October 25, 2025 • 65 mins
Audrey Griffin was 19 years old when she was murdered by a stranger as she was walking home. Audrey was about to start her career with the Australian navy. She was fearless. She trekked Thailand alone, competed in Iron Man competitions with no training and swam with sharks most mornings. She had her whole life ahead of her.
In this special episode of I Catch Killers, Gary Jubelin travels to the Central Coast of New South Wales - to the location where Audrey was found. Initially, it was ruled a death by misadventure. Audrey’s mum, Kathleen Kirby, joins Gary to share how she fought for her daughter, found evidence herself and why she always knew it was murder.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Detective see a side of life.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
The average person is never exposed her I spent thirty
four years as a cop. For twenty five of those
years I was catching killers. That's what I did for
a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer
just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into
the world in which I operated. The guests I talk
to each week have amazing stories from all sides of
(00:27):
the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like
the people I talk to. Some of the content and
language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes
into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now,
as I take you into this world. We're doing something
(00:47):
a little different. This week, I was contacted by Kathleen Kirby.
Kathleen is the mother of Audrey Griffin, a nine erene
year old girl who was murdered on the central coast
of New South Wales by Adrian Torrance on the third
of March. Earlier this year, Audrey had been out celebrating
her exciting new career news with friends, and she had
a whole life ahead of her, but that same night,
(01:10):
Torrence was out on bail facing numerous unrelated domestic violence charges.
He was a complete stranger to Audrey. For this episode,
we've traveled up to Gosford, which is about now north
of Sydney, to take a deeper look at Audrey's case
and talk to Audrey's mother, Kathleen. I'm standing out the
(01:42):
front of Gossip Hotel. This is in the main street
of Gosford. This was where Audrey Griffin was last seen alive.
It was about two am on Sunday morning, the twenty
third of March twenty twenty five. She was going from
this location to stay at a friend's place. It was
about five to six kilometers away, but she never made it.
(02:03):
From an investigating point of view, this is a crucial location.
It was the last time that Audrey's friends saw her alive.
She's found deceased approximately fourteen hours later. As you can see,
there's a lot of CCTV cameras around here. This is
not unusual for a licensed premises and this would be
a starting point for a police investigation into finding out
(02:25):
what happened to Audrey Griffin. It is our understanding she
was trying to get home to stay at a friend's place
at the green Point, which is probably at I guess
eight kilometers from this location. Like a lot of people
(02:48):
that have been out late at night on the Central Coast,
it's always difficult to get home. Taxis are hard to
come by, ubers are hard to come by. Invariably people
start walking along the mainstream and looking for a taxi.
It's believed by Audrey's friends that's what she was doing
and the reason she walked along this path.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So what we're doing now.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Is effectively tracking the path that we believe Audrey would
have been walking whilst heading home to stay at the
friend's place at green Point. You can see this as
main Street. This is the main street and I think
it's even called main street at Gosford. There's a lot
of businesses along here. These are the type of businesses
that might keep a CCTV footage. So from an investigative
(03:36):
point of view, if you're trying to establish what path
a person took, you'd be checking these premises to see
if there was any CCTV footage to see if Audrey
was walking along this road. We're now driving past Gosford
Police Station that you can see on the left. That's
the actual command that was investigating Audrey's death. They'd be
(04:00):
very familiar with this area and familiar with the fact
that young people will find it hard to get home
at night, and the likelihood that Audrey would be walking
along along the road we're traveling on now. There's a
few quiet locations like this, but this is still near
the center of the Gosford CBD, so I think even
(04:22):
a young female would be feeling safe walking along along
this area. We're now coming into the area where Audrey
was murdered. You can see there's a creek, or it's
referred to as there in a creek, it's more like
a river. It's fairly substantial. We're driving on a main
road and there's a pathway that runs between the main
(04:44):
road and the creek. This is a pathway that Audrey
was walking along at the time that she came across Torrance,
the person who killed her. I'm just indicating to the
location in which Audrey was murdered. So we'll just pull up.
(05:19):
We're standing at the location Audrey Griffin's body was found.
She's found in the face down in the creek. There's
a big a set up with photos. There's flowers, lots
and lots of photos of Audrey and the friends, some
clothing hung, all sorts of things, even lights, flowers, stuffed toys, candles,
(05:46):
a whole range of things with Audrey's name written. One
thing that really stands out to me with a memorial
like this it's clearly just been set up by friends
of Audrey's, is how popular she must have been. How
many photos full of life photos there are, just as
her mum described as someone that was full of life.
And that just makes me sad standing here at the
(06:09):
location thinking, just one man's rage has stolen a young
girl's life. Just such a senseless, senseless killing. I'm going
to describe the location then just give him the thoughts
on how you'd approach this from an investigative point of view.
We know Audrey was last seen alive at Hotel Gosford
(06:31):
about two am, where she's been out celebrating with her friends.
I'm just walking along the pathway where Tyrans would have
been following Audrey. We know he at first was behind her,
possibly a kilometer back. This particular location is near where
Audrey was murdered. And what stands out to me here
if I'm looking back along the roadway. There there's not
(06:54):
a lot of trees separating between the roadway and the
pathway that Audrey would have been walking along. Just here
there's a clump of trees and there's a couple of
electrical boxes. I think that might make a difference if
he was going to strike, and I'm trying to anticipate
what's going through his mind, but there is a bit
of cover here for him. If this is where he
actually approached Audrey, we don't know what conversation has had,
(07:17):
what exactly happened, but there is a bit of distance
between the roadway and the pathway where that might have
been the reason he chose this particular location to approach Audrey.
It is quite chilling to think what she went through,
and she had a whole life ahead of her, and
(07:38):
it just breaks my heart and it makes me angry
that a person like Torran's, just an angry, violent, waste
of space human being, has taken someone's life like Audrey's,
who had so much to offer the world. Another bit
of I suppose sadness that's attached to attach this life
(08:00):
is the fact that it was Audrey's friends. Young Girls
nineteen year old girls that found Audrey found their friend.
They were so concerned about her, they went and started
looking around here along with another family friend and our
older friend came down here, found some of the property
and searched a bit further and then found her flooding
(08:22):
the water, deceased. So I can only imagine the trauma
their carrying. This is a fairly isolated location, isolated in
the early hours of the morning.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It's not a dangerous location.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
It's not a location where you think someone would actually
trip and fall into the water.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So there's a number of concerns.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
If you find the person's body, young girl nineteen years
old out celebrating and find her deceased in this river,
of course you're going to investigate it as suspicious. A
couple of things that really strike me about this location
and the initial police search was it was a matter
of days I believed before they found her phone. If
(09:07):
someone did, let's talk hypothetically, trip and fall into the water,
extremely unlikely. One would expect you'd find all the property
that she had on her at the time with her.
Her phone wasn't with her. They didn't find her phone,
So just from that point of view, I think the
matter should be treated as suspicious. You're looking at unnatural causes.
(09:29):
You start a homicide investigation, you treat it as potentially suspicious.
One thing that I was taught as a young detective
was never assume something is misadventure or natural causes unless
you can gather the evidence to prove that. From what
I see at this location, you can't gather evidence to
prove that it was a misadventure. There was an assumption
(09:52):
made that this was misadventure. As it turned out, it
was a cold blooded murder. And the way that phone
was found is also a little concerning in that it
was a friend, a family friend of Audrey's mother's friend, Lana,
found the phone. Audrey's mother, Kathleen, was told that the
location had been searched on numerous occasions, but apparently only
(10:13):
when the tide was high. Lana came down here three
days later and found the phone. She could see something
sticking out. She contacted police, well pick it up and
bring it to the police station. Thankfully that Lana was
a little bit more cluey on that and spoke to
another police officer and they sent police down immediately to
(10:33):
collect the phone and gather it as potential evidence. If
Lana was to pick up the phone, potentially it could
have been contaminated. There potentially could have been DNA or
fingerprints or some evidence trace material on the phone from
the offender. Another thing that's quite chilling about this crime
scene is when Kathleen describes going to see Audrey in
(10:56):
the post more than to say a goodbyes, as she said,
which is very sad, that what really haunts her is
the fact that Audrey didn't look at peace. She had
her hair were platted, but she had mud and dirt
in a hair. And something that really struck home with
(11:16):
Kathleen that Audrey's fingernails had mud under there under the
fingernails light she was struggling like she was fighting, and
I think that's something that really haunt haunts Kathleen. The
other thing about it, which I find quite alarming, DNA
from the offender, Torreans, was found under Audrey's fingernails. That
(11:41):
would be one of the first things you're looking for
when you're looking at a post more than a deceased person.
In these situations. If you take the camera up here
and you look across the creek to the river, there's
houses up there, houses that I think should be canvas,
and by canvas I mean daw not to find out
if anyone heard anything suspicious. It's fairly noisy here now
(12:05):
because of the traffic, but at two o'clock in the morning,
it's probably not so noisy. As it turned out, one
of the people in the houses across there heard a
female screaming at about two forty five. Sadly it was
most likely Audrey fighting for her life. That evidence was
uncovered by Kathleen, Audrey's mother. That shouldn't happen. These are
(12:30):
the type of things that need to be done, all
the canvases that need to be done.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
A nineteen year.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Old girl, fit, healthy, active, happy girl was found to
cease in the water. This is something that should have
been treated suspiciously right from the start. And I think
the frustration with the family, and this is a sense
I get speaking to the family, is that how was
it written off as misadventure so early in the investigation.
(12:56):
That might have been the conclusion they came to after
a thorough investigation, but so early in the investigation for
it to be written off as a misadventure. I don't
know if it's miscommunication between the police and the family,
but it's something.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That we might try and find out. I sat down
with Kathleen.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
For a very raw and unfiltered chat to shed light
on the impact of this senseless crime and the investigation
that followed. You're right at the start, absolutely okay. I
can't really start this conversation without offering my condolences for
(13:47):
what happened to Audrey. And I know words don't mean
a great deal the subject that we're talking about here,
but thank you. It's now been how long since Audrey
was murd To.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Be honest, I don't know. Twenty third of March was
when she passed.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I would imagine your life changed inconceivably since that time.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I wouldn't say I have a life anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
It's a heavy thing to say.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I don't know. It's just I don't know if it's
a real numbness, just numb myself by keeping myself extremely busy,
find it very hard to be alone, to sit still.
I'd say that I haven't accepted or given myself time
(14:48):
to agree for Audrey.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, you've had a lot a lot going on, and
I know we've met on occasions and had a lot
of conversations and see the way the emotions. Yeah, sometimes
when I'm speaking to you, I feel like, Okay, it's
a step forward, and other times it feels like a
step back, step back for it.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Oh, absolutely, look at I'd say that the reason why
I'm still standing is because of the support that i
have from family, friends, Lana. There's not a minute that
of the day that there's not someone here or that
(15:31):
I can't call on. Every day is a roller coaster.
I feel like I'm just existing and not living.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, there's I see and you reference Lana and not
just what Lana's doing, but a lot of friends. It
looks like they've formed a circle around you and very
protective of you.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, Yeah, it's nice, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Oh, I don't know. Like, as I said, look for
my family, it's extremely hard because I'm not sure if
you're aware that we lost my dad two weeks after Audrey,
and my dad was ninety two, so my mum's not
aware that they were aware that she passed away. But
(16:15):
because of the delay and them telling me that it
was a misadventure, dad had passed in that time, and
then we found out that she'd had been murdered, and
mums in her nineties as well, so she was very fragile.
