Speaker 1: It was diabolically clever. We're here twenty three years later
Speaker 1: and we've got no idea what happened to Rachelle.
Speaker 2: We have a twenty three year old who eks the caryard.
Speaker 2: She's been murdered. Why would you jump to Barkis.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the fifth update episode of Dear Rochelle. You're
Speaker 3: behind the scenes access to this live podcast investigation series.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Ashley Hanson. In this bonus episode, we're
Speaker 3: taking you behind the headlines and introducing some of the journalists.
Speaker 4: Who've been working on this case with me.
Speaker 3: Patrick Carline is a senior features writer for News Corp.
Speaker 4: And Charlotte carp Is a senior reporter.
Speaker 3: They're part of our core team investigating the unsolved murder
Speaker 3: of Rachelle Charles. This is our chance to dive a
Speaker 3: little deeper into the journalism behind the case. Welcome to
Speaker 3: you both. I'll start with you Patrick. You've been to
Speaker 3: some of these key locations. How do you compare the
Speaker 3: Girois scene, which is the scene where Rachelle's body was found,
Speaker 3: when you went there during the day as opposed to night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, that's a good question, ash I think I
Speaker 1: was with you and Rees, our producer, when we got
Speaker 1: there about two thirty am one night back in December,
Speaker 1: and I sort of standing there for about half an
Speaker 1: hour before you got there, and the place felt haunted.
Speaker 1: There was not a car that passed. And this is
Speaker 1: the same time that Rachelle's body was found on fire
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and one. Not a single car passed.
Speaker 1: I had the car headlights on. You could hear the
Speaker 1: surf in the distance, and you can see the insects
Speaker 1: of dancing in the car headlights. And it felt haunted,
Speaker 1: to be honest. Whereas during the day there's people around,
Speaker 1: there's a caravan park nearby. It's a pretty town, giao,
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful beach spot. But at two twenty in
Speaker 1: the morning, standing there by yourself in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: it really does feel cursed, to be honest, in the
Speaker 1: context of Rochelle's case.
Speaker 3: And the darkness is just so memorable about how dark
Speaker 3: it is there. And I guess we talk about this
Speaker 3: all the time. Why that spot, Why did the killer
Speaker 3: choose that spot to dispose of Rochelle's body. We're just
Speaker 3: trying to piece together what happened to Rochelle and those
Speaker 3: missing nine hours that we constantly talk about. What goes
Speaker 3: into your mind when you think about that area.
Speaker 1: Look, it doesn't sort of make sense, does it. Look
Speaker 1: I've been looking at this since August last year, and
Speaker 1: that's one of the questions that keeps me awake at night,
Speaker 1: is why was she left there burning? I mean, it's
Speaker 1: such a dreadful fate. It is just so off the chart.
Speaker 1: And look, we don't know anything about her last night hours,
Speaker 1: and that keeps me awake as well. But why choose
Speaker 1: the side of the road? Why put someone set someone
Speaker 1: on fire? And there's all this scrub land and bush
Speaker 1: where you could place a body that wouldn't be found
Speaker 1: for months and months. You've got tens of kilometers of
Speaker 1: bushland around you. But Rachelle is placed on the side
Speaker 1: of the road and set on fire in a way
Speaker 1: that she was going to be obviously found fairly readily.
Speaker 1: She's put on top of a concrete tank. Was he
Speaker 1: planning to the killer, planning to open the tank and
Speaker 1: put her in there and change his mind? It doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. None of it makes sense.
Speaker 4: It is a disturbing crime. Charlotte. What keeps you up
Speaker 4: at night researching this case and working on it.
