August 14, 2023 • 23 mins
What if I told you that nestled within the bustling city of Brisbane, Australia, an Indigenous woman mysteriously vanished? Tune in as we embark on the unsettling journey of Monique Clubb, whose sudden disappearance in June 2013 has left a void in the lives of her loved ones and those close to her.
We examine the last known sighting of Monique, navigating through her departure from Hervey Bay to her mysterious disappearance in Hugh Muntz Park and into the intricacies of the police investigation that followed.
As we unearth the real details of Monique's case, the spotlight inexorably shifts to a more pervasive issue - the alarmingly high number of missing Indigenous women in Australia.
ABC News Article
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carla Morgan (00:00):
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners
should be advised that thefollowing podcast may contain
names and information of peoplewho may have passed.
The last time anyone sawMonique, she was walking through
a park in Beenleigh, an outerBrisbane suburb.
When she reached a small creekon the other side of the park,
(00:25):
she waded across, then turnedand, leaning against a concrete
pillar, she looked back at theperson who had been watching her
.
She has never been seen again.
Despite extensive searches ofthat park, the creek and
surrounding bushland, Moniquehasn't been found.
(00:47):
Where did she go, what happenedto her and where is she now?
This episode covers the missingpersons case of Monique Clubb,
who went missing on the 22nd ofJune 2013 near Brisbane,
(01:09):
Australia.
There are so many unansweredquestions in this case and,
while the police haveconflicting views about what
they believe happened to her,Monique's family knows she's out
there somewhere.
They want answers and they wantto be able to bring their
(01:30):
sister and beloved daughter home.
I'm Carla Morgan and this isBOLO, a podcast covering cold
and active missing person'scases with the aim of helping
families bring their loved oneshome.
(01:53):
When she went missing, Moniquewas 24 years old, 170
centimetres tall, slim, withbrown hair and brown eyes.
She is an indigenous woman whowas living with her mother and
siblings in the sunny beachsidetown of Hervey Bay on the
southeast coast of Queensland.
(02:14):
The traditional owners of thispart of Australia are the
Badtjala people, of whichMonique is one.
Monique was outgoing and veryathletic, participating in
sports carnivals when she was atschool.
She was like a second mum toher five siblings.
Monique was the second eldestand she loved playing with them
(02:38):
and her cousins.
To her, family was everything.
As she got older and finishedschool, she got in with a
rougher crowd, which her familywasn't really pleased about.
It was around this time thatshe had some minor criminal
charges laid against her.
Monique had suffered a severespinal injury in a past car
(03:02):
accident, which resulted in herneeding to take pain medication.
This eventually led to anopiate addiction that she
suffered from up until the dayof her disappearance.
Here was a daughter and sisterwho was extremely close to her
family and in constant contactwith her mom, Sheena.
It was normal for Monique tocheck in with her mum if she was
(03:25):
going away or to let her knowwhere she was and what she was
doing.
Before we get into what happenedon the day she disappeared, I
think it's important for thoseof you who aren't familiar with
the issues currently percolatinghere to provide a bit of
background.
Like the Indigenous women ofCanada and The United States,
(03:48):
Australia's First Nations womenmake up a disproportionate
number of our missing personscompared to the rest of the
population.
As reported in an article fromthe ABC News, which I'll link in
the show notes for you (04:01):
"In Western Australia, aboriginal
people make up 17.5% of unsolvedmissing persons cases, despite
making up just 3% of the state'spopulation.
In Queensland, police estimate6% of open unsolved missing
(04:23):
persons cases are Indigenous,and in New South Wales the
number is 7%.
So it's hard to know the realnumber of missing Indigenous
women in Australia becausethere's no nationally
coordinated body or method toreport Indigenous women missing.
There's no single personaccountable for keeping track
(04:44):
across the different states andterritories.
Different states have differentmethods of reporting.
Some states aren't evencounting or do not distinguish
Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander people.
So even the states that we dohave are not necessarily
accurate.
