CRIME FILES: Kalgan double murder

Tim Edmunds reports on the 1947 capture of a brutal double murderer at a Kalgan River farm. Two days after the gruesome discovery of the bodies of a mother and her three-year-old daughter, the intensive manhunt for the man believed responsible for the double murder came to an end at a Kalgan River farm, Tim Edmunds reports.

Farmhand William Dudley Doggett had trudged nearly 50km from the scene where he wilfully killed the wife of his employer and their three-year-old daughter.

Merab Constance Green, 42, and Ann Elizabeth Green were found battered from a beating with a spanner and the infant had been shot through the head with a .22-calibre shotgun.

Doggett had seen the Greens enter the dairy on their farm, where he was working, when his increasing sexual desire for Mrs Green led to him grabbing her and a struggle began.

He picked up a spanner and hit Mrs Green over the head with it twice to quieten her as he pulled her back inside the shed before hitting Ann twice with a separator bowl.

Evidence in his trial included his statement to police, which was read out by investigating Detective Sergeant Richards, who told how Doggett had battered Mrs Green and her daughter about the head and had later shot Ann through the head with a rifle.

“I felt a change come over me,” Doggett said. “Something seemed to push me forward, against my will.”

Doggett told the court he struck Mrs Green because he was “alarmed and frightened” and had not intended to kill her, but admitted to doing so.

The shocking discovery of the bodies was made by school bus driver John Lawrence, who finished his run that evening and it was common practice for him to spend the night at the Green farm before setting off the next day.

He arrived at 5pm with the Greens’ eldest child Robert, who took the bus to school.

There was no sign of Mrs Green, Ann or Doggett.

Mr Lawrence and Robert set out to look for them as it became dark.

Opening the door of the engine shed next to the milking shed, they found Mrs Green on the floor with a coat thrown over her, and baby Ann also had several head injuries and had sacks thrown over her.

By this time Doggett had packed a kit bag and begun trekking, and an intensive manhunt began.

He camped that night on a bank of the King River and left his kit bag in the bush. Two days later in squally Albany weather, two detectives arrested and charged Doggett with the two wilful murders.

Doggett had imagined there would be a police hunt for him.

He was not surprised when police officers arrived at a hut on the farm.

They had tracked Doggett to a homestead a mile from Albany, sneaking up behind him as he was getting changed and nabbed him and seized his rifle.

Doggett was wearing dark trousers, a shirt, a pullover and a short leather jacket when he was taken into custody.

Later that afternoon, after being charged, he was taken to the scene of the murders handcuffed to a detective.

Doggett pleaded not guilty to the charge of wilful murder of Mrs Green, but the crown chose not to proceed with the second murder charge.

Called as the only defence witness, Doggett testified with a lack of emotion as he confirmed to the court his confessions to police about killing the pair were indeed correct.

On September 5, 1947, he was found guilty by the jury of the murder of Merab Constance Green.

Justice Walker did not pronounce a sentence of death, but directed a judgment of death should be entered on the record against him.

A month later, the death sentence recorded against Doggett was commuted to imprisonment for life with hard labour.