So I decided that this was something that I didn't
(16:36):
want to address with my mum. So it's been extremely
hard promoting everything in regards to getting the support from
the community and everyone to find some justice in move
forward in regards to what's happened here.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
When we talk about justice, and you and I have
had long conversations about how I could offer some advice
or point you in the direction, and when you first
spoke to me, and when I first saw the story
of Audrey, I had concerns from the start when it
started hitting the media, but a little bit later than
(17:15):
probably what it should have been.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It's just appalling, it's appalling. And that were the words
exactly what I said to Yasmine Yates when.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
She turned up the police minister.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yes, when she turned up at the ritual. Once we've known,
once we've been informed what had happened to Audrey, and
I'd had an interview with sixty minutes that day, and
when I was interviewed, and when I spoke to Yasmine
and she said, look, she wasn't aware and that she
was her condolence, and I said to her, look, I'm
(17:51):
not here to get the police on the on the
on the back fold, you know I'm here. I want support,
I want just so, I want to find out the story.
I want justice for Audrey, my daughter was more than this.
I said to her then, look that I'd been interviewed
by sixty minutes, and that at any of that time
(18:14):
that I was interviewed, I'd rubbished anybody. I just needed
the story to be out for us to be able
to move forward and get some answers. I'd explained to
her that I hadn't done anything wrong in regards to
the police, but I did say to her that it
(18:35):
was appalling, and she said to me straight away, can
we organize a meeting, which we did.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
We're going to break down in the podcast what exactly
happened and what you had to do to make sure
that the police were doing their job. I think is
probably an appropriate way to say that before you agreed
to do the podcast, you said you want to get answers,
(19:02):
you want to find out what's happened and why things
have happened. You also said to me that I will
do a podcast with you if you challenge me. You said,
I will do a podcast with you if you're honest
in your opinion about whether the police had done the
right thing or not done the right thing. So that's
(19:24):
the premise of what this podcast is going to be about.
We want to hear your story. We want to talk
about Audrey, because audrey life should not be forgotten. And
I just see your reference what happened at Terrrigle, the
amount of people that turned up, and I get the
sense that Audrey touched the lot of lives.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Look, she was always she is an amazing child, and
she's always been an amazing child. She was strong, she
was independent, she was driven, she was a go getter,
she was happy, she she loved life. She was a
beautiful human being. She you know, what she had achieved
(20:10):
in nineteen years is just and her friends, we're just
everyone's just blown away. Like everyone's it's still unfolding. People
are constantly always learning. And myself of all her achievements,
all the letters that she sent out to people in
you know, condolence and helping and supporting and loving, and
(20:33):
you know, just the other day, I ran into a
lady from Central Coast Sports College that said she didn't
know Audrey, but she was going into the office to
speak to one of the ladies, and when she opened
the diary there's a letter from Audrey. You know, there's
all there's signs everywhere. There's signs everywhere and every day. UTS.
She had such an impact that they've come back to me.
(20:54):
They've sent me a letter saying that they're going to
honor her a Bachelor of Business and Economics and that
she achieved so highly and she was such a beautiful
student that they're honoring her with a degree on the
fifth of November at UTS and her father and I
(21:15):
and friends who are welcome to come along. And that's
just one you know, from the outside reaching in and
yet you know, these are the people that keep me standing.
Like you know, the Sharks who she played for Interegle,
(21:38):
they've got a shield called Audrey Griffin that they're using
as a best player that they're going to give continuously
every year. So she's got this legacy everywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well she and the sense that I get she really
she lived life like the Sharks that was playing rugby
league and she.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Played for UTS the Bats.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You were at AFL doing triathlons.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
She did to one athlete in Newcastle. Then she did.
That was our last trip together four weeks prior to
her passing, where she asked me to come along to
New Zealand to do an iman, which she didn't train for.
She's just an amazing When she put her head to something,
she just did it. You know, as on arrival, you know,
(22:29):
we turn up there and she's got blisters all over
her feet just before she has to do a twenty
one kilometer run, one point nine swim, and a ninety
k bike ride. And then we had just an amazing
trip where she opened up and said to me that
you know how she just loved Trevor and I so much,
(22:52):
and how grateful parents we were, and how lucky she
was that she had us as parents, and I was
so lucky to that time with her. And then she
arrives home and the next day she flies out to
Japan to go skiing with one of her UNI friends
for two weeks and then comes home that day. And
that was the day after that. She got up in
(23:16):
the morning and she said, Mom, I'm going to the
Central Coast And I said, no, you're not. We're organizing
this massive party for you. Because she was going into
the Navy on the seventh of April, and I said, no,
you need to organize. You've organized this seven man ban
and I need to know who's coming. And she said, no,
I've got to go up the coast and see my friends,
because she'd been away for four weeks, and I'd actually
(23:38):
said to her, look, you know your father's, your grandfather
sick in hospital. He's out in Blacktown. You need to
put family first. Anyway, she walked out the door as
teenagers do and didn't say much. And later that afternoon
I get a photo of her with my dad and
then a photo where she'd gone and taken my mum,
who's ninety years of age, out for lunch and took
(23:58):
a photo. And my last words were to her was
I love you, my babe. You do me proud. And
then she come to the Central Coasts, caught up with friends.
Didn't plan on having a night, she just wanted to
catch up. But then obviously been away for four weeks
living in Sydney, she hadn't seen everybody and was excited
and started off at the Terrygool Hotel with her friends
(24:23):
and then decided to go to the Gospel Hotel.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I'd see your face light up when you're talking about
those memories, like what.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Child at nineteen has achieved. You know, she's done Europe
when she graduated from YU twelve a couple of weeks later,
jumped on a plane by herself and went to Thailand
and did a tracking for two weeks by herself. You know,
she had a car list. She learned how to drive
in a tip up truck, her manual tip up truck.
(24:58):
She learned how to drive with me in a v
doub multi van driving back and forward to Byron because
that was our thing. We used to do a lot
of trips to Byron. She had a motorbike license, she
had a jet ski license, she had a you know,
she had all these license. I do markets, or I
was doing markets, and I was at Bondai and she's
(25:19):
living with a dad at the time, while she was
at uts and I'm sitting at Bondau markets and here
comes Audrey with her leather jacket and her helmet in
her hands, walking towards me, and I went, oh, my goodness,
you didn't just ride that bike which is too big
for her, all the way from Mattreville to Bondai by yourself.
(25:40):
And she was just like yeah, well, like.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
She sounds like a force of nature.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Oh diving, you know, the Mermaids, the Mermaids, the Mermaids
our swimming group. You know how many arguments I had
with her in regards to always taking off from the
crowd and chasing this and chasing that and dive down
to the sharks.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Like she wasn't this is in the ocean swimming, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Oh absolutely, even when we you know, this is at
Terry gall with the Mermaids, we'd swim around to the
you know, the point and around to the haven and
you know, always swimming off trying to chase the little sharks.
And you know, even when we moved, I moved to
Cronulla and I started swimming. We both swam ocean swim
and we were swimming around Shark Island and you know,
(26:26):
they're all going, Audrey coming to the group, coming to
the group. Off she goes because she sees a seal.
You know, like she was just fearless, like no fear
but sensible, you know what I mean. Fearless but sensible.
But she had this personality also that people always thought
like when she was out, they always thought she'd had
a drink because they'd say, oh, dds is out, because
(26:46):
she'd come into this whole personality and light up the room.
She wasn't a drinker, She wasn't a drinker. She just
loved life and she loved people. She just love people.
And that was that night, and that which has ruined
(27:06):
our lives. The story is so long, and the whole
thing is so appalling, and I just don't understand how someone,
anyone could treat any human being. And I feel that
(27:28):
society is just ticking boxes and moving through life without
a heart. And Audrey will never be a number, She
will never be just that child. She is my child
and Trevor's child, and I am going to fight all
the way for justice.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I understand in the conversations we've had you've made that
very clear. And I made some notes from the conversations
that we've had in the anticipation that we might be
sitting down like this and to keep clarity on it.
These were the type of things that you said about
the answers that you want and what you want from doing,
(28:07):
whether it's a platform like a podcast or telling your story,
that you want the full facts to come out. I
want to know why murdering scumbag Adrian Torrans wasn't in custody.
And I want to know why Audrey's murder was treated
as misadventure. I want to know why I had to
push the police. I want to know why police took
(28:28):
so long to arrest Torrans when he's clearly a violent
man and had consistently breached AVA orders relating to his
former wife. And the other thing that you said to me,
you just don't know what to believe anymore. You've been
dragged into this world that you don't understand. I take
it you wouldn't have had experience with police or criminal
(28:49):
investigations of this nature, the courts, all these things. And
you asked me some questions when we're talking, it just
seemed so naive, Like I thought everyone knew a coronial
inquest is about the what abo. But that wasn't your world.
That wasn't Audrey.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Absolutely not like and I say it every day, even
til all the loved ones around me. You know, the
support I have, The support I have is so solid
and I and something that I repeat over and over,
you have no idea. You have no idea that the
things how I feel that triggered me, and and just
(29:30):
everything about the story is just appalling to the fact
is you know everything about it, even to the coroner report,
to me going when Trevor and I had to go
and identify it or say how goodbye is to Audrey.
(29:53):
It was just wrong. It was just wrong. I knew.
I knew when I saw her, and I didn't say
any think to her father at the time. And I
drove home and I said to him, how do you feel?
How did you feel when you saw Audrey? And he
said she wasn't at peace. I said, Trevor, I looked.
I looked at her. I pulled the sheets down, and
(30:15):
I saw things that no mother should have to see.
And I was also told before I walked in there
when I asked, how does my beautiful girl look? Does
her hair look beautiful? Does it? And she said, we've
cleaned rupt she looks beautiful. I walked in there. She
had makeup under her eyes, her hair was platted, and
it was full of mud and tweaks. I'm not going
to go any further because no one needs to know that.
(30:40):
That's what triggered me, and I knew, and I went
straight back to the scene and I looked across the
lake and I saw a house and I rang and
I said, have you spoken to the house across the road?
He said, I'll get back to you. Then weeks later
of me asking and asking and asking if I can
see footage that they kept saying it was in Sydney,
(31:06):
and it was in Sydney. It's in Sydney. And I
was like, you know, is there cameras the police? There
must have been taxis, there must have been people going
past the third day. So I'm I'm at can I
tell the story from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Let's explain the story from the beginning, because I want
to provide you with a platform of the concerns you
had right from the start and how it played out,
but just to put it in context, explain to people
what happened on the night Audrey.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Was so firstly, I just want to say that Audrey
wasn't intoxicated or have any drugs in the system. That's
come back, and that's another thing that's traumatized because there
was things that we needed to do to find out
those answers, and that was something very hard for me
(31:58):
to say goodbye to my girl order when we had
to do those things. And sorry, anyway, so that night,
that she went out. She only had a couple of drinks.
