The double murder that shocked the nation

Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan's bodies were never found, but their murderer was. Mark Tedeschi, the author of a new book on the case, unpicks the shocking details.

- Mark Morri

Happy, healthy, mature, middle-class women rarely go missing for more than a few days, and they are hardly ever among the ranks of those who are never found. Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan were not hitchhikers, or associates of drug dealers, or unhappy with their lives, or suffering from mental health issues. In fact, they fell well outside any of the conventional categories of people at risk of permanently disappearing.

Dorothy Davis was a 74-year-old widow who lived in a house in the quiet, upmarket, seaside suburb of Lurline Bay in south-eastern Sydney. She was financially comfortable and led a peaceful, predictable life centred around her children, grandchildren and many friends. Kerry Whelan was an active and healthy 39-year-old with an affluent, family-based lifestyle. She lived with her husband, Bernie Whelan, the CEO of the Australian arm of Crown Equipment, a large multinational company that made forklifts, and their three children on an expansive rural property at Kurrajong on the north-western outskirts of Sydney, where they ran horses and enjoyed country life.

Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan came from different parts of Sydney, mixed in quite different circles and led completely different lives. They never met each other, and if they had, would have had little in common. In fact, Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan had only one thing in common - they both knew Bruce Allan Burrell.

Dorothy Davis left her home on foot on Tuesday 30 May, 1995, a few days after an angry confrontation with Bruce Burrell about an outstanding loan of $100,000 that she had secretly made to assist him to buy a new house for himself and his wife, Dallas, whom Dorothy had known since Dallas' childhood and whom she dearly loved.