Disappeared and Murdered Aboriginal Women

hoping to pay attention to over the coming months. Both cases involve Aboriginal women who have disappeared and have not yet been found. I've chosen the word disappeared deliberately. In the absence of knowing. We have to be careful with language, especially as inquests and investigations are still underway. For mine, disappeared is still an active word, while murdered is closed. Disappeared means not placing culpability back on the victim when

we do not know the circumstances of their disappearance. But unlike missing, there remains an active person or structure that could be culpable or responsible for their disappearance. In the absence of knowing, we must find a way to describe this situation that leaves it open for any avenue of justice and supports the family in whatever fight they wish to wage on their loved ones. Behalf now, as I said, that's an article that you can go and read on

Amy's substack and prior to Amy writing that piece. We actually had a very lengthy discussion. As we have explained, as we often do about these issues and have done over the last six years of making Curtain and working on Kevin's case and a host of other cases and working with families. That what you hear is just a very distilled sample of what we discuss in the background when working and as Amy described, using the word disappeared

was a very deliberate choice. And so today I want to introduce you to a case that Amy goes on to write about in that article and involves an inquest that Amy attended. Now that is the case of a twenty four year old Monique Club, an Aboriginal woman who was last seen at Benlee Station in Brisbane on the twenty second of June twenty thirteen. That in quest has since concluded, and since then both Amy and I have

spoken to Miss Club's family. Amy has begun work on a number of articles on Miss Clubs disappearance, and I have undertaken to work and assist the family in whatever way I can to help find Miss Club and find answers as to exactly what happened. I'll begin by reading the conclusion to the inquest, and then I intend this episode purely to be for information about Miss Club's disappearance and as some background, And in future episodes, I'll talk to Amy about the inquest itself and what it was

like to attend. We will speak about what the family have undertaken over the years to find her, and then I hope we can begin to bring you progress as we discover more information and as I investigate and try and get answers for the family. So the Corners report at the end of the inquest simply reads the identity of the deceased Monique Irone Club, how she died, undetermined place of death. I find that Miss Club probably died in Benley or in the Brisbane area, and the date

of death. Miss Club died on or soon after the twenty second of June twenty thirteen. So following all these years of waiting, and one can only imagine the anguish that Miss Club's family, her siblings and her mother, Sheena, who I've had the honor of talking to and about her life and also about her disappearance in the aftermath, and the anguish that they've all been through over these years.

Every single day to then also sit through an inquest and hear a lot of highly unpleasant details and also here from witnesses, here from police, and then to find that how she died can't be determined, that her place of death in Lee or the Brisbane area. We're talking about a major capital city. It is a very large area, and even the date can't be determined. These are not answers.

This is not a conclusion in any means. And given that Miss Club has never been found, clearly the family can't rest until they have answers, until they at the very least can lay her to rest, how can they ever even begin to commence the grieving process. And so I think at the very beginning of this, we're actually starting at the conclusion of the inquest findings and just how open these are, how they really provide no answers whatsoever, and in terms of how Monique may have died, where

she could possibly be and when this occurred. And now I want to break down some of the details of this in quest. So to give you a very quick background, Monique left Harvey Bay for an unplanned trip with a number of friends and they drove together to the greater Brisbane area. Miss Club had been in a very serious accident and suffered really horrible injuries in the years prior to her disappearance, and was struggling with the use of painkillers.

