Australia Australia - Trudie Adams, 18, Avalon, NSW, 24 June 1978

Trudie has been missing since the night of June 24th, 1978. She was 18 years old and a business college student from Avalon on Sydney's Northern Beaches. She had long Blonde hair, grey-green eyes, slim build, 162cm tall. She was last seen wearing a Bottle Green floral blouse and Black jumper.

Trudie left her home at 7pm to attend a party with friends and walked up Barrenjoey Road. She turned south to walk towards Newport. A motorist stopped to give her a lift to her friend Debbie's house and from here Trudie and Debbie walked to the Newport Hotel, arriving at 8:30pm. They stayed until closing time, 10pm. Trudie was excited about her upcoming trip to Bali in 6 weeks time. The girls travelled in a friend's car to the Newport Surf Lifesaving Club. At 10:30pm Trudie's boyfriend Steve Norris, aged 22 arrived. Trudie left the Club for about an hour, her whereabouts unknown, but returned at 11:30pm. During this time Steve was upstairs at the club with friends. Shortly after midnight Trudie ran outside, upset, telling no one where she was going. Steve saw her leave from the window of the Club heading for Barrenjoey Road and he assumed she would try and catch a lift as he had no car. Trudie had a habit of accepting lifts from strangers at night and this worried Steve. It was common for many people to hitch rides on the Northern Beaches at that time as there was little or no public transport available.

Steve followed her out of the Club but as he was crossing the carpark Trudie had already reached the road and was getting into a fawny-beige 1974 - 76 Holden panel van with no side windows which had stopped to give her a lift and was already speeding up Barrenjoey Road towards Palm Beach. Steve flagged down another car to follow her but the panel van moved too quickly out of sight behind Bilgola Headland, northward.

Trudie lived just 6 minutes away but did not arrive home and she has never been seen again. Steve hitched a ride to Trudie's house and waited there for her but she never came home.

Five days after Trudie disappeared (June 29th) a male person telephoned both Trudie's parents and Mona Vale Police and said "Trudie is dead. You will find her about half way up Mona Vale Road. It was an accident." Police searched a huge area, almost 400 square kilometres including extensively along Mona Vale Road but no trace of Trudie was found.

In the months before Trudie disappeared a total of 8 girls reported they had been picked up hitchhiking on Barrenjoey Road between Newport and Mona Vale, and were raped at gunpoint. A ninth girl was abducted at gunpoint while waiting for a bus. The suspects were two men aged about 30 years, Australian.

The victims' eyes were taped, they were handcuffed then tortured and raped after being driven into bushland within a 20km radius of where they were picked up.

First of all, I have to say that this case captivates me for a long time. Ever since I watched episode of it on Crime and Investigation Australia. Before serious discussion starts I would like to compile all the resources available on the internet. Also, I think this case deserves thread here on Websleuths. Hopefully, someone who is familiar with that area will come across this thread and share with us perhaps some new informations. Coroner's Court of NSW, doesn't have older findings on their website (before 2012), but maybe someone was able to download it before.

The body of teenager Trudie Adams - whom police believe was raped and murdered 30 years ago - is still buried somewhere in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, they say.

Police believe the gang that killed the 18-year-old were behind 14 other sex attacks in the 1970s.

At a press conference this morning, police offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the Adams "cold case".

Ms Adams was last seen leaving a surf club dance on Sydney's North Shore in June 1978. She was last seen getting into a light coloured 1977 Holden panel van on Barrenjoey Road.

Her case was recently reopened by the newly-formed "cold case" team attached to the Homicide Squad.

Her father, Charles, 79, appealed at the press conference for help to solve his daughter's murder.

"She was 18, she had her life in front of her, she had just finished school [when her life was] snuffed out at a very young age," he said.

Not only had her mother died without seeing her daughter's killers brought to justice, her death haunted him still, he said.

"Now and again you would have a dream that your daughter's there and then you wake up and you realise that she's not," he said.

