Bandali Debs nominated as suspect in murder of Adele Bailey

A tip-off to police identified double police killer Bandali Debs as a suspect in the cold case murder of sex worker Adele Bailey.

Serial killer Bandali “Ben” Debs was nominated as a suspect in the murder of sex worker Adele Bailey in the months after her body was found down a Bonnie Doon mineshaft in 1995. 

A Herald Sun investigation can reveal police ignored a tip-off about Debs – who at the time was an active armed robber and murderer – linking him to Ms Bailey’s disappearance 17 years earlier.

The identity of the caller and her information about Debs was given to Operation Kale, a police taskforce set up to probe the suspected murder of Ms Bailey, whose body was found in the disused “Jack of Clubs’’ mineshaft in Bonnie Doon in July 1995.

But at the time of the Debs tip-off police were tentatively probing a connection between Ms Bailey’s disappearance in September 1978, with suspected corrupt police officer Denis Tanner.

Mr Tanner had worked in the St Kilda district and during a street blitz on sex workers had arrested and charged Ms Bailey in the months before she vanished.

When Ms Bailey’s body was found on July 20, 1995, by two men exploring the mineshaft, the homicide squad visited the site.

Bandali Debs links to Adele Bailey were identified in a tip-off to police.

It was located on a ridge above the Tanner family’s Springfield property in Bonnie Doon.

Inside that property Mr Tanner’s sister-in-law, Jennifer Tanner, was found dead in 1984 in suspicious circumstances.

Although Ms Tanner had been shot twice with a bolt action rifle her death was initially written-off by local police as a suicide.

One of the homicide investigators called to the mineshaft where Ms Bailey’s remains had been found happened to be Ms Tanner’s cousin.

Ms Tanner’s family had never accepted she had killed herself.

Given the mineshaft’s location, and that Ms Bailey had been a sex worker arrested by Mr Tanner in St Kilda, the policeman became Operation Kale’s prime suspect.

Operation Kale suspected the then detective sergeant Tanner had killed Ms Tanner and was involved in the disposing of Ms Bailey’s body.

In 1999, Coroner Jacinta Heffey found the evidence fell “well short” of establishing any involvement of Mr Tanner in Ms Bailey’s death.

But a year earlier another coroner, Graeme Johnstone, had found Mr Tanner had shot dead his sister-in-law following a second inquest into her death.

No charges would be laid over either woman’s death.

But a subsequent secret investigation, dubbed Trencher, formed in 2003, re-examined the Bailey and Tanner cases.

Adele Bailey’s body was found down a Bonnie Doon mineshaft 17 years after she vanished.

It would not only establish that Debs, who had just been convicted of the murders of two police officers, knew and socialised with Ms Bailey and other Maori trans sex workers in the St Kilda area at the time she vanished, but likely had a sexual relationship with her.

The Trencher review probed four suspects over Ms Bailey’s murder including Debs, Tanner, and two other police officers connected to him who also worked in St Kilda in the 1970s.

Debs’ name immediately struck Trencher investigators trawling through Operation Kale files.

The information reports, known as IRs, unearthed by Trencher revealed a former sex worker had phoned police after reading a Herald Sun report in 1995 about Ms Bailey’s remains being discovered.

The caller, who we have dubbed Marion King, rang police on September 6 and again on September 7, 1995, implicating Debs as a potential suspect in the second call to the homicide squad.

Ms King, who emigrated from New Zealand to Australia in early 1977, told a homicide investigator she had lived with Ms Bailey and detailed her relationship with a man known in the St Kilda area as “Joe’’, but who she knew was Bandali Michael Debb (sic).

Operation Kale’s records reveal Ms King told police in 1995:

“Adele may have been involved in a relationship with a person called “Joe’’ who she believed to be Bendalli Michael Debb (sic) or similar, then aged in his mid-20s (sic).’’

Jennifer Tanner’s death was initially ruled a suicide.

Police opened an investigation into any links Denis Tanner had with Adele Bailey.

It was further noted that the caller, Ms King, said “Joe” always carried a hand gun and she recalls him threatening her one night by placing her against a wall with a razor at her throat.’’

Ms King told police that “Joe’’ had a Lebanese father and a brother, Robert.

Operation Kale rated her information as ‘’possibly true’’ but never got back to her.

An Operation Kale investigator wrongly believed ‘’Joe’’ was another man – Allan Ernest Benton – who was known as “Little Joey”.

Benton had been involved with the sex industry before he went missing.

Eight years after her call Ms King was tracked down by Trencher detectives.

She was interviewed by the Victorian Ombudsman and by police reinvestigating the deaths of Ms Bailey and Ms Tanner.

In a statement to police, Ms King detailed how she had met Debs – who all her circle of friends knew as “Joe’’ – through Ms Bailey while living with her in Scott St, Elwood, in 1977.

“I think she had a physical relationship with Joe because of the way they acted together, but I don’t know for sure,’’ she stated.

“He was a very friendly, nice looking guy who would come and visit from time to time.

“All I knew about Joe at this time was that he came from Sydney.’’

Debs, she said, was seeing a “drag queen” called Marsha and another trans woman called Jedda.

“He was a bit of a sl-t and was getting about with a few of the girls,’’ Ms King stated.

Ms Bailey’s then boyfriend, Peter Nimot, would also be interviewed by Trencher detectives in New Zealand.

Mr Nimot recalled “Joe’’ had driven Ms Bailey and him along with his girlfriend, Marsha, on a day trip to Ballarat where they went to a pub for lunch before heading to the races.

Significantly, he remembered Debs drove them in his blue Mazda van, known as the “Bongo’’ van.

