Dear Rachelle - Australia's new true crime obsession

Here we have Rachelle Childs suiting up for qualifying stint.

Is it going to be a blinder?

Get the hell?

We're on language loved and this is the beginning lesson. We're gonna watch Rachelle goes, who oh where are carding now?

And here we go.

It's a sunny day at Wakefield Park Raceway, about a two hour drive south of Sydney. Rochelle is wild about cars, and she's wearing her favorite sports sonnies and gear up in a racing suit. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she's beaming with excitement. She's moments away from jumping behind the wheel of a hotted upholder.

Can you lask rus before we go?

Yeah?

Hey girl?

That driving experience was a gift for her twenty first birthday, and it's the final recording. Rochelle's family has to hold on to.

The death of Rochelle Child.

Twenty three year old disappeared from a pub in Bargo. She planned to meet someone there whose burnt body was found on a lonely South Coast road. Her body was found in bush in GIRoA.

She was murdered.

The worst thing you could say to any individual, is you're a murder and you kill my daughter.

Rochelle was killed by someone she knew.

We'd like to find out who did it and why.

Evidence points to a crime cleverly planned, but still the killer wasn't caught.

My name is Christie Child's and this story is about my beautiful sister, Rochelle Child's. She was violently taken from us when I was just eighteen. Shechelle was vivacious, hilarious and kind. She was everything to me growing up, my mentor, my protector, my best friend. I looked up to her so much, and now I know she's looking down on me, willing me to find the person who killed her.

I'm Ashley Hanson and this is Dear Rochelle, a podcast about a popular twenty three year old who was adored by her family and friends. Nobody has ever been charged over Rochelle's murder. From True Crime Australia.

This is the untold story of Rochelle Charles.

Hi, how are you? For the past year, I've been working closely with Christy to reinvestigate her sister's murder. We're on a mission to finally expose who killed Rochelle. For more than two decades, Rochelle's family has been fighting for justice. This case should never have been left to run cold. I've been covering crime for over twenty years in Australia and my job as a reporter has taken me around the world. I thought I was prepared for anything until

That's thought that you should be aware of what you were doing.

Sometimes you get lost in your work and you don't realize what you've done until it's too late. Well, as I said to you before you're poking a beer.

I do take that advice seriously. But while a cold bloody killer and suspected rapist is walking free, no woman is safe and I just can't let Rochelle's family down. Our investigation is uncovered damning new evidence, Innocent people who've been too afraid to speak out for decades are breaking their silence for a shell. You'll hear from friends and family, investigators and key witnesses who've never spoken before. Some of the brightest minds from our criminal justice system are helping

When you're dealing with sex offenders it takes years of experience to realize how clever they are.

Fucking Blame on me because I'm in a by plot.

My worst fear is that person who killed Rochelle has killed again.

Over the years, police identified nine persons of interest or pois, and the coroner comprehensively examined Rochelle's death, which still didn't lead to anyone being charged. But what really gets to the families the lack of action by police to reopen her case. Here's Christie Child straight after a meeting with the New South Wales Unsolved Homicide Squat in early twenty twenty four. Christy's an assistant principal at a primary school, so you know she's taken notes.

It is that I don't know and I said so you're not across this case and he said no, I'm not.

And I said who is and he said no one.

He said, so no one in unsolved form societies across this case and already said no.

Christine Omman have been let down so many times. This podcast could be their final shot through it all. They've held on tightly to their memories.

Talking chins that were completely different personalities. She was just out there more, you know. She was lovely and loud, and Christy was just this soft little mouse.

It was sweet.

That's part of the dancing days. She looked up to Chrissy looked up to the show. She really did. She thought she were Ant's pants. Now they'll find they'll find together.

Right up through Prime.

It was lovely. It was a really good relationship.

My name is Lisa and I was Rachelle's best friend for her entire life.

We owned horses together.

You know. We were dancing five days a week when we were young, so that was a lot of time we were spending. We removed a little a moving panel in between our fences. You know, we'd jump over the fence to jump.

In each other's pools.

And to have her in my life, to navigate the good and the tough times. There were some tough times where we grew up in Glenfield, particularly for myself being of a Mediterranean background, and I got bullied and she was my saving grace.

She was amazing.

She had away with people and away with the bullies and had a lot of power, you know, and she could stop them from hitting me. But she made something that could have been utterly horrific manageable from opening barb wide fences and helped me run through so I could escape before they caught me to distracting them.