And they've told me that there was no way that
could have happened. She was it couldn't have been a misadventure.
(32:21):
It couldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Audrey's gone out on the night and started drinking it.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Well, she had a couple of drinks. She went to
the Teregle Hotel, which she wasn't playing because she wasn't
a drinker, and she said to a friend, Oh, should
I have a drink? And she said, I'll have a cocktail.
So I think it was like two or three drinks
that she had in the whole night. So she had
a cocktail there and then she had two red bulls
and Bokkers when she got to Gosford.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
This is Gosford Hotel, Main Street, Yes, and.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Then she was with friends there and she ran into
some other friends and they were all going to the
Gosford Hotel and she said, look, I'm going to go
there as well, because it was a group of friends
she wanted to catch up with, which she did, and
she look once I saw the footage, she looked happy.
She was happy, and that's what I wanted to see.
(33:10):
I wanted to see what state of mind she was in.
So anyway, she left the hotel and she hung out
for a little while with a friend, and she left
the hotel and decided to walk to try and get
(33:30):
a cab because it's very difficult to get a cab
from the Gosford Hotel. Now, she could have done a shortcut,
but she's gone the long way along the.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Waterfront to describe for people, not for me, but the
shortcut through the suburbs or backstreets of a suburb, whereas
she stayed on the main she went.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
In the lid up area where I would imagine that
she's done that to try and get a cab and
obviously lighting, so she's gone all the way where drifters is,
all the way around pass East Gosford Passy Eleanora. I'm
not one hundred percent sure he came from Gosford train
station and he came up from Surrey Hills. I'm not
(34:12):
sure what the procedure or what went on there.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
And this is in the early hours of the thirty
in the morning.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I think her phone last dropped out at two thirty.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
In the morning.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Okay, And you're understanding is she was heading into a
father's place.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
No, she was heading to a girlfriend's place at Green Point.
So originally the girlfriend that she'd gone out with was
they were staying at her grandparents interigor which are friends
of all of ours, their close friends. And then the
girlfriend wasn't well. She went home and she lives at
Green's Point. And then Audrey went out with other friends,
probably only fifteen twenty minutes away from home from where
(34:48):
she was staying at Grea's Point. Yeah, and then obviously
she'd phoned one girlfriend, the girlfriend she went to Japan
with that she'd seen in that night, and had a conversation,
not to her directly, but phoned her and she didn't
pick up and left a few messages. Then she rang
a girlfriend in Japan who she's grown up with since
(35:10):
she was two, and had a big conversation about her
childhood and they you know, sent each other photos and
and then she got off to the phone, got off
the phone to her and then the phone died at
two thirty.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
When when did you start to become concerned?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
So, I I wouldn't say I was a helicopter mom,
but you know, being my only child, you know, she
was a very strong and independent woman and she really
wanted to be independent, and so the deal was that
I've always said, you do me good, you do you
do yourself justice and do the right thing, You're always rewarded.
(35:55):
So the fact that she was at university and she
was striving to make herself a you know, a better
person and succeed in the world, and I wanted her
to be strong because I'm an older parent and an
only child. And I said to her, the deal is,
I'll pay for your phone, but I have to have
find my phone at all times so I know where
(36:15):
you are absolut How we had always good strategies and
she never complained. She never complained. Everyone else complained about
me doing it, stalking her, but we were fine with that,
and she was fine with me paying a bill. And anyway,
so I wake up as I do before I went
to bed, and you know, I don't go to a
(36:37):
bit of lake because I do markets. And I looked
at the phone and I can see she's out. And
then I woke up at the cracker dawn and I
looked at my phone and I saw the location and
straight away I was alarmed. And I'm an ocean swimmer,
so I was getting up at every morning to be
in the ocean by eight o'clock and to take the dog,
(36:57):
her dog down for a swim at the beach. And
I was like Cranola, living in Cronulla. And I looked
at the phone and I laid in bed and I
sent her a message straight away saying, Audrey, can you
just let me know when you're home, knowing that she
wouldn't get it until she woke up, but just something
to put out there. And I hadn't heard back. And
(37:19):
I got dressed and I went down to Cronulla Beach
and I got in the water, and as I was
getting in, something come over me, and I just didn't
feel right. I just didn't feel right. So I got
back in the car and I drove back and I
started texting and I said to my partner at the time,
(37:45):
Audrey hasn't got back to me, and a phone's in
a location. He said, oh, she's probably gone out and
had fun. She's going in the navy, and I went, yeah,
And it's funny because usually he's very like minded in
that way, but he even question went, but it's very
unusual for all not to get back to you. And
then I've phoned her father, and then I've sent a
(38:06):
message to a very good friend of hers who she
stays with on the coast, that I thought she may
have gone back there. And I sent a message and said,
just concerned. I've seen a location on Audrey's phone, and
she said to me, look, sometimes when your phone dies,
the location stops at that location. So it kind of
(38:26):
put a little bit of ease of me. And she
could have been the phone died or in a cab.
That's what I thought straight away. She's in a cab,
the phone's died, she's asleep somewhere. And I but I
was still concerned, so I said to Jen, would you
I said, I'm just concerned. Anyway, she phoned me back
(38:48):
and she said, look, my husband's happy to go down
there for a drive, just to see if you can
see a car. And he drove down there, he said,
the car's not there. You know, she's maybe by this day,
I spoken to her father and he said, look, I'm
just going to jump the car and I'm just going
to go up to the central coast, because he lives
in Mattrell at the time. And in this time, obviously
(39:10):
her friends have got one eighty or something the same
type of thing. You can find locations. Yet they've obviously
been alarmed but not phoned me. And I'm not sure
of the timing because it's all a little bit too
much at the moment. But what my understanding on what
I can remember is that while all this was going
(39:31):
on with me, one of the girls who's who she
was supposed to come back to, had gone to the
police station and reported her that she hadn't come home.
And then they phoned me the police and said, would
you go to the nearest police station and just release
to say that we can put something out as a
(39:52):
missing person and a photo. And I'm in the car
driving to the police station. Time at this stage Trevor's
gone up north and he said you just stay behind.
And on the way to the police station at Miranda,
(40:12):
I get the phone called back from my friend who
went there in the first place to see if her
car was there, and her husband had found her bag,
her hair clip and her sonnies at the location. Firstly,
she just said have you heard and I said what
she said, we found her bag. Now I had to
(40:34):
travel from Cronulla to the Central Coast in this time
I get there, it's pouring with rain. It's overcast. I
get there too, ambulance police, Trevor being there, her friend's
being there also. I've been informed that her friends went
(40:57):
to the police station and said, what.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
You going to do when they report?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
When they reported it, yeah, what are you going to do?
So they they went to the site at the creek.
They went to the location.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Her girlfriends they went there prior to police going there.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
They went to the police station and reported that she
was missing. And then they went to the creek where
two of friends and the grandfather of the young girl
were walking along the embankment and found Audrey floating up
(41:37):
so down in the water head down. When I arrived,
I'm in the ambulance. Police walked up to me and said,
I'm so sorry for your condolence, and I said, what
do you mean. They've just asked Trevor, her father, to
(41:58):
go down to the lake to identify because they were
bringing her in. She hasn't been identified. What are you
saying to me? And the ambulance who were amazing, pulled
me away and took him away. He walked then down
to the water side, stood next to Trevor, her father,
(42:22):
and was making jokes about the fieries. Now that's the beginning.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
What you're saying that doesn't paint a good picture. I
suppose as a way of saying.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
It, that was the beginning.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And then when you say the beginning, the.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Beginning of this, yeah, the hole. So then obviously they
identify Audrey. Trevor identifies Audrey. I go to Terragor, to
the Crown Plaza where I'm staying, and her father. I
(43:09):
can't remember what he went. He may have gone home,
he may stayed. Honestly, these pieces are really hard for
me to remember. Trevor and I are separated, but very
close and have a lovely relationship in regards to our daughter.
He's always been a part of her life and she
was living between me and him. At the time, I
(43:34):
was staying at the Crown Hotel, where I had amazing
support again once again through the community and the girls
that I swim with that were looking after me twenty
four hours a day, and I'd had mentioned is there
anything in the paper or in the media, and they replied.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
No, Okay, Just so I understand that you've described what's
happened at the scene where Audrey's body has been found,
and that Trevor, her father identified the body. You've turned
up and you'll explain what happened there. What were you
(44:18):
told by the police, what what would.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Happen at that stage? Nothing? And they did say to us,
we will be putting you in contact with support tomorrow.
We will have someone phone you, which never happened. Never happened.
We've been on this journey alone.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Going from that scene at the location and then you've
come up from Sydney, so you're staying that Terry or
you've booked the into the Crown there. When was the
next contact with police? Did you reach out to them
or did that?
Speaker 3 (44:55):
We've been constantly like constantly, the girls on my behalf.
I gave Permi obviously in the state of mind that
I was in and look to be honest, I have
been quite strong and direct and she's my daughter. I
want to answers, and I wasn't yeah yeah, and I
(45:15):
was asking the questions and the girls were treating very
lightly but speaking in the background. So I signed a
couple of girls to work with me and to work
with the police so that they could give me the
wordings that they use because obviously they don't make As
we were saying earlier, it's a whole new vocabulary for
(45:37):
me again, correct, And we were questioning and when I
asked the question, had it been in the media, they said, no,
it's like get me out of bed, get me down there.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Okay, So how this is what The day after I.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Think we were thinking as about two or three.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Days, had you viewed Audrey's body? By that stage, okay,
two or three days? There was nothing in the media
about it. Did the police suggest to you an investigation
was going on? Like I'm trying to get the story
from sides.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
So I went down there straight away and said to
the police Gospel the police station, and I said, why
why isn't anything in the media. I've just looked at
something on social media straight away and some guy nearly
drowned in the haven that's saved and he's in the paper.
Yet my daughter's been found and nothing. And he replied
(46:36):
to me, we don't want trolls.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Okay. You asked or demanded of me that if you
do the podcast, offer opinions on if the police maybe
it could have been done differently or a different approach.
What we've got here. And I've been to the location,
so I've made an assessment looking through from a formal
(47:03):
homicide detective's viewpoint, nineteen year old girl found deceased in
those circumstances early hours of the morning, assumptions could be
made its misadventure, but I think a stronger assumption should
be a suspicious suspicion attached to what's happened here. I
would see the media using the media at that early
(47:26):
stages of the investigation. Sometimes there's legitimate reasons why it's
not released in the media. Sometimes there's strategies in place.
I don't know the full details of the investigation, but
given the fact that it appears on face value that
they were treating it as death by misadventure, there still
needs to be a coronial in a coronial brief of
(47:47):
evidence prepared, and I think it would be more than
appropriate to make an appeal to the public and put
it out there. Did anyone see this person walking along? Like?
