Unsolved The mysterious death of Annette Deverell

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Has anyone heard about the case of 19-year-old girl Annette Deverell who disappeared from Mandurah in 1980 after going out to buy some smokes? Pretty interesting.
New podcast is out here, 4-part series.



‘hi! I went to school with Annette, she was a good friend of my brother, they were a year ahead of me. She was a great girl, very popular. I’ve been thinking about her murder for years and years. I often googled to see if there was any new info but nothing ever came up. About a month ago I told a friend the story and we decided someone should do a podcast. a week later I stumbled across “Annette” the podcast. I’m glad she’s in the spotlight again and I hope they can solve it. That family has gone through too much. I think it’s definitely someone known to her.
 
Just listened to the last podcast & I'm rattled there seems so many avenues for further investigation yet we know of so little that has ever been done & so little facts.

The cops are now claiming they'll look at it again if they get new info but it looks to me like they have shitloads of info to go on already, so WTF? If that's the case & they've still done nothing WAPS need an arse kicking from here till next year. Total disgrace yet again!!

I suppose the best we can hope for is they'll get to it eventually as has been the case with all the other cold cases reinvestigated recently. There seems to be enough good reasons to reopen it to me.

Her handbag found 1 month later with the 4th episode stating it was found in the same area her body was located. Bush fires had been through yet the bag was undamaged. An earlier episode had her mother saying she didnt know where it was found but she had seen it when the police brought it to her house & it seemed to be in good condition.

The gun found with her remains.

The bloodied towel that contained human hair found by 2 girls in the bush at the end of the street Annette's family lived, days after she disappeared. Police at the time were uninterested so it was put into the boot of one of the girl's cars until weeks later when her uncle who was a cop visited and he took it to Perth.

Screams heard by one of the neighbours the same night.

Thats 3 potential sources of forensic evidence already held by police since 1980-1982, at the latest.

10 names provided over the last 12 months in the course of producing the podcast, by locals who believe those people may have had something to do with it. At least 3 of those names provided more than once with 1st hand stories of conversations they'd had with the person or things they heard them say that led to their suspicions about them. 1 of those people is the same person whom the cop that did the review years ago also suspected was involved.

Another potential new witness who was grabbed by a group of guys who attempted to force her into their car in the main street of Mandurah 1 year prior to Annette's murder.

Nearly all of these people still live in Mandurah as do most of the original witnesses, the named suspects, the family and her friends. All they need is for someone to get up off their ass and do something to investigate this case seriously for once and for all before more people start to die & cant be investigated. Just as one of the men a couple of her friends named & whom they suspected since has.

FYI for anyone who's taken an interest in this case over the years & has wrong information documented. Forget Birnie for the panel van connection. It wasn't yellow or white, or even maroon as it was claimed to be in an earlier episode. It was a grey EH Holden she was in that night & the 2 guys who picked her up both feature on the 4th episode. The owner called the journalist after the first podcast to tell her it was them and said the cops have always known that too. They claim they knew Annette & had seen her alone on the street so they stopped & she told them she'd had a blew with one of her girlfriends & was looking for her, so she jumped in and they drove around to see if they could find her. They didnt, & they dropped her off at the phone box which was at the post office. This was where the last sighting of her was reported.

Margaret Dodd who now lives in Mandurah was also interviewed. She speaks of failure after failure with Hayley's case & her lack of understanding in regards to the secrecy police maintain when the thing all these cases really need is publicity. She was told not to speak to media about Hayley at all, yet after Wark's conviction she says detectives who worked on it told her it wouldn't have been solved had she not been so persistent in fighting for a reward and keeping the case in the spotlight.

It makes me sick to my stomach that a family member has to fight so hard to obtain answers or they're just forgotten, as appears the situation with Annette's. It also makes me sick that all these years on, despite so many cases still unresolved, police still maintain this veil of secrecy and think its the way forward to getting results. Its mostly not yet they've learnt nothing by their mistakes & still seem to be making them. What they need to do here is to make amends now & throw some serious resources into this case & they should do it sooner than later, whilst it still appears a very solvable case IMO.

Everyone they spoke to who knew Annette seems to believe that the person who killed her was known to her at the time and likely still known to them today. They dont rule out it being a tragic accident or a mistake & think its definitely a possibility that the person or people responsible never intended to kill her. That tells me they aren't looking for revenge & nor do they think the cops should necessarily be on the hunt for someone they'd regard as a cold blooded murderer who should be nailed at any cost. They want resolve in knowing the truth & you have to think they'd be likely to assist any way they can & regardless who it may turn out to be. They just need the cops to give it the time and energy it rightly deserves & soon.
 
Rundown of first three episodes written by the journalist who presented the podcast & pieced together from various articles appearing in the Mandurah Mail.

