Notoriety follows former All Black to the outback

By GREG ANSLEY

Infamy found former All Black Keith Murdoch for the second time at the bottom of Nobles Nob, the vast pit that was once the world's richest open-cast gold mine.

There, in blazing 40-degree heat, the remains of a 20-year-old petty thief from nearby Tennant Creek were discovered, 20 days after a presumed beating at Murdoch's hands and following death threats from a local security guard.

How Kumanjayi Limerick, known as Christopher, died is still a mystery. But Murdoch's failure to appear as a key witness at the inquest last week has focused a new glare on the one-time rugby star.

For Murdoch, an enigmatic, brooding giant who fled to the barren heart of Australia 29 years ago to live as a reclusive nomad, the publicity could not be worse.

Friends in Tennant Creek say he remains haunted by the notoriety earned during the 1972-73 British tour, when he became the only All Black to be sent home from a tour in disgrace, after beating a man insensible at Cardiff's Angel Hotel.

Murdoch vanished into legend on his humiliating way home, chasing off the few journalists who tracked him down, rejecting the admiration of New Zealanders who stumbled across him in outback bars and refusing even among close friends to talk of his All Black days.

Now, as a new notoriety descends on a man last seen driving a yellow Ford hundreds of kilometres from anywhere, his small circle of intimate friends has closed ranks, reluctant, on the record at least, to discuss their mate.

"There's an unspoken rule here," said one local. "You never ask anyone where they're from or what they're doing here because you know that everyone is running away from something. This is like a refuge for runaways. People always find their peace here because they aren't judged. They're taken on their merit, and I guess that's the kind of peace Keith found here."

The details of Murdoch's road from stellar All Black to outback nomad remain unclear.

Popular history has him leaving the plane at Singapore and travelling by means unknown to Australia, although it now appears he may have worked incognito in New Zealand for some time.

Murdoch's home became the Northern Territory's Tennant Creek, population 3800 and divided into roughly equal halves by the Stuart Highway, running arrow-straight through spinifex and ochre-red plains.

To the east lies the Barkly Tableland, hard cattle country laced with bare dirt tracks of choking red dust in summer, cut by floods in the Wet, and vast stations such as Alexandria and Soudan, where Murdoch worked for a while.

To the west, the roads fade into the unending dunes and Aboriginal land of the Tanami desert, merging into the Gibson and Great Sandy deserts.

Tennant Creek, mythology says, was founded where a beer wagon bogged down. It's still that kind of place, a two-fisted frontier town where arguments are often settled with punches, and where a man can be accepted for his muscle and on his own terms.

It was born for the wealth of gold and copper uncovered by a bizarre collection of prospectors: one-eyed Jack Noble and his blind mate William Weaber who unearthed the three richest gold veins; Joe Kaczinski, who named his find Peko, after his dog ...

Tin-roofed and bleached by intense sun, Tennant Creek is a magnet for outback drifters, pulled into town by work at the mines or surrounding stations.

Half the town's population is Aboriginal, plagued by poverty, booze, petrol-sniffing, malnutrition and disease: "Thirsty Thursday" bans the sale of alcohol for a day, and after dark the streets are patrolled by the Julalikari night patrol, volunteers who clamp down on all manner of disorder.

In good times, unemployment in Tennant is low - although even then one in four townspeople of working age receives some form of benefit.

Those good times are just starting to return. Giant's Reef is about to reopen the first of several defunct mines, a sleeper factory and a workers' camp has been set up for the $A1.3 billion ($1.6 billion) Alice Springs to Darwin railway, and the beef industry is booming.

Murdoch, as far as anyone knows, drifted into Tennant about 10 years ago, a big, capable man able to turn his considerable muscle to most jobs and moving in and out as work and inclination shifted him.

For all his size and brooding presence, he lived quietly and without aggression. Until Mr Limerick, the police had never taken an interest in him, and casual acquaintances say that when he did speak, he was friendly and polite.

But the most common description of Murdoch is "recluse." Even people born and bred in Tennant saw him daily but rarely spoke to him, did not know his name, and had no idea of his fame.

"It's very hard to get a conversation out of him," said Greg Targett, publican of the Tennant Creek Hotel, where Murdoch was a regular. "He'd just come in for one or two beers, keep to himself and then take off."

