Spectrum 678. Max Jones and the black trackers

Alwyn Owen interviews Max Jones, a retired detective sergeant living in the Murray River town of Renmark. Here he discusses his experience of working with Aboriginal trackers. They have played a big part in detective work in the Australian outback.

Mr Jones says the first time he thought to employ an Aboriginal tracker was a train derailment. A goods train tipped over; there didn’t seem to be any suspicious circumstances but Jones was called in about three days later to investigate. He discovered that the train had been tampered with, which had caused the derailment. He found footprints under the train, which he thought could belong to a possible offender, but he couldn’t see where they went. He employed an Aboriginal man, Albert Anunga, who was skilled in tracking to find the culprit. Jones describes how the tracker first inspected the tracks to determine who they were following, before declaring ‘I’ve got him up here” and asserting that they were looking for a “boy-man” aged about sixteen to twenty. Albert then led the way into the bush to some rabbit burrows, where he pulled out all the missing nuts and bolts. He further inspected some more prints and told Jones they were looking for someone with a limp. He showed him how one toe was pointing upwards and that made the left footprint shorter. He also estimated his weight at 11 stone and height at 5’11. Albert stood under a tree to estimate the height and pulled out three brown hairs from the bark. He could see that only he and the offender had stood there so the hairs must have been his.
They followed the tracks to the road and the tracker could see that from there the offender had cycled away on a bike. Jones suggested they go back and get the car. They followed the road and stopped at the first place they saw – they asked if the people recognised anyone matching the description the tracker had given and were immediately told the man’s name.
He employed Albert on some more assignments. On one job, they were tracking some robbers from a country town. There was a footprint coming out of the shop; Jones went to take down particulars and left Albert to it, but when he came back he was nowhere to be found. Eventually, he saw him coming back down the dirt road into town. He had followed the tracks; they had walked into town after the rain and then back to a quarry where they had a car. He could tell there had been two men and a woman. They had gone into town at about 3 or 4 in the morning to do the job. There were empty beer bottles and bottle tops around the site where they had camped. There were also tissues with lipstick on them; some were wet and some were dry, indicating whether they had been thrown out of the car before or after the rain. They followed the car tracks out of the quarry and saw they turned towards Adelaide. Albert was sure that they were playing a trick and didn’t really go that way; he could tell they were driving slowly and looking for a place to turn around. Sure enough they eventually found the place where they made a u-turn. They drove along the same road towards the Victoria-New Sound Wales border. Albert spotted a place that the car had pulled over. In the grass they found some bottle tops and a screwed up piece of yellow paper. The paper turned out to be the service receipt from having the car serviced a few days earlier. It had the name of the owner of the car, as well as the name and address of the mechanic. They rang the police in that town who confirmed the two men were local and had recently got out of jail; they had brought the woman back from Melbourne with them. They were found with most of the stolen money and were arrested.
Jones says that was one of the more thrilling chases he had been involved in – real Sherlock Holmes material.
He goes on to describe working on the Pine Valley murder with Albert and another tracker called Jimmy James. The murderer had been working on a station for a few days, they one night he walked into the bedroom and shot the manager while he slept. The wife disturbed him and he ran outside to look for the housekeeper who he had heard on the telephone. He didn’t find her and then ran off into the bush. His footprints were visible in the house as it had been raining and he’d run outside in his stockinged feet. Jones and the trackers were called in the middle of the night, but they didn’t find the tracks until the next morning. He learned from this experience to just let the trackers do their job without interference. It took five trackers five days to track down the murderer in the bush. It was very hot so they needed to rest. He says the trackers kept up a running commentary for him, telling Jones they could see he was carrying the rifle on his right shoulder, now on the left, now he has bent to have a drink from a puddle. On one occasion, a tracker found a spent match in the grass a little way from the tracks. Jones was unable to see the match even when the tracker put it back down for him to try and find. They covered many miles in the search. The murderer knew they were after him; they had planes going over to help with the search and they could see where he had run for cover when they went over. The trackers could even pinpoint what time of day the murder had been in a particular place; he would have sheltered from the sun under a tree at midday because that is the only shade there would have been around at midday.
