Police investigating the murder of the Mackay sisters questioned a self styled astral traveller, a Perth prisoner who confessed to the crime and a relative of the dead girls, Townsville Supreme Court heard yesterday.
But Arthur Stanley Brown, the 87-year-old now charged with the sexual assault and murder of the two girls, was never a suspect in the original police investigation in the early 1970s, retired police superintendent Charles Bopf told the court.
Mr Bopf, who lead the investigation, was giving evidence after taking Justice Keiran Cullinane and the jury on a tour of the murder scene.
The jury was taken by bus 25km south-west of Townsville to Antill Creek, where the bodies of Susan Mackay, 5, and her sister Judith, 7, were found on August 28, 1970.
Mr Brown, who was arrested in December last year, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the Mackay sisters, indecently dealing with them and depriving them of their liberty.
Mr Bopf, a detective-sergeant with Townsville CIB in 1970, agreed with defence counsel Mark Donnelly that while investigating such a serious crime police had to follow every lead.
An inmate of Townsville's Stuart Prison had confessed to the murder of the Mackay sisters, claiming he committed the crime while astral travelling from his cell.
A Perth prison inmate, Wayne Francis Gould, also confessed to the crime and was flown to Townsville to take part in a police line-up, but was eliminated as a suspect after showing little knowledge of the circumstances of the case.
Also questioned was Bill Trangman, the de facto husband if the Mackay sisters' mother, but Mr Bopf said he was "completely and absolutely eliminated" as a suspect.
Further articles from The Australian and The Weekend Australian: