Shirley Finn

When her husband suffered a serious injury and subsequent mental instability, Shirley Finn was aged 21 and chose sex-oriented activities as a means of supporting her three children, including strip-dancing and body-painting. She also joined a witchcraft coven which conducted "black magic and sex" activities in Kings Park.[4]^:31 From this she advanced to a career of topless dancing and body painting in association with a travelling fairground boxing troupe. In 1969 Finn was conducting a "body painting and escort business" which was raided by police, and she was charged and convicted with "keeping premises for the purpose of prostitution." As a result, the family was socially ostracised and the children had to leave the Catholic primary school.[4]^:35

Finn became associated with King's Cross, Sydney, brothel operator Dorothea Flatman who transferred to Perth in 1968 and set up a number of brothels under the symbiotic protection of Australian vice overlord Abe Saffron and a policy of "containment" upheld by the W.A. Police. It seems that she, Stella Strong (also from Sydney) and Shirley Finn were among a privileged few allowed to operate in the prostitution business under the rigorous line management of Vice Squad chief Bernard Johnson.[4]^:47–48

It has been alleged by Finn's biographer Juliet Wills that the long-established police map of the crime scene is grossly erroneous, incorrectly locating the Dodge Phoenix near the 5th tee, more than 100 metres from the 9th green, near the golf clubhouse, where the body was found. The erroneous police map was officially adopted for decades, causing evidence of eyewitnesses to be ignored or discounted as not in accord with the map.[7][8]

At the time, various rumours regarding the murder attributed it to specific issues relating to prostitution and the way it was being handled by police and government in Perth, but no evidence of this was made public.[9][10][11]

James Archibald Boland (29 August) said he had met a man known as Keith Alan Lewis who told him that Neddy Smith flew to Perth on 23 June and was "paid $5000 to kill her on behalf of her business partners." An official police document, known as "serial 393", was produced to support the witness's claim that "Mr Lewis had been willing to provide information about Smith in exchange for fraud charges against his boyfriend being downgraded." Following suggestions that Smith was aiming to take control of Perth brothels, Boland said he was ordered by former CIB boss Don Hancock not to have any further involvement in the inquiry.[27]

Bridget Shewring (13 September), daughter of the deceased, claimed her 1975 statement was twisted or mishandled by detectives, and that her mother's partner Rose Black may not have revealed all she knows.[28][29]

Phillip Hooper (13 September) testified that he saw nightclub owner Lawrence Tudori and another man at the scene of the crime, and that he was subsequently intimidated into silence by them and Bruce Wilson, a former Australian Workers Union leader.[30]

Frank Zanetti (18 September), is a former WA Police deputy commissioner who, as a detective-sergeant, had signed Keith Alan Lewis's statement about Neddy Smith. He had no memory of any action taken to investigate the Smith tip-off. Despite recognition of the omission in 1993, the police did not interview Smith until 2014 and had not yet disclosed any details.[31]

[Zanetti] was asked how so many reports from the investigation had seemingly disappeared, why his name and signature appeared on countless police documents he had no memory of, and why – after only four months – it appeared police began to wind down the investigation.[32]

Jacqueline De Gaye (19 September), a close friend of Ms Finn who wrote down and kept details of conversations occurring two days before the murder, in which Ms Finn said she had received a death threat from Owen Leitch, who was about to become police commissioner.[33]

John Mearns (20 September) reported to police the presence of a small green vehicle at the murder scene and was told the evidence was not needed.[30] Mearns has also reported being warned that he was potentially in danger from police.[34]

Steve Couacaud (20 September) thought he saw detective Don Hancock getting into Shirley Finn's car near the time of the murder.[35]

Ray Gardner (20 September), an excitable taxi-driver, claimed to have seen Ray O'Connor shoot a lady twice in the head and then fire at the taxi. Details of his evidence were at odds with known facts, e.g., he said it was a "beautiful fine day" when it was actually raining heavily.[35]

Edward (Ted) and Elaine Moseley (20 November) said they saw a woman at the golf course matching Rose Black's description on the night of the murder.[36]

Gregory Hall (21 November) testified that he was a bagman for Vice Squad chief Bernie Johnson, whom he feared.[37]

Brian Eddy (21 November) is the former motorcycle traffic officer who said he saw Ms Finn with Johnson at the police canteen shortly before she was killed.[37]

Geoffrey McMurray (21 November), a motorcycle traffic officer, was first to discover the crime scene and noted the early arrival and departure of Johnson.[30]

Leigh Varis-Beswick (22 November) had been employed as Ms Finn's driver "from about 1968 to 1971, before going on to work as a prostitute for Ms Finn". She was at some time in a relationship with corrupt police officer Tony Lewandowski who allegedly told her in 2004 that he was present when Don Hancock shot and killed Ms Finn. Lewandowski had previously admitted fabricating evidence in the Perth Mint Swindle.[38]

Maxwell Raymond Healy (23 November), a past associate of Hancock, Johnson and O'Connor, testified that he was beaten up at the Zanzibar nightclub for talking about having seen Johnson on the night and in the neighbourhood of the murder scene. At Wooroloo Prison, O'Connor implicated Johnson in procuring (from a police store) the rifle used to kill Finn.[39]