Speaker 2: Why did they choose her?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: What happened in the car? Did she drive this person
Speaker 2: down to GIRoA? Did was she driven? I mean, what
Speaker 2: happened in the car? That's what I would love to know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we all want to know that question. Or did
Speaker 3: it happen in the car? Because as I've spoken to
Speaker 3: Patrick a lot about as well, we don't even know
Speaker 3: where she died, where this fatal encounter was exactly. It
Speaker 3: could have been inside, could have been in a car,
Speaker 3: It could have been at her house, It could have
Speaker 3: been at another location we don't know about. Because as
Speaker 3: we always come back to those missing nine hours, what
Speaker 3: about the Bargo hotel and her car being parked there
Speaker 3: by somebody else? What have you thought is some of
Speaker 3: the scenarios you've thought about as to when maybe that
Speaker 3: car could have been planted there?
Speaker 2: My impression is that it was probably planted there sometime
Speaker 2: in the morning when her body was on fire down
Speaker 2: near Diraua. That they've come back and they've planted her
Speaker 2: car there, that's to me what makes sense.
Speaker 4: It does make a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: But the question I keep coming back to is then,
Speaker 3: how did the killer get away? From that area. So
Speaker 3: did they walk? Did they catch a taxi? Did somebody
Speaker 3: pick them up? Was his car parked conveniently nearby? Was
Speaker 3: this all part of the plan? What do you think, Patrick?
Speaker 1: Look, I think there's a plan that we don't understand,
Speaker 1: and I mean there are so many elements to that plan.
Speaker 1: If you accept there was a plan, and I think
Speaker 1: there was a plan, it was diabolically clever in the
Speaker 1: sense that we're here twenty three years later and we've
Speaker 1: got no idea what happened to Rochelle between five point
Speaker 1: fifteen when she left work and I think she was
Speaker 1: caught flicking a cigarette but out of her car window
Speaker 1: as she's driving towards home and two twenty am. And
Speaker 1: that drives me bonkers, to be honest, You and I
Speaker 1: have talked about this dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
Speaker 1: How about do we think about this? How about do
Speaker 1: you think about that? You know, I remember when I
Speaker 1: started looking at this, the impression was that Michelle had
Speaker 1: been to the Bargo Hotel and that was sort of
Speaker 1: if you go back through the clippings from two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, that was an accepted fact. And even that
Speaker 1: to me doesn't sound right. She didn't go to the
Speaker 1: Bargo Hotel as far as I can see. But there's
Speaker 1: all these distrays actions as always red herrings sort of
Speaker 1: through this entire story that goes to that nine hours,
Speaker 1: and we cannot actually decipher what happened. Even now we've
Speaker 1: spent months and months of looking at this has been
Speaker 1: police investigations and reviews and coronial inquests, and we're still
Speaker 1: no closer that to actually having facts about those last
Speaker 1: nine hours. And look, that's what I anguish about when
Speaker 1: I think about Rochelle, is what the hell happened? We
Speaker 1: don't even know how she died, We don't know where
Speaker 1: she died. It beggars belief that this story about this
Speaker 1: wonderful person who everybody loved was inexplicably killed. It beggars
Speaker 1: belief that we don't know anything about her final out.
Speaker 4: Just defies belief, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: And I know that that keeps me up at night
Speaker 3: as well, thinking about not just what happened to her,
Speaker 3: but also that this person is still free, or the
Speaker 3: offenders are still free. So that's a scary thought, and
Speaker 3: you just think about what did his life go on
Speaker 3: to be?
Speaker 4: I know I've thought about that a lot.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about some of the points that you
Speaker 3: just made their about the Bargo Hotel and those red
Speaker 3: herrings in the beginning, the bikey's rumor that started very quickly,
Speaker 3: and we've published a story which is about the manager
Speaker 3: at Campbelltown Holden, who said that Kevin Carell, who was
Speaker 3: Rochelle's boss at the time, was pedaling this story as
Speaker 3: soon as the Monday, the public holiday of the June
Speaker 3: Long weekend, when the family only was informed on the
Speaker 3: Sunday that Rachelle's body had been found and they were
Speaker 3: treating her death as a murder, and then on the Monday,
Speaker 3: so soon after Kevin's pedaling this story that bikeys were involved.
Speaker 4: What's your reaction to that, Charlotte.
Speaker 2: I think it's a very strange way to react to
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. I mean, we have a twenty
Speaker 2: three year old who exit a car yard, she's been murdered.
