Double killer Bruce Burrell kept his victims’ location a secret to his grave

BRUCE Burrell, the pathological liar who murdered Sydney mother Kerry Whelan and grandmother Dorothy Davis, died in prison yesterday taking the secret of his victims’ location to his grave.

Bruce Burrell arrives at Goulburn Court to face questions about the disappearance of Kerry Whelan in 1997.

THE note read “Follow all instructions or your wife will die”. The previous day Kerry Whelan, wife of wealthy businessman Bernie Whelan, disappeared. Whelan now feared the worst if he didn’t comply with the ransom demand.

He secured the cash and waited for the kidnappers to call. The call never came and Kerry was never found. Police investigations soon focused on a former employee of Whelan, Bruce Burrell, as a “person of interest”.

Burrell, who died yesterday, had made phone calls to the Whelans and paid visits to their property in the weeks before Kerry vanished. Despite her body never being found, evidence mounted against Burrell. He was later convicted of Kerry’s murder but now goes to the grave without ever admitting his part in the crime or revealing the location of Kerry’s body.

Bruce Burrell at Hillydale farm, Bungonia in 1997.

By all accounts Burrell was a pathological liar, abusive and violent who pretended he was the perfect country gent, but was not above murder for personal gain.

An undated picture of kidnap victim Kerry Whelan with husband Bernard Whelan.

Born on January 25, 1953, in Goulburn, he was indulged by his father as a child, growing to be an intensely selfish bully. He attended Bourke St Primary School and Goulburn High School, never the best student, he compensated for academic weakness, at least in his father’s eyes, by being a good rugby player and swimmer. Often he embellished the truth, or just lied, about sporting achievements to win praise from his dad.

The Burrell family moved to Dee Why when Bruce was 15. Burrell went to Beacon Hill High School, but never completed HSC, starting work at a bank. Being around money proved too much of a temptation and in 1971 he was caught forging withdrawal slips. He was sacked and his father forced to pay back the money to the bank. When his mother died, he began to retreat into fantasy, lying to people about where he worked and how much he earned. It was an attempt to impress his father and convince himself he was not a failure.

In 1977 he married schoolteacher Susan Gerathy while working at a TV station making commercials. The marriage began to break down by 1980, mainly over his compulsive lying. Burrell was soon seeing Dallas Bromley, a woman he met at his new advertising company job. She was a graphic designer from a wealthy family. The two married in 1985. That same year Burrell was assigned to the Crown Equipment account, where he met Bernie Whelan, an executive at Crown. Burrell cultivated a friendship with Whelan and in 1989 he was hired to work at Crown’s advertising department.

Dorothy Davis in an undated photo.

Burrell and Whelan stayed friends even after Bernie retrenched him in 1990, but the friendship ended in 1993 when Burrell borrowed a rifle from Whelan and later claimed it had been stolen. For several years Burrell lived mostly off Dallas’s earnings from the graphic arts company she had started. He also cheated family friend, wealthy 74-year-old widow Dorothy Davis, out of $100,000. Davis disappeared in 1995.

Desperate for another source of income after his divorce from Dallas in 1996, Burrell hit upon a devious plan. He called Bernie out of the blue in 1997, but the conversation seemed to be about nothing. Burrell was in fact looking for information about Bernie’s movements. In mid-April he turned up at the Whelans’ Kurrajong property for a mysterious meeting with Kerry, after which she was overheard saying “Why is this bastard doing this to me?”

On May 6 Kerry told Bernie she had an appointment in Parramatta in the morning and that she would meet him at 3.45pm at his office, so they could fly to Adelaide at 5.30pm. When she failed to turn up or answer her phone, Bernie went to Parramatta Parkroyal, where she said she would park, and found her four-wheel drive there with the keys in the ignition.

Bernie called the police. The next day a ransom note was found in his mailbox. Bernie phoned Crown, who had a protocol for kidnappings, and they made the ransom money available. But Burrell never came to collect it, probably aware that he was already in too deep.

The evidence trail soon led to Burrell, but searches of his country property failed to find Kerry. Charges were brought against Burrell in 1999, but were later dropped. A 2002 inquest led to a successful conviction in 2006, by which time he had already been found guilty of Davis’s murder.

Bernie Whelan died earlier this year without ever knowing the whereabouts of his wife, now Burrell’s death means the Whelan children may never know.

Originally published as Double killer Bruce Burrell kept his victims’ location a secret to his grave