Speaker 1: Here we have Rachelle Childs suiting up for qualifying stint.
Speaker 2: Is it going to be a blinder?
Speaker 3: Get the hell?
Speaker 2: We're on language loved and this is the beginning lesson.
Speaker 2: We're gonna watch Rachelle goes, who oh where are carding now?
Speaker 3: And here we go.
Speaker 4: It's a sunny day at Wakefield Park Raceway, about a
Speaker 4: two hour drive south of Sydney. Rochelle is wild about cars,
Speaker 4: and she's wearing her favorite sports sonnies and gear up
Speaker 4: in a racing suit. Her blonde hair is pulled back
Speaker 4: in a ponytail and she's beaming with excitement. She's moments
Speaker 4: away from jumping behind the wheel of a hotted upholder.
Speaker 2: Can you lask rus before we go?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Hey girl?
Speaker 4: That driving experience was a gift for her twenty first birthday,
Speaker 4: and it's the final recording. Rochelle's family has to hold
Speaker 4: on to.
Speaker 6: The death of Rochelle Child.
Speaker 4: Twenty three year old disappeared from a pub in Bargo.
Speaker 4: She planned to meet someone there whose burnt body was
Speaker 4: found on a lonely South Coast road. Her body was
Speaker 4: found in bush in GIRoA.
Speaker 2: She was murdered.
Speaker 1: The worst thing you could say to any individual, is
Speaker 1: you're a murder and you kill my daughter.
Speaker 4: Rochelle was killed by someone she knew.
Speaker 1: We'd like to find out who did it and why.
Speaker 4: Evidence points to a crime cleverly planned, but still the
Speaker 4: killer wasn't caught.
Speaker 7: My name is Christie Child's and this story is about
Speaker 7: my beautiful sister, Rochelle Child's. She was violently taken from
Speaker 7: us when I was just eighteen. Shechelle was vivacious, hilarious
Speaker 7: and kind. She was everything to me growing up, my mentor,
Speaker 7: my protector, my best friend. I looked up to her
Speaker 7: so much, and now I know she's looking down on me,
Speaker 7: willing me to find the person who killed her.
Speaker 4: I'm Ashley Hanson and this is Dear Rochelle, a podcast
Speaker 4: about a popular twenty three year old who was adored
Speaker 4: by her family and friends. Nobody has ever been charged
Speaker 4: over Rochelle's murder. From True Crime Australia.
Speaker 8: This is the untold story of Rochelle Charles.
Speaker 4: Hi, how are you? For the past year, I've been
Speaker 4: working closely with Christy to reinvestigate her sister's murder. We're
Speaker 4: on a mission to finally expose who killed Rochelle. For
Speaker 4: more than two decades, Rochelle's family has been fighting for justice.
Speaker 4: This case should never have been left to run cold.
Speaker 4: I've been covering crime for over twenty years in Australia
Speaker 4: and my job as a reporter has taken me around
Speaker 4: the world. I thought I was prepared for anything until
Speaker 4: I started investigating this case. The chilling fear that surrounds
Speaker 4: Rochelle's murder has made this story the most challenging of
Speaker 4: my career. I've even been warned by former cops to
Speaker 4: tread very carefully. Any advice for me following this story
Speaker 4: you were suggesting you're going to do, I wouldn't carry
Speaker 4: that out you.
Speaker 9: That's thought that you should be aware of what you
Speaker 9: were doing.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you get lost in your work and you don't
Speaker 3: realize what you've done until it's too late. Well, as
Speaker 3: I said to you before you're poking a beer.
Speaker 4: I do take that advice seriously. But while a cold
Speaker 4: bloody killer and suspected rapist is walking free, no woman
Speaker 4: is safe and I just can't let Rochelle's family down.
Speaker 4: Our investigation is uncovered damning new evidence, Innocent people who've
Speaker 4: been too afraid to speak out for decades are breaking
Speaker 4: their silence for a shell. You'll hear from friends and family,
Speaker 4: investigators and key witnesses who've never spoken before. Some of
Speaker 4: the brightest minds from our criminal justice system are helping
Speaker 4: to reinvestigate her murder. Is it possible the killers through
Speaker 4: the investigation so far off course it was impossible to
Speaker 4: solve was the acting alone? Were there the darker forces
Speaker 4: at play?
Speaker 5: When you're dealing with sex offenders it takes years of
Speaker 5: experience to realize how clever they are.
Speaker 10: Fucking Blame on me because I'm in a by plot.
Speaker 7: My worst fear is that person who killed Rochelle has
Speaker 7: killed again.
