no connection there. It's it's interesting, isn't it.

Yeah?

Nothing, And anyway, so we did a warrant the next day and we took away you know, a whole lot of stuff as you'd expect, you know, the computer and I can't remember, but we must have had somebody doing the luminole and all that sort of stuff. But the place was as clean as and we found nothing. Anyway, So we we go on. You know, everyone's doing their their stuff there.

Oh that's right.

John had said that he'd seen a green car down the road or something. So we do a door knock. And I've said many times and you would agree with this, you get so much from a door knock. People think the young police think a door knock it's boring, But you get so much information, don't you.

We call it Canvassin. And I used to lecture at the Academy of Homicide courses and detective courses, and I couldn't stress enough the importance of the information. And I learned that from people that trained me when I first in detectives, or first a couple of big jobs, and yeah, do the canvas and yea, they just pile there and then the good detectives again, what did that person say? Who did you speak to? There? And just going through the canvas FMS in my neute detail, Yeah, the amount of information you gets incredible.

Oh yeah, and you're right, Oh, you've just reminded me. Yes. So when the uniform police come back and they've filled out their form and the questions you wanted asked, and then there's some and you think, did you ask them? Did you go into any detail about this particular thing. No, we'll go back, or we go back and you don't have another chat anyway. So we get let's say, a week down the track. Anna's mum receives a bunch of flowers for her birthday from Anna, but then she realizes that it's not She knows her daughters the way she writes her expressions, it's not Anna's words.

She also gets.

A bunch of flowers and there was something else, but she knew it wasn't Anna anyway. She then, So things are starting to add up, and we keep going back to John to get more information. What we find out is that John's from a close family. He's got four older sisters, his parents are still alive. He provided a photo to us that we actually established later was taken two days before Anna and Gracie were murdered, and this was, you know, we'd been to a family do or something. Because we can't find any signs of disturbance, there is nothing to suggest that they have been done away with. But there's also nothing to suggest that she's had an affair either, because what's happening is her phone is still being used and her credit card is still being used.

So that adds to the.

Is she having a confusion whether there was some legitimacy to her going on?

Yeah? Absolutely. So over the next week.

We you know, we keep doing what we were doing, but then we're getting nowhere. And then in that briefing, somebody says, we've got to try surveillance, but we can't do We can't put an elder a listening device in John's house or in his car because he talks to no one.

Is there on his own.

Yeah, but he's got no friends, he's got no he's just a loner. Some could call him a loser, but anyway, I won't.

So what we do.

Is we think, well, let's just watch him, let's do it, get him to do a media release, and we'll just follow him from them. So he does a media release on Channel seven and I think a number of people have seen this where he you know, he cries and holds up them. I don't know how he could do this, but he holds up a photo of little Gracie. You know, please if just ring the police, you know, please with her to contact and anyway, So what happens is the dogs, the surveillance that's what we call the the listeners.

I know what you you know what it is.

Why are you calling them dogs? Let's the term that's frequently used for our surveillance place.

And so the dogs following from straight after the interview is just the most exciting, almost day of my life. They follow him anyway, he goes down to the Chelsea Beach, maybe twenty minutes away from where he's done the interview. And he goes down to the Chelsea Beach, and of course the dogs are watching him.

They've got.

Binoculars, they're taking videos and all this, and they watch him and he gets out of his car and he goes behind a toilet block and you can see the video and he looks round checks and he digs down under a bin and he brings out this plastic bag. You see him make a phone call. There's a phone in the bag, so he makes a phone call, puts that back, and then he goes to the local shopping center, withdraws two hundred dollars from the bank, which of course has got no CCTV. Withdraws a two hundred bucks, puts the bag, everything back in the bag by the two hundred, and then you see him go back to where he'd got the bag originally. He buries the bag again, gets back in the car, and he goes back home and he rings our office. We know what he's been and he rings our office and he said, you're not going to believe this, but Anna's just rung me on the phone, and he said, and she's just taken two hundred dollars out or somebody has just taken two hundred dollars out of the bank. You can imagine, Gary, we would do high.

Fives dancing on the tables with that one for well an investigation, yeah, just about.

But yeah, we were.

It was but you know, it was just it was such a moment to realize, my god, he really has done this.

And then it was where are they? So we waited probably about.

A day a day and a half, hoping that he would take us, let's say, to where the bodies were, but that never happened. So we arrested him pretty shortly afterwards. Oh, the interview.

The interview.

We took him back to the homicide squad officers in Saint Kilda Road and the interview he chose to make no comment. Well, that's his right. You know, nothing we can do about that.

But where were they?

You know, we didn't, We had no idea, but we knew it was him now anyway, so we did.

A really did you charge him at this point in time? You had enough to charge him?

No?

