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.
I had already re-written 'The Queenslander', and I followed this up with a major re-write of 'Heat', focussing on the two women. One is the 17 year old, pretty, working-class house-keeper in the kitchen; the other is 19 year-old sophisticated, beautiful boss's wife in the station house. The men come and go from these rooms, and from the influence of these women. I think this made the play much more focussed, and much more dramatic.
