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Speaker 4The family of missing Bathurst woman, Janine Vaughan, has made an emotional plea for information into her whereabouts. To be quite blunt with you, the moment this, if he's done it, arrests the man.
Speaker 5This stuff has tortured me for a long time. It drives me insane. It breaks my freaking heart.
Speaker 6We think a local was involved, a local at Bathurst in 2001. We think there's people involved. People in Bathurst who have been holding on to secrets for some time.
Speaker 3The calm and measured voice of Scott Cook held every journalist's attention in a room set aside for police media conferences in Sydney. In early 2019, detectives told Janine Vaughan's sister Kylie about a plan. Senior police wanted to go public with some important announcements about Janine's case. Kylie, her brother Adam and their father Ian went to Sydney soon afterwards.
Speaker 6As you would be aware, today I'm announcing a $1 million reward for information in regards to the murder of Janine. We want to solve this matter. We want justice for Janine and every other victim. And so this is a tool for us to get you, all of you, to broadcast to the community that we want help here. To make this the centre of attention. And a million dollars is a big attraction for that. We're not giving up, that's for sure. You know, we want to win. Exhaust our investigative strategies and then we'll think of some more. So we're not looking back, we're looking forward. We want to catch this person and we're focused on that. Whoever did this has engaged in a despicable act. They need to come and get it off their conscience. You know, make it easy for the family, easier for the family. I mean, they're already in pain over this. Why keep them in misery?
Speaker 7Things don't stop, time doesn't stop, life does not stop. We have children, my children have never met her and so many things in our life that we would love to share with her that we haven't been able to because of this person or persons have denied us of that.
Speaker 6If you have any sense of morality, you'll come forward. But I don't expect that because crooks don't do that. People who murder people need to be brought to justice. And so it's all right, we'll keep going. And one day, hopefully, that person will be in the dock.
Speaker 3Scott Cook delivered a brief summary of the known facts, starting with Janine being last seen shortly before 4am on December 7, 2001.
Speaker 6At that time, Janine was seen getting into a small red vehicle. She has not been seen since and her body has not been located since.
Speaker 3Cook highlighted something else in his media conference announcing the $1 million reward in 2019.
Speaker 6About 10 minutes before Janine got into that car, a car of a similar description, about 750 metres to a kilometre away, was seen stalking another woman. And so we're confident that it's the same car and, by extension, the same driver. And so we're really focused on that car. So we're going back right to the time when she disappeared, we're revisiting it, and we're trying to exhaust everything we can out of that. So we've spoken to the woman who was stalked and she's given a very good account of what occurred, so much so that we're convinced that it was probably the same vehicle. And that's significant. She was seriously concerned about her own safety. But, thankfully, nothing happened to her.
Speaker 3Adam and Kylie spoke to me soon afterwards.
Speaker 8They were fantastic today. They had a vibe, they had a buzz about them. Confidence. Confidence, yeah. Which then obviously made us feel relaxed and knowing that, you know, something is actually getting done.
Speaker 9And I thought, well, I think he's up to something. I wanted to move. For those seconds or whatever it was, I'd had a panic attack. And I just couldn't make myself run. I felt really, really frightened.
Speaker 3Not much usually happens in Bathurst in the pre-dawn hours of a Friday morning. The streets are close to empty. The houses are dark. There's perhaps just a smattering of students from the local university stumbling back to share houses. Some other locals looking for a last drink or three and a bit of company are about the only few people with faces you'll see. There are few cars around. The would-be Mount Panorama warriors are at home. The deep roar of the exhausts on their Fords and Holdens are quiet too. Taxi drivers are taking their chances. But there was an extraordinary occurrence in Bathurst in the early hours of Friday, December 7, 2001. Minutes before Janine Vaughan got into that mystery red car about 10:00 to 4:00 in the morning, another woman stood down, terrified. A man in a red car was stalking her. Police have always suspected these two events must be connected. The chance of it being a coincidence of different men in red cars stalking women in separate incidents seemed unlikely to police. In the first, Lynette Borland was frightened for her life, but she managed to flee and then recounted what happened. In the second, Janine Vaughan stepped into the red car and then disappeared into the night, never to be seen again. Lynette described the incident in statements to police. These are her words from her statements, but not her voice.
Speaker 9He had one leg still in the car and one leg out of the car, and he had his hand on the door, and he was leaning over like that. And I think he said, "Excuse me, I want to talk to you, or can I talk to you?"
Speaker 3Lynette recalled he had the voice of someone in authority. That's why she suggested he sounded like a police officer or a security guy.
Speaker 9And I thought, you know, all these things went through my mind very quickly, but I thought he might have thought I was up to something.
Speaker 3She had been living in a rented farmhouse on the rural fringe of Bathurst. The farm was quiet. Lynette kept animals for company. She liked the solitude and the fact that there were very few neighbours nearby. Lynette had a car at the farm, but she no longer had a driver, a driver's licence, and she didn't want to risk being stopped by police. So she had thumbed a ride into Bathurst to visit friends when it was daylight. Hitchhiking did not worry her. Lynette was street smart. She believed she knew how to look after herself. She had done some living.
Speaker 9I always made a habit of hitching with truck drivers because they reckon that it's a lot harder for them to do anything to you. And I've got a lot of cousins and uncles that do truck driving. So once you get in the truck with them and you say, "Do you know Johnny Staines?" And you're not just a piece of meat or a hitchhiker, you become a somebody to them. So I think that always made the difference. I've had truck drivers try and get on to me, but never anything too bad.
Speaker 3Lynette had been to see her friends, Phil and Megan, and their new baby at their home in town opposite the Panthers Leagues Club. She was with them all day and well into the night. It was raining. It was getting very late. The sensible thing to do was to sleep at Phil and Megan's but Lynette felt she couldn't. There was an affectionate dog back at the farm and she had just had pups. So Lynette's plan sometime after 3am was to walk from her friend's place and down William Street until she reached the Shell service station at the Great Western Highway. She reckoned it was about a 20 minute walk in the rain. At the service station, Lynette hoped to get a lift back to the farm with one of the truck drivers who would be stopping in for fuel and coffee. As she walked, she saw two cars, both red, one large and one small.
Speaker 9And the little red car went around the roundabout and came back down.
Speaker 3Lynette kept walking. William Street runs alongside Makati Park. Here's Scott Hyman, who was out with Janine that night. You heard from him in episode two.
Speaker 10And it takes up almost half a block. It's the old jail cell area that's been converted into a city park. Yeah, it's rather large, really dark at night too. I wouldn't walk through there if I was a young lady myself.
Speaker 3On the other side of Makati Park, Janine and her friends would soon be leaving the Metro tavern. But Lynette Borland was oblivious to all this. She just wanted to go home.
