Deadline: Missing heads from Footscray Cemetery not the first bizarre case

The theft of the heads of two corpses from Footscray General Cemetery appalled Melbourne, but it’s not the first time such a bizarre case has occurred.

The theft of the heads of two interred corpses disgusted Melbourne. Picture: Jason Edwards

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

Head case finds right place

Little more was heard until last week about the strange case of the skulls in the night time. This refers to the recent arrest over the grotesque theft of the heads of two interred corpses from Footscray General Cemetery in January.

In those intervening months, the matter was never far from the brains of Maribyrnong CIU detectives, who pounced on a Spotswood property early on Friday after a breakthrough the previous evening.

As this column observed some time ago, the investigation was always going to be top of mind for police.

Without casting judgment on the man detained on Friday (something a court will do in due course), there has been some similarly bizarre cases in the past.

Police with evidence bags at the Spotswood home. Picture: Josie Hayden

Our attention has been drawn to a case from 1990 when remains were stolen from two family crypts at Box Hill cemetery. Jason Scott Janusauskas, a troubled 18-year-old from South Yarra, was ultimately found to have done the deed.

A court heard Janusauskas was obsessed with death and wanted to experience killing, though it didn’t matter to him exactly who died.

He was deeply disturbed and his mother had been desperately trying to get him psychiatric help before he broke into six coffins, stealing not just two gold rings but human remains.

Seven years later, on the other side of the country, 66-year-old Walter Vincent Corbett was found dead in his East Perth home.

He was propped in a chair with a cigarette butt hanging from his mouth and a hunting knife in his hand.

We’ll spare you all the details beyond saying it was a horrific death for a vulnerable man.

The same Jason Janusauskas was subsequently arrested over the Corbett homicide, a killing described by a judge as the result of a brutal, unrelenting and prolonged series of attacks.

Forensic police examining Footscray General Cemetery. Picture: Jason Edwards

The killer made a series of bizarre claims, including that he had spoken to actor Jodie Foster while watching the film Silence of the Lambs and that he had been spied on by cockroaches with cameras on their backs.

He was jailed for life in a place where there are both cockroaches and cameras.

Less sinister, perhaps, was the case of the weirdo who found the skeletal remains of public servant Stephen Crean (brother of former Labor heavyweight Simon Crean) 18 months after he perished in a blizzard near Thredbo in 1985.

Police arrested a 26-year-old New Zealand fruit picker, Stephen James Forsythe, near Shepparton in early 1987. Forsythe had stolen the skull after stumbling over the skeleton while bushwalking.

The fruit picker was a fruitcake.

He had posted Crean’s wallet and identity cards to police, planning to keep the skeleton’s location secret.

Police later told Cooma court the crazy Kiwi had deliberately tried to mislead them about the location of the skeleton because he intended to return and collect the rest of the bones to take back to New Zealand.

The heat is on

A suburban torturer who is part debt collector and part sadist has been using an old-fashioned technique to extract money from victims.

This nasty piece of work has been firing up a blowtorch in some of his many attempts to separate victims and their money, a method often mentioned by the late Chopper Read, whose circle included “toe cutters” who allegedly used portable oxyacetylene torches and bolt cutters to terrify those with black cash or drugs.

In this latest example, one victim is said to have been left in hospital with burns after being grabbed by the thug out in the western suburbs.

But it hasn’t been one-way traffic: the man who fancies the blue flame has found himself copping some heat, with bullets blasted into his house as a response to his dastardly activities.

He may find prison more challenging than it is to drag the vulnerable off the streets to monster them.

Someone in there might be boiling the kettle for him — but not for a nice cup of tea.

Chopper Read had a way with words and weapons.

No relaxing retirement

They’ve been looking over their shoulders in the 38 years since Bernie Williams was tied up and shot execution-style west of Melbourne.

And now, at or nearing retirement age, they have fresh cause to be nervous.

One man, aged 62, was this month charged over the death of Mr Williams, a burly Melton footballer, but the matter won’t be resting there.

Homicide squad investigators believe the 25-year-old’s physical capabilities mean that what happened to Mr Williams was not the work of one person.

And it is clear he had upset others in the period before his body was found abandoned on a bush track at Bullengarook.

The killing of Mr Williams was a particularly vicious crime, one which has the appearance of being committed by people motivated by genuine hatred.

Hayden Burbank. Picture: Mark Stewart

Life’s a beach

Anyone concerned about how demon Melbourne footy fan Hayden Burbank would readjust to life after a three-month prison term in Perth need not worry.

Last week we reported the border breacher had enjoyed a lovely round one of the AFL perched in the Melbourne members as his Dees whacked the Bulldogs.

Since then, our colleague Alice Coster has lured Burbank into an in-depth interview about his 90 days of slumming it inside with Fremantle supporters and the like after his dumb decision to scam his way across the state line in breach of Covid regulations.

Now, another of Deadline’s spies has spotted Burbank again living his best life, this time at UrbnSurf in Tullamarine where machine-made waves roll over a concrete beach all day long.

He looked a picture of relaxation doing some stretches with mates as he prepared to take on the advanced turns setting.

A spot of urban surfing is just the way to stay fit for the coming snow skiing season, of course.

But this year he won’t have to get creative with the paperwork to get to Buller in breach of regulations.

Footballer Fraser Gehrig is mobbed after kicking his 100th goal in 2004.

Gun investigator went off like a shot

The frenzied crowd invasion scenes as Buddy Franklin booted his 1000th goal has been the subject of at least that many conversations in recent days.

They would certainly have brought back some memories for a respected and sober senior Victoria Police detective who runs a key unit of the force these days.

Deadline seems to recall the same investigator being part of the St Kilda rabble which stormed Football Park in Adelaide back in 2004 when Fraser Gehrig booted his 100th major of the year.