Necrophilia, lies, police failures and racial bias. Teens Mona Lisa and Cindy Smith died by the side of a road near Bourke, the man responsible walked free
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the names and images of people who have died. This story contains some confronting details.
When two teenage girls died outside Bourke in the late 1980s part of the defence team's legal strategy was to ensure the trial happened there, where racial tensions were high.
Non-Indigenous man Alexander Ian Grant, 40, was tried in court in 1990 over the deaths of two teenage cousins, 15-year-old Wangkumara and Kunja girl Jacinta 'Cindy' Smith, and 16-year-old Murrawarri and Kunja girl Mona Lisa Smith, who died on the side of the road about 60km north of the NSW country town.
Their families say Cindy Smith, left, and Mona Lisa were both full of life. Cindy was interested in learning piano and Mona Lisa loved singing. (Supplied. Graphic by Chan Woo Park)
As well as being cousins the two girls were best friends, and a pair the family have always described as "two peas in the pod".
"They were happy-go-lucky girls and they wanted to try and make the best out of life," said Fiona Smith, Mona Lisa's sister.
For nearly four decades the families have mourned the loss of the girls, and now a NSW coronial ruling has found racial bias impacted the initial police investigation which involved a litany of failures.
Grant was later acquitted of the charges against him, and no one has ever been held accountable for Mona Lisa and Cindy's deaths.
NSW State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan found the police investigation was impacted by "racial bias". (Supplied: NSW Courts)
This is how the police investigation – described this week by NSW State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan as "inexplicably deficient" – went so wrong.
"The uncomfortable truth, to my mind, is that had two white teenage girls died in the same circumstances, I cannot conceive of there being such a manifestly deficient police investigation into the circumstances of their deaths," she said.
The case
Enngonia Road in 1987, where the bodies of the girls were found. (Supplied: National Justice Project)
On a summer night back in 1987, Cindy and Mona set off for a walk shortly after dinner. The coroner found that they accepted a lift from Grant, who plied them with alcohol, with the intention to prey on them sexually.
"Instead of giving them a lift home as he should have, Mr Grant took off with them," Magistrate O'Sullivan said.
"Although it scarcely needs to be said, the conduct of Mr Grant was predatory and disgraceful."
In the early hours of that next morning, the ute crashed and rolled, killing the two girls but leaving Grant unscathed.
The car Mona Lisa, Cindy and Grant were travelling in at the time of the fatal accident. (Supplied. Graphic by Chan Woo Park)
It was not yet dawn when farm workers first came across the scene. One of them, Shane Baty, observed Mona and Cindy lying dead on the ground, fatally injured from the car crash. A post-mortem examination later would find both girls died quickly.
Baty told police he noticed Cindy's body was laid out on a tarpaulin. Beside her, asleep, with his arm draped over her, was Grant. Her pants had been pulled down to her ankles.
Baty fled the scene and drove to the nearby town of Enngonia, just over 30km north of the crash site, to alert the police. His brother stayed behind at the scene.
Ten minutes after Baty arrived at the police station his brother also arrived, saying Grant had a gun and was threatening to shoot him.
NSW State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan was critical of the police taking Grant's claim at face value that he was not the driver of the car. (ABC News: Craig Hansen)
It was approximately an hour later when police arrived at the scene. They found Cindy's body was now almost completely naked with her legs spread apart.
Grant was visibly intoxicated. He initially admitted to police he had been driving the ute. Moments later, after he realised both girls were dead, he changed his story, claiming Mona Lisa was in fact the driver.
Later that morning Grant returned a blood alcohol reading estimated to be between 0.2 and 0.3 at the time of the crash. He was not arrested.
The barrister
Because of Grant's initial confession to police that he was driving the car, he was charged with two counts of culpable driving causing death.
He was also charged with indecent interference with a dead human body. This charge was dropped before the criminal trial because it couldn't be decided if Cindy was alive or dead at the time Grant sexually assaulted her.
Former barrister Anthony Quinlivan represented Grant at trial.
Former barrister Anthony Quinlivan says locals in the town at the time assumed Aboriginal teenagers could drive cars. (ABC News)
"I don't think anyone had to be a sexual assault expert to understand that Grant had indecently molested the girl," Quinlivan says.
"It was plain that he had changed his story in different ways, and it was plain from the nature of the case … that Mr Grant had done some very bad things.
Grant's legal defence centred on his claim that it had been 16-year-old Mona Lisa, not him, behind the wheel at the time of the fatal accident.
But June Smith, Mona Lisa's mother, informed police that her daughter could not drive a manual car. This was something Quinlivan says he was concerned about during the trial, until he had a chance encounter with a man at the local motel.
