Toowoomba murders 'person of interest' Desmond Roy Hilton faces hearing - The Australian

The last known photo of Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans. Picture: Angelo Soulas Source: The Sunday Telegraph

A PERSON of interest in the unsolved 1974 killing of two nurses has denied feigning memory loss to protect other suspects implicated in the brutal double-murder.

A "confused" Desmond Roy Hilton, 63, today told a fresh inquest into the slayings that he would have been too drunk to remember washing blood out of a car used by a violent gang of his relatives, despite previously describing the incident in detail to police.

He also said he would have been too keen to get back to the "beer bottle" to worry about the welfare of the girls his mates had admitted to giving "a hiding".

Sydney-based trainee nurses Wendy Evans, 18, and Lorraine Wilson, 20, disappeared while hitch-hiking in southern Queensland in October 1974.

Their remains were found in bushland at Murphys Creek, in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range near Toowoomba, two years later.

Mr Hilton is the final person of interest of to give evidence at the coronial inquest in Toowoomba this week.

Of the several identified, only three are still alive.

The inquest has been told the group of men suspected of murdering the nurses - mostly from the Hilton and Laurie families - were well-known "hooning" through Toowoomba in Holden cars, drinking, brawling and picking up women against their will.

In 2008, Mr Hilton told police he had washed blood from a green Holden belonging to the Laurie family one Sunday morning in October 1974.

He said six men, including his cousin Wayne "Boogie" Hilton and relatives Allan "Shorty" Laurie and Allan "Ungie" Laurie, had turned up at his house in Toowoomba.

He said the men told him they had given a couple of girls a "hiding down the range".

However today, Mr Hilton had trouble remembering anything about the incident.

At one stage he said he could not remember the men talking about "girls" but rather a "brawl" with men down the range.

He suggested that if the substance was blood, it could have been from a kangaroo caught when the men were "roo-shooting".

"I was asked to clean the car, whether there was blood in there or not, I would've been too drunk to understand or remember," he said.

After several similar responses, barrister Wayne Kelly, representing the Queensland Police Commissioner, said Mr Hilton's excuses were not good enough and accused him of protecting the other accused men, some of whom are dead.

Mr Hilton denied the allegation: "It's not that I don't want to remember, it's just that it's not coming to my brain."

Earlier, Craig Chowdhury, counsel assisting the coroner, asked Mr Hilton whether he inquired about the welfare of the girls who had received the hiding.

Mr Hilton said no. He said he would have been too drunk to care.

The inquest was told Mr Hilton had been diagnosed by his doctor as having "memory issues".

The inquest continues this afternoon before Coroner Michael Barnes, when recently received evidence will be discussed.