Homicide Squad commander, Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford, said investigators had linked at least 14 sex assaults of women aged 14-20 committed between 1971 and 1978 to the same group of men. After Ms Adams disappeared, a number of women reported being abducted and sexually assaulted in the national park. "I think we are dealing with several people who were committing violent sexual attacks at that time and certainly their method of operation was very similar to the circumstances that we know surround the disappearance of Trudie Adams," Detective Superintendent Beresford said. "Based on that link ... makes us confident that the same offenders are responsible for those offences. "The pattern was that people were either hitchhiking or walking along Barrenjoey Road or major roads on the northern beaches. "They entered the car willingly or were lured into a vehicle or were forced into a vehicle. "More often than not, their eyes were taped and they were covered with a blanket and taken to an area in the Ku-ring-gai National Park where they were attacked." Police investigations would stay focused on the Ku-ring-gai Chase area, Detective Superintendent Beresford said. "We suspect there are more victims of these ... sexual predators who have not previously come forward," he said.

The new investigation had been dubbed Strike Force Keldie, he said.

"We are encouraging [them] to come forward to contact Strike Force Keldie detectives. Their information, despite the passage of time, might be crucial to helping us charge those responsible in this case."

[video=youtube;BYEhXWepXeQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYEhXWepXeQ[/video]

For those who aren't familiar with this case, I would recommend this very helpful review of the case. Just skip the first one, it starts at around 34:20 mark.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/coroner-told-of-bali-drug-mule-rumours-20110125-1a4b8.html

A CLOSE friend of Trudie Adams, who disappeared more than 30 years ago after leaving a surf club at Newport, dismissed suggestions yesterday that Ms Adams, who had been due to go to Bali, had been recruited to be a drug courier to bring narcotics back to Australia.
Christine Viner, who had been a close friend of Trudie Adams, said yesterday that Ms Adams disappeared on June 25, 1978, and about a month later stories had emerged that she had been involved with drugs.
Answering counsel assisting, Peter Hamill, SC, Ms Viner said she was unaware of a suggestion that Ms Adams had been recruited, but she did not think she would have been ''that dumb''.
But a deputy state coroner, Scott Mitchell, taking evidence into the disappearance of Ms Adams, heard yesterday that shortly before her disappearance, she had told her mother that some people were ''hassling'' her.
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A convicted drug importer and police informant, Neville Tween, had been named by police as a prime suspect in Ms Adams's disappearance. Police had interviewed Mark Standen, who was with the Federal Narcotics Bureau at the time and was handling Tween as an informant.
Mr Standen became assistant commissioner of the NSW State Crime Authority and has since been charged over a conspiracy to import 300 kilograms of pseudoephedrine and perverting the course of justice.
Her brother, John Adams, said yesterday: ''I think because Trudie was going to Bali - it is the thing. Everyone goes to Bali with drugs; I think she might have been asked to bring drugs back. Shortly after … mum said, 'Trudie kept saying, ''They are hassling me, mum, they are hassling me.'' ' ''
Mr Adams said his sister had not been on drugs but there were certain people in the area who were known to be. ''You knew they were bad; they were capable of bad things,'' he said.
Federal agent Gavin McKean, formerly with the NSW Police unsolved homicide squad, said that Tween, otherwise known as John Anderson, had been the prime suspect owing to his long criminal history, and was now in jail, convicted over a $7 million cocaine importation.
After Trudie Adams's disappearance, a number of young women came forward to say they had been raped while hitchhiking in the northern beaches area and there was identification of Tween, though the identification techniques would not be acceptable in a court today.
Mr McKean said that after the disappearance of Ms Adams and the intense search for her and huge publicity, the rape offences bearing the hallmarks of abduction, tying up and assault, had stopped. He thought the perpetrator had been scared off.
Tween had not been charged over Ms Adams's disappearance and Tween's solicitor, Leon Goldberg, had written to the officer commanding the investigation warning police to ''stop looking at Neville Tween''. The hearing resumes tomorrow.

After browsing through some archive I came across few interesting informations that were unknown to me, up until know. Especially letter mentioned in this article. :thinking:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...is-hard-to-prove/story-e6frg6z6-1226000012806

Best article on this matter, after reading many of them I'm convinced that Neville Tween is responsible for all these atrocities, accompanied with three accomplices. There is hope in this case, as long as those responsible are alive, her body is still somewhere in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. New technologies can maybe solve this case, if more thorough search of the area can be made.

