Carrington murders: 20 years on Joanne Teterin, Susan Kay deaths remain unsolved
It was a brutal crime that shocked Newcastle almost 20 years ago. Two women found bludgeoned to death in a quaint cottage on a quiet, narrow street. To this day the deaths of Joanne Teterin and Susan Kay remain unsolved.
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If you could walk in a straight line, the quaint little cottage and the ageing phone booth were less than 80 metres from each other. And it was a call between these two places which has always held the key to the horrific slaying of Joanne Teterin and Susan Kay at Carrington. Monday will mark the 20th anniversary of the unsolved double murder.
Doran St is so narrow, the local kids struggled to play cricket on it. And the minuscule cottages on tiny blocks which adorn the street sit so close to each other they resemble a tightly-packed and disorderly back row of a school photograph.
And that is what makes it even stranger that the bodies of Joanne Teterin and Susan Kay could lay undiscovered for more than five days after being brutally bashed to death. Carrington had a long-held reputation as being a rough-and-tumble working class suburb of Newcastle.
There were at least five murders in the 1920s alone, when the inner-city suburb was frequented by steel workers and drifters who drank hard and played harder.
But by May 11, 2000, Carrington was transforming into a more eclectic place.
It had been a couple of years since the BHP steel mill had shut and the suburb was attracting a younger population. And there was also the alternative crowd like the ones frequented by Kay and Teterin.
Susan had long battled drug dependency. She had also worked as an exotic masseuse and prostitute from time-to-time to help fund her heroin addiction.
The 32-year-old had always suffered self-esteem problems and a series of heartbreaking life events did not help.
She had been abused as a teenager, had lost a child at birth, experienced a broken marriage, had become estranged from another child and discovered the body of a close friend.
Susan had been off heroin for about six months when she decided to stay at her friend’s house at Carrington. It was a decision that would prove fatal.
Joanne, 38, was a bit of a misfit and happy to be one. She was adopted as a young child into the family known for the large Novocastrian business Teterin Engineering.
Joanne was also a small-time drug dealer. Mainly some weed and a bit of amphetamine. And it is this vocation that is almost certainly the catalyst for their horrific deaths.
A coroner ruled the pair had been killed on May 11, 2000 – six days before Susan’s sister was to call around to the cottage thinking the pair may have overdosed only to make the grisly discovery.
One of the reasons investigators believed it was May 11 was the phone call received about 8am that morning.
Joanne had a well-worn plan for her drug dealing – those that wished to “get on” would need to ring first. Many did so from the public phone booth in Young St. It ran parallel to Doran Street and was less than 100 metres away as the crow flies.
The phone call would allow Joanne to make sure everything was safe. Not just for her, but for the buyers. If she had a crowd at home, she would be able to judge whether they could deal with a bit of illegal activity.
And if she couldn’t be bothered – or had run out of gear – she could tell themto come back later.
But on May 11, someone answered the phone at Joanne’s cottage. It was almost certainly Joanne for a couple of reasons, including Susan’s body being found in a bed, like she had never got up.
The call was made about 8am, and it is probable that a few moments later Joanne heard a knock on the door and allowed her killer inside.
It is also a near certainty that Joanne was attacked first. The attack was so brutal that the first police on scene believed she had been shot in the head.
But it was with a blunt instrument. The same blunt instrument that was to be used on her friend almost immediately.
Detectives have strongly suspected Joanne was the target and Susan was collateral damage.
Only the killer knows whether he first attacked Joanne thinking she was alone before a search of the place found Susan still asleep. And whether they thought she would also have to be silenced to keep their identity from being known.
But within minutes they were both dead. And it is still not known what the weapon was. It was never found at the scene.
Strike Force Raphoe detectives believe they know.
As Detective Sergeant Kel Platt told at the coronial inquest a few years later: “In so far as the murder weapon is concerned, police believe we know the type of object used in the commission of the murders, however police do not wish to publicise that … at this stage.’’
The killer was probably in and out of the cottage within a few minutes. And then luck appears to have played a large part in them never being formally brought to justice.
The time which elapsed between the murders and the bodies being found definitely helped the killer evade justice. Decomposition ruined a lot of evidence which would normally be gleaned from a crime scene.
The investigators were on the back foot almost immediately. The backgrounds of the victims were also to prove difficult for police. Susan’s clients were reluctant to come forward for obviously reasons. Ditto Joanne’s clientele.
And although Carrington had begun to emerge from its seedy underbelly, there was still a strong distrust of law enforcement. There were many walls that were hard to break down for investigators
One person of interest was identified straight away — Joanne had first run off the rails after her mother was murdered in 1979 by one of Joanne’s old boyfriends.
Eleanor Teterin was stabbed six times by the then 20-year-old man, who had blamed Eleanor for the breakdown of the relationship.
He had spent 16 years in jail for the attack and was living in the Newcastle area in 2000 – but was quickly ruled out as a suspect in the deaths of Joanne and Susan.
There were also a couple of others, although police strongly focussed on one man.
He was named as a “person of interest” at a coronial inquest a few years later.
Then Newcastle coroner Alan Railton had referred the matter to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to see whether there was sufficient evidence to charge someone.
But no one has ever been charged for the murders.
Strike Force Raphoe continued on. Early in the investigation they had trotted
out Joanne’s young son, Michael McDonald, to give a heartfelt plea for information regarding his mum’s brutal death.
They continued a range of tactics until all leads ran into dead ends. The head of the investigation, Detective Inspector Geoff Leonard, and a local cop brought in to assist in the strike force, Detective Senior Constable Paul Bradley, have both since died.
But the case remains formally open.