Speaker 4: Over the years, police identified nine persons of interest or pois,
Speaker 4: and the coroner comprehensively examined Rochelle's death, which still didn't
Speaker 4: lead to anyone being charged. But what really gets to
Speaker 4: the families the lack of action by police to reopen
Speaker 4: her case. Here's Christie Child straight after a meeting with
Speaker 4: the New South Wales Unsolved Homicide Squat in early twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four. Christy's an assistant principal at a primary school,
Speaker 4: so you know she's taken notes.
Speaker 7: It is that I don't know and I said so
Speaker 7: you're not across this case and he said no, I'm not.
Speaker 4: And I said who is and he said no one.
Speaker 7: He said, so no one in unsolved form societies across
Speaker 7: this case and already said no.
Speaker 4: Christine Omman have been let down so many times. This
Speaker 4: podcast could be their final shot through it all. They've
Speaker 4: held on tightly to their memories.
Speaker 3: Talking chins that were completely different personalities. She was just
Speaker 3: out there more, you know. She was lovely and loud,
Speaker 3: and Christy was just this soft little mouse.
Speaker 2: It was sweet.
Speaker 3: That's part of the dancing days. She looked up to
Speaker 3: Chrissy looked up to the show. She really did. She
Speaker 3: thought she were Ant's pants. Now they'll find they'll find together.
Speaker 2: Right up through Prime.
Speaker 3: It was lovely. It was a really good relationship.
Speaker 11: My name is Lisa and I was Rachelle's best friend
Speaker 11: for her entire life.
Speaker 6: We owned horses together.
Speaker 11: You know. We were dancing five days a week when
Speaker 11: we were young, so that was a lot of time
Speaker 11: we were spending. We removed a little a moving panel
Speaker 11: in between our fences. You know, we'd jump over the
Speaker 11: fence to jump.
Speaker 6: In each other's pools.
Speaker 11: And to have her in my life, to navigate the
Speaker 11: good and the tough times. There were some tough times
Speaker 11: where we grew up in Glenfield, particularly for myself being
Speaker 11: of a Mediterranean background, and I got bullied and she
Speaker 11: was my saving grace.
Speaker 6: She was amazing.
Speaker 11: She had away with people and away with the bullies
Speaker 11: and had a lot of power, you know, and she
Speaker 11: could stop them from hitting me. But she made something
Speaker 11: that could have been utterly horrific manageable from opening barb
Speaker 11: wide fences and helped me run through so I could
Speaker 11: escape before they caught me to distracting them.
Speaker 4: CHRISTI just turned eighteen when she moved in with Rochelle
Speaker 4: in Bargo, an hour south of the hustle and bustle
Speaker 4: of Sydney. It's a one pub town, the kind of
Speaker 4: place where you run into your neighbor when you pop
Speaker 4: out to grab the milk. There's a small strip of
Speaker 4: shops with a bakery, a supermarket, an a vet. They
Speaker 4: were renting a modest three bedroom brick home on a
Speaker 4: small farm in town. If Rochelle wasn't restoring Holden's, she
Speaker 4: was with her animals on the idyllic six acres That
Speaker 4: was her happy place. Sheelle needed the space mostly of
Speaker 4: the horses, but she also had a cat and an
Speaker 4: enormous Australian bulldog named Rolfe. By her early twenties, she
Speaker 4: was selling used cars at a dealership in Camden, a
Speaker 4: quaint town about half an hour away from Bargo. One
Speaker 4: of the biggest perks of Rochelle's job a license to
Speaker 4: borrow shiny cars off the lot.
Speaker 7: We had big plays for the weekend and she was
Speaker 7: supposedly getting a veal ss group A otherwise known as
Speaker 7: a walking straw, because there was one coming into the
Speaker 7: car that her boss had told her about and she
Speaker 7: was so excited because she got to take it home
Speaker 7: for I believe she was having the Friday off, so
Speaker 7: she was going to have this walk control for four days.
Speaker 7: So we had big plans about where we were all
Speaker 7: going to go in this car because it's such a rare,
Speaker 7: beautiful car that not many people get to drive around in,
Speaker 7: so we're all very excited.
Speaker 9: My name's Fierra Anda. I knew Rochelle for about two
Speaker 9: years when we worked to Camden Holden together.
Speaker 12: Well.
Speaker 9: I was the hired as the receptionist and registration's clerk
Speaker 9: and she was in used cars. Work was just funny,
Speaker 9: we'd smoke, we'd have lunch together. Sometimes. It was just
Speaker 9: a good place to work. But you know, like I
Speaker 9: enjoyed it, she enjoyed it. She loved the talking to people,
Speaker 9: and that was her gab. Anyone who came on the yard,
Speaker 9: she'd be there talking to them. She didn't care if
Speaker 9: they bought a car. She was just happy talking to them.
