By Fairlea Polmear

It was a cool and cloudy 17 degrees on Monday the 26th of October 1964. Waiting outside Fremantle gaol just before 8am were press, radio and television reporters including three men from the ABC Four Corners program. The protestors the journalists had hoped for were nowhere to be seen.

*Front page of The West Australian 27th October 1964*

“A migrant man who spoke no English stood on a nearby corner and a Fremantle woman Mrs P. Harris of Ord-street, stood near the Press representatives for a few minutes. She said she was opposed to hanging and had expected to see more people outside of the gaol” (The West Australian, 27th October 1964).

Eric Edgar Cooke was the 4th man hung in as many years, the 2nd that year and prior to his execution the public sentiment for capital punishment had been waning. Organised protests outside Fremantle gaol had been gaining momentum but not today, the last man to be executed in Western Australia was a ‘popular execution’.

“Everyone wanted him gone” says Bret Christian, Managing Editor of the POST Newspaper Group.

Cooke had brutally and indiscriminately murdered 8 people, attempted to murder 14 and had terrorised the western suburbs for 5 years.

On the day he was hanged Eric Edgar Cooke was a 33-year-old married man who had fathered 7 children. His last request to Reverend Ralph Thomas was “could he get a bike to his eldest son for his next birthday?”

Known as the Nedlands Monster, Cooke turned the big country town of Perth into a city. Many decades after his death, two of his crimes would have a ricochet effect on the Australian justice system and the public’s perception of the police force, all thanks to the diligent efforts of two West Australian journalists.

THE JOURNALISTS

Bret Christian was 11 years old when his parents sat him down at the kitchen table to explain that a beautiful, young woman had been murdered in the block of flats built on the site of his mother’s childhood homestead. It was the beginning of ‘deep childhood trauma’ for Bret who likens coming of age in Perth during this time as like ‘living in a war zone’ where for kids making sense of their world, brutal murders and women being run down by cars was a normal part of life.

In 1977 at the age of 28, Bret and his wife Bettye started the independent newspaper the POST, unbeknownst to the pair they would set up a paper that would cover an area 3 different serial killers would use as their hunting grounds.

Estelle Blackburn was a 12-year-old Methodist Ladies College student when the 1963 Australia Day murder blitz occurred, she originally studied to become a social worker but a cadetship with the West Australian changed her trajectory.

THE MEN

Two men were wrongly convicted of murders committed by Eric Edgar Cooke.

Darryl Beamish (20) and John Button (19) were coerced by police into signing written statements confessing to murders they did not commit. It took 39 years for Button and 41 years for Beamish to be exonerated and it would not have been possible without the work of Bret Christian and Estelle Blackburn.

*Darryl Beamish circa 1959 John Button circa 1963*

THE NEDLANDS MONSTER

In 1959 Perth had a population of less than 400,000. People left their keys in their cars ignition outside the front of their unlocked houses. During Summer residents slept on verandas and back lawns to escape the heat. Murders were relatively unheard of, and the perpetrator usually known to the victim. Police were held in the highest regard, their character and ‘copper’s instinct’ never questioned.

*Eric Edgar Cooke, Photo Credit: The Old Courthouse Law Museum*

On the 30th of January 1959 Eric Edgar Cooke committed his first murder. Pnina Berkman was a 33-year-old divorcee living in South Perth with her 8-year-old son and dating popular 6PR radio DJ, Fotis Hountas. The night of the murder, her son Mark was staying with friends in Nedlands, Pnina had Hountas over for a date and he left her sleeping naked on her bed around midnight. Eric Edgar Cooke climbed through an open window into Pnina’s bedroom then brutally attacked her with a diver’s knife, stabbing her through her nose and heart. The town of Perth was shocked by the murder, but they were more scandalised by a divorced woman entertaining a gentleman late at night and sleeping in the nude. Hountas fled to Greece never to be seen again and public sentiment was it had been a crime of passion.

The people of Perth continued their daily existence, there were scattered reports throughout the western suburbs of hit and run incidents, burglaries, stolen cars, peeping toms and the odd woman being attacked in her bed, but all the crimes seemed disconnected and random. No-one could have predicted it was one man behind all the offences.

On the 20th of December 1959 Cooke would strike again. Jillian Macphearson Brewer was a beautiful 22-year-old socialite and heiress living in a ground floor apartment at the Brookwood Flats in Cottesloe. She was due to be married in a couple of months and that night her fiancé had left her sleeping naked on her bed, completely oblivious that a peeping tom had watched their pre-marital debauchery. Cooke entered Jillian’s apartment and viciously attacked her with a hatchet he’d stolen from a house up the road. It was a brutal, frenzied attack that would end with him using a pair of Jillian’s scissors to stab her five more times.

In the years following Jillian Brewer’s murder Eric Cooke continued terrorising the residents of Nedlands, Cottesloe, Dalkeith, Peppermint Grove, Shenton Park, Subiaco, Mount Pleasant, and Claremont. Later he would confess to over 250 burglaries, multiple hit and runs as well as attacking women in their beds using various implements.

AUSTRALIA DAY 1963

“A gunman shot two people to death and injured three others in Nedlands and Cottesloe early yesterday. One of the injured is on the danger list in the Royal Perth Hospital. Inspector P. Hagan of the Perth C.I.B last night appealed to householders in the metropolitan area to lock their doors at night and take care when answering their doorbells.” (Gunman Still At Large Kills 2, Injures 3, The West Australian, 28th January 1963)

Now known as the Australia Day murders this is the night that changed Perth forever.

At 2:40am Cooke shot at a couple in a car on Napier Street in Cottesloe, the couple escaped with a bullet only brushing the mans neck before lodging itself in the woman’s wrist. The couple managed to drive to Fremantle Hospital.

140 metres away on Broome Street, 29-year-old accountant Brian Vincent Weir was sleeping on the second floor in his flat. “His head was facing the veranda and the veranda door was open when the gunman silently climbed the steps, vaulted the veranda and fired a shot in his head’ (The West Australian, 28th January 1963). Brian would survive this attack but succumb to his injuries three years later.

About an hour later the Nedlands killings started. John Lindsay Sturkey (19) was sleeping on the back veranda of a boarding house in Vincent Street when he was shot in the head. Cooke then walked to 51 Louise Street, rang the doorbell at 3:50am and shot George Osmond Walmsley in the head.

The POST’s Bret Christian remembers this period vividly. He first heard of the murders on the wireless, he was listening to the top 40 hits of the day on his transistor ‘tranny’ radio, but the feel-good lyrics of the Beatles were interrupted with reports that a madman was on the loose. Bret recalls thinking ‘maybe this is normal’.

“It was astounding, and people were just charged, they were in fear of their lives …. Going to bed at night became terrifying and the place was just on edge… people talked of nothing else, it was like COVID in that respect.”

The people of Perth were terrified but no connection had been made between the Australia day blitz and the murders of Berkman and Brewer for one very important reason. The police had concluded Berkman was murdered by her boyfriend who’d fled to Greece and on the 8th of April 1961 a 20-year-old deaf man named Darryl Beamish had ‘confessed’ to the murder of Jillian Brewer.

On the 9th of February 1963, exactly two weeks after the Australia Day murders Cooke would finally kill one of his hit and run victims. 17-year-old Rosemary Anderson was walking home after a fight with her boyfriend John Button. Cooke ran Rosemary down on Stubbs Terrace in Shenton Park, her boyfriend John Button finding her on the side of the road, he rushed her to a doctor, but she died in hospital. The police were convinced Button had run Rosemary down and after hours of intense ‘interview techniques’ the 19-year-old signed a confession that it was him.

