Juanita Nielsen

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Juanita Nielsen
Juanita Nielsen in the early 1970s
Born	Juanita Joan Smith (1937-04-22)22 April 1937 New Lambton, New South Wales, Australia
Disappeared	4 July 1975 (aged 38) Kings Cross, Sydney
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Newspaper founder publisher activist heiress
Spouse(s)	Jorgen Fritz Nielsen (1962–1965)

Juanita Joan Nielsen (née Smith; 22 April 1937 – disappeared 4 July 1975) was an Australian newspaper publisher and journalist, heiress of the Mark Foy family, who was notable for her activism against urban development around Kings Cross, Sydney, and her support for the Builders Labourers' Federation's Green Bans. She disappeared in Kings Cross in 1975. The people responsible for her disappearance have never been identified, and her remains have never been found.

It is generally believed that she was killed because of her activism, and there have been strong suspicions of the involvement of organised crime and police corruption. In the early 1980s, two men associated with King Cross crime boss Abe Saffron were jailed for conspiracy to kidnap her, based on incidents leading up to her disappearance. A coronial inquest in 1983 determined that Nielsen had been killed but failed to identify who killed her.

The unsolved mystery has continued to be a concern for the Australian community and has inspired several films.

Early life and career[]

Nielsen was born Juanita Joan Smith in New Lambton, New South Wales, to Neil Donovan Smith and Vilma Grace Smith (née Meares) (1905–1978). Her parents separated soon after her birth and she was raised by her maternal grandmother at Killara, Sydney. Her father, Neil was an English-born heir to the Mark Foy's retail fortune via his parents, John Joseph Smith (1862–1921), who was a Chairman and Managing Director of Mark Foy's Ltd, and his wife, Kathleen Sophie Foy (1870–1919). Kathleen Smith was a sister of Mark and Francis Foy.^[1]

Nielsen was educated at Ravenswood School for Girls, Gordon, Sydney.^[1] She worked at Mark Foy's as a glove model from 1953 until she travelled overseas in 1959.^[1] In 1962, she married a Danish merchant seaman Jorgen Fritz Nielsen at Kobe, Japan although the marriage only lasted for around three years.^[1] Nielsen returned to Sydney in 1965 and ran a fashion boutique at Mark Foy's for about five years.^[1]

In the early 1970s, financed by her father, she owned NOW, an alternative newspaper in the Sydney locality of Kings Cross and lived in a terrace house at 202 Victoria Street (now heritage-listed as Juanita Nielsen's House).^[2][1] She published NOW fortnightly from her house, with the assistance of her business partner, David Farrell.^[3] She modelled fashions and hairstyles for the newspaper and became involved in a campaign against a proposed development projects in the neighbourhood.^[1]

Victoria Street development[]

Terraced homes in Victoria Street (2010)

In the early 1970s, property developer Frank Theeman (1913–1989) planned to construct a A$40 million apartment complex in Kings Cross. Theeman, who had initially made his fortune in lingerie, moved into property development in 1972 after he sold his Osti company to Dunlop for A$3.5 million.

The plan involved evicting dozens of people from their houses in Victoria Street, an area which the National Trust compared to Montmartre in Paris. Built along a steep sandstone escarpment east of the city centre and lined with rows of large 19th-century terrace houses, Victoria Street had commanding views of the city, the harbour and The Domain.

The houses were to be demolished and replaced with three high-rise apartment towers. The local community campaigned against the development, and successfully lobbied the Builders Labourers' Federation (BLF) to impose a green ban on the site in 1972.^[4] Supported by the BLF, the residents of Victoria Street refused to leave their houses. Nielsen used her newspaper, NOW, to publicise the issue.

BLF leader and prominent Communist Jack Mundey described Nielsen as an "upper class" person who was initially disapproving of unionism, Communism, and squatting, but became more sympathetic.^[5]

In July 1973, resident Arthur King was kidnapped by two unidentified men, who put him in the boot of their car.^[4] King was driven to a motel outside the city and held for three days before being released near the Venus Room in Kings Cross. King quit as the head of the residents' action group, and immediately moved out of the area. Distrustful of police because of recent harassment, he did not tell the truth about his disappearance until 1977.^[6]

Other residents of the street were regularly harassed by men employed by Theeman, as he attempted to have them evicted from their houses. The men were led by Fred Krahe, a former detective with the New South Wales Police. Krahe was reputed to be involved in organised crime, and he was suspected of murdering prostitute Shirley Brifman who had accused him of corruption.^[7][8]