Speaker 2: Why would you jump to bike is It's just such
Speaker 2: a strange conclusion to get to.
Speaker 4: And with almost no evidence.
Speaker 2: Really, I mean, she was friends with but it was
Speaker 2: also a very small town and I would say a
Speaker 2: lot of people knew a lot of people, So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very strange conclusion to come to you.
Speaker 4: That's one thing I'm really proud of.
Speaker 3: I guess that we've been able to dismantle that rumor,
Speaker 3: you know, we've been able to crush it because there
Speaker 3: are so many people that testify that Rachelle wasn't involved.
Speaker 4: With bikeis what are your thoughts on that? Patrick?
Speaker 1: Well, what struck meime? And looking at this when you
Speaker 1: look at Sash, who was one of the bikes and
Speaker 1: was heavily investigated, and he said to the investigators in
Speaker 1: one of those very early interviews, stop you wasting your time.
Speaker 1: It wasn't me, It's nothing to do with us. Go
Speaker 1: and find who did this. That biking rumor took hold
Speaker 1: and it distracted that initial investigation in a massive way,
Speaker 1: and it was a complete waste of time. It was
Speaker 1: very unfair to the reputation of Rochelle. It sort of
Speaker 1: suggested that she was somehow up to know good. Now
Speaker 1: we know for a fact she was twenty three, she
Speaker 1: was popular, she was on her way in life, she
Speaker 1: hadn't quite worked out where she was going to go.
Speaker 1: She was a great human being. Even under all this scrutiny.
Speaker 1: The weather applied and the police applied. She was a
Speaker 1: nice person. She had nothing to do with bike. She
Speaker 1: was not she wasn't up to no good. She was
Speaker 1: a good person. But this rumor, sort of this distraction
Speaker 1: took Highwood in such a massive way and it distracted
Speaker 1: the investigation for years and years.
Speaker 3: It is a complex case. There were multiple crime scenes.
Speaker 3: The Bargo Hotel which is where her car was staged
Speaker 3: and parked by somebody else, that obviously became a crime scene.
Speaker 4: Her car was an exhibit. Then you have GIRoA, Then.
Speaker 3: You have her workplace over Camden where she was last
Speaker 3: seen alive leaving work. So so many key locations and
Speaker 3: just on that, I know that Patrick, you visited a
Speaker 3: lot of those spots with me along the way as
Speaker 3: well and with tarm Or how does that play into
Speaker 3: it because you went there to look into this alibi
Speaker 3: of Kevin Stephen Carell, who was Rochelle's boss at the
Speaker 3: time at Camden Holden. He of course has strenuously denied
Speaker 3: any involvement in Rochelle's murder, and he willingly participated in
Speaker 3: three records of interview with police and provided his DNA voluntarily,
Speaker 3: and the coroner made an open finding, so in terms
Speaker 3: of Kevin's alibi, he says that he went to tarm
Speaker 3: Or to get fish and chips. What do you make
Speaker 3: of that point? In his alibi?
Speaker 1: Kevin offered a very complicated alibi and basically had him
Speaker 1: driving from Camden to Campbelltown to another shopping center, then
Speaker 1: down to Picton and down to tarm Or and back
Speaker 1: to Picton, then back to Campden. He talked about going
Speaker 1: to tarm Or to get fish and chips. Now that
Speaker 1: was striking and it struck the police officers at the
Speaker 1: time because what his order he said he was he
Speaker 1: remembered his order two weeks later. I think he gave
Speaker 1: that alibi after the show was murdered, and he remembered
Speaker 1: his order which involved I think about it, sav and
Speaker 1: chips and a can of coke. And it was almost
Speaker 1: the same order as he gave as an alibi to
Speaker 1: a sexual assault allegation back in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Look what stocks struck me about his alibi? And you
Speaker 1: look at the fish and chip shop. Why went the
Speaker 1: police going to the fish and ship shop? Sort of
Speaker 1: immediately sort of saying do you remember Kevin, this man
Speaker 1: being here on this night, at this time, and all
Speaker 1: of that kind of evidence got lost because that grunt work,
Speaker 1: that slog work of police actually canvassing people and sort
Speaker 1: of saying that he says he was here, then can
Speaker 1: you prove is the CCTV? Can you remember him? A
Speaker 1: lot of that work was went undone in those early
Speaker 1: days and weeks, and I got lost. All that evidence
Speaker 1: got lost, And here we are, twenty three years later,
Speaker 1: still looking at this alibi, which is very involved and
Speaker 1: stead of saying, how come this can't be proven or disproven?
