For detective Peter Cox, there’s no case that haunts his mind more than that of Monica Schofield. Just 12 years old and a recent migrant to Australia, Monica was abducted, raped and murdered on June 17th, 1963.
In the Sydney suburb of East Hills there’s a creek. It’s located just off of Heathcote Road, and is coincidently named Deadman’s Creek. It was here that young Monica’s body was discovered on June 25th, more than a week after her murder. Just up the road from this creek was the East Hills Migrant Hostel, where our story begins.
Monica’s family had emigrated to Australia in the early 1960s as a part of the ten pound migration scene. Like many other migrant families, they were housed in migrant hostels, families living side by side in simple accomodation while they found their feet. The East Hills Hostel was located on the edge of a tract of land known as ‘the desert’, essentially a barren stretch, that the migrant children needed to walk through to reach the East Hills High School.
Monica was one of these children.
The Day Of Her Murder
On Monday morning, June 17th 1963, Monica walked to school as normal. A friend whom she was supposed to meet for the walk was sick, and another reports not seeing her on the morning. When Monica hadn’t returned home by 4pm as she usually did, her mother was worried. She called on a schoolfriend, who told her that she hadn’t seen Monica all day. Mrs Schofield knew something was wrong, and she rang the police.
They took a photograph of Monica, and a description of what she’d been carrying when she left home. She was a small girl, just under five feet tall. Slim, with long light-brown hair, she was last seen wearing her grey school uniform and carrying a case holding books, a small amount of money, a raincoat and a cut lunch. Police started canvassing, hoping to turn up a witness of value.
There were several stories that stuck out. Some women reported that a large middle-aged man had been hanging around close to the footbridge between the desert and the high school. A few schoolgirls also saw a man, who they claimed had been sitting in a car and watching them. The hunt had begun.
A Winding Path
A number of volunteers, including many migrants who knew Monica and her family, joined the search with police to find Monica. They were told to look specifically for the case that Monica had with her when she disappeared, along with a book, Born Free, that was also in possession. They were also encouraged to search for freshly dug earth, as police already suspected the girl was dead.
It was 49-year-old Floyd Foster who first caught the attention of detectives in the disappearance of Monica Schofield. He had been seen, and searched, by a young constable just one day after the girls disappearance, having in his possession at the time a brown case that matched Monica’s. For some reason, the detective failed to note the name Monica Schofield had been handwritten on the lid, and let him go.
Floyd soon saw the media coverage of Monica’s disappearance, and realised that he had a number of the items that police were looking for. He gave the book away to a barmaid, and then emptied the rest of the contents of the case out of a train window. Then, despite working to hide his involvement, he approached police as they searched near the bank of the Georges River. He claimed he had information, that he had found Monica’s suitcase, and that he had seen a man and a girl having sex in the bushes.
Police immediately arrested Foster, and it was Peter Cox, then a young detective, and his superior Bob Walton, who interviewed him. For Cox, the case had hit close to home. His own daughter celebrated her birthday on the same day as the interview. She was almost the same age as Monica, and Cox hurt to imagine if the victim had been his own child.
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