Residents would move into each other's houses so that no house was left unattended. In 1973, when merchant seaman, jazz musician, and Communist activist Mick Fowler returned from a period working at sea, he found that his rented house boarded up. Repossessing his home, Fowler fought and, in 1976, lost a court battle to stay there. The strain of the struggle reputedly led to his early death in 1979, aged 50.^[9] Residents who had squatted in the houses were evicted by police on 3 January 1974.^[10]

Eventually the green ban was broken in late 1974 when the federal leadership of the BLF, bribed by developers, dismissed the leaders of the New South Wales branch.^[10] Nielsen and the residents were left as the only significant opposition to Theeman. Nielsen then convinced the Water Board Union to impose their own green ban.^[11] By early 1975, Theeman's company had spent about A$6 million (about A$37 million in 2019 money) purchasing property in Kings Cross, and interest payments on loans were costing about A$3,000 a day.

The Builders Labourers Federation marching on International Women's Day in Sydney, 1975.

Development in Woolloomooloo[]

There was a similar situation in the nearby suburb of Woolloomooloo. In 1975, the NSW and Federal governments had reached an agreement with Theeman for the development of the Woolloomooloo basin. Neilsen was a member of the Woolloomooloo Residents Action Group which was receiving threats in 1975.^[12]

The Carousel Club[]

The Carousel Club in Kings Cross (called "Les Girls" at other times^[13]) was one of a number of bars and nightclubs controlled by Abe Saffron, who was a major figure in Sydney organised crime. The club was managed by James Anderson, who, as a later investigation revealed, owed A$260,000 (about A$1.6 million in 2011 money) to Frank Theeman. According to a 2008 book by Saffron's son Alan, Abe Saffron lent large sums of money to several prominent Sydney businessmen including Theeman.

The Carousel had had no dealings with Neilsen previously, but on 13 June 1975 Anderson had initiated contact by sending Nielsen an invitation to attend a press night at the club. She would not normally have been invited because NOW did not give free publicity to commercial ventures. In the event, Nielsen did not attend, and Anderson was reported to have been furious.^[14]

On 29 June, the Carousel's PR man Lloyd Marshall invited Nielsen to a meeting at the Camperdown Travelodge, supposedly to discuss advertising related to landscaping, but Nielsen's partner Farrell later recounted that Nielsen became suspicious and refused to attend.^[15]

On 30 June, Edward Frederick "Eddie" Trigg (born c. 1940/1941 - died Waterloo, New South Wales Feb 2013)^[16] and Shayne Martin-Simmonds, both employees at The Carousel, went to Nielsen's house ostensibly to discuss advertising the Carousel in NOW. It was later revealed that Trigg and Martin-Simmonds intended to seize Nielsen when she opened the door, but their plan was foiled when her business partner David Farrell answered the door instead. The two men played out their cover story, but Nielsen was listening in an adjoining room and after they left she complimented Farrell on his handling of the query, teasing him by saying she might send him out on the road to sell advertising in NOW.

According to Farrell, Nielsen was by then seriously concerned that her activism was putting her in danger. She mentioned her fears to Farrell about two weeks before her disappearance and she arranged to keep him regularly informed of her whereabouts.^[17]

The Carousel's receptionist Loretta Crawford said that Trigg had instructed her to call Nielsen on the night of Thursday 3 July to set up a meeting at the club to discuss the advertising proposal the following morning. Crawford later claimed that she knew that the advertising story was "bullshit", since the club did not advertise in "local rags", and that she was surprised that Nielsen kept the appointment.

Disappearance[]

On Friday, 4 July 1975, Nielsen went to the Carousel Club in Kings Cross for a meeting with Edward Trigg as had been arranged the previous night. At 10:30am, she telephoned Farrell to tell him that she was running late for the meeting.^[18]

According to Crawford, when Nielsen arrived she proceeded to the landing on the first floor where Crawford's reception desk was located. Crawford offered her a seat and a cup of coffee, after Nielsen remarked that she had had a "hard night" (i.e. she was hung over), but Nielsen didn't get to drink the coffee because Trigg arrived. Crawford said that she noted that he was on time, which she thought unusual since he was often late. He and Nielsen exchanged greetings on the landing and went upstairs to Trigg's office.

At this point in her account given to the Sydney Morning Herald in 2001, Crawford made a new claim: that she then made a phone call to Jim Anderson at his home in Vaucluse, told him that Nielsen had arrived and that he was "quite pleased" by the news. Crawford was adamant that Anderson was at his home in Vaucluse—not in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, as he always claimed.

