Some stories are not forgotten — they wait hidden in the shadows, whispering to be told.
‘For Charlie, whose life lasted six years. For Susan, who learned to survive the rest.’
In the days leading up to the shooting, Ted Benedek told his children that to stay together, they would all need to ‘go to Heaven.’ Charlie, six, asked questions. Susan, four, clung to his words. Neither sensed the danger gathering behind their father’s calm.
As dawn washed over Victoria’s Otway Ranges on 23 June 1971, two rifle shots tore through the stillness. Ted deliberately fired both into the chest of his six-year-old son, Charlie. The bullets ripped through the boy’s small frame, shattering bone and breaking the quiet of the morning. From the back seat of the wrecked family station wagon, four-year-old Susan watched her brother die. The shots ended one life; what followed nearly destroyed another.
A Whispering of Trees begins with this unthinkable act and follows the long shadow it casts over the decades that follow. The horror did not end in the Otway forest. While Ted survived his failed suicide attempt and was quickly shielded by the law’s declaration of insanity, Susan was swept into a welfare system wholly unprepared — and unwilling — to protect her. Within days, she became a ward of the state and was placed in a home defined not by safety but by danger: a household marked by criminality, predation and neglect.
The press barely noted the tragedy; the institutions charged with safeguarding children like Susan moved on with bureaucratic indifference. Yet for the girl who had witnessed her brother’s death, there was no moving on. Her childhood unfolded within a maze of state-run facilities, court orders, psychiatric assessments and the quiet cruelties of adults who did not see her — or did not care to.
Drawing on court transcripts, psychiatric files, government records, and interviews with those still marked by the events of 1971, A Whispering of Trees lays bare a case that reveals more than a single crime. It uncovers a system that repeatedly failed a vulnerable child — and a woman who, despite every barrier, rose above the ruins of her past.
‘A gripping and courageous work of true crime. Rosenhain and Newbury illuminate the shadows with rare clarity and compassion.’
‘A haunting, meticulously researched account that reads with the urgency of a thriller and the heart of lived truth.’
Nola –
An eminently readable book about the circumstances surrounding the life & tragic murder of Charlie Benedek & it’s aftermath. Well researched & well written by Carol Rosenhain & Peter Newbury.
Mrs Jennifer Swain –
This is a sad story of a little boy who was shot by his father on a lonely road, in the Orway Forest. I knew about this terrible tragedy because my husband and I were caught up in it. It happpened on 23rd June 1971. While reading the book brought it all back to me again, I learned many facts that I hadn’t known before. My congratulations to Anthony Rosenhain who came across the story and Carol Rosenhain the Historian, who brought it to life.
Geraldine carrodus –
A Whispering of Trees by Carol Rosenhain and Peter Newbury
*****
Mark Twain is famous for his observation that ‘truth is stranger than fiction’, even though the phrase was possibly used over a century earlier by Lord Byron. Less well known is Twain’s addition to the saying – ‘Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.’
The tragic tale of the murder of a 6 year old boy by his father in the Ottway Ranges in 1971 is a true story no fiction writer would have dared to create. Desperate after the departure of his wife and unsure of his ability to care for two small children, Ted Benedek resolved to kill both his children. Whether he also intended to kill himself is unclear, but the actions of that morning in 1971 were to have repercussions for Ted and for his then four year old daughter Susan, for decades to come..
‘A Whispering of Trees’ by Carol Rosenhain and Peter Newbury, is really two stories. Told with great sensitivity, the book recounts the migration stories of Ritva Astrom from Finland and Hungarian Ted Benedek, who met and married in Perth in 1964. Uncertain employment and mental instability meant that the marriage was always shaky, and following the birth of two children, Ritva abandoned Ted, Charlie and Susan, to return to Finland in 1969. Faced with the seemingly impossible burden of providing for Charlie and Susan and maintaining a stable home, Ted made an unthinkable decision – ‘The family for which he had so longed must remain together, if not in life then perhaps in death.’
The other story, woven into the experiences of Ted and Susan, is a thoroughly researched and shocking examination of the labyrinth that is the mental health system, especially when it interacts with the judicial system. and the whole area of child welfare. The book examines the many ways in which both systems failed Susan, and in some ways, also failed her father.
Rosenhain and Newbury have delivered an insightful, chilling and thoroughly readable story that attempts to unravel secrets buried for over 50 years. The subject material is challenging and often depressing, nevertheless, story ends on a positive note. Despite the tragedy that blighted so much of her early life, Susan emerges in the closing chapters of the book as a woman who ‘holds strong values and is imbued with a powerful moral compass.’
“A Whispering of Trees’ is a compelling read and a fine example of true crime writing at its best.
Geraldine Carrodus
Sally R –
A Whispering of Trees is a haunting, deeply moving and ultimately inspiring book. It tells the devastating story of a family tragedy in Victoria’s Otway Ranges in 1971, but at its heart is the extraordinary story of a little girl, Susan, who witnessed the death of her young brother and was then left to navigate a childhood in a welfare system that failed to protect her.
What makes this book so compelling is that it is far more than an account of a terrible crime. Carol Rosenhain and Peter Newbury have painstakingly pieced together court records, psychiatric files, government documents and interviews to reveal not only what happened, but the profound and lasting consequences for the child who survived.
The authors handle such confronting material with remarkable sensitivity and compassion. Their writing is clear, restrained and engrossing, allowing the human story to remain at the centre rather than sensationalising the tragedy.
I was particularly struck by the way the book explores the failures of the institutions that were supposed to protect Susan. It is heartbreaking to see how a vulnerable little girl, already carrying an unimaginable trauma, was repeatedly let down by the adults and systems around her.
Yet this is also a story of courage, resilience and survival. Despite everything that happened to her, Susan found a way to rise above the circumstances of her childhood. That makes A Whispering of Trees not simply a story about tragedy, but ultimately one about the extraordinary strength of the human spirit.
Carol Rosenhain and Peter Newbury have brought an important and largely forgotten story into the light. Their meticulous research, combined with a compassionate and very readable style, makes this a powerful and memorable book.
A difficult story to read at times, but an important one — and one that stays with you long after you turn the final page.
Highly recommended.