Speaker 9The next thing I heard was the car again. And so I think I thought, well, I'm not going down there. It's too dark. And he actually cut around and he was that slow that he almost stopped. I could see into the car. I could see everything in the car.
Speaker 3Now Lynette was scared. No one was around, no other cars. She now suspected the small red car was following her. When it pulled alongside she had a good view of the driver.
Speaker 9He had both his hands on the steering wheel and I remember him looking up at me. I remember he was a big sort of fellow. He had his sleeves either rolled up or a short sleeve shirt on. I'm not too exact about that. He had hairy arms right down to the first knuckle and then I saw different things in the car. An umbrella, a little box that was hanging off the rear vision mirror. I also saw that he had a bracelet, identification bracelet on his right wrist and he had a watch on as well with a stretchy band. And then I think what made me get frightened was I thought he took his hand, his right hand off the steering wheel and it appeared to me he was going to wind his window down. I got frightened and I moved towards the back of the car. I stepped down and walked around the back of the car quickly and then crossed the road and kept going down William Street.
Speaker 3The little red car took off. The Shell service station was still some way off.
Speaker 9It was raining and I was walking quickly but I was keeping an ear more than an eye open for him because I heard him more than I'd seen him.
Speaker 3Lynette spotted a large metal box on a street corner. It housed telephone wires and electrical cables. She saw it as a place to stop and hide and work out what to do next. She couldn't outrun the car.
Speaker 9I was so freaked out that I ended up hiding behind that. I wasn't really hiding because if you could see it, I look ridiculous. But I think I was just trying to gather my thoughts and I knew that I was in trouble. I knew that this person was up to something. He was following me.
Speaker 3After a short time crouched behind the metal box, Lynette made a move.
Speaker 9I thought the best idea was to get out of there, get on the street and get to where I was going. I came out from behind the box. I recall that he came really fast down the road, chucked a Yui right in front of me and pulled up and he was
Speaker 3right there. This time the driver of the small red car spoke.
Speaker 9I could hear him. The window wasn't down but he was talking to me which also freaked me out because I thought he wants me to go over. So I thought, well I'm not doing that and at that stage had a mild panic attack. The next thing I knew he was out of the car. He was half out of the car anyway. Not totally out. He had his hand on the door. I wanted to run.
Speaker 3Lynette did her best to describe the driver.
Speaker 9He was a big man, about six foot tall. He didn't look like he fitted in that car. He looked too big for the car. Dark hair. He had a fair complexion. He had what I'd call a boof head or a square head. I couldn't tell you what colour eyes he had but I remember he had a bumpy nose like pimples. And that stood out to me. He had a white business shirt on that was not done right up to the top and black trousers.
Speaker 3Lynette recalled looking at the car's number plate. Despite her stress, she believed she had caught the letters. I. C. U. But not the numbers. But she thought there was something odd about the number plate. To Lynette's keen eye, it seemed that paint was running, washing away slightly with the rain.
Speaker 9They seemed to be painted on. You know what I mean? And I know that because I'm a car detailer. I've cleaned cars for many years and number plates aren't written on with tyre blacker. There was something about the number plate that was changed. I said to myself, this is not right. This is bad. Get out of here. Go. I ran as far as I could from that point.
Speaker 3Lynette reached the Shell service station.
Speaker 9I asked the attendant if I could wait there because there was a man in a red car following me and he asked me if I wanted him to go. I wanted him to call the police. And I think I said, no, I'll just see what happens. I've often regretted that, but it's just what I did at the time.
Speaker 3Damien Brackenreg was on duty, having started his shift at the console at midnight.
Speaker 11Oh, she was clearly nervous and upset. She complained to me about someone following her. I assumed she meant in the car. She stayed in the shop about five to ten minutes. She wandered around and kept looking out the window.
Speaker 3The little bit of audio from that security footage has Lynette describing a small red car that was following her. Then she wrote the small red car's number plate details on a piece of paper and she put this in her handbag. Within about ten minutes, a truck driver, Steve, had stopped in, picked Lynette up and driven her back to the farm.
Speaker 9The following night, I went out to the club and I met a fellow and he asked for my phone number. And that was the piece of paper that I'd given. You know, like, I just wrote my number down. And I gave him that bit of paper and that was the paper that on the back of it had the number plate. He was just some bloke trying to get onto me at the club.
Speaker 3The scrap of paper had gone and the number plate details with it. If it hadn't been for her friend's urgings, Lynette would not have gone to police a week after Janine's disappearance.
Speaker 9I was talking to my friend Sue about it. She rang me up and she said to me, did you hear about that lady that went missing? Someone in a red car had taken her. And I said, no, I didn't hear that. Living at the farm, I didn't really listen to the news or papers or anything. She basically, more or less, well, I have to say, shamed me into going to the police because at that stage, I just didn't. I wasn't concerned. But she said to me, like, imagine if it was her daughter. If someone else went missing, she said she'd never forgive me. That's why I went to the police. Because I thought that it might be something to do with that lady that went missing.
Speaker 3The second statement Lynette Borland gave to police was about a month later. But this was a statement that she gave after hypnosis. The investigating police asked a number of witnesses, including Juanita Murphy, if they would be hypnotized by a woman called Margaret Tomko. Those who agreed would meet Margaret in Bathurst, sometimes in a quiet room in a motel. With her soothing voice, she put Lynette and others at ease, then tried to bring to the surface details which had been submerged. Providence provided under hypnosis would not be admissible in court. But at least it was something potentially for the police to work with. Here's what Lynette disclosed after hypnosis about something that was stuck to the back window of the small red car.
Speaker 9It had a sticker for tinting windows. It had a wiper in the middle of the back of it.
Speaker 3Lynette said the driver had a chubby face and big hands.
Speaker 9There was a dashboard mat, grey, I think, with the letters HY. Then some more letters. Then Excel written on it.
Speaker 3Lynette agreed it was possible that she saw a car floor mat. Lynette offered something else, a description not just of what she saw, but what she heard. She described the motor of the red car making an over-revving sound. A car being driven by a man who looked too big for it, according to Lynette. Now let's go back to the media conference called In Early 2019 by Scott Cook as the then head of the Police Homicide Squad.
Speaker 6During the course of the investigation, we seized a small red vehicle. In that vehicle, we have DNA samples that we've recovered from the vehicle.
Speaker 3The red car seized by police and tested a decade ago previously belonged to the pharmacist Andrew Jones, one of the three key persons of interest. Jones's strenuous denials were heard early in episode one. Never been in my car. Didn't know her. They can test my car as much as they want. They won't find anything. Jones drove a red Renault 19 when Janine disappeared.