Adding to this, the missing andmurdered or presumed murdered
(05:06):
Indigenous women really aren'tbeing talked about here.
They certainly do not receivethe same level of media coverage
and public interest as missingwhite women do.
This is not to say white womendon't deserve what attention
they do receive.
It's to point out that we needto show up for all women,
(05:27):
regardless of race, age, genderidentity, sexual orientation or
social status.
Late last year, it wasannounced that there would be a
national inquiry into missingand murdered First Nations women
and children.
This is due to be released atthe end of this year.
(05:48):
So this is something, but wealso need to be taking action so
that the families of missingIndigenous people are being
heard and their cases are beinginvestigated with the same level
of resources and rigor providedto everyone else.
As I was researching thisepisode and now recording it, I
(06:08):
realised that it was the 10-yearanniversary of Monique's
disappearance almost to the day,so I wanted to share her story
now to try and get the word outthere and hopefully get some
answers for her family.
On the day she disappeared, itwas 10.30am the morning of
(06:34):
Thursday, the 20th of June 2013.
Manik left Hervey Bay withthree friends Tracey, who was
the driver, Leighton and Alan-Lee.
She told her mum they weregoing to Brisbane for the night.
Brisbane is about a three and ahalf hour drive south from
Hervey Bay.
(06:54):
Tracey was actually drivingfurther onto the Gold Coast, but
she had agreed to drop Monique,Leighton and Alan- Lee off
where they wanted to go, whichwas Deception Bay.
Deception Bay is a suburb northof Brisbane, so Tracey dropped
them there and then she carriedon to her destination on the
Gold Coast.
(07:19):
In Deception Bay, Monique,Leighton and Alan- Lee waited
about five hours for the personthey were supposed to meet up
with there, but that personnever arrived and we never find
out who they were.
So the two guys, Leighton andAlan- Lee, stayed the night with
a relative nearby and Moniqueremained behind telling them
(07:41):
she'd call someone to come andpick her up.
The person she called was a guycalled Dominic and according to
him, Monique was friends withhis girlfriend, but they had
never met before.
Dominic came and picked upMonique and we presume she
stayed at his home that night,but again, that's not clear in
any of the reports I've read.
(08:02):
But the next day, which wasFriday, he drove her to the
house where Alan- Lee andLeighton had stayed that night.
Dominic gave Leighton a lift toCaboolture train station where
he was seen boarding a trainback to Hervey Bay at 11.30am.
Alan- Lee stayed another nightin Deception Bay.
(08:22):
Monique ended up in BrisbaneCity that night, she met a man
called Bryce Watt who gave her ablanket and some food, and
Monique told him that she wasstaying at a lodge just down the
road from where she met him.
The next morning, which wasSaturday June 22nd, Monique
called her mum to check in, sayhello, and she told Sheena that
(08:46):
she was with her friend Alan-Lee and that Dominic was going
to drive them back to Hervey Bay, but she didn't give a clear
time of when she was going tocome back, and this was the last
time Sheena would ever talk toher daughter.
Instead of going back to HerveyBay that day, Dominic ended up
driving Monique and Bryce Wattfrom South Brisbane to Buranda
(09:10):
Railway Station.
This was roughly a 10 minutedrive, and Monique and Bryce
then caught a train to Beenleigharound midday.
This is about a 30 minute trainride, and when they arrived
they walked a couple of minutesover to the local shopping
centre, the Beanley Marketplace,and they went inside.
(09:32):
The next series of events isprovided from CCTV footage
inside the shopping centre.
So Bryce was seen on thefootage calling a taxi from a
taxi phone inside the shoppingcentre and then he went back
outside to wait at the taxi rank, Monique went into a medical
centre called Mediprac where shesaw a doctor who prescribed her
(09:54):
with five fentanyl patches.
The patches were 75 milligramswhich she then collected from
the adjoining pharmacy.
Now I'm not a doctor, but to methat does sound like an
extremely large amount toprescribe to one person in one
appointment.
