Missing poster found in old home sees Aussie teen's tragic murder revisited

A new homeowner’s discovery while cleaning out their roof has shone the light on the tragic murder of a 14-year-old Victorian boy almost 60 years ago.

The resident said last week they found a missing poster for a young boy named Russell James Rushton in a pile of newspapers tucked away in the house they just bought.

“Have you seen this boy?” the flyer asks across the top in large red letters. Russell James Rushton vanished on the afternoon of May 13, 1966, in Geelong, Victoria, the poster says, urging anyone with information about the “very blonde” boy’s whereabouts to call the police.

Curious about what happened to the teen schoolboy, the homeowner posted an image of their discovery on a Reddit page dedicated to the local community. “Hidden in a stack of old newspapers from Northern Territory!” they explained.

It didn’t take long for residents to reveal the tragic story behind the missing poster — Russell had been murdered by a school friend but his body was not discovered until seven weeks later, partially concealed in a bush.

“Unbelievable! I remember my Nanna telling me this story when I was young,” one person commented, while others urged the Geelong resident to donate the poster to a museum or library. “A local tells me his family was so heartbroken that they sold their family home and left town,” the homeowner commented.

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Missing boy's body found by schoolgirls

A group of high school girls were hiking near the former cement works site on June 28, 1966, when a few spotted Russell’s body, wearing heavily blood-stained clothes, face down in a shallow depression on a steep river bank, according to a transcript of an inquest into Russell’s murder obtained by Yahoo News Australia.

One of the girls testified she saw a “bundle of clothes or rags” and “a short distance away there was a bone”. Russell had been stabbed more than 20 times in his chest and back.

The 14-year-old was “very interested in trains at the cement works”, his dad James Rushton said, and would frequently visit the area to watch them move about. However, when he never returned home, his worried parents launched a frantic search and contacted the boy’s friend Phillip Batty, who lived on the next street over.

“He appeared to be quite normal,” James Rushton said after his encounter with Batty.

Teen killer admits to stabbing friend

Batty said he had not seen Russell, but a couple of days later claimed the missing teen had asked him to leave a rope at a field near the cement works the same day he disappeared. Three weeks later Batty was questioned by Russell’s mum about his possible whereabouts, but once again said he didn’t know where his friend had gone.

Despite his repeated denials, the day after the teen’s body was discovered, Batty walked into the local police station with his dad and said “I stabbed him with my knife”, witnesses testified. Batty told officers he and Russell were walking on the train tracks before they got into a fight and he pulled out a knife he had taken from his little brother and later tossed into a field. He said he stabbed Russell, who he claimed had shoved him, before he fell to the ground.

“Well I don’t like to just leave him like that,” he told officers, according to court documents. “I didn’t want him to stay alive. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, it just got away from me.”

Batty was sentenced to 10 years in jail and died in 2013 at the age of 60, according to the Geelong Independent.

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