Case 340: Elisabeth Membrey

*** Content warning: Sexual assault *** When 22-year-old aspiring journalist Elisabeth Membrey failed to answer her phone on December 7 1994, her loved ones knew something was wrong. A visit to her Ringwood East unit confirmed their suspicions when blood stains were found on the carpet, but Elisabeth herself was nowhere to be seen. With Elisabeth’s disappearance declared to be a homicide, her parents, Roger and Joy Membrey, refused to give up the search for answers. But with one twist after another, they could never have anticipated the journey that lay ahead. --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Elsha McGill Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-340-elisabeth-membrey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  From journalist Olivia LaVoix, the creator of the hit investigative series The Bakersfield Three, comes the new Case File Presents series, Ada. In 2011, the body of a woman was discovered in a California vineyard. For more than a decade, she was known only as Jane Doe. Then detectives finally discovered her name. But identifying her was only the beginning. Listen to Ada wherever you get your podcasts.

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  It was getting late on the afternoon of Wednesday, December 7, 1994, and married couple Joy and Roger Membry were seriously starting to worry. Their daughter, 22-year-old Elizabeth, had been scheduled to attend an important doctor's appointment earlier that day, and they'd been eagerly waiting to hear how it went. For the past year, Elizabeth had been experiencing bouts of severe abdominal pain, and she'd been hoping that this specialist appointment might finally explain why. When Roger called Elizabeth earlier that day to ask how it went, she didn't answer her phone. He left a message on her answering machine, but by 6pm, she still hadn't returned his call.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  Joy tried Elizabeth again. Still no answer. The Membries' worry only increased after receiving a phone call from Elizabeth's boyfriend, Jason, asking if Elizabeth was with them. Jason said he too had been trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with Elizabeth all day. They'd had dinner plans the previous night that Elizabeth cancelled at the last minute after being asked to work overtime. She worked as a bartender at the Manhattan Hotel, a pub in the outer Melbourne suburb of Ringwood, which was just a short drive from her home. Their anxiety spiking, Roger and Joy Membry drove past the pub to check if Elizabeth's car was in the car park.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Upon seeing it wasn't there, they continued on to Elizabeth's flat in Ringwood East, which was an eight-minute drive away. By the time they arrived, it was nearing 10pm. All the lights were off inside, but they were relieved to see Elizabeth's car, a red Mazda hatchback parked in its usual spot in the driveway. They knocked on the flat's front door. There was no answer.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  This caused genuine concern for the doting parents. Elizabeth adored her car, she considered it her ticket to independence, and if she planned on going somewhere, there was no way she'd leave it behind without telling anyone her plans. The only explanation the Membries could think of was that Elizabeth must be sick or injured inside the flat. At that moment, Jason pulled up. The trio examined the property and discovered that one of the windows was slightly ajar. Unsure of what else to do, Jason agreed to break in.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  With Roger and Joy's help, he slowly managed to shimmy his way inside. The Membries waited anxiously outside while Jason looked around. Then, they heard his howls.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  At first glance, Elizabeth's flat looked like it always did. The front door opened to the small living room, which was relatively neat and organised. There were a few haphazard items in the entranceway and clean laundry hanging on a small fold-up clothes horse. The adjoining kitchen was spotless, the only thing out of place was a single-used coffee mug that sat in the sink.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  But the hallway told a different story. Just outside of Elizabeth's bedroom, a large pool of blood stained the hallway carpet. It looked like someone had tried to mop it up.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  Jason led the Membries inside, but between the three of them, it was obvious that Elizabeth wasn't there. The only things that appeared to be missing were Elizabeth's doona, her black leather purse, her house keys, and her car keys.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  The Membries didn't know what to think. With everything else in the flat appearing normal, the only explanation they could think of was that Elizabeth had been badly injured. Frantically, they started calling nearby hospitals, asking whether their daughter had been admitted as a patient. When none of the hospitals answered in the affirmative, Roger called the police.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  By 11pm, uniformed officers from Ringwood's Criminal Investigation Branch arrived at the flat. Inspecting the scene, it was clear to them that the blood in the hallway had been there for some time. It had been a swelteringly hot day in Melbourne, with the temperature soaring to almost 40 degrees Celsius, and the blood had dried brown. But the police also noticed some things that the Membries had missed. Inside the flat was a bucket filled with wet rags. The toilet paper holder was also missing, and there was no toilet paper anywhere in the house. It was obvious that someone had tried to clean up the scene.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Some portions of the hallway wall had been wiped down, but not thoroughly. Down low, just above the skirting boards, several small spatters of blood remained.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Despite the blood, there was no evidence of forced entry or signs of a struggle, and the police weren't able to ascertain what had happened inside the flat. Elizabeth's case was handed to the Missing Persons Unit, who wanted to learn more about the 22-year-old. As far as Roger and Joy Membry were concerned, Elizabeth was everything they'd ever wanted in a daughter. As the only girl and youngest in a family of three children, Elizabeth had grown up to be an independent, sociable, and friendly young woman. She had a joyful laugh and curly dark hair, and people naturally gravitated to her. That was what made her such a good fit at the Manhattan Hotel,

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  where she was liked by customers and coworkers alike. But the bartender gig was just temporary. Elizabeth had recently graduated from La Trobe University with a degree in politics and was pursuing a career in journalism. Passionate and idealistic about current affairs, she often wrote to The Age newspaper to express her views on a range of topics. "So the Japanese aren't playing it fair in trade relations with the US", she'd written to the editor earlier that year. Surely it's time someone started playing the Americans at their own dirty game.

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  In another, she voiced her disappointment in the lack of services available for people with mental illness, stating: "It is about time that the issue of mental health is properly addressed in this country." Elizabeth dreamed of one day being a broadcast journalist and was taking steps to make that happen, having recently applied for a position with Commercial Television Network, Channel 10. Not only was her future looking bright, but she had great relationships with her parents and her boyfriend, and a solid network of close friends. The memories assured investigators that Elizabeth had no enemies, wasn't involved in anything

• 8:58Speaker 00

  nefarious, and there was no one who could possibly wish her harm.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Hoping to piece together Elizabeth's last known movements, the police began door-knocking homes in the area. They also set up a caravan opposite Elizabeth's flat, where people could report anything they thought might be helpful. The street that Elizabeth lived on, Bedford Road, was a busy thoroughfare, and because the night she went missing had been such a hot one, police were hopeful that more people might have been out than usual. Maybe someone had witnessed something significant.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  An old school friend of Elizabeth's reported having seen her at the Ringwood Aquatic Centre at around 10am on the day before she went missing.

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  Elizabeth had gone for a swim and chatted to a man whom she appeared to know. He was described as tall, athletically built, and good-looking, with tanned skin and sandy hair shaved at the back and sides, but thicker on top. A member of the public had also seen Elizabeth at the pool that day, recognising her from an article about her disappearance. He told the police that Elizabeth had been in the water when he noticed a man standing at the side of the pool verbally abusing her, “like you wouldn’t believe”.

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  Horrified by the language the man was using, the concerned citizen considered stepping in, but the man, who matched the description provided by Elizabeth’s school friend, abruptly walked away with a distinct limp.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  A few hours after this encounter, one of Elizabeth's neighbours was on their way to run an errand when they reportedly saw Elizabeth standing in the driveway of her unit, arguing with a man.

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  The two were loading shopping bags into the boot of a blue Holden Gemini when Elizabeth turned and stormed into her unit, with the man following behind. The neighbour only saw them from a distance, and therefore didn't notice any distinguishing characteristics, but she described the man as being solidly built, around six feet tall, with light brown hair.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Later that afternoon, the local postie saw Elizabeth in the street, and they had a brief chat. The postie didn't notice anything unusual about Elizabeth or her behaviour, telling the police that she was her typical friendly self.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Investigators also spoke to Elizabeth's coworkers at the Manhattan Hotel. Despite its ambitious name, the Manhattan was a working-class pub that attracted what journalist D N Munro described as "a clientele of hard-drinking knock-about types". On the evening of Tuesday, December 6, Elizabeth was scheduled to work at the Manhattan from 5 until 8.30pm, after which she was supposed to have dinner with her boyfriend Jason and his parents. But it had been a busy evening, and as she was nearing the end of her shift, her manager asked if she could stay until closing time.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Elizabeth had called Jason from work to let him know about the change of plans. Neither Jason nor any of the Manhattan staff noticed anything unusual about Elizabeth's behaviour that night, and she didn't report any issues with any of the patrons. She clocked off at 11.45pm and drove the short journey home.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  Police could tell that she had arrived there safely because her car and work clothes were found at the unit. The only item of clothing that appeared to be missing was a white t-shirt that Elizabeth often wore to bed, indicating she'd changed into that upon returning home from work.