As serial killers become more emboldened with each crime they get away with the intensity and frequency at which the crimes occur can increase. This was certainly the case with Cooke, a week after Rosemary Anderson on the 15th of February 1963, Cooke murdered Lucy Madrill in her flat at 70 Thomas Street, West Perth. Cooke strangled the social worker to death before raping her, he then dragged her body 25 metres to a neighbours back lawn, assaulted her with an empty scotch bottle and then propped her body up so it looked like she’d passed out, tucking the scotch bottle under her arm.

Despite a notable attempt at the Kumara flats in Nedlands on the 15th of June 1963, Cooke’s final murder would not take place until Saturday the 10th of August when he shot 18-year-old Shirley McLeod in the head as she sat writing in her journal whilst baby sitting at 37 Wavell Road, Dalkeith.

Instead of disposing of the gun like he’d done after Australia day Cooke hid the weapon under a Geraldton wax bush in Mount Pleasant. This was to be his undoing; the rifle was discovered by a couple and the police set up a sting operation hoping the killer would return.

On Saturday the 31st of August 1963 Cooke returned to Rookwood Street to retrieve his gun. Constable Bill Hawker would be the arresting officer, however he had to do it alone because his colleague was asleep.

Years later Bill would recount this story to Bret when he walked into the POST offices on Keightley Road, Subiaco. Bill was now a City of Subiaco parking inspector; he’d apparently gotten into a bit of strife and had to leave the police force, but he was still very proud of catching the Night Crawler. According to him the greatest fear for the officers undertaking the round the clock surveillance was that both men would fall asleep and on the night of the 31st Bill’s colleague had indeed nodded off. Bill kicked his colleague to wake up before scampering down the steep embankment to arrest Cooke.

COOKE MAKES BRIEF COURT APPEARANCE

“Spectators packed the public section of the Perth Police Court yesterday morning when truck driver Eric Edgar Cooke (32), of Gladstone-road, Rivervale, appeared charged with wilful murder.” (The West Australian, 3rd September 1963)

Eric Cooke was trialled and convicted for the murder of John Sturkey, it was not State practice to pursue further trials once a person had been convicted of wilful murder. With Cooke sentenced to death the city could sleep again, except for two men also residing at Fremantle Gaol. Despite Cooke confessing to the murders of Jillian Brewer and Rosemary Anderson the appeals made by Darryl Beamish and John Button were unsuccessful.

*Tuesday 3rd September 1964, The West Australian*

John Button quite literally had a confession beaten out of him but in the early 60’s the police were held in such high regard that this sort of behaviour was unimaginable. John Button shared a story with Bret Christian about the time he told his lawyer Ken Hatfield that the police had beaten him up, Button says Hatfield walked over to him stood him up and gripped his hands around his neck “this is what will happen if you say the police beat you”. It was a violent warning, bad mouth the police and you’ll be hanged. Button was convicted of manslaughter which came with a 10-year hard labour sentence.

Darryl Beamish on the other hand was for all intents and purposes set up to take the fall. The police were under immense pressure to solve the Brewer murder, so devious detectives used unscrupulous tactics to take advantage of a deaf man with little way to defend himself. He was sentenced to death, but later had it commuted to 15 years in prison.

Both men thought they would see freedom once Cooke confessed to the crimes but the appeals that went to the High Court of Australia were dismissed, largely on the basis that Cooke was a compulsive liar. The men served their sentences and the people of Perth continued with their lives.

A MONSTROUS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

27 years later Estelle Blackburn would meet Jim Button at a dance, he was the brother of John Button. Jim explained that John had been wrongly convicted and he wanted to clear his name, although sceptical Estelle agreed to meet with John in February 1992. Compelled by the story Estelle decided to investigate the possibility of wrongful conviction. She gave up her job and sold an investment property to finance her capacity to research and write the book Broken Lives.

The book joined all the dots together, creating Cooke’s serial killer profile. Estelle discovered that Cooke had been indiscriminately running down young women for years before he came across Rosemary Anderson.