Her and Bryce then met up againbriefly inside the shopping
(10:16):
centre and Monique made a callto Alan- Lee.
This was around 2.30pm.
This is important, as this wasthe last time Monique's phone
was ever used by her.
There were a load of missedcalls and text messages from
Alan- Lee, from Dominic and, ofcourse, from Monique's family,
but there were no furtheroutgoing calls or text made from
(10:39):
this point on.
So Monique went into thebathroom where she remained for
about half an hour.
Bryce can be seen waiting forher for a bit, but then, when
she didn't come out fairly soon,he went back to the train
station and headed back to SouthBrisbane, also confirmed by
CCTV footage.
(11:00):
After Monique left the bathroom,she was reported to be behaving
erratically in a shoe shop, sothe security guard was called.
The staff member who made thisaccusation about her behaviour
was never spoken to by police inthe follow-up investigation.
(11:20):
So her account can't beverified and it is at odds with
what the security guard, MrApollo, who was spoken to,
reported.
So when Mr Apollo, the securityguard, got to the shoe shop,
Monique had already left, butstaff pointed her out to him so
he followed behind her as shewalked out of the shopping
(11:41):
centre.
When he got outside he couldn'tsee her, so he walked around
the other side of the shoppingcentre, which is the eastern
side, and that overlooked a parkcalled Hugh Muntz Park, and
then he saw her again.
She had walked through the parkand she was crossing a small
(12:02):
creek it was only about a footdeep and when she got to the
other side of the creek sheturned around.
She leaned against a concretepillar and she looked back at
him.
She was carrying a largehandbag and according to the
security guard, Mr Apollo, shedidn't appear injured,
(12:24):
intoxicated or under theinfluence of drugs at the time.
And this was the last knownsighting of Monique Clubb.
Monique's mum reported hermissing on the 28th of June to
Hervey Bay police.
That was six days after she waslast heard from.
(12:46):
There were plenty of rumoursand reports provided to police
about what people thought hadhappened to Monique, but nothing
came of any of them.
One such report was thatMonique had been killed by a man
called Vincent Moran as paybackfor breaking into his house and
stealing some property.
(13:06):
His home was searched by policeand he was questioned.
However, he denied anyinvolvement or knowledge of
Monique's whereabouts and thatlead fizzled out.
The initial investigation honedin on the park surrounding
waterways and the bushland.
It's quite a big park and I'llput some photos on socials for
(13:30):
you to see.
There's a body of water in themiddle of the park and then it
turns into bushland and justbehind it is a motorway.
The initial investigation honedin on the park surrounding
waterways and bushland.
It was an obvious place tostart looking because that was
where she was last seen.
But no sign of Monique wasdiscovered there and no body was
(13:55):
found.
Police focused heavily onsearching the areas in and
around the park because theybelieved even at this very early
stage of the investigation thatMonique must be there.
They did check CCTV footagefrom Beenleigh Railway Station
on the afternoon she was lastseen, but they only checked the
(14:17):
footage before 3.30pm that dayand they didn't see her on that
footage.
Here it's important to noteHugh Muntz Park is in the
opposite direction of the trainstation, so in one direction
east it leads to the Pacificmotorway, which is a busy
(14:38):
highway where it's possibleTo she to the train station
before 3.30pm.
She would have had to circleback around the long way around
the park, around the shoppingcentre and across to the station
.
According to Google Maps,that's about a 12 minute walk
(15:01):
from the middle of the park tothe station.
If the reports are accurate,she went into the bathroom at
2.30pm for 30 minutes and cameout.
Then she went to the shoe shop,left the shopping centre,
walked through the park and, ifshe did go back around to the
train station, it's possible butit's a really tight time frame
(15:25):
to her have caught a train by3.30pm.
So did Monique die in the areaaround the park or waterways?
Did she leave the area andimmediately meet with foul play,
or did she somehow make it to adifferent location and then go
missing?
Proof of life checks confirmedthere was no trace of Monique
(15:56):
after she left the shoppingcentre that day, in terms of no
bank accounts being touched, nocalls being made from her phone
and no further sightings that weknow of.
