Alleged Rex Keen killer Benjamin Jansen loved opera and donated to Bundaberg Hospital before arrest

Rex Keen’s alleged killer loved opera, rubbed shoulders with high profile politicians and donated to the local hospital.

REX Kable Keen’s alleged killer loved opera, rubbed shoulders with high profile politicians and donated to the local hospital.

Victim Rex Kable Keen, was found murdered at Lennons Plaza Hotel on August 13, 1976.

But underneath all this, police allege Benjamin Jansen was harbouring a dark, decades old secret.

On Monday the 69-year-old Bundaberg resident was charged over one of Queensland’s oldest and most baffling cold cases.

On August 14, 1976, 46-year-old Rex Kable Keen – a hotel manager from Bowen – was found dead in a Brisbane hotel room.

He had been bludgeoned and stabbed to death.

Parts of the room were saturated in his blood.

At the time friends remarked that Keen was a most unlikely murder victim.

As far as alleged killers go, Jansen’s shocked friends are saying the same about him.

Police will allege Benjamin Jansen was harbouring a dark, decades old secret.

A short biography obtained by The Courier-Mail shed light on the man who was allegedly behind the Black Friday murder, as the case was dubbed.

In it the Dutch-born Jansen recalls running away from home in NSW at 16 and living in Kings Cross.

In 1973 he got a job at the then newly opened Sydney Opera House.

“My best memories of that early time were of Dame Joan Sutherland, with her magnificent voice,” he wrote. “I was captivated by the dancers of the Australian Ballet.”

On August 14, 1976, 46-year-old Rex Kable Keen – a hotel manager from Bowen – was found dead in a room at the Lennons Hotel in Queens street. Picture: Barry Pascoe

Just three years later police allege he would coldly end the life of Rex Keen in the Lennons Plaza Hotel.

Witnesses recalled seeing Keen drinking with a man in the hotel’s bar on the night of his murder.

Later, a waitress who was delivering food to Keen’s room said she saw a man in there with him.

The witnesses gave near identical descriptions of the man, but he could never be located by police.

Police allege Jansen was the mystery man.

Around this time Jansen had moved to Brisbane, where he worked for the Queensland Theatre Company.

Detectives investigating the 1976 murder of Rex Kable Keen in Brisbane have charged a 69-year-old Bundaberg man with his murder.

After a “hectic” six months working at Expo 88, he was hospitalised following a nervous breakdown and declared bankruptcy.

By the 2000s he had taken a job as a “doctor’s chaperone”, driving GPs around Brisbane to house calls. A few years ago the twice divorced Jansen moved to Bundaberg.

He has fitted in nicely.

Neighbours describe a friendly man who never caused problems.

“He never gave us any problems and that’s that, I can’t speak on anything else,” one told The Courier-Mail.

As the treasurer of a local social club – the Bundaberg Older Men’s Network – Jansen often rubbed shoulders with politicians.

A newspaper article from August 13, 1976 with an identikit picture of a possible person of interest.

One photo shows him hovering behind the then Speaker Bronwyn Bishop and local MP Keith Pitt at a seniors expo in 2014.

A year later he and other members were in the local newspaper for donating a showering chair to Bundaberg Hospital’s surgical ward.

Members of the now defunct men’s network expressed complete shock at news he had been charged with murder.

“He is such a nice bloke,” said one member who had seen Jansen two weeks ago.

He described Jansen as “cheerful and quiet”.

“I’m in shock and I imagine everyone else is too. I have no idea what’s gone on,” he said.

Jansen is due back in court next month.

Originally published as Alleged Rex Keen killer Benjamin Jansen loved opera and donated to Bundaberg Hospital before arrest