Kylie Maybury murder: Keith Moor provides insight into hunt for six-year-old’s murder
HE WAS at the scene the day Kylie Maybury’s body was found and covered the murder case for 32 years. Keith Moor provides an insight into the hunt for Kylie’s murderer.
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THE Herald Sun’s Keith Moor has covered the Kylie Maybury murder for 32 years. He was at the scene the day the body was found, and has interviewed Kylie’s mother, Julie, many times since. He gives insight into the 32-year hunt for Kylie’s murderer.
THE shocking sight of Kylie Maybury’s body being turned over when the coroner came to collect it brought detectives and reporters to tears.
The mental image of her little arm flopping over to rest on the side of the kerb beside the gutter her tiny body was dumped in is one that has stayed with me.
She looked for all the world like a rag doll. Her limp arm certainly flopped like that of a child’s precious doll.
But the stark reality is she was an innocent six-year-old who some pervert abducted, as she walked to the corner shop to buy a bag of sugar.
He then raped and murdered her before leaving her body by the side of the road in the middle of the night.
Many who saw Kylie’s body lying in the gutter 32 years ago had nightmares about it — including reporters used to attending homicides and fatal car smashes.
The much-loved Kylie appeared to be sleeping. She was lying on her left side, seemingly uninjured.
Her left arm was tucked under her body and her right arm was resting on the footpath. Kylie’s face and the front of her body were up against the upright section of the gutter.
She was wearing light khaki trousers, a red skivvy and a white singlet. The skivvy and singlet were pulled up, exposing part of her lower torso. The words “I love you” were written in ink on her arm.
There is something about the death of a child that hits particularly hard on those whose job it is to deal with such traumas — any ambulance worker, police officer or doctor will tell you.
Anger welled up alongside tears as those at the scene in Donald St, Preston, during the dark and miserably damp early hours of November 7, 1984, contemplated what sort of sicko would murder a child then dump her in the gutter.
The anger grew when an autopsy performed later that day revealed Kylie died from internal injuries that were caused by somebody probably three times her size committing unspeakable acts on her tiny body.
I first interviewed Kylie’s mother, Julie, a few days after the murder and have kept in touch ever since, particularly on birthdays as we happen to share the same one.
She eventually moved interstate and would occasionally ring and ask me if I would put some flowers on Kylie’s grave, as she couldn’t.
Not only has she had to cope with the murder of her beloved daughter, but a series of bizarre and tragic twists and turns in the case brought more trauma into her shattered life.
They included:
KYLIE’S grandfather, John Moss, committed suicide in October 1985, just prior to the first anniversary of his granddaughter’s death and shortly after he was accused and then cleared of killing her;
HER uncle, Mark Maybury, killed himself in jail in February 1987, leaving behind a suicide note in which he named two dead paedophiles he claimed to have murdered;
KYLIE’S grave was desecrated in 1985 by a man who claimed to be a Queensland gypsy who put a large Greek urn on it before warning crematorium staff he had put a curse on the urn and anyone moving it would suffer a “punishment worse than death”;
ONE-TIME prime suspect and convicted child killer Robert Arthur Selby Lowe got legal aid in 1997 to fund a High Court constitutional challenge to the validity of the Act police were attempting to use to forcibly take his DNA so they could compare it with DNA Kylie’s killer left on her body;
POLICE hoped Lowe’s legal battle to keep his DNA to himself was a sign he was guilty and were bitterly disappointed when they eventually got his DNA and it proved he wasn’t Kylie’s killer.
Kylie was snatched near her Gregory Grove home in East Preston on Melbourne Cup day, 1984.
Like many Australians, Julie Maybury, 24 at the time, took her daughters, Kylie and two-year-old Rebecca, to the pub to watch the race that stops a nation.
At Kylie’s inquest, before coroner Hugh Adams in January 1986, Ms Maybury — who was separated from her husband — explained that she and the girls spent the morning at home in their flat.
“About 12.45pm, I left home and went to the Council Club Hotel with my two daughters and a neighbour of mine, Lorna Simpson,” Ms Maybury said. “We arrived at the hotel at about 1.15pm. We had some lunch and watched the Melbourne Cup on the big television screen.
“We left shortly after the running of the Melbourne Cup and went and visited a friend of mine by the name of Liz Radakovic in Thornbury. We left there shortly after 4pm and went home.
“We arrived home just before 4.30pm and went straight to Lorna’s flat to have a cup of tea.
“In the flat were myself, Lorna and my two daughters.
“Lorna made me a cup of tea and I then rang my mother in Albury. I was still on the phone when Lorna wanted some sugar from the shop.
“Lorna asked Kylie if she would go to the shop and get the sugar and I said she could as long as she came straight back.”
Ms Simpson said she gave Kylie 90c for the sugar.
