An inquest into the deaths of the two Indigenous teenagers erupted into emotional scenes when a coroner found a drunk white man sexually abused a 15-year-old girl as she lay dead after a horrific accident in the Outback.
A courtroom packed with families of cousins Mona Lisa Smith, 16, and Jacinda ‘Cindy’ Rose Smith, 15, was shaken by a man shouting profanities after the ruling at the Bourke courthouse in far northwest New South Wales, on Tuesday.
The teenagers died on the remote Mitchell Highway at Enngonia, outside Bourke. in December 1987.
Some thirty-seven years later, state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan found that Caucasian driver Alexander Grant had engaged in “predatory and disgraceful conduct” with Cindy on the side of the road after her death.
The coroner also found Grant had previously driven around Bourke looking for young Aboriginal men to get drunk and sexually assault.
Jacinta Rose ‘Cindy’ Smith was sexually assaulted by white driver Alexander Grant shortly after she died from massive internal injuries caused by the drunk and lascivious digger’s road accident.
“Horrifyingly, the evidence indicates that he sexually interfered with Cindy after she died,” the coroner said.
“I am convinced that there was some type of sexual interference on Cindy’s part by touching his chest or genital area after his death.”
O’Sullivan also concluded Grant had lied when he said he was not driving his Toyota HiLux ute when it crashed.
He also found that police racism at the time meant the accident was never properly investigated.
In In the weeks before the crash, a white driver had picked up Cindy and relative Sharon Smith, among other girls, and had behaved in a “predatory and sexually inappropriate manner”, the court heard.
“I think it was Mr Grant,” said Mrs O’Sullivan. On the night in question, December 5, 1987, she said Grant “was again exploring Bourke township looking for young girls to consume alcohol and proposition for sex.”
He discovered that the girls had agreed to let Grant take them the short distance to the dam at Bourke, near where they lived.
But “instead of taking them home, he went with them to the Riverview Hotel around 10 p.m. to buy alcohol.”
Then, in the early hours of Sunday 7 December 1987, Grant crashed his ute as a result of unsafe driving due to “intoxication, fatigue, road speed and lack of lighting”.
Ms O’Sullivan was satisfied that Grant had remained in the vehicle while it rolled, but that Cindy and Mona Lisa had been thrown from the ute and suffered catastrophic injuries when it “rolled over” them.
He could not estimate the specific time of their death, but said they died “very shortly after the accident.”
‘Mona… from multiple internal injuries, including head and lung injuries, and extensive blood loss. Cindy… from multiple internal injuries, including pelvic and lung injuries, and extensive blood loss.
The coroner found that Cindy and Mona Lisa Smith (above) died after being picked up by a drunken Grant who sought out young girls in Bourke Township to consume alcohol and proposition them for sex.
Grant was charged with indecent interference with Cindy’s corpse and culpable driving causing the death of both girls, but the indecency charge was dropped and an all-white jury acquitted him of the latter charge at his trial. 1990.
Grant told a police officer at the scene that he was driving the vehicle, but later changed the story and said it was Mona Lisa who was driving.
The coroner found Grant was driving the car despite lying about it afterwards and accepted the evidence of the police officer at the scene of the accident that morning, Constable Ken McKenzie.
McKenzie had observed that Grant smelled strongly of alcohol, had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, was unsteady on his feet, and was dirty and disheveled.
he had indicated at that point Grant had just changed his story, saying ‘oh, she’s the host now.’
“I have no hesitation in accepting his account,” Ms O’Sullivan said.
However, she did not have as much faith in the testimony of the former Detective Sergeant Peter Ehsman, who had told the inquest he believed Grant’s story that he was not driving the vehicle and was not aware of any admissions at the scene.
After the accident: The highway crime scene that police failed to properly investigate, leaving it up to indigenous relatives to find Mona Lisa’s torn off ear on the side of the road.
‘If Mr. Ehsman had undertaken a thorough investigation… he would surely have learned of these confessions. Mr. Ehsman did not clearly see the possibility that Mr. Grant could be lying.
The coroner found there had been evidence of systemic racism or cultural bias within Bourke police in the 1980s.
He said “tensions” between the Aboriginal community and police and “the existence of racial bias within the NSW police force at the time” affected the investigation into the girls’ deaths.
He described the “at least unconscious bias” on Mr. Ehsman’s part as “deeply concerning.”
Mr Ehsman had told the inquiry it was not unusual for young unlicensed Aboriginal children to drive, even though Grant’s ute was manual and not automatic.
O’Sullivan also found it unacceptable that Cindy and Mona Lisa’s mothers, Dawn and June Smith, who appeared in court on Tuesday, learned of their daughter’s death “from other family members instead of being notified by the police”.
“This investigation was their last hope of getting answers about the circumstances of their beloved girls’ deaths, some form of justice, albeit decades late,” he said.
‘Their families loved them very much. They attended Bourke High School where they were clearly popular…they were inseparable, like sisters.
‘Mona and Cindy were bright young people, full of life and enthusiasm, they had high hopes… and dreams.
Alexander Grant’s ute, in which he roamed the streets of Bourke looking for young indigenous people to drink and proposition, after the hit that left him unscathed but killed his teenage cousins Mona Lisa and Cindy Smith.
Mona Lisa Smith (above) and her cousin Cindy were “like sisters” and “were bright young women, full of life and enthusiasm, they had high hopes… and dreams.”
“The pain and anguish of his passing remains raw for his families.”
He praised the mothers for continuing the investigation into the girls’ deaths, saying “it’s been a long journey.” There have been many ups and downs along the way, but you never gave up.”
The investigation, which took place over seven days in November and December last year, found disturbing evidence about Grant’s sexual behavior with underage girls and police indifference.
After Grant crashed his car, Mona Lisa’s body was found partially scalped and lying on the ground meters away, while Grant was found with his arms crossed over the exposed breasts of Cindy’s body.
Cindy was lying on a tarp and her clothes had been pulled up to her neck and ankles.
Two civilian witnesses who first encountered the accident scene observed Cindy’s nearly naked body lying next to Grant with her legs together.
In court to hear the coroner’s findings on Tuesday were (pictured campaigning) Mona’s sister Fiona Smith (left), Mona’s mother June Smith (second left), Cindy’s sister Kerrie Smith, and (second from right), Cindy’s mother, Dawn. blacksmith
But the first police officer who arrived later discovered that the girl’s legs had been moved (presumably by Grant) to expose her genitals.
Mona Lisa’s partially torn off ear was found late at the crash site, not by investigating police, but by members of her family.
Grant had the steering wheel of his Toyota taken from the crashed vehicle, which police were unable to seize or properly examine.
Her powerful attorney argued that Mona was driving the crashed van, and prosecutors “didn’t bill” or drop the charge of interfering with Cindy’s body because of a technicality.
At the trial, which was held in the same courthouse as the coroner’s inquest, Cindy’s mother was so upset by Grant’s acquittal that she threw a shoe at the all-white jury.
After the jury acquitted him, Grant fled the city and later died at age 70 in a nursing home in New South Wales in 2017.
Officers from Bourke police station investigated the accident, but the lead detective believed white man Grant that it was Mona Lisa, not him, who was driving when the ute rolled.