On the last day two more trackers joined the search; Jimmy James and Daniel Moodoo. They tracked at a rate of five miles an hour over hard country where no white man could spot a track. Jones asked them to point out a track that he could see next time they found one. Within another half-mile they called him over to show him two stockinged footprints in some sand behind a bush. They could spot tiny differences that were indiscernible to Jones and other policemen. The trackers were able to tell that the murderer was getting ill from dehydration and heading for water. He was found at the dam within about a quarter of a mile.
Jones goes on to tell a story about a lost little girl. The girl had been missing about three quarters of an hour when her mother rang them. Jones set the trackers on her trail; they tracked her for about an hour before turning back to Jones and saying ‘she’s just over that hill, boss, sitting under a tree.’ He was able to tell her mother who quickly came to get her. Jones realised afterwards that there was no way the tracker could have seen the girl from where he was standing when he said that. The tracker told him he’d seen her in his mind’s eye and knew she would be there.
Jones says there were many incidents like that which he never understood; the trackers were able to tell him what someone was doing or where they were at a distance.
Jones describes another case. A man attempted to rape a little girl in an orange orchard. She was walking on the path past the orchard and he called her over to see some kittens, then attempted to rape her. Fortunately an ambulance drove past sounding the siren and, mistaking it for a police siren, the perpetrator ran off before committing the act. The trackers were called in and were able to give a good description of the man by examining his tracks; they were able to discern what had happened in the orchard and some details about his gait. They said he was a ‘sloppy walker’ whose left toe turned in, he flicked dirt up as he walked. They followed his trail to the road where someone had given him a lift.
Meanwhile the little girl had returned home but it wasn’t until several hours later that her mother returned and the alarm was sounded. By that time it was about three or four hours after the event and the offender had made it out of the state.
Several months later, Jones was at the races. Some of the trackers were there as well and told him they had seen the man who committed the crime against the little girl; they had seen his tracks there and recognised him. They showed him the man they meant and he was exactly as they had described. Jones took him in for questioning and he admitted it and other offences. He had thought it was safe to come back as it had been so long.
In another case, a little girl was assaulted in a house and they only had one footprint to go on. The trackers were able to follow him across the fruit block and told Jones that he had a dog tied up with rope; they gave several details about him and his dog and Jones immediately knew who it was because he’d questioned the same man recently. He was able to bring him in for that and two other offences as well.
The trackers were not officially attached to the police but were hired when they were needed. Jones says the trackers were older, the young people never got hungry enough to learn to track. Jones says he became quite adept at tracking himself and was able to solve a crime by himself. He supposes it would have been a very easy one for the trackers, but it was an achievement for him. It was only six miles down the road and he was able to follow the truck because they had bald tyres. He followed them to a house where he was able to ask their names of one of the men’s wife.
He says that Jimmy James is probably the most celebrated tracker he worked with on account of his good communication, but Daniel Moodoo was in his opinion the most gifted. He sadly succumbed to alcohol and died. He couldn’t speak English very well, but he was an excellent tracker and when working in a team with someone like Jimmy who could communicate well they were brilliant.
He describes another case the two trackers worked on together, but which Jones was not able to attend himself. A little girl had been abducted, stabbed and left for dead. The perpetrator had been apprehended and admitted to the crime. However the little girl was not dead and had tried to walk home but got lost. The trackers were able to find her in time; she was very ill but still alive. The trackers were given medals for that case.
Owen asks whether aboriginal trackers are still used today. Jones says he doesn’t think they are used in the cities but he knows they are still used up in the North West in the outback. He says it has been an exciting experience working with them. They were very courageous, even when working with dangerous criminals on the run.