No, they're interviewing him right so that no, he's not charged at this point. They're interviewing him. And so what happens is we take the bosses make a really brave decision. Our priority was to find Anna and Gracie rather than they weighed up do we want a conviction or do we want to find them? So they wanted both obviously, but they had to make a decision. They decided they wanted to be the only way we could get John to talk was to bring his family in. So, of course there are the chants that the court would find that they were police. You know, we were using them.

As agent for the police.

Correct, And he hadn't been cautioned all that sort of stuff. And that's what I mean. It was a decision what's more important, and the boss has made the decision it is more important to find Anna and Gracie than get a conviction. So what we did was but anyway, that's up to the courts, isn't it to decide whether we did.

There's discretionary powers in the courts to the judge's discretion.

Yeah, yeah, and we were hoping, Oh, it was a chance that we had to take anyway. So we bring the parents in and we show them just as snippet of him going to the bin, because of course they couldn't believe it. John, our you know, our lovely son. But when they saw that, they realized that we weren't playing games, that this was you know, this is what we thought, and it was pretty much confirmed, and we wanted to know where the bodies were. So we left them in with John for probably about an hour and they came out and that's when they said, he'll talk to you, okay, and Gary he talked He did the interview full and like he told, he took hours to tell what had happened.

Yeah, all the admissions and the proofs.

But Gary to listen because of course the team were behind the two way mirror, and to listen to it because we were all sitting there and you know, the big bosses had come in. The ac came in and we were all sitting watching this interview. How the guys Rocky and Kenno that did the interview they had daughters Gracie's age themselves. I don't know how they did it. But he spoke like he was he killed an ant on the footpath. It was just the most Oh, it was chilling and in a nutshell. He said that Anna was moody and controlling and that was it.

That was his reason, reason.

Moody and controlling, and that he could think of no other way.

He just had to do it.

But it was pre planned because he had been to the fishing shop. He got a couple of spears, he bought a chainsaw, he bought tarps.

He knew what he was going to do.

Hey, guys, have you ever wondered what goes on behind the headlines of a gang war or shooting. Then you need to listen to crim City joined crime reporters Mark Murray and Josh Hamrahan as they uncovered the details of crimes unfolding on Sydney streets and share the stories that don't make the papers. The latest season of crim City is out now. Listen early and ad free on Crime x plus on Apple Podcast Today. How did he kill them?

So he said in this interview, just like I'm talking to you now. So he says, you know, Anna was giving me the shits this particular night. I had a scotch, got a bit of courriage up and I went down to the shed, the got the spear gun and I went upstairs and I spared her in the head. But this is what we had to listen to. And so he speared her and then he dragged her downstairs and buried her in the yard. And then after a day he thought they're going to find that with the chainsaw, he dug her up, cut her up, cut her cut her torso her legs and arms, et cetera, put her in a garbage bag and threw her out with the household rubbish. Now this is he's just, you know, just talking like this.

This is this is what I did.

Yep.

And then of course the dread came when Rocky or Keno go so and we hear all about Anna, right, and then also what happened with Gracy anyway, So he he didn't know what to do with Gracie, but he thought, he kept thinking, I can't deal with this. Gracie needs to be with her mum. So he takes little Gracie down to the fishing shop. There's CCTV footage of him holding her little hand and he walks up to the counter and yeah, I'll have that spear there, and I'll have a couple of extras there. Takes them back to the house. Gracie goes to bed that night in her cot.

Look, I think, oh, it's chilling. We're talking about a crime, horrendous crime, and you know, sometimes people don't need to hear all the details. But yeah, when it's said and done, lives have been taken, a lady and a child's lives just so brutally. But how did he kill the child?

So Gracey's asleep again. He has a couple of scotches, needs a bit of bravado and he goes downstairs. He gets the spear gun and he loads it and he shoots Gracie in the head, but it doesn't kill her, so he gets another spear, spares her again. She's screaming, obviously, spares her again. She's still alive. He's got three spears. He uses the third spear, she is still alive. He takes one of the spears out of her head, reloads, and that fourth one kills her. M It's beyond words, isn't.

He I'm lost for words on it. The real we're both worked in homicide. You hear some horrible things and when it's breaken down with that, that's what we're talking about. That's why people, why detectives pursue these people who are capable of crimes like that, Like you can't you can't even comprehend it.

And as if that's not bad enough, he then throws her in a garbage bag mhm, and throws her out in the rubbish.

Yeah.

I can remember they had a bit of a break during this interview, and I can remember going into the ladies bathroom with another detective another a lady obviously, and I remember putting my head in my hand and I was crying. I just I just couldn't. We both were. And you know, there was an AC in there, an Assistant commissioner watching all this, and everyone was the same, like, oh my god. And I remember one of the detectives next to me, the AC put his hand on her shoulder and I thought, please don't put your hand on my shoulder because in comfort, because I thought I will absolutely lose it. Thank god he didn't. So but then, of course, is the dread they're in.

They're in a tip.

Yeah, I've searched tips for bodies and it's not a nice experience and you've literally got to go through you can't do it nicely. You've literally got to go through all the rubbish people have discarded. But I know with this one, Norell, if you could just tell us that it was searching for days and days and days it maybe you were the one that found the bags of the bodies in it. Do you want to just tell us briefly about that.

Yeah, it's funny. It was costing about half a million dollars a day. And in the end the bosses said on the eleventh, this is the tenth day, and they said, we're going to have to pull up stumps tomorrow. We just can't do it. And you know what, Gary, I don't know why, but from the minute we started searching, I know this sounds a bit funny, but I knew i'd find her. I knew i'd find one of them. I just I was that determined to make sure that one or both of them weren't going to wind their life in a filthy, rat infested as best as ridden tip, cold, wet, windy. Oh, it was shocking. It was about July, I think by this stage. And anyway, so the last day comes and it's I don't know, nearly morning tea time, and you know we're the big.

Front end.

What's that thing called the front Later, Yeah, I saw that many blue bags because that's what we're looking for, a blue bag, and I never want to see a blue bag again. I saw thousands of blue bags, and we had to check every single blue bag. And this one it comes up, it digs it up, and I hold it because I don't want him to you to ruin if it does contain anything. Anyway, it's up the top of the sort of mound that he'd sort of done this with all the with the rubbish, and you had to sort of scramble up the top and go through it all anyway, this blue bag, I open it and I see a kitchen glove and a few and I just sort of and I went to go back down, and I thought, I don't reckon that was a glove. So I go back and it's an arm, a human arm.

So I knew then, obviously.

And it was an adult, so I knew that i'd sound Anna. And the euphoria that I felt in finding her was almost indescribable. And everyone comes from everywhere and we're all hugging and we're all crying and we're all someone and it was just lovely in a way terrible, but it was just.

Yeah, I know what you're saying, the real and like the people, yeah, they think when you're telling a story this and you felt you found the body. This is just the nature of policing. This is how you have to survive policing. And you're looking for bodies. And I've been in situations just like that, where you find the body, you carry sadness the whole time. At that particular point in time, you feel like you've done your job and you exactly you're bringing. I never say closure with homicide because it just people don't get it. But you bring a degree of peace that the bodies have been found.

And that's a very good point. I just felt so Initially it was euphoria that I'd found it, but it didn't take long, maybe thirty seconds, and then I thought, pardon me, that means a little grace is around it somewhere, and that was a dread that I could hardly bear. We wait for so they call crime scene, and of course everybody goes up to the caravan where the cup of tea two hundred, we call it the caravan with the meals and everything. And we were waiting for crime scene and one of my colleagues said, come on, phrase, we're going up for a coffee. And you know what, Gary, I couldn't leave her. Yeah, I sat with that bag. Of course I didn't look. I mean I looked away, but I just thought, how could I leave her like I'd found her? And I just sort of couldn't leave her alone anymore.

Again, that's Norell. That's that that empathy and caring nature. It just seems so brutal when you find the discarded body. And I can understand that feeling that you just feel like you're abandoning this poor person, this poor lady, just in this rubbish tip. So yeah, heavy stuff.

And I never and I've got to say you said before, I need to correct her. I didn't find Gracey. I thought that afternoon. I think the next day we went back down to begin looking for Gracy. And what I thought was just amazing. I was dreading finding Gracy. I just hoped that I wasn't going to be there person. Yeah, but I can remember we called it time and we were going to go back the next day. But as we were walking looking back, like this is at four o'clock in the afternoon, and it was really windy and everything was blown around. Would you believe there are these photos blown around? And one of the detectives picks up the photo and he looks at it and he says to me, do you recognize her? And I didn't, but apparently it was Anna's mum, So yeah, yeah, So I didn't go back the next day. I'm not sure why. I think I would have used any excuse in the world not to because I didn't believe that I could handle it. But anyway, they found little Gracey and now they are at peace. Little Gracey and Anna are at peace over in New Zealand on Anna's mum's property.

Okay, well that's some consolation for the mother. But look, that's I won't say typical, because there's no typical homicide investigation, but the way you describe that, I think if you work in that sort of very long enough, these are the type of cases that you get. So thank you for explaining that. So, John, the bodies were found. John was convicted of these horrendous crimes. How long was he sentenced to?

Not long enough?

Yeah, he got thirty three years.

Thirty three years, yeah.

Which you know is going to be an old man when he gets out. His life's over. You know, if he doesn't ever breathe the air that we breathe. You know, there's not many there's not many people I feel like that about, but John Sharp one of them.

I understand. We'll take a break here. I'm finding our chat fascinating. When we come back to part two, we're going to talk about more of you, more of your cases and how your career came to an end, and the toll that policing takes on you and everything else. So we'll join you back here shortly thank you. It is

I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin

After 25 years working in homicide, former Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin is sitting down ac 
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