My screenplay 'Heat'

I have been examining the records surrounding the 1912 murder of Arthur Cogzell, and the disappearances of Edith Anderson and George Daniels at the Danube Crossing, near Turkey Station, Central Queensland.

I have based my researches on the Arthur Cogzell Murder File A/49724 72N and the inquest into Arthur Cogzell's death JUS/N505/12/491.

George Daniels was a black stockman known to have been in love with Edith Anderson, and whose effects were found at the scene. When the only witness, a white man called Fred Bowton, claimed that the dying Arthur Cogzell had accused Daniels of the murder, the police accepted this without question, even though the evidence contradicted this story.

If, however, the witness was lying, and was in fact the murderer, then all the evidence makes sense, and Fred Bowton got away with three murders, by accusing one of his victims.

The evidence for this is over-whelming in detail but the main points are:

1) George Daniel's rifle had a faulty ejector mechanism, and he could only fire one shot, before having to remove the spent shell with a pocket knife. This would not be the ideal weapon to take to a potential
shoot-out, especially as the rich Arthur Cogzell would have had a fully functioning Winchester repeater, and better weapons were easily available at the station house, which George had been known to borrow.
More convincingly, at two places in the murder scene, shots were fired in quick succession, as though after a running target, the evidence being the close placing of the shots in trees. George could not have done this with his rifle.
The faulty nature of George Daniel's rifle was not raised by any of his friends who knew about it, at any time during the inquest. Although it was assumed by many that he had shot Edith and himself in the creek, his pocketknife that he used to operate his rifle was not on his person, but left under a tree, so this was not possible.

2) The police who examined the scene thought that George Daniels had fired at Arthur Cogzell from 25 paces away, on a downward trajectory. (Quite the challenge if you knew you only had one shot, with a rifle that pulled to the left). However, the medical examiner noted that the first shot was on an upward trajectory, almost 45 degrees, from the left hip, and out through the right lung. As he was on horseback, Cogzell must have been ambushed by someone lying in the bushes or long grass beside the narrow track.

3) It was assumed by the police that Cogzell, mortally wounded by the first shot, and then shot at such close range in the back that a fist sized hole was left in his lung; somehow crawled 6 meters, where he loosed his belt, and then another 10 meters, down a steep embankment; and then up onto a mound where there was a meat ant nest, which must have made his last hours hell. I do not think this would have been possible for a man so badly wounded, and I do not see the motivation for such an agonizing effort. The grass was flattened, so he might have been dragged. The police found three patches of blood, a dead man sitting in one of them, and two missing people. The conclusion seems obvious.

4) Psychologically, George Daniels does not seem a killer. He had options: work, family, friends, and another girlfriend in his home town of Miriam Vale. He had also announced his intention to return home. He had seen his relationship with Edith Anderson blossom in secret and die in the open, but he was particularly intelligent (the first aboriginal in his district to finish school) and he does not have a history of violence. He seemed to rely on charm and good looks for his success with young women, and was patient in his courting of Edie.

5) Fred Bowton was in an interesting position socially. Although his mother had turned Red Hill from a goat run into a cattle station, and Fred should therefore be classed as a 'catch' on the marriage market, he was uneducated, relatively poor, and socially and geographically isolated apart from his adoring mother and two sisters. His chance of finding a wife were slim, given the competition for the few women in the district. He might have thought that it was Edith or no one. It is Edith, young, pretty, intelligent and hard-working, who is the catch.
When first she chooses a black man, she causes outrage. But who would then resent her taking the rich man? George or Fred?

6) If Arthur Cogzell was ambushed, as the autopsy suggests, then the murder was planned. George Daniels wrote Edith a letter which was found torn up at the murder site. If you were carrying out a murder,
why would you also be delivering a farewell love letter?