It's not like? Did anyone see this person in the
middle of Sydney in the middle of the correct This
is a girl walking home late at night, in the
early hours of a morning, like an appeal? Did anyone
(48:07):
have any knowledge of this person? And perhaps put a
photo out so we have. You've described a situation where
Audrey's body was found in air and the creek, and
that was on the Sunday afternoon. My readings in the
in newspaper reports vary from three point forty five to
five pm on the Sunday as a rough rough time. Correct,
(48:31):
there was nothing in the media. Your process in dealing
with everything you possibly can. Two or three days later,
you're saying, well, you're surprised there's nothing in the media
about this. You've gone to the police and the person
that you spoke to told you when you asked the question,
why wasn't it released in the media, You're saying that
that person said, because we don't want trials.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Correct the whole everyone, not one person, not one person
come to me and said they believed that it was
a miss event. Everyone was like, no way, Like everyone,
there's not one person that's come forward. And when it
could have been a misadventure.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
When was the narrative that when did you have a
direct conversation with the police that we're telling you that
they think it's misadventures all along?
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Explained that look straight away, it was like it's a misadventure.
Even when he said that about the missut. Then he said, well,
do you want something in the media, and I said yes.
Then they release something in the paper, but only the
story without the photo. So then I bring him back
again and I was like, where's the photo. He goes, oh,
you want a photo, and I'm like, yes, I want
a photo. The whole time it's a misadventure. So then
(49:47):
we get the time comes to go and see Audrey.
We see Audrey and I know, and I go straight
back to him. And that's when I went to the
creek and I looked across the road and I asked
the question, has anyone spoken to the house across the road.
He replied, I don't know. I'll get back to you.
(50:10):
I said to him, this is not a misadventure. The
footage that they released three weeks later, they picked that
up on the twenty fourth, and that was three hour
footage of him walking behind her at two thirty in
the morning. And the reply was when I asked why
he was twenty meters behind at two thirty.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
In the morning. Okay, but and that is after your
initiated them looking through the footage, correct, I suppose the
way that I would approach this, And I'm choosing my
words carefully here because I don't want to come across
as someone there again going I would have done this,
(50:54):
I would have done that. So what I'm saying here,
and you know we're here in your version of it,
what I'm saying here in circumstances, and I was in
homicide for over twenty years, so I'm not talking just
from lack of experience. So I've got the experience that
a situation like that, what should happen is that local police,
(51:18):
and it might be uniform police, called their first up.
They would then call local detectives. Local detectives would notify homicide.
Homicide would be formally in charge of that investigation, and
that's technically how it goes. So that's sort of like
a standard operating procedures. And I'm not talking out of
school here, that makes sense. And it was bored in
(51:40):
that way because there were problems where suspicious deaths were
treated as misadventures or accidents and evidence was lost. You've
got a nineteen year old girl, fit, healthy, no indication
of self harm, so that's it. Excited, So you're working
(52:02):
on the assumption you've got a young girl. For all
intents and purposes, was having a night out with friends
and was trying to make her way home. And I
do understand the central case. It's hard to get transport
late at night. I know those situations, trying to get
home late at night, walking along the street, trying to
get a taxi, trying to trying to find the way home.
(52:23):
So that in itself, there's no oh, there's some reckless
recklessness there. She's walking along where Audrey's body was found.
For people don't understand the Central coast. You've got a
very busy road and you've got a pathway. The pathway
is in between the creek. We call it the creek,
it's closer to it being a river. A river, the
(52:44):
pathway and then this busy street. It's not like she's
walking along a cliff face and accidentally falling into the water.
It's a flat, flat surface, a nice wide footpath. She's found.
Her phone stops at two forty five, two.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Thirty somewhere around there. Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Sure exactly her belongings are spread around. It would interest
me how a belonging to it if she gives low tide,
if she just tripped and fell into the water. One
with assumed she'd have all the belongings there, but her
belonging to it spread around. There's a suspicion attached there.
Quite often with investigations, you don't know the cause of
(53:29):
death until the post more than has been conducted. When
the post more than was conducted, it's my understanding this
is jumping head a little bit that there was DNA,
the offender's DNA found under a fingerprints under her fingernails.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Left finger scratched him on the face.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
That is a telltale sign that adds to the suspicion.
So what is confused. I'm telling you what we will
do as a homicide detective. We appoint the liaison office
of the family. The families informed that, look, we don't
know what's happened to your daughter at this stage, that
would be the appropriate response, but we're investigating it. When
(54:10):
we know something, we will pass that information on. So
that's how I'm saying. I was taught to run an
investigation of that nature. And yeah, the way I would
like to think i'd run that investigation, you'd also put
something out in the media, and I can think of
the media release straight away. Please have concerns for the
(54:31):
following the death of a nineteen year old girl that
was found deceased in Aerona Creek. Anyone that saw this
person last known sightings was at Gosford Hotel travel along there.
Anyone with any information please provide that to police that's
using the media to gather evidence. I would also have
you talk about the house opposite the creek. I would
(54:53):
also have a canvas conducted looking for witnesses, maybe eyewitnesses
or someone that's heard something I think in the area
that she's walked. You would also track between Gosford Hotel
to where Audrey's body was found. That would be I'm
guessing here, but six maybe five or six kilometers thereabouts,
(55:16):
passes a lot of businesses, some of which might have
even been open in the early hours of the night,
So you canvas san and you'd also look for CCTV
footage because the path that it appears that she's taken
goes past the licensed premises which would have CCTV footage.
Speaker 3 (55:34):
Which they did.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
You'd be doing all that, all that before you came
to the assumption that was by misadventure. What happened here?
Was this a robbery? If all her property that she
had at the time was not with her. Where her
body was found, one would assume, well, there's been interference,
they're possibly interference, So until you found all her property,
(55:57):
including the phone, you'd be treating that there's potently suspicious
as well. So, Kathleen, I'm sitting here only because I
gave you the undertaking that if you agreed to do
the podcast, I'll say, I'll tell you exactly what I
think should happen in a homicide investigation, which should have
(56:17):
burned because what I was taught as a young detective,
and I'd like to think I passed this on that
when you get called to a death in unnatural courses
or causes or slightly suspicious, you treat it as a
homicide until you can prove otherwise. So that's what I
believe is the benchmark on how this matter, Audrey's death
(56:39):
should have burn investigated. That's just to put it in context.
What you're about to tell us, what you went through, and.
Speaker 3 (56:47):
It's exactly what I would have thought how it should
have been. Three day I'm ringing, going where's her phone,
where's her phone, where's this? Where's that? I want it
back even to the fact they took the car and
when I had to pick the car up her computers
in the At this stage they hadn't found a phone.
(57:08):
And when I picked her car up from is it crime?
Speaker 1 (57:12):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (57:15):
I opened the boot and her computers in the back
of the car and I ring here the detective and say,
why is her computer in the car? Why haven't you
looked at It's not irrelevant to the case.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
Then my beautiful Lana goes down I think on the Wednesday,
to show respect she's sitting there in low tide. Walks
up to the location and there's Audrey's phone sitting in
(57:49):
the mud, exactly in the locations of where the bag,
the hair clip and her sonnies. So Lana calls the
police station and says, I'm at the location. Are the
girls deceased? I think I found a phone? He replied,
(58:12):
can you bring it in? She then said, I don't
think you understand I'm at the scene with the young girl.
He said, well, how do you know it's hers? So
by this stage, she said in the background, someone else
jumped in and took the phone. Now she found the
(58:32):
phone in low tide. They'd been telling me for three
days that they've been scousing the area. Did you go
down in low tide. No, because we had divers coming
on Wednesday afternoon, No one went down in low tide
where they found her bag. Originally that's where the phone
(58:54):
was sitting. They also they also so a week later.
Audrey's life was taken. On the Sunday. The following Friday,
another close girlfriend that we swim with was driving to
Sydney at five am in the morning. Driving past the location,
(59:16):
she sees a man in the area with the white
shorts and the T shirt and the hat with a
stick poking through the grass. So she rings crime and
leaves a message saying I'm at the sea. Da da
da da daw. She goes on with her work and
obviously in three and a half three bit weeks and
we're all working on this because no one had actually
(59:36):
seen what.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
He looked like.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
At this stage, I'm demanding to see the footage. They're
telling me it's in Sydney, and I'm like, I've got
to come in. He says, like, you can come in.
So I go in and I said, I want to
see all footage. Now, I've got an hour before I
go in there to see the footage. And I'm sitting
at the creek with Audrey down at the creek and
I'm looking across and I'm like, you know what, I'm
going to go to door knock, and I'm going to
(59:57):
go to the VP, I'm going to go to the brewery.
I'm going to go to all those places. I'm going
to go the main house. When you look across said
they haven't had anyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
That wasn't canvas.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
It was canvas. So they originally so when we brought
it to attention and that we end up having an
interview with police, they informed us that they did scals,
but they left business cards in their doors.
Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Okay, it's a couple of things. Just break down a
couple of things. If we just go back to the
phone for a moment. Did they come they told Lana
just to bring the phone in. Did they actually send
police down and take photographs and in siture and preserve
it properly? Okay, Well, that's that's good to know that
(01:00:48):
with the canvas of a place, you're not canvassing a
place by leaving a business carden. What a lot of
people And again, I can only bring back to practices
that I was taught that a canvas is complete when
everyone's being spoken to, like not just leaving, leaving a
card and the door, like people look at it, say
(01:01:11):
what going to those businesses? And this is all three
weeks after.
Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Two to three weeks, I would say.
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
So at this point in time, are you of the
belief that police are just treating this as misadventure? Of course,
were you actually told that we.
Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
All along, all along to the fact that I'm like,
it is not like when I saw Audrey. I knew,
not because I'm a crazy woman just going. I knew I.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Looked not just marks the face.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
More than that you knew. I saw her hands. I
saw her hands and straightway I knew what she was
doing crawling. I'm like that full of mud.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
That's what you saw.
Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
I picked up dirty full of mud. And I went
back to him and I said, this is not a
bit of adventure, Kathleen.
Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
It is even to the fact.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Where so you actually had that conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Many many, many many times. I've got witnesses I had.
I brought people with me the whole time, Lana, I
brought all the girls with me, so I had back
up and support all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
And was there any softening from police?
Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Did they never there was nothing. It was always silence.
It was very silent. Whenever I adjusted anything or said anything,
it was just Yeah. The two who I won't shame
their names, that just sat there and I said, tell me,
(01:02:55):
do you have children? He said, yes, How would you
feel this happened? He's a misadventure, I understand, but it's
a misadventure. It's not a misadventure. This is not a misadventure.
And to the point when I asked, when I went
(01:03:15):
door knocking, and then I went in to see the
footage and I walked in and I said to him,
so you told me that you've gone daughter at all?
He said yes. I said, because I've got the phone numbers,
and shall I get them out now at ring them?
Because I've just come from their houses and nobody's had
any contact.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Had you asked whether homicide's involved at this way?
Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
I didn't even know those words.
Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Okay, So in the world that you're not familial, not familiar.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
With that's the thing too. No support in understanding or
understanding the procedure, the support nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Why And I'm offering you just asking for your opinion
opinion here, But why do you think there was so
much resistance from the police.
Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
When you're talking to them, I'll tell you straight away,
they thought I'd go in there. This is my feel
they thought when I'd go and see Audrey. I don't
think that they even tried to cleaner up. I think
they just put it straight down. I feel they just
if I'd walked in there and looked at Audrey and said,
(01:04:26):
Michael eyes, that would have been the end.
Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
When we continue on and talk about it, it certainly
appears the way that it was heading now. I'm assuming
here because I don't know the full details. But if
they're telling the mother who's continually coming to the police
station and saying, have you done this? Have you done that,
it's misadventure. And that's what you're saying. Correct me if
(01:04:54):
I'm wrong. They're telling you on numerous occasions, this is misadventure.
Unless you kept pushing very well, could have just been
written off as a misadventure.
Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Absolutely
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Detective see a side of life.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
The average person is never exposed her I spent thirty
four years as a cop. For twenty five of those
years I was catching killers. That's what I did for
a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer
just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into
the world in which I operated. The guests I talk
to each week have amazing stories from all sides of
(00:27):
the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like
the people I talk to. Some of the content and
language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes
into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now,
as I take you into this world. We're doing something
(00:47):
a little different. This week, I was contacted by Kathleen Kirby.
Kathleen is the mother of Audrey Griffin, a nine erene
year old girl who was murdered on the central coast
of New South Wales by Adrian Torrance on the third
of March. Earlier this year, Audrey had been out celebrating
her exciting new career news with friends, and she had
a whole life ahead of her, but that same night,
(01:10):
Torrence was out on bail facing numerous unrelated domestic violence charges.
He was a complete stranger to Audrey. For this episode,
we've traveled up to Gosford, which is about now north
of Sydney, to take a deeper look at Audrey's case
and talk to Audrey's mother, Kathleen. I'm standing out the
(01:42):
front of Gossip Hotel. This is in the main street
of Gosford. This was where Audrey Griffin was last seen alive.
It was about two am on Sunday morning, the twenty
third of March twenty twenty five. She was going from
this location to stay at a friend's place. It was
about five to six kilometers away, but she never made it.
(02:03):
From an investigating point of view, this is a crucial location.
It was the last time that Audrey's friends saw her alive.
She's found deceased approximately fourteen hours later. As you can see,
there's a lot of CCTV cameras around here. This is
not unusual for a licensed premises and this would be
a starting point for a police investigation into finding out
(02:25):
what happened to Audrey Griffin. It is our understanding she
was trying to get home to stay at a friend's place
at the green Point, which is probably at I guess
eight kilometers from this location. Like a lot of people
(02:48):
that have been out late at night on the Central Coast,
it's always difficult to get home. Taxis are hard to
come by, ubers are hard to come by. Invariably people
start walking along the mainstream and looking for a taxi.
It's believed by Audrey's friends that's what she was doing
and the reason she walked along this path.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So what we're doing now.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Is effectively tracking the path that we believe Audrey would
have been walking whilst heading home to stay at the
friend's place at green Point. You can see this as
main Street. This is the main street and I think
it's even called main street at Gosford. There's a lot
of businesses along here. These are the type of businesses
that might keep a CCTV footage. So from an investigative
(03:36):
point of view, if you're trying to establish what path
a person took, you'd be checking these premises to see
if there was any CCTV footage to see if Audrey
was walking along this road. We're now driving past Gosford
Police Station that you can see on the left. That's
the actual command that was investigating Audrey's death. They'd be
(04:00):
very familiar with this area and familiar with the fact
that young people will find it hard to get home
at night, and the likelihood that Audrey would be walking
along along the road we're traveling on now. There's a
few quiet locations like this, but this is still near
the center of the Gosford CBD, so I think even
(04:22):
a young female would be feeling safe walking along along
this area. We're now coming into the area where Audrey
was murdered. You can see there's a creek, or it's
referred to as there in a creek, it's more like
a river. It's fairly substantial. We're driving on a main
road and there's a pathway that runs between the main
(04:44):
road and the creek. This is a pathway that Audrey
was walking along at the time that she came across Torrance,
the person who killed her. I'm just indicating to the
location in which Audrey was murdered. So we'll just pull up.
(05:19):
We're standing at the location Audrey Griffin's body was found.
She's found in the face down in the creek. There's
a big a set up with photos. There's flowers, lots
and lots of photos of Audrey and the friends, some
clothing hung, all sorts of things, even lights, flowers, stuffed toys, candles,
(05:46):
a whole range of things with Audrey's name written. One
thing that really stands out to me with a memorial
like this it's clearly just been set up by friends
of Audrey's, is how popular she must have been. How
many photos full of life photos there are, just as
her mum described as someone that was full of life.
And that just makes me sad standing here at the
(06:09):
location thinking, just one man's rage has stolen a young
girl's life. Just such a senseless, senseless killing. I'm going
to describe the location then just give him the thoughts
on how you'd approach this from an investigative point of view.
We know Audrey was last seen alive at Hotel Gosford
(06:31):
about two am, where she's been out celebrating with her friends.
I'm just walking along the pathway where Tyrans would have
been following Audrey. We know he at first was behind her,
possibly a kilometer back. This particular location is near where
Audrey was murdered. And what stands out to me here
if I'm looking back along the roadway. There there's not
(06:54):
a lot of trees separating between the roadway and the
pathway that Audrey would have been walking along. Just here
there's a clump of trees and there's a couple of
electrical boxes. I think that might make a difference if
he was going to strike, and I'm trying to anticipate
what's going through his mind, but there is a bit
of cover here for him. If this is where he
actually approached Audrey, we don't know what conversation has had,
(07:17):
what exactly happened, but there is a bit of distance
between the roadway and the pathway where that might have
been the reason he chose this particular location to approach Audrey.
It is quite chilling to think what she went through,
and she had a whole life ahead of her, and
(07:38):
it just breaks my heart and it makes me angry
that a person like Torran's, just an angry, violent, waste
of space human being, has taken someone's life like Audrey's,
who had so much to offer the world. Another bit
of I suppose sadness that's attached to attach this life
(08:00):
is the fact that it was Audrey's friends. Young Girls
nineteen year old girls that found Audrey found their friend.
They were so concerned about her, they went and started
looking around here along with another family friend and our
older friend came down here, found some of the property
and searched a bit further and then found her flooding
(08:22):
the water, deceased. So I can only imagine the trauma
their carrying. This is a fairly isolated location, isolated in
the early hours of the morning.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It's not a dangerous location.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
It's not a location where you think someone would actually
trip and fall into the water.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So there's a number of concerns.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
If you find the person's body, young girl nineteen years
old out celebrating and find her deceased in this river,
of course you're going to investigate it as suspicious. A
couple of things that really strike me about this location
and the initial police search was it was a matter
of days I believed before they found her phone. If
(09:07):
someone did, let's talk hypothetically, trip and fall into the water,
extremely unlikely. One would expect you'd find all the property
that she had on her at the time with her.
Her phone wasn't with her. They didn't find her phone,
So just from that point of view, I think the
matter should be treated as suspicious. You're looking at unnatural causes.
(09:29):
You start a homicide investigation, you treat it as potentially suspicious.
One thing that I was taught as a young detective
was never assume something is misadventure or natural causes unless
you can gather the evidence to prove that. From what
I see at this location, you can't gather evidence to
prove that it was a misadventure. There was an assumption
(09:52):
made that this was misadventure. As it turned out, it
was a cold blooded murder. And the way that phone
was found is also a little concerning in that it
was a friend, a family friend of Audrey's mother's friend, Lana,
found the phone. Audrey's mother, Kathleen, was told that the
location had been searched on numerous occasions, but apparently only
(10:13):
when the tide was high. Lana came down here three
days later and found the phone. She could see something
sticking out. She contacted police, well pick it up and
bring it to the police station. Thankfully that Lana was
a little bit more cluey on that and spoke to
another police officer and they sent police down immediately to
(10:33):
collect the phone and gather it as potential evidence. If
Lana was to pick up the phone, potentially it could
have been contaminated. There potentially could have been DNA or
fingerprints or some evidence trace material on the phone from
the offender. Another thing that's quite chilling about this crime
scene is when Kathleen describes going to see Audrey in
(10:56):
the post more than to say a goodbyes, as she said,
which is very sad, that what really haunts her is
the fact that Audrey didn't look at peace. She had
her hair were platted, but she had mud and dirt
in a hair. And something that really struck home with
(11:16):
Kathleen that Audrey's fingernails had mud under there under the
fingernails light she was struggling like she was fighting, and
I think that's something that really haunt haunts Kathleen. The
other thing about it, which I find quite alarming, DNA
from the offender, Torreans, was found under Audrey's fingernails. That
(11:41):
would be one of the first things you're looking for
when you're looking at a post more than a deceased person.
In these situations. If you take the camera up here
and you look across the creek to the river, there's
houses up there, houses that I think should be canvas,
and by canvas I mean daw not to find out
if anyone heard anything suspicious. It's fairly noisy here now
(12:05):
because of the traffic, but at two o'clock in the morning,
it's probably not so noisy. As it turned out, one
of the people in the houses across there heard a
female screaming at about two forty five. Sadly it was
most likely Audrey fighting for her life. That evidence was
uncovered by Kathleen, Audrey's mother. That shouldn't happen. These are
(12:30):
the type of things that need to be done, all
the canvases that need to be done.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
A nineteen year.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Old girl, fit, healthy, active, happy girl was found to
cease in the water. This is something that should have
been treated suspiciously right from the start. And I think
the frustration with the family, and this is a sense
I get speaking to the family, is that how was
it written off as misadventure so early in the investigation.
(12:56):
That might have been the conclusion they came to after
a thorough investigation, but so early in the investigation for
it to be written off as a misadventure. I don't
know if it's miscommunication between the police and the family,
but it's something.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That we might try and find out. I sat down
with Kathleen.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
For a very raw and unfiltered chat to shed light
on the impact of this senseless crime and the investigation
that followed. You're right at the start, absolutely okay. I
can't really start this conversation without offering my condolences for
(13:47):
what happened to Audrey. And I know words don't mean
a great deal the subject that we're talking about here,
but thank you. It's now been how long since Audrey
was murd To.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Be honest, I don't know. Twenty third of March was
when she passed.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I would imagine your life changed inconceivably since that time.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I wouldn't say I have a life anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
It's a heavy thing to say.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I don't know. It's just I don't know if it's
a real numbness, just numb myself by keeping myself extremely busy,
find it very hard to be alone, to sit still.
I'd say that I haven't accepted or given myself time
(14:48):
to agree for Audrey.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, you've had a lot a lot going on, and
I know we've met on occasions and had a lot
of conversations and see the way the emotions. Yeah, sometimes
when I'm speaking to you, I feel like, Okay, it's
a step forward, and other times it feels like a
step back, step back for it.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Oh, absolutely, look at I'd say that the reason why
I'm still standing is because of the support that i
have from family, friends, Lana. There's not a minute that
of the day that there's not someone here or that
(15:31):
I can't call on. Every day is a roller coaster.
I feel like I'm just existing and not living.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, there's I see and you reference Lana and not
just what Lana's doing, but a lot of friends. It
looks like they've formed a circle around you and very
protective of you.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, Yeah, it's nice, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Oh, I don't know. Like, as I said, look for
my family, it's extremely hard because I'm not sure if
you're aware that we lost my dad two weeks after Audrey,
and my dad was ninety two, so my mum's not
aware that they were aware that she passed away. But
(16:15):
because of the delay and them telling me that it
was a misadventure, dad had passed in that time, and
then we found out that she'd had been murdered, and
mums in her nineties as well, so she was very fragile.