"The man said to me that he wouldn't be too worried about that evidence. And I said, 'Why not?' And he said, 'Well, who do you think steals all the cars in this town?'" he recalls.
Quinlivan told the ABC that when the Crown Prosecutor later floated the option of moving the trial to Bathurst or Sydney, Quinlivan says he chose to keep it in Bourke, knowing the townspeople's prejudices against Aboriginal teenagers could work in Grant's favour.
Mona Lisa and Cindy went for a walk around town one summer's afternoon in 1987. What happened to the two cousins later that night is something their families will be forever mourning. (ABC News: Craig Hansen)
"I thought a jury in Sydney made up of people from decent suburbs in the North Shore, who had little or no exposure to Aboriginal life in Bourke, would have been more likely to believe Mona Lisa's mother when the mother said that her daughter couldn't drive," he says.
"The good folk of Bourke might be more likely to have doubts about that evidence than a jury in Sydney."
When two Aboriginal women were selected for the jury, Quinlivan says he challenged them, believing their community allegiances would unfairly skew the trial, "plain as the nose on your face".
The all-white jury ruled unanimously in Grant's favour.
Quinlivan remembers the intensity of the grief in that courtroom when the verdict was handed down.
"The noise and the wailing, the female wailing, it was as much moving as it was scary," he says.
The investigation
The accident occurred near this location on Enngonia Road. (ABC Central West: Joanna Woodburn )
The families have long wondered how Grant got away with it.
He died in 2017, having never faced any consequences for Mona Lisa and Cindy's deaths.
But this week in the Bourke courthouse, NSW State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan found that Alexander Ian Grant was the driver of the ute.
She also concluded that "horrifyingly, the evidence indicates that Grant sexually interfered with Cindy after she had passed".
One of the first officers on the scene was junior constable Ken McKenzie. Now retired from the police force, he describes the case as a "gross miscarriage of justice" and agrees that racial prejudice played a role in how the initial investigation was carried out.
Ken McKenzie was the first officer on the scene in 1987 and heard Grant's initial confession that he was the person behind the wheel at the time of the accident. (ABC News)
"In those days, there was no love lost between the police and Aboriginal communities in the Bourke district," he says.
"I saw a lot of racist behaviour while I was in the police service."
The coroner found this week that the multitude of failings in the initial police investigation were due to the "existence of racial bias within the NSW Police Force at the relevant time".
In 2019, Detective Inspector Paul Quigg was asked to commence reviewing documents and the brief of evidence from the initial police investigation, ahead of the coronial inquest which began in November last year.
Detective Inspector Paul Quigg re-examined the initial 1987 police investigation. (ABC News: Craig Hansen)
"The basic rules of gathering evidence and conducting thorough investigations hasn't changed. Unfortunately, back in 1987, some of the basic investigation techniques weren't done," he says.
"All of the evidence wasn't obtained and unfortunately Mr Grant wasn't held to account for what actually took place.
"From an investigator's side of things, it was very embarrassing that the basic investigation requirements weren't conducted on a serious incident involving the deaths of two young teenagers."
Detective Inspector Quigg vows that such negligence will not be repeated.
"The way we conduct these investigations right from the start, I can guarantee the community that it wouldn't happen again."
The official investigation into the girls' death is now closed.
Magistrate O'Sullivan told the family she will write to NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley asking him to consider reforming section 81 of the Crimes Act to ensure people accused of misconduct with regards to corpses cannot escape prosecution if there is doubt as to the time of a victim's death.
NSW Police told the ABC that "a comprehensive review of the findings will be undertaken, and any recommendations directed to police will be considered".
Finding peace
Dawn and June Smith with their daughters Fiona and Kerrie hold a copy of the coronial findings handed down into the deaths of the girls. (ABC Western Plains: Zaarkacha Marlan)
It's been almost four decades, and the family says they finally have some answers to their questions.
In the courtroom when the coroner announced that Mona Lisa could not have been driving, a sad smile spread across her sister Fiona's face.
"I'm feeling really good inside because I knew my sister couldn't drive," she says.
"Acknowledging everything that was wrong you know, that's where I found my peace."
Kerrie Smith, left, and Dawn Smith at the location where Cindy and Mona Lisa passed away. They added this plaque to remember their girls last year. (ABC News: Craig Hansen)
Mona Lisa and Cindy are buried side-by-side at the Bourke cemetery.
And now the families have placed a memorial plaque by the roadside where the girls passed away. It is lovingly adorned with flowers and coloured fairy lights.
Dawn Smith, Cindy's mother, comes to the site frequently and wonders about the woman her little girl would have grown up to be.
"I know it's very hard when you lose a loved one and you have to bear it for the rest of your life and nothing could bring them back," she says.
"But we fought as hard as we could to get to where we are today, trying to get justice for our kids, for the two girls."
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