“Before she left to go to the shop she wanted to know how to spell ‘I love you’ so I wrote it on the bottom of a newspaper,” Ms Simpson told police. “I used either a blue or black ink Biro.
“ I then gave the same Biro to Kylie and she wrote ‘I love you’ on her arm. After she had written on her arm she left to go to the shop.”
And so the mystery of how “I love you” was on Kylie’s arm was solved.
Ms Maybury initially told police she thought Kylie left the flat to buy the sugar about 5.15pm, but later said it was not before 4.45pm.
“She was wearing a red skivvy, greyish pants and bare feet and was carrying a small red Strawberry Shortcake bag,” Ms Maybury said.
“When she hadn’t arrived back for a fair while I went up to the Food Plus shop and asked the lady behind the counter if she had seen my daughter. She said my daughter had been in but had left a fair while ago. I then contacted the police and searched the area and I didn’t see my daughter again.”
Police quickly started looking for Kylie, with Ivanhoe Inspector Graham Greenway in charge of the search. The Food Plus store in Plenty Rd was only about 150m from Kylie’s home.
MAN CHARGED OVER KYLIE MAYBURY’S 1984 MURDER
Manager Kerry Margaritis confirmed to police that Kylie went in to buy sugar.
“Between 5.30pm and 5.35pm I was serving behind the counter when a young girl approached me and placed a packet of sugar on the counter,” she said.
“She gave me a handful of small coins and I put them in the till without counting them. I said ‘That’s all right sweetheart’, but she just stood there. I said ‘That’s all right sweetheart’ again and then she left.
“This young girl who purchased the sugar was the deceased girl, Kylie. I saw her photograph on television and although it is slightly different I am sure that it was her.
“At about 6pm on the same day, Kylie’s mother came in to the Food Plus and she was very upset. She asked me if I had seen her daughter and I told her I had.”
Customer Iola Loretta Tanburrino told police she saw Kylie near the Food Plus petrol bowsers.
“I stopped the car as I got the impression that the little girl did not know where she was going,” she said.
“I can’t describe what the girl looked like or what she was wearing, but I do recall she was carrying a bag of sugar. When I saw the girl, my first thought was ‘Fancy sending a little girl like that to the shop’. I remained stationary until the little girl had got to the footpath.”
MAN CHARGED OVER KYLIE MAYBURY’S 1984 MURDER
SPECIAL FEATURE: 30th anniversary of Kylie Maybury tragedy
MOST SHOCKING: Kylie murder among Melbourne northern suburbs’ worst crimes
COLD CASE INVESTIGATIONS: Several new suspects emerged in Maybury case
UNSOLVED: Search 140+ homicide investigations in our Cold Case Files
Kylie was walking south back towards her home when she was last seen.
Insp Greenaway later described the search for Kylie for the coroner. “I deployed police in mobile units and on foot to search all streets, lanes, reserves and school grounds within a radius of approximately 1km,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ms Maybury was frantic with worry. A motorist found Kylie’s body about 12.45am.
Ambulance officer Trevor Mitchell received a call to attend at 12.50am — about the time police first arrived. He and fellow ambulance officer Stanley Sandford arrived in Donald St at 12.55am.
“I then checked for the radial pulse in the right arm, but could not detect any,” Mr Mitchell said.
“I then rotated the head, which had been face into the gutter, and checked for a carotid pulse, but could not find any. I then checked the pupils and observed that they were dilated and fixed.
“Officer Sandford then checked the person’s chest with a stethoscope and indicated by shaking his head that he couldn’t hear any cardiac sounds. I formed the opinion the child was deceased. A sheet was supplied from the ambulance to cover the child.”
Insp Greenway was called to Donald St at 1.15am and after viewing the body had the awful job of telling Ms Maybury about 2am that her daughter was dead.
When Donald St was searched by police about 7.30pm, the body wasn’t there. Police believe whoever snatched Kylie held her captive somewhere for several hours before dumping her in the gutter.
Kylie’s body was taken to the nearby Preston and Northcote Community Hospital, where Dr Stephen Margolis pronounced her dead at 4.50am.
State Forensic Science Laboratory officer Alan Atchison found traces of semen on swabs taken from Kylie. He also identified male brown pubic hairs.
Such evidence was not much use in the pre-DNA days of 1984 but, fortunately, Kylie’s clothing and samples were stored in the correct assumption that science would one day be able to glean something from them.
That DNA obtained years later from physical evidence left on Kylie’s body and clothes is likely to prove to be a vital clue in the coming murder trial.
MAN CHARGED OVER KYLIE MAYBURY’S 1984 MURDER
SPECIAL FEATURE: 30th anniversary of Kylie Maybury tragedy
MOST SHOCKING: Kylie murder among Melbourne northern suburbs’ worst crimes
COLD CASE INVESTIGATIONS: Several new suspects emerged in Maybury case
UNSOLVED: Search 140+ homicide investigations in our Cold Case Files
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