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Removing a Crime Scene Skip by Skip?

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Photographed 23 November 2019

by Dee McLachlan

I was in the middle of a workshop in Melbourne yesterday when I got a call from my courageous and admired friend, Rachel Vaughan. She just said, “They’re jack-hammering up the concrete.”

That was all I needed to hear, to realize that a potentially major crime scene was being tampered with. Rachel said that she was heading the 75-kilometre journey north to Adelaide, to see what was going on.

For international readers that are unfamiliar with Rachel’s story, she has for about a decade being telling authorities and many others about her father’s, Max MacIntyre, murderous ways — and how he sexually abused and tortured her as a child. She gave a detailed account to the International Tribunal for Natural Justice, and the Youtube can be viewed here. (Note: Two other step-siblings speak of similar abuses.)

It was almost eight years ago, on 19 January 2012, that Rachel had phoned Crimestoppers and was put through to someone at Major Crime. Rachel detailed her information about the Geising family that lived in the nearby street from Macklin Street where she grew up. (Raymond Geising was the first man to be convicted of Louise Bell’s murder, but was he was exonerated in 1985.)

She then told Crimestoppers that she remembered when she was a ten-year-old seeing a girl’s body, she believed to be Louise Bell — being buried in the back of their garden, and then covered over with a concrete slab.

Rachel was given the name of the officer in charge of the Bell case. She then informed Major Crime and SCIB of the new evidence, handing a statutory declaration to SAPOL on 20 January 2012.

On 23 February 2012, Rachel wrote a letter to SCIB asking a series of questions as to why certain people hadn’t been spoken to, and again reiterating that “Louise Bell’s remains are interred under a slab of concrete at Macklin Street.”

On 7 July 2012, Rachel had a phone call with Major Crime Detectives at 9 pm; this was a Saturday night. Both detectives apparently tried very hard to convince Rachel that the girl she saw was not Louise Bell. Rachel noted that they said this several times.

Det #1 – “..I’m not sure who the girl was that you saw, but I can assure you it was not Louise Bell.”

Det #2 – “Look Rachel, we can’t tell you why we’re sure that the girl you saw wasn’t Louise Bell, but we are sure that it wasn’t Louise Bell.”, and

Det #1 – “…, we can’t tell you why we know it’s not Louise Bell, we just know it’s not her.”

But hang on, no one knew where Louise’s body was. So how did they detectives know, emphatically, that it was not her (but must be someone else)?

Note: even though the detectives claimed it wasn’t Louise Bell, they should have done an immediate investigation into the possibility that another young female, that looked very much like Louise Bell, was buried under concrete in the backyard of Rachel’s childhood family home. In other words, the detectives should have immediately actioned an excavation of the yard.

Why did they not?

In some instances, the police begin immediate excavations as they did earlier this year. The news reported that as a result of a kid noticing something in a back yard in Adelaide, this led to an excavation team digging up a rental property to find some animal remains (I think they were).

So, after Rachel’s statement, one would expect the police to at least visit the property and do a preliminary investigation.

It is highly suspicious that Police were focused on trying to dissuade Rachel — and then do NOTHING. The inaction by police can be seen to strengthen’s Rachel’s case — especially as she had identified — by name — a police person whom she saw present when her father buried the remains.

Interestingly, the two detectives who called Rachel on that Saturday night were the same two detectives who then went after and secured the conviction against Dieter Pfennig.

I have spent many hours (and days) filming Rachel’s detailed accounts. She is meticulous about details, and these details never change. She recounted exactly how Louise was laid down, that sand was sprinkled over her and how the two men took about an hour to lay the concrete slab. That was 35 years ago.

Anything could have happened in that time. I had considered that maybe the body had been removed later (as it was near the edge of the concrete slab).

However, there is a very interesting part to Rachel’s testimony. The images of Louise Bell in the media in 1983 were of a girl with long dark hair.

But Rachel, when she had spoken to and provided statements to the police, had described a girl with shorter sun-bleached hair.

It was only a short time after her statement to the police that new never-seen-before images were released by mainstream media of photographs of Louise Bell at a public pool with short straw-coloured hair.

Rachel had described Louise exactly, before having any knowledge of what Louise looked like shortly before her disappearance.

Louise Bell (L) the photo used by the media in the 1980s. (R) the photo (from a video) that surface in the mainstream media after Rachel gave her account.

There is much more to the story, but I will make a note that as a ten-year-old Rachel went to a call box three times back in 1983 to try alert authorities that her father had a girl under the house. It came to naught. Her father, Max, had powerful friends.

But back to yesterday.

The new owners were jack-hammering the concrete and loading it in a skip.