As many people will know, the over prescription of the drug fentanyl is something that has been analyzed lot in the media, particularly in America where it's a huge issue, and somewhat in Australia where it's been raised on where it's been raised in media like Four Corners, where even

paramedics have struggled with its misuse. It is highly addictive, the withdrawals are awful, and this is a drug that is often wrongly prescribed, should never have been prescribed in the first place, and often requires serious impatient support to assist someone to come off the drug and to rebuild their life afterwards. This is of course no fault of the patient. This is a substance that was prescribed to

them because of serious pain. In Miss Club's case, because of a serious accident that had left her with very hard to live with injuries that were causing her a great deal of pain, and she was simply trying to navigate life as best as possible. So while in Brisbane, Miss Club attended a medical practice where she was prescribed five high dose ventanyl patches and fifty diazepam tablets that's valium. The coroner found that the prescribing of the patches and

the diazepam was inappropriate. It was also noted that the medical records at that practice stated that Miss Club should not be prescribed opioid based or synthetic pain relief of such an addictive and strong nature, and yet it was given to her anyway. It was then dispensed by a nearby pharmacist where Miss Club obtained only the ventanyl patches, and then after which she went into a nearby shop. She was in a shopping center and was asked to leave.

It's not possible to ascertain whether this was because of her behavior. It could have been racial profiling. We really can't tell. But a security guard was called. He didn't believe that Miss Club was any trouble at all, and he witnessed her leave the shopping center. She was quite in the distance at this point and that she'd walked into a park and that's where he last saw her. And he said that she seemed uninjured and okay, but that's where she was last seen. And he was the

last person to see her. Miss Club then failed to make contact with her mother, who she would be in regular contact daily contact with via her telephone, and her mother immediately filed a missing person's report with the police in Harvey Bay, where Miss Club was from and where her mother lived, and then the police investigation began. Immediately, the police assumed something that I think we can all probably guess and that you've heard many times in this

podcast before. They assumed Miss Club was drunk. She was not, and the coroner stated that this finding, this assumption by

the police was inconsistent with the evidence. Well, not only is it inconsistent with the evidence, it's another example of the endless racism of the police around this country, where anytime an Aboriginal person is in trouble, the police simply assume they're drunk, and as you've heard throughout the years of this podcast, so often, this is simply not the case, and in Miss Club's case, it was just not true. So the police investigation then commences a on a wrong footing.

I also believe that based on evidence, you will hear shortly that the police had, once again, as they often do, assume that she'd gone walk about and that she would be found or returned home, which obviously did not happen, and these were based on pure assumptions and without ascertaining the facts at all. In fact, the coroner slam Queensland

Police for its shambolic response to Miss Club's disappearance. There was also a great deal of confusion as to which police officer officer and from what unit was leading the investigation. This resulted in a number of critical delays and incorrected tactical decision making in the field, which resulted in huge gaps in the investigation and of may, in my opinion, have resulted in the fact that Miss Club was not

found in those early days. Some of those mistakes and some of the lack of direction include the fact that police search and Rescue determined that Miss Club was not in the park where she was last seen. Police, however, concluded that Miss Club had died in the park based on the wrong assumption that she was intoxicated, perhaps under the influence of drugs. This was not consistent with the statement of the security guard, who was both reliable at the time and reliable at the inquest, and was the

last person to see Miss Club alive. Miss Club was an active user of her mobile phone, both in making calls to friends, family, people she knew, people she was around, and yet police did not ascertain all of the available call logs. They obtained some but not all in the case of some witnesses and some people who may have had further information as to where Miss Club might be people who had been in her company. The police obtained call logs, for example incoming calls, but not outgoing calls.

They could have missed vital and probably did miss vital information. Another issue was that no triangulation of Miss Club's telephone was performed. This would have allowed police to potentially locate the phone locate if they could not locate the phone, find the location of where it was last on and used, and possibly even located Miss Club. They did not perform

this for two reasons. One they didn't believe that it meant the threshold, that is, that is, Miss Club's disappearance did not meet their threshold of her being in grave or imminent danger or at risk ridiculous. The other issue was cost. Now we understand the cost would have been about five hundred dollars and Queensland Police decided that was too much money to expend for the life of an Aboriginal woman. The police did also not access all of

the available CCTV in the area. They did review CCTV at the closest train station, but police can't say which police viewed this CCTV footage, for how long it was viewed, or where the notes are and what happened to those notes, nor what those notes say. One officer admitted during the coronial inquest that the CCTV was in the possession of the QPS, but they couldn't find it, and admitted that guidelines had not been followed. What we do know from the CCTV footage that was seen is that miss Club

