Issue 38: Derrance Stevenson
The murder in the triangle house
TW: This story contains a lot of behaviour that we would not respect now, nor should expect from a person of status. The words I have used are not to lesson the seriousness of the crimes and acts that were perpetrated. I am just trying to be sensitive to anyone who may stumble across this, particularly as it pertains to many underage and unidentified victims.
Once a individual is convicted of murder that usually means you have that record for life. If you are lucky enough to do your sentence, you would simply be happy to move on with your life. David Szach; however, was no such individual. Having been convicted at 19 years old of killing his lover, Derrance Stevenson, he had spent 14 years in prison professing his innocence. Then in 2013 the law changed which gave David another shot of clearing his name. In South Australia, convicted criminals were now allowed ask leave to appeal a second time if there is fresh or compelling evidence they have been wrongly convicted. Hoping to capitalise on this David turned to Investigative Journalist, Debi Marshall for help - the results of which no one expected.
Back in 1979 Derrance Stevenson was a prominent criminal lawyer. Just 4 years prior South Australia had been the first state to decriminalise male homosexuality under reformist premier Don Dunstan and attorney-general Peter Duncan. Although still considered taboo, this did not stop Derrance Stevenson a year later meeting and beginning a ‘long-term relationship’ with David Szach after meeting him. I have placed the words in quotation marks because at the time the relationship stated, David was underage at only 16 years of age. It had been in fact Derrance’s best friend, Gino Gambardella, a chiropractor who was known for spending times in sex clubs and on the gay club scene, that was the individual that introduced the two. When the two began seeing each other David recounts that Derrance specifically stated that he was to ‘not talk about us’.
Times have defensively changed, and today this relationship is already raising some red flags. Debi did try to raise this multiple times throughout the series only to be met with dismissal by David. Whether that is because he wanted to believe that Derrance wouldn’t take advantage of him, or the trauma protecting him — it is all up for speculation.
Once he was introduced into the fold, David would start spending a lot of time both Derrance and Gino. Derrance’s residence, much like his personality, did not simply blend into the background. It had a triangle roof that made it more feel like a big white tent - it has long been demolished. David remembers that there quite a few Friday nights where these soirée were held. Do not let the fancy name understate what was really happening. In reality, these Friday nights were when Gino would procure underage boys and deliver them to Derrance’s doorstep where he would engage in activities sexual in nature.
LEADING UP TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE MURDER
Monday 4 June 1979 ran like clockwork to begin with. It was around 9am that Derrance went to work, David was at his place and because he didn’t have work he would sleep to around 2.40pm. It was around this time that Derrance came home. David recalls that they had tea and fruitcake.
Then at around 4.40pm he had a 20 minute phonecall with a person by the name of Mark Lawrence. It was also between 5 - 5.20pm that David was seen out driving Derrance’s car, he had asked David to go and get some milk.
Back at Derrance’s house it was around 6pm that Gino invited Derrance around to his and his wife’s house later that night, to celebrate her birthday. The celebration was set for 7.30 and Derrance did not arrive.
David was not with Derrance as he had headed instead to a bus stop. David’s plans were to head up to Coober Pedy by bus; however, David recounts that he had received a call from Derrance and he had told him that David could take his car. David went back to the house via his parents place. After the initial call David had tried twice to get Derrance again, but to no avail. David arrived back at Derrance’s at around 8pm, he cleaned up the cups and saucers from the afternoon tea before driving through the night to Coober Pedy, around 900kms away.
Coober Pedy is sometimes called the ‘opal capital of the world’ because of the quantity of opals that are mined there. In fact, it was opals that Derrance had invested in and had sent David up to check out. Derrance also had a ring with a very large opal on it, it was this ring that David was wearing the next morning when he was taken into the police station on reports of Derrance’s car being reported as stolen. He was arrested on being in possession of Derrance's car, and it was while they were interviewing him on this matter that the whereabouts of Derrance came to light.
Back in Adelaide, having gone through the house the police found no sign of Derrance. The only place that hadn’t been searched was a deep freeze that was kept in the kitchen. The freezer was super-glued and taped shut. At around 5pm it was opened and the partially clothed body of Derrance Stevenson was found crouch and folded up. He was frozen solid. Once the news reached Coober Pedy, David was charged with murder.
THE EVIDENCE
David claims that the evidence was all circumstantial. Nevertheless, he was convicted of murder. The evidence that was established was the following:
His fingerprints all over the freezer
Some understanding that Derrance was going to leave David as he had ‘become tired’ of him
Gun powder residue
The time of death
TIME OF DEATH
One of David’s biggest pieces of evidence that he claims backs up his story is that the time of death meant that he couldn’t have had the chance to murder him. The original time of death was recorded as 4.45pm to 8.45pm. However, this is where we get into the controversy of this case.
The examination and autopsy of Derrance was conducted by Dr Colin Manock, a former chief forensic pathologist of South Australia. Actually, that should be disgraced former chief forensic pathologist. Although he performed more than 10,000 autopsies and gave expert scientific evidence in court that helped secure approximately 400 criminal convictions — he was not qualified to do so. The subject of which is far to long to go into here but is the subject of it’s own book, A Witness of Fact, that was published in 2002.
How all this relates to the time of death is that the original time of death was calculated with an experimental formula. It is this formula that helps calculate how long a body takes to cool, thus allowing a time to be estimate. However, the formula does not work if that the body is frozen solid. So with the wrong formula applied - it would throw the time of death out the window. As part of her investigation, Debi Marshall spoke to Dr Byron Collins, pathologist, who stated that when a body is frozen, a time of death cannot be determined. Taking this into account the time of death was revised to 6pm to 8.45pm.
RESULTS OF DEBI’S INVESTIGATION
Although David did pass a lie-detector test, it is possible that he could have convinced himself that he is in fact innocent and did not commit the murder. There were many other inconsistency’s that Debi found throughout her investigation. There was also the fact that even though David had given his word that he was being 100% truthful with what happened — he had in fact been omitting quite a few facts about the case and even flat out lied to her. It was because of this and after exhausting the other leads, Debi came to the conclusion that David did kill Derrance in a jealous rage. It should be noted that Derrance’s friend, Gino Gambardella was charged as an accessory to murder but fled before he could be brought in.