Daughter’s desperate mission to solve one of Brisbane underworld’s darkest mysteries

SHE was a notorious brothel madam during Queensland’s darkest era of police corruption. Now her daughter is working to solve the mystery of her mother’s death.

Mary Anne Brifman the daughter of Shirley brifman who dies of suspicious circumstances,

THE daughter of a notorious Queensland prostitute and brothel madam is set to petition the Queensland Government to hold a coronial inquest into her mother’s mysterious death more than 43 years ago.

Shirley Margaret Brifman, 35, was found dead of a suspected drug overdose in her Brisbane safe house on March 4, 1972, just weeks before she was due to be the chief witness against a senior Queensland detective in a perjury case.

Brifman had been paying graft to corrupt police since the late 1950s, and in 1971 had gone on national television and blown the whistle on officers in both Queensland and NSW.

A timeline of the key events.

Following the allegations, she was interviewed by police investigators for months in Brisbane through 1971.

Following those interviews, police stood down and charged Detective Tony Murphy with having perjured himself at the National Hotel inquiry in 1963-64 in relation to his association with Brifman and his knowledge of her as a working prostitute.

Brifman had been one of Murphy’s informants and he had allegedly received graft from her during her time as a prostitute in South Brisbane’s infamous bordellos, and later when she was a leading brothel madam in Sydney.

Murphy was awaiting trial when Brifman suddenly died. A coroner concluded she had suffered “barbiturate intoxication”, and police ruled there were no suspicious circumstances.

The coroner recommended no inquest.

Shirley Margaret Brifman, 35, was found dead of a suspected drug overdose just weeks before she was due to be the chief witness against a senior Queensland detective in a perjury case.

Mary Anne Brifman, now 58, was a teenager when she found her mother’s body in a guest room of their rented property in Bonney Ave, Clayfield, about 8.30am on Saturday, March 4, 1972.

The body was propped up against pillows, a hand “frozen” in a claw.

Then Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod maintained throughout his life that Brifman had met with foul play. The suspicion was held by other senior officers at the time, while others saw it as a straightforward overdose.

Brifman was threatened on numerous occasions prior to her death in an attempt to discourage her from giving evidence at the perjury trial.

She remained adamant that she would appear in court.

After years of personal torment, Mary Anne Brifman wants justice for her mother. She too believes Shirley was murdered.

“My mother’s death had an horrendous impact on my life,” she says.

“It left me in fear and I have suffered severe depression. I think I have a right to a voice at last. I need to express it. There is a trail of evidence that can be followed up.

“There are witnesses still alive today that can be interviewed.

“As a mature woman I am not asking for pity, I am asking for justice to be served.”

The then Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod maintained throughout his life that Brifman had met with foul play.

Mary Anne has always claimed that on the night of her mother’s death, a “visitor” came to the Clayfield flat and handed Shirley a vial of drugs.

The visitor allegedly ordered her to take the contents of the vial or “you know what will happen” to the Brifman children, namely, that they would meet with harm.

She said she tried to tell police her version of events leading up to her mother’s death “but nobody wanted to listen”.

Interviewed more than 15 years later by Fitzgerald inquiry investigators, she repeated the story of the “visitor”, but nothing came of it.

Shirley Brifman’s husband, Sonny – who died in the late 1970s – was so convinced she had met with foul play that he insisted she be buried, in contrast to the Brifman tradition of cremation.

Mary Anne said her father was smart enough to know that forensic science would one day catch up with the facts surrounding Shirley’s death.

When Murphy’s trial came up, the magistrate, after a four-day hearing, concluded that there was not enough evidence to convict the detective on the charges.

Former Police Commissioner Frank Bischof. Picture from the photo album of former Police Commissioner Terence Lewis.

The Fitzgerald inquiry report also concluded: “There is no evidence to suggest Murphy was involved in any way in Brifman’s death ... Brifman’s untimely death meant not that he was acquitted but that the allegations against him remain unsolved.”

Mary Anne Brifman, of Sydney, met with her legal counsel, barrister Ben Clark, late last week to discuss the formal structure of the submission to Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath.

It is expected to be completed within two weeks.

Mr Clark confirmed that Mary Anne Brifman had asked him to put forward a request to the Queensland Government for a coronial inquest into Shirley’s death.

“I think Mary Anne is entitled to have a proper investigation into her mother’s death,” Mr Clark said yesterday.

“From what she tells me, there appears to have been a real lack of proper investigation into Shirley’s untimely death.

“There appear to have been a number of very important witnesses, including Mary Anne herself, who found her mother’s body, who never gave formal statements. There seems to be a real paucity of evidence. “It doesn’t matter whether something happened 43 years ago or four years ago, if a proper investigation was not conducted into the death, there is no time limit on that.

“We will be asking the government to exercise some urgency due to the age of witnesses, then it will be in the hands of the new Attorney-General,” Mr Clark said.