Beach double murders an unsolved crime of passion

The murder of Alex Rees and Ray Hill is the oldest case to be investigated by the New South Wales Unsolved Homicide Team.

Undated copy photo of murder victim Irene Rees who along with her boyfriend Raymond Hill was shot at point blank range on 03/01/1970 as they embraced under a rug at lover's lane haunt near South Newcastle Beach in NSW. Picture: Supplied

Alex Rees told her friends that she wanted to stay a virgin until she was married. But when a likeable young man by the name of Ray Hill came along, she had a change of heart.

Friday, January 2, 1970, was date night for the young couple, so Ray picked up Alex from the nurses’ quarters at Royal Newcastle Hospital, where she lived and worked as a student nurse. They went to the drive-in to see It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but it probably wouldn’t have mattered what movie was showing, though, because the couple, who’d been dating for three months, were in the mood for love, so later that night they drove to a popular lovers’ lane.

Just before sunrise the young lovers were found dead in Ray’s car. Ray had been shot through the back of the head ; Alex taking a bullet between the eyes. Ray was 24 and Alex just 19.

The murder of Alex Rees and Ray Hill is the oldest case to be investigated by the New South Wales Unsolved Homicide Team.

Murder victim Raymond Hill.

Solving a case as old as the Rees and Hill double murder is about as difficult as it gets, as Detective Chief Inspector John Lehmann of the of the NSW police Unsolved Homicide Team. “The older the case, the less opportunities we have, and the likelihood is that we have less physical evidence upon which to apply new forensic techniques. As well as that, witnesses and suspects have passed on and so we’ve been unable to follow up any information that they gave to police at the time. ”

Alex met Ray Hill (a forklift driver) at the hospital, where he had been receiving treatment for a persistent stutter. They hit it off instantly. Within just three months of dating, the couple started talking about marriage and it looked like a proposal was imminent. But it wasn’t to be.

On Friday, 2 January 1970 Ray left his home in the Newcastle suburb of North Lambton and collected Alex from the nurses’ quarters at Royal Newcastle Hospital. After watching the movie, Ray took Alex to the Vienna Coffee Lounge in the Newcastle CBD, where they stayed for just under half an hour, leaving at around 11.50.

Next they drove to South Newcastle beach, where they pulled into the parking area on Shortland Esplanade, a popular make-out spot. Between 1.30 and 2 am, a man who’d been sleeping off a few drinks in his car near Shortland Esplanade was woken by traffic, so he decided to listen to the radio for a while. Suddenly, he heard three shots, two fired in succession and a third fired a second or so later.

Unsolved Australia by Justine Ford.

Five minutes later, he drove south along Shortland Esplanade, in the direction from which he’d heard the shots. Inside the parking area near the surf sheds, he saw a white Valiant sedan with its interior light on. About two car lengths further along, he saw a blue or gun-metal-coloured latemodel Falcon sedan. He didn’t see anyone in, or outside, either of the cars. Without noticing anything overtly suspicious – he drove on.

It wasn’t until 5.20 in the morning – that a young Sydney couple walking past Ray’s Valiant made the shocking discovery: Ray and Alex, dead in the car, Alex seated and Ray kneeling on the floor facing her. They had both been shot.

The first police at the scene saw that the top of Alex and Ray’s bodies were clothed, but beneath a rug they were naked from the waist down, with their pants around their ankles. They believed that the young couple had been having sex at the time they were shot.

“The post-mortem found bullet fragments in the heads of both Alex and Ray,” says Detective Chief Inspector Lehmann. “It was believed that the shots had probably been fired through the open window of the driver’s door.”

Alex’s former boyfriend, Jim, was the first to spring to the investigators’ attention because Alex had ended their relationship in October 1969, just three months before the murders. So had Jim, in a fit of jealousy, murdered his former girlfriend and the man she planned to marry? “He provided his movements on the night,” Lehmann says. “He gave an alibi.”

Detectives spoke to everyone who knew Alex and Ray and canvassed all the homes along the beach. They looked closely at known sex offenders and even considered – but ruled out – the possibility that the double murder was a case of mistaken identity.

So, without evidence to charge anyone over the murders of Alex Rees and Ray Hill, in March 1971 the coroner handed down an open finding.

In its time, the investigation into the murder of Alex Rees and Ray Hill was one of the most exhaustive the state had ever seen. Yet despite years of digging, to this day no one has been able to prove who killed them.

Edited extract from Unsolved Australia by Justine Ford, Macmillan Australia, $32.99

Originally published as Beach double murders an unsolved crime of passion