Speaker 4: Really, locals, remember the dealerships used car office because it
Speaker 4: was pretty iconic. They did business from inside a refurbished
Speaker 4: red train carriage.
Speaker 9: So my office was in the showroom and to get
Speaker 9: to the train station you had to walk along a platform.
Speaker 9: It was a train platform. It was basically as if
Speaker 9: a train had pulled up. It was an old red rattler.
Speaker 7: Ruschall's office was, you know, not too far in, but
Speaker 7: it was pretty much there.
Speaker 4: So did you ever come here and see Rochelle?
Speaker 7: And she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I was here
Speaker 7: quite often for whatever reason, pick up things, pick her up. Yeah, now,
Speaker 7: I was here quite often. I used to watch her
Speaker 7: move the cars around. So here was you know, all
Speaker 7: of the used cars, and to watch her move the
Speaker 7: cars around to get them into the right spot. It
Speaker 7: was like watching in ballet like it was such a
Speaker 7: precision where it's just such a good driver.
Speaker 9: She used to do a Caf and Kim dance, you
Speaker 9: know the CAF dance where Cat does the donkey. She'd
Speaker 9: do that going down the platform of Camden. I would
Speaker 9: not just stand at the showroom just laughing all the
Speaker 9: way as she do a little dance down the platform
Speaker 9: back to her Offen.
Speaker 4: The Fi owner Lisa Rochelle and her little sister Christi
Speaker 4: were a tight crew until the seventh of June two
Speaker 4: thousand and one, the Thursday ahead of the long weekend.
Speaker 2: Here's Christie.
Speaker 7: I was at Mum and Dad's house because they were away,
Speaker 7: so I was at their house. I remember she called
Speaker 7: me on her way home from work. I was on
Speaker 7: you know when you used to have like the second
Speaker 7: line on the landline. I was on the phone to
Speaker 7: my best mate from school and I heard the call
Speaker 7: come through and I said, I'll just answer this quickly.
Speaker 7: So I jumped over to the other line and it
Speaker 7: was Rochelle and she was driving.
Speaker 2: Because she always spoke so far. She just said hey, Chris, Michelle, and.
Speaker 7: I said, hey, I'm on the other line. Erin and
Speaker 7: she went, oh, right here, call me back. I say okay, bye,
Speaker 7: and that was it.
Speaker 2: I hung up. That was the last time I spoke
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 4: That was at exactly five point fifteen pm on Thursday,
Speaker 4: the seventh of June two thousand and one. A minute later,
Speaker 4: it's believed Rochelle flicked a cigarette butt out the window
Speaker 4: of her blue nineteen seventy eight Holden Commodore as she
Speaker 4: drove along the Old Hume Highway through Camden, heading towards
Speaker 4: her home in Bargo. A council ranger happened to be
Speaker 4: driving behind her and noted down the daytime and number
Speaker 4: plate GV two thousand. The officer didn't see the driver,
Speaker 4: but Rochelle was a smoker. Fine for littering was later issued,
Speaker 4: but of course it would never be paid. Rochelle's exact
Speaker 4: movements over the following nine hours remain a mystery. In
Speaker 4: the early hours of Friday morning, security guard Craig Duck
Speaker 4: is on duty and heading to his next job. He's
Speaker 4: passing through seven Mile Beach, one hundred kilometers south of
Speaker 4: Bargo in the coastal town of GIRoA, when he suddenly
Speaker 4: compelled to stop.
Speaker 5: So off I get I'm driving through I've seen this
Speaker 5: fire on the right hand side, and I've gone in.
Speaker 5: This is where I don't forget anything because it plays
Speaker 5: on my mind all the time. I've walked in and
Speaker 5: I didn't think much of it. I'm trying to kick
Speaker 5: this fire out and as I'm kicking scend onto it,
Speaker 5: it's coming back at me. Fee I said, it's ain't right,
Speaker 5: and I thought, okay, I'm only grab my torch because
Speaker 5: this is not normal. So we went back out the
Speaker 5: same way I went in, grabbed me a torch and
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, I got this flash of a
Speaker 5: gold in the face and I'm going back and there
Speaker 5: was a Bengal on a hand.
Speaker 13: And I'm going Wow.
Speaker 5: Made that phone call again a triple A in saying
Speaker 5: this is Craig Duck again. I need police here as well.
Speaker 5: I've got a crime scene.
Speaker 6: At this stage.
Speaker 4: Rochelle's family and friends have no idea she's even missing.
Speaker 4: Fiona recalls canceling her plans to meet Rochelle that night.
Speaker 9: We'd organized for these drinks on the Thursday to go
Speaker 9: and have a drink, and I.
Speaker 6: Said, I'm not going to go.
Speaker 9: I've been on the phone all night. I'm just going
Speaker 9: to go home, and we had that conversation down in
Speaker 9: the train carriage where anybody could have heard that conversation,
Speaker 9: that the plans had changed, that she was just going
Speaker 9: straight home.
Speaker 4: And what was the moment that you realized something was wrong.
Speaker 7: I got a phone call from Fiona. It was a
Speaker 7: Friday morning, or around lunchtime, and Fie said, I can't
Speaker 7: get hold of Rochelle and I don't know where she is.
Speaker 4: Rochelle's rosted off on the Friday, but she tells Fiona
Speaker 4: she's going to be popping into work anyway, but she
Speaker 4: never turns.
Speaker 9: Up the Friday night. When I got down to her face,
Speaker 9: I'd been trying all day for her. Not to have
Speaker 9: a mobile on was really unusual, and she knew I
Speaker 9: was coming on the Friday.
Speaker 2: I can't find her. She's not answering her phone.
Speaker 9: When I arrived at her house, the lights were.
Speaker 7: All on, the car's not here, Ralfi hasn't been fed,
Speaker 7: and the telly was still on, and I went, oh, okay,
Speaker 7: So I tried to call.
Speaker 9: And the windows were like, the blinds were open. I
Speaker 9: could see it looked like she'd literally just left, gotten
Speaker 9: changed and left.
Speaker 7: It was Friday night that we realized something was seriously
Speaker 7: wrong because no one had heard from her all day,
Speaker 7: and that was very unusual. She would talk to multiple
Speaker 7: people multiple times a day, so to not be able
Speaker 7: to get hold of her, it was very strange. So
Speaker 7: that's when that's when it started to get real. Friday afternoon.
Speaker 7: That night, we called police stations. We called all of
Speaker 7: the hospitals. We traveled around up and down the road
Speaker 7: to see whether we could find maybe she had an accident,
Speaker 7: because we.
Speaker 9: Were just trying anywhere to say as anything happened, is
Speaker 9: there any police stations, you know, like just frantic.
Speaker 6: My best friend's missing and I'm really worried.
Speaker 7: And then the next day I'd printed out posters that
Speaker 7: said missing and her picture and I can't even remember
Speaker 7: where I went, but giving it to everyone in the community.
Speaker 2: I had a.
Speaker 7: Job where I used to cook the barbecue. I had
Speaker 7: three jobs, but one of them while I was at union.
Speaker 7: One of them was to cook the barbecue at the
Speaker 7: markets on a Saturday morning, and she was supposed to
Speaker 7: come there and she was going to bring her friend's
Speaker 7: daughter today with her. So I went there because I
Speaker 7: thought she said she was going to come, So I
Speaker 7: just waited for her for hours and hours and hours,
Speaker 7: and I can't remember the beautiful lady I worked with there.
Speaker 7: At about ten o'clock, she said, you need to call
Speaker 7: your parents, and that's when I called Mama dad and
Speaker 7: said she's missing.
Speaker 2: I can't find her.
Speaker 3: The everyone was just very displaced, and Christie rang us
Speaker 3: on the Saturday and said that I can't find Michelle.
Speaker 3: I thought, what he mean, you can't find that? She's somewhere?
Speaker 3: Maybe she stay did her friend's place last night?
Speaker 4: And what was that drive like back to Bargo.
Speaker 3: I don't remember. It was just a big blur. I
Speaker 3: went straight to Bargo and Chris was there. I just
Speaker 3: remember getting all fliers and taking it out to local
Speaker 3: pubs and places around to sif anyone has seen or
Speaker 3: heard of her, and rang with her work and know
Speaker 3: what they didn't know where she was.
Speaker 4: The search engers its second day, and then a breakthrough
Speaker 4: on Saturday. The family is told Rochelle was supposed to
Speaker 4: meet someone at the Bargo Hotel on Thursday night. The
Speaker 4: pub's almost two kilometers away from her place. It's a
Speaker 4: typical country pub on the main drag Back in two
Speaker 4: thousand and one, It's painted red and green. Upstairs. You
Speaker 4: can find a cheap room downstairs as a bistro, a
Speaker 4: sports bar, pokies and a jukebox. Every Thursday is Paul
Speaker 4: Competition night and also topless Waitress Night, so most punters
Speaker 4: on a Thursday are typically men.
Speaker 7: I haven't been able to figure out why and why
Speaker 7: at Bargo Pub did she go? If she did go there,
Speaker 7: why did she meet someone there? If it was someone
Speaker 7: she knew, why didn't she meet them at home?
Speaker 4: Had you ever gone to the Bargo Hotel with Rachelle?
Speaker 6: No? Never, never. I didn't really even know she'd gone.
Speaker 9: I'd never heard of the Bargo Hotel. If she'd mentioned
Speaker 9: the Bargo Hotel, it would have been one of the
Speaker 9: first stops on that Friday night.
Speaker 7: She would never walk into a new place alone, and
Speaker 7: she would never go and meet someone new alone. She
Speaker 7: used to drag me around to parties, and as soon
Speaker 7: as she was in there and felt confident, she'd forget
Speaker 7: I was there. So she was a little shy in
Speaker 7: that sort of respect.
Speaker 9: She knew too many people to walk into a place
Speaker 9: on her own. She didn't have to ever walk anywhere
Speaker 9: on her own or go anywhere.
Speaker 7: On her own, and she wouldn't go and meet someone
Speaker 7: that she didn't know, and if she was going to,
Speaker 7: she wouldn't go alone.
Speaker 4: While the families desperately search for any trace of Rachelle,
Speaker 4: police are trying to make sense of Craig Duck's shocking
Speaker 4: discovery at Seven Mile Beach.
Speaker 5: I don't know what I was going through. I don't
Speaker 5: really know. I was just going through, okay, the sort
Speaker 5: of bengle that flashed up in my eyes, so I
Speaker 5: knew that I knew it had to be a female.
Speaker 14: The operator asked me a few questions, and I was like, well,
Speaker 14: there's all this noise, and there's cars, and there's something
Speaker 14: going on outside. My dog won't stop barking, and I
Speaker 14: can't go to sleep, and now I think there's a
Speaker 14: fire and I don't know what's going on, but somebody
Speaker 14: needs to get down here because we're quite isolated. But
Speaker 14: then it was a fairly short time after that that
Speaker 14: I'd started hearing sirens.
Speaker 5: Next thing you know, as a police are coming, why
Speaker 5: are we going to get there? Or walked up beside
Speaker 5: their truck and I said, guys, you can't tell me
Speaker 5: this is a crime scene area.
Speaker 14: My name is Carmen and in two thousand and one,
Speaker 14: my husband and I were the on site managers of
Speaker 14: seven mob Beach Holiday Park, which is approximately five hundred
Speaker 14: or so meters from where Rachelle was found.
Speaker 5: Once the police got there, the officer's dawning of taking
Speaker 5: the officer in showing her situation.
Speaker 14: And it's a long weekend. I've got three little boys
Speaker 14: asleep in bed, my dog's going crazy. There's horrible noises outside.
Speaker 14: Something's not right.
Speaker 4: How big was the fire at this stage?
Speaker 5: It was conforming to one area, but it was quite high.
Speaker 14: I can sense my emotions, you know, taking me back
Speaker 14: to that moment and that sort of fearful moment and
Speaker 14: not knowing what I was hearing. And I could hear yelling,
Speaker 14: and then I could hear a few sort of like
Speaker 14: awful noise, says.
Speaker 4: What was that twenty minutes? Like for you standing at
Speaker 4: this crime scene, knowing what was burning.
Speaker 5: It was horrific.
Speaker 14: If I was the last person to ever hear her,
Speaker 14: or you know, it was the last place she was
Speaker 14: ever alive, I feel some sort of connection and I
Speaker 14: feel so sad for her family.
Speaker 4: That's so emotional.
Speaker 3: After August time.
Speaker 4: Back in Bargo, Rachelle's family and friends are rushing to
Speaker 4: the local pub where her car has been found parked
Speaker 4: out the back.
Speaker 7: We got into the car and I remember sitting in
Speaker 7: the car and going, there's something wrong.
Speaker 2: The club block was on upside down.
Speaker 7: And she had a specific way that she used to
Speaker 7: put the club block on the hand or that people
Speaker 7: used to point down. She would point up and jam
Speaker 7: it in the corner of the windscreen and then she'd
Speaker 7: lock the steering wheel.
Speaker 2: And that wasn't done. It was upside down.
Speaker 9: She would sit like hanging back the sort of cruisy
Speaker 9: arm and you know, like she'd have the smoke and
Speaker 9: you know, like but it wasn't sort of positioned like that.