Rachel and some supporters arrived. The new owners know the history of their house and are aware of Rachel. When Rachel asked if she could just go and see, the owners flatly refused, saying, “we haven’t finished yet.”

After a while as Rachel and the others were about to leave, the police arrived. They did not go into the house but came straight up to Rachel, who was already in her car with her indicator on, to turn onto the street. Rachel said, “The police car cut off my egress and flashed his lights to indicate he wanted to speak to me.” After a brief discussion, told me to leave and not return to the area for 24 hours.

Well, no one wants Rachel around. Her accounts dig into the heart of the corruption in South Australia. But the longer authorities ignore her accounts, the more implicated they become. I am reminded by a maxim, Lex dilationes semper exhorre (the law always abhors delay), and how often the avoidance to investigate casts further suspicion.

Now we might not know who was buried under that concrete. Maybe they removed her body (earlier) and will now miraculously find Louise Bell’s remains somewhere else — maybe down near the Onkaparinga river – to further incriminate Pfennig.

Well, we know what’s going on, but, as the detective said, “I can’t tell you why”. It seems the distraction and inaction with regard to Rachel’s case is not weakening, but rather strengthening her case.

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21 COMMENTS

  2. Awesome Dee, I knew what was coming down the Pyke.

    Anyone want to go me on any of these, let’s call issues, you going to front. I don’t even know Rachel, but I have seen your disclaimer, do it.

  3. I am gutted by yesterdays events. But I am not giving up on Louise. I an not giving up on the other children whose murders I witnessed my father and others perpetrate, and which SAPOL also refuse to investigate. Nor will I give up trying to have incarcerated the perpetrators of my own abuse. Questions need to be asked about why the former head of the major crime department took drastic measures a few weeks ago. The same officer whom my brother named in his testimony to the International Tribunal for Natural Justice (44 minutes 11 seconds in) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KllUDVDOLcM&t=2653s

  4. When I spoke to Rachel, I understood the despair she was feeling. If SAPOL had acted properly and investigated her claim in the first instance, this might have very well ended over 40 years of pain for her. For nearly a decade she was waiting for someone in authority to do the right thing. Just one police investigator, to take her over and identify the exact spot would have been a start. She has made detailed claims of other murders — and one would have to consider the enormity of finding the body of Louise Bell under that concrete. It would have flipped the entire State of South Australia upside down.

    For Rachel however, it would have been like a witnessed being murdered the day before a trial.
    Her case against her father (the other living person’s she’s named) was sabotaged by SAPOL and others. But this is far from the end. It now implicates the system.

  5. Hoping and pray that SAPOL Major Crime will get their act into gear and investigate Rachel’s evidence that is in the statutory declaration from 2012. No stone should be left unturned. Enough is enough!

  8. Excuse me, it is dreadful that we don’t have a journo attending the Inquest into Bourke St rampage.

    Which of you dear souls in Melbourne will help out? Recall that only Gumshoe caught the lies at the Lindt Cafe inquest in 2016.

    How about you, Mal? Pop over from Perth. Remember, citizens can’t afford the transcripts (the Lindt package cost $65k).

  10. Great summation of the story Dee, and blessings to Rachel for her stalwart bravery in exposing so much, which really reveals a blanket shutdown of the OZ media that supports the crimes of the state and federal governments. There are few friends in politics, Senator Heffernan is an exception, we live in hell and can only pray for rain and the incarceration of the criminals that have been protected by our so called government for so long…love and peace..and just remember it’s all an illusion and the truth ultimately prevails…

    • Well, email by email.
      You seem to have some free time.
      Use some to think, then I’m thinking a little content, a smidgen of context.

  13. this house was sold last year as you would know by Mcammon RE, ill tell you now i enquired as it went online and the agent made all sorts of excuses why i couldnt view it. The agent knows something also. Where is the tunnel system in edwardstown? do we have evidence

  14. I have been hooked on all of your testaments both verbal and written Rachel, firstly I want to say i believe whole heartedly you were abused and tortured as a child in fact you are still being tortured! I am so sorry for what you have endured and in so many ways you need professional help/therapy to help you come to terms with what you have endured. I also believe that you did witness the things you say at the hands of that animal and that some of the elite in all countries are responsible for such crimes against children. I come from northern Ireland and have recently looked into lord mountbatten and his ‘visits’ to boys homes. The catholic church by far the biggest known organisation to commit such crimes, my late grandmother being brought up in an orphanage in ballymena run by nuns, although she always insisted the nuns were good to her! So why on earth would your story be any different. These things are happening and need investigating. You have such strength. Sending love and light. Keep fighting girl!

  15. Cant believe when I walked by the other day and in the backyard were kids bikes, trampoline, basketball ring…. and now to hear they dug up the yard and then called the police on Rachel makes me feel sick for those kids….

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