From Anne Zappelli to Cleo Smith: The local crimes that changed our way of life

Cleo Smith — a cute name belonging to a sweet, smiley, sparkly eyed little girl who up until two weeks ago we had never heard of before. Now it’s a name on everyone’s lips and a face seen around the world. Before October 16, Cleo was just a little girl much loved by her ordinary, working-class family in Carnarvon. In the best possible way, there was nothing special about this family, but cruelly they have found themselves living a nightmare, all for seemingly being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Regardless of the outcome of Cleo’s disappearance from her family’s tent at the Blowholes, it’s a case that will live on in the memories and thoughts of generations of West Australians, particularly those who call the Mid West and Gascoyne home. This region has never faced a crime like this before. The resilient country town of Carnarvon, the popular getaway spot of the Blowholes and the cherished family pastime of remote camping have been robbed of their innocence. Cleo’s name threatens to be the latest to be added to a short but haunting list of victims of local major crimes — one or two in each generation, if that — which are so shocking and so random that they not only devastate us, but change us — the way we live, the way we interact with each other, the way we parent our kids and the way we protect ourselves. ANNE ZAPPELLI — September 22, 1969 A beauty queen of only 20. A name and an unsolved crime many older Geraldtonians vividly remember to this day. Fifty-two years ago local beauty queen Anne Zappelli went to the drive-in with friends. But, not liking the movie, she decided to walk back into town alone. But she never made it back. Her body was found in bush on the side of Rowe Street — now North West Coastal Highway — between Bayly Street and Eastman Road in Wonthella two days later — about 1.5km from the drive-in. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted. This was Geraldton of a different era. Where the population was about 8000, where everyone felt safe, homes and cars were unlocked all the time, and Ms Zappelli would not have been the only young woman to walk alone after dark. At the time of her death, Ms Zappelli — who lived with her parents in Morawa — was an entrant in the Miss Australia Quest and worked at the local post office exchange. Her death is now one of WA’s oldest cold cases. Two years ago, Ms Zappelli’s brother Colin spoke about how desperate the family was for answers even after 50 years. “It’s always in the back of your mind,” he said. “It is one part of your life which has been taken away. It never goes away.” A Geraldton resident who was 17 at the time said the name Anne Zappelli still sent shivers down her spine all these decades later. “It was a total shock to everybody in the town ... we were nervous about going out and certainly didn’t go anywhere on our own,” she recalled. “Geraldton in those days was so laidback and I remember people were so nervous as they hadn’t caught the person or persons responsible. There was an innocence about Geraldton at that time and suddenly it was gone.” No one has ever been charged over Ms Zappelli’s death, but a 2001 coronial inquest focused on two suspects — Thomas John Craig and Norman James Raisbeck — both now dead. The pair had left Geraldton the night of Ms Zappelli’s murder. They were ruled out as suspects a month after her death after denying any involvement, but the coroner in 2001 found that should not have happened. In a deathbed confession, Raisbeck claimed he raped Ms Zappelli while accusing Craig of killing her. Craig continued to protest his innocence. GREENOUGH FAMILY MASSACRE — February 21, 1993 It’s one of the State’s worst murders — a mother and her four children brutally slain with an axe. The mother and one of the girls sexually assaulted. It’s a crime this writer remembers well — I was living in Geraldton at the age of 10, and I remember the swirl of questions going around my head about how such a thing could happen in sleepy old Greenough, especially to kids not that much younger than myself. I can’t remember the answers my parents and teachers gave me, but I still recall the uneasy, unshakeable belief of not feeling safe in my hometown. There was a period of about five weeks between the murders of 31-year-old Karen MacKenzie and her children Daniel, 16, Amara, 7, and Katrina, 5, and when the person responsible — William Patrick Mitchell, a farmhand and acquaintance of Ms MacKenzie’s whose advances she had previously rejected — was arrested. It was a time everyone made sure their homes were locked, knowing there was a mass killer on the loose. Could it be a serial killer? Drug-fuelled Mitchell’s crimes were so evil and so grisly that certain details are still suppressed by the courts, they traumatised even the most seasoned police officers and