CHRISTI just turned eighteen when she moved in with Rochelle in Bargo, an hour south of the hustle and bustle of Sydney. It's a one pub town, the kind of place where you run into your neighbor when you pop out to grab the milk. There's a small strip of shops with a bakery, a supermarket, an a vet. They were renting a modest three bedroom brick home on a small farm in town. If Rochelle wasn't restoring Holden's, she was with her animals on the idyllic six acres That

We had big plays for the weekend and she was supposedly getting a veal ss group A otherwise known as a walking straw, because there was one coming into the car that her boss had told her about and she was so excited because she got to take it home for I believe she was having the Friday off, so she was going to have this walk control for four days.

My name's Fierra Anda. I knew Rochelle for about two years when we worked to Camden Holden together.

Well.

I was the hired as the receptionist and registration's clerk and she was in used cars. Work was just funny, we'd smoke, we'd have lunch together. Sometimes. It was just a good place to work. But you know, like I enjoyed it, she enjoyed it. She loved the talking to people, and that was her gab. Anyone who came on the yard, she'd be there talking to them. She didn't care if they bought a car. She was just happy talking to them.

Really, locals, remember the dealerships used car office because it was pretty iconic. They did business from inside a refurbished red train carriage.

So my office was in the showroom and to get to the train station you had to walk along a platform. It was a train platform. It was basically as if a train had pulled up. It was an old red rattler.

Ruschall's office was, you know, not too far in, but it was pretty much there.

So did you ever come here and see Rochelle?

And she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I was here quite often for whatever reason, pick up things, pick her up. Yeah, now, I was here quite often. I used to watch her move the cars around. So here was you know, all of the used cars, and to watch her move the cars around to get them into the right spot. It was like watching in ballet like it was such a precision where it's just such a good driver.

She used to do a Caf and Kim dance, you know the CAF dance where Cat does the donkey. She'd do that going down the platform of Camden. I would not just stand at the showroom just laughing all the way as she do a little dance down the platform back to her Offen.

The Fi owner Lisa Rochelle and her little sister Christi were a tight crew until the seventh of June two thousand and one, the Thursday ahead of the long weekend.

Here's Christie.

I was at Mum and Dad's house because they were away, so I was at their house. I remember she called me on her way home from work. I was on you know when you used to have like the second line on the landline. I was on the phone to my best mate from school and I heard the call come through and I said, I'll just answer this quickly. So I jumped over to the other line and it was Rochelle and she was driving.

Because she always spoke so far. She just said hey, Chris, Michelle, and.

I said, hey, I'm on the other line. Erin and she went, oh, right here, call me back. I say okay, bye, and that was it.

I hung up. That was the last time I spoke to her.

That was at exactly five point fifteen pm on Thursday, the seventh of June two thousand and one. A minute later, it's believed Rochelle flicked a cigarette butt out the window of her blue nineteen seventy eight Holden Commodore as she drove along the Old Hume Highway through Camden, heading towards her home in Bargo. A council ranger happened to be driving behind her and noted down the daytime and number plate GV two thousand. The officer didn't see the driver,

So off I get I'm driving through I've seen this fire on the right hand side, and I've gone in. This is where I don't forget anything because it plays on my mind all the time. I've walked in and I didn't think much of it. I'm trying to kick this fire out and as I'm kicking scend onto it, it's coming back at me. Fee I said, it's ain't right, and I thought, okay, I'm only grab my torch because

And I'm going Wow.

Made that phone call again a triple A in saying this is Craig Duck again. I need police here as well. I've got a crime scene.

At this stage.

Rochelle's family and friends have no idea she's even missing. Fiona recalls canceling her plans to meet Rochelle that night.

We'd organized for these drinks on the Thursday to go and have a drink, and I.

Said, I'm not going to go.

I've been on the phone all night. I'm just going to go home, and we had that conversation down in the train carriage where anybody could have heard that conversation, that the plans had changed, that she was just going straight home.

And what was the moment that you realized something was wrong.

I got a phone call from Fiona. It was a Friday morning, or around lunchtime, and Fie said, I can't get hold of Rochelle and I don't know where she is.

Rochelle's rosted off on the Friday, but she tells Fiona she's going to be popping into work anyway, but she never turns.

