The Frankston Murders - Vikki Petraitis

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the urge to kill overcame him. He grabbed her around the throat and started choking her. Elizabeth had enough oxygen in her body to struggle feebly for a couple of minutes before darkness overcame her and she collapsed onto the wet grass.

      The man pulled a red-handled knife from his pocket and lunged at her throat, slashing in a frenzy until the blade bent. Elizabeth momentarily regained consciousness, struggled against her killer and tried to stand. He grabbed her and she slowly stumbled around him in circles, bleeding heavily. Her track suit top was up around her head. The man grabbed it, pulled it off and flung it in a puddle. He slashed at her as her arms flailed wildly, cutting her arms, her hands and her face.

      When he finally let her go, she fell to the ground where he stamped his foot viciously on her neck. The frenzy was over. He took a couple of steps backwards to survey his work. He could hear the blood and air gurgling from her neck and calmly watched for a full five minutes as the life blood drained from her body.

      Impatient for her death, the man lifted his foot above her head and brought it crashing down on her face, shattering her nose and cutting her cheek and eyebrow with the sheer force.

      Elizabeth Stevens died.

      The man dragged her by the legs the short distance to a creek bed flowing with shallow dirty brown drain water. Blackberry bushes clawed viciously at her skin but she was beyond feeling now. As she was dragged, her bra top ended up around her neck, exposing her chest.

      Then the man broke the blade off the bent knife and slowly and methodically made long cuts from her breasts right down to her stomach. He didn’t slash; he wasn’t in a frenzy now. He was enjoying himself. The rain fell heavily all around him but he hardly noticed. When he had finished carving the vertical lines, he then carved four lines across at right angles. After the crisscross pattern was complete, the man plunged the knife into her chest six times.

      When he had finished his handiwork, he put the broken pieces of the knife back into his pocket. Water lapped around Elizabeth’s body washing away her blood. He grabbed a branch from a tree above the culvert, wrenched it free and partly covered the body. The rain and the creek water would wash away clues of footprints and blood.

      The man threw Elizabeth’s bag 10 metres from where her body lay and began the long walk to his girlfriend’s mother’s house for dinner. When he passed the golf course on Cranbourne Road, he tossed the pieces of knife into bushes and continued on through the night.

      This man just wanted to kill. He had wanted to kill since he was fourteen. Now he had fulfilled the urge that had been gnawing inside him for seven years.

      Elizabeth Stevens died because she was the only person to get off the bus on that cold June night. She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

      Less than an hour after the brutal murder, the man tucked into a hearty meal of soup and a roast, and waited for his girlfriend to come home from work.

      4

      A MISSING PERSON

      Paul Webster arrived home on Friday 11 June at 4pm. He had picked up his motorcycle from a shop in Bentleigh after working an early shift at the Ventura Bus Company. When he left for work at 4.35am, his wife Rita and his niece Elizabeth were asleep.

      He pulled the Yamaha into the driveway of his Langwarrin home and saw the family dog, Blaze, in the back yard. He realised that Elizabeth must be out because she always put Blaze outside and turned on the alarm when she left the house. Paul Webster flicked his remote switch to de-activate the alarm, entered the house and put the kettle on to make a cup of coffee. He glanced at the bench and saw a note from Elizabeth.

      Uncle Paul or Aunty Rita,

      I will be at the Frankston TAFE Library or the Frankston City Library. Home about 8pm. Frankston TAFE Library 784-8241. Frankston City Library 783-9033.

      Liz

      He thought to himself that Lizzie must have left late to go to the library because she was normally home well before eight o’clock in the evening. It meant she would have to catch the last bus to Langwarrin. If she missed the bus, she would be stranded. He could imagine her voice over the telephone. Uncle Paul, I’ve missed the bus, can you come and get me please? Not that he’d mind. He and Rita had become very fond of their niece since she had come to live with them. She had been looking for a family and found one with them. Now it seemed like she had always been there.

      When he took his coffee into the lounge room, the alarm’s siren sounded. He was sure he had turned the alarm off outside; this was the first time the switch had failed to work. Puzzled, he turned it off again.

      Rita Webster arrived home around 6.30pm after doing some shopping at Chadstone. Driving home from the mall, she’d been caught in the atrocious storm that had swept the city. She hadn’t seen her niece that morning either, having left for work at 6.30am.

      ‘Where’s Liz?’ she asked her husband in a voice showing faint traces of her childhood in England.

      ‘She’s at the library and she won’t be home until eight. She left a note with the phone numbers on it.’

      Paul and Rita ate dinner in front of the television and waited for Liz to come home. Sale of the Century finished with the host, Glen Ridge, congratulating the winning quiz contestant who’d decided to return after the weekend to play on for the cash jackpot. As the credits rolled, Paul told his wife that he needed cigarettes. After checking that the rain had at least temporarily stopped, the two decided to walk the dog up to the local shops. They set off, wrapped warmly in thick coats, figuring they could probably meet Liz as she got off the bus.

      At the shops, Paul and Rita Webster saw the eight o’clock bus pull into the nearby bus stop and watched as one person get off. It wasn’t Lizzie.

      Rita wasn’t overly concerned. She thought they may have mistaken the time that Liz said she would be coming home. Besides, her niece had just been paid her Austudy allowance so if worse came to worst, she could always catch a taxi home or ring them for a lift.

      After buying Paul’s cigarettes, the Websters walked back home and settled in front of the television to watch a movie. When nine o’clock came around, Rita began to get a little anxious. It wasn’t like Liz to be late. She always telephoned to let them know where she was and when she was coming home. It was one of the rules they had decided on when Liz had moved in six months before.

      Rita remembered the three of them sitting around the kitchen table discussing what they expected of each other. When Rita had told her niece that she always wanted to know what time she would be home, it had been mostly for the practical reason of planning meals but Liz had taken it to the extreme and always let them know exact times and left detailed notes for them. Rita knew that Liz was in many ways much younger than her 18 years.

      The two women had had great fun since Elizabeth joined the family, cooking and painting; things that Liz hadn’t done much of. For Rita, it was the daughter she never had. Rita smiled to herself remembering one of the other rules they had decided upon. Since Rita and Paul both worked, Liz took responsibility for cooking one meal each week. Liz would go through cook books and had so far produced rubber chicken fillets and a cake half an inch high and solid as a rock. Her roasts however, were improving under Rita’s guidance.

      Trying not to overreact, Rita reasoned that the library didn’t close until nine; Liz had probably got caught up in her studies. She didn’t mention her concerns to her husband.

      The movie finished at 10.30pm and by then both the Websters were worried. They figured that Liz must have missed the bus and decided to walk home so Paul suggested that he drive around and try to find her while Rita waited at home in case she arrived or telephoned.

      Paul drove up Paterson Avenue and along Cranbourne Road and then all the way to Frankston TAFE; his eyes scanning the footpaths for his niece. He stopped the car and went to the front door of the college but the place was in darkness; there were two security cards pushed into the locked door which told Paul it had been closed for a while. Worried, he drove around to the Frankston Library, but that too was deserted. Pulling

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