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  What happened between then and when her parents arrived at her flat the following night remained unknown.

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  A woman named Andrea lived with her two poodles in the adjoining unit to Elizabeth's. She told police that at around 1:30am on Wednesday, December 7, her typically quiet dogs started barking incessantly at the fence that separated the two properties. Andrea had gone outside to try and calm them down. Shortly after, she heard a loud bang from Elizabeth's unit. She peered outside and noticed an old white car parked near the front gate. Andrea didn't know exactly what make or model the car was, but suggested it could have been a Toyota Solica or something similar.

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  It was dirty, with four round headlights, and its front grille appeared to be missing. She went back to bed, and when she left for work around 7am, the white car was gone.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  But, something significant had happened during the time that Andrea went back to sleep. At around 3:30am, a milkman was doing his early morning rounds, when he noticed that Elizabeth's red Mazda hatchback had been backed up to the front door of her unit. Around that same time, a truck driver passed Elizabeth's unit and saw what he believed to be a small powder-blue sedan, possibly a Datsun, exit the driveway and radically enter Bedford Road. Another motorist was travelling through the area sometime between 3:45 and 4:15am, when they saw a red hatchback driving unusually slowly on Bedford Road.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  They caught a quick glimpse inside and saw that a lone male was behind the wheel. At around 4:45am, another witness reported seeing a white two-door sports car parked across Elizabeth's driveway. A forensic examination of Elizabeth's car revealed traces of blood on the back seat. There was also soil and dust wedged in the wheel trim and doors, which none of Elizabeth's loved ones could explain. They described her as a city girl who drove exclusively on sealed bitumen roads.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  Armed with these reported sightings, the police's priority was to identify the man Elizabeth was seen arguing with the day before she went missing. Descriptions of the person she'd been talking to at the aquatic centre were strikingly similar to the one she was seen arguing with in her driveway a few hours later. Yet, none of Elizabeth's close friends or family had any idea who he could be. Police couldn't even be certain if both encounters involved the same man or two separate individuals. Elizabeth was a prolific diary writer who recorded everything that was going on in her life, but when police obtained her diaries, they found nothing to suggest this man's identity.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Elizabeth hadn't mentioned having any altercations with anyone, nor had she voiced any concerns over anything else going on in her life. But, one detail was giving the police serious pause. Elizabeth didn't live alone, but with a close friend named Justine, not her real name. The two had known each other for years and were members of the same dance club. However, in the days leading up to Elizabeth's disappearance, Justine had broken her ankle in a horse-riding accident and gone to stay with her boyfriend on the Mornington Peninsula. Unable to drive, she had left her car parked outside of the unit alongside Elizabeth's Mazda.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Not many people knew about this, meaning that to the naked eye, it would have appeared that at least two people were home on the night that Elizabeth went missing. If someone had gone to the unit with the intention of harming Elizabeth, it therefore stood to reason that they knew she would be home alone. On her bed, police had found a half-written letter to a friend in England. They theorised that Elizabeth could have been in the middle of writing the letter when she was interrupted by a knock at the door. Recognising the visitor, she let them inside. Alternatively, it was also possible that the offender was already inside the house when she arrived home and had been laying in wait.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Regardless of how they got in, police believed Elizabeth was likely caught off-guard when the offender launched a fatal attack in the hallway, as there were no signs of a struggle. They didn’t think it was a planned attack, but more a spur-of-the-moment situation. In a bid to cover up what he’d done, the offender then used the duna from Elizabeth’s bed to transport her body to the backseat of her own Mazda, which he then drove on a dirt road until finding a suitable location to dispose of her body. Afterwards, he spent a considerable amount of time cleaning up the crime scene before fleeing in the early morning hours.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  With two cars spotted in the area over a period of around three hours, a white sedan as well as a blue one, it was also possible that the offender had been helped by an accomplice.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  As police continued interviewing coworkers from the Manhattan Hotel, it emerged that a bouncer who worked at the pub called Bruce Simpson, not his real name, had a crush of sorts on Elizabeth. Some thought it went beyond that, describing Simpson as obsessed with Elizabeth.

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  Having recently come out of a violent and volatile marriage, he even referred to her as his substitute wife to some. Simpson liked to joke around with Elizabeth, but he’d recently taken things too far with what he considered to be a prank that she didn’t find funny. Elizabeth had been standing with her hands behind her back when Simpson came up behind her and placed his testicles in her hands. On the night of Tuesday, December 6, Bruce Simpson had been at the Manhattan, not as an employee, but a patron. Two days into the investigation into Elizabeth’s disappearance, he voluntarily presented himself to the Ringwood Police Station after word got out that the cops were looking for

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  him. Simpson told the police that he’d been drinking at the Manhattan on Tuesday night with his female housemate. He said they went home at around midnight and didn’t leave their house again.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  Police were sceptical, particularly because they'd already spoken to Simpson's ex-wife, who told them that he had been fixated on Elizabeth.

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  They arranged for a tap on his home phone and closely monitored his movements, while focusing on the more pressing matter at hand: finding Elizabeth.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  After a week passed with no sign of Elizabeth, the case was handed over to the homicide squad, who explained their working theory to the public for the first time. A spokesperson for the missing person unit told reporters: "The background we have on Elizabeth cannot identify anyone who would wish her harm. She's an extremely intelligent and well-liked young woman." This was backed by a homicide squad detective, who stated: "There is no reason at all to believe that anyone would want to do Elizabeth harm. We think she was most likely an innocent victim."

• 21:00Speaker 00

  For Elizabeth's parents, Joy and Roger Membry, the reality that Elizabeth's disappearance was now considered a homicide was difficult to comprehend. Despite the evidence that had been uncovered so far, the Membry's had been clinging to hope that Elizabeth would be found alive. Until anything was confirmed, they refused to think otherwise. A distraught Joy made an emotional appeal to the public, saying: "If there is anyone out there hurting her, she doesn't deserve it. She is such a caring, lovely girl. She has never hurt anyone."

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Based on the information gathered so far, police believed that Elizabeth's killer likely frequented either the Manhattan Hotel or the Ringwood Aquatic Centre, and that they had free time during the day. Their decision to transport Elizabeth's body using her own car also indicated a basic knowledge of forensics.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Scientific analysis of the soil recovered from Elizabeth's car identified two potential origins, both within an hour's drive of Melbourne. The first was King Lake, a town approximately fifty kilometres north of Ringwood, which is primarily composed of forest and farmland, and is gateway to the King Lake National Park. The second location was Sylvan, a farming area twenty-five kilometres east of Ringwood, notable for the Sylvan reservoir and its surrounding eucalyptus forest. Based on these findings, the police concluded that Elizabeth's body was within a one-hundred kilometre radius of Melbourne.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  With King Lake National Park alone covering a radius of fifty-seven thousand acres, this barely narrowed things down, but the locations were a clue within themselves. The homicide detectives knew that killers typically hide their victims in areas they are familiar with, so it stood to reason that Elizabeth's killer had some kind of connection to one of these locations. One of the big unanswered questions was whether Elizabeth voluntarily let the offender inside, or whether they had broken in. Due to how hot it had been on the night she went missing, Elizabeth had left some of the windows to her unit open.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  It was possible that the offender had gained access this way. Elizabeth's housemate Justine also said that some of the windows didn't lock properly, and that she had easily broken in herself on several occasions after accidentally locking herself out. There was also the question of whether anyone else might have a key to the unit. Justine had been planning on moving out later that month, and had arranged for a friend to pick up some of her furniture, but she couldn't recall whether or not she had given them a key. Elizabeth's boyfriend Jason told the police that he'd once gone to the unit when Elizabeth wasn't home. Painters had been working on the outside of the building at the time, and had told

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  Jason where he could find a key hidden in the backyard. While it was possible that the offender knew where this key was hidden, police were convinced it was more likely that Elizabeth knew her killer and had to let them inside. But, given the late hour of their visit, the question was: who would she have felt comfortable enough to open the door for?