shattered and scarred a family and a community that is still fighting almost 30 years later to stop him from ever being released. Mitchell is one of several mass murderers or serial killers banned from parole consideration under laws introduced in 2018. The drive through Greenough and seeing images of that lonely remote house still tends to bring back memories of that awful crime. HAYLEY DODD — July 29, 1999 Hayley Dodd was just 17, but looked much younger. Hitch-hiking on a highway, the tiny-statured teen was seen as an easy target by a violent, opportunistic and twisted predator. Hayley’s innocent freckled face has been frozen in time as, until recent years, the victim of one of WA’s biggest unsolved mysteries. While frowned upon before, I recall hitch-hiking becoming taboo after Hayley disappeared while trying to make her way from Dongara to a friend’s farm in Moora. The teenager — only a year younger than me — was last seen alive in Badgingarra. It even gave you second thoughts about travelling on your own. The case went cold, not for the lack of Hayley’s family trying to keep it alive. The breakthrough did not come until 2018 when convicted rapist Francis John Wark was arrested and charged over Hayley’s murder. After two trials, Wark was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 years in jail. An earring belonging to Hayley and a strand of her hair found in Wark’s car at the time proved his undoing. Another cruel aspect of this case which continues to haunt Hayley’s loved ones and the community — her body has never been found. After the latest verdict was handed down, Hayley’s mother Margaret Dodd said her family had endured two decades of “sheer hell”. She said her daughter’s only crime was her naivety, and she herself felt guilty for not being able to protect her from the real world. A thought many local parents in that era could easily sympathise with. LALITA HORSMAN — December 5, 1999 Lalita Horsman — or “Lal” to her friends and workmates — was a popular face around town, as the person behind the counter at the local ANZ branch. She was a keen surfer, ocean lover and by all accounts a beautiful soul inside and out. Her murder sent shockwaves through Geraldton. A couple of hours after attending her work Christmas party, Ms Horsman was at Greenough beach, opting to go for a walk rather than join her boyfriend and a friend for a surf. She was never seen alive again. Her body was found buried in sand dunes two days later. Robin David Macartney was convicted of her sexually motivated murder and died in jail in 2016. Such was the community outrage at losing such a favourite daughter in such a heinous way, that Macartney’s trial became the first trial in WA history to be heard by a judge alone, without a jury. For many in Geraldton and Greenough, the beach was never the same again. For others, it took a long time to feel safe walking alone on sandy shores again, or not constantly looking over their shoulders. But the beach lifestyle is one that Ms Horsman loved and wouldn’t want spoiled for anyone. A wooden bench memorial that sits at the Greenough beach lookout, known as “Lalita’s Lookout”, reclaims the beach and is a reminder of the person Ms Horsman was, not the crime that snatched her away. The carving in the bench reads: “A cloud does not put out the sun.” JANE AND JESSICA CUZENS — December 5, 2011 If you were forced to pick a place in the Mid West which would be the scene of a horrific, unimaginable crime, I’d dare say Dongara-Port Denison would be last on the list. But this crime scene in a quiet street in a quiet town was so gruesome that some police described it as one of the worst they had encountered. One that stained the peaceful tranquillity of the fishing town south of Geraldton. What made it even more shocking was the culprit was a mother and a nurse and her two victims were her two youngest daughters. In the middle of a mental breakdown and a long-running acrimonious custody battle with her children’s father, Heather Glendinning killed Jessica and Jane Cuzens, 12 and 10, before killing herself in their Port Denison home. Her oldest daughter Grace, then 13, was not living with her at the time. A coronial inquest in 2016 revealed Ms Glendinning was reluctant to get clinical help out of a fear it would be used against her in the custody dispute. The coroner ruled it was difficult to see how agencies could have acted differently given all the circumstances. But the girls’ father Harley Cuzens believes the double murder-suicide was entirely avoidable, saying his warnings to the Family Court that Ms Glendinning was not sane and fit to have custody of their children had fallen on deaf ears. It was an awakening for the local community that such young, promising lives could be taken by the person who brought them into the world. And a case that left locals in despair about if or how things could have ended up differently.