So I decided that this was something that I didn't
(16:36):
want to address with my mum. So it's been extremely
hard promoting everything in regards to getting the support from
the community and everyone to find some justice in move
forward in regards to what's happened here.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
When we talk about justice, and you and I have
had long conversations about how I could offer some advice
or point you in the direction, and when you first
spoke to me, and when I first saw the story
of Audrey, I had concerns from the start when it
started hitting the media, but a little bit later than
(17:15):
probably what it should have been.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It's just appalling, it's appalling. And that were the words
exactly what I said to Yasmine Yates when.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
She turned up the police minister.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yes, when she turned up at the ritual. Once we've known,
once we've been informed what had happened to Audrey, and
I'd had an interview with sixty minutes that day, and
when I was interviewed, and when I spoke to Yasmine
and she said, look, she wasn't aware and that she
was her condolence, and I said to her, look, I'm
(17:51):
not here to get the police on the on the
on the back fold, you know I'm here. I want support,
I want just so, I want to find out the story.
I want justice for Audrey, my daughter was more than this.
I said to her then, look that I'd been interviewed
by sixty minutes, and that at any of that time
(18:14):
that I was interviewed, I'd rubbished anybody. I just needed
the story to be out for us to be able
to move forward and get some answers. I'd explained to
her that I hadn't done anything wrong in regards to
the police, but I did say to her that it
(18:35):
was appalling, and she said to me straight away, can
we organize a meeting, which we did.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
We're going to break down in the podcast what exactly
happened and what you had to do to make sure
that the police were doing their job. I think is
probably an appropriate way to say that before you agreed
to do the podcast, you said you want to get answers,
(19:02):
you want to find out what's happened and why things
have happened. You also said to me that I will
do a podcast with you if you challenge me. You said,
I will do a podcast with you if you're honest
in your opinion about whether the police had done the
right thing or not done the right thing. So that's
(19:24):
the premise of what this podcast is going to be about.
We want to hear your story. We want to talk
about Audrey, because audrey life should not be forgotten. And
I just see your reference what happened at Terrrigle, the
amount of people that turned up, and I get the
sense that Audrey touched the lot of lives.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Look, she was always she is an amazing child, and
she's always been an amazing child. She was strong, she
was independent, she was driven, she was a go getter,
she was happy, she she loved life. She was a
beautiful human being. She you know, what she had achieved
(20:10):
in nineteen years is just and her friends, we're just
everyone's just blown away. Like everyone's it's still unfolding. People
are constantly always learning. And myself of all her achievements,
all the letters that she sent out to people in
you know, condolence and helping and supporting and loving, and
(20:33):
you know, just the other day, I ran into a
lady from Central Coast Sports College that said she didn't
know Audrey, but she was going into the office to
speak to one of the ladies, and when she opened
the diary there's a letter from Audrey. You know, there's
all there's signs everywhere. There's signs everywhere and every day. UTS.
She had such an impact that they've come back to me.
(20:54):
They've sent me a letter saying that they're going to
honor her a Bachelor of Business and Economics and that
she achieved so highly and she was such a beautiful
student that they're honoring her with a degree on the
fifth of November at UTS and her father and I
(21:15):
and friends who are welcome to come along. And that's
just one you know, from the outside reaching in and
yet you know, these are the people that keep me standing.
Like you know, the Sharks who she played for Interegle,
(21:38):
they've got a shield called Audrey Griffin that they're using
as a best player that they're going to give continuously
every year. So she's got this legacy everywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well she and the sense that I get she really
she lived life like the Sharks that was playing rugby
league and she.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Played for UTS the Bats.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
You were at AFL doing triathlons.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
She did to one athlete in Newcastle. Then she did.
That was our last trip together four weeks prior to
her passing, where she asked me to come along to
New Zealand to do an iman, which she didn't train for.
She's just an amazing When she put her head to something,
she just did it. You know, as on arrival, you know,
(22:29):
we turn up there and she's got blisters all over
her feet just before she has to do a twenty
one kilometer run, one point nine swim, and a ninety
k bike ride. And then we had just an amazing
trip where she opened up and said to me that
you know how she just loved Trevor and I so much,
(22:52):
and how grateful parents we were, and how lucky she
was that she had us as parents, and I was
so lucky to that time with her. And then she
arrives home and the next day she flies out to
Japan to go skiing with one of her UNI friends
for two weeks and then comes home that day. And
that was the day after that. She got up in
(23:16):
the morning and she said, Mom, I'm going to the
Central Coast And I said, no, you're not. We're organizing
this massive party for you. Because she was going into
the Navy on the seventh of April, and I said, no,
you need to organize. You've organized this seven man ban
and I need to know who's coming. And she said, no,
I've got to go up the coast and see my friends,
because she'd been away for four weeks, and I'd actually
(23:38):
said to her, look, you know your father's, your grandfather
sick in hospital. He's out in Blacktown. You need to
put family first. Anyway, she walked out the door as
teenagers do and didn't say much. And later that afternoon
I get a photo of her with my dad and
then a photo where she'd gone and taken my mum,
who's ninety years of age, out for lunch and took
(23:58):
a photo. And my last words were to her was
I love you, my babe. You do me proud. And
then she come to the Central Coasts, caught up with friends.
Didn't plan on having a night, she just wanted to
catch up. But then obviously been away for four weeks
living in Sydney, she hadn't seen everybody and was excited
and started off at the Terrygool Hotel with her friends
(24:23):
and then decided to go to the Gospel Hotel.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I'd see your face light up when you're talking about
those memories, like what.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Child at nineteen has achieved. You know, she's done Europe
when she graduated from YU twelve a couple of weeks later,
jumped on a plane by herself and went to Thailand
and did a tracking for two weeks by herself. You know,
she had a car list. She learned how to drive
in a tip up truck, her manual tip up truck.
(24:58):
She learned how to drive with me in a v
doub multi van driving back and forward to Byron because
that was our thing. We used to do a lot
of trips to Byron. She had a motorbike license, she
had a jet ski license, she had a you know,
she had all these license. I do markets, or I
was doing markets, and I was at Bondai and she's
(25:19):
living with a dad at the time, while she was
at uts and I'm sitting at Bondau markets and here
comes Audrey with her leather jacket and her helmet in
her hands, walking towards me, and I went, oh, my goodness,
you didn't just ride that bike which is too big
for her, all the way from Mattreville to Bondai by yourself.
(25:40):
And she was just like yeah, well, like.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
She sounds like a force of nature.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Oh diving, you know, the Mermaids, the Mermaids, the Mermaids
our swimming group. You know how many arguments I had
with her in regards to always taking off from the
crowd and chasing this and chasing that and dive down
to the sharks.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Like she wasn't this is in the ocean swimming, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Oh absolutely, even when we you know, this is at
Terry gall with the Mermaids, we'd swim around to the
you know, the point and around to the haven and
you know, always swimming off trying to chase the little sharks.
And you know, even when we moved, I moved to
Cronulla and I started swimming. We both swam ocean swim
and we were swimming around Shark Island and you know,
(26:26):
they're all going, Audrey coming to the group, coming to
the group. Off she goes because she sees a seal.
You know, like she was just fearless, like no fear
but sensible, you know what I mean. Fearless but sensible.
But she had this personality also that people always thought
like when she was out, they always thought she'd had
a drink because they'd say, oh, dds is out, because
(26:46):
she'd come into this whole personality and light up the room.
She wasn't a drinker, She wasn't a drinker. She just
loved life and she loved people. She just love people.
And that was that night, and that which has ruined
(27:06):
our lives. The story is so long, and the whole
thing is so appalling, and I just don't understand how someone,
anyone could treat any human being. And I feel that
(27:28):
society is just ticking boxes and moving through life without
a heart. And Audrey will never be a number, She
will never be just that child. She is my child
and Trevor's child, and I am going to fight all
the way for justice.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I understand in the conversations we've had you've made that
very clear. And I made some notes from the conversations
that we've had in the anticipation that we might be
sitting down like this and to keep clarity on it.
These were the type of things that you said about
the answers that you want and what you want from doing,
(28:07):
whether it's a platform like a podcast or telling your story,
that you want the full facts to come out. I
want to know why murdering scumbag Adrian Torrans wasn't in custody.
And I want to know why Audrey's murder was treated
as misadventure. I want to know why I had to
push the police. I want to know why police took
(28:28):
so long to arrest Torrans when he's clearly a violent
man and had consistently breached AVA orders relating to his
former wife. And the other thing that you said to me,
you just don't know what to believe anymore. You've been
dragged into this world that you don't understand. I take
it you wouldn't have had experience with police or criminal
(28:49):
investigations of this nature, the courts, all these things. And
you asked me some questions when we're talking, it just
seemed so naive, Like I thought everyone knew a coronial
inquest is about the what abo. But that wasn't your world.
That wasn't Audrey.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Absolutely not like and I say it every day, even
til all the loved ones around me. You know, the
support I have, The support I have is so solid
and I and something that I repeat over and over,
you have no idea. You have no idea that the
things how I feel that triggered me, and and just
(29:30):
everything about the story is just appalling to the fact
is you know everything about it, even to the coroner report,
to me going when Trevor and I had to go
and identify it or say how goodbye is to Audrey.
(29:53):
It was just wrong. It was just wrong. I knew.
I knew when I saw her, and I didn't say
any think to her father at the time. And I
drove home and I said to him, how do you feel?
How did you feel when you saw Audrey? And he
said she wasn't at peace. I said, Trevor, I looked.
I looked at her. I pulled the sheets down, and
(30:15):
I saw things that no mother should have to see.
And I was also told before I walked in there
when I asked, how does my beautiful girl look? Does
her hair look beautiful? Does it? And she said, we've
cleaned rupt she looks beautiful. I walked in there. She
had makeup under her eyes, her hair was platted, and
it was full of mud and tweaks. I'm not going
to go any further because no one needs to know that.
(30:40):
That's what triggered me, and I knew, and I went
straight back to the scene and I looked across the
lake and I saw a house and I rang and
I said, have you spoken to the house across the road?
He said, I'll get back to you. Then weeks later
of me asking and asking and asking if I can
see footage that they kept saying it was in Sydney,
(31:06):
and it was in Sydney. It's in Sydney. And I
was like, you know, is there cameras the police? There
must have been taxis, there must have been people going
past the third day. So I'm I'm at can I
tell the story from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Let's explain the story from the beginning, because I want
to provide you with a platform of the concerns you
had right from the start and how it played out,
but just to put it in context, explain to people
what happened on the night Audrey.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Was so firstly, I just want to say that Audrey
wasn't intoxicated or have any drugs in the system. That's
come back, and that's another thing that's traumatized because there
was things that we needed to do to find out
those answers, and that was something very hard for me
(31:58):
to say goodbye to my girl order when we had
to do those things. And sorry, anyway, so that night,
that she went out. She only had a couple of drinks.
And they've told me that there was no way that
could have happened. She was it couldn't have been a misadventure.
(32:21):
It couldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Audrey's gone out on the night and started drinking it.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Well, she had a couple of drinks. She went to
the Teregle Hotel, which she wasn't playing because she wasn't
a drinker, and she said to a friend, Oh, should
I have a drink? And she said, I'll have a cocktail.
