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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 14. 28 June 1972
Adelaide academic's mystery death — Nobody wants to be a witness
Adelaide academic's mystery death
Nobody wants to be a witness
On May 10, Dr George Duncan, law lectures at Adelaide universiyt, was allegedly murdered on the banks of the river Torrons in Adelaide.
It seems highly likely that his death (the press first called it a "murder" but it's just a death now... I high lights the way our society treats mnority groups which threaten, by there very existeance the self image of that society.
The place of the murder is a well-known "beat", or meeting, gathering and pick up place for homosexuals in Adelaine The reason for the presence of Dr Duncan and Mr James the bloke with him who informed police of (the circumstances of the killing) on the banks of the river that night is unimportant and irrelevant. The point is that whoever pushed them into the river probably thought they were homosexuals, and thus fair game for their insults and assaults.
- • the swift disappearance, presumably interstate, though so one seems sure, of the key witness and Dr Duncan's companion, Roger James;
- • When the number plate of the car in which the men who threw Duncan and James into the Torrens made their escape was traced, it turned out to by an unmarked policy aar, but it was claimed that the number plate given to the police must have been in error;
- • when police decided they wanted to interview certain vice squad members, they stood on they rights not to appear in a line up, which must have reducted their chances of being identified by James quite dramatically;
- • why did the riverside attackers, when told by James that Duncan did not come to the surface after being thrown in, not flee in terror filled panic, as would your regular cowardly poofter bashers, but were conscience stricken enough to dive into the river and only fled when then search was unsuccessful;
Fo quote the Advertiser "Sumor police inspectors brought into the inquiry were told that two members of the vice squad had been in the vicinity when they visited a lavatory near the City bridge because one of them had fell sick, They had been driving home from a party, held after a Vietnam protest march, in which the sick man inhaled fumes from a bomb,' Really?
SA police commissioner McKinna's statement that "police are in the [unclear: clear] is a premature and most suspicious remark at this stage of investigations, unless he knows absulutely the exact conduct of every police department employee on that night.
The likely course of events at the present time is that the police will continue investigations and find, as McKinna has already found, that no police were to blame, And witnesses to the contrary will be hard to find because of the risk of being found to be homosexuals.
With McKinna making statements as ill-considered as those above, there would seem to be no alternative but to take the investigation out of the hands of the police After all, one would hardly expert a jury of relatives in had a may guilty!
I don't know what then perhaps a (royal) commission. Secrecy [unclear: a] spite its dangers) should be available to those who fear [unclear: sure] Perhaps (and it is only perhaps then we could hope for some justice.
Several people have since contacted an Australian Student newspaper (National U) cleaning to have witnessed the slaying and the assult on his companion, Roger James.
They are afraid to present this information publicly for fear of their lives. Already the key witness to Dr. Dun-can's death has mysteriously disappeared.
The witness claim to have seen car (later identified as an unmarked police car) parked opposite the public convenieness. There was one man in the car. He got out of the car and spoke to server-al other men who were in the vicinity.
Our witnesses recognized these other men as being members of the Vice Squad.
A few minutes later the wilness saw Duncan and James struggling by the roadside with the members of the Vice Squad. In the course of the struggle the police dragged Duncan and james, not towards their car, but back down to the water's edge. Minutes later the driver of the unmarked car rushed back to the vehicle.
The mysterious and rapid disappearance of james, even with his broken ankle despite the fact that he gave no indication of his intention to [unclear: depar] a conversation with his friends held the day before the crime; the failure of witnesses to come for— ward — even to give evidence to independent significantly, the fact that James has told a friend that he considers that police were responsible for the murder: all of these factors make an indepencent inquery into the event imperative.
We may also guess that Jame's disappearance was facilitated by the fact that he is on a two-year good behavior bond for a drug oftence.
If the police are to be left in charge of this case, the the public and the government may well be condoning the use of blackmail and intimidation of homesexuals and others in order to prevent the bringing to justice of the perpestrators of a vicious senseless and wilful crime.