The Beat: A True Account of the Bondi Gay Murders by I.J. Fenn Page A
Authors: I.J. Fenn
Tags: True Crime, homicide, Ross Warren, John Russell, true crime stories, Australian true crime, homosexual murder, homosexual attack, The Beat, Bondi Gay Murders
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to Pillon’s Warilla home to take a statement from his widow, Margaret.
Margaret Pillon, at 68, was in full possession of her faculties and gave a lucid and comprehensive statement in which she explained that her husband had died in June 1993. Before his death, Arthur Pillon had been responsible for finding new clients for the security company (which was owned by their son, even though Pillon was known as the proprietor) and for going to Sydney on a weekly basis to perform payroll and banking services for several companies. Margaret Pillon always accompanied her husband, she said, because Arthur had had a heart bypass operation in 1990 and she would help him carry the heavy moneybags. Both she and her husband had security licences. She could recall visiting an address in Castlereagh Street in the CBD and one somewhere in Bondi Junction, although she couldn’t remember exactly where.
Constable Harrison explained to Mrs Pillon that her husband had made a statement to police in 1991 concerning his having met Ross Warren at a homosexual strip joint in Bondi Junction. Could that be where they made their regular deliveries? Margaret Pillon agreed that the meeting with Warren could have happened, although she had never heard about it: her husband, she said candidly, would have kept the venue from her, but she knew that he frequented places of that sort. However, she was adamant that they never had business dealings with homosexual strip joints.
On the other hand, she said, ‘my husband did tell lies. He didn’t always tell the truth’.
[1] As a result of a later media release ‘Derrick’ did come forward to give a statement to police. He did live at 91 Ruthven Street in 1989 and he knew Ross Warren. They met at a gay beat on the Gold Coast sometime in 1983 or 1984 and they kept in touch when Warren moved to Wollongong and Derrick moved to Sydney. They often met at the Green Park Diner, where Derrick worked, in Taylor Square and would go to the Midnight Shift together for a few drinks – although he had never seen Warren intoxicated, he said. Derrick thought that Warren continued visiting beats but he never went with him. Derrick also used to go to Marks Park but had never known of any acts of violence occurring there and, with regard to the location of Warren’s keys, Derrick had never heard of rattling keys as a signal from one gay man to another that he was interested in casual sex.
[2] A statement that seems to corroborate the ‘Liverpool lady’ journalist’s ignorance of Ross Warren’s sexuality.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Love Triangle
i
The fellow journalist at WIN TV had seemed fairly certain that Ross Warren was involved in an illicit affair with a woman already in a relationship. The journalist was unaware that Warren was homosexual and therefore, the police argued, the journalist might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. What if Warren had described his affair in only the very vaguest of terms, not actually identifying the sex of the other person? What if the journalist had misunderstood what he’d been told, had misheard or simply jumped to heterosexual conclusions? During the last evening anyone saw Ross Warren he’d said that he hoped he didn’t ‘run into Ken’. Warren’s drinking companion, Philip Rossini, believed that Ken was a Maori. Maybe Ken was the supposed ‘lady’ involved with Ross Warren. The officers from Operation Taradale set about trying to find out who Ken was.
In the meantime, Constable Catherine Morieson reinterviewed Christine Jones, a make-up artist at WIN TV.
Jones first met Ross Warren in 1986 or ’87, she said, when he started working at the station. Within a couple of months they became good friends, talking whenever they were both working the same shifts. Often, she said, Ross would come and talk to her after he’d finished recording. Occasionally they went to functions together as friends: but only as friends – Jones knew he was homosexual.
She’d
Margaret Pillon, at 68, was in full possession of her faculties and gave a lucid and comprehensive statement in which she explained that her husband had died in June 1993. Before his death, Arthur Pillon had been responsible for finding new clients for the security company (which was owned by their son, even though Pillon was known as the proprietor) and for going to Sydney on a weekly basis to perform payroll and banking services for several companies. Margaret Pillon always accompanied her husband, she said, because Arthur had had a heart bypass operation in 1990 and she would help him carry the heavy moneybags. Both she and her husband had security licences. She could recall visiting an address in Castlereagh Street in the CBD and one somewhere in Bondi Junction, although she couldn’t remember exactly where.
Constable Harrison explained to Mrs Pillon that her husband had made a statement to police in 1991 concerning his having met Ross Warren at a homosexual strip joint in Bondi Junction. Could that be where they made their regular deliveries? Margaret Pillon agreed that the meeting with Warren could have happened, although she had never heard about it: her husband, she said candidly, would have kept the venue from her, but she knew that he frequented places of that sort. However, she was adamant that they never had business dealings with homosexual strip joints.
On the other hand, she said, ‘my husband did tell lies. He didn’t always tell the truth’.
[1] As a result of a later media release ‘Derrick’ did come forward to give a statement to police. He did live at 91 Ruthven Street in 1989 and he knew Ross Warren. They met at a gay beat on the Gold Coast sometime in 1983 or 1984 and they kept in touch when Warren moved to Wollongong and Derrick moved to Sydney. They often met at the Green Park Diner, where Derrick worked, in Taylor Square and would go to the Midnight Shift together for a few drinks – although he had never seen Warren intoxicated, he said. Derrick thought that Warren continued visiting beats but he never went with him. Derrick also used to go to Marks Park but had never known of any acts of violence occurring there and, with regard to the location of Warren’s keys, Derrick had never heard of rattling keys as a signal from one gay man to another that he was interested in casual sex.
[2] A statement that seems to corroborate the ‘Liverpool lady’ journalist’s ignorance of Ross Warren’s sexuality.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Love Triangle
i
The fellow journalist at WIN TV had seemed fairly certain that Ross Warren was involved in an illicit affair with a woman already in a relationship. The journalist was unaware that Warren was homosexual and therefore, the police argued, the journalist might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. What if Warren had described his affair in only the very vaguest of terms, not actually identifying the sex of the other person? What if the journalist had misunderstood what he’d been told, had misheard or simply jumped to heterosexual conclusions? During the last evening anyone saw Ross Warren he’d said that he hoped he didn’t ‘run into Ken’. Warren’s drinking companion, Philip Rossini, believed that Ken was a Maori. Maybe Ken was the supposed ‘lady’ involved with Ross Warren. The officers from Operation Taradale set about trying to find out who Ken was.
In the meantime, Constable Catherine Morieson reinterviewed Christine Jones, a make-up artist at WIN TV.
Jones first met Ross Warren in 1986 or ’87, she said, when he started working at the station. Within a couple of months they became good friends, talking whenever they were both working the same shifts. Often, she said, Ross would come and talk to her after he’d finished recording. Occasionally they went to functions together as friends: but only as friends – Jones knew he was homosexual.
She’d
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