So I think it was like two or three drinks
that she had in the whole night. So she had
a cocktail there and then she had two red bulls
and Bokkers when she got to Gosford.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
This is Gosford Hotel, Main Street, Yes, and.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Then she was with friends there and she ran into
some other friends and they were all going to the
Gosford Hotel and she said, look, I'm going to go
there as well, because it was a group of friends
she wanted to catch up with, which she did, and
she look once I saw the footage, she looked happy.
She was happy, and that's what I wanted to see.
(33:10):
I wanted to see what state of mind she was in.
So anyway, she left the hotel and she hung out
for a little while with a friend, and she left
the hotel and decided to walk to try and get
(33:30):
a cab because it's very difficult to get a cab
from the Gosford Hotel. Now, she could have done a shortcut,
but she's gone the long way along the.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Waterfront to describe for people, not for me, but the
shortcut through the suburbs or backstreets of a suburb, whereas
she stayed on the main she went.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
In the lid up area where I would imagine that
she's done that to try and get a cab and
obviously lighting, so she's gone all the way where drifters is,
all the way around pass East Gosford Passy Eleanora. I'm
not one hundred percent sure he came from Gosford train
station and he came up from Surrey Hills. I'm not
(34:12):
sure what the procedure or what went on there.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
And this is in the early hours of the thirty
in the morning.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I think her phone last dropped out at two thirty.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
In the morning.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Okay, And you're understanding is she was heading into a
father's place.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
No, she was heading to a girlfriend's place at Green Point.
So originally the girlfriend that she'd gone out with was
they were staying at her grandparents interigor which are friends
of all of ours, their close friends. And then the
girlfriend wasn't well. She went home and she lives at
Green's Point. And then Audrey went out with other friends,
probably only fifteen twenty minutes away from home from where
(34:48):
she was staying at Grea's Point. Yeah, and then obviously
she'd phoned one girlfriend, the girlfriend she went to Japan
with that she'd seen in that night, and had a conversation,
not to her directly, but phoned her and she didn't
pick up and left a few messages. Then she rang
a girlfriend in Japan who she's grown up with since
(35:10):
she was two, and had a big conversation about her
childhood and they you know, sent each other photos and
and then she got off to the phone, got off
the phone to her and then the phone died at
two thirty.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
When when did you start to become concerned?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
So, I I wouldn't say I was a helicopter mom,
but you know, being my only child, you know, she
was a very strong and independent woman and she really
wanted to be independent, and so the deal was that
I've always said, you do me good, you do you
do yourself justice and do the right thing, You're always rewarded.
(35:55):
So the fact that she was at university and she
was striving to make herself a you know, a better
person and succeed in the world, and I wanted her
to be strong because I'm an older parent and an
only child. And I said to her, the deal is,
I'll pay for your phone, but I have to have
find my phone at all times so I know where
(36:15):
you are absolut How we had always good strategies and
she never complained. She never complained. Everyone else complained about
me doing it, stalking her, but we were fine with that,
and she was fine with me paying a bill. And anyway,
so I wake up as I do before I went
to bed, and you know, I don't go to a
(36:37):
bit of lake because I do markets. And I looked
at the phone and I can see she's out. And
then I woke up at the cracker dawn and I
looked at my phone and I saw the location and
straight away I was alarmed. And I'm an ocean swimmer,
so I was getting up at every morning to be
in the ocean by eight o'clock and to take the dog,
(36:57):
her dog down for a swim at the beach. And
I was like Cranola, living in Cronulla. And I looked
at the phone and I laid in bed and I
sent her a message straight away saying, Audrey, can you
just let me know when you're home, knowing that she
wouldn't get it until she woke up, but just something
to put out there. And I hadn't heard back. And
(37:19):
I got dressed and I went down to Cronulla Beach
and I got in the water, and as I was
getting in, something come over me, and I just didn't
feel right. I just didn't feel right. So I got
back in the car and I drove back and I
started texting and I said to my partner at the time,
(37:45):
Audrey hasn't got back to me, and a phone's in
a location. He said, oh, she's probably gone out and
had fun. She's going in the navy, and I went, yeah,
And it's funny because usually he's very like minded in
that way, but he even question went, but it's very
unusual for all not to get back to you. And
then I've phoned her father, and then I've sent a
(38:06):
message to a very good friend of hers who she
stays with on the coast, that I thought she may
have gone back there. And I sent a message and said,
just concerned. I've seen a location on Audrey's phone, and
she said to me, look, sometimes when your phone dies,
the location stops at that location. So it kind of
(38:26):
put a little bit of ease of me. And she
could have been the phone died or in a cab.
That's what I thought straight away. She's in a cab,
the phone's died, she's asleep somewhere. And I but I
was still concerned, so I said to Jen, would you
I said, I'm just concerned. Anyway, she phoned me back
(38:48):
and she said, look, my husband's happy to go down
there for a drive, just to see if you can
see a car. And he drove down there, he said,
the car's not there. You know, she's maybe by this day,
I spoken to her father and he said, look, I'm
just going to jump the car and I'm just going
to go up to the central coast, because he lives
in Mattrell at the time. And in this time, obviously
(39:10):
her friends have got one eighty or something the same
type of thing. You can find locations. Yet they've obviously
been alarmed but not phoned me. And I'm not sure
of the timing because it's all a little bit too
much at the moment. But what my understanding on what
I can remember is that while all this was going
(39:31):
on with me, one of the girls who's who she
was supposed to come back to, had gone to the
police station and reported her that she hadn't come home.
And then they phoned me the police and said, would
you go to the nearest police station and just release
to say that we can put something out as a
(39:52):
missing person and a photo. And I'm in the car
driving to the police station. Time at this stage Trevor's
gone up north and he said you just stay behind.
And on the way to the police station at Miranda,
(40:12):
I get the phone called back from my friend who
went there in the first place to see if her
car was there, and her husband had found her bag,
her hair clip and her sonnies at the location. Firstly,
she just said have you heard and I said what
she said, we found her bag. Now I had to
(40:34):
travel from Cronulla to the Central Coast in this time
I get there, it's pouring with rain. It's overcast. I
get there too, ambulance police, Trevor being there, her friend's
being there also. I've been informed that her friends went
(40:57):
to the police station and said, what.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
You going to do when they report?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
When they reported it, yeah, what are you going to do?
So they they went to the site at the creek.
They went to the location.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Her girlfriends they went there prior to police going there.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
They went to the police station and reported that she
was missing. And then they went to the creek where
two of friends and the grandfather of the young girl
were walking along the embankment and found Audrey floating up
(41:37):
so down in the water head down. When I arrived,
I'm in the ambulance. Police walked up to me and said,
I'm so sorry for your condolence, and I said, what
do you mean. They've just asked Trevor, her father, to
(41:58):
go down to the lake to identify because they were
bringing her in. She hasn't been identified. What are you
saying to me? And the ambulance who were amazing, pulled
me away and took him away. He walked then down
to the water side, stood next to Trevor, her father,
(42:22):
and was making jokes about the fieries. Now that's the beginning.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
What you're saying that doesn't paint a good picture. I
suppose as a way of saying.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
It, that was the beginning.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And then when you say the beginning, the.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Beginning of this, yeah, the hole. So then obviously they
identify Audrey. Trevor identifies Audrey. I go to Terragor, to
the Crown Plaza where I'm staying, and her father. I
(43:09):
can't remember what he went. He may have gone home,
he may stayed. Honestly, these pieces are really hard for
me to remember. Trevor and I are separated, but very
close and have a lovely relationship in regards to our daughter.
He's always been a part of her life and she
was living between me and him. At the time, I
(43:34):
was staying at the Crown Hotel, where I had amazing
support again once again through the community and the girls
that I swim with that were looking after me twenty
four hours a day, and I'd had mentioned is there
anything in the paper or in the media, and they replied.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
No, Okay, Just so I understand that you've described what's
happened at the scene where Audrey's body has been found,
and that Trevor, her father identified the body. You've turned
up and you'll explain what happened there. What were you
(44:18):
told by the police, what what would.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Happen at that stage? Nothing? And they did say to us,
we will be putting you in contact with support tomorrow.
We will have someone phone you, which never happened. Never happened.
We've been on this journey alone.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Going from that scene at the location and then you've
come up from Sydney, so you're staying that Terry or
you've booked the into the Crown there. When was the
next contact with police? Did you reach out to them
or did that?
Speaker 3 (44:55):
We've been constantly like constantly, the girls on my behalf.
I gave Permi obviously in the state of mind that
I was in and look to be honest, I have
been quite strong and direct and she's my daughter. I
want to answers, and I wasn't yeah yeah, and I
(45:15):
was asking the questions and the girls were treating very
lightly but speaking in the background. So I signed a
couple of girls to work with me and to work
with the police so that they could give me the
wordings that they use because obviously they don't make As
we were saying earlier, it's a whole new vocabulary for
(45:37):
me again, correct, And we were questioning and when I
asked the question, had it been in the media, they said, no,
it's like get me out of bed, get me down there.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Okay, So how this is what The day after I.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Think we were thinking as about two or three.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Days, had you viewed Audrey's body? By that stage, okay,
two or three days? There was nothing in the media
about it. Did the police suggest to you an investigation
was going on? Like I'm trying to get the story
from sides.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
So I went down there straight away and said to
the police Gospel the police station, and I said, why
why isn't anything in the media. I've just looked at
something on social media straight away and some guy nearly
drowned in the haven that's saved and he's in the paper.
Yet my daughter's been found and nothing. And he replied
(46:36):
to me, we don't want trolls.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Okay. You asked or demanded of me that if you
do the podcast, offer opinions on if the police maybe
it could have been done differently or a different approach.
What we've got here. And I've been to the location,
so I've made an assessment looking through from a formal
(47:03):
homicide detective's viewpoint, nineteen year old girl found deceased in
those circumstances early hours of the morning, assumptions could be
made its misadventure, but I think a stronger assumption should
be a suspicious suspicion attached to what's happened here. I
would see the media using the media at that early
(47:26):
stages of the investigation. Sometimes there's legitimate reasons why it's
not released in the media. Sometimes there's strategies in place.
I don't know the full details of the investigation, but
given the fact that it appears on face value that
they were treating it as death by misadventure, there still
needs to be a coronial in a coronial brief of
(47:47):
evidence prepared, and I think it would be more than
appropriate to make an appeal to the public and put
it out there. Did anyone see this person walking along? Like?
It's not like? Did anyone see this person in the
middle of Sydney in the middle of the correct This
is a girl walking home late at night, in the
early hours of a morning, like an appeal? Did anyone
(48:07):
have any knowledge of this person? And perhaps put a
photo out so we have. You've described a situation where
Audrey's body was found in air and the creek, and
that was on the Sunday afternoon. My readings in the
in newspaper reports vary from three point forty five to
five pm on the Sunday as a rough rough time. Correct,
(48:31):
there was nothing in the media. Your process in dealing
with everything you possibly can. Two or three days later,
you're saying, well, you're surprised there's nothing in the media
about this. You've gone to the police and the person
that you spoke to told you when you asked the question,
why wasn't it released in the media, You're saying that
that person said, because we don't want trials.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Correct the whole everyone, not one person, not one person
come to me and said they believed that it was
a miss event. Everyone was like, no way, Like everyone,
there's not one person that's come forward. And when it
could have been a misadventure.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
When was the narrative that when did you have a
direct conversation with the police that we're telling you that
they think it's misadventures all along?