• 24:37Speaker 00

  On Saturday, December 17, the telephone intercept on Bruce Simpson's home phone picked up something of interest. During a phone conversation with an associate named Barry, Simpson said that he'd been "hassled to the max" over Liz going missing. He asked Barry if the police had spoken to him, adding reassuringly: "You're alright. I haven't told the police that I came to your joint late that night." This was significant because Simpson had told the police that after he'd returned home from the Manhattan around midnight, he hadn't left again.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Catching him in a lie, the police spoke to Bruce Simpson again two days later. He came clean, admitting that the real reason he'd been at the Manhattan on December 6 was because he was looking for Barry. Barry was his drug dealer, and he was hoping to score some cannabis. Unable to find him at the pub, Simpson said he and his housemate Jenny returned home at midnight, but he then left the house alone at around 2am to drive to Barry's to buy the drugs. He said the reason he didn't tell police this at the start was because he didn't want to get Barry in trouble.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Simpson's admission only increased police suspicion, as the drive to Barry's put him within closer proximity to Elizabeth's unit. They spoke to Barry, who said he'd been so drunk and stoned on the night in question that he didn't remember a thing. But Simpson's housemate Jenny backed his story. She said Simpson was only gone for 20 or 30 minutes, and that they smoked the cannabis together upon his return before retiring to their separate bedrooms.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  With Elizabeth's killer believed to have spent hours at her unit, Jenny's alibi essentially cleared Simpson, but the police weren't fully convinced. He quickly rose to the position of prime suspect. Then, another call came through that caught their attention.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  A member of the public urged the police to look into a man named Shane Bond. He claimed that Bond was a regular at the Manhattan who drove an old white Datsun Coupe and had a proven history of violence towards women. According to the tipster, Bond had once followed an ex-girlfriend home and bashed her new boyfriend in a jealous rage, landing him with a conviction. What's more, his ex-girlfriend resembled Elizabeth, and she too worked in a bar. He also walked with a limp, which was the result of an indoor cricket injury.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Police spoke to Shane Bond on Thursday, December 22. He said he didn't recall what he had been doing on the night of Tuesday, December 6, but denied being at the Manhattan Hotel. Bond said he only drank there on Saturdays during the football season, which had ended months prior, and that although he'd seen Elizabeth working there before, he didn't know her and they'd never spoken.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  While the police were speaking to Bond, they couldn't help but notice that despite his limp and strong build, he didn't match the description of the man seen arguing with Elizabeth on the day she went missing. He also had deep acne scars on his face, a distinctive feature that none of the witnesses had noted. Police therefore ruled Bond out as a suspect and continued with their investigation.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  They were interested in speaking to the younger brother of Elizabeth's housemate Justine, 19-year-old Andrew Crump.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  He still lived with his parents, who were among the few people who knew that Justine was staying with her boyfriend at the time Elizabeth went missing. But when police reached out to Crump in late December, they were told that he and a friend had made the impromptu decision to move to Queensland on Saturday, December 17, just 10 days after Elizabeth went missing.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Police tracked Andrew Crump down and spoke to him on the phone. He said the last time he'd been at the Bedford Road unit was a week or two before Elizabeth went missing. According to Crump, he'd stopped in to visit his sister, but she wasn't at home, so Elizabeth had let him in to use the toilet and make a phone call. He didn't have anything useful to add to the investigation. As the weeks ticked by, the list of persons of interest grew, but the police were no closer to finding Elizabeth or her killer. To add insult to injury for the Membry family, as December came to a close,

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Elizabeth received the dream job offer from Channel 10 that she'd been hoping for, serving as a painful reminder of the potential that had been ripped from her. By May 1995, there still hadn't been any major breakthroughs in the case, and searches had revealed no sign of Elizabeth's body. Police announced a $100,000 reward for any information that led to an arrest, the largest ever reward in Victorian history at that time. And with that, the tips started trickling in.

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  Must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Thank you for listening to this episode’s ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Case File to continue to deliver quality content. As the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Mambry continued to put residents of Melbourne on edge, the rumour mill swung into overdrive. One woman came forward to report that a man she knew had threatened her with the warning that he would “do exactly the same to you that I did to Elizabeth Mambry”.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  This man, who lived locally and was a known methamphetamine user, had also allegedly made a comment suggesting he had thrown Elizabeth’s body down a mineshaft. Police looked into him but deemed him an unlikely suspect. At about 6’3” with a goatee and visible tattoos, nothing about him fit the bill of the man Elizabeth had been seen arguing with. One of his friends also labelled him a bullshit artist, suggesting the claims he made about Elizabeth were complete lies.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  In September 1995, a woman called Crime Stoppers to report something she'd heard on the grapevine. Apparently, around the time that Elizabeth was killed, a man named either Shane or Shaun was rumored to have had blood all over his walls. His explanation for the blood was that he'd bitten his tongue while having an epileptic fit. Detectives went to interview this tipster, but she refused to name her source. They assumed she was talking about Shane Bond, her customer at the Manhattan, whose name had previously been put forward by another member of the public.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  The detectives looked into Bond and noted that he'd moved since they'd spoken to him in December 1994. His current whereabouts were unknown. But having already questioned him, and with no mention of there being any blood on his walls at the time, the detectives dismissed the tip-off. While investigators continued to work tirelessly on the case, by the first anniversary of the crime, they were no closer to a resolution. On Thursday, December 7, 1995, the memberies once again appealed for help from the public, with Roger telling reporters:

• 34:35Speaker 00

  "We have to believe it's most probable that Elizabeth was murdered on the night 12 months ago in her unit. However, it's difficult for us to come to terms with that without having some evidence to support it. We just need a resolution as to what actually happened, and then we can move to the next day."

• 35:00Speaker 00

  Behind the scenes, the wheels continued to turn and tip-offs continued to trickle in.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  In September 1996, the police announced that they'd made a breakthrough after a woman came forward to provide further information about the white sedan that was seen out the front of Elizabeth's unit on the night she went missing. Newspapers reported that the car had been identified as a mid-1970s model White Datsun 240K that was in need of repair. The front grille or surrounds of the headlights might have been missing, and the number plates were more recent than would typically be seen on a 1970s vehicle. The police also released a sketch of the man Elizabeth was reportedly seen arguing with on the day of her disappearance.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Luke Ford, not his real name, was reading the newspaper when he recognised himself as fitting the suspect's sketch. He also owned a White Datsun 240K like the one described in the article. Ford contacted the police to identify himself and agreed to be interviewed. But the truth was, police already had their eye on Ford. It had emerged that he'd lived in the unit on Bedford Road before Elizabeth and Justine moved in, and that in December 1994, he still had a key to the back door. Since moving out, he'd maintained a relationship with the woman who lived next door.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  Ford also had a criminal record that included offences for assault, intentionally causing injury, theft and deception. Coincidentally, he'd also worked at the Manhattan Hotel years earlier, before Elizabeth did, and still drank there from time to time. Perhaps most noteworthy of all was the fact that after Elizabeth's disappearance, he'd reportedly hand-painted his White Datsun black.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  But Luke Ford told the police that he'd never met Elizabeth. Asked as to his whereabouts on the night of her disappearance, he said he'd been at his girlfriend's house. Although police had no evidence to suggest otherwise, they remained suspicious of Ford. He wasn't the only name on their list that continued to crop up. Throughout 1996 and 97, multiple people came forward to say that Andrew Crump, the brother of Elizabeth's housemate, had made a series of incriminating statements over the years. According to more than six reports, Crump told some people that he was at the unit on the night Elizabeth was killed and saw who was responsible.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  He'd supposedly told others that, quote, "Liz is in a safe place, and police wouldn't find her body because it was in an area of thick bush." One relative told the police that when Crump was asked about Elizabeth, he said, "She's in a river." There were other things about Andrew Crump that concerned investigators. During a follow-up interview in August 1995, he told police that he once had to move Elizabeth's car because it was blocking his sister's vehicle. But Justine told the police this never happened. Their unit had space for three cars with direct street access,