September 23 2019 - 12:33PM
Suspicions and secrets revealed in episode 2 of Annette: Cold Case Unlocked podcast
•Written and presented by journalist Carla Hildebrandt

EPISODE ONE: The first episode of the four-part Australian Community Media podcast, The Skeleton in the Forest, was released on September 11 2019 and was played almost 10,000 times in its first week - ranking No. 1 in Apple Podcast's Australian "top charts" for news content and No. 2 across all categories.

Episode one, The Skeleton in the Forest, explores the night Annette Deverell, then 19, disappeared from outside a post office in Mandurah, south of Perth, on a cold and windy Saturday night.

She was given a lift into town to buy cigarettes by her mother, Margaret Carver.
Annette said she would get a lift home with her friends. But she never returned.

Her remains were discovered two years later in bush about a 30-minute drive from where she was last seen in Mandurah.

Mrs Carver has called for justice after 39 agonising years of unanswered questions, with no reward for information or coronial inquest into her daughter's death.

She believes Annette knew her killer.

EPISODE TWO: Who was Annette Deverell?
The second episode of Annette: Cold Case Unlocked delves deeper into the mysterious death of teenager Annette Deverell almost 40 years ago.

Suspicions and secrets are revealed as Annette's circle of friends and acquaintances recall their teen years in the sleepy seaside town of Mandurah, south of Perth, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In the second episode, Who was Annette Deverell?, Annette's former high school friends remember the "cool chick" and "rough diamond" they grew up with, the mischief they made around town and the struggles she kept secret.

They also recall the shock and fear that followed her disappearance from outside Mandurah Post Office on the night of Saturday September 13, 1980. It's possible that Annette died that very night.

In July 1982, two young trail bike riders would find her skull and some bones in bush near a dirt track off Scarp Road about 30 minutes drive from where she was last seen in the centre of Mandurah.
The terrain where her remains were found is hilly with dense jarrah forest.

In the 1970s and 80s, Mandurah locals would chuck a keg in the ute before heading to the hills near the neighbouring communities of Pinjarra and Dwellingup for a Sunday drinking session. They would swim in the nearby dams and the boys would go hunting for rabbits.
Some even grew their marijuana there.
They knew how to navigate the smaller bush tracks.

On a drive through the area, Trevor Hewitt, a high school friend of Annette's who is heard in the podcast discussing his own theories about her death, says the landscape hasn't changed much over the years.
"The population coming to Mandurah has brought more bush tracks and bike riders but pretty much this is how it was 40 years ago," he said.

Mr Hewitt is convinced that someone who was "a local" at the time must have dumped Annette's body in the bush.
"We knew those back tracks because people used to drink like mad and drive," he said.
"All the local blokes knew all the back tracks. We all had guns, we all went hunting, we all went fishing, we all went marroning.
"That's what brings me to think it was someone local-ish who knew their way around to go up Scarp Road."

EPISODE 3: September 25 2019 - 1:25PM
Someone Knows Something - The third episode of true-crime podcast Annette: Cold Case Unlocked examines police investigations immediately after 19-year-old Annette Deverell disappeared from Mandurah in September 1980 and two years later when her remains were found nearby in 1982, plus police detective Jeff Beaman's review of the case materials in 1999.

Mr Beaman was a detective leading a team of officers in Mandurah. The former police detective, haunted by a cold case murder he investigated in his home town, has shared the reasons he believes the mystery has never been solved.

Questions are raised about items related to the case being held by police and a startling piece of evidence, which has the potential to be tested for DNA, is uncovered.

A serial killer theory, suggested by investigators and Annette's friends, is examined, as are suspicions that a notorious Perth couple convicted over other killings might have murdered Annette.

Finally, we take a closer look at the panel van in which Annette was last seen.

Retired detective Jeff Beaman, who led the 1999 review of the case, shares the struggles he faced, from a questionable police culture to an unusual file management system and a high-profile series of murders that took the police focus at the time.

Mr Beaman said he wished he had solved the case. "It is one of those things that sticks in an investigator's mind who couldn't solve something. I feel it now - that I didn't," he said. His case review faced many obstacles.
"I knew my days were numbered because you clash with people who were supposed to be the go-to people," he said.

The third episode, Someone Knows Something, also hears from former police detective Bruce Scott, who worked in the region where Annette lived and later assisted with her case. He provides a valuable insight into crime in the area in the lead up to her
disappearance.

Mr Scott was one of two detectives investigating serious crime in an area spanning 1500 kilometers. He recalls it as the "busiest Criminal Investigations Branch in the state". These days, more than 40 detectives cover that same region.

