It was diabolically clever. We're here twenty three years later and we've got no idea what happened to Rachelle.
We have a twenty three year old who eks the caryard. She's been murdered. Why would you jump to Barkis.
Welcome to the fifth update episode of Dear Rochelle. You're behind the scenes access to this live podcast investigation series. I'm your host, Ashley Hanson. In this bonus episode, we're taking you behind the headlines and introducing some of the journalists.
Who've been working on this case with me.
Patrick Carline is a senior features writer for News Corp.
And Charlotte carp Is a senior reporter.
They're part of our core team investigating the unsolved murder of Rachelle Charles. This is our chance to dive a little deeper into the journalism behind the case. Welcome to you both. I'll start with you Patrick. You've been to some of these key locations. How do you compare the Girois scene, which is the scene where Rachelle's body was found, when you went there during the day as opposed to night.
Yeah, look, that's a good question, ash I think I was with you and Rees, our producer, when we got there about two thirty am one night back in December, and I sort of standing there for about half an hour before you got there, and the place felt haunted. There was not a car that passed. And this is the same time that Rachelle's body was found on fire back in two thousand and one. Not a single car passed.
I had the car headlights on. You could hear the surf in the distance, and you can see the insects of dancing in the car headlights. And it felt haunted, to be honest. Whereas during the day there's people around, there's a caravan park nearby. It's a pretty town, giao, it's a wonderful beach spot. But at two twenty in the morning, standing there by yourself in the middle of nowhere, it really does feel cursed, to be honest, in the context of Rochelle's case.
And the darkness is just so memorable about how dark it is there. And I guess we talk about this all the time. Why that spot, Why did the killer choose that spot to dispose of Rochelle's body. We're just trying to piece together what happened to Rochelle and those missing nine hours that we constantly talk about. What goes into your mind when you think about that area.
Look, it doesn't sort of make sense, does it. Look I've been looking at this since August last year, and that's one of the questions that keeps me awake at night, is why was she left there burning? I mean, it's such a dreadful fate. It is just so off the chart. And look, we don't know anything about her last night hours, and that keeps me awake as well. But why choose the side of the road? Why put someone set someone
on fire? And there's all this scrub land and bush where you could place a body that wouldn't be found for months and months. You've got tens of kilometers of bushland around you. But Rachelle is placed on the side of the road and set on fire in a way that she was going to be obviously found fairly readily. She's put on top of a concrete tank. Was he planning to the killer, planning to open the tank and put her in there and change his mind? It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense.
It is a disturbing crime. Charlotte. What keeps you up at night researching this case and working on it.
Why did they choose her?
Why?
What happened in the car? Did she drive this person down to GIRoA? Did was she driven? I mean, what happened in the car? That's what I would love to know.
Yeah, we all want to know that question. Or did it happen in the car? Because as I've spoken to Patrick a lot about as well, we don't even know where she died, where this fatal encounter was exactly. It could have been inside, could have been in a car, It could have been at her house, It could have been at another location we don't know about. Because as we always come back to those missing nine hours, what about the Bargo hotel and her car being parked there
by somebody else? What have you thought is some of the scenarios you've thought about as to when maybe that car could have been planted there?
My impression is that it was probably planted there sometime in the morning when her body was on fire down near Diraua. That they've come back and they've planted her car there, that's to me what makes sense.
It does make a lot of sense.
But the question I keep coming back to is then, how did the killer get away? From that area. So did they walk? Did they catch a taxi? Did somebody pick them up? Was his car parked conveniently nearby? Was this all part of the plan? What do you think, Patrick?