• 38:34Speaker 00

  and there had never been a circumstance where she would have had to ask Crump to move either vehicle. According to information later released by the Sydney Morning Herald, Crump had also been accused of a series of small burglaries in the area around the time of Elizabeth's disappearance. A woman who delivered on his street also claimed she once woke up to find him standing in her bedroom doorway.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  The police questioned Andrew Crump again in late January 1997. Asked where he was on the night Elizabeth went missing, Crump said he'd been at his parents' house. The next day, he had gone to visit a friend who lived near Bedford Road, but they hadn't been home, so he went to the nearby Bedford Road shops.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Crump said he knew someone who worked at the hairdressing salon there, but he soon left because she was too busy to meet with him.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  He added that while he was at the shops, he noticed two men walking near Elizabeth and Justine's unit. One was wearing a T-shirt with an eagle on it, that he thought could be a Harley-Davidson motorcycle shirt. The man then got into a maroon-coloured sedan.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  The police visited the staff who had been working at the Bedford Road Hairdressing Salon on Wednesday, December 7, 1994, and showed them a picture of Andrew Crump. Nobody recognised him. They also spoke to a woman who claimed that she'd been in Crump's car shortly after he left Melbourne to move to Queensland, and had found a black leather purse in the glove box. According to this woman, she asked Crump who the purse belonged to, and he said a friend named Liz.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  While these factors were indeed suspicious, the police had no evidence to implicate Andrew Crump, and they mostly palmed off his incriminating comments as trivial. If anything, they thought he was just seeking attention.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  By August 1999, the unsolved case was approaching its fifth anniversary, and still the Membry family were no closer to finding the answers they so desperately sought. For Elizabeth's parents, Roger and Joy, one of the biggest struggles they faced was not knowing where their daughter's body was. They felt robbed of their right to give Elizabeth a proper burial and have somewhere they could go to wanna her.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  In the lead-up to Australia's Missing Persons Week that year, Roger and Joy proposed that a memorial garden be established within Melbourne's Carlton Gardens for those who shared their experience of ambiguous loss. They wanted to create a tranquil space where people could go to reflect and remember their loved ones when they didn't have anywhere else to do so.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  With financial backing from a private philanthropic organisation, the garden went ahead and was opened by the state premier as a group of homing pigeons were released into the sky. A park bench overlooked a serene lily pond with a plaque that declared: "A special place for those with missing persons."

• 41:55Speaker 00

  Joy Membry told reporters that their unresolved grieving had no end. "We are left in the anger stage," she said. "We are intensely angry that because of somebody's cowardly act, they have deprived us of the normal human right to have a funeral and a place to place flowers. You've got to have somewhere that's yours that you can come to, like a cemetery. This is second best, but it's better than having nothing at all."

• 42:29Speaker 00

  With no breakthroughs by the year 2000, the case was handed over to Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Idles to see if fresh eyes could identify something that the original investigators might have missed.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Detective Idles believed the answer to who killed Elizabeth Membry had probably been staring police in the face all along. As he later told the Sydney Morning Herald: "The answer is always in the file, and quite often, we have already spoken to him."

• 43:01Speaker 00

  Police suspicion remained on some of the names that had come up early in the investigation, including Bruce Simpson, Luke Ford and Andrew Crump. But there wasn't a single piece of physical evidence to link any of them to the crime. With no answers forthcoming by August 2000, a coronial inquest was held to clarify the circumstances surrounding Elizabeth's death. When the coroner handed down their findings on Tuesday, August 29, all they were able to determine was that Elizabeth had died by an unknown cause at her Ringwood unit on December 7, 1994.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  On the state of the available evidence, the coroner formally concluded: "I am unable to identify the person or persons who contributed to the death of the deceased." But the inquest reignited public interest in Elizabeth's case, and new tips started to come in. One individual reported information that led the police to search for Elizabeth's body in Ringwood Lake, but nothing of interest was found. DNA samples were obtained from several persons of interest and compared against some cigarette butts that were found in Elizabeth's car. However, none of the profiles matched.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  While the coroner had been unable to highlight a prime suspect in Elizabeth's murder, the homicide squad suspicions remained on Bruce Simpson, the bouncer who had allegedly been obsessed with Elizabeth. Unconvinced of the alibi provided for him by his then-housemate Jenny, Detective Idles decided to poke around a bit to see if he could find any cracks in Jenny's story.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  It soon emerged that a friend of Jenny's named Naomi had her own questions about Bruce Simpson's possible involvement. Naomi told the police that Jenny had given her the same story about the night of Elizabeth's disappearance, saying that Simpson briefly went out to buy cannabis and the two then smoked together before going to bed in separate rooms. But while Jenny had told the police that Simpson hadn't left the house again after that, she'd told Naomi she wasn't so sure.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  According to Naomi, Jenny was worried that Simpson might have left the house after she fell asleep. The very thought made her visibly distressed. Knowing that the police were sniffing around for information, Jenny allegedly reasoned: "If they break me, they break the case, and that is why the police are going for me." These comments led Naomi to believe that Simpson might have killed Elizabeth, and she told Jenny as much. Jenny allegedly responded: "Whoever did it never meant to do it." Investigators became increasingly suspicious of Jenny's story after finding out that

• 46:04Speaker 00

  she'd told Naomi that the police had shown her photos of the crime scene, when they had never done any such thing. By 2003, Detective Vittles was convinced that Jenny knew more about Elizabeth Membry's disappearance than she was letting on. In the hopes of encouraging her to come clean, Jenny was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. But she stuck by the alibi she had provided for Simpson, saying the comment she had made to Naomi about breaking her to break the case had been misconstrued. According to Jenny, what she meant was that the police must think that if they crack her, they'd crack the case.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  It was the only reason she could think of to justify their ongoing interest in her.

• 46:57Speaker 00

  The magistrate ultimately threw the case against Jenny out after finding insufficient evidence to proceed with the charges. But that didn't lessen the police' interest in Bruce Simpson. They commenced an undercover operation using what's known as the Mr. Big technique, an elaborate and sometimes controversial covert policing method that aims to extract confessions from suspects in serious crimes where forensic evidence is lacking.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  An example of how the Mr. Big method was used to catch a killer can be heard in episode fifty-four of Case File, which covers the murder of Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morgum. A similar undercover operation was also orchestrated against Luke Ford, the former tenant of Elizabeth's unit, who reportedly still had a key at the time she went missing. While all this was going on, investigators also took another look at Andrew Crump, the brother of Elizabeth's housemate. They were particularly interested in why he had left Melbourne so quickly after Elizabeth's disappearance, and examined the circumstances leading up to that trip.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Crump had driven to Queensland with a friend of his named Frank. According to Frank, just before they left Melbourne, Crump said there was something he needed to do first. He claimed that his boss had asked him to fill a hole, and said that he'd be back soon. Frank told police that Crump then went away and returned about forty-five minutes later. He didn't recall any other details about the hole, or where it was supposedly located. At the time of Elizabeth's disappearance, Andrew Crump had been an apprentice plumber. The police tracked down his former employer to see if they could verify his story, but

• 48:50Speaker 00

  they had no knowledge of any such hole. In fact, Crump hadn't even been actively working for them at the time. He'd been on workcover since 1992, after sustaining a workplace injury. Again, while these details were intriguing, they didn't shed any further light for the police. Over the years, they'd questioned Andrew Crump numerous times, and had tested his DNA against the cigarette butts found in Elizabeth's car, and still, they hadn't found a single piece of evidence to link him to the crime. By 2005, the homicide squad felt confident enough to eliminate him as a suspect.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  The undercover operations against Bruce Simpson and Luke Ford had also failed to garner any incriminating evidence, and, after ten years, they too were discounted as possible suspects, without any charges ever being laid against them.

