Australia Australia - Janine Vaughan, 31, Bathurst, NSW, 7 Dec 2001

[SouthAussie]

ABC Newcastle interview with Kylie

Sister of missing Bathurst woman 'hopeful' new podcast will turn up leads

Isn't it strange that no-one knows for sure whose red car Janine got into? The driver didn't try to conceal themselves. Picked Janine up, u-turned in front of the people, drove away.
It wasn't that big of a town, back then. Cars and their owners can become somewhat recognisable.

It just doesn't seem that everyone is saying "Oh yes, she got into Joe Bloggs car and they turned around and drove off".
There seems to be different descriptions of the same vehicle.

As Kylie says, that part could be fairly innocent and the driver is afraid to come forward because they will be accused. They may have just given Janine a lift to who-knows-where, and things went wobbly after that.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Bathurst was declared a town in 1833 and proclaimed a borough in 1862; it became a city in 1885.
Population in 2001 was almost 27,000. It was quite a few years before that, that I and friends noticed that no longer when we went down the street did we recognize that many people. I used to say to a friend that today I went down the street and didn't see anyone I knew. It was such a novelty seeing so many strangers.
Many years before that it was different and there'd be heaps of people you knew or knew of. But that was long gone by the time Janine disappeared.
Long before 2001 it lost that small town feeling it used to have.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

No it wasn't strange at all. It had lost that small town feeling years before 2001 and as long time residents you would no longer go down the street and see anyone you knew. Mostly you'd just see strangers. As in my post above it became a talking point that you didn't see anyone you knew down the street, while once long before you would have seen many people you knew.

And there were heaps of little red cars around, I know I had one back then. I think it was a popular colour at the time.

Isn't it strange that no-one knows for sure whose red car Janine got into? The driver didn't try to conceal themselves. Picked Janine up, u-turned in front of the people, drove away.
It wasn't that big of a town, back then. Cars and their owners can become somewhat recognisable.

 

[SouthAussie]

No it wasn't strange at all. It had lost that small town feeling years before 2001 and as long time residents you would no longer go down the street and see anyone you knew. Mostly you'd just see strangers. As in my post above it became a talking point that you didn't see anyone you knew down the street, while once long before you would have seen many people you knew.

And there were heaps of little red cars around, I know I had one back then. I think it was a popular colour at the time.

Aha! YOU had a little red car ....

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Ah yes, guilty of owning a little red charade

Aha! YOU had a little red car

 

[TootsieFootsie]

The human face behind Australia's first national DNA program to solve missing person cases

It is almost unbelievable to learn there are 2600 long-term missing people and an estimated 500 sets of unidentified human remains across Australia.

For years, families of these missing loved ones have waited for a result from investigations into the disappearances, hampered by a lack of resources, technology and, reportedly, communication difficulties between authorities in different states.

But that is set to change, as earlier this month the Australian Federal Police launched the country's first national DNA program to match unidentified human remains with missing persons.

It's titled the National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons - and it's headed up by a Bega woman.
The program is led by Associate Professor Dr Jodie Ward, who was shocked when she learnt of the vast number of unidentified human remains in the country and has been advocating for such a program for the past five years.

"If we never know what happened to someone, there is no end in sight for that type of grief," the former Bega resident told ACM on Tuesday.

"I try to be realistic about this - we may not be able to identify every one of these sets of remains in Australia.

"But that does still provide some answers, if their loved one is not among the deceased. It may not be the answer they want, but it is an answer.

 

[dotr]

Red car and this case mentioned on this thread..
Australia - Australia - Michelle Bright, 17, Gulgong, NSW, 27 February 1999

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Oops wrong thread.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Cold case breakthrough gives Bathurst families new hope

Behind paywall. Mentions "the trio" of persons missing from Bathurst, Janine Vaughan, Andrew Russell, and Jessica Small

 

[drsleuth]

NoCookies | The Australian

The families of Janine Vaughan and Michelle Bright are united by an unenviable bond, having spent two decades tortured by the unsolved murders of their precious daughters just three years and a short stretch of highway apart.

Loraine Bright was still reeling from the abduction, rape and ruthless murder of her 17-year-old daughter Michelle following a night out at a friend’s birthday party in the town of Gulgong in February 1999 when she landed a job at the Muswellbrook RSL and befriended staffer Kylie Spelde.


Janine Vaughan
Months later, their lives became forever intertwined when Kylie’s sister, Janine, was also abducted and murdered after a night out with friends, in the university city of Bathurst in December 2001, her body never to be found.

For the past 19 years, the two families have offered each other hope in their quest to bring the girls’ mystery killers to justice. Kylie says it has never been more keenly felt than this week.

---------------------

The Night Driver Podcast Official Discussion Group

Following the extraordinary break-through in the cold case of Michelle Bright, episode two of The Night Driver will be a special early release. It will detail all the latest developments as well as the cases of other young women who went missing from the Central West of New South Wales around the same time as Janine Vaughan, including Michelle Bright.

Subscribers can hear the episode first in The Australian app later today.

 

[drsleuth]

NoCookies | The Australian

Episode 2: Stalking

The stalking of Janine Vaughan escalated when her boyfriend Phil Evans was away for work. A shadowy stalker would leave menacing handwritten notes on her car and send lacy panties to her. There were troubling telephone calls and a home break-in. These acts terrified Janine who sought help from police. She was increasingly anxious. Other women in the area had disappeared and been murdered around this time. Her friend Wonita tried to help.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Thanks drsleuth!

