BRUCE
KENNETH MACKENZIE
THE CASE OF
THE MURDERED SCHOOL GIRL IN THE SEPTIC TANK.
An artist’s impression of Maureen Janice Bradley – 14 years old – Murdered
Sketch courtesy of Robert A. Wood
I had received an email from Charlie Geddes
who told me a story he had remembered from 1979, when he first became a
probationary prison officer and was stationed at Cessnock Corrective Centre (CCC). Mr Geddes said he was trying not to be naive
when he had overheard the prisoners refer to one of their own as “paddles”, a
lifer. Quietly Mr Geddes pulled one of
the crims to one side and asked, “Why do you call him paddles”? The prisoner was never going to let this
opportunity go by without embellishing considerably on the truth and replied,
“He murdered young girls and kept them in a septic tank, he had a few down
there and he would go down into the septic and pull them out and have sex with
them”. When I read the email I couldn’t
remember the case, yet I was extremely interested in the story.
The very next day Bob Dyson phoned me and
told me a story concerning a prisoner Bruce Kenneth Mackenzie. Mackenzie had murdered a 14 year old school
girl and dumped her naked body in a disused septic tank. Mr Dyson had known Detective Sergeant Roger
Rogerson for many years. Rogerson at
that time was the shining star of the NSW Police Force, and was being groomed
to be Police Commissioner, however was later disgraced, convicted and
imprisoned. Rogerson had approached Mr
Dyson with a request for him (Mr Dyson) to have a quite word with Mackenzie and
give him a bit of a “tickle up” to try and entice him to talk. Mr Dyson could be a hard man when the
occasion arose, yet he was too straight to be involved in that type of
behaviour. He quickly left Rogerson
with no doubt he would not participate in such police tactics.
To be frank, I’m not quite sure if the two
stories are the same or not, although I am of the opinion they are, mainly
based on just two words “septic tank” and of course the old fashioned hunch. This is what I could find out factually.
On 3rd December 1971 Maureen
Janice Bradley left her home in Beaumont Road Mount Kuring-gai, a suburb north
of Sydney, to attend school at Our Lady of Dolours Convent Chatswood, also on the
north side of Sydney. She had been
driven to the railway station by her mother, Mrs Daphne Mary Bradley.
In the afternoon on her way home, 14 year
old Maureen caught the train to Hornsby, where she would change trains to
proceed to Mount Kuring-gai
station as per her normal after school routine. When Maureen arrived at Hornsby station her
connecting train had already left. Like
all good children should, she phoned home to notify her mother that she had
missed the connecting train and would be arriving home a little late. The phone call was at about 17.00 and the
next train was scheduled for 17.10 hours.
It was her brother Allan’s birthday and so Mrs Bradley had said to
Maureen, “Don’t fiddle around because tea’s ready, I have made Allan’s birthday
cake and the chook is ready”.
By 17.55 hours Maureen had not arrived
home. By now a little concerned, Mrs
Bradley sent Allan to look for his sister on his bike. Mrs Bradley fed the other children and drove
to the railway station herself, all to no avail. By this time Mrs Bradley was extremely anxious
and notified the police, after which the search was on.
Led by renowned police investigators, Detective
Inspectors W. Purcell and G. Baldwin in company with the tenacious duo,
Detective Sergeants W. Holmes and H. Talarico, the search was relentless as
dozens of police searched miles of bushland and spoke to dozens of people, yet
came up with no clues as to her whereabouts in the early stages. No one could doubt the efforts taken by the
police, indicating quite clearly that they all wanted to find little Maureen
alive and well. She was described as
Maureen Janice Bradley, aged 14, 5ft 5in tall and of medium build, with fair
complexion, light brown shoulder length hair, green eyes, and wearing her school
uniform “Our Lady of Dolours”.
The police maintained their strong efforts
to locate young Maureen, yet nothing was found.
She had for at least in the early part of the investigation, completely
vanished.
To find out what happened in this horrific
Australian criminal murder case, read my eBook “Cutting the Bars – Volume 3”.
You can contact me by email on petertegge@gmail.com
This I believe.
Peter T Egge
