The Boy in the Blue Cap Gerard Ross: Could boy’s attempted kidnapping offer fresh clues to cold case?

An attempted kidnapping in Western Australia three decades ago could shed new light on the unsolved 1997 murder of schoolboy Gerard Ross.

The Nightly can reveal that just a few years before 11-year-old Gerard was snatched off the street in Rockingham, another boy was almost abducted in eerily similar circumstances.

In 1994, two men had tried to grab young Ben Robbins as he walked to a friend’s house, just 35m from his home, on Hillcrest Street at Coogee.

“I was eight years old,” he told The Nightly.

“I remember a white vehicle with a bonnet pulling up and somebody jumping out and grabbing hold of me.

“I kicked and screamed and ran home.

“In all honesty, I’d sort of forgotten about it until you brought it back up.”

Mr Robbins, now a fuel truck driver, said the incident occurred out the front of his friend’s house, across the road and a couple of doors down.

“I was going up the street and they came up from behind,” he said.

“It was up at the corner house.

“I’m pretty sure I was walking up to the Johnsons’ house because I was up there all the time. It was on the grass, right out the front of their property.”

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The 37-year-old said that while he cannot recall many details of the incident due to his age at the time, he vividly remembers “being hysterical about it”.

“It wasn’t the driver that jumped out. There were definitely two men,” he said.

“It was on the opposite side of the road, so I ran back down the hill and across the road to our yard.

“I remember running down to our front yard screaming.”

Ben’s mum Ruth, who was inside their house, heard her son yelling.

“Ben was screaming and I raced out the front door and the vehicle was still there but I didn’t see inside it,” she said.

The incident occurred in broad daylight on a Monday afternoon.

WA Police confirmed that on December 5, 1994, Cockburn Police responded to the attempted abduction after receiving a call from Ben’s father Lee Robbins.

“The report indicates that a statement was taken from the 8-year-old male victim and a male neighbour,” a spokesperson said.

“It was reported that two males in a white Holden utility drove alongside the victim.

“The male passenger exited the utility and grabbed the victim by the arm and tried to pull him into the vehicle.

“The victim struggled with the male, before running to his home and advising his father.”

The witnesses were only able to provide police with a “limited description” of the offender’s appearance and vehicle at the time.

“It was described as a white Holden utility – HK, HG or HQ model – with a black tarpaulin covering the rear tray area,” police said.

“In this time period, it was very common for utilities to have black canvases covering the rear tray area.

“The matter was investigated by Fremantle Detectives but unfortunately no persons were charged.”

The Nightly has spoken to residents who had lived on Hillcrest Street when the attempted abduction occurred.

Amanda Covich recalls witnessing the traumatic incident as a small child.

“Yeah (I saw it happen) but I was a kid,” she said.

“I just remember him getting away. He fought them off and he escaped. That’s what I remember.

“I’m pretty sure I was playing out in the street and we ran inside to tell our parents.”

Amanda’s mother, Dunja Covich, told The Nightly she remembers “bits and pieces”.

“I just remember Ben coming down the hill on his bike to our house saying, ‘I nearly got abducted by a couple of men in a car’ who tried to pull him in,” she said.

“That’s all I remember. I had three little children at the time and I was probably concentrating on them and keeping them inside.

“But I was shocked because it was a really safe neighbourhood.”

Charis Covich was visiting Hillcrest Street that day.

“My husband and father-in-law ran out to the road but, by then, the car had taken off and gone down Beach Street,” she said.

“Andrew Johnson was having a cigarette on his steps and saw it happen.”

Mr Johnson provided a statement to police at the time but sadly has since passed away.

One neighbour reportedly saw the two offenders watching the children with binoculars from a nearby lookout the day before the abduction attempt but The Nightly has been unable to contact her to confirm this account.

Ms Covich said that after hearing about this sighting, she had gone to the lookout and found “lots of cigarette butts and beer bottles lying around”.

