Paperback: It was the double murder case that gripped Australia, and former Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC is finally able to share all the shocking details.
Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan were both happy, healthy, affluent, middle-class women from conservative, loving families. Such women are hardly ever among the ranks of the missing. They were not hitchhikers, or associates of drug dealers, or unhappy with their family relationships, or suffering from mental health issues. In fact, they fell well outside any of the conventional categories of people at risk of permanently disappearing.
Dorothy Davis was a 74-year-old widow who lived in the quiet, upmarket seaside suburb of Lurline Bay in south-eastern Sydney. She was financially comfortable and led a peaceful, predictable life centred around her children, grandchildren and many friends. She suffered from a few of the usual physical ailments of people of her age, including arthritis. Kerry Whelan was an active and healthy 39-year-old with an affluent, family-based lifestyle. She lived with her husband, Bernard Whelan, the CEO of the Australian arm of Crown Equipment, a large multinational company that made forklifts and their three children on an expansive rural property at Kurrajong on the north-western outskirts of Sydney, where they ran horses and enjoyed country life.
Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan came from different parts of Sydney, mixed in quite different circles, and led completely different lives. They had never met each other, and if they had, they would have had little in common. In fact, Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan had one thing in common – they both knew Bruce Allan Burrell.
The disappearance without trace of these two women caused massive police investigations and resulted in sensational trials that gripped the nation of Australia.
Missing, Presumed Dead: The Double Murder Case That Shocked Australia (30 March 2022) explores the intricacies of those investigations and delves into the twisted, tortuous processes of the legal proceedings, while exploring the dark recesses of the mind of Bruce Burrell.
Missing, Presumed Dead is currently available from Dymocks Booksellers in Australia; and in e-book/audio forms on Kindle and Audible.
The author's proceeds from the publication of this book will be donated to Australian charities that assist and support victims of crime, the families of deceased victims and the relatives of those who have gone missing.
About the author: Mark Tedeschi AM QC was until 2018 the Senior Crown Prosecutor for New South Wales and the President of the Australian Association of Crown Prosecutors in this state. He is now a private barrister practising at Wardell Chambers in Sydney. He is a Councillor of the NSW State Library and a Trustee of Sydney Grammar School. For more than 40 years, he has prosecuted many of the most significant and high-profile trials in Australia. Mark is also a keen photographer who has had his work shown in 15 solo exhibitions and 20 joint exhibitions in Australia, Italy, France and the USA. Mark is the author of critically acclaimed non-fiction titles Eugenia, Kidnapped and Massacre at Myall Creek. Missing, Presumed Dead is his fourth true-crime book.
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