Speaker 6We seized that vehicle about 10 years ago and we are now applying new DNA technology to the samples that we received. We're intending on pursuing that DNA line of inquiry. It takes some time. We're hopeful that the DNA will belong to Janine. And so if we get Janine's DNA in that car or match DNAs to that car, that's a significant breakthrough if it happens. But certainly we know who the owner was at the time. We will ultimately have to talk to some people again. The detectives who are currently handling the matter have been re-interviewing people and have put in place a lot of strategies. It's really important for us to make sure that our timing around that is correct. I have no doubt we'll continue interviewing people and there will be people who we go back to.
Speaker 3A combination of grief and anger welling in Janine's brother Adam found its voice that day.
Speaker 12I hope that information given to the police 18 years ago didn't get missed and we've gone through this shit for all this time when it could have been solved. That's what we've gone back to today. The same car, the same woman that was on the street. Someone, her family got lucky. And we lost out.
Speaker 3A reporter questioned Scott Cook about police contacts with the witness from 2001, Lynette Borland. She's
Speaker 6been spoken to a couple of times in the early stages.
Speaker 3It's been revisited. But the top cop omitted one important fact.
Speaker 13I just remember mum saying years ago, oh, there's a girl that got killed that I knew and the car almost tried to pick me up beforehand.
Speaker 3While looking for Lynette Borland, I eventually found her son,
Speaker 13Andrew Bignall. I met a Swedish girl and moved up here five years ago.
Speaker 3Andrew stopped the digger that he was driving on a farm in Sweden to speak with me about what his mum had said of her close shave.
Speaker 13I was a bit worried, obviously. I asked if she was all right. Everything was good, but she was a bit shaken up about it because the lady had gone missing. I didn't think too much of it, being 15, to be honest. Did she get found, the lady?
Speaker 3No. Andrew's mother, Lynette, gave detailed statements to police in the years after her brush with the night driver. But if police arrest someone over Janine's murder, they won't be able to rely on the woman who fled from him that night in December 2001.
Speaker 13She actually got kicked by a horse, and then that put her in hospital, and then she had to get an operation.
Speaker 3Andrew told me his mother had died after complications arising from the freak accident on a four-year-old. She was on a farm in northern New South Wales. Lynette Borland was 44 when she was stalked in Bathurst. She passed away in northern New South Wales four years ago.
Speaker 13I'm in peace living out there and being back in this sort of country and having horses and just not being in town and away from a lot of bad influences, I think.
Speaker 3Some locals who went to Bathurst Police Station to pass on information or make a formal statement would discover that the Deputy Mayor of Bathurst, Detective Sergeant Brad Hosemans, was involved in the murder investigation, and detectives under his supervision were involved.
Speaker 4He was the one that phoned me and asked me to. to come in and speak with them about everything that had happened with Janine. The day that I went in, I was talking with. there'd been some guys who had gotten out of one of the prisons locally. I spoke with him for a few minutes.
Speaker 3That's Felicity, who worked with Janine at the menswear store. You heard her earlier in this series. Hosemans was not running the investigation, but clearly he was a part of it. The mere fact of him having had anything to do with. the case as a detective aroused strong feelings in the community. Locals knew that he had been charged after the infamous seafood night at the Bathurst Golf Club.
Speaker 14Oh, yeah, yeah, read that all about that in the paper too, yeah, yep. So he was getting. putting out headlines? Yeah, yeah, yep. Yeah, people would definitely know, would have known who he was.
Speaker 3That's Dan Murphy, who worked with Janine at the menswear store. He denied that he did anything wrong?
Speaker 14No, I'm sure he did. I don't think you can pick another person in Bathurst that'd be that infamous. With the stuff that he's done before, almost points the finger at himself. When you're a detective and you're in the deputy mayor, you can sort of make a few things happen if you need to make them happen.
Speaker 3In the town's rumour mill, it's an exciting theory or plot. Senior detective and deputy mayor stalks, then murders a woman. He then helps run the police investigation. And intercepts witnesses to ensure that he doesn't get caught. But there's one big problem. It's unsupported by any hard evidence.
Speaker 15Well, our whole time with this has been hosens, hosens, hosens, hosens, hosens. Everything is just hosens. In the beginning, I just felt like he was just blundering our whole investigation.
Speaker 3You heard Janine's sister Kylie earlier in this episode.
Speaker 15He had taken so much time off the detective's hands just by. looking into him. They're not actually out there looking for the real killer because they're focused so much on dealing with shit that's coming about him.
Speaker 3This ultimately pointless focus and local gossip about Hosemans as a suspect was very distracting for the official murder investigations. Baseless rumours about Hosemans having pursued and killed Janine rocked public confidence in the police. All of these factors and then a complaint by Janine's father Ian Vaughan contributed to the ruling of police commanders to direct the town's leading detective to cease his involvement in the investigation. It is impossible to know now whether Janine's killer might have been exposed long ago if Hosemans had been allowed to stay on it. Hosemans has long held suspicions of a connection between Janine's killer and a disturbing pattern of events in Bathurst in the weeks prior. I raised this briefly at the end of this episode as there is no credible evidence against Hosemans I've called on the former detective sergeant's knowledge and experience for this podcast investigation. He's been prepared to help from afar where possible.
Speaker 16I remember you telling me about a series of incidents prior to Janine's disappearance involving assaults or attempted assaults on women in Bathurst.
Speaker 17In the lead up to this event there was a series of incidents where there was this succession of young girls, victims coming in and complaining that someone attempted to assault them generally around the CBD of Bathurst I think from memory where most of them happened. And it was kind of like an indecent type of assault where the guy was trying to grab them. And there was a similarity in the description of the person they alleged was doing these things. No reason other than to believe the complainants completely. No inkling of any sort of fabrication. I think it's a good thing. I think it actually was happening. A description sticks in my mind where one of the victims spoke about the guy having large hands. And that term came in later through the course of the Lynette Baldwin lady I think mentioned the driver of the red car that tried to grab her had large hands. And you can kind of see this scenario playing out where you've got a guy that's some sort of sexual predator and you know he starts off and he's just trying to grab women in the street or whatever and he starts to escalate his friends and he starts to escalate his friends and he starts to escalate his friends and he's brazenness and you know like a typical sexual frustration type offender where you know you can just build up to the point that something catastrophic's happened like what has. But I do remember saying to the initial strike force because I was the detective sergeant of the city at the time I had a pretty good handle on my beat and I remember saying to them look you know I don't think you should discount this I think you should look at this because to me there's a pattern building and then we've got this disappearance so it deserves investigation.
Speaker 16And do you recall what happened or would they have possibly investigated those incidents but you wouldn't have been aware of it?
Speaker 17It's possible those incidents were investigated and I wasn't aware of it. I do recall at the time that the initial strike force wasn't really keen on tying those events in with the disappearance but that's not to say they didn't look at them I'm just not aware of it.