• 49:51Speaker 00

  The fact that Elizabeth's murder had gone unsolved for over a decade was difficult for her family to accept. Looking for a way to unleash the rage and frustration she constantly carried inside her, Joy Membry installed a punching bag in her backyard and took to pounding it any time she needed a release. As she later told journalists to John Sylvester, she eventually had to give this up after permanently damaging three of her fingers from overuse. Despite their lack of breakthroughs, the homicide squad was not sitting idly by. By 2006, Detective Idles and his team had reviewed almost 1,000 pieces of information

• 50:35Speaker 00

  and interviewed around 3,000 people, though they were still no closer to making an arrest. On Friday, January 6, 2006, the police announced that the existing reward for information relating to Elizabeth's murder was being increased to $1 million. They also said that the Office of Public Prosecutions would consider indemnity for anyone who had acted as an accessory to the murder but had not committed the principal crime themselves. Desperate to solve the case and bring relief to the Membry family, Detective Idles told reporters: “There are people in the community who believe we know who is responsible.

• 51:19Speaker 00

  The reality is, we don’t. We’re no closer than day one.” Later that day, the police received a call. The man on the other line said this wasn’t the first time he’d made contact with the police to name this particular individual, but he was adamant that the lead needed to be looked into more thoroughly. The name he put forward was Shane Bond. According to The Tipster, word had it that on the night Elizabeth went missing, Bond had come home covered in blood.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Detective Idles reviewed the case file and discovered that Shane Bond had been nominated as a person of interest six times over the years. In addition to this most recent claim, there was also the tip-off from a woman back in 1995 who claimed that the walls of Bond's flat had been covered in blood at the time Elizabeth went missing. However, because Bond had been spoken to just two weeks after Elizabeth disappeared, any new information that had come in afterwards wasn't looked at. As Idles later explained to the Sydney Morning Herald, "He was seen as eliminated, but he was never eliminated."

• 52:42Speaker 00

  A detective was assigned to look into the claims that Shane Bond had returned home covered in blood on the night in question. In 2007, he tracked down Bond's former housemate, a man with a criminal record of his own. The housemate told police that in the early morning hours of Wednesday, December 7, 1994, he'd awoken to the sound of the front door being slammed. He got up to see what was going on and went into Bond's bedroom. According to this witness, Bond was standing in the corner of the room coated in blood from head to toe.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  Bond explained that he'd had an epileptic fit during which he'd bitten his tongue. The housemate didn't believe him. There was too much blood for that to be the case, and he assumed that Bond had probably been in a fight. Then, the next day, Bond apparently told his housemate that he was in trouble "over the Elizabeth Membry thing" and had to leave. As far as the housemate was concerned, Bond had a habit of lying, and he therefore didn't think to tell the police about any of this. But he did spread the word to others in his circle, who had then taken it upon themselves

• 54:05Speaker 00

  to come forward and to nominate Bond as a person of interest.

• 54:11Speaker 00

  The police looked into Shane Bond's movements from the time, and discovered that his Medicare card had been used to see a doctor in the Queensland town of Kabulcha, two days after Elizabeth went missing.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  While this supported the notion that Bond left the state in the days following the crime, the records from that practitioner had been destroyed in a fire, and police therefore weren't able to establish what he had sought medical attention for.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  The police became interested in Shane Bond. Very interested. That interest only grew after a woman named Rochelle, who knew Bond from high school, discovered that he was being looked into, and came forward with a story of her own.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  Rochelle claimed that she had been drinking at the Manhattan Hotel about a week before Elizabeth went missing. As a regular at the pub, she knew Elizabeth to be bubbly and friendly, but on this particular evening, she had seemed out of sorts. Rochelle said she asked Elizabeth what was wrong, and after a bit of probing, she admitted that Shane Bond had been hassling her for a date and wouldn't leave her alone. Knowing Bond personally, Rochelle recommended that Elizabeth tell him to fuck off. Elizabeth seemed unsure. She asked if she should do it, and Rochelle responded: "Yes, I honestly think you should."

• 55:41Speaker 00

  Rochelle claimed that as soon as she found out Elizabeth was missing, she immediately suspected that Shane Bond could be involved. But she never told anyone about their conversation, fearful that she could have inadvertently played a role in whatever happened to Elizabeth because of what she'd told her to do.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  When the police spoke to Shane Bond two weeks after Elizabeth went missing, he claimed that it had been a couple of months since he'd been at the Manhattan Hotel, and that while he'd seen Elizabeth working there before, he didn't know her personally. Rochelle's tip-off brought all of that into question, and there were other suspicious factors too. Old coworkers of Bond's claimed that he'd abruptly stopped to drinking at the Manhattan after Elizabeth went missing, and had even avoided a function that had been thrown there shortly after.

• 56:38Speaker 00

  The owner of a house where Bond was a boarder in 1997 told the police she was cleaning up after him one day when she found a news article about Elizabeth Membry. The accompanying photo of Elizabeth had its eyes gouged out. Another witness said that he'd been watching the TV news with Bond when a story about the search for Elizabeth's body came on.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  Bond apparently remarked that he had known Elizabeth, adding that he'd gone to the Manhattan Hotel on the night she went missing and they'd gotten into a fight.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  With all this information coming to light, Shane Bond quickly became the investigation's number-one focus. By 2007, he was no longer living in Melbourne, but was working in the mining industry in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  A detective travelled to the Pilbara to see what he could uncover. Several coworkers who'd spent time with Bond in the mining camps revealed that he had made some comments that further invalidated the story he told police back in December 1994.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  A former workmate of Bond's claimed to have once overheard him telling someone about a bartender from Melbourne whom he'd tried to pick up in a pub. Later, they'd gone back to one of their houses for a drink, and Bond had tried to make a move on her. The woman wasn't interested, and she'd hit Bond, which triggered him to punch her hard enough that she fell over and smashed her head on a coffee table. Bond allegedly said that somebody else had then helped him dispose of the woman's body in a river somewhere. Another person shared a contrasting story in which Bond told them that Elizabeth had had her throat slit.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  A man named Kevin told police that he'd recently asked Bond what he knew about the Elizabeth Membry case after finding out that the cops were in the Pilbro investigating the crime. At first, Bond palmed Kevin off, saying he knew nothing. But later on, over a few beers, he allegedly told Kevin that he'd been seeing Elizabeth for a few weeks before she went missing.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  Bond apparently said that the police were interested in him because he'd been drinking at the Manhattan on the night Elizabeth was last seen alive. Kevin said that Bond told him that Elizabeth had been bashed, and while he made it clear he had nothing to do with it, the conversation left Kevin feeling a little shaken. He was struck by the way Bond seemed to remember the incident like it was yesterday. And there was one comment in particular that he couldn't get out of his mind. Bond had apparently told him: "It doesn't matter anyway, they will never find the body."

• 59:40Speaker 00

  With so many contrasting stories, it was difficult for the police to know which ones held weight. They placed a tap on Bond's phone, hoping that the increased heat would encourage him to say something incriminating. A friend of Bond's called to let him know that the police had been to see him about Elizabeth's case. He said that he'd provided the police with a statement in which he said that Bond drank at the Manhattan Hotel in 1994 and would have known Elizabeth. This wasn't welcome news to Bond, who snapped: "You shouldn't have said anything about her, fucking hell."

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  The friend reassured Bond that he had nothing to worry about, but this did little to quell the panic in Bond's voice. "I know, but fucking hell," he said. "All because of fucking rumours, mate, it shits me up the wall."

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  On Wednesday, January 16, 2008, detectives summoned 41-year-old Shane Bond to the Cowgully Police Station for a formal interview. He was casually dressed in a black singlet with a pair of sunglasses on his head as he sat down and was asked to tell the detectives everything he knew about the Elizabeth Membry case, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Speaking calmly, Bond said all he knew was what he'd heard on the news. He said that he used to drink at the Manhattan Hotel, mostly on the weekends, and that he might have met Elizabeth once, but he wasn't there on the night she was last seen alive.