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Explained that look straight away, it was like it's a misadventure.
Even when he said that about the missut. Then he said, well,
do you want something in the media, and I said yes.
Then they release something in the paper, but only the
story without the photo. So then I bring him back
again and I was like, where's the photo. He goes, oh,
you want a photo, and I'm like, yes, I want
a photo. The whole time it's a misadventure. So then
(49:47):
we get the time comes to go and see Audrey.
We see Audrey and I know, and I go straight
back to him. And that's when I went to the
creek and I looked across the road and I asked
the question, has anyone spoken to the house across the road.
He replied, I don't know. I'll get back to you.
(50:10):
I said to him, this is not a misadventure. The
footage that they released three weeks later, they picked that
up on the twenty fourth, and that was three hour
footage of him walking behind her at two thirty in
the morning. And the reply was when I asked why
he was twenty meters behind at two thirty.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
In the morning. Okay, but and that is after your
initiated them looking through the footage, correct, I suppose the
way that I would approach this, And I'm choosing my
words carefully here because I don't want to come across
as someone there again going I would have done this,
(50:54):
I would have done that. So what I'm saying here,
and you know we're here in your version of it,
what I'm saying here in circumstances, and I was in
homicide for over twenty years, so I'm not talking just
from lack of experience. So I've got the experience that
a situation like that, what should happen is that local police,
(51:18):
and it might be uniform police, called their first up.
They would then call local detectives. Local detectives would notify homicide.
Homicide would be formally in charge of that investigation, and
that's technically how it goes. So that's sort of like
a standard operating procedures. And I'm not talking out of
school here, that makes sense. And it was bored in
(51:40):
that way because there were problems where suspicious deaths were
treated as misadventures or accidents and evidence was lost. You've
got a nineteen year old girl, fit, healthy, no indication
of self harm, so that's it. Excited, So you're working
(52:02):
on the assumption you've got a young girl. For all
intents and purposes, was having a night out with friends
and was trying to make her way home. And I
do understand the central case. It's hard to get transport
late at night. I know those situations, trying to get
home late at night, walking along the street, trying to
get a taxi, trying to trying to find the way home.
(52:23):
So that in itself, there's no oh, there's some reckless
recklessness there. She's walking along where Audrey's body was found.
For people don't understand the Central coast. You've got a
very busy road and you've got a pathway. The pathway
is in between the creek. We call it the creek,
it's closer to it being a river. A river, the
(52:44):
pathway and then this busy street. It's not like she's
walking along a cliff face and accidentally falling into the water.
It's a flat, flat surface, a nice wide footpath. She's found.
Her phone stops at two forty five, two.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Thirty somewhere around there. Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Sure exactly her belongings are spread around. It would interest
me how a belonging to it if she gives low tide,
if she just tripped and fell into the water. One
with assumed she'd have all the belongings there, but her
belonging to it spread around. There's a suspicion attached there.
Quite often with investigations, you don't know the cause of
(53:29):
death until the post more than has been conducted. When
the post more than was conducted, it's my understanding this
is jumping head a little bit that there was DNA,
the offender's DNA found under a fingerprints under her fingernails.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Left finger scratched him on the face.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
That is a telltale sign that adds to the suspicion.
So what is confused. I'm telling you what we will
do as a homicide detective. We appoint the liaison office
of the family. The families informed that, look, we don't
know what's happened to your daughter at this stage, that
would be the appropriate response, but we're investigating it. When
(54:10):
we know something, we will pass that information on. So
that's how I'm saying. I was taught to run an
investigation of that nature. And yeah, the way I would
like to think i'd run that investigation, you'd also put
something out in the media, and I can think of
the media release straight away. Please have concerns for the
(54:31):
following the death of a nineteen year old girl that
was found deceased in Aerona Creek. Anyone that saw this
person last known sightings was at Gosford Hotel travel along there.
Anyone with any information please provide that to police that's
using the media to gather evidence. I would also have
you talk about the house opposite the creek. I would
(54:53):
also have a canvas conducted looking for witnesses, maybe eyewitnesses
or someone that's heard something I think in the area
that she's walked. You would also track between Gosford Hotel
to where Audrey's body was found. That would be I'm
guessing here, but six maybe five or six kilometers thereabouts,
(55:16):
passes a lot of businesses, some of which might have
even been open in the early hours of the night,
So you canvas san and you'd also look for CCTV
footage because the path that it appears that she's taken
goes past the licensed premises which would have CCTV footage.
Speaker 3 (55:34):
Which they did.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
You'd be doing all that, all that before you came
to the assumption that was by misadventure. What happened here?
Was this a robbery? If all her property that she
had at the time was not with her. Where her
body was found, one would assume, well, there's been interference,
they're possibly interference, So until you found all her property,
(55:57):
including the phone, you'd be treating that there's potently suspicious
as well. So, Kathleen, I'm sitting here only because I
gave you the undertaking that if you agreed to do
the podcast, I'll say, I'll tell you exactly what I
think should happen in a homicide investigation, which should have
(56:17):
burned because what I was taught as a young detective,
and I'd like to think I passed this on that
when you get called to a death in unnatural courses
or causes or slightly suspicious, you treat it as a
homicide until you can prove otherwise. So that's what I
believe is the benchmark on how this matter, Audrey's death
(56:39):
should have burn investigated. That's just to put it in context.
What you're about to tell us, what you went through, and.
Speaker 3 (56:47):
It's exactly what I would have thought how it should
have been. Three day I'm ringing, going where's her phone,
where's her phone, where's this? Where's that? I want it
back even to the fact they took the car and
when I had to pick the car up her computers
in the At this stage they hadn't found a phone.
(57:08):
And when I picked her car up from is it crime?
Speaker 1 (57:12):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (57:15):
I opened the boot and her computers in the back
of the car and I ring here the detective and say,
why is her computer in the car? Why haven't you
looked at It's not irrelevant to the case.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
Then my beautiful Lana goes down I think on the Wednesday,
to show respect she's sitting there in low tide. Walks
up to the location and there's Audrey's phone sitting in
(57:49):
the mud, exactly in the locations of where the bag,
the hair clip and her sonnies. So Lana calls the
police station and says, I'm at the location. Are the
girls deceased? I think I found a phone? He replied,
(58:12):
can you bring it in? She then said, I don't
think you understand I'm at the scene with the young girl.
He said, well, how do you know it's hers? So
by this stage, she said in the background, someone else
jumped in and took the phone. Now she found the
(58:32):
phone in low tide. They'd been telling me for three
days that they've been scousing the area. Did you go
down in low tide. No, because we had divers coming
on Wednesday afternoon, No one went down in low tide
where they found her bag. Originally that's where the phone
(58:54):
was sitting. They also they also so a week later.
Audrey's life was taken. On the Sunday. The following Friday,
another close girlfriend that we swim with was driving to
Sydney at five am in the morning. Driving past the location,
(59:16):
she sees a man in the area with the white
shorts and the T shirt and the hat with a
stick poking through the grass. So she rings crime and
leaves a message saying I'm at the sea. Da da
da da daw. She goes on with her work and
obviously in three and a half three bit weeks and
we're all working on this because no one had actually
(59:36):
seen what.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
He looked like.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
At this stage, I'm demanding to see the footage. They're
telling me it's in Sydney, and I'm like, I've got
to come in. He says, like, you can come in.
So I go in and I said, I want to
see all footage. Now, I've got an hour before I
go in there to see the footage. And I'm sitting
at the creek with Audrey down at the creek and
I'm looking across and I'm like, you know what, I'm
going to go to door knock, and I'm going to
(59:57):
go to the VP, I'm going to go to the brewery.
I'm going to go to all those places. I'm going
to go the main house. When you look across said
they haven't had anyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
That wasn't canvas.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
It was canvas. So they originally so when we brought
it to attention and that we end up having an
interview with police, they informed us that they did scals,
but they left business cards in their doors.
Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Okay, it's a couple of things. Just break down a
couple of things. If we just go back to the
phone for a moment. Did they come they told Lana
just to bring the phone in. Did they actually send
police down and take photographs and in siture and preserve
it properly? Okay, Well, that's that's good to know that
(01:00:48):
with the canvas of a place, you're not canvassing a
place by leaving a business carden. What a lot of
people And again, I can only bring back to practices
that I was taught that a canvas is complete when
everyone's being spoken to, like not just leaving, leaving a
card and the door, like people look at it, say
(01:01:11):
what going to those businesses? And this is all three
weeks after.
Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Two to three weeks, I would say.
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
So at this point in time, are you of the
belief that police are just treating this as misadventure? Of course,
were you actually told that we.
Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
All along, all along to the fact that I'm like,
it is not like when I saw Audrey. I knew,
not because I'm a crazy woman just going. I knew I.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Looked not just marks the face.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
More than that you knew. I saw her hands. I
saw her hands and straightway I knew what she was
doing crawling. I'm like that full of mud.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
That's what you saw.
Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
I picked up dirty full of mud. And I went
back to him and I said, this is not a
bit of adventure, Kathleen.
Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
It is even to the fact.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Where so you actually had that conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Many many, many many times. I've got witnesses I had.
I brought people with me the whole time, Lana, I
brought all the girls with me, so I had back
up and support all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
And was there any softening from police?
Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Did they never there was nothing. It was always silence.
It was very silent. Whenever I adjusted anything or said anything,
it was just Yeah. The two who I won't shame
their names, that just sat there and I said, tell me,
(01:02:55):
do you have children? He said, yes, How would you
feel this happened? He's a misadventure, I understand, but it's
a misadventure. It's not a misadventure. This is not a misadventure.
And to the point when I asked, when I went
(01:03:15):
door knocking, and then I went in to see the
footage and I walked in and I said to him,
so you told me that you've gone daughter at all?
He said yes. I said, because I've got the phone numbers,
and shall I get them out now at ring them?
Because I've just come from their houses and nobody's had
any contact.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Had you asked whether homicide's involved at this way?
Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
I didn't even know those words.
Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Okay, So in the world that you're not familial, not familiar.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
With that's the thing too. No support in understanding or
understanding the procedure, the support nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Why And I'm offering you just asking for your opinion
opinion here, But why do you think there was so
much resistance from the police.
Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
When you're talking to them, I'll tell you straight away,
they thought I'd go in there. This is my feel
they thought when I'd go and see Audrey. I don't
think that they even tried to cleaner up. I think
they just put it straight down. I feel they just
if I'd walked in there and looked at Audrey and said,
(01:04:26):
Michael eyes, that would have been the end.
Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
When we continue on and talk about it, it certainly
appears the way that it was heading now. I'm assuming
here because I don't know the full details. But if
they're telling the mother who's continually coming to the police
station and saying, have you done this? Have you done that,
it's misadventure. And that's what you're saying. Correct me if
(01:04:54):
I'm wrong. They're telling you on numerous occasions, this is misadventure.
Unless you kept pushing very well, could have just been
written off as a misadventure.
Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Absolutely
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