Speaker 1: And I mean that drives me mad. I mean that's
Speaker 1: critical to this whole story. Can that alibi be proven
Speaker 1: or not? And it seems very unlikely that we can
Speaker 1: sort of having some sort of breakthrough, which hopefully we
Speaker 1: do actually get to the point of understanding where that
Speaker 1: alibi may have been true or may not have been true.
Speaker 1: That's another thing that drives me mad as.
Speaker 3: We investigate Kevin Carrell and his past. One thing that
Speaker 3: keeps popping up is mingles. Charlotte, You've been looking into this.
Speaker 3: What is mingles?
Speaker 2: Mingles was like a singles group. I guess, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll call it a singles group that sort of ran
Speaker 2: in like the early two thousands, and from what I gather,
Speaker 2: I mean, it was run by one person and she
Speaker 2: just wanted people to have fun. She ran these huge events,
Speaker 2: usually at RSLs around Southwest Sydney, and so many people went.
Speaker 2: I mean there are pictures just with hundreds of people
Speaker 2: and they look like they're having the best time. So
Speaker 2: they were very popular events. Kevin, I mean, is still
Speaker 2: very good friends with this woman. And by all accounts,
Speaker 2: I mean, he was very well liked among all the
Speaker 2: people there. He was very charismatic, he was very friendly.
Speaker 2: But he was one of you know, hundreds of people
Speaker 2: who were going to these events. And you know, I
Speaker 2: mean I think that they were for people sort of
Speaker 2: older than maybe thirty five forty, who might have had
Speaker 2: young kids, they might have been nearly divorced, they might
Speaker 2: be single, who wouldn't maybe have had an opportunity to
Speaker 2: go out and have fun without that.
Speaker 3: So it was a networking group or social group that
Speaker 3: was targeted at single people and connections around that.
Speaker 4: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say a social group very much towards
Speaker 2: single people, like people looking for people looking for love,
Speaker 2: love for fun, fun, Yeah, that's what i'd say.
Speaker 3: And some of the people that we've spoken to met
Speaker 3: Kevin through mingles. He's so popular in that circle of
Speaker 3: friends and those connections that he has and so many
Speaker 3: loyal supporters, and then you look into other aspects of
Speaker 3: his past, like previous relationships, for example, his ex wife.
Speaker 3: What did did you make of her interview? I'll start
Speaker 3: with you Patrick, Elise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, that was an incredible interview as well done
Speaker 1: forgetting it. I heard somebody who was afraid. That was
Speaker 1: the takeaway from me, somebody who to this day still
Speaker 1: feels afraid of that aspect of her life. She talked
Speaker 1: about a sort of jeculine hard character. If you're like
Speaker 1: somebody who was very charismatic and very charming, especially at
Speaker 1: the start of their relationship, and that's something that we've
Speaker 1: heard again and again. At the start of relationships, this
Speaker 1: man was a complete gentleman. He went out of his
Speaker 1: way to impress his partner of the time. But as
Speaker 1: the months went on and as the years went on,
Speaker 1: those partners would start seeing a very different side of Kevin,
Speaker 1: and that side terrified them. That's the common link. You
Speaker 1: have all these women who actually feel terrified to this
Speaker 1: day of Kevin, And you know, it's like they've got
Speaker 1: somebody they're looking over the shoulders for the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives. That is the common link, I think, but
Speaker 1: relationships that started out very charming and very all encompassing
Speaker 1: that went sour at some point.