Debs brother, Robert Rutherford, also confirmed to Trencher he and his brother had been involved with St Kilda sex workers but denied he knew anything about Ms Bailey’s murder.

Ms King told police that after she moved out of Ms Bailey’s flat in Elwood she rented a one-room apartment in Prahran.

She said Debs moved in uninvited and that after a month ‘’things turned really bad’’.

In her interview with Trencher she revealed to investigators she had been raped by Debs.

“I came home after working one night and Joe wanted to have his way with me and I said ‘No piss off I’m tired’,’’ she stated.

Ms King said she was then dragged into the bathroom, slapped, and Debs put his hand on her throat and threatened her with a razor.

“I’ll cut your f--king throat if you don’t do what I want,’’ she alleged Debs said.

“Benny gets what Benny wants.’’

Ms King would also spark an off-the-books homicide probe after alleging she witnessed Debs shoot a mystery man inside the Prahran flat.

“Joe pulled out a gun and shot the guy in the head at point blank range,’’ she stated.

He was allegedly dumped in the “Bongo’’ van and driven away.

Debs as a younger man.

The tip-off claimed Debs and Bailey may have been in a relationship.

Police could not track down the ‘’Bongo’’ van to forensically analyse it nor did they prove the identity of the mystery victim.

Ms King said she only learned of Debs’ true identity after finding his passport in the glovebox of his van.

Debs, she said, told her he had been on trips to Lebanon where he boasted that his father (Malik Debs) had a lot of power.

Ms King said that after leaving the flat to escape Debs’ menace she did not see him again until she saw his picture in the newspapers after his 2000 arrest over the Silk-Miller police shootings.

“When Bandali’s name appeared in the media I recognised his name, I also saw some of the pictures of him and even though he looked older and fatter, he still looked the same,’’ she stated.

“I didn’t know if I had any information of value, but as I had lived with Adele for a short period of time, if they prompted my memory, I just might remember something of value.

“I also rang the police a second time because my concern was that everybody in our circle of friends knew Bandali Debbs (sic), they knew him as ‘’Joe’’.

“He was on the streets way back then and my concern was that I thought he might have been involved in her (Adele Bailey’s) disappearance and or murder because I had seen him murder someone with my own eyes.

“I was pretty sure he was involved with Adele in a relationship and I thought by ringing the police and giving them the information they would follow up on my information which may lead to solving Adele’s disappearance.’’

Debs picked up Kristy Harty from the side of the road and shot her in the head.

Debs killed Donna Hicks and dumped her naked body at a quarry.

Ms King also detailed to police in 1995 information about Ms Bailey’s boyfriend, Peter Nimot, who she felt obligated to clear from suspicion in her disappearance.

She explained to the Trencher investigators years later she was prepared to give evidence against Debs, who she feared would kill if cornered.

“My main reason for making the second call to the police (Operation Kale in 1995) was to tell them what I knew about Adele’s boyfriend, Peter, … and give them the information about Bandali “Joe’’ as I felt he was a possible suspect in Adele’s disappearance and also (to) tell them how dangerous he was,’’ Ms King stated.

“I do recall I said to the policeman words to the effect that if the police approached Bandali and he felt cornered, that he would shoot them.’’

Ms King recalled she was told by the officer not to “worry about that’’.

Her words would prove prophetic.

On August 16, 1998, Debs, who was armed, was intercepted by undercover officers Sgt Gary Silk and Sen Constable Rodney Miller in Cochranes Rd, Moorabbin, as they hunted an armed robbery duo targeting restaurants.

Both officers were murdered in cold blood.

Investigators spoken to by the Herald Sun believe the failure to investigate Ms King’s tip-off in 1995 was a missed opportunity to surveil the then mainly unknown Debs’ activities.

The father of five had committed a series of armed robberies between 1991 and 1994 during which he shot and paralysed one victim and in another incident fired upon and missed two police officers in an industrial back block of Hallam after they attempted to pull him and an associate over.

In April, 1995, five months before Ms King’s tip-off, Debs executed his first known murder victim when he shot sex worker Donna Hicks in Sydney’s west.

He left her body near the entrance of a quarry wearing nothing but a dog collar.

Sgt Gary Silk was ambushed by Debs when he pulled his car over for a check.

Sen Constable Rodney Miller had a newborn baby when he was killed by Debs.

In the three years following the call to police, Debs continued his murderous path, killing another sex worker, Kristy Harty, in Upper Beaconsfield in June, 1997.

Fourteen months later, on August 16, 1998, Debs sparked a national manhunt when he ambushed Sgt Silk and Sen Constable Miller who were on a stake-out to find an unidentified armed robbery team.

Debs was convicted of the killings in December, 2002, alongside his alleged teenage associate Jason Roberts.

Roberts was last month acquitted of the Silk-Miller murders after spending almost 22 years in prison.

Debs’ DNA, which was run through the Victorian and national databases, matched him to semen samples taken from the bodies of Ms Hicks and Ms Harty.

He is serving four life sentences over the murders.

Former and current Victoria Police investigators have probed Debs over numerous unsolved homicides, including the Tynong North serial killings and the murder of Sarah MacDiarmid.

The 68-year-old life prisoner gave evidence for the prosecution against Mr Roberts during which he admitted to committing more than 40 armed robberies and shooting Ms Hicks, Ms Harty and Sen Constable Miller.

Debs contacted police after Roberts’ convictions were quashed and a retrial ordered on November 10, 2020.

In return for his evidence he requested to be moved from Goulburn Correctional Centre to a Victorian prison, be given a parole date and for police to cease any investigations into him.