Police believe a Sydney northern beaches rape culture led to the teenager's disappearance

WALLABIES leap through the long grass, native blossoms sway in the breeze and the throb of cicadas fills the air in a clearing beside a winding bush trail in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park north of Sydney.

But for former NSW police detective Gavin McKean, this is no bush idyll. Beneath the buzz of overhead powerlines, McKean sees a devil's playground where he believes Neville Tween and three accomplices raped and threatened young female hitchhikers during a reign of terror in the 1970s.

McKean's suspicions were made public last week at an inquest at Glebe Coroner's Court into the suspected rape and murder of Sydney teenager Trudie Adams in June 1978.

McKean and Detective Senior Constable Nicole Jones of the Unsolved Homicide Squad were assigned the cold case of Adams's disappearance in 2007. The pair spent over two years devoted to the task before the case was referred to the coroner late last year.

"I strongly believe that Trudie Adams was kidnapped off the street by Tween and [Raymond] Johnson for the purpose of sexual assault," McKean wrote in a statement tendered to the court.

"I believe that something went wrong as the two men went about the business of sexually assaulting Adams and she has been killed."

Johnson took whatever secrets he had to the grave in October last year. Tween, now known as John David Anderson, is serving an 18-year sentence for a 2006 conspiracy to import $7 million worth of cocaine, for which his son, Michael, 32, was also convicted.

The 70-year-old appeared at the inquest on Wednesday. He was a difficult witness, at times denying proven evidence, laughing at descriptions of his life in crime and making "convenient omissions" from his testimony.

"My memory is not the best," Tween said. "I would not remember one day, let alone one week or a very special event. I lived a very sedate life."

The court has heard Tween was born in 1940. At 14 he was sent to a boys home and upon his release followed his family to the Riverina region of NSW.

Police investigating the disappearance of Adams were able to trace Tween's whereabouts through his lengthy custodial history. Tween married his first wife, Dulcie, in 1973 while in custody in South Australia for hotel breaks and larceny.

The couple moved to the northern beaches region of Sydney on his release in 1974 and settled with their two small children in Booralie Street, Terrey Hills, not far from the devil's playground.

The trail that leads to Tween begins in July 1975, when he and accomplice Garry Batt were sold a dodgy marijuana deal by Sydney man Paul Whittaker.

Batt told the inquest Tween ordered him to collect Whittaker and bring him to a clearing in the national park, just off Mona Vale Road near the St Ives Showground. Batt thought they would just give Whittaker a "backhander"to show him the error of his ways. Tween had other ideas.

When Batt and Whittaker arrived in the bush they were met by Tween, who was wearing a motorcycle helmet and was armed with a sub-machinegun with a bayonet attached. At gunpoint Whittaker was forced to dig his own grave, take his clothes off, dress in women's underwear and fellate Batt, while Tween took photographs with a Polaroid camera.

Tween joked about the incident in court this week and claimed it was "no big deal".

"There was no violence or harm done to him," Tween said. "The guy obviously wasn't terrorised."

Whittaker told police Batt said: "That c . . . [Tween] is mad, he picked up two sheilas hitching, took them up there and we got a lot of good pictures of them."

When Whittaker took detectives to the bushland crime scene, officers discovered a pink bra, a pair of women's underpants, a carry-bag containing two pairs of replica handcuffs, one spent 9mm cartridge shell as well as bottles of spirits and wine secreted in holes.

Tween and Batt were imprisoned over the assault of Whittaker and released in 1977.

On the evening of June 24, 1978, Trudie Adams kissed her father, John, on the forehead, told her mother, Constance, to wait up for her and left her Avalon home on Sydney's northern beaches for a night out with friends.

Adams, 18, had graduated from school a year earlier and was taking a secretarial course and saving for a trip to Bali in August.

There wasn't a regular bus service on the northern peninsula, so teenagers would hitchhike. . That night was no different.

