It’s been years since Eddie Trigg has seen his former lover. There’s a lot to catch up on as they sit across from each other at a Surry Hills hotel.
Monet King eases his way into the conversation. King, 61, is writing an autobiography, exploring his extraordinary journey: from being born Arthur Montgomery King, to becoming Marilyn King – Miss New Zealand Drag Queen and, later, a cocktail waitress in Kings Cross – to finding God and now identifying as a man.
He’s chosen the name Monet as a tribute to his favourite artist. He tells Trigg he wants to write about their life together in the 1970s and the wild days they shared in the Cross.
And he wants to talk about their connection to one of Sydney’s most enduring mysteries; the 1975 disappearance of 38-year-old journalist and anti-development campaigner Juanita Nielsen. Trigg and King had both been at the Carousel Cabaret in the Cross on the day Nielsen vanished.
“Who killed Juanita Nielsen?” A Kings Cross mural tribute to a death that continues to confound police. Credit: Peter Kevin Solness/Fairfax Media
King says it’s difficult to write about because it is “a forbidden subject” between them.
Trigg seems wary. In fact, scared. He appears to be genuinely afraid of Sydney crime figure Abe Saffron, the owner of the Carousel. “Abe Saffron’s not someone to f— with [even] though he’s f—ing 80-f—ing-something, he’s f—ing nearly a billionaire, and he’s got contacts everywhere,” he tells King as they sit in the pub. “You could put yourself in a lot of f—ing jeopardy, even if he doesn’t go hard, he could sue your arse off.”
If Trigg talks, though, he could solve the Nielsen case. That’s the hope of the third, silent party to this meeting. King is wired and Detective Inspector Nigel Warren is listening outside the pub, hanging on every word.
This is the covert operation that NSW Police hope will solve one of the state’s most notorious cold cases. And this is the first time the recorded conversation can be reported in detail, courtesy of material newly released to the Herald on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Nielsen’s disappearance.
The time: July 1, 2005.
The place: The Royal Exhibition Hotel in Surry Hills.
The target: Eddie Trigg, the former night manager of the Carousel, sitting in the front bar. He is the last known person to see Nielsen alive at the club on the morning of July 4, 1975.
The bait: Trigg’s former lover, Monet King.
The cop: Detective Inspector Nigel Warren, who hopes the meeting will elicit a confession from Trigg.
The Royal Exhibition Hotel, Surry Hills, site of the police sting on Eddie Trigg.Credit: Sam Mooy
The detective knows the meeting of the two old lovers might be the best, and perhaps last, chance to answer the question for years written on walls around Sydney: “Who killed Juanita?”
Warren has worked hard to get to this moment. He flew to New Zealand to interview King and obtained a statement that implicated Trigg in the murder. Up to a point. But he needs more. A confession. He figures that if Trigg is ever going to open up to anyone, it will be to someone who’s been in a relationship with him. He persuades King to come to Sydney and take part in the operation.
“[He] agreed to talk to Eddie for me,” Warren tells the Herald in an exclusive interview. “When you look at them being in a relationship, Monet knows everything about him, what he does, what his movements were [in 1975].
“So, it would have made it very difficult for [Trigg] to lie, or try and pass things off because, in my view, Monet would know what was truth or lie.”
Since leaving Sydney in 1982 to return to New Zealand, King has embraced Christianity, returned to living as a man, and become a community health worker. But the Nielsen case has never left him, and King believes he has a role to play to encourage Trigg “to confess before he dies”.
But Trigg does not play ball. “Be very careful what you say, or what you have to say about [Saffron] or his involvement or what you think his involvement is,” he tells King.
He urges King to stick to the story. Perhaps tellingly, he says: “Just say what you’ve always been saying. Don’t f—ing elaborate and get carried away. It’s been 30-odd f—ing years, and you could buy yourself f—ing trouble to gain a little bit of notoriety, which is pretty ridiculous.
“I won’t go out of my way to antagonise a f—ing person like Abe because it’s just not f—ing worth it.”
King counters that Saffron, who was 86 at the time, was “almost dead”, and pressed on, wanting to know what Trigg would do about the Nielsen mystery. “You’ve got to put it all down on paper.”
Trigg responds: “Well, I can only put down what’s already been f—ing, what’s already down.
“I can’t add any more to it than what’s already there. Everybody assumes and, probably rightly so, that I know the answer, and I don’t.