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  He also admitted to owning a white Datsun at the time. One of the detectives then asked Bond point-blank whether he had murdered Elizabeth. "No, I didn't," Bond replied defensively. Asked why they should believe him, he responded: "One, because I didn't do it. Two, I might have known her as a barmaid once or twice, but that's it." Bond denied that he'd ever come home covered in blood, or that he'd fled Melbourne in the days after Elizabeth's disappearance. Asked about the claims that he'd been hassling Elizabeth at work before she went missing, Bond became visibly exasperated.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  "This is getting beyond a joke," he mumbled. "I didn't do it." After 56 minutes of questioning, Bond was released without charge. But the police were not ready to give up.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

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• 1:03:58Speaker 00

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• 1:04:13Speaker 00

  While Shane Bond remained the police's number-one suspect, they still weren't ready to arrest him.

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  Their investigations continued, and in 2008, they spoke to a retired detective named John Wild, who claimed he had information that had been ignored for years. According to John, he had visited the Manhattan Hotel on the night of Tuesday, December 6, 1994, and had witnessed an unsettling incident involving Elizabeth Mambry. While John wasn't a regular at the Manhattan, he recognized Elizabeth because she had lived near him as a teenager, and he often saw her walking to school.

• 1:04:54Speaker 00

  On the night in question, John claimed that he'd overheard Elizabeth speaking to a man in the gaming room. John initially thought the man was a bouncer, as he was tall and looked like a bodybuilder.

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  Things sounded friendly at first, with Elizabeth greeting the man with a hello. But after a while, John noticed that the two appeared to be arguing.

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Although he couldn't hear what they were saying, their facial expressions and body language suggested something was amiss. At one point, John said he saw the man grab Elizabeth by the wrists. A short while later, he grabbed her again, and Elizabeth tried to pull away from him. John said that the pair left the gaming room together at around midnight, with one of them walking in front of the other. John claimed that he'd called Crime Stoppers to report this interaction at least ten times over the years, and that he'd even reached out to the homicide squad directly, but no one had ever taken a statement.

• 1:05:59Speaker 00

  By 2010, the investigation into Elizabeth's suspected murder had been going on for more than fifteen years. Over that time, searches for her body had been conducted around the King Lake and Sylvan areas, in bushland near Healesville, and in disused mine shafts around the Warren Dye area. Not a single clue had been found. The police still didn't have any DNA, CCTV footage, confessions, eyewitness accounts, covert surveillance, or anything concrete to tie Shane Bond to the crime. But they did have statements from at least ten witnesses alleging that he had implicated himself in Elizabeth's disappearance.

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  By April that year, Bond had left the mining industry and was back in Victoria. Despite the lack of physical evidence, police decided it was time to make their move. On Tuesday, April 20, they visited Bond at his home in Don Valley and placed him under arrest for the murder of Elizabeth Manbury.

• 1:07:08Speaker 00

  It was the news that Membry's had been anxiously waiting for. They hoped Bond's arrest would bring them one step closer to finding their daughter's body so they could give her the dignity of a proper burial. But, sitting across from Bond in court as he was formally charged for Elizabeth's murder and watching him deny involvement was a traumatic experience in itself. Speaking about the experience to the age afterwards, Joy said: "You don't cope, you manage. It's literally a day-by-day situation dealing with normality. It's almost impossible, but you just have to find some means of coping."

• 1:07:52Speaker 00

  Detective Viddles acknowledged the sheer number of police who had worked on the investigation to bring it to this conclusion, telling reporters: "Every case that we take on is personal. In our office, we have a motto, and that is: 'Failure is never an option.' I'm relieved that after fifteen and a half years, that we've finally reached this stage."

• 1:08:20Speaker 00

  Shane Bond's trial commenced in the Supreme Court of Victoria in February 2012. Pre-trial hearings had barred any mention of his criminal record or history of violence against women. The lead prosecutor told the jury that despite the lack of a body, it was beyond reasonable doubt that Elizabeth Membry had been murdered. They painted Shane Bond as having been fixated on Elizabeth, and said he was the person seen arguing with Elizabeth at the pool and in her driveway on the day she was killed.

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  Feeling rejected by her, he went to her home in the middle of the night where he attacked her, wrapped her body in her duna, and then dumped her at an unknown location before attempting to clean the crime scene. The prosecution said that Bond then fled the state, seeking medical attention for an unknown issue, before returning to Melbourne once he thought it was safe to do so. Over the years, he repeatedly implicated himself in the crime by making comments of varying degrees to numerous people.

• 1:09:29Speaker 00

  But Bond’s defence team criticised the fully circumstantial case, pointing out that the prosecution had failed to uncover a single piece of physical evidence to tie Bond to the crime.

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  They presented the initial police interview with Bond, conducted two weeks after Elizabeth went missing, during which the detective explicitly remarked that Bond looked nothing like the suspect sketch of the man seen arguing with Elizabeth.

• 1:09:58Speaker 00

  Additionally, Bond’s obvious acne scars hadn’t been mentioned by any of the witnesses.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  The defence argued that the only thing tying Bond to the crime was the incriminating statements he’d allegedly made over the years, pointing out that these were put forward by people years after the fact. Furthermore, the defence suggested some of these so-called witnesses had been influenced by various factors, such as ongoing rumours and gossip, a desire to claim the million-dollar reward, and personal vendettas against Shane Bond. They argued that there had been other suspects over the years, namely Bruce Simpson and Luke Ford, who also had criminal records.

• 1:10:44Speaker 00

  Based on the available evidence, these men could have just as easily been responsible. For legal reasons, the jury weren’t told that these other suspects had already been thoroughly investigated and cleared by police. This left the defence free to present circumstantial evidence that implicated an offender other than their client. It wasn’t their intention to suggest that one of these men was guilty, they simply wanted to show how a circumstantial case could just as easily be built against one of them.

• 1:11:17Speaker 00

  Each of the witnesses who’d implicated Bond had their motives and reliability called into question by the defence during cross-examination. The former mining workmates were asked why they never bothered to query Bond further on the alleged admissions he’d made about Elizabeth during drinking sessions. One was asked why he only came forward after he and Bond fell out over a work issue. It was also shown that this witness had added more incriminating details to his story as time went by.

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  When it came to Rochelle, the woman who alleged Elizabeth had complained that Bond was hassling her, the defence pointed out that there was no evidence to prove this conversation ever happened. Rochelle hadn't even talked about it to a friend. If it did occur, the defence asked Rochelle why she hadn't come forward until years later, and only when the million-dollar reward was announced.

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  Rochelle said she had been young at the time and hadn't understood the law. She said it was only after Bond became a suspect that she started to think the encounter could hold significance, remarking: "I didn't know what was relevant. I didn't put two and two together. Call me stupid." John Wild, the retired detective who testified to having seen Elizabeth arguing with a man in the Manhattan Hotel's gaming room on the night she was last seen alive, admitted on the stand to having issues with his mental health, as did the woman who testified that Bond had defaced newspaper pictures of Elizabeth Membry.

• 1:12:59Speaker 00

  As for Bond's former housemate who claimed that Bond had come home on the night of the crime covered in blood, the defence argued there were numerous reasons why the jury should question his reliability. Not only was it known that the housemate held animosity towards Bond, but he also struggled with substance and alcohol use, which could have damaged his memory. A former colleague of this man said that he'd once remarked: "My head was that fucked from drugs and grog that I started to wonder whether I did it."

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  During the eight-week trial, the defence also called other suspects in the case to the stand in a bid to prove that there was just as much circumstantial evidence to implicate them as there was to implicate Bond. In closing arguments, the prosecution told the jury to discount any other suspects, saying that the investigation had been flawed from the start because the police initially had tunnel vision on Bruce Simpson. The only person responsible, the prosecution concluded, was Shane Bond.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  They also told the jury that if they believed the story that Bond allegedly told a mining buddy about a bartender fatally hitting her head on a coffee table, they could also consider the charge of manslaughter.

