Fear creeps in as Carlton North locals say they used to feel safe

AS the manhunt began in the wake of a woman’s body being found, fear is an unwelcome new feeling for Carlton North locals, writes Patrick Carlyon.

Lucy Williams turned up at Princes Park Drive just before 1pm on Wednesday with a bunch of hand-picked flowers.

She didn’t stay long — she didn’t want her gesture to be about her. But she was a welcome kindness in the gloom.

On nearby soccer fields, police and SES workers were conducting a line search. Police tape rattled in the biting wind. A police tent in the distance marked the spot where a woman’s body had been found just before 3am.

POLICE RELEASE IMAGES OF MAN AS PROBE INTO DEATH CONTINUES

POLICE HUNT PARKVILLE SEX ATTACKER

WOMAN CHARGED OVER SEXUAL ASSAULT AT NEWPORT STATION

Police and SES conduct a line search of the area. Picture: David Crosling

Flowers laid on a park bench near where the body was found. Picture Jay Town

The only clue, apparently, were the black shoes nearby. No one knew much — police wouldn’t say who the woman was or how she had died.

Ninety minutes earlier, a gurney had been gently rolled across the empty field, on its way to the coroner’s office. Sporting Doc Martens and a shy way, Williams now ­expressed the confusion and fear of the wider community.

She was paying her respects to a woman whose life and death she knew nothing about.

She did not know the woman’s age or where she had lived or worked. She knew exactly, however, what the woman’s death represented.

“It could have been any one of us,” Williams said. “It’s awful because it’s such a busy place and people feel so safe here.”

Yet as a passing jogger said, here is no place for anyone when it’s deserted in the middle of a chilly winter’s night.

The running track is well-lit with lamps (and well-pounded by dawn). The six soccer fields host hundreds of players who play and train here.

The body of a woman is removed from the soccer pitch. Picture: AAP

Yet after dark, away from the track, the grassy expanses roll like eternal blackness after the players go home and the booming floodlights are turned off.

The CBD, as well as the buildings and cranes that poke above the treeline only a few clicks away from Carlton North, could be from another world. The tram tinkles from nearby Royal Parade sound far away. The old Princes Park football ground is adjacent, but the throngs of matchday belong to yesteryear.

The unworldly otherness is amplified by the crumbling grandeur of Melbourne General Cemetery.

Some joggers had not caught up with the news when they were redirected by police on Wednesday morning. They were indignant. Unlike Williams, it was all about them.

A police tent at the scene where the woman’s body was found. Picture: David Crosling

“Whaaaat?!” yelled a woman, compelled to yank out her headphones after ­ignoring the shouts of the police officer.

“Bit of overkill,” said a man, who may not have had his morning coffee.

“How did she die?” a cyclist asked the police officer who had, for the past seven hours, ushered away hundreds of people and accepted free advice about “false breath tests”. “I don’t know,” the officer replied. “We can’t say anyway.”

One young woman turned away responded with a sense of foreboding that flows from unanswered questions about unexplained deaths.

“Oh God, there was ­another rape,” she said, pointing towards Parkville.

An hour earlier, in timing that in itself fuelled speculation of a link, police had ­released an image of a man they wanted to question about a sexual assault in Gatehouse St, Parkville, on March 28. A woman in her 20s was ­attacked from behind on the street by a stranger at about 2.35am. The woman, who felt like she was “fighting for my life”, screamed and eventually broke free.

The attack occurred about one kilometre from the site of the woman’s body, and police said they would keep an “open mind” about linking the two incidents. They will also step up their presence in the area.

But Williams feared that ­locals would worry more. Until they understand what happened to the poor woman on the soccer field, how could they not?

[e-mail]