Speaker 3: And just on that, Alise, along with so many other
Speaker 3: brave women, have pushed through that fear to speak out.
Speaker 4: So that's very telling, do you think, Charlotte.
Speaker 2: A lot of people who have come forward are people
Speaker 2: who have gone, oh, you know, I wasn't really sure
Speaker 2: whether to say anything, and now I've and know I'm
Speaker 2: going to. And of course, if they want their privacy respected,
Speaker 2: we respect that too, and they trust us to do that.
Speaker 2: You know, the fact that they're willing to come out
Speaker 2: now after the podcast has launched and tell these deeply
Speaker 2: personal stories and things, as Patrick said, that they're still
Speaker 2: quite afraid of, I think, is that's really brave of
Speaker 2: them to.
Speaker 4: Just on that.
Speaker 3: We need to mention that Kevin Correll strenuously denies any
Speaker 3: allegations of domestic abuse leveled against him by his ex
Speaker 3: wife Elise in these investigations. We have an email address,
Speaker 3: It's dear Rochelle atnews dot com dot au and some days,
Speaker 3: my jaw drops. I don't know how you guys are feeling,
Speaker 3: but what do you feel about when you check that
Speaker 3: email some days?
Speaker 1: Yes, no, look, I look at it every day. I
Speaker 1: look forward to looking at it each morning. We've had
Speaker 1: dozens of people come through, and again there's a common thread.
Speaker 1: They want to help. They actually want to help, and
Speaker 1: a lot of those emails begin with I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is relevant, and then they tell a story
Speaker 1: that relates to some encounter they had or some understanding
Speaker 1: they had back from twenty years ago. And again, these
Speaker 1: are people who just want to see justice done. That's
Speaker 1: the driving force. And you know, you got some strange
Speaker 1: ideas in there. At times. We've also got people who say, look,
Speaker 1: I knew this person back then, and this person was
Speaker 1: like this, and I just want to help. I just
Speaker 1: want to give you something. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: means anything. I want to give you something that goes
Speaker 1: to making this getting justice done. And that's one impressive
Speaker 1: mane And there's so many people every day. I look
Speaker 1: forward to it. As I said, just looking at those
Speaker 1: of emails.
Speaker 4: I love looking at the inbox.
Speaker 2: And as Patrick said, you know a lot of people
Speaker 2: go oh, I don't know if this is important, and
Speaker 2: usually those are the best ones, but even listeners sending
Speaker 2: us questions that they have, you know, I mean, as journalists,
Speaker 2: it's part of our job to preempt what listeners will
Speaker 2: want to know. We have to ask those questions, and
Speaker 2: so getting people engaging with it, asking their own questions,
Speaker 2: it's not only super interesting from our perspective, but it's
Speaker 2: really important to get that kind of feedback, I guess.
Speaker 3: And it's so great to know as well that the
Speaker 3: interest from our listeners and people that read your stories,
Speaker 3: that they are coming forward and they want to help,
Speaker 3: as you say, and that's what it's going to take,
Speaker 3: we believe to get this solved right.
Speaker 1: Some of those tips that have come through have driven
Speaker 1: what we have reported and how the podcast has gone.
Speaker 1: And I think somebody out there knows something that breaks
Speaker 1: this open. All the police officers who have been part
Speaker 1: of this, everyone who's been part of us is of
Speaker 1: the belief that somebody or some people know things that
Speaker 1: actually steer this story. And some of those people and
Speaker 1: I'm sure it will be one of those. As Charlotte
Speaker 1: was saying, I'm not sure if this will help, but
Speaker 1: it will be one of those tips that really could
Speaker 1: crack this wide open. I'm sure, and it's exciting. It's
Speaker 1: great to see it happening in real time and to
Speaker 1: see the possibility sort of emerge in front of you
Speaker 1: each morning as you look at them.
Speaker 4: Wouldn't that be incredible?
