Ford - Unsolved Australia: lost boys, gone girls

Can you catch a killer or find a missing person?

Australia is the lucky country. But not for everyone. Unsolved Australia: Lost Boys, Gone Girls tells thirteen stories of people whose luck ran out in the most mysterious of circumstances.

Its a journalistic deep-dive into Australias dark heart by one of Australias premier true crime writers, Justine Ford, the acclaimed bestselling author of Unsolved Australia and The Good Cop.

Why are four people missing from a Western Australian doomsday cult? Who abducted and murdered beauty queen Bronwynne Richardson on pageant night? And why is a cooked chook important evidence in the outback disappearance of Paddy Moriarty?

Key players are interviewed, evidence laid out and suspects assessed. Never-before-published information is revealed. Can you help crack the case and solve these mysteries?

Hold tight as Unsolved Australia: Lost Boys, Gone Girls takes you on a chilling yet inspiring true crime rollercoaster ride where the final destination is hope.

For the men of books,
Angus Fontaine and John Timlin

In February 2017, I retired from Victoria Police after forty-two years. Twenty-five of those were spent at Victoria Police Homicide Squad.

During those twenty-five years, I investigated more than 320 homicides with a success rate of more than 95 per cent. The cases which still concern me are those which remain unsolved. The very first homicide I attended was the murder of Maria James in 1980. She was stabbed sixty-eight times in her bookshop in High Street, Thornbury, and her murder remains unsolved today. However, that could change at any moment, as it is my view that there is always someone in the community who holds the key to solving every crime.

Over my time at Homicide I was regularly on call to respond to suspicious deaths in Victoria. This included overnight, weekends and public holidays, and often it was in the early hours of the morning when the phone rang. I was acutely aware that the conversation could involve another victim who had lost their life at the hands of a fellow human being or the report of a suspicious missing person. Devastation for a family and lives changed forever would nearly always follow. The expectation of these families and the community was that professional investigators would solve the mystery.

Once called out, the investigation was underway. There may be a result in hours, it may take years, or it may never be solved. However, immediate thoughts went to who was at the crime scene, was it adequately protected, what did we know about the victim, had an offender been apprehended? It was routine to arrange other homicide detectives, crime scene services, the pathologist and, of course, to notify the coroner.

Three fundamental questions are always front of mind for homicide detectives. Who was the victim, what was the cause of death and what was the motive? Investigators are generally confident that once they have the answers to these questions, an arrest should be possible.

Experience has shown us that 98 per cent of homicides are committed by someone known to the victim and it is rare that there is no connection between the victim and perpetrator. I have also learned over my career that most killers, and indeed those who commit serious crimes, eventually tell someone. It is about finding who they told or creating an environment in which people feel comfortable contacting police with vital information.

I have often said homicide investigations are like jigsaw puzzles. Some have a limited number of pieces and are easily solved, others have hundreds of pieces and are much harder to fit together. Then there are those homicide investigations where one or two pieces of the puzzle are missing, and they often become the unsolved cold cases. These are the cases that linger in the memory of the investigators, the media and the public.

Unsolved homicide cases often become computer files or box files with a simple number. We should never lose sight of the fact that they represent a life taken in tragic circumstances. Detectives strive to provide a voice for the victim.

All police services in Australia have cold case units, and among the cases they investigate are some of the most famous and well publicised unsolved homicides in Australian history. Dedicated detectives have the same mission: to bring answers and resolution to the families who have lost loved ones.

While investigations grind on, it is often through media and news articles or books that the crucial facts emerge. The old saying, An ounce of information is worth a tonne of investigation remains true today. Someone in the community holds the key to solving all the crimes written about in this compelling book, Unsolved Australia: Lost Boys, Gone Girls, by Justine Ford.

This book is written with compassion and understanding for the victims and their families in the hope that answers will emerge. Justine Ford has a genuine desire to find the missing pieces of puzzling jigsaws.

Without journalists and the media, the last homicide I investigated would never have been solved.

In 2013, a persistent and dedicated young journalist, Tammy Mills, wrote a feature article on the unsolved murder of sixteen-year-old Shepparton girl Michelle Buckingham, who had been stabbed to death and left on the side of a lonely country road. As a result of the article, information was provided which led to the arrest and subsequent conviction of the accused, thirty years after the terrible crime.

Families need hope and investigators should remember that failure should never be an option.

Ron Iddles OAM

Welcome back, armchair detectives!

In the tradition of the first book in this series, Unsolved Australia: Lost Boys, Gone Girls takes an in-depth look at mysterious missing persons cases, unsolved murders and a perplexing case of unidentified remains. Once again, you might hold the key to solving one of these cases. Perhaps youve seen one of the missing people in the book, or know the identity of the man whose skeletonised body was found at a Melbourne dockyard in 1990. Maybe you know something about a decades-old murder featured in these pages and feel ready to come forward with information. Or do you have an inkling about one of the recent cases? You might think your information is insignificant, but the police ask you to let them be the judge. Come forward anonymously if you wish and remember, sometimes it only takes one piece of the puzzle to crack a case!

In Unsolved Australia: Lost Boys, Gone Girls, you will hear from people missing a son, daughter, former lover, brother, sister or friend. No matter how much time has passed, they all remain desperate for answers and want us to remember their loved ones the way they really were, not as mere statistics.

Throughout the writing of this book, I have been privileged to interview more of Australias most extraordinary detectives the kind who never give up. None of them seeks the limelight yet each knows the media can help solve crime. When the first