So why didn't the police searchthe footage from the train
station after 3.30pm?
Why did they hone in on thepark and assume that's where she
(16:17):
was?
Because they made assumptionsabout her based on her race,
that she must have beenintoxicated, that she must have
been running away from thesecurity guard and that she must
have overdosed in the park.
They made these assumptionseven though the last witness to
see Monique the security guard,Mr Apollo said she was not
(16:39):
running, she didn't appearinjured or intoxicated, and none
of the people who were with heror spoke to her that day not
Bryce, not Dominic, not Sheena,not Alan Lee said that she had
been drinking or appeared drunk.
These are the assumptions thatled police at the time to focus
virtually 100% of theirresources into searching the
(17:02):
park, the surrounding areas andto narrow the investigation
instead of looking furtherafield.
In 2015, two years after Moniquehad disappeared, detective
Senior Sergeant Powell of themissing persons unit handed over
his report to the homicideinvestigation unit.
(17:23):
In this report, he stated thathe was of the view that Monique
had overdosed in the bushlandnearby.
However, this report containeda number of inaccuracies.
It said that Monique hadobtained a number of medications
that day when she had onlyobtained the fentanyl patches.
It also said that she was seengoing into dense bushland into a
(17:46):
swamp.
But she was not.
She was last seen at the edgeof a creek by a security guard
not going into bushland.
And finally, the report saidthat she possibly died in the
park or bushland and has notbeen found.
But this view was not sharedwith other senior investigators.
(18:08):
They determined that there wasa 100% certainty that Monique
was not in the park and thattheir views were made known to
these other investigators.
At the time, Sergeant Nelson andSenior Sergeant Whitehead, who
are the QPS experts in relationto search and rescue, had a
(18:29):
different conclusion to that ofDetective Senior Sergeant Powell
.
Senior Sergeant Whitehead saidit was reasonable to expect that
if Monique had died in the parkshe would have been found
either during the searches orsometime after by users of the
park.
But this report by the QPSexperts was either disregarded
(18:53):
or not passed on.
They strongly believed that asthe park was used for recreation
there's even people caravanningin that park.
It's used by some peopleexperiencing homelessness.
There's a lot of people aroundin that park.
So they believed that if shehad passed away there she would
undoubtedly have been foundduring the searches or by other
(19:16):
users of the park.
They go on to add.
Had they followed other leadsand not just kept looking in the
one area that she definitelywasn't, they might know more,
they might have more informationthat could lead us further to
Monique's whereabouts today.
All of this was backed up by theDeputy State Coroner, Jane
Bentley, in her report from the2021 inquest.
(19:39):
So Monique had been missing byeight years at the time of the
inquest.
The coroner ascertained thatonce the search of the park
revealed nothing of note, thepolice investigation failed by
not looking at CCTV footage atother public transport hubs like
bus stations, taxi ranks, themotorway and the train station
(20:01):
past 3.30pm to try to work outwhere she could have possibly
gone instead of the park.
The coroner also made mentionthat the police believing
Monique had died in the parkwere based on misconceptions
that she was drunk, running awayand running through bush, when
in fact, the CCTV footage showedshe was not running and did not
(20:23):
appear intoxicated or injured.
Monique's case is a classicexample of how systemic racism
impacts on the missing, feared,murdered Indigenous people in
our country While her case wasinvestigated and time was spent
looking for her.
The narrow mindedness and theracist assumptions about her
meant that the investigationfailed her.
(20:45):
The coroner's findings werethat Monique had left the park
shortly after entering it anddied soon after.
It's possible that shetravelled back into the South
Brisbane area, but her lack ofcontact with family and friends
would suggest she died soonafter she was last sighted by
the security guard at theshopping centre.
(21:06):
Her family still have nothingnot Monique, not Monique's body,
nothing.
Someone knows what happened toher and someone knows what
happened that day.