The court heard Adams drank with friends at the Newport Arms Hotel, and when that closed the group moved on to the Newport Surf Club. At about 12.30pm Adams, who was feeling unwell after receiving vaccination shots for her Bali trip, left to hitch a ride home on Barrenjoey Road.

Steven Norris, who until that week was Adams's boyfriend, watched her cross the road and almost immediately saw a light-coloured 1977 Holden panel van pull up alongside her. The car drove off and Adams was gone.

Her disappearance made headlines and sparked the biggest police search in the state's history. Between June 27 and August 10, 1978, police and volunteers conducted 15 searches. But Adams's body was never found.

Her disappearance prompted 14 women to report rapes and attempted abductions in the northern beaches during the 70s. In almost all instances, the modus operandi was strikingly similar to the abduction and assault of Whittaker, the Coroner's Court was told. The women were hitchhiking and picked up in a car by two men, threatened with firearms, handcuffed and driven down a bush track where, aftertheir eyes had been taped shut, they were raped.

In some cases Polaroid photographs were taken of the assaults. Their attackers offered the girls marijuana or alcohol before taking their identification details and dropping them close to home, with the threat that their families would be killed if they told the to police.

Some of the women identified Tween as their attacker, but said they didn't want to press charges and only came forward in a bid to help the investigation into Adams's disappearance.

Even with a positive identification, counsel assisting the coroner, Peter Hamill SC, said the mugshot techniques used by the police at the time would not pass muster in a court today.

The sexual assaults began in March 1971, while Tween was in Sydney, and stopped when he was incarcerated in South Australia between September 1971 and September 1974, and in NSW between 1975 and 77. Shortly after Adams's disappearance, Tween moved to the NSW central coast.

McKean believes he was trying to lie low and said no rapes with the same signature method were reported after he left. He believes Tween's co-offenders in the rapes were Johnson, Batt and Len Evans. Batt appeared at the inquest on Tuesday. Outside court he said he didn't know if Tween was responsible for Adams's murder, but believed he was capable of it. Evans, who now lives in New Zealand, denies taking part in the rapes.

Tween told the court this week that allegations he was a "red-hot suspect" were all part of a "police set-up". "Where's all the evidence of 30 years?" he said. "Thirty years is a very long time . . . and yet you are putting me up in the papers as the first suspect . . . come on, give me a fair go."

With each passing year, the likelihood of a conviction diminishes. Thirty years after Adams's disappearance, McKean looked for swabs taken from some of the 70s rape victims, but that evidence, which may have held crucial DNA, had been disposed of.

Even if deputy state coroner Scott Mitchell refers the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions for charges against a known person, investigators are likely to hit the same obstacles.

McKean and Jones interviewed Tween at Long Bay prison in 2009 in the hope that, facing the rest of his life in prison, he would confess to killing Adams and allow her family some peace.

As at the inquest, Tween denied any knowledge of Adams's death. "After the interview it was mentioned to Tween . . . that it could be the case that whoever killed Trudie did so by accident and never meant it to happen [and] this would put a different slant on things," McKean told the court.

"Tween's face changed and he took a long pause, saying words similar to, 'Yes, I guess that would.' "

I believe this is the exact spot on the road, that sharp right turn is clearly visible, and it pretty much looks the same as in 1970's.
Here is one from that era, just for comparison:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/spate-of-attacks-at-time-trudie-adams-vanished-20110131-1ab4r.html

Spate of attacks at time Trudie Adams vanished

ABOUT the time Trudie Adams disappeared in Newport in 1978, two women were attacked in the area and a man was abducted, taken to Ku-ring-gai National Park, handcuffed and sexually assaulted at gunpoint, a coroner's court has been told.
Amanda Smith, appearing at an inquest into Ms Adams's disappearance, said she had been hitching a ride on Barrenjoey Road, Newport, after 9pm on June 24, the night Ms Adams disappeared. She was trying to get to Newport Surf Club, where Ms Adams was, and accepted a lift from a man.
Instead of taking her there, the man went a different way, stopped the car and assaulted her by pulling her towards him, then pushing her head on to his lap. She had bitten the nearest part of his anatomy, belted him with her bag and escaped. He tried pursuing her, saying he would ''kill'' her.