In statements given to police, Trigg and Crawford said that Nielsen then left the club alone, although in 1976 Crawford changed her story to say that Nielsen and Trigg left together.^[19]

A local real estate agent told police that he saw Neilsen getting into a yellow car outside the club; there were two men in the car.^[20]

Nielsen was not seen again. Her handbag and other effects were discovered on 12 July, abandoned on a freeway near Penrith in Sydney's west.^[21][22]

Kidnapping trials[]

Juanita Nielsen memorial, South Head Cemetery, Vaucluse, New South Wales

In late 1977, Edward Trigg, Shayne Martin-Simmonds, and Lloyd Marshall, all one-time employees of the Carousel Club, were charged with conspiring to kidnap Nielsen.^[23]

When interviewed by police on 6 November 1977, Martin-Simmonds confirmed that the advertising story was a ruse and that their actual intention was to kidnap Nielsen if she was alone and take her to see "people who wanted to talk to her". He said that he and Trigg intended to:

"... Just grab her arms and stop her calling out, no real rough stuff, no gangster stuff. We thought that just two guys telling her to come would be enough to make her think if she didn't come she might get hurt ... we talked about when she came into the room, one of us would be standing there and the other one would come up behind her and just quietly grab her by the arms and maybe put a hand over her mouth or a pillowslip over the head."^[21][24]

Martin-Simmonds told police he didn't know the identity of the people who wanted to talk to Nielsen.^[25]

A trial commenced in 1980. The judge ordered the jury to acquit Marshall as there was no evidence linking him to the plan to use force against Nielsen. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on Trigg and Martin-Simmonds, and a retrial was ordered.^[26] In 1981, Martin-Simmonds was retried, convicted, and sentenced to two years jail. The judge questioned him about the identity of the people who had hired him for the kidnapping, but he provided no information.^[27]

Trigg fled to the US on a fake passport and was arrested in San Francisco in 1982. He told police: "They’re making all this noise over a woman who was nothing but an out-and-out Communist. No loss to society at all".^[21] Extradited to Australia, he pleaded guilty and in 1983 was imprisoned for three years.^[21]

Coronial inquest[]

A coronial inquest with a jury was held in 1983. There were several witnesses. Theeman denied that Nielsen was a threat to his development plans.^[28]

When Jim Anderson testified, the counsel assisting the inquest described him as a "stranger to the truth". Anderson blamed Fred Krahe for Neilsen's death.^[13]

Neither the coroner nor any counsel appearing at the inquest argued that there was enough evidence to make an case against any known person. The jury determined that Nielsen had died "'on or shortly after 4 July 1975", although there was not enough evidence to show how she died or who killed her. The jury found there was "evidence to show that the police inquiries were inhibited by an atmosphere of corruption, real or imagined, that existed at the time".^[1][29]

Federal parliamentary committee[]

In 1994 the Commonwealth Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority criticised police failings and linked the disappearance to property developers and the King Cross criminal underworld.^[1] The committee questioned the National Crime Authority's use of Jim Anderson as a protected informer as he was a suspect in the Neilsen disappearance and other criminal activity.^[30]

Subsequent media claims[]

New Zealand born transvestite Marilyn King (also known as Monet King), the former girlfriend of Trigg, told one journalist that Trigg had returned home on 4 July with blood on his clothes. A piece of paper in his pocket, which was later used by police as evidence before the coronial inquest, also had blood on it. This was supposedly a receipt signed by Nielsen for advertising money paid by Trigg. King said that Trigg threw out the shirt, and the portion of the paper with blood on it.^[21] King never gave testimony to the police or the coronial inquiry.

In 2004 ABC-TV's The 7:30 Report broadcast a new interview with Crawford in which she claimed her previous testimony regarding Nielsen was false and had been concocted to protect her former boss, James Anderson, but that Anderson's recent death meant she was now free to reveal the truth. Crawford's new claim was that Nielsen had indeed been killed in the basement of the club in the presence of Trigg and Martin-Simmonds, that she had seen Nielsen's body on the floor, bearing a single small gunshot wound, and that she saw a third man, whom she did not name, standing over Nielsen's body, holding a pistol.^[31]

The obvious motive for Nielsen's murder was her opposition to the Victoria Street development. However, there have also been claims that she was working on an exposé about vice, corruption and illegal gambling in the Cross. Her then boyfriend John Glebe gave evidence that Nielsen had told him about receiving telephone threats and he also testified that she carried cassette tapes in her handbag. According to Glebe, Nielsen had told him that the tapes could "blow the top off" an issue she was working on. An article in The Bulletin in 2005 ran claims by journalist Barry Ward that Nielsen had been given dossiers on "prominent Sydney identities" by private detective Allan Honeysett, and speculated that these documents would reputedly have exposed the principals involved in Sydney's illegal gaming industry.

