The first people, always last on the agenda

Twenty-three years ago in Bowraville, a small town on the NSW north coast, three Aboriginal children were murdered in five months. The families of the Bowraville Three are still fighting the racist indifference of the authorities.

When 16-year-old Colleen Walker went missing in 1990, the local police were unconcerned. They told Colleen’s mother, Muriel Craig Walker, that her daughter had probably gone “walkabout”. They questioned Muriel about whether Colleen was really even her daughter. Colleen was “too pretty” and “too white” in the eyes of the Bowraville police.

The “walkabout” story was repeated to the Greenup family when their 4-year-old Evelyn disappeared two and a half weeks later. Despite the pleas of both families, the police refused to consider foul play.

It was only after a demonstration outside the local police station, along with the subsequent disappearance of another child, Clinton Speedy Duroux, also 16, that an investigation was launched. Eventually, the bodies of Clinton and Evelyn were discovered. Colleen’s has never been found.

“If these were three white kids from the North Shore, or another posh area like that, some poor bastard would have been locked up even if he didn’t do it. They would have put someone behind bars to shut the case”, Clinton’s sister-in-law Leonie Duroux told Red Flag.

The belated police investigation was botched from the start. All three victims disappeared from house parties on the same stretch of road, but the police refused to consider that the murders could be linked.

Detective Alan Williams, who had no training in homicide, was asked to investigate the case. Williams told Four Corners in 2011 that he had “nil” chance of solving the murders. He got the case, he explained, “[b]ecause I was here [Bowraville] – it didn’t mean any cost per se for me to do the inquiries … no one wanted this investigation.”

The outcome was almost a foregone conclusion. Material evidence disappeared, other evidence given to the police by community members was not used in court, and the homicide squad was never called in. The murders remained unsolved.

For more than two decades since, the families have fought for justice. Today, years after they were told to “let go”, the families might be one step closer. The NSW parliament has now voted to hold an inquiry into the murders, the subsequent investigation and the impact the deaths had on the community.

At a rally of around 100 gathered in memory of Colleen, Evelyn and Clinton in Sydney on 21 November, Leonie Duroux told the crowd: “All we want is our day in court; that’s all we ever wanted.” Another at the rally summed up the truth that lies behind the story of the Bowraville Three: “The first people, always last on their agenda.”