"It seemed two bobcats, in trying to level out the ground at the behest of the shops owners, had inadvertently uncovered what looked like human remains.
Margolius held up part of a jawbone for all to see. Then, unexpectedly, the remnants of a grotesque face mask, like the ones you find in a fancy dress shop, was pulled from the dirt.
They then discovered another white/pale blue plastic bag in which were folded the decomposing lower limbs of a human body, complete with stained white bikini knickers.
The rest of the day was taken up with countless photos, video tapes, and the collection of dozens of pieces of scraps and animal bones. Most importantly, they would eventually find a rarity a clear fingerprint on adhesive tape on one of the pieces of plastic.
Nine years earlier, on a 40C February stinker in 1983 when West Australians were voting to elect a young Brian Burke as premier, Sharon, 14, had waved goodbye to a girlfriend after getting off a bus across the road from the Mosman Park Post Office. According to the police, it was the last credible sighting of the girl with the brown shoulder-length hair.
Reported missing that night, her disappearance sparked substantial media interest. A photo was circulated widely strangely, the image was two years old and police even carried out a re-enactment of the last known sightings of the primary school dux in the glare of the television cameras.
Many came forward with sightings. Her father, Michael, who was separated from her mother April, told police he may have seen her in the carpark of his block of flats about a week after she was reported missing.
Others said they saw her telling two young men in a white panel van that she just wanted to go home in an argument not far from the restaurant where she worked casually.
One woman claimed to have seen her waving frantically from the back of a moving white American-style pick-up ute, while another couple swore blind they saw her walking briskly along Stirling Highway at 10.30pm on the night she disappeared.
A teenage friend claimed that on that day, she found Sharon crying in the laneway behind the shops before they both hitchhiked to the city and then to Mundaring Weir with a man in a red sports car.
She told police they were driven back to Perth after the man tried to have sex with Sharon. She said the man dropped her off at the Causeway and that was the last she saw of both of them.
Bus driver Alex McKay would claim in 2003 that Sharon was on his bus a week after she disappeared. He was driving from Fremantle to Perth when a teenage girl boarded at a stop near Mosman Park railway station. He had remembered her 20 years later because she looked like a young Natalie Wood. She was clean and tidy and happy enough and got off the bus in Thomas Street, Subiaco, near Rokeby Road.
Michael Mason, aware he was in the cross hairs of homicide detectives who suspected he had some role in his daughters disappearance, was grilled by detectives on several occasions and kept under surveillance. Even without a body, detectives were sure that they were not dealing with a missing persons case, and Sharons dad was at least worth a look.
But two years after Sharon disappeared, for reasons unknown to everyone except himself, Michael Mason took his own life.*The Sunday Times*reported a police spokesman saying; The talk in the locker room is that the father was the one that did it."
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/cr...murder-mystery-that-shook-perth-ng-b88699046z
