The mysterious story behind the murderous Mr White

The murderous Mr White: The mystery behind Raymond White. Photo / Supplied

Eighty years ago, as Adolf Hitler beat the war drum, the Nazi threat competed for headlines with a tragic mystery unfolding in the country Victorian town of Walwa.

As a crime story, it read like something dreamt up by Agatha Christie. There was the suspect with the murky past, two sisters who died in sinister circumstances, crucial evidence that was destroyed, a corpse that had to be exhumed and the coroner with a bizarre conflict of interest.

The mystery revolved around Raymond White. Born in 1895 in South Africa, he'd served his country in the Cape Rifles in the First World War. Then he'd worked for farmers in Ladysmith before sailing to Melbourne to start a new life in 1919. With rabbits at plague proportions, White bought a cart and some traps and humped his swag north to the Murray River region. There, he plied his trade first in southwestern New South Wales and then worked for about four years in a big station in northeastern Victoria.

In 1925, this swaggie met sisters Elizabeth and Ellen Brennan. These spinsters came from a pioneering family that had settled in the district half a century before, and they lived at Guys Forest on a beautiful farming property called The Pines.

The sisters hired White to help keep their rabbits under control. Their new employee was quite handsome — he stood 167cm, had blue eyes, black hair and a dark complexion — and it wasn't long before he took an interest in Ellen. She was 10 years older than White, an outdoorswoman fond of hunting and not at all romantically interested in her employee. So he turned his attentions to her stout and bespectacled 44-year-old sister.

White and Elizabeth were like chalk and cheese. He had few friends, preferring the company of the detectives and villains in the crime novels he read obsessively every night. While he was reclusive, she was active in local events and a staunch churchgoer. Despite their differences, White and Elizabeth got married on Armistice Day 1925. He moved into The Pines, which they shared with Ellen.

The married couple seemed happy enough, though locals thought him odd and felt sure she wore the pants in the relationship. In early 1928, the sisters changed their wills so in the event of one dying the other would inherit.

Not long after, on the morning of Anzac Day 1928, White encountered Ellen out the front of the homestead. She had her shotgun, he had his rabbit traps. As they talked and walked across the property, a pair of ducks flew overhead and landed on a pond about 90 metres away. Raising the hammer on her gun, Ellen said she was going to get them. She ran along an embankment towards the pond, stumbled and tumbled down a two-metre ditch. A second after she disappeared from view, White heard a single gunshot.

Racing to where Ellen had fallen, he saw her dead at the bottom of the embankment with a terrible gunshot wound to the back of her head. An inquest was held the next day and a verdict of accidental death was returned. As per Ellen's will, Elizabeth was now sole owner of The Pines.

Tragedy threatened again in 1930 when the homestead burned down. The cause of the blaze wasn't known, and it was lucky no one was hurt. What was also fortunate was White and Elizabeth had insured the old farmhouse for £1400 and soon after were able to build a fine new house. It was in this comfortable abode the couple seemed to live happily for the next decade, with Elizabeth tending to home duties while White worked the property and read his crime novels.

But tragedy struck again on the night of February19, 1939 when White was driving his wife home on a country road after a day spent picnicking with friends. Swerving to avoid sheep, he lost control and crashed their car into a ditch.

White was thrown clear but Elizabeth was trapped in the overturned vehicle. He scrambled down into the culvert. To his horror, his wife appeared unconscious or perhaps already dead. Desperately, he tried to pull and cut her from the wreck, which had burst into flames. Unable to free Elizabeth, White screamed for help, which arrived in the form of the Hunt brothers who lived opposite where the car had gone off the road. But fire quickly engulfed the car and consumed Elizabeth.

The Hunts took White to the Walwa Bush Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries and shock. Most of these, he said, had been inflicted not when he'd been thrown from the vehicle but when he'd been trying to free his wife.

The following day, Walwa's Deputy Coroner Hugh McHarg ordered an autopsy. But the doctor couldn't determine the cause of Elizabeth's death because her body had been reduced to broken bones by the incredibly intense heat of the fire. McHarg ordered an inquest be held in two weeks, giving the police time to investigate.

Melbourne detectives interviewed White, and he told them his sad but straightforward story. But when the officers asked townsfolk about him, they heard a lot of suspicions and scuttlebutt. For starters, everyone knew him not as Raymond but as Richard or Dick. That he kept to himself so much marked him as a bit of an oddball. So did him reading detective stories obsessively, talking about crime and criminals to anyone who'd listen and carrying a pistol in his pocket for protection against villains like those found in the pages of his novels. And, inevitably, there were dark rumours Ellen Brennan's shooting death hadn't been an accident.

