Fractured Silence. Emma Curtin

position her daughter had placed the iron, if on a high shelf”. It seemed weird to me that someone would bother writing to the police to state the obvious; surely the detectives would know what questions to ask? But so many of these letters read, probably unintentionally, as insults to police intelligence. Did the public really believe the police were too stupid to imagine such scenarios by themselves? Just another reminder of the public belief that the police needed all the help from the community that they could get. And another question I noted to follow up on: What did people think of the police in 1929?

      The iron was not the only ‘suspect’ in the accident theory, shelves (and cupboards) also came under suspicion. A St Kilda resident anonymously informed the police that “I knocked my head severely on the frame of the cupboard and was rendered unconscious for some time. Had I not regained consciousness, it would have looked like foul play … Miss McLeod may have been reaching for a golf outfit on the top shelf of a cupboard and may have knocked her head”.

      Another St Kilda resident, Miss Emily Bury, was concerned Norma had suffered a similar fate as one she’d experienced (although obviously Miss Bury had survived, a miracle she put down to her short stature). She wrote: “I rose suddenly up under a shelf (close to the corner) and gave myself a bad hurt. I too was alone in the house and caught hold of a towel which was close at hand. My first impulse was to tie my head together – it felt as if it were flying into pieces. I then lay on the bed. I did not become unconscious. I am very short, only an inch or two taller than the shelf, but in the case of a taller person the force of the blow would be greater”.

      Another anonymous writer with accident experience questioned, “Was there highly polished lino from her bed to the bathroom? If so the young lady may have taken her shoes off intending to bathe her feet before going to play golf. In stocking feet and probably hurrying she most likely slipped before getting to the bath room and struck her head on the wall”. Like Miss Bury (involved in the shelf incident noted above), this letter writer was lucky enough to stay conscious. But it was not her height that saved her …“I had washed my hair and rolled it in a small towel in the shape of a bun on my head. Otherwise I should not have been able to write this today”.

      Another detail in the newspaper accounts of Norma’s death, was her planned golf game. For some readers, this involved an instrument even more potentially dangerous than an iron – a golf club.

      Writing from Sydney two days after Norma’s death, ‘X’ wrote: “… as an addict of the game I would suggest the possibility of Miss M probably getting out a golf club and making a few practice swings say perhaps in front of the wardrobe mirror. In the event of the club catching on or being deflected in any way there is a possibility of an accident, especially if she was swinging hard. This has actually occurred to me”. Appreciating that the police may not have found a golf club lying around, ‘X’ added “The golf stick she might easily have slipped back in the bag especially if it was handy”.

      But what did police find at the scene and how well did all these theories fit the evidence?

      ____________________

      Norma’s parents told police that their daughter wasn’t subject to fainting fits, which had been suggested as the reason for a heavy fall. She was also, they said, “very smart in all her movement, and was quick and active on her feet”, discounting any idea of innate clumsiness.

      Norma was fully dressed to go to golf when she was found and therefore not likely to have been about to have a bath, as her brother had suggested. There were no stairs in the house and also no apparent marks on the walls or the bathroom, such as blood, that would indicate a fall. Also, on his initial examination on the night of Norma’s death, Constable McDonald had checked the bathroom “but could find nothing out of place there, the floor was quite dry”– dismissing the idea that Norma may have slipped on wet lino.

      The iron and golf clubs were also neatly stored away (not lying about haphazardly as they might had they caused the injury). Plus, all the doctors who attended Norma’s bedside were obviously suspicious enough about the nature of her condition to call the police rather than sign a death certificate for accidental death.

      More damning was the statement of Dr Jock Williams, who identified the body of his cousin Norma: “When I saw the deceased I expressed my opinion that it was not an accident that had caused her death … I saw the skull cap of the deceased. I realised the full extent of the injuries that caused Miss McLeod’s death”.

      The post-mortem examination would prove his suspicions correct.

      On 10 September 1929, the day after Norma’s death, having examined her body, Government Pathologist Dr Crawford Mollison reported: “there was a complete linear fracture of the frontal bone which ran downwards in front to the base passing across the right orbital plate of the frontal bone immediately above the right eye, behind, the fracture had passed into the suture between the two parietal bones, opening it up, and at the back of the head it passed out again into the bone on the right side, on the top of the skull were small linear fractures running across the main fracture transversely”.

      In layman’s terms, if you were to draw a line from the middle of your right eyebrow up across the top of your skull and down to the ‘bump of knowledge’ at the base of your head, that would represent the extent of Norma’s skull fracture. The small fractures at the top of the skull indicate that this was the point of contact. Norma had been hit on the top of her head and hit hard.

      Mollison’s conclusion? “Death was due to injuries to the head which could not have been due to any ordinary fall, and in my opinion were caused by a violent blow from a weapon with a broad flat surface”.

      Mollison advised Detectives Lee and Simpson of his findings. Accident had been ruled out. A new theory had to be explored.