Speaker 7: She did used to have her seat really far back,
Speaker 7: but it was really far back. And I remember looking
Speaker 7: at the car, going something seriously wrong here. And she
Speaker 7: didn't park this year. So I got out of the
Speaker 7: car and that's when I knew something bad.
Speaker 2: It happened.
Speaker 4: Christine her friends are racking their brains as to who
Speaker 4: would have driven Rachelle's car anywhere, let alone to the
Speaker 4: Bargo Hotel. Meanwhile, a murder investigation is well and truly
Speaker 4: underway at seven Mile Beach, GIRoA at a nearby hospit.
Speaker 4: A young woman's badly burned body has been formally identified
Speaker 4: and South Coast detectives are making the hour drive to Bargo.
Speaker 7: I was at home at Bargo, probably printing out more posters,
Speaker 7: so sitting at the computer, and I saw the detectives
Speaker 7: pull up and was ither Davies and Peter Street. They
Speaker 7: pulled up out the front and got out of the
Speaker 7: car and walked in, and I was hopeful. When they
Speaker 7: walked in, I thought, oh, they've found her, They've come
Speaker 7: to tell us something.
Speaker 9: And they came inside. I was on the lounge. Christy
Speaker 9: was sort of over thinking of like a piano stool
Speaker 9: or another ground ever.
Speaker 7: Walked up to me and looked me in the eye,
Speaker 7: put his left hand on my shoulder and said, your
Speaker 7: sister's dead. She was murdered and she was found down
Speaker 7: at GIRoA.
Speaker 9: When they said they they found someone at GIRoA, my
Speaker 9: first words were, where the fuck is GIRoA? Where the
Speaker 9: fuck is GIRoA?
Speaker 2: What what do you mean?
Speaker 7: I don't know what happened after that. I think I
Speaker 7: screamed and Fiona was there and she was hysterical. I
Speaker 7: couldn't even think and then I looked up and Mom
Speaker 7: and Dad had pulled up out the front, and I went, oh,
Speaker 7: I can't be here for this, so I went out
Speaker 7: the back and then yeah, then I ever told Mum
Speaker 7: and Dad.
Speaker 3: Was at the house at Bargo. We just gotten there,
Speaker 3: and I Dave, he detective came out to tell us,
Speaker 3: and Christy was selling the house and the and we
Speaker 3: knew song was terribly wrong by this point, it just
Speaker 3: wasn't Shell. She always would ring Crystal, always contact us.
Speaker 3: And when he said it, I said, oh, look, I
Speaker 3: am that you sure like what?
Speaker 2: And oh yeah?
Speaker 3: They said that she was found on the early hours
Speaker 3: of Friday morning. I just started the long weekend. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she was dead.
Speaker 4: How do you even begin to process such devastating news.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 3: You don't know what to do with it. It's just
Speaker 3: it's just unbelievable. This doesn't happen. Yeah, it was so
Speaker 3: hard for Christie. Was awful, time, awful.
Speaker 6: Goosebumps just thinking about it.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 11: Anyway, I get in my car, drive home and then
Speaker 11: I remember I was speaking to a friend of mine, Darren,
Speaker 11: and then Fiona called and I'm like, oh, that's weird.
Speaker 6: I'm going to hang up and a speak to Fiona
Speaker 6: and they're like, hey, we found Shell And I'm like,
Speaker 6: oh my god, where the hell is she? You know,
Speaker 6: with this oh I'm going to wring her neck type
Speaker 6: of thing. And she goes, oh at hospital. I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 6: which one?
Speaker 11: And she said, oh, sorry she no, Lisa, she's not
Speaker 11: She's dead.
Speaker 6: And I just fell out of the car. No one
Speaker 6: was home, and I dragged myself on the floor and something.
Speaker 6: I got to the.
Speaker 11: Front door and then I remember ringing and straightway Michelle's
Speaker 11: mum and just saying is it true?
Speaker 6: She answered, and I said is it true? And she
Speaker 6: said yes.
Speaker 4: When you saw Rochelle's face for the first time in
Speaker 4: the news days later, how did that affect you?
Speaker 5: I couldn't believe it. I thought, she's only your baby Wire,
Speaker 5: Why would anyone do that to you? Too? Well, you
Speaker 5: know read that she played cricket and meeting King of
Speaker 5: the Road Peter Rock and stuff like that, Like just
Speaker 5: what a lucky girl at the time, you know, what
Speaker 5: a beautiful life she had in front of her.
Speaker 4: Craig Ducker's referring to a photograph he had seen of
Speaker 4: Rochelle with her idol Australian racing legend Peter Brock. That
Speaker 4: photo was splashed across newspapers and national TV screens as
Speaker 4: police hunted her killer. An autopsy couldn't determine Rochelle's cause
Speaker 4: of debt, but it was suspected she was smothered or strangled.