Speaker 3In the description of the mystery car driven by the night driver there is a troubling discrepancy. You'll recall the point made by the head of the homicide squad in 2019 about it being a small vehicle. Let's hear that comment by Scott Cook again.
Speaker 6At that time Janine was seen getting into a small red vehicle.
Speaker 3This is important because back when Janine vanished in 2001 and over several ensuing years the homicide squad senior cop Paul Jacobs said Janine got in the car in a medium-sized vehicle. Jacob ran the first homicide investigation. He was confident the mystery vehicle was not small. This was despite a key witness and car enthusiast in Ian Bryant the gentle giant known as Strop stating soon afterwards that he believed the car was small. The size of the red car is crucial. The red car cannot be simultaneously small and medium in size. Here's the then detective inspector Paul Jacob in a Bathurst TV News interview from 2001.
Speaker 18After re-interviewing witnesses police have revised the description of that vehicle. Police now believe it was a bright red four-door sedan a mid to late 1990s model similar in shape and size to a Mitsubishi Magna or Toyota Camry. Police see the car as an important key to solving the case and are confident the new description is accurate. But the new description is accurate. The generalised description of the car doesn't allow us to focus until we receive some information that we can act upon and that's what we're hoping to achieve by this release today.
Speaker 3For listeners unfamiliar with vehicle makes and models the Mitsubishi Magna and Toyota Camry sedans are medium-sized vehicles. They were certainly not regarded as small. Dennis Briggs drove a Hyundai Excel back then. It was small. Andrew Jones drove a Renault 19. It was small. Here's another TV news clip from the period.
Speaker 19Strikeforce Toko officials releasing more details about that vehicle. Mid to late 1990s model bright red four-door sedan similar in size and shape to a Mitsubishi or Camry.
Speaker 3Now here's Detective Richie Simm from an interview relatively early in the police investigation. A medium-sized red sedan has pulled out of the vehicle Pulled up, the passenger door opened, and Janine got in the car. when janine's disappearance was just days old for the people of bathurst police appealed to the public to help identify a small car then they changed it days later to a medium-sized car this remained the case for some years now it's mysteriously shifted back to being a small car i spoke about this with peter murphy my friend who has been helping me investigate the case
Speaker 20one of the the massive elephants in the room for me in this case is people are adamant she wouldn't have got into a car with a person she didn't know it seems abundantly clear that not only following that theory through that not only is it a person she knew but it's also a car she knew because the car comes from behind her she turns around she goes to the car without hesitation gets straight into the car without hesitation so everyone seems to accept that the reason for that behavior is she knows the car she knows the person driving the car okay now we
Speaker 3know that lynette ballin came forward early and she told police of her terror at being stalked by a driver in a small red car we know that this occurred just minutes prior to janine's disappearance given these circumstances it's difficult to understand why police asked the public back then to look out for a medium-sized red car
Speaker 20the best descriptions are small red car and this disappearance murder has been talked about endlessly in bathurst peter's analysis
Speaker 3of thousands of documents from the investigation has persuaded him of something
Speaker 20so why doesn't somebody say okay what do we know she wouldn't have got into a car with someone she doesn't know but they've never said what about people who drive red cars of any type or description who janine knows well enough to get into now one of the elephants in the room for me is why is that bit
Speaker 21missing the very early pieces in the local papers they quote paul jacob who's the lead detective so they originally were talking about a small red car such as one described by ian bryant known as then within days it's being publicly telegraphed that no that is actually wrong he says that description is wrong we now have a much better description it's a medium-sized car it's not a small red car so i think that that um mixed messaging has had a big impact yeah yeah 20 years later it's gone back to a small red car according
Speaker 3to the latest and best police information yep and it
Speaker 20makes you wonder whether the police are trying to fit the car to a person they've got in their sights this podcast is made
Speaker 3possible by subscribers to the australian and our principal sponsor harvey norman since late 2017 when i started pursuing chris dawson for the 1982 murder of his wife lynn harvey norman has been a loyal backer it began with the teacher's pet and harvey norman and its ceo katie page's support has been a great support for harvey norman and his wife has continued for over eight years i'm proud to have had their backing on all of mine and the australian's investigative podcasts the night driver shandy's story shandy's legacy the teacher's trial the teacher's accuser bronwyn and most recently the sick to death podcast for more information on this podcast go to the australian.com.au the gentle giant of a hotel bouncer strop was janine's friend but ian bryant had a heart condition and it got him some years after janine disappeared we know what he said he witnessed though he put it in a statement when the details were still fresh in his mind and he spoke to police i've asked someone to voice the words in strop's statement from that time the
Speaker 22rain started to pour hard and janine started running i assumed to get out of the rain his first
Speaker 3description of the last time he was in the he saw janine is reassuringly precise in a case filled with contradictions and murkiness it's a description made just hours after janine's disappearance i
Speaker 22noticed a small car do a u-turn when the car stopped it was about five meters behind janine and a bit to her right it's
Speaker 3important i think that strop distinguishes it there as a small car i
Speaker 22saw janine stop running and look back at this car janine then started running and i saw janine stop running and i saw it walk towards this car as she headed towards the car one of the passenger side doors open janine walked over and got into the car through the door that was open she didn't appear to speak to the occupants of the car as she got into the car
Speaker 3janine's actions suggest a familiarity with the driver one that overrides any hesitation about getting into the car as
Speaker 22janine got into the car i heard wanita yell out janine's name janine didn't
Speaker 3respond the cctv cameras outside the tavern had a setting which meant they picked up sound too it's a
Speaker 15little hard to hear because of street
Speaker 3noise and the sound of raindrops falling onto the cameras we've been working with sound engineers to try to listen in on janine's last few minutes of conversation just in case it yields some clues wanita and jordan would marry and have children in the years after janine's disappearance they're no longer together as wanita waits for jordan to get off the telephone to his former girlfriend we can hear janine urging jordan to end the call to her
Speaker 15say goodbye mate say goodbye say goodbye okay did you hear that janine says she
Speaker 3gave her phone number to her ex-boyfriend and told him she was she gave her phone number to an unidentified male that's
Speaker 15janine telling jordan they're leaving
Speaker 3to go back to the oxford tavern to see the staff there the heels of janine's boots clip the footpath i would
Speaker 22describe the car that she got into as a small car similar to a ford laser or hyundai xl it was pink red in color and it looked quite new maybe three or four years old but it was a car that she got into as a small car similar to a three or four years old mal
Speaker 3pollard jointly owned the metro tavern at that time with his friend trevor howie they talked to strop about the mystery car did
Speaker 23you talk to him directly the next day that is just hours after janine disappeared yeah it was the friday night okay because that was a talk of everyone you know like because the police had been around and um she still hadn't turned up but he said it was raining and he looked out the window and saw her walking across the road and was about to yell out to her to see if she wanted to lift and he saw her get into a uh he said like a salmon colored xl was his was his exact
Speaker 16words an xl being a hyundai hyundai xl yeah and um how would you describe his reliability or credibility with cars
Speaker 23you know some people are what you call car guys that know all the cars and have got a passion for cars and i would say that he would be very unlikely to make a mistake
Speaker 3now here's a strange coincidence a red hyundai xl was parked just behind the metro tavern that night in fact it was parked there most nights because it belonged to trevor howie's wife cara they'd been married just six months at that time but inexplicably this small red car matching the description of the one seen by strop did not immediately come to the attention of police i raised it with mal pollard when he was recalling the reliability of strop's description of the car
Speaker 16and did you think holy snap my partner's got a an xl that's kind of reddish we
Speaker 23didn't even really know what had happened like we're thinking she's gonna turn up tomorrow getting back to your about trevor's car and again because that was red rather than salmon colored i don't think anyone was too concerned that first day we were sort of not really thinking that it was going to be anything dastardly the friday morning uh juanita came in asking if we uh had found janine's bag and she was concerned because janine hadn't turned up for work and i said no look i don't know anything about it and she came back at about one o'clock i think but as she came in trevor was coming down the stairs and i said i said to him have you seen a a handbag and he goes oh this handbag and it was um had been sitting out the back the cleaner had found it and put it on the back yeah out the back bar where i hadn't been out so um gave juanita the bag and she said no i don't know anything about it and she said no i don't know anything about it At that point, they were really concerned then because she still hadn't jumped. up and that was the first that I knew of it. And then pretty soon it developed into a missing person in a homicide investigation. The police came and got the videotape that really grainy videotape that you see everywhere and said to us well if you think of anything you know let us know and this is where it got really quite strange.