Up the Friday night. When I got down to her face, I'd been trying all day for her. Not to have a mobile on was really unusual, and she knew I was coming on the Friday.

I can't find her. She's not answering her phone.

When I arrived at her house, the lights were.

All on, the car's not here, Ralfi hasn't been fed, and the telly was still on, and I went, oh, okay, So I tried to call.

And the windows were like, the blinds were open. I could see it looked like she'd literally just left, gotten changed and left.

It was Friday night that we realized something was seriously wrong because no one had heard from her all day, and that was very unusual. She would talk to multiple people multiple times a day, so to not be able to get hold of her, it was very strange. So that's when that's when it started to get real. Friday afternoon. That night, we called police stations. We called all of the hospitals. We traveled around up and down the road to see whether we could find maybe she had an accident, because we.

Were just trying anywhere to say as anything happened, is there any police stations, you know, like just frantic.

My best friend's missing and I'm really worried.

And then the next day I'd printed out posters that said missing and her picture and I can't even remember where I went, but giving it to everyone in the community.

I had a.

Job where I used to cook the barbecue. I had three jobs, but one of them while I was at union. One of them was to cook the barbecue at the markets on a Saturday morning, and she was supposed to come there and she was going to bring her friend's daughter today with her. So I went there because I thought she said she was going to come, So I just waited for her for hours and hours and hours, and I can't remember the beautiful lady I worked with there.

I can't find her.

The everyone was just very displaced, and Christie rang us on the Saturday and said that I can't find Michelle. I thought, what he mean, you can't find that? She's somewhere? Maybe she stay did her friend's place last night?

And what was that drive like back to Bargo.

I don't remember. It was just a big blur. I went straight to Bargo and Chris was there. I just remember getting all fliers and taking it out to local pubs and places around to sif anyone has seen or heard of her, and rang with her work and know what they didn't know where she was.

The search engers its second day, and then a breakthrough on Saturday. The family is told Rochelle was supposed to meet someone at the Bargo Hotel on Thursday night. The pub's almost two kilometers away from her place. It's a typical country pub on the main drag Back in two thousand and one, It's painted red and green. Upstairs. You can find a cheap room downstairs as a bistro, a

I haven't been able to figure out why and why at Bargo Pub did she go? If she did go there, why did she meet someone there? If it was someone she knew, why didn't she meet them at home?

Had you ever gone to the Bargo Hotel with Rachelle?

No? Never, never. I didn't really even know she'd gone.

I'd never heard of the Bargo Hotel. If she'd mentioned the Bargo Hotel, it would have been one of the first stops on that Friday night.

She would never walk into a new place alone, and she would never go and meet someone new alone. She used to drag me around to parties, and as soon as she was in there and felt confident, she'd forget I was there. So she was a little shy in that sort of respect.

She knew too many people to walk into a place on her own. She didn't have to ever walk anywhere on her own or go anywhere.

On her own, and she wouldn't go and meet someone that she didn't know, and if she was going to, she wouldn't go alone.

While the families desperately search for any trace of Rachelle, police are trying to make sense of Craig Duck's shocking discovery at Seven Mile Beach.

I don't know what I was going through. I don't really know. I was just going through, okay, the sort of bengle that flashed up in my eyes, so I knew that I knew it had to be a female.

The operator asked me a few questions, and I was like, well, there's all this noise, and there's cars, and there's something going on outside. My dog won't stop barking, and I can't go to sleep, and now I think there's a fire and I don't know what's going on, but somebody needs to get down here because we're quite isolated. But then it was a fairly short time after that that I'd started hearing sirens.

Next thing you know, as a police are coming, why are we going to get there? Or walked up beside their truck and I said, guys, you can't tell me this is a crime scene area.

My name is Carmen and in two thousand and one, my husband and I were the on site managers of seven mob Beach Holiday Park, which is approximately five hundred or so meters from where Rachelle was found.

Once the police got there, the officer's dawning of taking the officer in showing her situation.

And it's a long weekend. I've got three little boys asleep in bed, my dog's going crazy. There's horrible noises outside. Something's not right.

How big was the fire at this stage?

It was conforming to one area, but it was quite high.

I can sense my emotions, you know, taking me back to that moment and that sort of fearful moment and not knowing what I was hearing. And I could hear yelling, and then I could hear a few sort of like awful noise, says.

What was that twenty minutes? Like for you standing at this crime scene, knowing what was burning.

It was horrific.