Police concerns about White intensified when they looked at the physical evidence and heard witness accounts about the car crash. There were tyre tracks at the crash site but no skid marks. White's garage mechanic told them the car's brakes and steering had been in fine working order. More damningly, a sports coat and a knife belonging to White had been found near the car. Both were stained with human blood. Then there was the car itself, which was only partially burnt. The tyres were intact and the bodywork only blistered. The blaze that had been intense enough to cremate Elizabeth had only been concentrated on the seats. The car's petrol tank hadn't even been ruptured — it still contained fuel — and the petrol cap remained in place.

When the police went to the Walwa Bush Hospital, the doctor who treated White told them he believed the wounds were self-inflicted. He also said White didn't have any gravel rash as you'd expect of a man flung from a vehicle, and he seemed calm and collected despite the horror he'd just experienced. A nurse said it didn't seem possible White should have cuts on his chest and leg without his singlet and trousers being in any way ripped or torn.

When police went back to White to examine the clothes he'd been wearing on the night of the crash, they couldn't because he had burned them. He said he'd done this because they were torn and bloodstained and reminders of that terrible night. Police became even more suspicious when, acting on a tip-off, they found a .22 calibre revolver had been sunk with a piece of iron in a dam at The Pines. They believed it had been fired recently and it matched a weapon White was known to have owned.

Police took White's long written statement, in which he described his work history in Australia, the 15 years he'd spent with the deceased Brennan sisters, his version of the accident, the arrival of the Hunt brothers and the injuries he'd sustained. White also noted in October 1938 the title to The Pines had been transferred into his and Elizabeth's names.

Now, just four months later, she was dead, and he was set to inherit.

If police wanted a motive, this would do very nicely. But it was a seemingly minor detail in his statement that really puzzled detectives. White could perfectly recall names of people he'd served under and worked for in South Africa, but he couldn't remember the name of the ship that had brought him to Australia in 1919. Checking his South African bona fides would be difficult and time-consuming. Confirming the details of his immigration should have been easy — but only if authorities knew the name of that vessel. This discrepancy seemed to give credence to what gossiping locals had said about White always being secretive about his South African past.

Police grew more and more suspicious as they discovered crucial evidence had been destroyed. Photo / Supplied

What White didn't put in his statement, but what soon added greatly to police suspicions, was not long ago he and Elizabeth had taken out a third-party insurance policy that paid either spouse £1000 if the other one died in a car accident.

While he wasn't yet under arrest, police informed White he'd be expected to testify at an inquest into his wife's death, which was to be held at Walwa on Monday, March 13, 1939, officiated by the Deputy Coroner Mr McHarg. It was also common knowledge police had expanded their investigation to include the death of Ellen Brennan and were even considering exhuming her body. After all, everything that was known about the 1928 tragedy — Ellen after ducks, her slipping and falling, her shooting herself in the back of the head — came from the only witness: White.

When the inquest began at Walwa on March 13, the police were present but White was nowhere to be found. Then the shocking news arrived. His body had been found a few kilometres out of Albury on an old road used now only as a stock route. White had shot himself in the heart and had been dead two days. A note found in his clothes read: "To The Police. Please don't blame anyone for this. I've lost my dear wife. I want to be with her and I cannot live without her."

That White had committed suicide less than two kilometres down the road from where the body of the "Pyjama Girl" had been found burned in a culvert five years earlier led to a flurry of speculation White had been responsible for her death.

In the hope of solving Australia's most famous murder mystery, a Sydney detective came to Albury and Walwa to investigate White as a suspect. He was soon cleared.

But there was another sensational development. While he'd signed his suicide note "R.C. White", this had been the dead man's last attempt at deception.

Now it quickly emerged he wasn't Raymond White and pretty much everything he'd said about himself for the past 20 years had been a lie. He hadn't been born in South Africa, nor had he fought in the Cape Rifles, worked for farmers in Ladysmith or sailed to Melbourne in 1919.

Instead, he'd been born Edgar Farrell in 1895 in Corowa, just 160 kilometres due west of where he'd reinvented himself and lived with Elizabeth. In 1914, Farrell signed up for the Royal Australian Navy. Later that year, he suffered a minor wound while serving on a ship in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force's invasion of the German colony of Samoa. After that, Farrell became a crew member of the HMS Pioneer, which, despite being a decrepit and obsolete craft, had more action in the Great War than any other Royal Australian Navy vessel.

On November 30, 1916, Farrell returned home briefly to be feted as a hero by the gentlemen of Corowa in the council chambers. Presenting him with a wallet from the townspeople, the mayor said he'd known Farrell a long time and he was a "straightforward young man".

For the next three years, he was just that. Farrell remained in the navy and had a very good record. After the war, he was stationed at Jervis Bay on the HMS Franklin, working as a petty officer instructor.

White became a suspect in the death of the 'Pyjama Girl'. Photo / Supplied

Then on October 8, 1919, this fine young naval officer deserted. It seemed something had suddenly made Farrell flee because he left behind £40 arrears in pay, which was equivalent to three months' salary. After adopting the name Raymond White, he disappeared into the countryside to work as a rabbit trapper and eventually came into the lives of the Brennan sisters with tragic results.

That White had stayed hidden for 15 years — long after he would have been prosecuted by naval authorities — added to the theory he was running from something greater than simple desertion. So did White not coming come forward to claim a £100 pound legacy willed to him by his father in 1933. His real identity also explained how he'd lived his life, preferring to read his crime books than spend time socialising with locals. Living just a few hours' drive from where he'd been born and raised had to mean he constantly feared some day someone would recognise him.

With White's death, the inquest into Elizabeth's death had been postponed two weeks.

When it resumed on March 27, Deputy Coroner McHarg wasn't in court. Then came the bombshell. McHarg had just been told White's will had appointed him as sole executor of his estate. Even more bizarrely, it was now revealed White's solicitor, representing his estate in court, was Mr J.C.B McHarg — the Deputy Coroner's own son.

While White had left most of his estate to Catholic charities, his will also provided the sum of £200 for Deputy Coroner McHarg. Back then this was more than half the average annual salary. McHarg was advised he could relinquish his coronial duties or relinquish probate. With his eyes on the money, he now refused to act as coroner, meaning the inquest was postponed yet again, upsetting police and witnesses, some of whom had travelled hundreds of kilometres to be in court.

The McHarg family's conflict of interest didn't come in for nearly enough scrutiny. White had made the will three days after Elizabeth died. By this time he knew McHarg Snr was sitting in judgment at the inquest. Did McHarg Jr know the contents of the will? It seems very likely. Why didn't he dissuade his client from such a course of action? Legal process also means the executor is notified as soon as possible after a person dies. So McHarg Jnr had nearly two weeks to inform his father of this conflict of interest. Why leave it until the last moment? There was no explanation.

Nearly two months later, on May 6, Elizabeth White's coffin was dug up at Walwa Cemetery so that her charred remains could be re-examined by the government's pathologist, rather than by the doctor who'd worked at the direction of Deputy Coroner McHarg. Finally, on May 24, 1939, the inquest into her death resumed, with a barrage of damning evidence and testimony against the dead man.

The Hunt brothers said they'd found White not by the car, as he'd said, but on the road, staggering about and calling for help. Then he'd collapsed in a faint and gone into hysterics. Restraining him from hurting himself had cost them valuable seconds in which the flames engulfed the car's interior and made Elizabeth's rescue impossible. As it burnt, the brothers heard small popping explosions, which, to them, sounded like bullets cooking off under intense heat. One of the Hunts said when he'd gone to see White at his farm in the days after the accident, the grieving husband was preoccupied with getting him to help him burn some of his clothes.

A man who'd worked as a farm manager for the Whites testified he discussed criminal investigation with White in October 1938 around the time Elizabeth had changed the deed to The Pines. This manager recalled: "He said he thought detectives were not very clever — they never catch any of these men who do these jobs."

The coroner asked the police lawyer how this was relevant. "We say that the whole scheme was planned in October — insurance … everything," he replied. There was further speculation White's interest in detective novels had inspired him to try to get away with the perfect crime.

Most damning was the testimony of the government's analyst who'd examined the car wreck and explained the vehicle's petrol feed pipe had been deliberately broken and aimed at Elizabeth. When the escaping petrol vapour was ignited, it had acted as a high-powered blowtorch.

The analyst concluded only a man with engineering understanding would have known how to repurpose the feed pipe this way. Of course, this was knowledge Raymond White surely had from his days at as engine room petty officer Edgar Farrell.

Yet the government pathologist, having examined the exhumed body, had found no trace of bullet marks or other wounds in the bones and skull. If White had, as the police believed, stabbed and/or shot his wife, he'd gotten lucky in not hitting a bone. But the pathologist did say the amount of blood on the sports coat was consistent with that from a woman who'd fallen against a man after her throat had been cut. Only able to make conclusions from the evidence, the pathologist told the coroner he couldn't say how Elizabeth had died.

White spoke from the grave, with his police statement read out for the packed court. The coroner said he didn't believe one word of it. Even so, he had no choice but to record an open finding. The mystery of Elizabeth's death — and of Ellen's — could never be solved, not with White, aka Edgar Farrell, also dead.

Was White just a man who'd wanted to put his past life behind him only to end up killing himself out of grief because he'd been unable to save the woman he loved? Or had he coldly and callously murdered two women so he could inherit a valuable property, only to cheat the hangman when he realised the cops were unravelling his "perfect crime"? As a writer in Melbourne's Herald put it more than a decade later: "If the central figure of this story did not murder at least one woman before he committed suicide, he left behind the greatest weight of coincidence and accusing circumstantial evidence known in Victorian police history."