• 1:14:23Speaker 00

  The defence reminded the jury that after hearing from seventy-six witnesses and seeing exhibits from both legal teams, what happened to Elizabeth still remained a mystery. “The fact is,” Bond’s lawyer said, “very little is known about what happened to Elizabeth Membry in the unit on that night. Virtually nothing is known about how she died, or indeed, why she died. In those circumstances, it is simply not possible to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused.”

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  They said it was a more reasonable possibility that Elizabeth’s killer still hadn’t been found, and that the answers lay with whoever the man was seen arguing with Elizabeth on the day she disappeared. “We don’t know who it is, and we can’t work out who it is,” Bond’s lawyer said. “But there is a real possibility that this person has not come forward because they were involved in the killing of Elizabeth Membry.”

• 1:15:26Speaker 00

  When the jury retired to deliberate, nobody expected a quick decision. But as the days continued to tick by with no verdict, it became abundantly clear just how torn the jury was. Eight days later, they were finally ready. On Saturday, April 28, 2012, the jury announced their verdict regarding Shane Bond’s involvement in Elizabeth Membry’s death: not guilty.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  Bond sobbed as the verdict was read aloud. After being acquitted of all charges, he quickly left the court, surrounded by family members who’d been supportive throughout the entire process. Roger and Joy Membry were crushed. It was difficult for them to think that the police had failed by not targeting Bond more aggressively in the early days in favour of chasing other suspects.

• 1:16:24Speaker 00

  Outside court, they faced reporters bleary-eyed, with Joy saying through tears: "It's not the end, we're not giving up. Something will happen, I hope, for Elizabeth and other women out there who aren't safe."

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  But it wasn't just the verdict that left the membries reeling. They'd found the entire trial painful because of both the subject matter and the way they were treated. They had been given no special rights in the court. They weren't allowed to examine the evidence like Bond and his family were, and they weren't given any of the court papers, forensic photos, or transcripts that the jury, members of the press, and others were given access to.

• 1:17:12Speaker 00

  This meant that many times when a certain subject was being discussed, the membries couldn't even understand or follow along. They had also been warned not to bring any attention to themselves, and because of that, they felt like their every move was being scrutinised. One detective even snapped at them when they unintentionally arrived late one day because their bus had been stuck in traffic. Overall, they felt that the process had very little to do with Elizabeth, and that they had been treated like their presence was a nuisance. Roger later told a journalist for The Canberra Times: "It was just pathetic, the whole thing." Joy agreed, saying:

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  "There needs to be change, we felt like we were in a horror movie."

• 1:18:07Speaker 00

  By 2014, the membries weren't any closer to the answers they'd been waiting 20 years for. Since Shane Bond's trial, changes had been made to Victoria's double jeopardy laws, which meant that he could be tried for Elizabeth's murder again if new and compelling evidence emerged. However, nothing had yet been forthcoming. Even though Bond was acquitted, because someone had been charged and put to trial, the investigation was no longer considered active. Unless a breakthrough piece of evidence emerged, it was likely that Elizabeth's murder would languish in the cold case files alongside roughly 280 other unsolved homicide cases in Victoria.

• 1:18:54Speaker 00

  To mark the 20-year anniversary of Elizabeth's disappearance, Roger and Joy spoke to the ABC about their experience. "We're left up in the air," Joy said. "We've got no body, we don't know why, how, or where. So the anxiety is extreme all the time, the not knowing."

• 1:19:17Speaker 00

  But the Membries made it very clear that they'd never give up their quest for the truth. "You can't," Roger said. "It's a hole in your heart you can't just paper over. It's our beloved daughter." The Membries urged anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers, reiterating that it wasn't too late.

• 1:19:41Speaker 00

  Wanting at least one positive thing to emerge from their ordeal, the Membries joined a 2014 inquiry to investigate whether victims of crime and their families should be allowed to be more involved with the criminal process. Roger and Joy detailed their negative experience at Bond's trial for the Victorian Law Reform Commission. Along with submissions from 40 other relevant parties, it became part of a 328-page report released in 2016 titled "The Role of Victims of Crime in the Criminal Trial Process." This aimed to transform Australia's justice system

• 1:20:23Speaker 00

  by strengthening victim rights and fostering a more respectful, inclusive culture.

• 1:20:30Speaker 00

  By this point, the Membries were in their 70s and the clock was ticking on their desire to obtain answers for their daughter before it was too late. Speaking to the age about their push to get the case re-investigated, Roger said: "I am 76 years old and we desperately want to find the truth for Elizabeth. We will not be on this earth forever. There is a sense that we have failed her. We are caught in this sort of half-life."

• 1:21:03Speaker 00

  In 2017, the police agreed to review the evidence in Elizabeth's case one more time. And they noticed that there were several lines of inquiry that hadn't been fully investigated when it came to one particular person of interest.

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  Andrew Crump, the brother of Elizabeth's housemate, had come up early in the investigation. There were certain factors that made him suspicious, such as the fact that he'd unexpectedly left Melbourne 10 days after Elizabeth went missing, and that he'd mentioned having to fill in a hole for his boss before he left the state. Then, there were the strange comments he'd allegedly made to friends and family over the years, including that he was at the unit on the night Elizabeth was killed, and he knew where her body was. Despite previous allegations of stalking and breaking and entering, the police had mostly dismissed Andrew Crump as a person of interest in Elizabeth's case,

• 1:22:07Speaker 00

  putting his comments down to attention-seeking.

• 1:22:11Speaker 00

  But, when they reviewed the case file in 2017, they realised that certain factors might have been overlooked.

• 1:22:20Speaker 00

  When they'd first questioned Crump back in 1994, he said the last time he had gone to Elizabeth's unit was a week or two before she went missing, when he stopped by to see his sister, but she hadn't been at home. Crump claimed that Elizabeth had let him in so that he could use the toilet and make a phone call. Looking back, police realised the potential significance of this story.

• 1:22:48Speaker 00

  Among the only items missing from Elizabeth's unit following her disappearance were the toilet roll holder and toilet paper.

• 1:22:57Speaker 00

  It occurred to them that Crump could have fabricated the story about using the toilet inside the unit so there would be a reasonable explanation for why his fingerprints or DNA might be at the crime scene.

• 1:23:10Speaker 00

  Then, there was his claim that he had once had to move Elizabeth's car because it was blocking his sister's vehicle, a claim which his sister denied. The police wondered if this too could be a way to justify the presence of his DNA inside the vehicle.

• 1:23:28Speaker 00

  Back in October 2009, Andrew Crump had voluntarily provided a DNA sample to be tested against cigarette butts found in Elizabeth's car. His DNA didn't match, and the sample he provided had since been destroyed. However, in 2011, Crump's DNA had been obtained for a second time after he was accused of raping and assaulting his former partner in Queensland. He was convicted of those charges and sentenced to four years in prison, and his DNA was subsequently entered into a national database. In 2018, Victoria Police requested that Crump's DNA sample be tested against all of the

• 1:24:11Speaker 00

  samples taken from the Elizabeth Membry crime scene. A sample taken from the driver's side seat cover and another from an apparent bloodstain on the driver's side door revealed some unexpected results. While both of the samples contained Elizabeth's DNA, they also contained DNA from someone else: Andrew Crump. While this was a major discovery for the police, it still wasn't the smoking gun they needed to make an arrest. The DNA profile on the driver's side seat cover only showed that Crump was 52 times

• 1:24:53Speaker 00

  more likely to be a contributor than a random Caucasian member of the Australian population. It also contained a DNA profile from a third unidentified person. In forensic biology, this was considered a relatively low likelihood ratio. As for the blood sample on the door, it was determined that Crump was 2,300 times more likely to be the contributor than a random Caucasian member of the Australian population. While this held a stronger likelihood ratio, it still wasn't conclusive enough to prove Crump's guilt. To strengthen their case, the police tried to verify certain assertions that Crump had

• 1:25:37Speaker 00

  made over the years. They tracked down Frank, the former friend who joined Crump when his impromptu move to Queensland in December 1994. The police first spoke to Frank in 2003, which was when he told them that Crump said he'd had to fill in a hole for his employer before leaving Melbourne. This time, Frank confirmed his previous story, but added another detail. According to Frank, as they were driving out of Melbourne, Crump drove past Elizabeth's unit on Bedford Road. In Frank's view, this was strange.