Jan Cowan lives opposite Murdoch: "I knew nothing about him until I read [about Mr Limerick] in the paper."

Another local spoke of Murdoch's haunting stare: "When you know him, you can just see him in your face with these dark eyes, staring, and you know there's a lot going on in his head. That's where the presence comes from - it's a mind thing."

Although Murdoch was described as a hard-drinking bloke's bloke, he rarely lost his composure even as others were crumbling around him.

One friend remembers the night a drunken woman was out to provoke him, swinging punches against his bulk: "If he'd just flicked her she would've dropped, but he didn't. He was just cool and calm and not bothered."

Murdoch lived with his mate Bob "Fender" Bender at 191 Paterson St in an unkept brick bungalow overgrown with spinifex. The beer-stocked fridge made it a social centre for Murdoch's small circle of friends, for others who drifted in and out, drinking and passing out for the night, and for Aboriginal women.

They call them "jin burglars," a local said of the group. "They'd go down to the pub and find themselves a woman, come home, throw them in the shower and ... It's a pretty seedy kind of life.

"It's opting out and that's why a lot of these men go for black women ... They can just tell them to piss off and they will. There's no commitment or love stories or obligations. They just want a feed, a shower and a bed."

Life started to unravel for Murdoch on the night of Friday, October 6, last year: Christopher Limerick had pushed his luck too far.

Mr Limerick, one of the local Warramungu tribe, was a plague on Tennant, said to have broken into every house and business in town.

But it was all petty stuff, one victim said. "If you had 10 cartons of beer, he'd take a couple of cans and come back when he wanted more."

Shortly before he vanished, security guard Walter "Skimbo" Turnbull caught Mr Limerick breaking into a motel and gave him a good hiding, breaking a couple of his fingers with a torch. Mr Limerick retaliated by etching an Oedipal obscenity on Mr Turnbull's new car. For days afterwards, Mr Turnbull hunted for Mr Limerick, warning that "I'm going to kill that little **** when I find him."

Murdoch found him first, when Mr Limerick broke into his house for the umpteenth time.

Next door, the boys at Hamerdawn Engineering were having a few after-work beers when they heard someone getting a belting in the lane behind Murdoch's house.

Friends said they told Murdoch the next day: "Hey, we heard you giving someone a hiding last night. We were going to come over and give you a hand." It is that kind of town.

"In Tennant Creek there are always brawls and always fights," a neighbour said. "It happens all the time and you get numb to it. You see someone belting Christ out of someone and you just keep walking. That's how it goes."

Although police later said a third person had been involved, Mr Bender told the inquest he had been drinking and had seen nothing.

Almost three weeks later Limerick's body was found at Nobles Nob, near the deep lake of cyanide- and heavy metal-laced water. How he got there and how he died remain a mystery.

The morning after his apparent whipping by Murdoch, two women saw a man matching his description on the road to Nobles Nob.

The next day, a Sunday, Barkly health services administrator Ashley Frost saw Mr Limerick signalling for a drink, but kept driving.

When the body was found, suspicion fell on Mr Turnbull because of his threats. But he is respected in town as a man who had kept raw, 19-year-old policemen alive, protected other life and property, and who dealt rough, but open, justice.

"When Skimbo says he's going to kill you, when he sees you he'll smack you in the mouth and drop you right there, no worries," a friend said. "He doesn't care who sees."

Attention switched to Murdoch when he failed to appear at the inquest.

He left town in April looking for work, finding a job first at the Old Elsely Inn at Mataranka and later at Elsely Station.

Murdoch left as he arrived - suddenly and without warning.



The next day, Mataranka Constable Brett Wenn learned of the summons for Murdoch.

No one has seen him since.

He is not wanted for anything but his evidence, at this stage, and if there is more the worst charge that anyone can speculate is deprivation of liberty, on the disputed thesis that Murdoch dumped Mr Limerick against his will at Nobles Nob.

Few believe he did, and no one believes Mr Limerick was murdered.

"There are so many [mine] shafts here and everyone in town knows that if you want to get rid of someone you throw them down the shaft and drop some dynamite in after them and you'll never hear from them again," a local said.

Few also believe Murdoch is in hiding. Friends say one day he will just drift back into town. This time the police will be waiting.