Push to reopen cold-case cop ‘suicide’

More than 30 years on, South Australian Police Detective Inspector Geoff Whitford’s family are demanding answers about the circumstances surrounding his death.

Amanda Schultz and Pam Whitford, daughter and widow of Geoff Whitford.

On October 22, 1981, South Australian Police Detective Inspector Geoff Whitford was meant to give evidence in a case against an allegedly crooked colleague who had stolen drugs from a crime scene.

Whitford never showed up in court.

His absence was regarded as out of character as he was a diligent, lifelong copper who had quickly risen to the ranks of a covert taskforce that was keeping tabs on allegations of corruption within SA Police. As a result, the worried police hierarchy immediately declared him missing and launched a statewide manhunt.

Oddly, in record time, police found Whitford later that same day at one of South Australia’s more obscure locations – little-known Pebbly Beach, a rocky strip of coastline near the southern Fleurieu town of Myponga.

He was dead. He had died from what was immediately presumed and declared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

More than 30 years on, Whitford’s family are demanding answers about the circumstances surrounding his suicide – including whether it was necessarily suicide that claimed the life of this happily married 38-year-old father of three.

Daughter Amanda Schultz partnered with veteran journalist Greg Mayfield to write her father’s biography three years ago, raising several key doubts about the nature of Whitford’s demise.

Now there are fresh allegations that Whitford may have known too much about what was going on within the seamier sections of SAPOL during the 1980s.

Much of the confusion around his death stems from the fact the coroner’s report was marked “never to be released” and SAPOL has refused to co-operate in attempts to have its contents disclosed as it contains unsubstantiated allegations against officers still in the force today.

The many discrepancies in the case include the speed with which he was found at such an unusual location, the fact the handwriting in Whitford’s apparent suicide note did not match his, the forensic examination of the crime scene being conducted briefly and after midnight in total darkness.

Geoff Whitford.

This week, the Nine program Under Investigation also spoke to Whitford’s uncle, retired police detective Ron Whitford, who revealed no gunshot residue had been found on his nephew’s hand at the crime scene. “If there’s no gunshot residue, he didn’t pull the trigger. Simple. Somebody else did,” Ron Whitford said.

Schultz is also a former police officer and told The Weekend Australian she had no time for conspiracy theories about her father’s death.

Rather, she said, it was obvious police had not taken an evidence-based approach to investigating her father’s death nor the circumstances surrounding it.

“I don’t know what happened down there that day,” she said.

“Dad might have been really stressed and just cracked. If that’s what happened, so be it. The point is we just don’t know, and that’s what nags away at us about it.”

The aspect to Whitford’s death that most confuses Schultz is the assertion that he would have been afraid or nervous about testifying in a small case involving drug possession by a wayward officer, when he was actually investigating much graver allegations of corruption and wrongdoing.

“It’s a load of frog shit,” she says. “There was another, much bigger inquiry he was involved with into much higher-level corruption. Again, maybe that’s what got to him with the stress and the pressure, but we just don’t know.

“It was a nasty time to be in SAPOL. There were a lot of really good coppers there, but there were others on the fringes who knew shit was going down but would never dog on their mates.”

Another bizarre aspect of the case was the attempt by Schultz to access her father’s work records through FOI laws – everything from his employment contract to any commendations, indeed anything related to his SAPOL work.

Like a scene from Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, the reply came back that there was nothing, and no record he had ever worked there.

Schultz said she had learned from other officers that the very day after her father died his entire office was cleaned out, all his files removed, and a new officer took over his desk. “It was like he never existed,” she said.

Schultz said the impact of her father’s death had been toughest on her mum, Pam, who is still alive and not only never saw a police report nor inquest into her husband’s death but was even prevented from viewing his body before his funeral.

Schultz’s co-author, Greg Mayfield, was a police reporter at The Advertiser, Adelaide’s daily newspaper, at the time of Whitford’s disappearance.

“The situation always had an air of unreality about it,” he told The Weekend Australian.

“The unlikely disappearance of a commissioned officer, the discovery of his body soon after and the declaration by the then coroner, without an inquest, that he had committed suicide … all this raised more questions than it answered.

“The fact that suicide notes were left behind by Geoff suggests he did, indeed, take his own life, but was it an action that was performed under duress or threat?

“It must have been a lonely life while heading a secretive task force to learn about corruption in the ranks of the police force. Who did he trust and what were his thoughts in those final hours?”

The case is now being championed in SA parliament by SA Best MLC Frank Pangallo, a former journalist.

“This case is just another glaring illustration of the wilful blindness of our criminal justice system to corrupt practices that might cause government agencies scandal and embarrassment,” Pangallo told The Weekend Australian.

“My suspicion is they wanted this to disappear to protect the image of SAPOL at a time when Mr Whitford believed there was serious corruption and rats in the ranks.

“I’ve seen the secret report carried out by a retired judge into claims of police corruption that was never tabled in parliament by the then attorney-general, Trevor Griffin. It was highly explosive.

“Now new information has emerged which totally contradicts police reports made to the coroner in 1981 into Mr Whitford’s death, the Attorney-General must ask the coroner to re-open the matter and conduct an inquest to determine whether it was suicide or murder.”

Attorney-General Kyam Maher said this week he would consider Pangallo’s request.