Speaker 19Tonight Bathurst Police call off an initial search for a local woman missing for over five days. Responding to reports of blood curdling screams police spent Monday and Tuesday searching bushland at the base of Mount Panorama. That search has been called off. Police have confirmed Janine Vaughan left the tavern on Friday morning without her handbag. It was found later inside the nightclub. It's not known if the bag was stolen or misplaced.
Speaker 3While going through files and re-examining Janine's sister Kylie's old videotapes I came across a local. TV interview with a young woman. It was Juanita Murphy and she was talking just a few days after her friend Janine's disappearance. Juanita has been deeply affected by the loss of Janine and the ensuing fallout from this crime two decades ago.
Speaker 5It kills me. It fucking kills me. It has for a long time.
Speaker 3Juanita was one of the last people to see Janine. They were out together that night and she feels guilty despite having done nothing wrong. Here she is in the old news clip.
Speaker 19Janine's friends say she's a strong woman. They're not giving up. This is the bizarre thing because she's not the kind of person who will just disappear and not let anybody know what's happening. They again called for anyone with information to come forward.
Speaker 3Anybody saw anything that happened that night especially earlier in the morning like around four o'clock. The circumstances surrounding the loss of Janine and Juanita are not the same as they were in the past. The loss of Janine's handbag in the metro tavern a short time before she disappeared have always seemed to me to be highly unusual. A woman separated from her handbag must be more vulnerable. Janine's phone, cash, credit cards and house keys were in her handbag. On the other hand, Peter Murphy leans the other way. He accepts it was a random event, a coincidence and probably not directly connected at all to her abduction soon afterwards. We're going to spend a bit of time on it as the details might jog memories of listeners, perhaps someone at the tavern that night who remembers a face or an action involving the handbag. Here's Greg Brody who was the cleaner of the metro tavern and he's telling me how he came across Janine's handbag about 6am on the Friday. This was about two hours after Janine had stepped into the red car around the corner from the tavern.
Speaker 24When it was the metro tavern there was a set of stairs
Speaker 3leading to a second floor nightclub section as well as the living quarters or flat for Trevor Howie and his wife Cara. When the upstairs part of the nightclub was not in use, a timber board was put across the stairs to prevent people from going up and staff would put handbags in the area behind the board just because it was a place people knew where they could keep an eye on things while their owners were having a dance or in the bathroom.
Speaker 24I asked Juanita Murphy about the handbag. Did she regard
Speaker 3its loss as a coincidence or suspicious? Juanita had helped Janine in her futile search for the handbag. Right before you all left the metro, Janine went back in
Speaker 25to look for her handbag. And then she came out really exasperated and upset because that final search that she did with the co-owner of the hotel, Trevor Howie, it failed. And you guys were together and then she walked ahead and she walked around the corner and she got into the car. In that last walkthrough that she did in the hotel when she was looking for her handbag, did she talk to someone in there perhaps?
Speaker 5Well, I have no idea. I was absolutely wasted. Jordan and I were having a blue, we were having a major blue about his ex-girlfriend. I didn't pay enough attention.
Speaker 25Think whether hypothetically it would make sense or not, that that was the reason she walked ahead because someone said, look, if I find
Speaker 16the handbag, I'll run up to you and I'll say, careful street in the red car and pick you up, drop you home or give it to you. Something like that. Because it's just
Speaker 25strange that she didn't hesitate to get into that car. Have you been suspicious about the handbag? Or do you think it was just a fluke?
Speaker 5Oh, no, look, I have. I always was suspicious about it. And then I put it out of my mind. I think it's really bizarre because it turned up again. Then it was me and Jordan and Donk that in the next morning went and picked it up because we were frantic about what the hell is going on. Extremely suspicious. I didn't think beyond that thinking, oh, well, somebody is going to, like, someone's going to hide that from her and then she's going to go home and get abducted and murdered. But the fact that it disappeared caused her so much upset. And I remember being with her on the way out the door and she was furious. And they're like, no, no, we haven't seen it. We have no idea where it is. And then we called them and they're like, oh, yeah, it's here behind the bar. Nobody could find it when we were leaving. But the next morning it was there. So I don't know. I have a suspicious mind anyway. I don't trust anybody.
Speaker 25Because she went back in and had a really good look.
Speaker 5Yeah. Searching the dance floor, everything else. Asked the bouncers. Asked the people behind the bar. Nobody knew where it was. I hadn't seen it. So I don't get it. We're obviously thinking that it's somebody that was in the tavern that night.
Speaker 3Juanita listened to me speculate whether someone inside the tavern when Janine went back in for a look. Perhaps one of the last drinkers had a carefully laid plan.
Speaker 5That kind of story makes sense in respect to her getting into a car with somebody that we assume she doesn't know because we don't think that she would do that.