It is telling that when Annette disappeared from Mandurah, there was not a single detective based in the town. This meant that the missing person investigation was led by detective Barrie Rolinson, based in Midland about 90km from Perth.

It details the struggles the late Mr Rolinson faced when Annette went missing and his initial suspicion that something more sinister had happened to the teenager. He knew she hadn't run away from home - she was close to her family and friends and had no reason to.

Annette's friends share the details of their involvement with police after her disappearance and again after the discovery of her remains. Many of those friends say both investigations tapered off too quickly.

If you have any information that could help police solve this case, contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. You can contact Carla Hildebrandt by emailing annettepodcast@gmail.com.


 
Just listened to the last podcast & I'm rattled there seems so many avenues for further investigation yet we know of so little that has ever been done & so little facts.

The cops are now claiming they'll look at it again if they get new info but it looks to me like they have shitloads of info to go on already, so WTF? If that's the case & they've still done nothing WAPS need an arse kicking from here till next year. Total disgrace yet again!!

I suppose the best we can hope for is they'll get to it eventually as has been the case with all the other cold cases reinvestigated recently. There seems to be enough good reasons to reopen it to me.

Her handbag found 1 month later with the 4th episode stating it was found in the same area her body was located. Bush fires had been through yet the bag was undamaged. An earlier episode had her mother saying she didnt know where it was found but she had seen it when the police brought it to her house & it seemed to be in good condition.

The gun found with her remains.

The bloodied towel that contained human hair found by 2 girls in the bush at the end of the street Annette's family lived, days after she disappeared. Police at the time were uninterested so it was put into the boot of one of the girl's cars until weeks later when her uncle who was a cop visited and he took it to Perth.

Screams heard by one of the neighbours the same night.

Thats 3 potential sources of forensic evidence already held by police since 1980-1982, at the latest.

10 names provided over the last 12 months in the course of producing the podcast, by locals who believe those people may have had something to do with it. At least 3 of those names provided more than once with 1st hand stories of conversations they'd had with the person or things they heard them say that led to their suspicions about them. 1 of those people is the same person whom the cop that did the review years ago also suspected was involved.

Another potential new witness who was grabbed by a group of guys who attempted to force her into their car in the main street of Mandurah 1 year prior to Annette's murder.

Nearly all of these people still live in Mandurah as do most of the original witnesses, the named suspects, the family and her friends. All they need is for someone to get up off their ass and do something to investigate this case seriously for once and for all before more people start to die & cant be investigated. Just as one of the men a couple of her friends named & whom they suspected since has.

FYI for anyone who's taken an interest in this case over the years & has wrong information documented. Forget Birnie for the panel van connection. It wasn't yellow or white, or even maroon as it was claimed to be in an earlier episode. It was a grey EH Holden she was in that night & the 2 guys who picked her up both feature on the 4th episode. The owner called the journalist after the first podcast to tell her it was them and said the cops have always known that too. They claim they knew Annette & had seen her alone on the street so they stopped & she told them she'd had a blew with one of her girlfriends & was looking for her, so she jumped in and they drove around to see if they could find her. They didnt, & they dropped her off at the phone box which was at the post office. This was where the last sighting of her was reported.

Margaret Dodd who now lives in Mandurah was also interviewed. She speaks of failure after failure with Hayley's case & her lack of understanding in regards to the secrecy police maintain when the thing all these cases really need is publicity. She was told not to speak to media about Hayley at all, yet after Wark's conviction she says detectives who worked on it told her it wouldn't have been solved had she not been so persistent in fighting for a reward and keeping the case in the spotlight.

It makes me sick to my stomach that a family member has to fight so hard to obtain answers or they're just forgotten, as appears the situation with Annette's. It also makes me sick that all these years on, despite so many cases still unresolved, police still maintain this veil of secrecy and think its the way forward to getting results. Its mostly not yet they've learnt nothing by their mistakes & still seem to be making them. What they need to do here is to make amends now & throw some serious resources into this case & they should do it sooner than later, whilst it still appears a very solvable case IMO.

Everyone they spoke to who knew Annette seems to believe that the person who killed her was known to her at the time and likely still known to them today. They dont rule out it being a tragic accident or a mistake & think its definitely a possibility that the person or people responsible never intended to kill her. That tells me they aren't looking for revenge & nor do they think the cops should necessarily be on the hunt for someone they'd regard as a cold blooded murderer who should be nailed at any cost. They want resolve in knowing the truth & you have to think they'd be likely to assist any way they can & regardless who it may turn out to be. They just need the cops to give it the time and energy it rightly deserves & soon.
"FYI for anyone who's taken an interest in this case over the years & has wrong information documented. Forget Birnie for the panel van connection. It wasn't yellow or white, or even maroon as it was claimed to be in an earlier episode. It was a grey EH Holden she was in that night & the 2 guys who picked her up both feature on the 4th episode. The owner called the journalist after the first podcast to tell her it was them and said the cops have always known that too. They claim they knew Annette & had seen her alone on the street so they stopped & she told them she'd had a blew with one of her girlfriends & was looking for her, so she jumped in and they drove around to see if they could find her. They didnt, & they dropped her off at the phone box which was at the post office. This was where the last sighting of her was reported."

