It has been 60 years since the vicious murder of 25 year old Gwendolene Dorothy Thorpe. The initial report from the Central Communications Room, Crime Investigation Branch, Brisbane read; ‘a woman had been murdered at Chester Street, Valley, near Doggett Street. Her teeth have been bashed in’.
Sergeant 2/c J.H.Neylan commenced his report dated February 26, 1956; ‘Sub-Inspector Hird and Sub-Inspector Mahony, were advised at 8.10am. Detective Linthwaite and Detective Rigney despatched and Detective Sergeant McIver and P.C. Const. Butler despatched. At 8.20am Detective Linthwaite telephoned from L.4068 adjacent to the scene and stated that the murdered woman was Gwendolene Thorpe, nee Lubke, 27 years and who resided with her mother [in] Doggett Street, Valley. She was lying alongside a large piece of concrete and it looked as if her head had been bashed on this piece of concrete.’
The Brisbane Communications Centre, fielding calls from their location in the CIB building, Makerston Street, Brisbane in 1963. Image PM3673 courtesy of the Queensland Police Museum.
Police set about to find an offender. Witness Alan Rose, a shopkeeper, had seen the victim with a well dress man in Chester Street on many occasions. The defence solicitor C.J. Pattison suggested they used the nearby laneway as a rendezvous; ‘I would not say that. It was at the rear of her home’ (A. Rose, Court hearing, April 1956). Two taxi drivers gave evidence of recent fares involving Ms Thorpe; Leonard Hurst stated that at 12:00am on February 24 he had collected a couple from Kangaroo Point and deposited them on George Street, Brisbane.
Sergeant Neylan’s report continued, ‘The body is lying in a laneway at the rear of her home [in] Doggett Street. Her shoes are off and her panties have been removed and are lying alongside the body. A purse and an empty beer bottle are on a table alongside the body. She is badly injured around the head and has bruises around the shoulder and neck. She is a barmaid employed at the Gresham Hotel, Adelaide Street, City and as far as her mother knows she has no boy friends. She was to have commenced work at 7pm and to have worked until 10pm.’
A handcuffed Montague Davies, 34, leaving the Supreme Court after having been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. Image courtesy of the The Courier Mail, Friday May 18, 1956.
Puzzle pieces began to fall into place. Gwendolene Thorpe had been in a casual relationship with a painter named Montague Davies. Davies initially suggested police tried to make him drunk to extract a confession. Later, he admitted he was both smitten with and emotionally suffocated by Ms Thorpe, spending all his spare time with her, the two drinking together, and had lost his job due to ongoing intoxication by alcohol, and with Gwendolene. Davies lamented, ‘I thought of the mess she had made of my life since I had been with her. I had to get rid of her.’ After another boozy evening, during which Ms Thorpe had fallen asleep, Montague Davies dropped a large piece of concrete onto Gwendolene’s skull, fracturing every bone.
Three months after the murder, 34 year old Montague Davies was charged with murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour.
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This information has been supplied by the Queensland Police Museum from the best resources available. The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane. Contact: E: museum@police.qld.gov.au
“FROM the VAULT- The Murder of Gwendolene Thorpe” by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/legalcode