40-year wait to bury ashes
John Twaddle has been waiting to find out who killed his baby brother in an Australian desert, for over 40 years.
The Mosgiel man told Stuff he received a call from a detective on Friday to say a man alleged to have murdered Gordon Twaddle, 21, Timothy Thomson, 31, and Karen Edwards, 23, had been arrested.
Bruce John Preston, 63, a prison officer from Goulburn, New South Wales, has been charged with three counts of murder more than 40 years after the three bodies was found in bushland near Mt Isa, Queensland.
‘‘[He] said: I just want you to know that we’ve got him, he’s been arrested for three counts of murder ... he’s going to jail and I will ring this weekend with more details.’’
Preston’s lawyer, Russell Pearce, said his client would be fighting the charges.
Twaddle said he brought Gordon’s ashes home after his funeral in Brisbane but never buried them. ‘‘I thought well I’m not going to plant his ashes until we find out who it was.’’
He said Gordon was a happy, outgoing, pastry chef who shared a love of vintage motorbikes with his older brother and friend, Thomson.
When Thomson moved to Australia to work as a teacher at Hermannsberg near Alice Springs, Gordon Twaddle decided to go too. John Twaddle bought his younger brother’s motorbike for about $800, which allowed him to pursue his dream.
Gordon met up with Thomson and his girlfriend, Edwards, and the trio set off an ‘‘adventure of a lifetime’’, travelling north through the Nullabor Plain, John Twaddle said.
The trio were last seen alive at the Moondarra Caravan Park at Mt Isa on October 5, 1978. Police told Twaddle’s father that Gordon, Thomson and Edwards were missing.
‘‘Then about three weeks later police told us they’d been found murdered in the desert.’’
Their bodies were discovered on October 24-25 in bushland at Spears Creek, near Mt Isa.
Twaddle said a cold case team had been working on the case in the past year and received 50 new leads following a podcast series about the murders. He would attend Preston’s trial if he could.
‘‘It would be good to eyeball him and say: how would you feel if someone did this to your family.’’
Twaddle said Gordon’s death was very difficult for the whole family and his father died in 1983 not knowing who had murdered his son. ‘‘My father didn’t cope well with it.’’
Preston had been a person of interest, charged with stealing Thomson’s motorcycle in 1978 for which he was convicted and fined A$300.
Preston is due to reappear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on May 20.