Speaker 3The old Metro Tavern is now a swish cafe called Sweet Caramel. It's a fashionable place in town to go for coffee and fancy cakes. The layout is very different. Greg Brody hasn't been there to clean it for ages.
Speaker 16I mean, what's puzzling is Janine was searching for the bag that night. And she'd gone back in and looked for it. And Trevor helped her look for it. Trevor Howie. You know Trevor?
Speaker 24Yeah, Trevor was the one that told me. I think it was the next day. Because I used to just sit everything on the bar. So if anyone come back after through the next day looking for anything, let it be there. They can hand it back over to them, you know? And when I went back in, I think I went in to get me a pair or something, from memory. And he just said that a woman had gone missing and the police wanted to know if I could come down and talk to him. So that's when I went down and made a mistake and went down to the police station.
Speaker 16And by then you'd already told Trevor you'd found it.
Speaker 24It was on the bar. I used to leave it on the bar. So then I went back and he said, that handbag you left up there, yeah, that lady's gone missing. It's not right, eh? He just said, oh, the police want to know if you can pop down soon. So I went down and that's when I made my statement.
Speaker 21And did you mention to the police when you made your statement that it seemed a bit suspicious?
Speaker 24I did, actually. I said it had definitely been jammed in there. It hadn't been just placed over the back of the board.
Speaker 21Because I've read that statement and it doesn't have you saying that. That's why. What's it got me saying?
Speaker 3OK, so it's a statement that you gave on the 11th of January 2002. So that was a month after Janine's disappearance. Does that sound right?
Speaker 24No. It was the next day. So whatever day she went missing was basically the next day.
Speaker 3I read to Greg his statement to police, his description of driving into town about 6am, parking outside the pub, deactivating the alarm and starting his cleaning work, and how he started cleaning behind the board. board on the stairs. In his police From all those years ago, Greg briefly recounted being alerted to Janine's disappearance by Trevor Howey. So nothing in there about, you know, being jammed or anything looking suspicious.
Speaker 24Well, that's what I told him. I said it had been pushed in there. It hadn't been placed. It had been pushed into that position.
Speaker 16Well, it's no wonder she couldn't find it. But, you know, suspicious
Speaker 3minds might also think, well, did the bag get hidden to somehow make her more vulnerable, throw her off balance?
Speaker 24Yeah, maybe. You know, like, I never knew nothing about the red car until way later.
Speaker 16And did you know anyone who drove a sort of reddish Hyundai?
Speaker 24Actually, my wife did.
Speaker 3When Greg's wife, Melissa, worked at an aged care centre, she knew Dennis Briggs, and he drove a reddish, pinkish Hyundai. Briggs would become one of the early suspects in Janine's disappearance. This was unsurprising, because Briggs actually told his friends and his partner, Julie, that he had stabbed Janine to death. He told them he killed her at White Rock, a place near Bathurst popular for camping and fishing. As you heard in episode one, Briggs changed his tune, and he has denied being Janine's killer since.
Speaker 24But White Rock runs onto a lot of properties, you know. I reckon someone would have seen something. Maybe that is where he did it. But did he leave the body there, or did he take it somewhere else? It would be handy for him to start telling the truth if he did do it, instead of playing with people.
Speaker 3Connections in a country town are sometimes so close, they're almost uncanny. Because soon after Greg found Janine's handbag, Greg's wife, Melissa, started hearing about Janine's supposed fate.
Speaker 16She probably knew his partner from the period, Julie, as well.
Speaker 24I'm not sure she's actually here. I'll put her on for you, if you like.
Speaker 16Thanks very much. Hello. Melissa Bridey. Yes. Okay, good to talk to you. What do you remember about Dennis Briggs?
Speaker 26Oh, Dennis Briggs. He was a very strange man. Put it that way. Didn't take his medication. You knew that you were in for it. You'd be nervous with him being around you. He'd snap. It could be the slightest little thing, and he would snap. And then all of a sudden, he'd be, Oh, I'm really sorry about that. It's just I didn't take my medication today. And would you ever feel threatened or intimidated by him physically? I wouldn't say threatened by him. Just felt uncomfortable being around him. But, yeah, but when I heard about the car, and I'd seen the picture of the car, I went, Oh, Dennis has got one of those. And what was your view when you discovered that he had told you he'd done it? Yeah, I went, my God. But you never saw him raise a hand? No, I never seen him raise a hand to anyone. Julie said, Oh, my God, I don't know what to do. But Dennis has said all this stuff to me about doing it to what he did to Janine. She said she just continued to listen to him to see what she could get out of him, I think, more than anything. And did you give her any advice on what she should do? No, no. I just thought, Oh, I'm staying out of this. I'm not getting this. Greg had already found the handbag. And I thought, Well, okay. But then we'd also heard all the stories about Hoseman and all that at the same time. And then it was all over town that Dennis was a suspect.
Speaker 21And Melissa, do people in Bathurst still talk about this case?
Speaker 26It's only when her anniversary comes up, you hear a lot of people talking. You know, they could find her and give some closure to the family. And they talk about the other two that have gone missing here as well. And they sort of, it's all mingled with the whole three of them.
Speaker 3Let's return to Mal Pollard, who owned the Metro Tavern with his friend Trevor Howie when Janine disappeared. Mal has taken a particularly keen interest in the case and the police investigation. Almost four years before Janine's disappearance, the teenager Jessica Small stepped out of the Amuse Me video gaming place in Bathurst. Jessica walked around town for a while with her friend Vanessa Conlon. Then they got into a car driven by an unidentified male who had been watching them at the Amuse Me. He was supposed to give them a lift to their friend's place nearby. Jessica was abducted by that man that night. Her friend Vanessa escaped from the car and ran for her life. I went through some of this in an earlier episode when raising the possibility of a link with Janine's case. Jessica Small's remains have not been found either. Like Janine, she was almost certainly murdered by the driver of the car that night. Their killers remain unknown. Mal Pollard was deeply affected by Janine. Mal Pollard was deeply affected by Jessica's disappearance. Because Mal owned the Amuse Me. Fallout from the crime destroyed his business. A short time later, Mal bought the Metro Tavern with his friend Trevor Howie.
Speaker 23I wasn't freaked out as such. It pissed me off. I mean, and this is going to sound really selfish. But when she went missing from that business, that just destroyed that business overnight. And it did happen again. You know, like every time. Something would come up about Janine in the news, we would see a drop-off in our takings the following week. And again, I know that sounds really selfish, but it was, what is this happening to me again? Both times, I was an innocent victim in it as well, you know. Definitely had a massive financial impact on me.
Speaker 16What about your own reputation? Do you think some people have sort of looked at you sideways or Trevor or, you know, wondered whether you set something up?