Speaker 3: Given the injustice that Anne and Christie have been dealt
Speaker 3: for so many years, which just coming up to twenty
Speaker 3: four years is the anniversary of Rochelle's brutal murder, and
Speaker 3: just to think what they've gone through over the years,
Speaker 3: what have you made of that, you know, going through
Speaker 3: the first the initial investigation and then the inquest, and
Speaker 3: then the police appeals that just fell on deaf ears,
Speaker 3: and this campaign to increase the reward that for some reason,
Speaker 3: we're still it's still sitting there at two hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: which is not a huge amount of money to someone
Speaker 3: who could potentially be risking relationships or risking their safety,
Speaker 3: they might fear for their safety to come forward with information.
Speaker 3: So where do you sit with the reward and why
Speaker 3: it hasn't been increased at all? Charlotte, I know you've
Speaker 3: been strongly looking into that one too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't really understand why the reward hasn't been raised.
Speaker 2: I mean, two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of
Speaker 2: money back when Rochelle was murdered, but today it's not
Speaker 2: even a house deposit in Sydney, to be honest, and
Speaker 2: really the ones that work, the rewards that work are
Speaker 2: about a million dollars.
Speaker 4: That is, you need someone.
Speaker 2: To be able to give this information, uproot their lives
Speaker 2: potentially and move somewhere else, and they need the funds
Speaker 2: to do that. So it would be a tremendous incentive
Speaker 2: if police raise the word to about a million dollars.
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine how taxing this has been for Rochelle's
Speaker 2: family to go through this for so long. The emotional investment,
Speaker 2: the energy, the pain that they go through, it's unimaginable.
Speaker 1: In the course of our jobs, we deal with a
Speaker 1: lot of victims of crime, you know, whether it's in
Speaker 1: court cases or the Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse or whatever.
Speaker 1: Most of those people who are victims are scarred by
Speaker 1: what has happened to them. Very understandably. They're bitter their already,
Speaker 1: they're obsessed in ways that are perfectly relatable, and that's
Speaker 1: what struck me about christian Ann when I first met them.
Speaker 1: They are hurt for life by what happened to Rochelle,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't shaped them in that sort of ugly
Speaker 1: way that victims of crime are shaped. They laugh, they joke,
Speaker 1: They have fond memories of Rochelle, and all the way
Speaker 1: through Graham's childs did most of the heavy lifting with
Speaker 1: the police until he passed away, and was always constructive.
Speaker 1: He didn't get angry, he didn't throw tantrums. He just
Speaker 1: wanted justice. And it was this very sort of discipline,
Speaker 1: sort of need for justice that really got inherited by
Speaker 1: Christie in the same way. She wants this to happen.
Speaker 1: She needs for this to happen, but she doesn't get
Speaker 1: angry with the police. She hasn't shouted from the rooftops.
Speaker 1: She hasn't sort of, you know, demanded things must happen
Speaker 1: in what it's all been, sort of can you please
Speaker 1: help us? We need to find an answer here. And
Speaker 1: I admire them. They are outstanding human beings because of
Speaker 1: the way they have handled such a long time this
Speaker 1: missing part of their life. It was stolen from them.
Speaker 1: They just want to understand why, and they do it
Speaker 1: in the most articulate and in a warm sort of way.
Speaker 1: They are outstanding in that sense.
Speaker 3: They're just remarkably dignified in their campaign for justice, and
Speaker 3: we all as a team, and it's a huge team,
Speaker 3: are fighting for that too. So everyone's contribution to this
Speaker 3: project is very greatly appreciated by myself, but mostly Christian
Speaker 3: and Teamshell, which is growing by the day, which is fantastic.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you both for.
Speaker 3: Joining me today on this special bonus episode of Dear
Speaker 3: Rochelle Pleasure Rash.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: New episodes of De Rochelle drop on Fridays. Visit deroshelle
Speaker 3: dot com doau for more and if you have any
Speaker 3: information you want to share with me Ashley Hanson, you
Speaker 3: can do so confidentially. Please send an email to Deroshelle
Speaker 3: at news dot com, doa you or you can follow
Speaker 3: the Deershelle podcast official discussion group on Facebook.