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The Coldest Case – The 60th Anniversary of the Betty Shanks murder
stem the information being provided
to police.
Members of the community
continued to offer their opinions, or
report men they suspected, and the
original investigating officers and
others involved in the case never lost
hope that the killer would be found.
One man who was among the first at
the crime scene in 1952 is journalist
Ken Blanch. He was so affected by
the scene and the later unsolved
investigation that he wrote a book
examining the circumstances of the
crime.
‘Killer hunt HQ’, a special communciations room set up in the Brisbane CIB office on the corner of George and
Elizabeth Streets. Inspector Donovan (who wrote the circular) is wearing glasses on the left. Sub-inspector
Martin is at the rear on the phone in front of a wall of maps of Wilston, the Grange, and surrounding suburbs.
“There have been at least eight confessions to
Betty’s murder over the years.”
The Betty Shanks case escalated
into the largest murder investigation
Queensland had ever seen.
Nationwide checks were made
on known sex offenders. Patients
discharged from the nearby Goodna
Mental Hospital were questioned.
Military bases were approached and
leave checked, as police came to one
dead end after another.
RUMOURS
The apparent lack of motive did little
to ease public concern about the case,
and generated a number of rumours.
The original suspected attack by a ‘sex
maniac’ was a theory that remained
generally accepted, especially when
police encouraged people within the
area to remain vigilant.
Rumours also circulated that Betty
was involved in an affair, and a
number of different men were
considered, including an Ipswich
doctor who killed himself two days
after Betty’ murder.
Another later theory was that the
murder was a case of mistaken
identity, and that the actual intended
victim was Ena Hamilton, a doctor’s
receptionist who regularly walked the
same route.
It is postulated that she may have
been a target as she may have carried
keys to her employer’s premises,
where drugs were stored.
“If we get information
that we believe is
going to be able to
take us forward to
solve Betty Shank’s
murder, then we’ll
do it.”
In effect, all of the above rumours
remained just that—rumours—and
speculation generated only heartache
for those mistakenly identified.
A 1953 Inquest found that a person
or persons unknown killed Betty
Shanks. The Inquest did not quash
public interest in the case, nor did it
Blanch reports that in 1997, ‘a woman
came forward and told police that her
father, who was a child molester, had
an affair with Betty and killed her in a
fit of rage.
‘The woman told police that her
father had burned his clothes the
morning after the murder and made
her clean his shoes, which were
covered in blood’. He also says that in
the late 1990s, four people contacted
police to say that one of their
relatives had killed Betty.
INFORMATION AND CONFESSIONS
Though Detective Sergeant Virginia
Gray of the Homicide squad cannot
confirm the exact numbers, she
agrees that the Homicide Cold Case
investigation team still to this day
receive calls relating to Betty Shanks.
She adds that a surprising number
are family members dobbing in a
relative, and that investigations have
determined most are motivated by
family feuds or mental illness. Det
Sgt Gray confirms there have been
at least eight confessions to Betty’s
murder over the years.
For example, a deathbed confession
was made by a man in his 80s in a
respite home in Brisbane in 2005.
Homicide police tried to establish
whether he was actually in Brisbane
at the time of the crime, and they took
Queensland Police Union Journal August 2012 33