7) If the murder was committed by George Daniels, but was not planned, how did they get away? Neither George's, Edith's or Arthur Cogzell's horses were taken. George's pocket knife, hat and other effects were
left behind. Edith's clothes were left behind, as was her pay cheque. The cash in Arthur Cogzell's coat pocket was not taken, nor his compass and watch, nor his high-quality rifle. No boats were missing, no tracks were ever found in extensive searches either directly following the murder, or in the weeks after, mostly because the monsoon arrived the same day, and all tracks were washed away in a deluge of rain. Whether George planned the murder or not, none of this makes sense. If Fred Bowton committed the murder, it does.

8) Fred Bowton's self-reported time-line does not fit other witnesses. He claimed to have passed Edith and Arthur Cogzell just before the crossing at about 9am, got to Turkey about 10.30, spent 15 minutes
getting some of Mr Worthington's beef (when he was a grazier himself) and without stopping for a cup of tea, after being on horseback since dawn, made his way back to the crossing, possibly racing the tide. He claimed he galloped back into Turkey Station to report the murder at 11am. The other witnesses mention that he was back much earlier, about 10am. Was there time for Fred, on his tired horse, to have made it all the way back to the Danube crossing, and then gallop all the way back to Turkey Station? Or had he already committed the murders and just waiting down the track a while before galloping back to raise the alarm. And why, when he was so close to the murder scene, did he hear none of the high-powered rifle shots, at least six of them from the bullet marks, but including the murders perhaps as many as nine shots? If you have ever heard the crack of a Winchester, you will know how far such a sound can travel, even through the bush.

9) Although Fred claimed he had forded the Danube Crossing at about 9am, and passed Edith and Arthur Cogzell shortly afterward, all the witnesses of the murder scene report no tracks at all crossing the creek.

10) If Bowton had been already at the ambush site before the high tide, which then wiped out his tracks across the crossing, that would also explain why his horse was able to travel so far that day -over 100
miles, when 60 would normally be considered the limit. If Bowton had not started at Red Hill, but at the Danube, that would be 25 miles less. If he had not made the extra leg back to the crossing and had not then
galloped back to report the murder, then we are back in the realm of the achievable. (He went on to Eurimbula station to tell Arthur Cogzell's parents their son was dead, and escorted Mr Cogzell senior back to Turkey Station)

11)After the scandal of Edith being sacked over George Daniels, the whole district knew that Cogzell and Edith would be using the crossing between 9 and 10am, at low tide, as this was the only place to cross the creek. If George had turned up at the crossing unexpectedly, then he played right into Bowton's hands. I believe that Fred Bowton had already planned to accuse George of the murders, and that because of the culture of the time, no evidence would have prevented George from hanging if a white man stood in the witness box accusing him of the murder of a white girl. All Bowton ever had to say was that the dying Arthur Cogzell had reported Daniels as his murderer, and that he took Edith.

But why, when Cogzell told him that George had taken Edith, did he not ask which direction thay had gone in, and give chase? Bowton said Cogzell was obviously dying, so why was his next concern not the
'innocent pretty girl' supposedly in the power of a 'sex-starved savage'? Was it because she was not that innocent, he was not a savage, and both were already dead?

I could go on for pages, but I hope this is enough to spark your interest.

I have written to the The Head of Coronial Inquiries at The Queensland State Coroner's Office asking if the evidence box is still available, as a simple examination of the cartridge shells in exhibits 2 and 4 to see whether they are scratched or not (by George's pocket knife) would be sufficient evidence to prove or disprove the existence of another shooter on the scene. These cartridges are described as fresh and recently fired by a police witness. No scratches are mentioned, but they might not have been looking for them.

The Coroner's Office replied that if the evidence box is still in existence, then it is held in the Queensland State archives. They can't find anything in their files, so I am casting about rather desperately now, trying to find a 100 year old evidence box.

I have been in touch with the Blackman family, who are related to George Daniels, and who are very interested in having an investigation that would clear his name, or at least cast doubt on the impartiality of
the original investigation. Please note that Daniels is constantly referred to as a murderer and an offender, even by the police witnesses at the inquest.