Look, I think there's a plan that we don't understand, and I mean there are so many elements to that plan. If you accept there was a plan, and I think there was a plan, it was diabolically clever in the sense that we're here twenty three years later and we've got no idea what happened to Rochelle between five point fifteen when she left work and I think she was caught flicking a cigarette but out of her car window
as she's driving towards home and two twenty am. And that drives me bonkers, to be honest, You and I have talked about this dozens and dozens and dozens of times. How about do we think about this? How about do you think about that? You know, I remember when I started looking at this, the impression was that Michelle had been to the Bargo Hotel and that was sort of if you go back through the clippings from two thousand and one, that was an accepted fact. And even that
to me doesn't sound right. She didn't go to the Bargo Hotel as far as I can see. But there's all these distrays actions as always red herrings sort of through this entire story that goes to that nine hours, and we cannot actually decipher what happened. Even now we've spent months and months of looking at this has been police investigations and reviews and coronial inquests, and we're still no closer that to actually having facts about those last
nine hours. And look, that's what I anguish about when I think about Rochelle, is what the hell happened? We don't even know how she died, We don't know where she died. It beggars belief that this story about this wonderful person who everybody loved was inexplicably killed. It beggars belief that we don't know anything about her final out.
Just defies belief, doesn't it.
And I know that that keeps me up at night as well, thinking about not just what happened to her, but also that this person is still free, or the offenders are still free. So that's a scary thought, and you just think about what did his life go on to be?
I know I've thought about that a lot.
So let's talk about some of the points that you just made their about the Bargo Hotel and those red herrings in the beginning, the bikey's rumor that started very quickly, and we've published a story which is about the manager at Campbelltown Holden, who said that Kevin Carell, who was Rochelle's boss at the time, was pedaling this story as soon as the Monday, the public holiday of the June Long weekend, when the family only was informed on the
Sunday that Rachelle's body had been found and they were treating her death as a murder, and then on the Monday, so soon after Kevin's pedaling this story that bikeys were involved.
What's your reaction to that, Charlotte.
I think it's a very strange way to react to that kind of thing. I mean, we have a twenty three year old who exit a car yard, she's been murdered. Why would you jump to bike is It's just such a strange conclusion to get to.
And with almost no evidence.
Really, I mean, she was friends with but it was also a very small town and I would say a lot of people knew a lot of people, So yeah, it's very strange conclusion to come to you.
That's one thing I'm really proud of.
I guess that we've been able to dismantle that rumor, you know, we've been able to crush it because there are so many people that testify that Rachelle wasn't involved.
With bikeis what are your thoughts on that? Patrick?
Well, what struck meime? And looking at this when you look at Sash, who was one of the bikes and was heavily investigated, and he said to the investigators in one of those very early interviews, stop you wasting your time. It wasn't me, It's nothing to do with us. Go and find who did this. That biking rumor took hold and it distracted that initial investigation in a massive way, and it was a complete waste of time. It was very unfair to the reputation of Rochelle. It sort of
suggested that she was somehow up to know good. Now we know for a fact she was twenty three, she was popular, she was on her way in life, she hadn't quite worked out where she was going to go. She was a great human being. Even under all this scrutiny. The weather applied and the police applied. She was a nice person. She had nothing to do with bike. She was not she wasn't up to no good. She was
a good person. But this rumor, sort of this distraction took Highwood in such a massive way and it distracted the investigation for years and years.
It is a complex case. There were multiple crime scenes. The Bargo Hotel which is where her car was staged and parked by somebody else, that obviously became a crime scene.
Her car was an exhibit. Then you have GIRoA, Then.
You have her workplace over Camden where she was last seen alive leaving work. So so many key locations and just on that, I know that Patrick, you visited a lot of those spots with me along the way as well and with tarm Or how does that play into it because you went there to look into this alibi of Kevin Stephen Carell, who was Rochelle's boss at the
time at Camden Holden. He of course has strenuously denied any involvement in Rochelle's murder, and he willingly participated in three records of interview with police and provided his DNA voluntarily, and the coroner made an open finding, so in terms of Kevin's alibi, he says that he went to tarm Or to get fish and chips. What do you make of that point? In his alibi?
