Murder documentary makers traced family’s history in Helensburgh
At the end of last year (2021) the ABC producers were working on a new series the Family Court Murders. Director Chris Thorburn and author of the book, Family Court Murders, Debi Marshall, had been working on researching and filming for an ABC...
By Jenny Donohoe, Helensburgh Historical Society researcher
Towards the end of 2021, ABC TV producers spent time in Helensburgh working on a new TV documentary about the Family Court Murders of the 1980s.
The second episode of the four-part series about four murders, two shootings, and five bombings between 1980 and 1985, featured Historical Society president Jim Powell (see sidebar).
Director Chris Thorburn and Walkley award-winning crime journalist Debi Marshall, author of the book, The Family Court Murders, on which the series is based, spent time in Helensburgh researching and filming part of the documentary.
In September 2020, Helensburgh-born Leonard Warwick Jnr, then 73, was sentenced to three life terms for murdering a judge, a judge’s wife and a churchgoer. The murder of Warwick’s brother-in-law, for which he was a suspect, remains unsolved. Why did it take so long for Warwick to be charged? Well, you will have to watch the series.
Leonard (Lenny) John Warwick was born in 1947 in Helensburgh, son of Leonard John Warwick (1913-1994) and Eileen Muriel Grant (1922-1953). Leonard’s sister, Eileen was born in 1948, in Helensburgh, but she disappeared about 1963.
No record has been found and Ancestry.com recorded her death in 1953, but that is wrong; her mother died in 1953. (Confusingly, mother and daughter had the same name.)
The Warwick families were old pioneers who moved to the district from 1910-1913 and lived on Lawrence Hargrave Drive, called Blue Gum then, now Helensburgh.
The original pioneers were Walter John Warwick (1879-1933) and Pearly Theodora Arnold (1891-1964); their children were Walter Reginald (1910-1986); Leonard John Snr (1913-1994); Eric Wilton (1917-1993) Enid Joyce (1923-1997) – the last three children were born in Helensburgh.
See Historical Society president interviewed
Long-time Helensburgh resident and local historian Jim Powell has featured in the second episode of investigative journalist Debi Marshall’s gripping four-part documentary series, The Family Court Murders, on ABC.
In the episode, titled “An Unusual Killer” and aired on Tuesday, May 17, Marshall visits Helensburgh because that is where the convicted family court killer, Leonard John Warwick, was born and raised. His five-year reign of terror, from 1980 to 1985, included the murder of a judge with a .22 calibre rifle and the bomb-related murders of two people in separate incidents.
In an on-screen interview with Marshall, Jim talks about Helensburgh, its mining history, and he also explains that Warwick’s father had worked his way up from shovelling coal to being in charge of shot-firing* at the mine. (* The placement and detonation of explosives in a coal wall so rocks and hard soil can be removed from the site.)
The Family Court Murders can be watched via ABC iview.