If you or anyone you know knowanything at all, please contact
(21:31):
police link on 131-444 or callCrime Stoppers on 1800-333-00.
Thanks for listening to Bolo.
If this episode has brought upfeelings for you and you need
support for Aboriginal or TorresStrait Islander crisis support,
(21:54):
please call 13 yarn or reachout to Lifeline on 1311-14.
You.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners
should be advised that thefollowing podcast may contain
names and information of peoplewho may have passed.
The last time anyone sawMonique, she was walking through
a park in Beenleigh, an outerBrisbane suburb.
When she reached a small creekon the other side of the park,
(00:25):
she waded across, then turnedand, leaning against a concrete
pillar, she looked back at theperson who had been watching her
.
She has never been seen again.
Despite extensive searches ofthat park, the creek and
surrounding bushland, Moniquehasn't been found.
(00:47):
Where did she go, what happenedto her and where is she now?
This episode covers the missingpersons case of Monique Clubb,
who went missing on the 22nd ofJune 2013 near Brisbane,
(01:09):
Australia.
There are so many unansweredquestions in this case and,
while the police haveconflicting views about what
they believe happened to her,Monique's family knows she's out
there somewhere.
They want answers and they wantto be able to bring their
(01:30):
sister and beloved daughter home.
I'm Carla Morgan and this isBOLO, a podcast covering cold
and active missing person'scases with the aim of helping
families bring their loved oneshome.
(01:53):
When she went missing, Moniquewas 24 years old, 170
centimetres tall, slim, withbrown hair and brown eyes.
She is an indigenous woman whowas living with her mother and
siblings in the sunny beachsidetown of Hervey Bay on the
southeast coast of Queensland.
(02:14):
The traditional owners of thispart of Australia are the
Badtjala people, of whichMonique is one.
Monique was outgoing and veryathletic, participating in
sports carnivals when she was atschool.
She was like a second mum toher five siblings.
Monique was the second eldestand she loved playing with them
(02:38):
and her cousins.
To her, family was everything.
As she got older and finishedschool, she got in with a
rougher crowd, which her familywasn't really pleased about.
It was around this time thatshe had some minor criminal
charges laid against her.
Monique had suffered a severespinal injury in a past car
(03:02):
accident, which resulted in herneeding to take pain medication.
This eventually led to anopiate addiction that she
suffered from up until the dayof her disappearance.
Here was a daughter and sisterwho was extremely close to her
family and in constant contactwith her mom, Sheena.
It was normal for Monique tocheck in with her mum if she was
(03:25):
going away or to let her knowwhere she was and what she was
doing.
Before we get into what happenedon the day she disappeared, I
think it's important for thoseof you who aren't familiar with
the issues currently percolatinghere to provide a bit of
background.
Like the Indigenous women ofCanada and The United States,
(03:48):
Australia's First Nations womenmake up a disproportionate
number of our missing personscompared to the rest of the
population.
As reported in an article fromthe ABC News, which I'll link in
the show notes for you (04:01):
"In Western Australia, aboriginal
people make up 17.5% of unsolvedmissing persons cases, despite
making up just 3% of the state'spopulation.
In Queensland, police estimate6% of open unsolved missing
(04:23):
persons cases are Indigenous,and in New South Wales the
number is 7%.
So it's hard to know the realnumber of missing Indigenous
women in Australia becausethere's no nationally
coordinated body or method toreport Indigenous women missing.
There's no single personaccountable for keeping track
(04:44):
across the different states andterritories.
Different states have differentmethods of reporting.
Some states aren't evencounting or do not distinguish
Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander people.
So even the states that we dohave are not necessarily
accurate.
Adding to this, the missing andmurdered or presumed murdered
(05:06):
Indigenous women really aren'tbeing talked about here.
They certainly do not receivethe same level of media coverage
and public interest as missingwhite women do.
This is not to say white womendon't deserve what attention
they do receive.
It's to point out that we needto show up for all women,
(05:27):
regardless of race, age, genderidentity, sexual orientation or
social status.