Yes very interesting this changes everything. That was misleading.
Doesn't sound like david birnie or andrew garforth fits anymore
 
Yes very interesting this changes everything. That was misleading.
Doesn't sound like david birnie or andrew garforth fits anymore
Not necessarily. It just means they weren't driving that panel van she was seen in. Strangely, one of her brothers said he always thought it was yellow too & I suppose if Sgt Beaman was also of that opinion when he did the 1999 review, its no wonder it went nowhere if there was any focus on a non existent car.
Both of those guys would have likely known the area quite well and both have form regardless. The basis for the strongest belief that someone local killed her is because the place she was found wasnt a place they think you'd be likely to come across by chance if you weren't familiar with it. On the flip side, if they were local, why would they take her to a place that locals were likely to go. I dont think the location tells us all that much about who may have done it. Its still possible that someone may have come across it by chance.

In all, despite acknowledging the effort to highlight the case and getting some facts out that we didnt know, I was left fairly underwhelmed. Episodes 1-3 had me yelling out questions constantly that I felt were obvious to have asked but weren't. It wasn't until the 4th episode that I just sat and listened & besides the panel van, the only thing I wondered about that was clarified was her bag. I even considered emailing the journalist suggesting some questions she might ask to tie up some loose ends but I found another article she wrote in the meantime that said she was left with more questions than answers too, so perhaps there'll be some follow up by her if the cops dont pull their fingers out soon.

I think its over to them now to forensically test the items they hold in storage & to follow up the 10 names they've been provided. It looks like at least 2 of those people were named several times and Sgt Beaman has given them a name of the person he strongly believes is responsible too. With any luck they'll crack it.

One thing I find really odd is with all the focus on retesting old evidence ongoing for several years now, how could it be that this evidence hasn't already been tested? I hope secretive WAPS aren't up to the same old tricks they never seem to learn doesnt help them.
 
Not necessarily. It just means they weren't driving that panel van she was seen in. Strangely, one of her brothers said he always thought it was yellow too & I suppose if Sgt Beaman was also of that opinion when he did the 1999 review, its no wonder it went nowhere if there was any focus on a non existent car.
Both of those guys would have likely known the area quite well and both have form regardless. The basis for the strongest belief that someone local killed her is because the place she was found wasnt a place they think you'd be likely to come across by chance if you weren't familiar with it. On the flip side, if they were local, why would they take her to a place that locals were likely to go. I dont think the location tells us all that much about who may have done it. Its still possible that someone may have come across it by chance.

In all, despite acknowledging the effort to highlight the case and getting some facts out that we didnt know, I was left fairly underwhelmed. Episodes 1-3 had me yelling out questions constantly that I felt were obvious to have asked but weren't. It wasn't until the 4th episode that I just sat and listened & besides the panel van, the only thing I wondered about that was clarified was her bag. I even considered emailing the journalist suggesting some questions she might ask to tie up some loose ends but I found another article she wrote in the meantime that said she was left with more questions than answers too, so perhaps there'll be some follow up by her if the cops dont pull their fingers out soon.

I think its over to them now to forensically test the items they hold in storage & to follow up the 10 names they've been provided. It looks like at least 2 of those people were named several times and Sgt Beaman has given them a name of the person he strongly believes is responsible too. With any luck they'll crack it.

One thing I find really odd is with all the focus on retesting old evidence ongoing for several years now, how could it be that this evidence hasn't already been tested? I hope secretive WAPS aren't up to the same old tricks they never seem to learn doesnt help them.
Has anyone heard about the case of 19-year-old girl Annette Deverell who disappeared from Mandurah in 1980 after going out to buy some smokes? Pretty interesting.
New podcast is out here, 4-part series.




The WA government has announced a $250,000 be attached to the case after the podcast.
https://www.mandurahmail.com.au/sto...eward-announced-on-mandurah-cold-case/?cs=289
 

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Unsure, but I just wanted to bump the thread!

I think her murder and Lisa Marie Mott's likely kidnapping and disappearance are related ... can you start a thread on Lisa Marie Mott's disappearance from Collie please Kurve?

Lisa was taken only 6 weeks before Annette Deverells kidnapping and murder, Lisa went missing on the 30th October 1980... Collie is only 150 kilometres from Mandurah... thanks mate!

 

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