Wednesday, 2 April 2008
Why was a town larrikin killed?
By Noel Towell Police Reporter
As Queanbeyan reels over the suspected brutal murder of a father of five at the weekend, the community has been left to ask why?
Why would anyone want to take Danny Ralph's life?
Mr Ralph's body was recovered from Queanbeyan River on Sunday night, and police appear likely to launch a murder hunt over the hotel worker's death.
Police set up a crime scene at the Queanbeyan suspension bridge near Isabella Street on Saturday after a member of the public reported seeing blood on the bridge about 9am.
Mr Ralph, 48, was a native of the NSW South Coast and had been a fixture at the pubs on the town's Monaro Street since he first appeared in Queanbeyan in the mid-90s, and soon found himself in the thick of the social action.
Mr Ralph was a trained chef, but jobs in the kitchen never seemed to work out for him.
So the last years of his life were spent working as a jack-of-all-trades at his beloved Royal Hotel. But he was also a regular at the Tourist Hotel a few doors up and Walsh's across the street.
It was at the Royal where Mr Ralph was last seen at 3am on Saturday.
Mr Ralph had separated from his wife and four children several years ago and had another child with a later partner.
Police have yet to formally confirm the identity of the body and are expecting the results of a post-mortem, due today, to determine the cause of death.
State Emergency Service volunteers scoured the river banks yesterday looking for a weapon.
Friends believe that Mr Ralph was on the way home to the unit he shared with a friend on Booth Street on the east bank of the river, a route he usually took in the early hours of the morning.
In the aftermath of his death, residents living near the bridge have complained that thecrossing is dangerously underlit after dark.
Many of Mr Ralph's friends are wondering how a happy-go-lucky person like Mr Ralph could have made such an enemy.
"Danny wasn't a weak man, rolling those kegs around, he was wiry and had strength," one friend said.
"But look, he was a young man, who was fairly nice looking, who drank, who played pool, who smoked hoochy-cooch, so what can you say?
"But this couldn't have happened if someone hadn't held a grudge."
One woman friend, who declined to be named, said Mr Ralph enjoyed a drink and was popular with the ladies. "He was a larrikin, lots of fun to be around," she said.
"Oh, he had his moments, but I have a lot of fond memories, and so do a lot of people, of the parties we went to and the parties that we threw." Nor was he inclined much towards the rough stuff, with several locals saying that he had no reputation as a fighter.
The table at the Royal where Mr Ralph loved to sit was covered in floral tributes yesterday.
Source: The Canberra Times, ACT
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