Late last year, it wasannounced that there would be a
national inquiry into missingand murdered First Nations women
and children.
This is due to be released atthe end of this year.
(05:48):
So this is something, but wealso need to be taking action so
that the families of missingIndigenous people are being
heard and their cases are beinginvestigated with the same level
of resources and rigor providedto everyone else.
As I was researching thisepisode and now recording it, I
(06:08):
realised that it was the 10-yearanniversary of Monique's
disappearance almost to the day,so I wanted to share her story
now to try and get the word outthere and hopefully get some
answers for her family.
On the day she disappeared, itwas 10.30am the morning of
(06:34):
Thursday, the 20th of June 2013.
Manik left Hervey Bay withthree friends Tracey, who was
the driver, Leighton and Alan-Lee.
She told her mum they weregoing to Brisbane for the night.
Brisbane is about a three and ahalf hour drive south from
Hervey Bay.
(06:54):
Tracey was actually drivingfurther onto the Gold Coast, but
she had agreed to drop Monique,Leighton and Alan- Lee off
where they wanted to go, whichwas Deception Bay.
Deception Bay is a suburb northof Brisbane, so Tracey dropped
them there and then she carriedon to her destination on the
Gold Coast.
(07:19):
In Deception Bay, Monique,Leighton and Alan- Lee waited
about five hours for the personthey were supposed to meet up
with there, but that personnever arrived and we never find
out who they were.
So the two guys, Leighton andAlan- Lee, stayed the night with
a relative nearby and Moniqueremained behind telling them
(07:41):
she'd call someone to come andpick her up.
The person she called was a guycalled Dominic and according to
him, Monique was friends withhis girlfriend, but they had
never met before.
Dominic came and picked upMonique and we presume she
stayed at his home that night,but again, that's not clear in
any of the reports I've read.
(08:02):
But the next day, which wasFriday, he drove her to the
house where Alan- Lee andLeighton had stayed that night.
Dominic gave Leighton a lift toCaboolture train station where
he was seen boarding a trainback to Hervey Bay at 11.30am.
Alan- Lee stayed another nightin Deception Bay.
(08:22):
Monique ended up in BrisbaneCity that night, she met a man
called Bryce Watt who gave her ablanket and some food, and
Monique told him that she wasstaying at a lodge just down the
road from where she met him.
The next morning, which wasSaturday June 22nd, Monique
called her mum to check in, sayhello, and she told Sheena that
(08:46):
she was with her friend Alan-Lee and that Dominic was going
to drive them back to Hervey Bay, but she didn't give a clear
time of when she was going tocome back, and this was the last
time Sheena would ever talk toher daughter.
Instead of going back to HerveyBay that day, Dominic ended up
driving Monique and Bryce Wattfrom South Brisbane to Buranda
(09:10):
Railway Station.
This was roughly a 10 minutedrive, and Monique and Bryce
then caught a train to Beenleigharound midday.
This is about a 30 minute trainride, and when they arrived
they walked a couple of minutesover to the local shopping
centre, the Beanley Marketplace,and they went inside.
(09:32):
The next series of events isprovided from CCTV footage
inside the shopping centre.
So Bryce was seen on thefootage calling a taxi from a
taxi phone inside the shoppingcentre and then he went back
outside to wait at the taxi rank, Monique went into a medical
centre called Mediprac where shesaw a doctor who prescribed her
(09:54):
with five fentanyl patches.
The patches were 75 milligramswhich she then collected from
the adjoining pharmacy.
Now I'm not a doctor, but to methat does sound like an
extremely large amount toprescribe to one person in one
appointment.
Her and Bryce then met up againbriefly inside the shopping
(10:16):
centre and Monique made a callto Alan- Lee.
This was around 2.30pm.
This is important, as this wasthe last time Monique's phone
was ever used by her.
There were a load of missedcalls and text messages from
Alan- Lee, from Dominic and, ofcourse, from Monique's family,
but there were no furtheroutgoing calls or text made from
(10:39):
this point on.