Speaker 23I mean, people can think whatever they want. I didn't have anything to do with it, so I'm not sort of, not going to let it worry me, you know. And I've spoken to Janine's sister and told her everything that I know. And, yeah, I certainly wouldn't be doing that if I was in any way involved with it.
Speaker 16And did you feel that the police were looking squarely at any stage at you or Trevor because, you know, you operated the venue?
Speaker 23No, no. Well, I think. The first day I even looked at Trevor was, would have been a couple of years later. And they actually asked me about it. They got the video and measured how far it was from where she was seen and whether he could have run upstairs and turned the lights off because you see different lights go off in the video that he was turning off. And there just wasn't even time for him to have got up there, sprinted down the back stairs, got in the car, drove around. So, I think they sort of cast him aside as a person of interest fairly quickly.
Speaker 16And what about for yourself?
Speaker 23Yeah, I was at home in bed asleep. But I'd never felt that they did because I'm not sure whether you know, but I'm in a wheelchair. And one of the rumors was that I'd been faking that for the last 15 years and I really could walk. And anyway, there was a few ridiculous things put to me, which I just thought, well, that's just part. Of being in a small country town, you know.
Speaker 3Mal's memory is good. It is true that investigating police did a fair bit of work on these angles. I was hoping to talk to Trevor Howie too about all of these things. Mal told me that because of Trevor's work as a prisons officer, he cannot make public comments. Trevor sent me a text saying, sorry, mate, but I can't talk to you. Keep going and good luck. I know from Janine. Sister Kylie, that Trevor has been happy to help her answering Kylie's questions about the events of that fateful night and putting her in touch with former staff. One year and one week after Janine disappeared from Trevor Howie's pub, police took a formal statement from him. These are his words. It's not his voice.
Speaker 27I did not have a great deal to do with Janine. And the first time that I spoke with her was the night she went missing when I helped her look for a handbag. I would say that it was. A typical type of crowd with quite a few regular drinkers in the nightclub. When we couldn't find the handbag, Janine and the male she was with left the nightclub and I started to lock the doors. Through the glass doors, I saw Janine walking across George Street. I watched her until she reached the footpath. Janine appeared cranky about something.
Speaker 3Trevor did not recall any vehicles around at that time. He said he walked upstairs to the flat and sat in the lounge room watching a taped program. Janine had been there for about an hour. He estimated that he went to bed about 5.30 in the morning.
Speaker 27When I was told that Janine was missing, I grabbed the tape from the CCTV and secured it in the safe. At the time Janine went missing, my wife Cara owned a small, red-coloured, two-door hatch Hyundai Accel. There were two sets of keys to this car. Cara had one set and I had the other. On the morning that Janine went missing, the car was parked out the back of the nightclub. The car was not driven by myself. The car was not driven by myself or anyone else that night.
Speaker 3Six years after Janine's disappearance, a renewed investigation saw detectives from Sydney return to Bathurst and Trevor was one of a number of people interviewed. Detective Sergeant Ben Hopper first spent some time with Trevor to better understand the layout and the alarm systems in the former Metro Tavern. By then it had become the Waratah Bar and Grill. It didn't recover from Janine's disappearance. The detective and Trevor also went through the grainy black and white CCTV footage of footage from that night. In the footage Trevor identifies a human shape as himself in several of the frames walking back into the front of the pub at the end of the night. It's there right around the time when Janine must have been close to stepping into the red car a few hundred meters away and around the corner. It must have been a major factor for detectives in excluding Trevor Howey as a person of interest. What you're about to hear is a portion of the interview between Trevor and Detective Hopper. Remember it's their words but not their voices.
Speaker 28One other thing at the time of Janine Vaughan's disappearance I understand that your wife had a motor vehicle. Yes she did. Can you describe the vehicle to me? It was a red Hyundai XL. Okay in relation to that vehicle did you have access to it? Yes I did. Did you have your own set of keys? Yes I did. On the night sorry the morning of the 7th of December 2001 did you take that motor vehicle after we see you on the CCTV footage did you take your motor vehicle out of the compound? No no I did not. Okay did you before we see you on CCTV footage did you take your motor vehicle out that night? No not that I recall no. All right did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Janine Vaughan? Yes I did. No I did not. Do you know who did have any dealings or have any involvement with the disappearance of Janine Vaughan? No I don't. Just in relation to your car when was the last time you saw it on the?
Speaker 27I don't know I think we sold it sort of eight months later.
Speaker 3In a subsequent report Detective Hopper stated I
Speaker 28haven't identified any relevant links between Jessica Small's disappearance and Vaughan's disappearance with respect to Pollard. Pollard told police he didn't believe that Howie was involved in the disappearance of Vaughan and the images on the CCTV footage coupled with the floodlight being switched off are a clear indication that Howie was inside the hotel after Vaughan entered the motor vehicle. It's improbable that Howie could have been directly involved in the disappearance of Vaughan.
Speaker 3Hopper also had a theory about the disappearance of Janine's handbag. He believed it was accidentally dislodged and then fell to the floor when another woman and her husband went to get their bags and coat from behind the board.
Speaker 28I don't believe the loss of Vaughan's handbag was sinister and I don't believe the loss of Vaughan's handbag had any direct connection with her disappearance.
Speaker 3I asked Mal Pollard about the overwhelming view of people in Bathurst who have pointed the finger at their former deputy mayor and police to take
Speaker 23a look. I really don't think he's involved in this in any way, shape or form. I never witnessed anything that was untoward other than the fact he was arrogant. You don't get locked up for being arrogant.
Speaker 3There's another former employee of the old Metro Tavern who has also been trying to help Janine's sister Kylie. His name is Matty Dally and he's been trying to help this podcast investigation too.
Speaker 16It gets out of your skin, doesn't it?
Speaker 29Yeah. If it was going to solve itself, it would have many years ago and it's going to take more people being more proactive to actually get the right answers that are required so you can put this to bed. We'll just keep asking the questions and hopefully we can get somewhere. Life to help Kylie get a bit of peace of mind.
Speaker 15Part of me kicks myself when I don't talk to people. Like even talking to Matty today, we just opened up and we laughed and we joked about different things and I feel, I should have done that from day dot. I should have been more open and went straight in, hard yard, straight away with all these people.
Speaker 3Matty worked behind and in front of the bar. He served drinks as a barman and when he needed to get muscular, he'd step in to eject punchy blokes who sometimes wanted a fight.
Speaker 29If we went more than a weekend without having to have a fight then something was wrong. And because I was the smallest bloke in the pub, they always thought that they were best off fighting me. So I was kept pretty busy.
Speaker 3Matty was world ranked as a bare knuckle fighter, a full contact fighter in his younger years. It was Matty who put Janine's handbag behind the board on the step.