In 2013 The Australian newspaper reported that, prior to his death, Trigg had written an account of his involvement in the case, which "named names" of those involved and revealed the resting place of Nielsen's remains.^[32] NSW police spokesperson confirmed that police had searched Trigg's residence after his death, but they refused to comment on the outcome. The report also said that the account was to be published after his death to provide an inheritance for his descendants.^[32]

Trigg confession[]

In mid-2021, coinciding with a renewed police appeal for information on the case, accompanied by a $1 million reward offer, the ABC launched a seven-part investigative podcast series on the Nielsen case, Unravel: Juanita. In August, alongside the release of the final episode, ABC News reported that retired Sydney lawyer and former criminal investigator John Innes had revealed in an interview for the series that he had been recruited by detectives of the NSW Police in the early 1980s to assist them in their investigation into Nielsen's disappearance.

After months of planning and preparation, Innes was sent as an undercover agent into Sydney's Long Bay Gaol, where Saffron associate and Carousel Club employee Eddie Trigg was being held on remand, awaiting trial on charges of conspiring to kidnap Juanita. His initial orders were to befriend Trigg and investigate the money trail linking Saffron and Trigg and the club to Juanita's disappearance.

Posing as a disgraced lawyer, Innes was eventually placed in the same cell as Trigg, with instructions to win his trust by offering him legal advice on his upcoming case.

According to Innes, after finally agreeing to talk with him, Trigg first threatened to crush Innes' hand in the heavy cell door if he found that he was deceiving him. Innes then asked Trigg what had happened at the club on the day of Nielsen's disappearance.

To his surprise, Trigg freely admitted that he had lured Nielsen to the Carousel Club on July 4, and that after meeting her inside the club, he had led her out a fire door and across a common courtyard into the adjoining Lido Motel next door. Once inside the empty motel restaurant, Trigg said, he had "throttled" (strangled) Nielsen, and that he and his accomplice Shane Martin-Simmonds had then carried Nielsen's body to a car parked behind the motel and driven it away.

What happened to Juanita's remains was not revealed, however, because Innes felt that he could not press Trigg further for the details of how the two men had disposed of Nielsen's body, because he feared it would become obvious to Trigg that Innes was "delving down into stuff" and that his cover would be blown.

Innes said Trigg also claimed that a payoff of $70,000 was being held for him in a solicitors trust fund, in exchange for his guilty plea. Innes later discovered that the firm in question was Malcolm, Johns & Co. (who also routinely acted for the alleged mastermind of the murder, Abe Saffron) and that he had also discovered that Saffron was paying Trigg's legal fees.

Innes said he was then extracted from the gaol within 24 hours, and he reported his findings at length to the police. He was later surprised to learn that the Trigg confession was not tendered to the 1983 coronial inquest, although the police did present his finding that Saffron was paying Trigg's legal fees.

Innes told the ABC that he had been recruited for the operation because of lingering concerns within the investigative team that corrupt police officers who were in league with Saffron would try to interfere with the investigation, and that his potentially explosive findings on the case came to nothing because Saffron's allies on the force saw to it that they were not made public.^[33]

Reward[]

In 2021, the reward for information about the disappearance was doubled to $1 million. Her family and the police expressed hope that they might be able to find Neilsen's remains.^[34]

In Australian culture[]

Nielsen's disappearance was fictionalised in Donald Crombie's The Killing of Angel Street in 1981. Crombie said making the film was fraught with tension:

We researched it pretty thoroughly and we got fairly close to the beast, I think. We were peculiarly warned off by none other a person than John Dowd, who's a judge now, I believe. He rang Tony Buckley and said that this film was a bit close to the bone and - talking about me - he said, "He's got young children and he should be thinking a bit about what he's doing." It didn't put us off, but you did look under the car for about two days afterwards because you thought, hang on a minute, what's all this about... And the nexus between government and big business and crime. They're very comfortable together.^[35]

This was swiftly followed by another fictionalisation, Phillip Noyce's Heatwave, in 1982. An artistic documentary, Zanny Begg's The Beehive, came out in 2018.^[36]

The City of Sydney Council opened the Juanita Nielsen Community Centre in Woolloomooloo in 1983.

References[]

External links[]

• McGuinness, P. P. (3 March 2004). "Juanita Nielsen, casualty of ideological war". The Sydney Morning Herald.
• "The Disappearance of Juanita Nielsen". Nine Network – Sunday. Archived from the original on 30 September 2005. Retrieved 3 September 2005.
• "Unsolved". Persons Missing. Retrieved 3 September 2005.