So Monique went into thebathroom where she remained for
about half an hour.
Bryce can be seen waiting forher for a bit, but then, when
she didn't come out fairly soon,he went back to the train
station and headed back to SouthBrisbane, also confirmed by
CCTV footage.
(11:00):
After Monique left the bathroom,she was reported to be behaving
erratically in a shoe shop, sothe security guard was called.
The staff member who made thisaccusation about her behaviour
was never spoken to by police inthe follow-up investigation.
(11:20):
So her account can't beverified and it is at odds with
what the security guard, MrApollo, who was spoken to,
reported.
So when Mr Apollo, the securityguard, got to the shoe shop,
Monique had already left, butstaff pointed her out to him so
he followed behind her as shewalked out of the shopping
(11:41):
centre.
When he got outside he couldn'tsee her, so he walked around
the other side of the shoppingcentre, which is the eastern
side, and that overlooked a parkcalled Hugh Muntz Park, and
then he saw her again.
She had walked through the parkand she was crossing a small
(12:02):
creek it was only about a footdeep and when she got to the
other side of the creek sheturned around.
She leaned against a concretepillar and she looked back at
him.
She was carrying a largehandbag and according to the
security guard, Mr Apollo, shedidn't appear injured,
(12:24):
intoxicated or under theinfluence of drugs at the time.
And this was the last knownsighting of Monique Clubb.
Monique's mum reported hermissing on the 28th of June to
Hervey Bay police.
That was six days after she waslast heard from.
(12:46):
There were plenty of rumoursand reports provided to police
about what people thought hadhappened to Monique, but nothing
came of any of them.
One such report was thatMonique had been killed by a man
called Vincent Moran as paybackfor breaking into his house and
stealing some property.
(13:06):
His home was searched by policeand he was questioned.
However, he denied anyinvolvement or knowledge of
Monique's whereabouts and thatlead fizzled out.
The initial investigation honedin on the park surrounding
waterways and the bushland.
It's quite a big park and I'llput some photos on socials for
(13:30):
you to see.
There's a body of water in themiddle of the park and then it
turns into bushland and justbehind it is a motorway.
The initial investigation honedin on the park surrounding
waterways and bushland.
It was an obvious place tostart looking because that was
where she was last seen.
But no sign of Monique wasdiscovered there and no body was
(13:55):
found.
Police focused heavily onsearching the areas in and
around the park because theybelieved even at this very early
stage of the investigation thatMonique must be there.
They did check CCTV footagefrom Beenleigh Railway Station
on the afternoon she was lastseen, but they only checked the
(14:17):
footage before 3.30pm that dayand they didn't see her on that
footage.
Here it's important to noteHugh Muntz Park is in the
opposite direction of the trainstation, so in one direction
east it leads to the Pacificmotorway, which is a busy
(14:38):
highway where it's possibleTo she to the train station
before 3.30pm.
She would have had to circleback around the long way around
the park, around the shoppingcentre and across to the station
.
According to Google Maps,that's about a 12 minute walk
(15:01):
from the middle of the park tothe station.
If the reports are accurate,she went into the bathroom at
2.30pm for 30 minutes and cameout.
Then she went to the shoe shop,left the shopping centre,
walked through the park and, ifshe did go back around to the
train station, it's possible butit's a really tight time frame
(15:25):
to her have caught a train by3.30pm.
So did Monique die in the areaaround the park or waterways?
Did she leave the area andimmediately meet with foul play,
or did she somehow make it to adifferent location and then go
missing?
Proof of life checks confirmedthere was no trace of Monique
(15:56):
after she left the shoppingcentre that day, in terms of no
bank accounts being touched, nocalls being made from her phone
and no further sightings that weknow of.
So why didn't the police searchthe footage from the train
station after 3.30pm?
Why did they hone in on thepark and assume that's where she
(16:17):
was?
Because they made assumptionsabout her based on her race,
that she must have beenintoxicated, that she must have
been running away from thesecurity guard and that she must
have overdosed in the park.