When I was about the same age as Janine, I use to get anonymous phone calls to the corner shop I owned with my then husband.
Male voice who commented on how I looked. Wasn't crude, sounded well educated.
I put it down to someone who had been in the shop and put it out of my mind, except it became a regular thing, maybe once every few weeks, same voice.
Not threatening a bit worrying. The calls were always in the morning after my then husband left for work while I ran the shop with help of staff that came in later.
The calls stopped when my then husband forgot something and came back to get it, and he answered the phone when it rang.
No more calls after that.
And yes I'm in the same town Janine was. And it was maybe 3 or 4 years before Janine disappeared.
And no I don't have any idea who it was.

 

[drsleuth]

Thanks drsleuth!

When I was about the same age as Janine, I use to get anonymous phone calls to the corner shop I owned with my then husband.
Male voice who commented on how I looked. Wasn't crude, sounded well educated.
I put it down to someone who had been in the shop and put it out of my mind, except it became a regular thing, maybe once every few weeks, same voice.
Not threatening a bit worrying. The calls were always in the morning after my then husband left for work while I ran the shop with help of staff that came in later.
The calls stopped when my then husband forgot something and came back to get it, and he answered the phone when it rang.
No more calls after that.
And yes I'm in the same town Janine was. And it was maybe 3 or 4 years before Janine disappeared.
And no I don't have any idea who it was.

Bit worrying Tootsie, seems Janine's stalker was next level, so much so that when her boyfriend worked away & she was broken into, she would not stay home alone again, she stayed with his family ( who didn't really believe her & thought she may have been a drama queen)

The stalking stopped when he no longer went away for work..

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Oh and around about the same time I was in bed at the back of the shop and I saw the shadow of two arms trying to open my bedroom window.
I quickly turned the light on and whoever it was vanished. Could have been a potential burgler.
Another time, same shop, I walked into the living room and there was a strange man there. I don't know how he got in. But I found the side gate was open and we never left it open.
He was a big guy, I said you can't come in here, you're trespassing so out you go and I physically pushed him back outside and out the gate.
I think he might have been a bit drunk. He wasn't aggressive at all and kept saying he thought this was the house.
But after following murder cases....

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Hedley Thomas investigates the disappearance of Janine Vaughan in The Night Driver podcast


Thomas’s first foray into podcasting examined the unsolved disappearance of Sydney housewife Lyn Dawson in 1982.

The Gold Walkley-winning Teacher’s Pet was launched in 2018 and smashed Australian podcast records with more than 28 million downloads.

Lyn’s husband Chris Dawson, who came under scrutiny in the Teacher’s Pet, was subsequently charged with her murder. He has pleaded not guilty.

So it’s no surprise that Thomas, a journalist at The Australian, has capitalised on this success with a new podcast.

But The Night Driver is more than just an anticipated follow-up, it cements Thomas’s new-found focus.

“I want to keep doing podcast investigations involving women who have disappeared,” he says.

“I believe that there has been a very large number of cases like this and unfortunately, many are unsolved. And maybe we can make a bit of a difference … a good difference with that kind of focus there. If that becomes sort of ‘my thing’, so be it, I think it’s a good thing.”

 

[drsleuth]

NoCookies | The Australian

This article talks about the knife that was destroyed without any forensic testing at all.

A member of the public found the knife 5 days after Janine disappeared , it was handed to a forensic crime scene analyst, Senior Sergeant Noel Paine.

“There was apparent blood staining on both sides of the blade,” he noted at the time. “A group of apparent hairs adhered to the blade near the handle. The blade was single-edged with the point or a tip slightly bent. There was a chip or dent in the edge of the blade near the tip.”

There was no attempt to recover fingerprints nor DNA from the knife. Instead, it sat idle in storage for two months before, bafflingly, being destroyed by police.

Its destruction went undisclosed to the public for eight years before being canvased during a coronial inquiry into Janine’s disappearance in 2009.

Denis Briggs had bragged that he had slit Janine's throat, picked her up in a car, tried to rape her before killing her. He later recanted this confession saying he was of his psych medications.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I remember all this when it happened, thinking that surely this was connected to Janine.
Then just nothing and it wasn't mentioned again.

 

[drsleuth]

What happened to Janine Vaughan

The family have also put up a billboard in Bathurst during August to help keep the case present in peoples minds, holding out hope that someone will come forward with the missing pieces of the puzzle.

“Janine was in a nutshell loud, vibrant, beautiful, absolutely beautiful person, she had a really great nature,” Mrs Spelde remembers.

“We used to sing around the house, all the neighbours would say ok Janine is home because the veranda would just be so loud of her just talking really.

“On the flipside of that she still was a very nervous person and cautions person, so this is why I truly do believe she knew the person she got in the car with.”

Episode two of The Night Driver will be released today via The Australian, with exclusive information and background available to subscribers. Next week the series will hit most places podcasts can be listened to.

 

[k-mac]

So, is Officer Hosemans the only one of the three suspects who may have been protected by the police? Hence, so much evidence going missing.

I see that Hoseman's uncle is/was Assistant Police Commissioner Graeme Morgan in the State Crime Command, and later was promoted further.

Janine Vaughan: Eight years on, the trail is cold



Assistant Commissioner Graeme Morgan will be appointed head of the new State Crime Command, a body formed from the merger of Crime Agencies and the Intelligence Information Centre.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/top-crime-fighter-appointed-after-rethink-20021005-gdfp3o.html

awhile ago....
someone from oz suggested in a ws thread with mostly American followers how NSW police where one of the most corrupt in the world.
It jarred me at the time and I thought that's a bit harsh and dramatic however....
That comment has stayed with me and slowly over time, sunk in .

It's true.

moo

edited to add.... incredible investigative journos are the backbone of our justice system atm....these brave resourceful people are bringing public pressure to decades upon decades of non acceptable circumstances.

imo

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Thanks for all your posts drsleuth and everyone else.

Episode two of The Night Driver will be released today via The Australian, with exclusive information and background available to subscribers. Next week the series will hit most places podcasts can be listened to.