Around 1996 Estelle approached her old reporter friend Bret Christian and asked if his POST Newspaper Group would be interested in publishing her book. After reading the initial draft chapters Bret agreed.

Estelle was convinced the new evidence she’d uncovered would prove Button innocent. For Bret his mission was “to find out, did he, do it? … I didn’t go in thinking he was innocent” referring to John Button.

THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

Brett Christian is a humble man; he leaves the PR stuff to Estelle because she’s good at that sort of thing, but what he has achieved through journalistic objectivity and a strong moral compass is simply remarkable.

Estelle’s book was published in 1998, meanwhile Bret was in the background trying to track down photos of Simca’s involved in accidents (the car Button was alleged to have hit his girlfriend with). The search took him to France where Simca’s were used as taxi’s, but the language barrier created a dead end. He crossed the channel to England where he discovered there was a collection of different cars being preserved that had all been involved in accidents, however the English system proved impossible to manoeuvre and no-one would release any photos. Luckily, he spoke to someone who suggested he try America, specifically William ‘Rusty’ Haight a staff instructor at Texas A & M University and the recognised world authority on pedestrian and cyclist crashes.

Bret explained the story to Rusty. A woman had been hit and killed by a car, the man convicted said he didn’t do it and his car had some damage which the police had said proved he had hit his girlfriend. However, a serial killer had confessed to the crime and given extensive details about how the body had rolled over the car and landed on the ground.

Rusty was intrigued, but there was one important element that meant he accepted Bret’s all expenses paid trip to Australia. Bret wanted to find out the truth, he didn’t want to prove John Button was innocent, he just wanted to know the truth.

On Rusty’s instruction Bret set about purchasing 3, 1962 Simca Arondes and a 1962 Holden. Tracking down the cars wasn’t the hard part, in fact he only paid a carton of beer for one, it was getting them to Perth and getting them running after they’d sat idle in farm sheds for decades.

Then in February 2000 Rusty arrived in Perth with a $2500 crash test dummy that would accurately represent the trajectory of a person hit at speed by a car enabling them to test Cooke’s statement of events. At the end of the testing day at Claremont showgrounds Rusty Haight concluded “From the test results taken together with all the known facts. I can say that Cooke did commit this murder.” (The POST, February 12, 2000).

Two years later this new evidence resulted in John Button’s 39-year-old manslaughter charge being quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal. It also opened the door for Darryl Beamish, his appeals had been denied on the basis that Cooke was lying but with Cooke proven to be telling the truth, the Court of Appeals could then look at Cooke’s confession as new evidence. In 2005, 41 years after his wrongful conviction Darryl Beamish had his murder charge overturned.

Bret has spent in the vicinity of $60,000 and dedicated more years than he can count searching for the truth about Beamish and Button. He has written the book ‘Presumed Guilty’ which investigates how and why the justice system can go wrong.

By his own admission he regards the exonerations as “the most important thing I’ve ever done besides having children.”

A temporary exhibition is currently on at the Old Court House Law Museum, When Justice Goes Wrong: John Button and Darryl Beamish examining the long path to exoneration, specifically the evidence that proved instrumental in overturning the convictions that have left lifelong psychological scars.

You can watch footage of the pedestrian crash testing, carried out in Perth and documents from Darryl Beamish’s case file, loaned by the Supreme Court of Western Australia, including a copy of the Reverend Jenkins’ statement of Eric Edgar Cooke’s final words before he was hanged in 1964, which were to confess to the crimes that Beamish and Button had been incarcerated for.

The exhibition is open now until 20 March 2023 at the Old Court House Law Museum, Stirling Gardens, 10am – 4pm Tuesday to Friday.

Sometimes the justice system gets it wrong, sometimes the justice system is corrupt but luckily, we have journalists like Bret and Estelle to set it right again.

Estelle Blackburn’s book ‘Broken Lives’ and Bret Christian’s book ‘Presumed Guilty’ provided invaluable research for this article. Both are still in publication and available to be purchased.

Two Men and a Monster