They made these assumptionseven though the last witness to
see Monique the security guard,Mr Apollo said she was not
(16:39):
running, she didn't appearinjured or intoxicated, and none
of the people who were with heror spoke to her that day not
Bryce, not Dominic, not Sheena,not Alan Lee said that she had
been drinking or appeared drunk.
These are the assumptions thatled police at the time to focus
virtually 100% of theirresources into searching the
(17:02):
park, the surrounding areas andto narrow the investigation
instead of looking furtherafield.
In 2015, two years after Moniquehad disappeared, detective
Senior Sergeant Powell of themissing persons unit handed over
his report to the homicideinvestigation unit.
(17:23):
In this report, he stated thathe was of the view that Monique
had overdosed in the bushlandnearby.
However, this report containeda number of inaccuracies.
It said that Monique hadobtained a number of medications
that day when she had onlyobtained the fentanyl patches.
It also said that she was seengoing into dense bushland into a
(17:46):
swamp.
But she was not.
She was last seen at the edgeof a creek by a security guard
not going into bushland.
And finally, the report saidthat she possibly died in the
park or bushland and has notbeen found.
But this view was not sharedwith other senior investigators.
(18:08):
They determined that there wasa 100% certainty that Monique
was not in the park and thattheir views were made known to
these other investigators.
At the time, Sergeant Nelson andSenior Sergeant Whitehead, who
are the QPS experts in relationto search and rescue, had a
(18:29):
different conclusion to that ofDetective Senior Sergeant Powell
.
Senior Sergeant Whitehead saidit was reasonable to expect that
if Monique had died in the parkshe would have been found
either during the searches orsometime after by users of the
park.
But this report by the QPSexperts was either disregarded
(18:53):
or not passed on.
They strongly believed that asthe park was used for recreation
there's even people caravanningin that park.
It's used by some peopleexperiencing homelessness.
There's a lot of people aroundin that park.
So they believed that if shehad passed away there she would
undoubtedly have been foundduring the searches or by other
(19:16):
users of the park.
They go on to add.
Had they followed other leadsand not just kept looking in the
one area that she definitelywasn't, they might know more,
they might have more informationthat could lead us further to
Monique's whereabouts today.
All of this was backed up by theDeputy State Coroner, Jane
Bentley, in her report from the2021 inquest.
(19:39):
So Monique had been missing byeight years at the time of the
inquest.
The coroner ascertained thatonce the search of the park
revealed nothing of note, thepolice investigation failed by
not looking at CCTV footage atother public transport hubs like
bus stations, taxi ranks, themotorway and the train station
(20:01):
past 3.30pm to try to work outwhere she could have possibly
gone instead of the park.
The coroner also made mentionthat the police believing
Monique had died in the parkwere based on misconceptions
that she was drunk, running awayand running through bush, when
in fact, the CCTV footage showedshe was not running and did not
(20:23):
appear intoxicated or injured.
Monique's case is a classicexample of how systemic racism
impacts on the missing, feared,murdered Indigenous people in
our country While her case wasinvestigated and time was spent
looking for her.
The narrow mindedness and theracist assumptions about her
meant that the investigationfailed her.
(20:45):
The coroner's findings werethat Monique had left the park
shortly after entering it anddied soon after.
It's possible that shetravelled back into the South
Brisbane area, but her lack ofcontact with family and friends
would suggest she died soonafter she was last sighted by
the security guard at theshopping centre.
(21:06):
Her family still have nothingnot Monique, not Monique's body,
nothing.
Someone knows what happened toher and someone knows what
happened that day.
If you or anyone you know knowanything at all, please contact
(21:31):
police link on 131-444 or callCrime Stoppers on 1800-333-00.
Thanks for listening to Bolo.
If this episode has brought upfeelings for you and you need
support for Aboriginal or TorresStrait Islander crisis support,
(21:54):
please call 13 yarn or reachout to Lifeline on 1311-14.
You.
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