If I was the last person to ever hear her, or you know, it was the last place she was ever alive, I feel some sort of connection and I feel so sad for her family.

That's so emotional.

After August time.

Back in Bargo, Rachelle's family and friends are rushing to the local pub where her car has been found parked out the back.

We got into the car and I remember sitting in the car and going, there's something wrong.

The club block was on upside down.

And she had a specific way that she used to put the club block on the hand or that people used to point down. She would point up and jam it in the corner of the windscreen and then she'd lock the steering wheel.

And that wasn't done. It was upside down.

She would sit like hanging back the sort of cruisy arm and you know, like she'd have the smoke and you know, like but it wasn't sort of positioned like that.

She did used to have her seat really far back, but it was really far back. And I remember looking at the car, going something seriously wrong here. And she didn't park this year. So I got out of the car and that's when I knew something bad.

It happened.

Christine her friends are racking their brains as to who would have driven Rachelle's car anywhere, let alone to the Bargo Hotel. Meanwhile, a murder investigation is well and truly underway at seven Mile Beach, GIRoA at a nearby hospit. A young woman's badly burned body has been formally identified and South Coast detectives are making the hour drive to Bargo.

I was at home at Bargo, probably printing out more posters, so sitting at the computer, and I saw the detectives pull up and was ither Davies and Peter Street. They pulled up out the front and got out of the car and walked in, and I was hopeful. When they walked in, I thought, oh, they've found her, They've come to tell us something.

And they came inside. I was on the lounge. Christy was sort of over thinking of like a piano stool or another ground ever.

Walked up to me and looked me in the eye, put his left hand on my shoulder and said, your sister's dead. She was murdered and she was found down at GIRoA.

When they said they they found someone at GIRoA, my first words were, where the fuck is GIRoA? Where the fuck is GIRoA?

What what do you mean?

I don't know what happened after that. I think I screamed and Fiona was there and she was hysterical. I couldn't even think and then I looked up and Mom and Dad had pulled up out the front, and I went, oh, I can't be here for this, so I went out the back and then yeah, then I ever told Mum and Dad.

Was at the house at Bargo. We just gotten there, and I Dave, he detective came out to tell us, and Christy was selling the house and the and we knew song was terribly wrong by this point, it just wasn't Shell. She always would ring Crystal, always contact us. And when he said it, I said, oh, look, I am that you sure like what?

And oh yeah?

They said that she was found on the early hours of Friday morning. I just started the long weekend. Yeah, she was dead.

How do you even begin to process such devastating news.

You can't.

You don't know what to do with it. It's just it's just unbelievable. This doesn't happen. Yeah, it was so hard for Christie. Was awful, time, awful.

Goosebumps just thinking about it.

It was.

Anyway, I get in my car, drive home and then I remember I was speaking to a friend of mine, Darren, and then Fiona called and I'm like, oh, that's weird.

I'm going to hang up and a speak to Fiona and they're like, hey, we found Shell And I'm like, oh my god, where the hell is she? You know, with this oh I'm going to wring her neck type of thing. And she goes, oh at hospital. I'm like, oh, okay, which one?

And she said, oh, sorry she no, Lisa, she's not She's dead.

And I just fell out of the car. No one was home, and I dragged myself on the floor and something. I got to the.

Front door and then I remember ringing and straightway Michelle's mum and just saying is it true?

She answered, and I said is it true? And she said yes.

When you saw Rochelle's face for the first time in the news days later, how did that affect you?

I couldn't believe it. I thought, she's only your baby Wire, Why would anyone do that to you? Too? Well, you know read that she played cricket and meeting King of the Road Peter Rock and stuff like that, Like just what a lucky girl at the time, you know, what a beautiful life she had in front of her.

Craig Ducker's referring to a photograph he had seen of Rochelle with her idol Australian racing legend Peter Brock. That photo was splashed across newspapers and national TV screens as police hunted her killer. An autopsy couldn't determine Rochelle's cause of debt, but it was suspected she was smothered or strangled. At least one of her fingers was also detached. She was found naked from the waist down, leading detectives convinced

You know, some things sit with you, whether it's the one that got away, or whether it's a really really bad one that you can't get out of your head. And now a lot of the takers out there have got that. I'll drive past this road on the regular and I always look here when I'm driving through, and I was that there had been something else which she'd left me, something else, because I want a closure for the family, and it annoyed me that we never ever got there, and I think of her from time to time.

