Silence is Golden ..

The list of police who had both direct and indirect involvement with the Somerton Body is extensive .. to name a few:

Detectives Brown, Leane, Gollan, Strangway, Fenwick, Hopkins, Thomas, Moran, Constables Canney, Moss, Sutherland ..

Gerry Feltus observed that in about 1975, nearly thirty years after the body was found on Somerton Beach a number of cold case files was  transferred to the Major Crimes Squad, including the Somerton Body case and DS Ron Thomas in particular received some ribbing from other police for ‘wasting his time on an old file no-one really cared about.’

Who knows how many more police had thumbed their way through these files, probably all kept in an unlocked cabinet in a storeroom with no signing in and out controls. How easy would it have been for an enterprising journalist to offer a reward for some information included in one of these files, after all public interest in the Somerton Body case had remained high over the years as it is now, seventy-five years on.

Yet all these policeman kept one thing secret for nearly thirty years. Not a word from any of them to the Press their families or friends .. nothing was leaked to interstate police and apparently no bribes were taken by this disparate group of policemen as all had had their mouths sealed shut more effectively than the local ‘ndrangheta (Mafia) did to their members. Paul Lawson too in later years, so much so he attempted to shut down an interview with Stuart Littlemore when the questions got a bit too close.

No-one dared to utter a nurse’s name written in an old file in a case no-one really cared about. She too remained silent and took her secrets to the grave.