Speaker 4: At least one of her fingers was also detached. She
Speaker 4: was found naked from the waist down, leading detectives convinced
Speaker 4: she was raped. The first lead investigator into Rochelle's murder
Speaker 4: was a cop called Ivor Davies. Christie and I headed
Speaker 4: to meet him back at GIRoA, where Craig found Rochelle's body.
Speaker 4: Although years ago, I'm curious to ask either how heavily
Speaker 4: does a case like that weigh on you.
Speaker 1: You know, some things sit with you, whether it's the
Speaker 1: one that got away, or whether it's a really really
Speaker 1: bad one that you can't get out of your head.
Speaker 1: And now a lot of the takers out there have
Speaker 1: got that. I'll drive past this road on the regular
Speaker 1: and I always look here when I'm driving through, and
Speaker 1: I was that there had been something else which she'd
Speaker 1: left me, something else, because I want a closure for
Speaker 1: the family, and it annoyed me that we never ever
Speaker 1: got there, and I think of her from time to time.
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything we would have done different
Speaker 1: because we'd done everything we could. I'm just sorry I
Speaker 1: wasn't there to push on.
Speaker 4: The killer clearly wasn't trying to hide her body. What
Speaker 4: do you make of that? Well, I think they went.
Speaker 1: To great lengths to hide her body, but it didn't
Speaker 1: work out, so then it was just had hopily done
Speaker 1: in haste. Just they've had enough. They must have been
Speaker 1: driving around with the corpse and the body what an heiress,
Speaker 1: And I just think that when this didn't pan out,
Speaker 1: they've had enough. We're not going to just put a
Speaker 1: rear torch and get the evidences get out of dodge.
Speaker 4: Would you like this case to be reopened, because right
Speaker 4: now it's not an active case.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm hoping perhaps because of what you're doing, it
Speaker 1: may inspire some sort of motivation to push on. But
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely sure in my heart that we've interviewed the crook.
Speaker 14: He's in that brief.
Speaker 10: I feel so indebted to Ivor because I know that
Speaker 10: he put his hand soil into it, and he's still
Speaker 10: even though it doesn't it work for the police anymore.
Speaker 10: He's still summarizing and thinking about it, and yeah, he's
Speaker 10: just beautiful.
Speaker 4: It was on this day Christy learned more about why
Speaker 4: this case has halted him.
Speaker 7: I didn't know that he was the one that lifted
Speaker 7: Rochelle out of where she was found.
Speaker 2: I don't even just found that out.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's terrific, and that would be something I don't
Speaker 7: think if that would never leave.
Speaker 2: You can't unsee that, you can't unfeel that. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's horrible.
Speaker 4: Rochelle's case was the last murder investigation either Davies would
Speaker 4: ever work on. In the years that followed, countless more
Speaker 4: cops would try but failed to solve Rochelle's murder. If
Speaker 4: we're going to get justice for her family, we need
Speaker 4: to do something bold.
Speaker 12: Well, you've got to think outside the square and when
Speaker 12: you take your blinkers off in these sort of investigations
Speaker 12: and not be narrow minded.
Speaker 4: So I've turned to Damien Loon, a thirty year veteran
Speaker 4: who's known for cracking cold cases. He was the dogged
Speaker 4: detective who was vital in the success of my inspiring
Speaker 4: colleague Headley Thomas's podcast, The Teacher's Pet.
Speaker 12: So I Chronic Greeka, believing your twenty tip you've seen
Speaker 12: in Constable Damien looms Fell all told on conducting an
Speaker 12: investigation into the disappearance of Lament Join Dawson.
Speaker 4: The Teacher's PEP was one of Australia's first and most
Speaker 4: powerful true crime podcasts, which led to the conviction of
Speaker 4: Chris Dawson for the murder of his wife Lynn. For
Speaker 4: decades he'd gone unpunished.
Speaker 12: Well, all the skills that I used through my experience
Speaker 12: of the investigation into Chris Dawson's homicide of his wife Lynn,
Speaker 12: I'm now using those skills to help find out who
Speaker 12: murdered Rachelle Childs.
Speaker 4: I first met Damien at the airport in early twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four to give him a copy of Rochelle's Brief
Speaker 4: of Evidence, a closely guarded police file full of thousands
Speaker 4: of pieces of information, statements, reports and exhibits. Damien, how
Speaker 4: are you, Ashley Hands, Nice to meet you. Thanks for
Speaker 4: joining the team. I haven't told Anne and Christy yet.