“Coogee, at that time, was still really rural and not built up like it is today,” she said.

“It was just a small pocket of residential and beach houses surrounded by market gardens and abattoirs.

“It was just so weird that those men were even at the lookout because only the locals knew about the lookout.”

Ms Covich believes that after hitting Cockburn Road, the men would have headed south.

“They would not have driven north because Fremantle was too built up, so they definitely would have driven south, and there was nothing but bush that way,” she said.

“The next stop, or built-up area, was Rockingham where Gerard was abducted from. Cockburn Road ran along the coast then, and it was only a 15-minute straight run to Rockingham foreshore.

“When I first heard Gerard had gone missing, I thought those two men might have been involved. What are the odds of two pairs of predators operating around that time in basically the same area?”

A few years later, Gerard disappeared during a family holiday in Rockingham, south of Perth.

On the morning of October 14, 1997, Gerard and his brother Malcolm left their holiday unit at 105 Kent Street headed for a nearby comic shop.

Gerard, 11, was on foot while 13-year-old Malcolm went ahead on his rollerblades.

They had agreed to meet at the comic shop, which was located on the beach end of the now-demolished Woolworths arcade about 1km away, but Gerard never arrived.

CCTV footage from the Gull Rockingham indicates that he was abducted from Kent St before reaching the service station 800m away.

Horse trainer Mick Miller found the boy’s body in the Karnup pine plantation, 20km away, two weeks later.

In 2019, The West Australian released an eight-part investigative documentary The Boy in the Blue Cap: The Gerard Ross Story, which is now available on The Nightly.

In an exclusive interview for the documentary, a former Kent Street resident said she saw a boy being pushed into a car outside 68 Kent Street on the morning Gerard vanished.

Rose Jurek, who police called a “credible” witness, said she saw two men struggling with a black-haired boy wearing a hat around the time that Gerard was abducted, on the street where he was last seen.

Police took Ms Jurek’s account seriously and thoroughly investigated it, but were unable to identify the people or vehicle she described.

It remains unknown if Gerard was abducted and murdered by a lone offender or an offender with an accomplice.

Some detectives have long suspected two men were involved in Gerard’s abduction because it could explain how Gerard was restrained in a moving vehicle while the other offender drove.

While police say there is nothing, at this point in time, to link Mr Robbins’ attempted abduction with Gerard’s murder, there are obvious similarities.

Both incidents were opportunistic, brazen, blitz-style attacks, committed by predators prowling Perth’s beachside suburbs on weekdays – when most adults were at work – in the mid-1990s.

Both victims were young boys, of similar age, who were approached while walking alone in “safe” neighbourhoods during the day.

Police this week said that as part of the investigation into Gerard’s murder, extensive inquiries were conducted into suspicious approaches and reported abductions as well as other incidents to identify any similar or linked offences.

“The search parameters included many years prior to 1997 and areas outside the suburb of Rockingham,” a spokesperson said.

“A large number of reports were identified, reviewed and cross-referenced, however at this time no offences have been linked to the Ross homicide.”

Police said Mr Robbins’ attempted abduction report would have been captured and reviewed during the intelligence phases of Gerard’s investigation and reviews.

“All reported abductions were reviewed to identify any similarities to the Ross homicide,” a spokesperson said.

“Where similarities were identified, further investigation was conducted.”

The investigation into Gerard’s case – now codenamed Operation Footlight – remains the second largest in WA history after the Operation Macro investigation into the Claremont serial killings.

Solving it has also become one of the special crime squad’s highest priorities with a $1 million reward for information that leads to a prosecution on offer.

“The Special Crime Squad – Homicide remains committed to resolving the 1997 homicide of Gerard Ross,” a spokesperson said.

“Any person who provides information resulting in the conviction of the person or persons responsible may be eligible for a reward of up to $1 million.”

Anyone with information about the murder of Gerard Ross, the attempted abduction of Mr Robbins or any other historic offence is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.