Speaker 29We quite often put people's handbags there because the doorman was close and it was a camera area so they were safe. It was common knowledge for all staff that's where handbags were put because they didn't want them behind the bar. Okay. If Janine had come back and said to you, I've lost my handbag, what would you have immediately done? Checked behind that board. I don't recall being there when Janine was let back in to look for a bag, otherwise I would have searched there. But I left pretty well straight away that night.
Speaker 3Matty told me he's frustrated with himself. On his way home a bit after 3.30am, he drove back past the tavern and he saw Janine.
Speaker 29I could have noticed that she. Didn't have a handbag and contacted the pub and told Trev and he could have taken it out to her. Or I could have stopped and given her a lift myself. But, you know, hindsight's one of those things, isn't it? No one knew what was going to happen later on.
Speaker 15So that obviously haunts him as well to think that, you know, he put the bag there and she's now gone. I said, well, it definitely would have changed the course of the night because she would have just walked straight away. There wouldn't have been hovering around the nightclub. At the end of the night, she would have had a handbag. She would have still had money, keys, phone, access to her whole life.
Speaker 3Matty says Bathurst attracted more than its fair share of rough nuts back then. I wondered if Janine had fallen into the clutches of one of them. Many were drawn to Mount Panorama and the motor racing there.
Speaker 29Well, let's put it this way. A group of friends of mine were selling wood up there and a guy came up to him and said, I'll get some wood. And they told him 10 bucks. And he told him to fuck off. He come back half hour later, opened his vest and he had a pistol one side and a stick of gelignite the other. He said, am I right to get that wood now, fellas? And they were like, help yourself. One of my mates lost his eye up there. Quite common occurrence for vehicles to be turned over and set on fire or that type of thing. And it was more of a battlefield. Maybe it was anything went up there. You'd go up there on the Monday or the Tuesday after the races and you'd see burnt out cars. You'd see lounges that had been set on fire. Yeah, it looked more like a war zone than a car race. But back then we thought it was
Speaker 3fun. Hayley Stewart talked to me a couple of days before this episode was due to be released. We were introduced by Meredith, her close friend from their Bathurst years. They moved away from Bathurst two decades ago and Hayley's a high school teacher on the Gold Coast with two young children. Meredith described Hayley as striking looking, blonde with a big smile, always happy and welcoming. And very lucky. When Hayley was at uni, 21, and working at the Metro tavern, she was targeted in a serious stalking. It happened a year before Janine's disappearance after she had left the Metro in the early hours of a Friday morning in December 2001.
Speaker 16Could you take me back to Bathurst and this incident and just tell me what happened?
Speaker 30I worked there for about a year. I worked behind the bar. And I would often do, you know, those graveyard shifts.
Speaker 3Hayley recalls the Dirty Tavs co-owners, Mel Pollard and Trevor Howey, as good men running a drinking hole of last resort.
Speaker 30Mel kind of did the business side of things and Trevor was like the brawn. Mel used to be the gentle little guy in the wheelchair and used to sort of give us our shifts and, you know, chat with us about issues or whatever. Whereas Trevor was always, he was like the security guard, just being very present because he was so tall and kind of had that, you know, dodgy look about him where no one would mess with him. And they were really, really lovely. They were always super nice to us. Everyone was always leathered. Everyone was always plastered. Everyone was always drinking too much. The music was always too loud. It was seedy as. There was always weird looking dudes bloody mooching around in there all the time. And honestly, it was pretty dodgy. Like it was a Bathurst nightclub. And at four or five, six in the morning, things don't look pretty really normally, do they? I always thought like, I mean, you know, dodgy. And that's why it was called the Dirty Tavs. Oh, everyone in there was creepy. Oh my God. Yeah, totally. And all the crowd that went in there were often the uni student crowd as well. But then all just the ferals from Bathurst as well. You know, drive around in cars on Mount Panorama at night. There's those guys that just kind of creep about. And half the time you don't even think they've got any friends. And so anyway, there was always heaps of them. But yeah, I had pretty good fun working there. Anywho, that night I finished my shift. Mel and Trevor had shouted a beer or whatever. And then we'd all just go home. I left the tavern. I walked home and I thought, okay, I don't have a key. We used to sometimes leave the back door open. So I just went straight around the back of the house, went in the back door. Some random, who I honestly have no idea who it was, followed me home and must have hidden the bushes or something. And I went in the back door. But I just jumped home just to grab a few things. And then I went straight out the front door. This guy had followed me home. He went in the back door.
Speaker 3With one housemate away in Sydney and Hayley having exited through the front door, there was one student friend inside.
Speaker 30home in bed asleep at six in the morning so he's come in and he's looked all around the house and he's gone into her bedroom and realized that she was the only one there and basically dived on top of her and smothered her face with a pillow and started asking her questions and said where's your friend from the tavern and she's like i don't know i don't know i don't know anything and that's why when he jumped on top of this flatmate of mine and said where's your where's your mate from the tavern as in like where where's she hiding because i can choose i just saw her walk in the back door not only did he smother her face with a pillow it was very dark like the sun hadn't kind of come up yet at that point so she didn't really get to see him properly it's a mystery he was just trying to smother her face he was just trying to kiss her neck and it was just like doing all this weird sort of stuff like sexually assaulting style stuff he just kind of backed off and ended up walking out and just walking out the door bloody
Speaker 3creepy years later homicide squad detectives would closely reinvestigate hayley stalking they interviewed her again along with a number of others it was feared that janine's killer could have been hayley's stalker he didn't
Speaker 30do more to her he didn't hurt her more he didn't molest her more he didn't rape her i think you know if he was this stalking killing murdering person why didn't he do more to her you were the
Speaker 16In the next episode of The Night Driver,
Speaker 3a man who had an infatuation with Janine agrees to meet and he insists that when he told his partner and friends that he stabbed her to death, he was lying.
Speaker 31I said, quote, I cut her throat and I cut her fingers off or some bloody thing and I raped her seven times or something. If I hadn't done it, I'd admit it right this instant.
Speaker 3The Night Driver is a podcast series investigated and written by me, Hedley Thomas, with assistance from Peter Murphy. Music and audio production is by Blacksmith & Co with additional audio support from Chris Bosley. This podcast series is brought to you by the Australian newspaper and digital site. Visit thenightdriver.com.au for additional documentary material as well as credits for the full team behind this multi-part production. Anyone with information about the disappearance of Janine Vaughan can contact me confidentially by email by going to thenightdriver.com.au. You can search for the Night Driver podcast official discussion group on Facebook and join in with the exchange of ideas and information. This podcast is made possible by subscribers to The Australian and our principal sponsor, Harvey Norman. Harvey Norman has provided unwavering support for my investigative podcast since 2018. For more information on this podcast and on our entire investigative catalogue, go to theaustralian.com.au. Thank you.
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