The killer clearly wasn't trying to hide her body. What do you make of that? Well, I think they went.

To great lengths to hide her body, but it didn't work out, so then it was just had hopily done in haste. Just they've had enough. They must have been driving around with the corpse and the body what an heiress, And I just think that when this didn't pan out, they've had enough. We're not going to just put a rear torch and get the evidences get out of dodge.

Would you like this case to be reopened, because right now it's not an active case.

Well, I'm hoping perhaps because of what you're doing, it may inspire some sort of motivation to push on. But I'm absolutely sure in my heart that we've interviewed the crook.

He's in that brief.

I feel so indebted to Ivor because I know that he put his hand soil into it, and he's still even though it doesn't it work for the police anymore. He's still summarizing and thinking about it, and yeah, he's just beautiful.

It was on this day Christy learned more about why this case has halted him.

I didn't know that he was the one that lifted Rochelle out of where she was found.

I don't even just found that out.

Yeah, that's terrific, and that would be something I don't think if that would never leave.

You can't unsee that, you can't unfeel that. So, yeah, that's horrible.

Rochelle's case was the last murder investigation either Davies would ever work on. In the years that followed, countless more cops would try but failed to solve Rochelle's murder. If we're going to get justice for her family, we need to do something bold.

Well, you've got to think outside the square and when you take your blinkers off in these sort of investigations and not be narrow minded.

So I've turned to Damien Loon, a thirty year veteran who's known for cracking cold cases. He was the dogged detective who was vital in the success of my inspiring colleague Headley Thomas's podcast, The Teacher's Pet.

So I Chronic Greeka, believing your twenty tip you've seen in Constable Damien looms Fell all told on conducting an investigation into the disappearance of Lament Join Dawson.

The Teacher's PEP was one of Australia's first and most powerful true crime podcasts, which led to the conviction of Chris Dawson for the murder of his wife Lynn. For decades he'd gone unpunished.

Well, all the skills that I used through my experience of the investigation into Chris Dawson's homicide of his wife Lynn, I'm now using those skills to help find out who murdered Rachelle Childs.

I first met Damien at the airport in early twenty twenty four to give him a copy of Rochelle's Brief of Evidence, a closely guarded police file full of thousands of pieces of information, statements, reports and exhibits. Damien, how are you, Ashley Hands, Nice to meet you. Thanks for joining the team. I haven't told Anne and Christy yet. They're going to be stoked to just have someone with your experience and expertise on the case.

Or oh he's Damian.

Thanks for everyone coming together so Christy and Anne, I just want you to meet Damian Loon. I asked Damien a couple of weeks ago if he would help us on Rochelle's.

Case, and he didn't hesitate. He said absolutely.

That is so cool, that's amazing. It's lovely to meet you longtime fans.

Oh, thanks Christy and and I know what you guys have gone through over the years, and I can't say I know everything. I fulfill for you. And the most important part about what happened to Rachelle is that this matter is solvable. But I can't promise you it'll get that far. I'll tell you what. I have a bloody good go at it.

And why did you say yes to help with this one?

I've had so many people have asked been again on board with MADA. I've retired as a police officer. I don't have any powers as a police officer, but this one strikes a memory with me because it was a young person in the prime of a life like Lynn.

Can you solve this case?

This case is solvable, and there's somewhere in this brief defenders in this if he's named in this group, somewhere if Fender responsible for this crime, is still alive.

And there's so much more to unravel. On the next episode of Dear Rochelle.

Rochelle was placed was within three hundred and sixteen leaders aware jdphesis's body of us vacated.

I started thinking, gosh, this is going to be one of those stories like Ivan.

Milat to join the dots.

Are they connected somehow?

They had five or six persons of interest to me, there was a fundamental issue with the investigation.

Fucking blame on me, not because I'm in a biplot.

Have we got a serial killer on our hands or have we got someone that's involved in both homicides.

De Rochelle is a multimedia production from True Crime Australia.

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To find out what happens next, go to deroshell dot com dot a you. That's where News Corp Australia subscribers get early access to podcast episodes and breaking news in our live investigation before anybody else, and you'll also find exclusive videos, interactive evidence, feature articles and more. That's deroshell dot com dot a U, d E A R R A c h E w l E dot com dot a U. If you have any tips or confidential information to share with me, Ashley Hanson, please send an email