Kevin offered a very complicated alibi and basically had him driving from Camden to Campbelltown to another shopping center, then down to Picton and down to tarm Or and back to Picton, then back to Campden. He talked about going to tarm Or to get fish and chips. Now that was striking and it struck the police officers at the time because what his order he said he was he
remembered his order two weeks later. I think he gave that alibi after the show was murdered, and he remembered his order which involved I think about it, sav and chips and a can of coke. And it was almost the same order as he gave as an alibi to a sexual assault allegation back in the early nineteen eighties. Look what stocks struck me about his alibi? And you look at the fish and chip shop. Why went the
police going to the fish and ship shop? Sort of immediately sort of saying do you remember Kevin, this man being here on this night, at this time, and all of that kind of evidence got lost because that grunt work, that slog work of police actually canvassing people and sort of saying that he says he was here, then can you prove is the CCTV? Can you remember him? A lot of that work was went undone in those early
days and weeks, and I got lost. All that evidence got lost, And here we are, twenty three years later, still looking at this alibi, which is very involved and stead of saying, how come this can't be proven or disproven? And I mean that drives me mad. I mean that's critical to this whole story. Can that alibi be proven
or not? And it seems very unlikely that we can sort of having some sort of breakthrough, which hopefully we do actually get to the point of understanding where that alibi may have been true or may not have been true. That's another thing that drives me mad as.
We investigate Kevin Carrell and his past. One thing that keeps popping up is mingles. Charlotte, You've been looking into this. What is mingles?
Mingles was like a singles group. I guess, well, yeah, we'll call it a singles group that sort of ran in like the early two thousands, and from what I gather, I mean, it was run by one person and she just wanted people to have fun. She ran these huge events, usually at RSLs around Southwest Sydney, and so many people went. I mean there are pictures just with hundreds of people and they look like they're having the best time. So they were very popular events. Kevin, I mean, is still
very good friends with this woman. And by all accounts, I mean, he was very well liked among all the people there. He was very charismatic, he was very friendly. But he was one of you know, hundreds of people
who were going to these events. And you know, I mean I think that they were for people sort of older than maybe thirty five forty, who might have had young kids, they might have been nearly divorced, they might be single, who wouldn't maybe have had an opportunity to go out and have fun without that.
So it was a networking group or social group that was targeted at single people and connections around that.
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I would say a social group very much towards single people, like people looking for people looking for love, love for fun, fun, Yeah, that's what i'd say.
And some of the people that we've spoken to met Kevin through mingles. He's so popular in that circle of friends and those connections that he has and so many loyal supporters, and then you look into other aspects of his past, like previous relationships, for example, his ex wife. What did did you make of her interview? I'll start with you Patrick, Elise.
Yeah, look, that was an incredible interview as well done forgetting it. I heard somebody who was afraid. That was the takeaway from me, somebody who to this day still feels afraid of that aspect of her life. She talked about a sort of jeculine hard character. If you're like somebody who was very charismatic and very charming, especially at the start of their relationship, and that's something that we've heard again and again. At the start of relationships, this
man was a complete gentleman. He went out of his way to impress his partner of the time. But as the months went on and as the years went on, those partners would start seeing a very different side of Kevin, and that side terrified them. That's the common link. You have all these women who actually feel terrified to this day of Kevin, And you know, it's like they've got somebody they're looking over the shoulders for the rest of
their lives. That is the common link, I think, but relationships that started out very charming and very all encompassing that went sour at some point.
And just on that, Alise, along with so many other brave women, have pushed through that fear to speak out.
So that's very telling, do you think, Charlotte.
A lot of people who have come forward are people who have gone, oh, you know, I wasn't really sure whether to say anything, and now I've and know I'm going to. And of course, if they want their privacy respected, we respect that too, and they trust us to do that. You know, the fact that they're willing to come out now after the podcast has launched and tell these deeply personal stories and things, as Patrick said, that they're still quite afraid of, I think, is that's really brave of them to.
Just on that.
We need to mention that Kevin Correll strenuously denies any allegations of domestic abuse leveled against him by his ex wife Elise in these investigations. We have an email address, It's dear Rochelle atnews dot com dot au and some days, my jaw drops. I don't know how you guys are feeling, but what do you feel about when you check that email some days?
Yes, no, look, I look at it every day. I look forward to looking at it each morning. We've had dozens of people come through, and again there's a common thread. They want to help. They actually want to help, and a lot of those emails begin with I don't know if this is relevant, and then they tell a story that relates to some encounter they had or some understanding they had back from twenty years ago. And again, these are people who just want to see justice done. That's
the driving force. And you know, you got some strange ideas in there. At times. We've also got people who say, look, I knew this person back then, and this person was like this, and I just want to help. I just want to give you something. I don't know if it means anything. I want to give you something that goes to making this getting justice done. And that's one impressive mane And there's so many people every day. I look forward to it. As I said, just looking at those of emails.