Ms Adams left the club after midnight and was seen getting into a vehicle - described as a beige or fawn panel van - on Barrenjoey Road. She was never seen again.

Some time later, Ms Smith said, a man who might have been her attacker pulled up on an Avalon street and said: ''Hey! Remember me?'' He began to follow her, but she saw a friend, Steve Norris, who called police. They questioned the driver and let him go.
Another witness, Kirsten McKenzie, said she had been walking at night on Barrenjoey Road when a vehicle started following her. A man got out, bashed her over the head and knocked her unconscious. When she came to he was dragging her. She kicked him in the groin and screamed. Lights came on and the man fled. She told her sister the vehicle was a panel van.
In answer to Kirsten Edwards, counsel assisting the inquest, she said she had not reported the attack because it was not ''hugely unusual''.
A man, whose name has been suppressed, said about July 11, 1978, he was taken to a national park by a man he now knew as Garry Batt and by another he identified as Neville Tween [also known as John Anderson].
He was subjected to gross indignity at gunpoint and a shot was fired. The two men later pleaded guilty to performing an indecent act.
John Anderson's former wife, Sue Anderson, said that in 1978 she knew he had a criminal record and she became aware of stories about an improper relationship with a law enforcement officer. Anderson, who was now in jail and seriously ill, had denied an involvement with Ms Adams's disappearance.
John Anderson's son, Michael, born in 1978 and now serving a drugs sentence, said he felt his father had been the target of the allegations because it was hoped he would give evidence about police corruption.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/20...-for-help-solving-nsws-most-notorious-murders

NSW Police continue to offer more than $21 million in rewards for new information on an array of unsolved cases...

Investigations continue into the disappearance and suspected murder of 18-year-old Trudie Adams, last seen getting into a light-coloured Holden panel van on Barrenjoey Road in Newport during the early hours of June 25, 1978. Police believe Ms Adams was kidnapped by two men and murdered.

Click to expand...

Australia's ABC True Crime Podcast Unravel has a new podcast coming covering Trudy Adams called Barrenjoey Road commencing October 9.

Introducing... Barrenjoey Road

Kraki said:

[video=youtube;BYEhXWepXeQ]

For those who aren't familiar with this case, I would recommend this very helpful review of the case. Just skip the first one, it starts at around 34:20 mark.

Click to expand...

This is a current version of the video. Not very good quality. 34:20

YouTube rmKx_mUaI0Y?t=2062

ABC news video about inquest in 2011.

John Anderson suggested as a suspect.
Trudie Adams's disappearance reamains a mystery

This is ABC news website but had links to external sources.
Coroner finds Trudie Adams was 'probably killed'

The first 2 episodes of the podcast are up. About 30 minutes each. First one tells a bit of the culture of the 70s in the Northern Beaches and interviews a couple of friends that have never done media interviews before. The second interviews her ex-boyfriend about the last sighting. He also has all the files from the original investigation.

The podcasts states that: 'The rapes were of such maniacal brutality that even now the police have refused to reveal details on or off the record.'

This is hard to read:
A teenage girl, the ‘devils playground’ and fears of a cover-up: The mysterious case of Trudie Adams | Daily Mail Online

DRT said:

Australia's ABC True Crime Podcast Unravel has a new podcast coming covering Trudy Adams called Barrenjoey Road commencing October 9.

Introducing... Barrenjoey Road

Click to expand...

Have been listening to these. Currently half way through ep3.

ABC TV have a 3 part series about Trudie's disappearance commencing next Tuesday (Oct 30th).

Airdate: Barrenjoey Road

Here is an article from the Daily Mail: A teenage girl, the ‘devils playground’ and fears of a cover-up: The mysterious case of Trudie Adams | Daily Mail Online

It talks openly of a police cover up

Bohemian said:

Women recount attempted abductions, assaults near area where Trudie Adams disappeared in 1978 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Click to expand...

From your article, a documentary series starts tomorrow evening.
"The three-part investigative documentary series, Barrenjoey Road, starts Tuesday October 30th at 8:30pm on ABC TV and iView."