Speaker 4: They're going to be stoked to just have someone with
Speaker 4: your experience and expertise on the case.
Speaker 6: Or oh he's Damian.
Speaker 13: Thanks for everyone coming together so Christy and Anne, I
Speaker 13: just want you to meet Damian Loon. I asked Damien
Speaker 13: a couple of weeks ago if he would help us
Speaker 13: on Rochelle's.
Speaker 4: Case, and he didn't hesitate. He said absolutely.
Speaker 7: That is so cool, that's amazing. It's lovely to meet
Speaker 7: you longtime fans.
Speaker 12: Oh, thanks Christy and and I know what you guys
Speaker 12: have gone through over the years, and I can't say
Speaker 12: I know everything. I fulfill for you. And the most
Speaker 12: important part about what happened to Rachelle is that this
Speaker 12: matter is solvable. But I can't promise you it'll get
Speaker 12: that far. I'll tell you what. I have a bloody
Speaker 12: good go at it.
Speaker 4: And why did you say yes to help with this one?
Speaker 12: I've had so many people have asked been again on
Speaker 12: board with MADA. I've retired as a police officer. I
Speaker 12: don't have any powers as a police officer, but this
Speaker 12: one strikes a memory with me because it was a
Speaker 12: young person in the prime of a life like Lynn.
Speaker 12: Had everything look forward to, a responsible job, had a
Speaker 12: loving family, wasn't a risk taker, and yet she's been
Speaker 12: callously murdered and dumped far from her hometown in a
Speaker 12: seaside side of giraua in a bushlang Grave and Burnt
Speaker 12: the guy have no doubt in my mind that this
Speaker 12: was a sexually motivated attack. Rachelle knew her killer and
Speaker 12: she trusted him.
Speaker 4: Can you solve this case?
Speaker 12: This case is solvable, and there's somewhere in this brief
Speaker 12: defenders in this if he's named in this group, somewhere
Speaker 12: if Fender responsible for this crime, is still alive.
Speaker 4: And there's so much more to unravel. On the next
Speaker 4: episode of Dear Rochelle.
Speaker 12: Rochelle was placed was within three hundred and sixteen leaders
Speaker 12: aware jdphesis's body of us vacated.
Speaker 14: I started thinking, gosh, this is going to be one
Speaker 14: of those stories like Ivan.
Speaker 2: Milat to join the dots.
Speaker 6: Are they connected somehow?
Speaker 1: They had five or six persons of interest to me,
Speaker 1: there was a fundamental issue with the investigation.
Speaker 6: Fucking blame on me, not because I'm in a biplot.
Speaker 12: Have we got a serial killer on our hands or
Speaker 12: have we got someone that's involved in both homicides.
Speaker 4: De Rochelle is a multimedia production from True Crime Australia.
Speaker 2: If you want to be the first.
Speaker 4: To find out what happens next, go to deroshell dot
Speaker 4: com dot a you. That's where News Corp Australia subscribers
Speaker 4: get early access to podcast episodes and breaking news in
Speaker 4: our live investigation before anybody else, and you'll also find
Speaker 4: exclusive videos, interactive evidence, feature articles and more. That's deroshell
Speaker 4: dot com dot a U, d E A R R
Speaker 4: A c h E w l E dot com dot
Speaker 4: a U. If you have any tips or confidential information
Speaker 4: to share with me, Ashley Hanson, please send an email
Speaker 4: to Deroshelle atnews dot com dot a you. Our supervising
Speaker 4: producer and audio editor is Rehees Gunter Rachel Fountain, his
Speaker 4: executive producer and audio director. Our executive editor is Sarah Blair.
Speaker 4: Our senior journalist is Patrick carl Video editors are Jillian McNally,
Speaker 4: Owen Yang and Stephen Woods. Picture editors are Jeff Darmannan
Speaker 4: and Christy Miller. Senior camera operators are Daniel Andrews and
Speaker 4: Oscar Vieira. We sound designed by Martin Perolta, thanks also
Speaker 4: to Greg Thompson and Lenny Panerz. Show Burreo Fayguld, Vanessa Grabb,
Speaker 4: Hailey Goddard, Stephen Grice, Charlotte Carp Tina Coggins and Harry Hughes.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to the Daily Telegraph editor Ben English and
Speaker 4: dear Rochelle would not be possible without the help and
Speaker 4: our wavering supporter Christian Ann Childs, Mindy Wicks, Damian Loon
Speaker 4: and Rachelle's friends. This podcast series is hosted and investigated
Speaker 4: by me Ashley Hanson