Ron William Brown (23 November) confirmed he accompanied Johnson on a long sea journey after Ms Finn's death, but rejected a suggestion that Johnson had thrown a rifle overboard.[40]

Michael Joseph Regan (24 November} is a former junior police officer who used to drive for all the top detectives and knew that Johnson had targeted Mrs Finn to be killed.[41]

Peter Burns (28 November), a former security guard at the University of Western Australia, said police ignored his evidence and falsely fabricated his statement when he reported seeing and speaking to Ms Finn near the University campus at about 11.30 the night she was killed.[42]

Rose Black (29 November), Finn's partner, testified that Finn had large tax debts she could not afford[36] and that she was meeting a man she called "the Bear" who was "bringing someone over from Sydney" to sort out her tax bill.[43]

Glen Maxwell Properjohn (30 November), a friend and dressmaker to Ms Finn, expressed his instinctive belief that Johnson had arranged a contract killing by a Sydney hitman.[44]

Robin Thoy (11 December) is a former detective who knew and feared the 'purple circle' police clique as "pretty powerful people" who "could do whatever they wanted."[45]

Laurie Tyler (11 December) was then a young detective, who saw Abe Saffron, Roger Rogerson and Bernie Johnson drinking together at Saffron's Raffles Hotel. He learned not to ask questions.[45]

Kevin Parker (11 December) is the "Keith Alan Lewis" alleged by James Boland to have implicated Neddy Smith as an interstate hitman. Testifying via phone link from Melbourne, Parker strongly denied and ridiculed counsel's suggestion that he tried to do "a deal" with Mr Boland to help a friend.[45]

Lindsay Okamoto, who was involved in the initial murder investigation, said he had no concerns about the "purple circle" of senior police (whom he identified as Catholics) and that rumours of Bernie Johnson's involvement did not emerge until 10 years after the event.[46]

Chris Ferris (13 December), a police officer for 27 years, said Det. Arthur Simms 'confessed' to pulling the trigger on Ms Finn who had been "not playing the game". Feared to talk about.[47][48]

Bob Meyers (13 December) is a convicted horse-race fixer with police friends including Colin Pace, who told him Johnson had shot Ms Finn with a gun from the police armoury.[48]

William Burnett (20 December), a former policeman, testified that he searched for the .22-calibre Anschutz rifle used in the killing but was unaware that a rifle of that type was missing from police custody.[49]

Linda Watson (20 December), who was a Perth brothel madam in the 1980s, said the vice-squad boss Bernie Johnson threatened that she would "end up like Shirley Finn" if she did not co-operate with him; and that she paid police officers about $2000 a week.[49]

Bernie Johnson (excluded as a witness) was head of the Vice Squad at the time of the murder. He was the subject of a written submission by his doctor, Folo Bella, read to the inquest on 12 December 2017. Johnson had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and the doctor concluded "I am of the opinion he has no testamentary capability to give evidence or make any reasonable contribution to any legal proceedings."[46] Johnson's death was reported in April 2018,[50] while the inquest was in recess.

Trevor Lawrence and Gary Timms (22 July), who were police constables in 1975, gave evidence about their presence in the police canteen at the time a page was ripped out of the visitors' book. Both said they had not seen Ms Finn on the night when a drunken senior sergeant objected to the presence of two female teenagers who were associating with junior constables.[51]

Bruce Scott (24 July), a former assistant police commissioner who retired in 1992, denied having ordered two junior officers to "get rid of" certain Finn-case exhibits. Counsel assisting the coroner, Toby Bishop, cited an unidentified officer who had made the allegation when interviewed by the Corruption and Crime Commission.[52]

Craig Klauber (1 April), a CSIRO chemist, said that a workmate named Carolyn Langan, who had been a lover of the late Bernie Johnson, had confided in him in the late 1980s that Johnson had made a "bedtime confession" to having killed Shirley Finn.[53] Ms Langan denied the confession had happened.[54]

"Witness L" (identity suppressed) (3 April) said she had been the partner of a vice-squad detective, Bob Nevin, who told her that he had shot Ms Finn in the head under an order from police headquarters to "get rid of the problem" on the night Ms Finn turned up asking to speak to the police commissioner about the tax she was paying on graft. Nevin resigned in 1981 after he was found to be co-owning a brothel with fellow officer Tony Wick.[55]

Bob Maher (3 April) a nightclub operator, said there were rumours connecting a violent bouncer and convicted murderer, Walter Coman, with Ms Finn's killing.[55]

Closing the inquest in June 2019, the coroner announced that there had been "incompetence" in the police investigation and that there were "too many suspects", while vital evidence had "disappeared", including the murder weapon and the victim's luxury car.[56]

In his final report published on 12 August 2010, Coroner Barry King found "it was most likely Finn was killed because she had tried to blackmail police about corruption." However, there was a lack of reliable or cogent evidence to identify the killer from a group of suspects which included at least three W.A. police officers. Named suspects included police officers Bernie Johnson, Robert Nevin and Don Hancock together with Sydney criminal Neddy Smith.[3] The victim's daughter, Bridget Shewring, said "...the inquest should have been held when my brothers and I first applied in 2005, when everybody was still alive."[57]