NSW Police Investigation Into 1985 Killing of Sydney Drag Queen Wendy Wayne Was Flawed

Thirty-eight years after popular Sydney drag queen Wendy Wayne was shot dead in her Darlinghurst apartment, a special commission inquiring into unsolved anti-LGBTQI hate crime deaths heard that the NSW police’s investigation into the murder was flawed. 

Counsel assisting Kathleen Heath told the special commission headed by Supreme Court Justice John Sackar that police failed to properly investigate various leads, including a rumoured affair with a police officer, a retaliatory attack by an underworld figure or an anti-LGBTQI hate attack.

The special commission is investigating unsolved deaths of gay men and trans women in Sydney and NSW between the 1970s and 2010.

A Beloved Drag Queen Murdered

Wendy was a beloved Sydney drag queen and trans activist, who performed and managed talent at gay cabaret restaurant ‘Pete’s Beat’ in Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. Wendy was knocked unconscious and shot dead in her apartment in Darlinghurst on April 29, 1985. 

The special commission heard that Wendy’s killing had all the features of a “professional hit job”. Her killer/s removed all bullets and empty casings from her apartment so that there would not be any ballistic evidence. 

“The person/s that murdered (Wendy) intended to kill her. All traces of evidence were removed from the crime scene,” counsel assisting told the inquiry, adding “It supports an inference that she was killed by a person who had knowledge of the value of ballistic evidence to investigators.” 

No one was ever charged for Wendy’s murder and her case has remained unsolved. Counsel assisting pointed to major flaws in the police investigation. “There is ground for serious concern as to why various lines of enquiry were either not pursued at all, or not pursued to finality,” Heath submitted. 

Anti-LGBTQI BIas?

“Her prominence in the LGBTIQ community, and widespread contemporaneous hostility to members of that community including transgender persons, give rise to the realistic possibility that her murder involved LGBTIQ hate,” Heath said. 

An anonymous call was made to a radio station after Wendy’s death, claiming responsibility for her murder on behalf of “Coven of Mercy for Fate” and threatening further attacks on the LGBTQI community in Sydney. 

There were other possible leads, including her relationships with a police constable attached to Darlinghurst Police Station and a security guard. “Her death may have been the result of violence against her by a person with whom she was in a relationship, possibly a police officer and/or a security guard (both of whom might have had access to firearms),” Heath said. 

The other possibility was the murder was drug-related. Wendy had flushed heroin down the toilet that belonged to a friend as she did not want drugs in her apartment. A police informer confessed that his girlfriend was responsible for the murder, while an anonymous phone call claimed that the underworld figure Neddy Smith had ordered the murder. 

Police Did Not Obtain Statements Of Witnesses

Wendy, who also worked as a sex worker, was last seen with a client – a young man with a tattoo of a crucifix. “Her work as a street-based sex worker exposed her to significant risks of violence generally,” Heath said. 

The special commission heard that the police failed to pursue the various leads and take them to a logical conclusion. Heath submitted that police had failed to record the evidence of some witnesses, check alibis of persons of interest or verify the records of anonymous calls. 

“The multitude of theories in relation to the motivation for killing Ms Waine, none of them able to be established, makes it impossible to determine whether LGBTIQ bias was a factor in her death. Conversely, however, while the identity of Wendy’s killer or killers remains unknown, the possibility of LGBTIQ hate or bias motivating her murder cannot be excluded,” counsel assisting said.