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  It wasn't the most direct route, and he could see no reason for it. The police then spoke to Andrew Crump's parents. Both of them confirmed that Crump had been living with them in December 1994, but, given the passing of time, neither could recall whether he had been home on the night of Tuesday, December 6. However, there was one detail that police found significant. In contrast to Crump's previous claim that he'd last stopped by the Bedford Road unit a week or two before Elizabeth went missing, his mother had a different story. She said that Crump had gone to the unit a few days before Elizabeth's disappearance,

• 1:27:02Speaker 00

  on Sunday, December 4, and Elizabeth had refused to let him inside. Convinced that the killer could have been staring them in the face all along, the police wanted to proceed with charges against Andrew Crump. They prepared a brief of evidence, which they presented to the Office of Public Prosecutions for consideration. While all this was going on, Roger Membry was battling dementia. Joy Membry told journalist John Sylvester that her husband sometimes walked around the ward he was in, cradling a picture of Elizabeth and crying. By the time the Membry's were told about the breakthrough, Roger was too ill to understand.

• 1:27:47Speaker 00

  And after reviewing the evidence, the OPP declined to press charges anyway. Not only did they think that the evidence fell short of what would be required to secure a conviction, for reasons that haven't been made publicly available, it was also deemed unlikely that Crump would be found mentally fit to stand trial. On Monday, February 6, 2023, Roger Membry passed away at the age of 83, without the answers he'd spent almost 30 years fighting for.

• 1:28:23Speaker 00

  Joy told The Age: "I just hope he is up there and is reunited with our daughter." On the same day that Roger passed away, Victoria Police made an application to set aside the findings of the 2000 coroner's inquest into Elizabeth Membry's death, on the basis that there were new facts and circumstances pursuant to the case. Namely, that further investigations had identified a person who may have contributed to her death. Based on the strength of the new material provided, coroner John Kane agreed that it was appropriate to reopen the investigation.

• 1:29:06Speaker 00

  In October that year, he granted a second inquest, which was scheduled to take place in 2025. The inquest would involve Judge Kane reviewing all the evidence presented at the 2000 inquest, along with the new evidence uncovered during the latest reinvestigation.

• 1:29:26Speaker 00

  Andrew Crump himself was not legally obliged to give evidence at the inquest, but on Sunday, April 27, 2025, he did provide a statement to the Queensland Police at the coroner's request. Crump stated that he did not remember the last time he had seen Elizabeth, and he couldn't recall if he saw her on December 6, 1994. He agreed it was possible that he might have seen Elizabeth when his sister wasn't at the unit, but denied that there was ever any romantic relationship between them. Asked about the incriminating statements he had allegedly made to others about Elizabeth's death,

• 1:30:08Speaker 00

  he denied ever saying such things, and flatly rejected the suggestion that he could have harmed Elizabeth.

• 1:30:16Speaker 00

  Overall, nothing was uncovered by the Queensland Police that opened any new lines of inquiry. The inquest also scrutinised the DNA evidence that supposedly connected Andrew Crump to Elizabeth's car. Judge Kane found that the two DNA profiles were of too lower likelihood ratio to be considered compelling. He also took issue with the fact that the sample on the car seat provided a third DNA profile from an unidentified individual. Furthermore, he found it significant that despite extensive testing, none of Crump's DNA was found inside Elizabeth's unit.

• 1:30:58Speaker 00

  After reviewing all of the available evidence, Judge Kane handed down his findings on Wednesday, July 2, 2025. He stated that there was much evidence to justify the police attention being focused on Andrew Crump, and accepted their conclusion about Crump's involvement in Elizabeth's death. However, the coroner stated...

• 1:31:23Speaker 00

  I have concluded that the evidence falls just short of the coronial standard of proof, and I am therefore unable to find that Mr. Crump caused or contributed to the death of Ms. Membry. There are many gaps in the evidence of Mr. Crump’s movements and activities on 6 and 7 December 1994. There are many inconsistencies and some contradictory aspects to the evidence. This, combined with the DNA evidence being at best inconclusive, has persuaded me to come to the conclusion that I have. Like the coroner before him, Judge Kane agreed that Elizabeth Membry had died at her unit

• 1:32:07Speaker 00

  on December 7, 1994, from an unknown cause. He had no further comment beyond that. Unless any significant new evidence emerged, Judge Kane reiterated that this latest inquest would be the final hearing. He acknowledged the pain of Elizabeth’s loved ones, stating: “Ms. Membry’s family, in particular her mother and, prior to his death, her father, have suffered unimaginable grief and anguish over the last thirty years through the criminal investigation, criminal trial, and to now two coronial investigations with no answers and no closure.

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  It is regrettable that I have not been able to provide the closure that Ms. Membry’s family would want, but the evidence simply does not support a conclusion other than the one I have come to. I convey my sincere condolences to Ms. Membry’s family for their loss.” Joy Membry was baffled. With no recommendation of charges being laid against Andrew Crump, this effectively meant that the investigation into his possible involvement had run its course. Eighty-five-year-old Joy told Judge Kane his decision was unfair.

• 1:33:32Speaker 00

  Convinced that the police had finally found the killer, Joy said: “I cannot live another few years not knowing what happened with my daughter. All I want out of life is my daughter found. I want justice for Elizabeth. That’s all I want.” But Judge Kane reiterated his decision and said the inquest would be the final stage of the investigation unless any new and compelling evidence emerged.

• 1:34:04Speaker 00

  If there were any positives for Joy to take away from the experience, it was that, unlike Shane Bond’s trial, she felt she was treated with warmth and compassion this time around. Outside the coroner’s court, Joy told reporters that she intended to give up for the time being, adding: “But you never say die.”

• 1:34:28Speaker 00

  As of May 2026, Elizabeth Membrey's body still hasn’t been found. Andrew Crump denies any involvement in her death and has never been charged with her murder or with any other offences related to her disappearance. Casefile acknowledges his presumption of innocence. Shane Bond has been acquitted of all charges and denies any involvement with Elizabeth’s disappearance, and Casefile does not suggest otherwise.

• 1:34:59Speaker 00

  In the years following his trial, Bond has spoken about how the allegations against him and the subsequent media attention ruined his life.

• 1:35:09Speaker 00

  According to an article in the Herald Sun, Bond struggled to find work because of his association with the case.

• 1:35:17Speaker 00

  He began using methamphetamine and moved around the country in the hopes of finding anonymity.

• 1:35:24Speaker 00

  After Bond was hit with unrelated driving and dishonesty charges in 2016, Detective Ron Idles told the Sydney Morning Herald: “I know of cases where the worst thing to happen to an accused is an acquittal.”

• 1:35:41Speaker 00

  The $1 million reward for information that leads to the conviction of Elizabeth’s killer is still available. Anyone with information relating to the case is encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report online at crimestoppersvic.com.au

• 1:36:05Speaker 00

  Despite the years of disappointment and heartache Roger and Joy Membry endured, reporters who spoke to them always observed how their faces lit up whenever they spoke about Elizabeth. They described her as everything they'd ever wanted from a daughter and said that the day she was born was the happiest day of their lives. They would not stop fighting for her, because if the tables were turned, they knew she would not stop fighting for them. "We loved her dearly, she was a dear daughter and we miss her terribly," Roger once told the age. "We are very grateful for the years that we had with her, but we're also very disappointed

• 1:36:47Speaker 00

  and very angry that we don't have more years with her." In 2005, Roger told John Sylvester that they feared that who Elizabeth was as a person would become overshadowed by the mystery of her case. "People really liked her," Roger said. "She had this magnetic personality. She was pretty and elegant and had a quiet presence. Even when I just walked into a shopping centre with her, I would walk a little taller."