I love looking at the inbox.
And as Patrick said, you know a lot of people go oh, I don't know if this is important, and usually those are the best ones, but even listeners sending us questions that they have, you know, I mean, as journalists, it's part of our job to preempt what listeners will want to know. We have to ask those questions, and so getting people engaging with it, asking their own questions, it's not only super interesting from our perspective, but it's really important to get that kind of feedback, I guess.
And it's so great to know as well that the interest from our listeners and people that read your stories, that they are coming forward and they want to help, as you say, and that's what it's going to take, we believe to get this solved right.
Some of those tips that have come through have driven what we have reported and how the podcast has gone. And I think somebody out there knows something that breaks this open. All the police officers who have been part of this, everyone who's been part of us is of the belief that somebody or some people know things that actually steer this story. And some of those people and
I'm sure it will be one of those. As Charlotte was saying, I'm not sure if this will help, but it will be one of those tips that really could crack this wide open. I'm sure, and it's exciting. It's great to see it happening in real time and to see the possibility sort of emerge in front of you each morning as you look at them.
Wouldn't that be incredible?
Given the injustice that Anne and Christie have been dealt for so many years, which just coming up to twenty four years is the anniversary of Rochelle's brutal murder, and just to think what they've gone through over the years, what have you made of that, you know, going through the first the initial investigation and then the inquest, and then the police appeals that just fell on deaf ears, and this campaign to increase the reward that for some reason,
we're still it's still sitting there at two hundred thousand dollars, which is not a huge amount of money to someone who could potentially be risking relationships or risking their safety, they might fear for their safety to come forward with information. So where do you sit with the reward and why it hasn't been increased at all? Charlotte, I know you've been strongly looking into that one too.
Yeah, I can't really understand why the reward hasn't been raised. I mean, two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money back when Rochelle was murdered, but today it's not even a house deposit in Sydney, to be honest, and really the ones that work, the rewards that work are about a million dollars.
That is, you need someone.
To be able to give this information, uproot their lives potentially and move somewhere else, and they need the funds to do that. So it would be a tremendous incentive if police raise the word to about a million dollars. I cannot imagine how taxing this has been for Rochelle's family to go through this for so long. The emotional investment, the energy, the pain that they go through, it's unimaginable.
In the course of our jobs, we deal with a lot of victims of crime, you know, whether it's in court cases or the Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse or whatever. Most of those people who are victims are scarred by what has happened to them. Very understandably. They're bitter their already, they're obsessed in ways that are perfectly relatable, and that's what struck me about christian Ann when I first met them.
They are hurt for life by what happened to Rochelle, but it hasn't shaped them in that sort of ugly way that victims of crime are shaped. They laugh, they joke, They have fond memories of Rochelle, and all the way through Graham's childs did most of the heavy lifting with the police until he passed away, and was always constructive. He didn't get angry, he didn't throw tantrums. He just wanted justice. And it was this very sort of discipline, sort of need for justice that really got inherited by
Christie in the same way. She wants this to happen. She needs for this to happen, but she doesn't get angry with the police. She hasn't shouted from the rooftops. She hasn't sort of, you know, demanded things must happen in what it's all been, sort of can you please help us? We need to find an answer here. And I admire them. They are outstanding human beings because of the way they have handled such a long time this missing part of their life. It was stolen from them.
They just want to understand why, and they do it in the most articulate and in a warm sort of way. They are outstanding in that sense.
They're just remarkably dignified in their campaign for justice, and we all as a team, and it's a huge team, are fighting for that too. So everyone's contribution to this project is very greatly appreciated by myself, but mostly Christian and Teamshell, which is growing by the day, which is fantastic.
Well, thank you both for.
Joining me today on this special bonus episode of Dear Rochelle Pleasure Rash.
Thank you.
New episodes of De Rochelle drop on Fridays. Visit deroshelle dot com doau for more and if you have any information you want to share with me Ashley Hanson, you can do so confidentially. Please send an email to Deroshelle at news dot com, doa you or you can follow the Deershelle podcast official discussion group on Facebook.