“I have an idea, but I don’t really know for a fact.”
King turns the conversation to what happened on July 4, 1975, in particular, that Trigg went upstairs at the Carousel with a woman – Nielsen.
Trigg replies: “Which I did. That is public knowledge.”
Trigg has long claimed he asked Nielsen to the club to discuss buying advertising in the local newspaper she ran. They agreed on a price and he paid her. She gave him a receipt, then left.
It’s at this point that Trigg’s wariness turns to suspicion: “You’re on a fishing expedition, aren’t you?”
Hearing this, Warren, outside the hotel, is immediately concerned that the operation might fall apart and King might be in danger.
“I started to get quite worried at this point,” he says. He has a team ready to act if it all goes pear-shaped, and he perceives there is a risk to Monet’s safety.
King is determined to do his best to have Trigg confess before he dies, and denies that he is on a fishing expedition.
Trigg: “F—ing bullshit.”
Mug shot of Eddie Trigg, who feared any revelations he made would get back to Abe Saffron. Credit: SMH
Undaunted, King presses on, telling Trigg: “It would be lovely to know [about Juanita].”
Trigg: “I don’t know any more than what’s already a public record – I do have private opinions, which I would never voice while Abe was alive.”
King: “It looks as though it’s fated, that the mystery will continue.”
Trigg: “There’ll only be value in the story while there is still a mystery, once the mystery is solved, that’s the end of it.”
King: “To solve the mystery, you would have to discover her.”
Trigg: “You’ve got a closed mind. You, like everyone else, assumes she’s dead. You haven’t done your homework. You’re here on a fishing expedition.”
Trigg then makes bizarre allegations, claiming that Nielsen had a dungeon, was satanic and was doing drugs while making out as “a goody, goody, looking after the residents of Victoria Street”.
Nielsen was last seen alive at the Carousel club by Trigg on July 4, 1975.Credit: Fairfax Media
He asserts that Frank Theeman, the developer who wanted to raze the Victorian terraces Nielsen was fighting to protect, had “nothing to do with Juanita”. It was a “cock and bull story, put out to feed the f—ing public, to feed the police, to feed investigators, whatever”.
When talk turns to how the Carousel nightclub ran, with black money being creamed off, Trigg says: “I’m not telling you anything at the time about what I was doing. Why would I do that? F—in’ Abe would put a bullet in my head.”
Again, King is not to be put off, bringing the conversation back to July 4, telling Trigg: “I saw a bit of blood on your shirt.”
He hits back: “You never saw me that day. Listen to me. I don’t give a shit if you say you saw me on the day and I had a bucket of blood on me, not a spot, a bucket of blood. I don’t give a shit.”
Undeterred, King says: “Rubbish, it was only a spot.”
After about 90 minutes, Trigg says: “It’s time to go anyway. Write what you want. You won’t get any backlash from me. I can tell you, I can sit here opposite you right now and say to you, I don’t think for a moment that Juanita Nielsen is dead … Juanita Nielsen is living, is alive and well in f—ing Russia.”
Nigel Warren listened as Monet King tried to draw her former lover, Trigg, into a confession.Credit: Steven Siewert
Listening to the conversation, Inspector Warren isn’t sure whether Trigg is just throwing random thoughts around to throw King off the track or, because of his age and drinking history, is actually delusional. The covert operation has failed to get a confession to Nielsen’s murder. And eight years later, Trigg dies a lonely alcoholic death in a small room at the Abbotts Hotel in Waterloo.
A disappointed Warren has to accept that the operation failed. “As it progressed, I could see it start to fall away and ultimately not lead to any information we could rely on,” he tells the Herald. “I was disappointed on a number of levels; for Monet because he very much wanted answers himself. I think Monet still had a soft heart for Eddie and wanted the truth, and hopefully have Trigg reveal the truth.
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“I was disappointed and frustrated about it because I could not see another avenue or opportunity like this, under these circumstances, which would likely be successful in drawing out the truth. It was very disappointing.”
But 50 years on, police are prepared to rule out some of the more outlandish theories about Nielsen’s death, to say who their main suspects are and who was pulling the strings.
King’s evidence, including the blood he saw that day, is crucial to what police believe happened to the anti-development campaigner at the Carousel 50 years ago.
In the Herald on Friday: The Last Trace of Juanita
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