In December 1949, 12-year-old Ivan Lawson, scrounging in the Footscray rubbish tip for bike parts, got the shock of his life when he found a woman’s body 200 yards behind the Hume Steel Works. In tears, the boy raced home to tell his father, who immediately notified the police. This was the penultimate day of the year and the fourth murder of that week in Melbourne.
The badly battered deceased was Maisie Marsh, nee Oakley, of no fixed place of abode, 26 years old but looking twice her age. Her jacket, dress and underwear had been ripped, and nearby lay a length of bloodstained timber.
The back of Maisie’s head had been crushed, and her throat slashed several times. There was a five inch gash across her throat and a broken razor was embedded in the wound. Newspapers had been wrapped around her neck to prevent the blood from leaking, presumably over the killer and/or his car.
Detectives had no doubt that Maisie’s last journey had been in a car, and initially it was theorised that she had been murdered inside a motor vehicle before being discarded in Footscray. A car could have been driven on the track from Dynon Road or from the New Footscray Road end of the dump. Because the body was found where the piles of refuse were largest, thus affording some privacy, they believed that she had met her death at the Dynon Road end.
Police found the cabby who’d picked up Maisie, accompanied by a foreign gentleman, outside the Menzies Hotel that morning, He had driven them to New Footscray Road, where they had alighted near the docks. Maisie had suggested to her companion that they enjoy a stroll in the unsavoury Dudley Flats, near which were piles of garbage from the Dynon Road factories. The couple walked off in the direction of the tip. If the cabby had been at all curious about this unusual pair,- the man was Jamaican – he made no indication of it. He had collected his cash and driven off in search of other fares in the busy pre-new year period.
Apart from their differences in age and colour, the couple’s relationship was somewhat unusual. Oscar Skyers, a crew member on the interstate freighter, SS Amicus, had first met Maisie five months previously in Little Bourke Street. Since then, they had met up at various ports, with Skyers smuggling his girlfriend on board to enjoy several free trips. She had always displayed an enthusiastic interest in him, not, as he would have preferred, for his dashing good looks, but for the plump wallet he carried in his pocket. Somewhere along one of their clandestine voyages, he had paid her generously for services rendered, only to discover that she had also picked his pocket of the thirty pounds which he’d saved for his brother’s widow.
Sadly, Oscar had no immediate opportunity to tackle Maisie with her treachery. Someone, resentful of his shipmate’s onboard capers, had informed the captain that an unauthorised passenger was plying her trade on the Amicus. Maisie was unceremoniously shown the gangway and left to make her own way back to Melbourne on terra firma.
But now, reunited with his beloved, in the unromantic environs of Dudley Flats, Skyers challenged Maisie with the theft of his hard earned money during their last time together. She admitted it, adding that she had handed it all to “her man”. Given the nature of the transaction, the fact that she was separated from her husband and that she spent a lot of time around the Melbourne docks, it would appear that she referred to a pimp, if one existed. Skyers called her a cheat and a thief. Taking exception to his manner, Maisie wrenched off a shoe and gave Skyers a good whacking for his insolence whilst taunting him for his naivety.
Skyers lost control, seized the length of wood and wielded it savagely. Then, horrified by what he had done, he hurried away and caught a train to New South Wales.
Maisie was identified by fingerprints. Twenty five detectives searched the docks and questioned people in the vicinity, whilst the Special Branch guarded the docks on the lookout for a coloured seaman.
At dawn on New Year’s Eve, police from Footscray and homicide did a sweep from Williamstown to Spencer Street bridge, accompanied by photographers and fingerprint experts.
The post mortem was performed by Assistant Government Pathologist, Dr Flemming, who found that Maisie had died of multiple blows to the head and that her throat had been cut after death.
Skyers was arrested in Newcastle and taken to Sydney. Unlike most homicide suspects, he was so well behaved that he didn’t need handcuffs for his extradition.
On 4 January, 1950, Oscar Skyers, aged 51, married, Jamaican-born but resident of Cardiff, Wales, was remanded at the City Court until 10 January after being refused bail.
Spectators in court included Maisie’s estranged husband, Leo March, of Forbes, New South Wales. The court learned that the couple had two children, aged six and four years, who lived with their father. Maisie was often seen near the Melbourne docks, presumably touting for business, and had reverted to her maiden name, Oakley, for some years. What had led to their separation, whether drug or alcohol addiction, infidelity, mental illness or domestic violence, is not known.
Skyers resolutely denied using the razor, admitting only to hitting Maisie with a length of timber.
Why?
“She insulted me. She thought because I’m black, I’m a fool and that’s why she took my money.” Then he wept, “I loved her. I lost my temper.”
Evidence was given that the accused was illiterate and that he suffered mild brain damage from a World War I injury that impaired his judgment.
On 22 February, 1950, Skyers was acquitted of murder and found guilty of manslaughter. After serving his sentence of eight years’ jail, he was deported.