was last seen on CCTV at Binley Station. This footage from the train station could have provided vital information as to her next movement and possible whereabouts, but the CCTV was not viewed for long enough to determine whether she got onto a train or not. This is crucial. Had she got onto a train, then the police could have looked at which train line it was they knew based on the station she was at, and reviewed the CCTV

of all potential future stops along that line. Then they could determine exactly where she got off, if she was met by someone, and then review CCTV footage in that location for further information. Had that CCTV footage revealed that Miss Club had not got on the train, A, it would have told them she'd remained in that bin Lee area, and B they could have then reviewed CCTV footage both public and private, from private businesses, petrol stations, local libraries,

shopping centers, pharmacies and scene. Did Miss Club get into a vehicle with someone? Did she meet someone? Could they view the license plate of a car she got into, none of which we will ever know, A because they didn't view the CCTV properly and B the CCTV that was collected was not stored to their own guidelines. There was also a serious lack of oversight, and this goes to a slightly complex issue. But the ELDE of this investigation was taken by Harvey Bay, which is hours away

from Brisbane where Miss Club went missing. Now, say I'm from Canberra and I go visit Melbourne and I go missing in Melbourne, why on earth would the Canberra Police be tasked with finding me. It's not their patch, they don't They're not there physically, they don't know the ground,

they don't know who to speak to. Once again, I absolutely believe this was a case of police assuming that Miss Club had gone walk about like they always do when someone who is Aboriginal goes missing, just as they did when Colin Walker Craig, one of the beautiful young Aboriginal children who was murdered in and around Bauerville in the nineties and for whom the families have never had justice. These are the same wrong assumptions that police make.

huge number of errors. When an oversight report was carried out by a detective senior sergeant, they admitted at the coronial investigation that their review did not involve any reinvestigation of the matter. They simply relied on the original report supplied by the senior Constable, and so that detective senior sergeant's report, and remember Miss Club has never been found. So this is an ongoing case of a woman who is disappeared and could very well have been murdered, and

yet this detective senior sergeant's report, same mistakes. Now, one of the things that was raised throughout the coronial inquest, one of the things that's been mentioned in the media by academics, by alleged experts, that this all has to do with training, the following of procedures, that training manuals be updated, That there was confusion about delegation of responsibilities, about a lack of information sharing between search and rescue

missing persons units and the regular police. But let's be honest what it really is. It's not any of those things. They could have been solved decades ago when these errors were first point out out. The answer to what happened

is very simple. The police did not give a shit, and based on their racism, they assumed wrongly that Miss Club was intoxicated, They assumed wrongly that she was in that park, they assumed wrongly that she'd simply gone walk about, and they assumed wrongly that she would simply go home at some point the in between, of which they had

no care. All these mistakes mean that we are left in the same position the family was when Miss Club's mother first reported her missing, with no new information as to where she might be, what has happened to her, and who might have been involved in her disappearance or potential murder. These are all issues we will explore in the future. There are people who were around Miss Club at the time who had the motive, the opportunity, and the potential to murder her. This was never taken serious

seriously by the police. New information about this came to light somewhat in the coronial inquest, but despite all of this, no real active investigation continues. As Amy's article points out, twenty thirteen was not just a year that Miss Club disappeared. Another Aboriginal woman in Queensland disappeared that year too. She too was most likely, I would say almost certainly murdered. She too has never been found. Her family was let down by the Queensland Police Department in the same ways.

So we'll be back very soon with a future episode of Curtin the podcast, where I hope to bring you more information where I'll speak to Amy about what it was like to attend the inquest, what it was like to hear this new information come forward, and hear the realization that this was not simply a missing person's case, but that Miss Club could very well have been murdered

and most of all in the background. We will be working to do what we can to assist the family, to find answers to find Miss Club, and to give her family the chance to lay her to rest.